Seachain an duine a bhíonn ina thost

How irritating. Last night I went to the studio again to see what could be seen. The power had returned, but the patching system wasn't working. That meant that music played on the computer could be transmitted (because the studio computer connects directly to the control room computer) but music played on anything that had to go through the desk (cds, minidiscs etc) could not be transmitted. Microphones don't work either. So we emailed helpdesk asking if they could fix it. The first reply I got said that the master faders were down and that everything's working fine now. That's not true. We checked the master faders, they were definitely up. The next reply said that the problem is with the control room PC, not the studio. BUT IT'S NOT! The problem is with the patching system, which is not ours to meddle with. If they're not careful I'll just patch it myself using the hardware patch bay.

Sorry, rant over. Next rant: bilingual policy. I sent the minutes of last week's Storm committee meeting to the lovely Gareth, the union translator (in accordance with the bilingual policy section 14). He replied saying that he didn't have time to translate things at the moment, what with elections and all that. He also said:

For practical reasons I'm unconvinced of the need to translate the
minutes of all Standing Committee meetings unless there is a demand for
a Welsh version from individual members ... I'm afraid I don't think it would be
practically possible for me to translate committee meeting minutes for
you on a weekly basis.

I really do like the idea behind the bilingual policy. I think it's very important that Welsh is preserved. It's something we haven't done properly in Ireland which is an awful shame. But why do we have a bilingual policy which is impossible to enact? We simply do not have enough translators for the policy to be realistic. Either we need extra translators or the policy needs to be re-thought. This is something that needs to be raised at Council next week when the bilingual policy is up for ratification. Of course you'll be delighted to hear that our Welsh Language Officer has translated the minutes for us, so we're still obeying the rules.

Reading Sam's blog has reminded me that I really should be going along to events held by different clubs and societies. But where to start? Last night I just stayed in drinking red wine and watching football. It was nice. And this morning I got not one but TWO nice things in the post: a card from Sinéad with messages from other friends scrawled on the envelope and a CD from Rory wrapped in newspaper. I like packages wrapped in newspaper. I just wished it had been the Irish Times instead of the Guardian which I can get over here anyway. Oh I must remember to buy the Guardian tomorrow: it's got The Wicker Man DVD in it. Right, time to eat.