TSB - a saga of sorts

The computer glitch that led to quite a muddle: Just parked this ex-BBC material here without any silly comments from me so that come the day I can recall what was reported / said.

Mr Pester argued that the migration of billions of customer records was successful "to the penny".

The underlying engine of the bank was working well, he said, and most customers could log in normally, although there was an immediate angry reaction from those customers who could not make payments or get into the system.

He said that he could be trusted to carry on the work of the bank, and MPs heard that he would not be quitting.

"They should trust me because I will ensure I will bring TSB out of the problems we're in. I have promised customers they will not be out of pocket," he said.

"[The buck] stops with me. Of course I take absolute responsibility for what has happened to TSB customers."

Mr Pester gave evidence alongside TSB chairman Richard Meddings, and Miquel Montes, chief operating officer at TSB's Spanish owner, Sabadell, who also sits on the TSB board.

During evidence, the TSB bosses said:

• The IT work was not rushed through owing to financial incentives
• Tests before the switch were "misleading" as they did not foresee the problems with the system's capacity
• A law firm has been called in to carry out an independent review of the saga
• Waiting times on phones was "very, very poor"

Mr Pester said that the "accessibility" problems for customers would "not be simple to fix". He admitted that only just over half of complaints had been "acknowledged".

Nicky Morgan, who chairs the committee, said: "What we are hearing is the most staggering example of a chief executive who seems unwilling to realise the scale of the problems that are being faced."

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What the IT issue is all about

TSB shut down services for two days from the evening of Friday 20 April to move customer data from former owner Lloyds to a new IT system managed by Sabadell.

As soon as the new system was switched on during Sunday evening, customers reported seeing other people's account details alongside a range of other difficulties.

Access to accounts via online banking and the bank's app was patchy in the following days, while those who did manage to get into their accounts encountered some extraordinary errors.

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In a letter to MPs, Mr Pester also revealed the extent of "widespread" failures of technology in the branch network. Problems were still experienced in 40% of branches by last Friday.

Frustrated customers also faced average waits of up to an hour for those telephoning the bank.

Last Thursday, experts from computing giant IBM were called in to try to help solve the crisis.

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  From the sectio

Pyjama Moon

Moonlight/moonlit late night photo by Ali Graham.

Today

Old pier, daily photo. Quite  a nice day today what with one thing and another.

The persistence of memory

Smart phones are not so smart, for one thing they cannot organize their own memory. Perhaps it's because they don't actually sleep and so are denied the REM moments whereby memory and brain files are quietly sorted, edited and put away on their proper shelf in a well managed location that's easily found and recovered. That's how I imagine it anyway. Phones, being stupid (despite the hype) have to be tended and constantly prompted to do things, things that actually prolong their life and operation. They are worse by far than small children. So every so often my phone and I sit down and do a deal whereby I removed various clumps of shit, move whatever files I can persuade to go, (that's onto an SD card) and delete great swathes of unnamed, unwanted, unloved cached data. After this enema has been served up it's back to normal operations and the usual sluggish, slightly reluctant performance. A bit like a SKY box that's been left untended for too long and suffered abuse. Technology is at times almost wonderful, then at other times it's wonderful...almost. Another thing, why is it that the memory details that the phone displays never add up to whatever final total is shown?

Small Town Dr Who

"We live in a cruel world where some things cannot be unseen and some unseen things can sometimes be seen and some things are somewhere in between those scenes and the serene but still remaining unseen". Said the umpteenth Dr Who.

I spent an interesting morning in the company of Cowndenbeath's Doctor Who. A would be TARDIS repair man and traveller in time and space. Of course I'm sworn to secrecy as regards his exact location and the full nature of his business. Having listened to his testimony and seen a few of his inventions I'm forming the theory that nearly every Scottish provincial town has, somewhere in it's housing estates, council flats or maisonettes a Doctor Who figure busy working on unravelling the secrets of the universe and at the same time keeping us safe from alien predators and bandits. These unsung heroes come in many guises and versions, they go about their business without much fuss and we (the general public) are the ignorant beneficiaries of all the effort, ingenuity and good will that keeps us safe and able to live humdrum and useless lives tapping phone screens and necking energy drinks. Their illumination is masked from plain sight by plain sight itself,  such are the workings of the universe via clockwork. We can indulge ourselves and safely walk the streets and trip over loose paving slabs and pot holes thanks to their endeavours and their shield of hidden protection. It's a crazy, mixed up world and it's closer to you than you think but then again not quite.

Collages of lost collections

In no particular order (because nothing ever is), just trying to re-imagine some fragments from my lost record collection, fashionably incomplete but with all of those glossy, shattered pieces like painless splinters of memory, inconveniently gathered back together from some wispy, unclear time when I was a slightly younger man with better hearing but less equipment.

What's on the telly?

Actually that was last night's TV musical wallpaper, closely followed by an episode of Thelonious Monk, Series 1. Everything is free and floating, we are living in some strange cultural Utopia but we call it something else because we lack the language.

Sorry Internet

Sad when your financial certainty comes crashing down and you're left with...uncertainty. TSB's enormous own goal of upgrading their website and systems without properly telling anyone continues to cause pain and frustration. Seems they've bought into some software and black boxes full of Chinese chips that are not quite fit for purpose. As IT developer careers float down the river like dead bodies their help line(s) just repeats an apologetic but unhelpful message, complaints go in but are unanswered and customer service has taken a step back about 50 years. 

It's always going to be a problem when you rely on automation, as I do, to carry out the tedious and routine bits of everyday life and then one fine day the service disappears up it's own arse. AI doesn't look so good to me. I may start writing cheques again and keeping an open ledger of my spend on sweeties. I may actually visit a branch, talk to a human, pull out a wad of cash and then simply return to having a fat wallet/empty wallet on a monthly basis. I don't know. 

Attempts at logging into the supposedly working online bank (says their CEO) means you're put in a virtual queue (the message is that you're on a holding list*, that's a neat new term for "don't bother us, we've fucked up") and have to stare at a frozen screen until it times you out. I'm losing the will to pay my bills, thanks TSB.

*I wonder what other on line businesses will adopt the "holding list" concept to manage customers, can't that ending well for anybody.

ASMR

Today I learned that ASMR was a thing. Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) is a term used for an experience characterised by a static-like or tingling sensation on the skin that typically begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine. It has been compared with auditory-tactile synesthesia. There's a lot of it about, channels on YouTube and so on. Everybody's in on it, even IKEA. I'll just leave it here.

Anti rust league and angry owls

I've joined the anti-rust league, a non political organisation that's hell bent on bending the hell out of and rustproofing various metal objects that live mostly outdoors. Without any special training, coaching or counseling I've been wire brushing, chemically treating and applying black paint to some sorry items that have been over exposed to the elements, elephants and adverse weather. I am the personification of their iron fisted saviour and also a good person. I've still to get them hung up and screwed back into the masonry from whence they came. That'll be another story for another day.

Here's an angry owl windscreen washer nozzle that I encountered whilst driving. It was there, perched on the other side of my windscreen, eyeing me up. From time to time it exhibits a tendency to squirt water in my direction but never actually hits me because there's piece of laminated glass between us at all times. A rather fortunate design feature on the car and I will feel safe as long as that glass holds up.

J G Ballard predicts

Just another happy piece of prophetic writing captured in a stolen photo. Coming true, maturing and shared via the technological overload we have invoked (or created, or been seduced by, or innocently bought into, or been exploited by, or been drugged by or just happened upon...you choose). The thing is an easy escape does not seem like an open option at the moment.

Marathon Man

That rare and satisfying feeling when you see your son complete the London Marathon in a pretty decent time on a very hot day. All done via the all seeing but slightly stuttering and worrying eye of the marathon app. Sadly the BBC coverage missed his triumphant finish.

Log store envy

It can happen to anybody, anytime with little or no warning. You're OK about your stash of logs , the world is a simple, happy place and then you spot a bigger and clearly better one. Sometimes life is unfair.

Friday Poem

Arena

Old cinema, old night club, old gathering place. The old ways of doing things. There once was entertainment, bright lights, music and the sounds of laughter and the gasps of amazement. Woosh. Artificial darkness. The stars came down, settled in and moved on. In buses and cars, in reels of film, on vinyl, flickering images fused in technical ecstasy and beefed up through amplification, we saw and heard. Billboards and lobby cards lined the route, sweeties and programmes. Glamour puss. Oh how they danced. Ice cream and alcohol. The Arena. Good old days. The social hub. Wrecked and ruined, on a slippery slope. We all had a good laugh then.

One missing piece

It's a fine jigsaw, it has 999 pieces but, to be wholly satisfying and finished properly it should actually have a more round number, 1000 to be exact. It's very frustrating for the puzzle solver to realise that after a lot of time and effort has passed and been expended you're a piece short. Short just at the "Sk" part of "Skippy" to be precise (photo top-centre). A chocolate bar/biscuit from the 1960s that Cadbury produced, now it's obsolete like Spangles or Aztecs. There's a hole in the puzzle, there.That's really all I have to say, the puzzle is now up for recycling by whatever the best means might be. We're agreed that it's for the best.

Strange Days

I came across this pictorial oddity whist reading a piece on the Fender Company's recent struggles and product history. I don't think that there was any actual explanation given as to how this photo came to be, presumably a model launch or similar publicity stunt. It's such an odd mixture of at-odds rock players, that's what I like, Fender covering a wide range of stylistic bases. 

Left to right and back again: Stuart Adamson, Fife's finest and for much of his career a Yamaha player, great to see him in this company albeit he looks a bit stunned, he'd be the youngest too so feeling the pressure. Eric Clapton, he could've been there on his own and that surely would've been publicity and clout enough for Fender. Hank Marvin would I guess only appeal to a British audience but it's nice he got a look in, his influence is huge. Steve Howe, I always thought he was more about Gibsons but maybe this was taken when he had the guitar shop. Richard Thompson, a giant in more ways than one and a folky Strat icon. Dave Gilmour, again a Strat user at genius level and the most melodic and tuneful of the pack (though you'd never have said that in the early days of Pink Floyd). And finally Jeff Beck, arguably the best and most technically proficient player but at that time wasn't he playing Les Pauls and just hammering them to death night after night? 

Caterthun

Ambling up White Caterthun hill fort in Angus we came upon these daffodils, a tribute and a quiet remembrance perhaps. I'm glad they found a sunny spot.

The ruins are pretty much ruined, boulders strew everywhere but he shape remains, speculation is that they were hill forts built up over 2000 years ago by Pictish tribes. Our distant relatives maybe, 1000ft up on a hill. Inside the defences some kind of good life would likely prevail. There was water (?), organisation, iron-works and basket weaving, safety from wild animals and protection from what must have been a difficult climate. That's one theory, I prefer the idea that the lonely White and Brown Caterthuns up there were base/supply ports for atmosphere craft and flying saucers.

Out here in the fields

Very old and complex trees.

Meditation. For me the most important part of the day, connecting and being, simply taking in and breathing out the peace and the mindful presence of things higher and farther away than me. I discovered this special place that may be within but equally it may be without. I'm actually pretty confused by it all but covering that up with an applied air of seriousness and a colour wash effect. 

Given time, a good climate and the application of a few chemicals things will grow in this field.

Little actual contact

In that still time before the sun fully achieves a working altitude the mind can wander. Drugged by the sleep and the thought of porridge or some exotic yogurt, pineapples in chilly suspense or the crackle of some ill tempered radio host, step into the kitchen. It must be morning if it's a new day. We could possibly run out of milk. There may be clouds in the sky, I should look upwards more. There's a slow building, cold wind blowing in from the Forth. Magpies are gathering and the pigeons are considering this week a good one to breed in. They flap a lot, break branches and chase each other around with little actual contact. The kettle has boiled and I count my distances around the square circle that is the shower bottom, a white glazed rock pool under a waterfall. Considering toast and then dropping the idea, buttered side up. Of course that was all just yesterday, today we return to rain.