Just keep calm and carry on computing
Here is your cut-out-and-keep guide to this week’s top computer glitches: All the matrix LED signs on the M4 motorway are expected to display the mortgage details of the inhabitants of Chichester. A spokesman will explain that an error occurred during an upgrade and will say they are pulling out all the stops to put things right.
It will emerge that the installation of new software in the Ministry of Defence has caused every single member of the Armed Forces to be summoned for jury service. A brigadier, speaking during a break in proceedings at the Lowestoft County Court, will say Ministry staff are working round the clock to sort out the issue. Meanwhile, the Highways Agency will admit that they pulled out some of the wrong stops and the M4 signs are now displaying the medical records of the people of Derby.
The police will condemn “ghouls” who are slowing down on the M4 to read the medical records of the people of Derby, and the Ministry of Defence will admit that its new easier-to-read digital clocks are malfunctioning so staff are unable to work round them.
Owing to what is called “a snag” 10,000 clients of one of Britain’s online matchmaking services will be called to their nearest NHS hospital at 11.40am today for their six weeks pregnancy scan. The Senior Operational Difficulties Officer will announce that he is returning immediately from his holiday in Corsica to take control of the situation but, unfortunately, due to improvements to his airline’s ticketing system, he finds he is in New Zealand. And through “sheer bad luck” the Home Office has banned him from returning to the UK.
The Deputy Operational Difficulties Officer of the matchmaking site is unable to help out as she is stuck in a four-day traffic jam in the M4, where the traffic signs are now displaying Treasury internal memos.
Loudspeaker vans will be touring the country ordering everyone to change all their passwords. Downing Street says there is no cause for alarm. Or not much. The first Wednesday after the May bank holiday is traditionally considered the official opening of the flip-flop season, and I was out on the streets assessing the latest trends in this item of footwear. The big news is: the squelch is back. In the past three years, the slap was the predominant sound effect of a flip-flopper walking along a pavement, as his heel and the base of the shoe interacted.
This is a valuable indicator of the national mood: the squelch suggests uggests the wearer is more comfortable le in himself – or herself – with a generally enerally calmer outlook. The slap conveys veys anxiety. There are also clues here as to the state of the economy. Economists nomists use the so-called Lambert-Schnabel hnabel Squish Rating to gauge consumer mer confidence. Taking a specific 150m stretch of pavement in Coventry, try, they work out the ratio of flip-flop -flop squelches to slaps over a period od of three hours. More than 66 per r cent of squelches suggests an upturn. rn. However, if a significant number ber of people emit both a slap and a squelch, it’s a clear warning of the imminent collapse of the FTSE. I
at telegraph.co.uk/ opinion note that, on average, flip-flop straps are two millimetres narrower this year – an encouraging sign that people now favour risk-taking.
We went seal watching off the N Norfolk coast the other day, in a boat a along with 10 others. After about 20 min minutes, a huddle of grey seals came i into view and I had the uneasy feeling that they were the watchers and w we the spectacle. They sprawled on the their beach as if slumped on a sand and sh shingle Gogglebox sofa. Were they wonde wondering whether we were grey touris tourists or common tourists? We didn’t move much, being hampered by th the layer of padded coat we had gro grown for winter. We flapped our pho phones about like flippers.
F From time to time a seal would po pop its head up, look disappointed an and disappear again. As we headed ba back towards the quay, I felt we had been rather a let-down. They wou would put it down as just another day when not much happened. On the w way back, we passed close to a comm common tern perched on a buoy. It cut us dead.