15 July 2011
I started my day with yet another long session with the voice activation people, Dragon. Despite having reinstalled the original Version 11 and gone through the training again the programme still failed to recognise the difference between commands and text. I was fortunate enough to speak to the senior technician who did some more tweaking on the programme and kindly agreed to send me Version11.5, which, once installed , will hopefully overcome my problem.
Reverting to the more topical issue of hacking into people’s mobile phones and the demise of the News of the World, the chief executive of News International, Rebecca Brook,‘has fallen on her sword’ and resigned as as the chairman. These resignations coming two days in advance of the time when Rupert Murdoch and his son James is summoned before a parliamentary committee and I assume that Murdoch believes that these resignations would take some of the heat out of the situation. The resignation of the Chief Executive of News International, who was edito,r, of the News of the World, at the time when this malpractice took place, I suspect knew more about what was going on the, to date, she has been prepared to admit.
We are now in the second day of the British Open (golf). Great things were expected from. our man Rory McIlroy, having come hot foot from his famous win at the US Open. He finished the second day four shots behind the leader so is still in with a reasonable chance.
John Lebus kindly dropped to see me this afternoon and we watched a bit of the golf together.
Edward Oliver, who, since I lost the use of my hands, has kindly been filling in in my tax return for me, had called to speak to the Inland Revenue today and as a result they decided I needed to fill in a different form, a more comprehensive return than the one I had done for ever. Why on earth they need to change things at my time of life I really cannot imagine but there is no arguing with them. Apparently it’s all because the amount of income from foreign investments exceeds £300
Good news concerning our erstwhile driver, Barry, who the readers will recall was taken into intensive care the day after we returned from the wedding in Cornwall. Although we are still to discover precisely what was the problem we have heard from Barry himself that he is on the way back and is in intensive physiotherapy.
Holly’s wheelchairs. turned up trumps. Mark, one of the technicians, designed and made a bespoke plastic tray, which is excellent. He came today to alter it and at the same time made one or two other adjustments to the setting of the chair. Nothing ever seems to be too much trouble for these people. I consider myself extremely fortunate.
My darling daughter Chloe came to spend tonight and tomorrow with us. Like Smiler she makes a point of coming down fairly regularly to see me and, of course, her mother. IIn the old days, before the MND, I used to make it my business to go and visit the family every 4 to 6 weeks and Alice would meet Chloe and Smiler in London once a month or so, none of which is any longer possible so it is lovely when they takes time off from their busy lives to come and see us both.