I would like you to know why Briantist has not been posting on UK Free TV
I made this rule because I wanted the content here to reflect my best efforts at journalistic balance. In life many issues are complex and trying to see out what is correct is most often more useful than just having an opinion. If the internet delivers anything these days it is more opinions than we have need for.
Personal injuries
One thing I learnt a long time ago is to stay away from bulletin boards, newsgroups and electronic public publication when you are unwell. The top reasons being due to poor debating skills when not emotionally balanced, sky-high chance of taking offense when none is intended and making public mistakes.
Site-life balance
After almost 5,000 days of UK Free TV, whatever my lack of intensions, the project is clearly a personal one. I have had a lot of help from people both online and offline and I can't say enough how grateful I am for every contribution.
And this means that when I have downtime, then the site doesn't get ATL (above-the-line) postings and this troubles me. To misquote a Mr O Wilde:
"To break one leg may be regarded as a misfortune; to break it twice looks like carelessness"
Which is the problem here. Over the past years I have broken my right leg twice, and in the last six months broken my right wrist and had a dental dry socket. This means I have had long stretches of time in agony, or on over-strong painkillers.
To top this, two days after UK Free's first teenage birthday, I have to have to go into hospital and have my right leg operated on in ways that I can bare only look at line drawings of.
After this at least 6 weeks and possibly three months in a fixed cast.
BBC Charter renewal
I am really concerned that the BBC Charter renewal is coming up and UK Free TV needs to do more analysis work because the internet is filled with opinions and vested interests and the corporation needs to hear honest support from the likes of me.
Other projects
I have also not been able to work on a few other projects.
Overground Twitter Bot: overground.info
The first project is a Twitter integration system. See http://overground.info
Do you want to know when an Overground train is cancelled. Follow this robotic account to get a tweet every time the official systems shows big delay or is cancelled?
Tubedreams : the future as it might have been!
Another one of these is TUBEDREAMS.LONDON - a fun look at some of London's planned but never got made lines and stations. Click on this example line diagram to have a look at a sample page:
I hope your leg/foot gets better soon. I think that my pain problem pales into insignificance compared to yours. I have something called thoracic outlet syndrome on the right side, caused by a cervical rib. It's all very weird and a bit painful and I'm grateful that I'm left-handed!
I suspect that your operation is rather less horrific than you think. You will be given all the painkillers you need. I think that it's quite common surgery and I'm sure you'll recover. I do hope that everything goes well for you.
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9:04 PM
Brian.
I'm sure you're made of strong stuff! You'll be okay. Take care.
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11:42 PM
Brianist: That sound pretty horrible - good luck. My wife has just broken her wrist, and hates her cast (and the restrictions) already. Get better soon.
If you do have time on your hands, then a series about Charter Renewal would be great. It would be so useful to have a clearly laid out set of facts, to avoid certain people constantly coming up with the same old rubbish (thanks to Paul Krugman's column, I've just found out this is called derping - which is a lovely word).
The tube website looks great - the tube that never was or is no longer is also one of my interests, so its great to see such a great website about it.
If you do get a chance to add some more pages to UKFree.TV, a section on 4K would be very useful. I'm now selling a fair number of 4K sets, but its not something really covered on the website. A comparison with the resolution of HD, etc would be useful, as would the sort of services available and how to get them.
And possibly something about connecting up sound bars, etc to a TV - now that sound bars are an everyday thing, it would be useful to have some sort of information as to what they are, and how to connect them.
However, lets hope the op goes well, and that you make a full recovery as soon as possible. Hope its goes as well as it can.
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11:43 PM
Brian, I feel your pain. Your health is the only important consideration. Hope things get better soon for you.
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11:02 AM
Brian, I also would like to add to the sentiments as expressed by others, hoping your operation goes well, with the results of restoring you to your former self.
All the best, JB.
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5:21 PM
Hello, Brian. Sending you my very best wishes for a speedy recovery and a full return to good health. Thank you for all the great work you've done for us over the years with ukfree.tv - it's a goldmine of valuable information.
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2:41 PM
Very best wishes, Brian from one who has been operated on even WITHOUT the 'benefit' of line drawings - get well soon, and be able to keep up the good work.
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11:00 AM
Brian, have a long knitting needle handy to get to the itch! It helped me when I wore a cast. Not fun for you and I'm sure you will get well again soon.
We all have things go wrong, breaks, dentistry, illnesses, and with the best wishes of others we come through them, as I'm sure you will, as so many people are wishing you well.
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6:58 PM
Westgate-on-sea
All good wishes, Brian, and thank you for all you do!
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Andrew's: mapA's Freeview map terrainA's terrain plot wavesA's frequency data A's Freeview Detailed Coverage