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20 August 2002:

Unprecedentedly (if there is such a word, the spell check doesn't think there is) next month's Lunch Club venue has been changed.

Q: What do you call a Frenchman in sandals?

A: Phillipe Phélope 

5 August 2002:

Link

30 June 2002:

The Brundish Crown lunch club report has gained a pic.

NaTCH was on tv late last night as it's Glastonbury Festival time ... and on the subject of rock'n roll we saw Geno Washington in Ipswich Thursday.  He's still rocking unlike John Entwhistle and it is similarly regrettable that Paul Klipsch has died.

9 March 2002:

LinkOverheard in The Station "So I said to the wife 'Do you have a vision of where you want the garden to be in four years time?  ... because then we can work together to achieve it.'"

9 January 2002

Former GLL KoTNs Darren Williamson has turned up again.  The Decca London Ribbon Tweeter developed by Stanley KellyHe's working at the Speech and Language Therapy Research Unit, Frenchay Hospital, Bristol!

We were sorry to hear that Stanley Kelly died last month.

19 November 2001

Graham HendryPotM Graham Hendry, is back at Tannoy ... apparently he didn't like foreign food:) 

 7 September 2001

Framlingham.com recently kindly offered that we could advertise on their site and that they now consistently get over a thousand hits a day.  This has prompted us to start publishing our stats.

Overheard leaving Aldeburgh cinema having just seen "2001".

Her: "I think that's a wonderful film."

Him: "Good ... I can't believe I missed the match for that." 

 4 August 2001

Do those folks in the hut at Ipswich Bus Station know that it says 'Enquiries' outside?  You'd think we'd know better after our last visit.  This time NaTCH was studiously ignored by a deeply depressed fella with a beard who thought that making a phone call was more important than dealing with a customer - though this did not prevent him from excavating his mouth with a teaspoon.  His equally miserable female colleague clearly thought having a nice chat with the drivers was more important than dealing with a customer.  Why do we put up with such rudeness in this country?

28 July 2001

Tragedy!  Ray Kent's, the Framlingham butcher, has closed after 26 years.  A proper butchers where your bill was written on a slip of paper to be taken to the cash window where there was a box of sweets for the kids.  It will be missed.

18 July 2001

The NaTKiT1 Issue DiscWe've been doing some work on the software that makes the NaTKiT1 discs.  The routine that verifies that the floppy has been correctly written is much more rigorous.  Discs made with the new software are issue VI (6)  and the floppy has a bright new white label.

Commiserations to David Millar who packed on yesterday's Alpe d'Huez stage of the Tour de France.  ITV's coverage showed how badly he hurt that leg explaining a lot.

"Should women have children after thirty?"
"No - one's quite enough."
(Pinched from 'Very Annie Mary' which you should see.  Rachel Griffiths is brilliant.)

23 June 2001

There are so many British actors in 'Pearl Harbor (sic)' because American actors wouldn't have turned up until the film was almost finished. :)

10 June  2001

Overheard in the London Fields Cafe, Hackney:

"You're looking beautiful today."
"Look - you come in, you say 'Good Morning', you order, you sit down and you shut up."
"No, you're really looking beautiful today."
"Now I know you're taking the piss."
"You really are looking beautiful today ... isn't she looking beautiful today?  Go on, tell her she's looking beautiful ... mind you he's only got one eye!"

29 May 2001

It's Goons Night on Radio 2 tonight to celebrate their 50th anniversary.

10 April  2001

Another PoTM at Tannoy! (see 6 April)  Simon Rae is leaving after 10 years to spend more time with the new wife and family and be a "Systems Analyst in the IT department of a relatively large haulage company".

15 February 2001

A new lunch club report and some new pics.Link

21 December 2000 - Goodmans have lost another KoTNs.  Tomorrow will be Simon Barker's last day as he is leaving for the smart card company Gemplus.  Seems like only yesterday Tony Wilson left to then return!

02 December 2000 - Won't need this again! Year 2000 Solutions for Dummies

Haywards "Tasty" Piccallili23 November 2000 - The cones aren't out yet but the Co-op has got those large jars of pickle in, so it's getting dangerously close.

07 October 2000 - If you read the credits for that wonderful film "The Commitments" you'll discover the "Avant-Garde-A Clue Band".

03 September  2000- Almost completed loading users' cali files.  Just October and September to go.

"Why is it always me who has to dot the 'I's and cross the 'O's?"
"Cross the 'O's?"
"I'm
Norwegian."
(Sorry.  We saw the Cambridge Footlights in Bury Friday  night. )

26 June 2000 - Dob Diggins died this weekend.  He was a pleasant old boy who had lived in Station Terrace for some fifty years.  We often had a chat with him over the fence as he took a stroll up the terrace followed by his tabby cat Thomas.  May he rest in peace.

Link25 May '00 - Last Tuesday a select group from NaTCH saw Peter Green and John Mayall in Cambridge.  This has prompted us to create a Rock Links section.

18 April - There's a new page explaining more fully what the InTNaT crossover test interface does.

Extract from Choices Direct 100 Best Videos of the MillenniumThe mail order company Choices Direct have polled their customers to determine the best 100 videos of the millennium.  An interesting concept in itself as videos have been around for perhaps 2.5% of the last millennium?  His NaTCHness was proud to observe that he hadn't seen any of the top three but was encouraged by Citizen Kane at 22, Cinema Paradiso at 62 and above Seven Samurai at 79 Mapp and Lucia!  So there is intelligent life out there.

05 April - Australian IT have shut their Y2K page and the New Zealand government are about to shut theirs.  All seems so long ago, eh?

28 March '00 - What to say?  Ian Dury died yesterday aged 57.  We were so lucky to see him just before Christmas.

15 March '00 - A day late but the Y2K section has moved to the archive here.  (The government shut down their Y2K site ages ago - no doubt so they could spend the money on style consultants.)  

If you are planning to catch a bus from Ipswich Bus Station do remember that those terribly modern displays at each stand do not tell you which bus will be leaving next, but which bus may be leaving next.  Furthermore, should you enquire of a customer server about this interesting phenomenon, expect them to ignore you till they have finished what they're doing and then expect server number two, up till now having a nice chat on the phone, to interrupt server number one for a further nice chat.

09 March '00 - Sorry but we've been messing about with the web structure again.  Various NaTKiT1 things have been moved into the new sub-section Support in anticipation of NClean being available soon.

Nice to see Alan Ball, George Cohen, et al get their MBEs.  Last time we saw a wherearetheynow prog, which was certainly more than six years ago, George Cohen was being treated for cancer so particularly gratifying in his case.

You, us & the millennium bug11 February - Maplin have given us Lisa, our own Essex girl, so they can be personally offhand.  How thoughtful.

The Bank of Scotland have just sent us this useful leaflet.

10 February - If you are contemplating cross country skiing try a small country first.

26 January '00NClean screen detail - The data file "nk_prod.dbf" generated by NaTKiT1 contains production reporting info and can get inconveniently large.  If historical data is not needed then a simple fix is to delete it.  Next time  NaTKiT1 is run it will generate a new and  empty file.

To simplify the process we've written NClean which tidies up for you.  NClean is being beta tested and will soon be available in Support.

Anyone see the Top 10 One Hit Wonders on Saturday?  Arthur's still talking bollo and there were some odd choices -  Men At Work? - but Our Kid completely filled the bill, no one here had ever heard of 'em!

Link20 January '00 - Ex-Lord NaTCH boss Arthur Brown, he of the Crazy World, is on tv (Channel 4) 9pm Saturday night in a prog about one hit wonders.  We've seen a trailer and he takes his hat off, which is more than he did last time we saw him.  Ah well it happens to us all - James Taylor, Lord NaTCH, that drummer out the Hollies. :)

04 January '00 - Still no problems reported for NaTKiT.

02 January '00 - No problems reported for NaTKiT so far.  But then we suspect nothing will really start up again till tomorrow.

12:20am 01 January '00 - We've still got power, gas, water and the 'phones so it looks pretty good here.  (A scanner has started to play up but Y2K?  Probably not.)

We will post any reported problems with NaTKiT as they occur during the next 24 hours but right now we're all going round the Station for some liquid therapy.

7:00pm 31 December '99 - The working day ends, and no problems reported with NaTKiT.

Elsewhere there really doesn't seem to be much of a problem.  The UK government's web site (which seems to have closed about July '01) says everything is going swimmingly - it's all due to the National Lottery apparently.  The 'Y2K News' site is claiming that the Beeb had a studio crash this morning but aren't reporting it, although they suspect it is Y2K.  UPDATE: We've noticed that the Beeb have reserved three pages on Teletext for communicating with their staff, so they are taking Y2K seriously. 

See you about 12:30am tomorrow morning to see if the world survived.

1:50pm 31 December '99 - FoN currently in Oz, no not Station Tone, promised to phone NaTCH at 12:05am January 1st 2000 Australian time to let us know if Armageddon has occurred.  Well he hasn't rung and there seem to be no reports of Armageddon so either he's drunk or can't get through.  We've had no problem getting through to Oz web sites so probably the former!  Oh dear - Fosters.

The New Zealand government have an excellent emergency site and so far all they seem to have is one power station failure, probably caused by high winds.  Australian IT have a Y2K news page with nothing on it yet, though apparently so far no panic withdrawals from ATMs in Oz.

Reports of problems with ship to land radio in Italy and mobile phones in Japan?  ... and Alan Ball is an MBE!

Yes right there between Miss Gwendolyn Ethel Baker, JP and Anthony Ball, Committee Services Officer is Alan James Ball!  D'yer know there's still some element of Empire in the honours?  This year the CPM (Colonial Police and Fire Service Medal) was awarded to Joseph Louis Santos, Inspector, Royal Gibraltar Police and Donald James Watler, Chief Inspector, Royal Cayman Islands Police.

19 December '99 - A party from NaTCH saw Ian Dury in Cambridge last night - he was brilliant and got two standing ovations.  Last chance to see?  He said he'd be back.

Did you know that in an early stage of its development the Ford Mustang was called the Allegro.

09 December '99 - The Stuff section now has a Places page.

Depressing to hear that Heinz has motor neurone disease and is in a wheelchair.  The good news is that he has been annoying authority by being too loud.

26 November '99 - Sorry, but we've been messing about with the web structure again. The biggest change is that NK1, NKWin, and Prices have been merged into Products.

A Ryko graphic pinched off their web siteRyko have released on CD Jack Kerouac reading his novel "On the Road".  Now there's one for all you beatniks out there.  (Ryko have an impressive artist roster including Taj Mahal, John Prine, Loudon Wainwright, and Frank Zappa.  But as so often their web site hasn't kept up with the catalogue.  No sign of Truco & Zaperoko or the Wendy Carlos 4 CD boxed set that includes MIDI files and a "virtual analogue synthesizer"!)

Lord NaTCH wants to wish Happy Birthday to his great aunt Ethel who was 100 on Tuesday.  She smokes 20 Sweet Afton a day, always has a sweet sherry to hand and her doctor is dead.

Maplin Woman12 November '99 - We've often wondered what those curt to the point of rudeness ladies at Maplin look like.  Well now we know.  Can't be anything to do with Maplin's Essex location?

Labels07 November '99 - In anticipation of a new label printer we are using up some old label stock.  (It all saves the environment - using stuff instead of throwing it  away.  God that sounded pious!  The real reason is it satisfies some parsimonious aspect of our souls.)  The last 100 or so labels are samples of a "reusable" label.  This means that in a year's time when you come to recycle the out of date issue discs the label will peel off easily.

22 August '99 - Our web site will be unavailable for some 20 minutes between 10:00am and 11:00am Wednesday 25 August.  (Our site host, Netlink, is upgrading its Uninterruptible Power Supply ... and you thought UPS was something to do with parcels.)

The Mighty Wurlitzer15 August '99 - In Red Dwarf Rimmer's CD collection consists solely of Hammond organ music.  His Lordship would agree that this is a true vision of hell but he also recently visited the Mechanical Music Museum, Blacksmith Rd, Cotton, near Stowmarket, Suffolk.  It was brilliant!  All sorts of musical oddities plus early gramophones and even a Mighty Wurlitzer that comes up through a hole in the floor.

You can change fiddly two new pence pieces for serious LARGE old pennies to play the machines.  Brilliant!

They really are worth a visit, obviously run by enthusiastic amateurs and only three quid to get in which includes a guided tour.  They are open Sundays 14:30 to 17:30 June to September inclusive.  For more info you can contact the secretary Mrs P D Keeble on 01449 613876.  (Be warned: the "howtofindus" map in their leaflet could be clearer!)

Knock knock.  Whose there?  Wurlitzer.  Wurlitzer who?  Wurlitzer one for the money, two for the show ....

22 June '99 - We've dropped the file UsrGuide.txt on the NaTKiT1 issue discs.  (It's still on the demonstration version discs.)  UsrGuide.txt is (was?) a simple ASCII version of the user guide and so has no illustrations.  As users can now download the full user guide in Word format from here we have decided to remove UsrGuide.txt from the issue disc.

09 May '99 - Turbosound took delivery of their third NaTKiT last week.  B&W have recently bought two more NaTKiT to bring their total up to 20. B&W are easily our biggest user with Goodmans coming in second with 12 NaTKiTs, but if you take the TGi group as a whole they still just out rank B&W with a total of 22.

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