see what the boys in the back room will have

Scottie Bowman (rbowman@indigo.ie)
Wed, 01 Sep 1999 08:20:53 +0100 

    Cecilia, Ed, Sonny, Sean, Tim, everyone -  my very grateful
    thanks indeed for the help.

    The 'Save As' solution is splendid for an individual message
    that one might wish to transfer, as it were, around the time
    of arrival.  My problem has been that it's only when
    confronted with a build up of several hundred posts in
    a folder that it occurs to me to sweep them all off the hard
    disc & onto a floppy for storage.

    If I mark more than one I then discover that the 'Save As'
    option becomes an unavailable ghost - & I'm reduced to
    dragging them onto the A drive icon in Windows Explorer.
    This latter procedure works fine the first time for any given
    3.5 disc.  If, however, I have say 100 messages saved to that
    particular disc (& there remains plenty of available space)
    the attempt to add any more meets with silent, non-response.
    It seems to be that that first loading is the important one.
    Add a really big number the first time & you'll have made
    good use of the disc - but make it only a modest number &
    that disc appears to be no longer available for further additions.

    This is all getting far too boring & technical.  I'm going to study
    Tim's 'inside the   program' proposal & report back if & when
    I ever emerge.  It sounds ominously like 'from the depths of the temple
...'
    ___________________________

    I certainly add my own envy to everyone else's in the matter
    of the OED.  How I wish now I'd bought the microscopic
    edition that Ed has when it first came out many years ago -
    at quite a modest price.  I have to make do with the SOD,
    but *it* has the advantage that it can (& does) lie permanently
    open on a little shelf here beside the computer.

    It doesn't seem to mention 'boffin' - not even in the appendix -
    which mildly surprises me since a lot of other wartime usages *are*
    discussed.  I was also mildly surprised that boffin does not appear
    in the RAF until 1945.  I'm almost certain I heard my father
    refer to them around 1943-44 when he was in charge of building
    Stirling bombers in Belfast.  His work brought him into daily
    contact with these geniuses - for whom he had an awed regard.
    I'm absolutely confident he used to speak of them as 'the boys
    from the back room' - but maybe 'boffin' is me being wise after
    the event.

    Better stop.  I can hear Jer tapping his pen against the side of
    his glass of natural, home-cultured yoghurt.

    Scottie B.