13 September 2010: Rollover

So much for giving Hannah her 'tummy time'. This morning she figured out how to roll over.





Age 20 days. According to pages like this and this, babies can sometimes do this trick as early as two to three months.

Sheesh. What have we got ourselves into?

7 September 2010: UVB-76

Baby photos continue at Gloria's Facebook! Hannah now up to 8lb 15oz, having lost 10% of birthweight she's now put it back on, and then some. Two weeks old today!

Meantime another three years has passed, and that means it's time for another William Gibson novel. My copy of 'Zero History' has been ordered from Amazon and is going by cheap-person super-saver might-arrive-this-year mail, so I haven't got it yet. But it certainly looks to be the completion of another unwitting trilogy from the man who doesn't like trilogies but keeps inadvertantly writing them. The completion of the 'Blue Ant' world - and a review of some description on this blog - to follow soon.

Meantime, of course, that brings me back to Spy Shortwave: those mysterious 'Number Stations' and the like. Last time we spoke, the legendary Lincolnshire Poacher appeared to have been pensioned off from the MI6 payroll, and it was followed shortly after by the disappearance of its far-east cousin, Cherry Ripe. So, what to listen to now? Well, out on the flat roof at the back of our place you can usually get the Cuban stations pretty clearly, even with a rubbishy portable radio that happens to have a SW dial such as that which I acquired in New Zealand. But that's not really interesting: just numbers, same as before, and I haven't heard any of the legendary gaffes.

But now attention around the internet seems to have turned to another long-standing favourite of the spy-numbers-listening community: The Buzzer, or UVB-76 to give it its (apparently real) title. This is a weird carrier wave on 4.625 Mhz that, since at least 1982, has broadcast buzzing noises of around a second each, then a short gap, then another buzz... about 30 times a minute on average. Triangulation has narrowed the broadcast down to a particularly large military installation in Russia, seemingly with its own power substation and backup system. The Buzzer has a wikipedia page, it has a fan-club, and now, due to certain surprising recent activity, it has someone relaying it live over the internet.

The history is this: it buzzes, except for a very small number of exceptional times, when some guy comes on and speaks Russian. First recorded instance on Christmas Eve 1997, when the cryptic message "Ya, UVB-76, 18008, BROMAL, Boris, Roman, Olga, Mikhail, Anna, Larisa, 742, 799, 14" was given out: not by recorded, automated voice (as with normal number stations), this was live. Then five years later another, then another in 2006... then in August of this year, it all went a little crazy.

The buzzer stopped. That was the first thing. It appeared to be down for maintenance as the carrier wave - the radio signal - kept broadcasting. Then some Russian voices. Then some music. But mainly just empty carrier signal... dead air. And before you knew it, the internet rumour mill went into overdrive.

The main rumour surrounds the notion that the buzzer is a 'Dead Man's Handle' of some sort: it broadcasts this very strong, very simple signal that can be essentially heard anywhere in the world at any give time. So it's being used to control something, some massive attack, some spy cell, some nuclear device, some alien invasion... and when it goes off, all these years later, it's 'go go go' for whatever it was holding back. Some of this has even made it onto TV shows already (apparently there's some obscure cartoon named 'Adult Swim' where the behaviour of UVB-76 has been referenced as meaning the end of the world). The single biggest rumour surrounds the apparent forthcoming assassination of the Russian President during September of this year. Frankly I believe the 'Martin O'Neill for next Southampton manager' ahead of that, but if Medvedev doesn't make it to October, word is you should look to head to Australia and hang out in the outback until the heat is off.

I first came to the Missing Buzzer Thing via the Spooks mailing list, where most SW anomalies get picked up pretty quickly - and even traced sometimes - by the local spods on there. That led me to the streaming site and as I sit here working away today, putting together metadata documents and wondering how many nappies Hannah can get through in a day, I'm listening, curious to hear what's happening, live on the Buzzer frequency.

And I'm not the only one. And this is a problem: the last few days have seen pirate broadcasts on this frequency accelerate massively. As I listen I hear the empty carrier (although there clearly was a voice about three hours ago on the main Buzzer carrier), but also a repeating high-pitched morse code (I'm told it's just the question mark, repeated over and over) and various bits of voice, music and other nonsense. Even to my untrained ear I can tell it's different from the main broadcast - all shortwave fades in and out a bit, and the music, morse etc is fading in a different way from the main broadcast - but the Spooks folks reckon there are at least nine pirates out there in the last few days, trying to get our attention while the Buzzer is down and tensions are raised.

The most interesting of the pirate broadcasts appears to be the guy (well, it could be a girl, but you just know it's a guy, don't you?) who has figured out how to broadcast in such a way that it makes letters appear on the 'waterfall' spectrum-tracker they have on the live page. Here's the link... essentially this guy is putting up rude words in Russian for people to read on this page. But again, it's a pirate, and maybe the Russian authorities may not take too kindly to someone effectively jamming one of their (unofficial, of course) military frequencies.

Meantime I await the next Gibson book, and I'm currently re-reading Spook Country in between working, changing nappies (seriously, how does she turn milk into that stuff?) and listening in to UVB-76, the Buzzer that maybe, just maybe, is no more.

Update - Wednesday lunchtime: The Buzzer is back, came back around noon eastern, and then went off after about fifteen minutes to be replaced by some phonetics (Russian names whose initial letters spell the word of interest) read by a Russian lady who sounded angry or automated (couldn't tell which). Since then, silence, then very strong buzzer, then weaker buzzer, and as I write, the buzzer is pretty strong again. Very curious behaviour. Whatever this Buzzer is about, it's certainly weird. And another thing: the voice messages no longer identify it as UVB-76 - now it's named 'MDZB' instead, at least according to the messages, and they certainly don't seem to be pirates in this case. This is the real buzzing deal, and it's weird.

24 August 2010: Hannah Elise

That's Hannah Elise McRae-Spencer, 8lbs 7.4oz, 20.5 inches long, delivered by c-section on Tuesday afternoon. I write this on the 25th but her birthday is the 24th, so that's the date of this blog entry.

Long old day it was too. After fifteen hours of Braxton-Hicks (ie false) contractions on Sunday, the baby went through a crazy wriggling phase on Monday. Then at bedtime - around 10.15pm to be precise - on came the real thing. Four hours later we were on our way down to the hospital in Carmel, where measurements occurred and progress was made.

But progress stalled. Dilation moved from 5cm to 7cm but no further - the goal is 10cm. The pain increased rapidly, but the progress did not. Eventually the pain was so bad the epidural was needed, and was successfully administered. But then - dramatically, almost - progress. 10cm happened. Baby's head on the way out. Time to push.

Two and a half hours later, still pushing but again zero progress. Doctor suspects baby is head-down but facing upwards. Weird, because we knew she's been face-down (correct position) for at least five weeks prior to this. But... if she was face-up, then it would be harder to her to come out, and given the lack of progress in two and a half hours, quite possibly not going to happen. Chances of natural birth at this point? We asked the doctor. Very low, she said.

C-section it is then.

So I wrapped up in a spaceman uniform and went in to witness the event. They worked quick, very quick, and there at 4.32pm local time was Hannah Elise (although it took a few minutes to make a final call on the name). No shortage of brown hair - she actually could do with a trim! - and as they whisked her over to the measuring units, I followed with video camera and ordinary camera. And this began the set of photos on Gloria's facebook and also here...

Postscript: The doctor says that she was indeed face up. The best explanation we have is the crazy wriggling phase on Monday must have allowed her to roll over. But she's here, she's safe, Gloria's safe too and that's all we're concerned about.

21 August 2010: Broken

The air conditioning downstairs broke.

This is bad news: it's the one that always works, and has been very handy what with the temps in the high thirties (Celcius) and 'heat index' a good five degrees above that. Yesterday it was 33 (only!) and the downstairs AC just gave up and started pumping out warm air instead of cold. Now, it's central air, not a box in the windows, and it lives somewhere up on the roof. Being renters, we call the landlord which is good from a cost point of view but not from a saturday morning point of view - haven't heard back and may not until Monday.

So all the windows are open and fans going, but even with the rain, it's still about 30 today and naturally there's the noisy (not to mention food-smelly) Taste Of Kokomo festival outside our now-open windows today. The upstairs AC, which is usually the more temperamental of the two, seems to be able to handle 30 just about, so it's cool up there, which is a relief for the now nine-months-plus Gloria-and-baby combination.

Due date, incidentally, was Tuesday, and that came and went without a baby. All the signs are there, everything checked off the list, but I suppose she'll come when she's ready. Or possibly she's thinking the same thing: "mummy (or 'mommy', depending on her accent, which should be interesting to hear), just push me out, ok?". She's been head-down for five weeks now, she must be pretty bored.

So we continue, my dad in town for a week and a half already, waiting for the event, and the Texas exodus to begin this weekend, whether the baby comes or not. And the noise gets louder outside, and the temperature inside continues to rise, so we consider dining options for the evening that don't involve staying in. And I wonder how people lived in so many parts of the USA that get this hot - or hotter - in the summer for so many decades without air conditioning.

Cold baths, I expect.

8 August 2010: Ebb

As a football fan, it's hard to justify supporting two teams. It really is. The only thing that makes it possible is if you support one big team and then a little local team. Nick Hornby justified this to some extent in 'Fever Pitch' when he covered his time at Cambridge University, when he and his friends would go and watch Cambridge United (then in the lower reaches of the Football League) on a regular basis. Never a supporter, he said, but he developed a fondness for the team.

For me it's Southampton and Plymouth Argyle. Southampton for reasons I know not why, but I started following them around age seven, and a look at the Division One tables (ten years before there was a Premier League, remember) from that period show Southampton clearly there-or-thereabouts at the top, vying for the top spot with Liverpool. The team of the time - Keegan, Shilton et al - was of excellent quality and so that's probably where the following came from, although I can't say for sure. Whatever it was, it ended up with me going to university there in 1994 and probably had something to do with me going back again in 2003 to do the PhD.

Plymouth Argyle, therefore, are the little local team. The 1984 cup run was enough to get my interest but it wasn't until a year or two later, when I started going regularly, that the 'fan' thing really took hold. The 1985/86 promotion team and the oh-so-nearly-made-it-to-the-top-division run a year later (lost the last three games - a win in any of those three would have seen Argyle in the first-ever year of playoffs) were good quality, exciting to watch and had a talismanic player (Tommy Tynan) who could score for fun and was the envy of most other teams outside the top division.

And naturally, aside from pre-season friendly matches, my two clubs never played each other. Once they met in the Zenith Data Systems cup (yeah, exactly) but that was it for competitive games for the longest time. Saints were in the top division, and Argyle were in the next tier, or (from 1992 to 2004) a tier or two lower. Never any clash of values, never any problem to decide who was the more important team to support.

Then Saints got relegated (thanks Harry) in May 2005. Argyle had been promoted the previous year to the second tier (by this point called 'The Championship'). Thus, for the first time since the mid-1970s, my two teams were in the same division and would play each other, home and away, during the league season. First game: September early-season clash at St Mary's. Gloria came, my mum even came up for it, and naturally I was there and wondered what it would be like.

I hated it. I had no idea what I should be doing or thinking. Dennis Wise (at that time of Saints) went flying in for a tackle - YERRRS, screamed the crowd, and I began to as well... but then saw Tony Capaldi, Argyle's Welsh international left-back, lying on the ground from the injury. Argh! What was I to do? How was I to react to this given that I was so partisan.. except I was partisan to both teams. I knew all the players in both squads, I'd seen them all so often. It was horrendous.

Then Saints went down again, which saved us the bother of having this issue last year. But then Argyle went down last year, meaning they're now both in the third tier...

And so yesterday they played. I watched the game via one of those internet streaming sites and still wasn't sure who to support. Once the game was over - slightly fortuitous 1-0 win by Argyle away at Saints - that at least made up my mind which shirt I was to wear the rest of the day. (New Saints shirt, by the way: isn't is bleddy AWFUL? Reminds me of 'We Are The Champions' tee-shirts from children's TV when I was young.) Saints will pick themselves up, Lambert will score another thirty-five goals this year (barring injuries) and Saints will probably go up, one way or another. Argyle are predicted to do ok, but we'll see. They're always surprisingly bad for years at a time. Don't expect anything much. But the match itself - again, I was largely on the fence... wanting Saints to get points for the promotion charge, but Argyle always seem to be in deep need of three points whenever they can get them... sigh, what's a boy to do?

The other thing, though, is that this is the low ebb for my teams. At least I hope it is. Both are in the third tier of the league structure, so let's say they score three points each for that. That gives my two teams a combined total of six points. This score has never been so high in my entire life.

Briefly Argyle were in the fourth, with Saints in the first - that's a total of five points. More recently, Argyle were in the second, Saints in the third - five again. But now - six. That's a bit depressing, really. I'd long for the day when the number is three again (2005 wasn't that long ago) or even the minimum: two. (Although then they'd be playing each other, so I'd be busy agonising again). But for now, it's the low ebb, and I'm going to have to live with the fact that when the baby arrives (due date just over a week away now!) she'll begin her life with Saints and Argyle so very very low in the league.

She probably won't care, to be fair, at least not for a while.

15 July 2010: Appeal

(Note: Tour De France stuff at end of this blog entry, including links to some fun headbutting-while-on-bicycles video from today's stage.)

The Pompey story, about which my coverage has been somewhat lacking recently, came down to this:

1. Pompey, in administration, proposed a CVA that paid most of the creditors 5p in the pound that they were owed, over four years, thus ending up at a total of 20p. Excluded from this were football creditor (eg Sol Campbell and his image rights) and the current "owner" who also happens to be funding the administration and also happens to be the main - and secured - creditor, one Mr Chainrai. Those dudes all get 100%. HMRC ("the taxman") would not be included in this list, and they're owed a whole bunch.

2. This went to a vote. Need 75% of unsecured creditors (according to amount owed as % of total debt) to say yes. Total debt has been "re-estimated" upwards from 70 million quid to over 130 million by the administrator over the past few months. Still, HMRC said they'd vote against it and they were owed 38 million.

3. On the morning of the vote, the administrator "re-estimated" HMRC's total debt down to 24 million, thus reducing their percentage in the vote. The vote passed.

As a matter of law, creditors unhappy with CVA votes have 28 days to appeal against any such votes. Today is day 28.

And HMRC have appealed.

Two grounds specifically (from that article):
The first was that the interests of HMRC 'have been or will be unfairly prejudiced' by the agreement. The second was that there were 'irregularities' in the way the votes of creditors were taken to secure the agreement.

No kidding. The main point about this is not that they'll necessarily take Andy Android and his cohorts to the High Court (although frankly they should, given the dodgy dealings that have gone on the last few months), but that as the CVA is now suspended and possibly dropped altogether, Pompey can't appoint a new owner. And whatever happens, they face more points deductions and possible winding-up orders, or at the very least they face the prospect of playing in the Championship with no players.

The proposed "new owner" would be Chainrai, of course, who'd be very pleased if it had all worked out, given his money actually belongs to convicted Israeli arms dealer and father of former owner Arkadi Gaydamak, currently in exile in Russia and with all his assets (except those awarded to Chainrai in a legal action) currently frozen due to his illegal arms dealing. But any suggestions of money laundering are, of course, pure speculation. As is the notion that several million pounds were filtered out of Pompey into offshore accounts via a law firm bank account during January until the whistle was blown and the lawyer resigned from the law firm. And then joined the Pompey board.

Makes Harry Redknapp seem like a decent, law-abiding chap all in all.

Postscript: In Tour De France matters, there's seemingly no room for appeal for Mark Renshaw, although he's going to try (don't hold your breath, these appeals rarely succeed). He's the guy from Columbia HTC that leads out Mark Cavendish for all those stage wins, including today. Thing was, today on the way to the line he blocked one bloke and headbutted another (several times) as part of this lead-out. As a result, he's been thrown out of the entire Tour, which is a kicker for Cavendish's (very poor) hopes of winning the Green Jersey and also for his previously excellent chances of winning 'his' stage on the Champs Elysees a week on Sunday. Tour official Jean-Francois Pescheux said: "This is a bike race, not a gladiator's arena." Great fun watching it though, I'll post a YouTube link when I can find one, but I'm sure it's on the ITV4 website for UK folks and Versus.com for those in the USA.

Further update: here's the vid from YouTube, provided they don't take it down. Headbutting to be found at 4:23. Versus.com video has the Phil'n'Paul commentary, but I don't know how visible that is outside the US. Agree with Phil, it seems remarkably harsh punishment given that normal argie-bargie results in disqualification from the results of the day but not expulsion from the race. The thing is: Renshaw's actions benefitted Cavendish, and you can't punish Cav for what Renshaw did unless you chuck Renshaw out of the race. So that's what they've done. As with many other such decisions in the Tour over the years (eg Cav being denied a stage last year), you do have to wonder if Renshaw would have been expelled had he been French. Hm?

10 July 2010: Tracker

There appear to be two reactions to England's somewhat disastrous departure from the World Cup: one is to say "hey, at least I can now enjoy the World Cup without having to worry about supporting England [or the USA, given my present context: several US-based friends have said this to me]", and the other is to say "pah, pschh, bleddy football, bleddy England" and largely ignore the rest of the competition.

I fall into the latter category, aided somewhat by the annual tour de farce that is the Tour De France. No major drugs allegations yet (wait a week or two) and the mountains just starting. Mark Cavendish gave up on one stage earlier in the week when he either went too early or too late (it's hard to tell) and then won the next two on the trot, but now we head up into the Alps so we won't see much of Cav until the middle of the week when we're back on flat land and he's had a chance to recover a bit. Probably already too late for him to win the Green Jersey too.

But here's what I like. His team, Columbia HTC (that's the Columbia company that makes shoes, not the Space Shuttle Columbia nor the country of the same name), have teamed up with Google so you can track their riders live via telemetry and GPS data. Click here to see the page. Not much happening when there isn't a stage on, but surely this kind of thing is here to stay: rather like I can now track flights around the US on Google Earth and actually watch images of planes coming in to land based entirely on their telemetry data, I can now track Mark Cavendish as he slowly creeps up the mountains or gets off and pushes or whatever he does. (Sidenote: back in the day - and in this case, 'the day' is the 1950s, they actually used to get off an push their bikes up the mountains often in the Tour).

Anyway, that's the sum total of excitement for this Tour so far, although the battle between Contador and the doping cynics is surely just beginning. Elsewhere, we're just about finished preparing a room for the still-nameless baby, and have a checklist ready for packing bags for the hospital. Had a tour round birthing facilities at said hospital earlier in the week and frankly, while impressive, it does make you realise it's getting pretty durned close. Before the Michigan peaches are finished for the season, we'll have a little baby here.

What's scary about that is that it seems no time ago that youngest brother Callum was born. He turns 21 this week. I've got a pair of shorts older than him. Makes you realise, our time here is brief.