Wednesday 3 February 2016

DJ Derek and cyber magic


If you walked into a pub or music hall when Derek was playing music, you would have expected to see a black West Indian on the other end of the mike, playing pounding Reggae and interspersing the tunes with comments made in a strong Jamaican accent, but when you finally caught sight of the DJ, you saw a small, elderly, Jewish, white man.

I really don't know how Derek started his career as a Reggae DJ, or even found a place in the hearts of the real West Indians who surrounded him at his gigs, or the place where he lived in St Paul's, Bristol. Anyone else adopting this style would have been considered an insult or piss-take, but Derek became an honorary Jamaican through sheer gall. He got away with it, and got away with it in style. Normally, instead of an ordinary microphone as in the photo above, he would have a vintage red telephone, through which he could hear the tracks as well as speaking to the audience - no headphones. This made it look as though he had a hot-line to the President.

His ordinary speaking voice was high Bristolian, which is an even more extreme version of West Country than Somerset.

I never really spoke more than a few words to him during some of the many trips he made to Bath, but many of my friends knew him well and booked him for events and music nights as much as possible. He was in great demand.

Well, at some point last year, he walked out of his house and has never been seen again. A campaign to find him has been running for months, but people are beginning to lose hope now, as he probably would have surfaced somewhere at some point if he was still on earth. The last CCTV footage of him was getting on a bus, and there was one false sighting of him in London which turned out to be someone else. Very strange, and very sad.

Changing the subject, I have been moaning for ages that I cannot get a free upgrade of my O.S. from Mac, despite many attempts and the upgrading of my RAM by +2 GBs (don't ask), so I decided to phone our local Apple shop, here in Bath.

After speaking to a few computers, I got put through to a very helpful, real, live woman, somewhere in the U.S.A.

She got me to perform a few tasks on my machine, then got me to sign a box allowing her to share my screen, which I did. The screen went black, then I saw her move her own red cursor over it, pointing to things whilst telling me what to do over the phone. I was childishly impressed with this bit of cyber magic.

The problem is not yet solved, but will be after she has sent me a bit of software through ordinary airmail, via the U.S. Postal Service and Royal Mail. In my case (the like of which she has never experienced before, she told me - why always me?) the problem cannot be solved using cyber magic alone, but I have to receive and instal a disc, sent to me in a paper envelope.

This will take 7 - 10 days to arrive...

16 comments:

  1. Pleased this problem is nothing to do with me as it all goes straight over my head Tom and if something came through the post I would still not know.
    Sad story about the DJ though.

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    1. Ooh! You made me jump, Weave. I thought I was on my own for a minute.

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  2. When we were in New York, Alina had some trouble with her i-phone, and they helped very friendly in a sort of glass temple. I was surprised when the lad said: "If I cannot solve the problem, we will go to the genius". Then one came - "I am the genius". I laughed - but that's their title!

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    1. Yes, I was speaking to a Genius. That is indeed their job title.

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  3. Is there any chance he disappeared on purpose? Just a thought....

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    1. Yes there is every chance, but is there any chance he is still alive?

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  4. He has the face from an Ealing Comedy

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  5. Wait. Are you saying you don't have geniuses at the Apple stores in the UK? Here the help desk is called the Genius Bar. What I particularly like about the geniuses is they don't make me feel stupid. They just fix the problem while explaining it to me as if I cared.

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    1. I thought I would have to book an appointment with a Genius, then wait in line for about an hour in the actual shop. I would much rather have a one-to-one with a distant Genius over the phone.

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    2. P.S. I'm having real problems saying anything on your blog. This Google+ thing doesn't work for me. I hate it.

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    3. I'm sorry. I can't seem to get rid of Google+. It's insidious. I welcome advice. Maybe just as well, as you'd probably want to be nice for now and that would cramp your style. xx

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  6. I'd thought that Derek had definitely been spotted in London; now you tell me it wasn't him. Why did the papers not inform their readers of this; I'd imagined there had been a happy ending.

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    1. As soon as I saw that photo I knew it wasn't him, but in saying so it doesn't sell newspapers.

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  7. My blogger has slowed right down to a virtual standstill, so I have given up trying to write anything else. Maybe it's punishing me for the bad thoughts I had about it last night. Oh well, it's no great loss to the world of pointless literature.

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  8. This is the only way I can communicate at the moment - to comment on my own post.

    I cannot seem to put up a new one, as it never loads up. This may be because of the above problems with my O.S. I don't know, but you are having an enforced holiday from me.

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