Flares and fuckups

D’oh

On Friday at work, I was running round like a blue-arsed fly trying to sort out a PC for someone we have visiting this week. No actual machine was forthcoming, but I arranged all the software licenses and said I’d pop in on Saturday to do the installation. I just needed an actual machine.

Saturday lunchtime and I make a journey into work (via a detour as the police had closed the main route into Halifax from where I live), only to find a complete lack of anything machiney. After an hour of getting no answer from people’s mobiles, I headed on to my next appointment – sorting out a friend’s mum’s PC (same one as last week). She’s about as IT-literate as a damp sponge. Or indeed as my mother. Much of a muchness.

I was off on Monday – when this machine was due by – so my boss and one of the lads I work with did the install. Boss-man kicked it off with the Oracle installation early in the morning. Full whack – software, database, the works.

We use one of these big portable hard drive things for installs. Very handy as it stores loads and works on anything 2000 upwards with a USB port. Also, as the machine wasn’t to be networked it was the only way to get the install programs onto it.

Allen did the rest of the install, took the drive off and stored it safely away. Our visitor then started work on the machine… for two minutes before coming a bit of a cropper. None of the software was working. Or at least, nothing that needed to connect to the Oracle database.

So, Allen has a bit of a dig. Processes seem to be running, services are there… but won’t start. A registry dig says that all the components are installed. On the E: drive. Funny. The machine only has a C: and a CD-ROM.

Boss-Bloke has only gone and installed Oracle, and the database, on the portable drive.

Cue Allen, in his own words, “looking a right lemon” as he removes the software piece by piece and reinstalls it in the correct place.

Italian “fans”

I found the use of flares at the Milan derby the other night disgraceful. They’re sooo seventies and should never have made a comeback.

But, seriously, folks – how come as soon as England enter a competition there’s UEFA warnings that the first problem our fans cause will see us ejected from competition? Italians regularly throw objects at the players. This is getting more common here, but ******* flares? How on earth are they getting them into the grounds?

A lad I work with went to that same stadium following Leeds a few years ago. His mate has his fag lighter and deoderant taken off him, yet the home fans were bunging flares off all game. The fire services are on standby inside the stadium at all the matches there for that very reason. In addition, the visiting fans had bottles of piss, coins, spit and other detritus thrown at and over them by the home fans. The police ignored this utterly, yet as soon as a Leeds fan stood up, or tried to go to the loo… How the hell do they get away with it?

Don’t even get me started on Turkey, though. Can anyone tell me how many foreign football fans have visited England and been stabbed to death in the last few years? Yet UEFA reject Newcastle (and others) as a Champions League Cup Final ground in favour of… the Atatürk Olympic stadium in Istanbul, Turkey.

Yes, UEFA. Let’s just spit on the memories of Spate and Lofthouse. You *******.