There was something for everyone to celebrate this weekend: Easter, Passover, Ramadan, and the anniversary of Margaret Thatcher’s death (the tenth anniversary, no less!). I’m not sure that will happen again in my lifetime.

Some of my post arrived at last. It seems to be taking about two weeks at the moment. I chatted with the postie who delivered the parcels; he said that they’re short staffed, which is what I thought must be the case.

It all seems to be getting through eventually, but it’s not great, is it? It wasn’t that long ago that Royal Mail was publicly-owned and delivered post twice a day. But now we have to live with another great example of the successes of neoliberalism.

My finger continues to heal. It’s still red and obviously wounded, even after three weeks, and it still hurts if I’m not careful and tap it against something, but I don’t have to think about it all the time any more.

On the other hand, I’ve injured my toenail in a way that it doesn’t seem able to heal from on its own. I’ve booked an appointment with a podiatrist this week. I hope they can do something about it, because I like being able to walk.

I did a bit of experimentation powering guitar effects pedals off USB and found that I can easily run a small board of half a dozen effects pedals off a USB power bank and a USB to 9V step-up cable that I already had. Even with a daisy chain power cable and one digital pedal, there isn’t a noticeable amount of noise.

I used a USB power monitor to measure the current draw: for half a dozen pedals it was a very abstemious 350 mA, which ought to last for a while on a 12 Ah power bank.

A small pedal board with half a dozen effects pedals on it. The lights are on, but there are no cables supplying power from elsewhere.

My bass pedal board, no power cables needed.

I put together a self-powered bass pedal board with the pedals I often use (tuner, compressor, envelope filter, overdrive, multi-effect, and amp simulator) so that I don’t have to faff around with cables, and so that I can tidy up between sessions.

Last year, I wrote about our aborted attempt to get solar panels through the London Solar Together scheme. Last week, I learned that the company that was supposed to be doing the installations has been stripped of its accreditation and forced to suspend installations. It looks like they didn’t protect deposits properly, either.

We definitely dodged a bullet there.

I learned that there’s a Georgian rip-off of the Simpsons. It’s called Samsonadzes and the production quality is a lot worse. See for yourself.