A heartfelt thank you - because I never once imagined this

Wow! What just happened?

Well, what just happened was that about 10 days ago I wrote (here) to thank Virgin Trains and Richard Branson for the impact they have had on my son, Edan (who is now 6 but has been a lifelong train enthusiast). I got a lovely reply from the brilliant customer service staff at Virgin:

Then I went away on business to London for a few days and had my head down in work and never checked twitter. Once I was on the train heading home (Virgin Pendolino 390037 as it happens - “Virgin Difference” - which is how I signed off my letter. Prophetic?) I decided to fire up tweetdeck and have a peek at twitter.

It didn’t take me long to realise something had happened!

The first thing that had happened was Virgin Trains had asked me to get back in touch - but alongside that, hundreds of people had liked and shared the correspondence, and many others had replied to me with heartwarming messages.

My train ride was 3.5 hours and it took me the whole journey to get through all the tweets!

What transpired over the next few days was quite breathtaking to me. We received so many messages of encouragement and solidarity.

I saw for myself that the “Rail Family” - those who have grown up on the railway, or work on the railway, or otherwise have a passion for it - really is a “thing” and it’s a warm, kind, welcoming family to boot; and that really brought a lump to my throat.

There was an outpouring of generosity including the offer of various “experiences” for Edan. Amongst these was the “chance of a lifetime” to see name plates being made by the supreme experts in the field. Frankly we were just completely bowled over.

We also had a note from Paul who produces “trip reports” on YouTube.

Edan has watched so many hours of his YouTube channel! He’s been there (virtually) with Paul on the first run of the Hitachi 800 in the UK; the first run of Eurostar from London to Amsterdam and so on.

Paul’s reports also inspired Edan to create some of his own videos in a similar vein and you can see his own “Train Files” in the video here from his latest trip, where he talks us through First Class on the Virgin Pendolino.

Our little man continues to cram in the trains.

Nothing can stop Edan’s passion for trains.

With under 2 weeks to go on the Virgin Franchise, last weekend he surprised me with a planned trip from our base in Scotland to Wigan to ride on a Voyager and Pendolino and do some more Virgin Trains spotting!

He’s never been to Wigan before but you can see from the video when he gets off the train it’s like releasing an animal back into the wild! 😂

We’ll do our best to find all the teachable moments in this…

When I wrote my original letter, it was just a heartfelt Thank You to Virgin about unseen consequences, yet it turned into something so much more!

IT’S Train Books OF SOME KIND most nights And Sleeping with VIRGIN train layouts next to his bed (Sorry, CAB)!!

I included the sunflower logo in my original letter and some readers will have understood why. We’re poignantly aware that there must be many “Edans” and young train lovers up and down the country, and he is lucky and privileged to have been on the receiving end of such kindness - which has been, and will be, a big learning experience for him.

As a measure of our gratitude to those that have extended their generosity to Edan, in turn we’ll be donating to Crisis, who do wonderful work looking after the homeless at Christmas (and all year).

And so, once again, our deepest, sincerest gratitude to everyone:

Thank you for inspiring,

Thank you for supporting,

Thank you for celebrating his world!

Thank

Trains Allow Edan to EXpress his personality!

Chasing Child, Chasing Train

How Virgin Trains inspired my child (open letter to Richard Branson)

Dear Mr. Branson,

I would like to thank you, and the teams that work with you, for the world of Virgin trains and the train names that have made such an impact on my son’s life.

That might seem like an odd way to open a letter but I can assure you that not only do Virgin trains have a special place in his heart but their names have a real importance and significance.

Thanks to those names, over the last couple of years we have had discussions about explorers, about wars, about cancer, about diversity and equality, about cities and geography and history. In fact, all the cool things that a 6 year old should be learning about.

He’s probably-definitely not your average 6 year old. Last Sunday he chose to brave 2C degrees temperatures in the winter dusk at Lockerbie station to see his beloved Pendolinos whoosh past. And the day before he planned and costed his own Virgin trip to Lancaster to do the same.

For the greater part of his 6 years on this planet, he has been utterly consumed by trains - particularly Virgin trains, I might add! He self-identifies as a fully-fledged trainspotter (relying, of course, on the taxi- and bank-of-mum-and-dad) and it is almost impossible to convey in writing just how deeply and powerfully this influences his life and learning.

At every possible opportunity he will find a way to see trains, ride on trains, talk about trains, watch trains on TV and youtube, draw trains & routes. And if he’s not doing that, then he’s studying his train network map, making train & station announcements, and listing all the stops of both real and imaginary trains. Not just in the UK, but in Europe too. His bed is always a train, his room usually some far-flung destination.

For his last 3 birthdays he did not want a party - instead he took us to the National Railway Museum in York.

His self-motivated obsession and passion for this subject is part of what makes him special. On many occasions, I have chased him down the platform of Carlisle station where he just bubbles over with excitement to see the Pendolinos and Voyagers. This year and last he was enthralled when East Coast mainline services came through the West during engineering works and he got to see the Class 82 DVT’s and Class 43 HST’s.

He’s ridden on so many of your trains and he knows them - to him they are personal, they are friends, they are individual, they are special.

At times, I’ve stood on the platform with him while he gets lost in his train World, and held back the tears. Because I sense the track ahead for him is not necessarily going to be conventional or easy.

And so, this is what I really want you to know: I want to tell you how inspirational your trains have been for my son, for his growth and development; and I wanted to tell you because I imagine every observer would think the opposite.

It has supercharged his reading and numeracy: all that information, timetables, departures, arrivals, delays, layouts, instructions, signs at a station - at an early age he had already mastered all this, and now calculates anything to do with trains like a mini computer.

Then there’s the ridiculous knowledge of UK geography and cities, European countries and cities, times, dates, speed calculations, Units and measurement, safety principles, energy and mechanics.

His head is FULL of it.

But on top of that, there are the magical train names.

He loves those names, and studies them all. He even has some kind of seemingly-mystical power to read them off a coach as it whizzes past at 100mph. (see video).

Your gurus may not know that when they name a train, that causes my son to grow.

We have conversations about those names, the people or events behind them, their significance and history. We’ve talked about World wars, cancer, history, equality, mental health, explorers & pioneers to name but a few. All this has expanded his World-View in so many ways.

He was recently thrilled to see Virgin Pride, because it’s beautiful, and colourful, and, of course, it doesn’t occur to him that anyone should be singled out or treated differently.

We talked about how anyone can fall in love with anyone, the way he fell in love with trains!

I hope you really can get a sense how your trains frame the conversations and attitudes he is going to have as he grows towards adulthood.

It’s hard to convey how impactful and joyous this is in a letter. It’s just something I’ve come to understand month after month, year after year of chasing him during an afternoon (for Kilometres at a time) round the station while he just runs from platform to platform following what he loves!

He was utterly devastated when Virgin lost the East Coast line, heartbroken he never got chance to be hauled by a Virgin East Coast DVT, and is equally devastated about what has happened on the West. Sadly, he was never able to get a much-sought place on the busy Virgin Rookie day. He’s sobbed his heart out over and over through all of this, and I’m sure he’s not alone.

VIRGIN DIFFERENCE

So, before it’s too late, I just wanted to thank you. To thank Virgin for making a real difference to the life of a little boy you’ve never met. For inspiring a child that loves your trains more than anything in the world, and through them is growing and experiencing the world (literally) through travel, and conversation, and research and passion.

Thank you for that difference, the Virgin Difference (Pendolino car set 390037!)

Yours sincerely and gratefully,

Nik Sargent

(15/11/2019)

ps. His favourite car set is Chad Varah :-) but he was also honoured that Clic Sargent should share his surname. :-) Below is a SMALL selection of Virgin Trains he has chased around the country!

Could it be Aspergers?

An incredible lecture by Professor Tony Attwood.

I have never seen anyone so succinctly and roundly describe the wiring of an “Aspie”.
At the time of this video, 1 in 68 children are considered to have the autism spectrum disorders traditionally associated with Aspergers.

I wish this was mandatory viewing in every nursery, school and home in the country.

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A saga with Virgin Trains Mobile e-tickets

I've often considered myself an early adopter, but being of the nervous disposition I am in fact wary of things like e-tickets because no technology is perfect. Typically I like to have a paper backup of such things, just in case.

So, this also applied when I recently booked the whole family on return Virgin West Coast tickets from Scotland to London. I hesitantly ordered my tickets to be delivered to my mobile phone because I have been let down by the post before, and we have no self-service machine at our local station. (Sure, I can use the one at the main station on the day, which is 20 miles away, but I always feel it's a bit too late to find out something is wrong just before your train; I like to have these things in my hand in advance).

The thing is, Virgin seem to have changed their delivery of e-tickets and their app a few times lately. There was a time when you could download them into your iPhone wallet and display them on your lock-screen, which was ultra handy. And once they were on the phone, they were on the phone (or so it seemed anyway). I had very little issue with this system other than the risk of my phone conking out.

Now, however, tickets are accessed through the Virgin mobile app. The process seems similar: you "download" tickets, then on the day "activate" them. Well, our outward journey was fine, but it started to go wrong on the return journey.

We were sitting in Euston and about an hour before the journey I went into the app and made sure the tickets were "downloaded". All good. I then activated them, to make sure I had everything ready to present. Again, all good.

30 minutes before the journey I checked my phone again, checked the tickets were ok, and explained to my fellow-travellers that we'd have to show them at the platform entrance. All good.

Where did my tickets go?

About 20 minutes before the departure of the train we got the text notification to proceed to concourse. So, down we went.

I told you I was the nervous type, so I checked the tickets again. This time not good. I had been logged out of the app, and was presenting with a login screen. I tried to login with my regular details and it was rejected. Panic started to set in.

Now, I should also add that the week before when I booked the tickets, Virgin had taken it upon themselves to forcibly reject my existing password as not meeting their "new requirements" and so I had changed password. I started to wonder whether I was making a mistake or if it was them. Either way, whatever I tried, I was not getting in: I could not display my tickets.

I raced to the virgin ticket area to seek assistance - massive queues; one member of staff out front assisting and busy with two people ahead of me. Anyway, politely I waited while my blood pressure doubled, and eventually explained the predicament to him.

Now, I had taken what reasonable and available "backup" precautions I could, in the sense i had screen shots of my booking, the reference number etc. I asked would this be sufficient to at least get on the train and then try and sort the problem? He said no - the best he could offer was go over to the corner where there's a phone to virgin central command and see if they can do something like change your train!

A flash of inspiration

By now I was proper panicking, and was trying to do a password reset.

THEN, suddenly, I just had a light-bulb moment. Was this the internet? I realised my phone was showing a public WiFi connection but I'd not been asked to log in. I killed the WiFi, dropped back to 4G, and fired up the app again. I re-entered my login details and -boom- lo and behold I was back in my account.

However, my tickets were not in the app, despite previously having been "downloaded"! I "downloaded" them again, which thankfully worked, and was then able to activate them, before dragging my family at breakneck speed to the platform. We were back up and running.

This was a terrible experience on many counts: poor process design, poor user experience [failing a login attempt because of no internet connection but reporting just a login failure; loss of already "downloaded" tickets for example], poor customer service. It may have expanded my child’s vocabulary somewhat, but it didn’t do my cardiac system any good.

I had a quick look at the Virgin FAQ on e-tickets, and it says this:

Q: What happens if I run out of battery?

A: Ensure your mobile is charged, if you are unable to display your mobile ticket, you'll need to buy a new ticket at the full fare.

In other words: "no-show, no go.."

Obviously anyone reading that FAQ ought to realise that it would include any reason for failure to display the ticket; but what it doesn’t say is that mobile app appears to rely on an internet connection to display tickets. Had I known this at the outset this whole saga could have been avoided. Although, it does then beg the question, if the tickets are "downloaded" and "activated" why is an internet connection required at all after that point?

I suspect the answer is the tickets actually only live on the virgin server, and unless you can display that, you are stuffed.

back to good old paper

Suffice to say, I won't be using this system any time soon again in future unless I really have no option or Virgin introduce some kind of mitigation for device or connectivity failure. And if I do end up having to use the app again in future, at least I will take screenshots of all the tickets and bar-codes from inside the app in advance.

You have been warned.

Create your own Velux Black-Out Energy Blinds

In strong afternoon sun, the leakage is significant

The Original Energy Blinds

In 2015 I installed Velux "Energy" Blinds in our self-build house. Since the house is 1.5 storey - i.e. the upper rooms are in the roof space - it seemed like the extra insulation over and above normal blackout blinds would be a good idea.

Now, the thing is, at the time these blinds, although made of blackout material, did NOT claim to be blackout blinds, due to leakage round the edges. So, all credit to Velux for at least being honest. You can see opposite what this leakage typically looks like. 

Now, in reality, for the six darker months of the year it's not a massive issue (especially in Scotland) but during the summer months, with stronger sun and earlier sun-rises it did become a bit of a problem, to the point where I actually crafted some 'drapes' to stick over the window frame, made from blackout fabric. 

Frankly, it was all a bit of a palava, and actually stopped us using the windows properly; so I had been constantly racking my brains for a better solution. 

Energy Blinds Mark 2

In truth, I don't know if Velux are now on mark 2 blinds, or some other number, but come summer 2018 I was browsing their website and noticed that the original energy blinds had been revised, and now claimed to be full blackout. I emailed Velux to check, and sure enough, they had updated their blinds.  

If you shop around hard enough on the internet you can find them with around 30% off the normal retail price, but they are still not cheap. None-the-less, it seemed like a solution to our problem, so handed over my hundred-and-odd notes in return for a new version blackout blind. The room has two, but I figured I would test one first. 

The New Blackout Energy Blind is extremely effective. 

Sure enough, they work a treat.  And while they don't (can't really) achieve 100% block, it's almost 100% and extremely effective - as you can see from the comparison picture.  In fact it turned out it was quite easy to fit, and I didn't even need to replace the blind, just carefully replace each side runner with the new ones, which now come with a flexible rubber baffle that provides the light blockage. 

This gave me an idea. 

If my 100-and-off notes had essentially just bought me a rubber baffle down the side runner, could I not come up with something similar myself for the remaining window that would save such a large outlay for such a small change?  

Well, I did indeed concoct a plan using some rubber draught-proofing material that I'd bought reasonably cheaply on ebay. For old time's sake, here's another "before" picture to enable a comparison. 

Create your own baffle 

stick the E shape draught excluder down the side channel of the blind, flush with the front lip. 

So, here are some step by step instructions for what I did to save me well over £100 in replacing my second blind. 

You need suitable lengths of rubber draught insulation - both the "E" shape type (it has ridges in it) and also the "P" shape type (usually specified for blocking gaps of around 5mm). Colour is your choice, but crucially the "E" type I have bought has always come as a roll of two pieces joined side by side, which are intended to be pulled apart and used individually. DO NOT pull them apart!

The first step is to stick the "E" type excluder strip down the side of the side-runner, behind the string. See pictures. 

One key thing to note is: only stick down the forward most part of the strip (remember it's a double strip); leave the rear most part with its backing protector on. 

peel and stick as you go - don't try to peel everything off and then stick it all on at once. 

As with all good "sticking-on-a-long-sticky-thing" practice, don't peel the back off all at once. Instead peel a little, stick a little and then align-stick-and-peel as you go by pulling the backing off gently, bit by bit. 

Just take your time, bit by bit, aligning the rubber, and gently peeling the rear off in order to stick it. 

 The finished result - just to get the message home about aligning the excluder first, then peeling off protection from behind in order to stick it. 

Phase 1 complete

This is phase 1 complete - and originally I was going to stop here.  If you look at the photo, you can see that this has produced a significant improvement. Sure, still some leakage at the top, but a hug reduction in the overall leakage non-the-less. 

Leakage result after phase 1 

Phase 2

Apply the "P" strip behind the unstuck part of the "E" strip. 

Phase 2, which I suppose is optional, but in my opinion well worth it, is to apply the "P" shaped excluder, The idea is to apply it behind the unstuck part of the "E" excluder in order to press it against the side of the blind. In the pictures you can see i started by applying the "P" strip with the "tail" of the "P" behind the first strip, but in the end decided/realised this didn't really press it outward enough. So I switched to applying the "P" strip the other way round, with the "head" of the "P" underneath the "E" strip and pushing it further outward. This forms a much better seal against the side of the blind.  

End results

The end result is pretty impressive. The picture is a bit lousy because actually the phone was struggling to focus. While it has adjusted the exposure to compensate for the lack of light, you can see that if you compare it even against the phase 1 result, the strong triangular leaks at the top side of the blind are gone. The leak at the top is rectified by ensuring the blind frame is screwed tight to the window frame. 

The blackout effect is not as perfect as the new style blind, but it is easily 80% - 90% as good and 10% the cost!  It is a massive improvement over the "non-baffled" blind.

The good news is, the blind can still be operated as intended, though i recommend a little extra care as the draught excluder rubber offers up a bit more friction than its equivalent Velux baffles. 

The proof in the pudding is, of course, in the fact my child has slept in longer during the summer mornings than he otherwise used to. A definite WIN result all round :) 

My sunflower

I shed a little tear for my boy yesterday…

We spent the weekend alone together. After a tiring first week of school, On Saturday I took him to our capital city, Edinburgh as a treat.

We spent 12.5 hours in, on or admiring transport. Riding on the city tram, trains (a particular type he had been longing for), buses, and watching aeroplanes. I planned our route and sequence of stops, and then he devised a better one.

I tested him at the main station. It’s big, it's busy. 20 platforms handling 21 million passengers per year. I bought the ticket and worked out what time we would be catching a train. Armed with the information about the next stop and the time, I challenged him to go and read the departure boards, work out which train it was, get the platform number, then find the platform and take us there. He succeeded perfectly.

Then we went to a Chinese restaurant he specially requested - where he ate fries 🍟 and onion rings! It was a buffet, so I had not much choice but to leave him alone at our table while I got my food.

Towards the end of the meal the lady on the next table leaned over and told me what a delight to see a child so beautifully behaved. We're often told that.

And here's what I've realised: the more I allow him to spread his wings and grow, the more beautiful he becomes. He is my sunflower, reaching for the sky. 🌻

Despite an epic Saturday, on Sunday he wanted to see trains 🚂 again at the local station; we ended up staying several hours. He read all the information boards, decided which trains to see, found the platforms. We went over the bridge and under the underpass. We went up the stairs and down in the lift (elevator). He predicted the engine types, and as the trains came passing through the station he read the name plates to me and decided if he'd seen them before. "Sir John Franklin", "City of Manchester", "Treaty of Union" and so on and so on.

He told passers-by all about them, whether they wanted to know or not! He observed all the safety rules, even though his boundless enthusiasm was constantly threatening to break into uncontrollable excitement.

And that's when it hit me. My little boy is only four; he is locked into his passion for trains, but he just keeps amazing me. A tear rolled down my cheek.

I was confused, I didn't really know what emotion I was feeling.
He is my startling, fragile little whirlwind. 💜

My wife pinpointed it later for me: just an overwhelming sense of protection, not just for now, but probably for all that is to come.

Sending smartphone notifications from Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite

Following on from my success of getting my Edge Router Lite to successfully run multiple load-balancing schemes for dual-WAN, and more importantly, assign different devices to different load balancing schemes, the next natural evolution was to send iPhone alerts when any of the links went down.

In principle it is quite easy, because the ERL already makes provision to run an arbitrary script when a link transitions (from active to inactive and vice versa). So, it's really just a question of having the right script. 

If you Google, you'll find examples for sending email, but I wanted something more immediate (and less configuration effort - i.e. to not have to set up sendmail).  Based on another example I considered using the pushover.net service, but wondered if I could use IFTTT to do the same, as I am already a user. (Saves me signing up to something new). 

Turns out you can, by using their "webhooks" service; and turns out it's so simple, it's almost untrue. 

IFTTT Webhooks allows you to generate simple triggers from a single web request

Step 1

First go to your IFTTT account and add the "webhooks" service. This will generate a unique key for you, which you need to make a note of. Annoyingly this is done in a font which does not distinguish between capital I and lowercase l, but you can regenerate the key, or paste into something where you can change the font. 

Step 2

Next, log in to your Edge Router and navigate to /config/scripts and create the following script (I called mine failover-notify) :

A script to generate IFTTT phone notifications. Obviously use your own key.

Don't forget to make the script executable with the command chmod +x failover-notify

Step 3

Return to IFTTT and create an applet which uses the webhooks service as a trigger and the notifications service as the action:

Note how I have called the event "bb_failover". It is crucial this matches the name in your script (it comes in the URL after /trigger/ ). It is this name that allows you to configure many different triggers on IFTTT to do different things. Obviously you could use a different name, providing it matches in both places. 

Value1 will be populated with the Load-Balance group name; Value2 will be the Port (eth0, eth1 etc.) and Value3 will be the status (either active or inactive). 

Also, you will need the IFTTT app installed on your iPhone, to generate the notifications at the device end. (The app doesn't have to be running though).

Step 4

Return to the edge router for the final bit of configuration.  You might want to test your script at this stage. If you type ./failover-notify A B C the script should run and give a success message, and shortly after you should get a notification on your phone. There's not much point proceeding until you can get this to work.

Once it does work, you can come out of the command line and go to the config tree. Here you choose the load-balance group you want the script to apply to.

Now, if you only have one group configured, you will apply it to that group. If, like me, you have more than one group, you might want to only apply it to one of the group to prevent duplicate alerts. This will depend on what your groups do and what alerts you want to get.  

In my case, for example, both my load-balance group balance across both my only WAN links, so in fact I only need to apply it to one load-balance group, as both WAN links will be covered, and it doesn't matter which group I choose. I wouldn't apply it to both groups, as then I'd get double notifications - i.e. one from each. 

Choose the Config-Tree tab and navigate to the load-balance group you want to monitor

After deciding which group(s) to receive notifications from, navigate to it, and put the full path to the script in the transition-script box, then click preview and save. 

And that's it. Test it by disconnecting one of your WAN links, and see what happens!

Configure Ubiquiti Edge Router Lite with Preferential Load Balancing for different devices via dual link WAN

Snappy title, huh?

Introduction and Purpose

In this article I give the steps to configure an Edge Router Lite so that it can apply different load balancing rules to different devices on your home/local network. There might be a few use cases for this type of configuration, but here's mine:

I live in a rural area with slow ADSL broadband (around 2Mbps) and no imminent prospect of fibre. I am also a home worker, and that speed is practically unworkable. Thankfully in December 2016, Vodafone expanded 4G coverage, such that I can now receive it via an aerial on my house. So, at the time of writing, I have a 50Gb per month data plan on 4G, and can get speeds of around 40Mbps.  I need both links, because not only is their variability in the services, due to things like weather, but 50Gb is simply not enough. So, I need to split my traffic over the networks so that my work activity gets priority on the high speed link, and other stuff (such as music streaming) favour the slower - but uncapped - ADSL link. 

Using the edge router, this configuration does exactly that. The inspiration and configuration schema itself was provided at https://community.ubnt.com/t5/EdgeMAX/Dual-WAN-with-some-hosts-using-only-one-WAN/m-p/703493#M22093 but without instructions. As a novice to networking, my eyes glaze over at all that config and the prospect of recreating it at the command line. So I set out to configure it via the UI (and succeeded). This article shows the steps. 

Objectives

I have several media streaming devices in the house, e.g. SONOS, Amazon Echo Dot. The reality is, for playing music they do not need 4G speeds, and up until now have been unnecessarily consuming 4G data allowance on my existing load balancing set up. That set up is just one load balance group with a 75:25 split ADSL:4G, which in itself is not ideal because it favours the slow link, but is necessary to keep my 4G usage within the necessary limits.  The SONOS in particular is a culprit because it is in my child's room and plays a playlist of about 3 hours' duration each night: it really doesn't need to use 4G at all (except perhaps for fail over) - so the plan is to "pin" that device to the ADSL link.

The same goes for the Amazon Echo Dot in my office, and the Echo Dot in our living area, which is hooked up to a soundbar. 

The plan with the configuration is to have these 3 devices belong to their own load balance group, and balance that group so that it is almost 100% supplied by the ADSL link. In actual fact I am going to start off with 90-something percent, so that when the ADSL link is being heavily used (child watching iplayer for example), there is some availability of additional bandwidth from the 4G side.  Failover will be left in place so that there are no interruptions in the event of ADSL failure (or me tripping over the hub). 

Remaining devices, for now, will all belong to a different load balance group which is more equitable, allowing them a greater share of the 4G. I need to run the system for a while to establish the right level within my data cap, and indeed plan to introduce a further load balance group which tips the balance the other way; thus allowing, for example, my work PC to have a 90:10 balance 4G:ADSL. For the purposes of this article, however, all these remaining devices will stay in the default load balance group, which was created using the Edge Router wizard. 

Part 1 - Static IP's

This whole set up relies on creating a group of devices you can assign to a load balance rule, and applying that rule to the firewall prior to the default rule. In order to create the group of devices, they need to have static IP's rather than the default dynamic. That way they can always be identified.  Knowing that I plan to expand the number of devices that I might do this with, I decided to reserve a larger-than-default range of IP's for this exercise, and future use.

So, i reduced the existing dynamic IP range to stop at 192.168.2.230 on the basis I would reserve 192.168.2.231 - 239 for my "ADSL-pinned" devices. This can be done in the DHCP Server menu.

next step is to create the static mappings for the SONOS and Amazon Echo devices. One way to do this is from the DHCP Server -> Static MAC/IP mapping tab. 

I have set my SONOS to the first address in my "reserved" static range: xxx.231

There's also another (quicker/easier) way to create these mappings: from the Leases screen. Just find your device in the list.

Note that I didn't change the name of anything, just the IP address to something in my static range. Note too, that the existing IP leases hold good even after this change, so the devices do not take on their new IP until you reboot them, which we can do at the end. 

So, I mapped my Office Echo dot to static IP 192.168.2.232 and Kitchen dot to xxx.233

The above steps complete part 1, which accomplishes this configuration step of the original solution:

Part 2 - Firewall Group

Now we need an "Address Group" with those static addresses, as per the original solution:

This can be done from the Firewall/NAT controls - I created a group called A nice

A nice feature is the ability to add a range of IP's, not just individual devices (choose "Actions -> Config"). I chose to add the whole of my 192.168.2.23x range so that any device mapped into that static range in future will automatically adopt the ADSL load-balancing scheme. 

Part 3 - Load Balancing rules

The original solution requires creation of an additional load balance rule:

So, to begin with, I am going to create a load balancing group, using a 90/10 rule, called LB-ASDL-primary. This can be done from the Config Tree pane. (Navigate to the branch shown in the bold breadcrumb trail, and choose ADD)

Since I am running on fairly default configuration, this new group just needs to mimic the existing master group (G), so that means adding the right interfaces (eth0 and eth1 in my case)

Once done, we need to work down the configuration for LB-ADSL-primary, replicating what we see in "G".

Again, if like me you are running on default config, in reality most settings can be left alone, and it's just the weight that needs amending. Once, that's done, click "PREVIEW" - which is essentially a "check and save" function - at the bottom of the screen.

With this configuration, my SONOS/Echo devices are still going to use 10% of the 4G link. It will be trivial at a later date to make it 100% ADSL and 0% 4G, and set the 4G as failover-only, if desired.  That's this step done. 

Part 4 - Amend Firewall "Modify" group

Referring back to the original solution - we need to change the firewall "modify" rule to add a new "modify" rule, which will reference our new load balance group. Thus our new group of devices will get their special load-balance treatment before the remaining devices get the default treatment. 

Note that in the new rule we have to reference our new load balance group and then also the devices (address group) that are the source. As a reminder:

• Our Firewall/Address group is called ADSL_link_devices
• Our Load balance rule is called: LB-ADSL-primary

In the config tree (see below), the existing config built by the wizard looks like this, with rule 100 set as the load balancing rule, and the default load balancing group called "G".

We will add a new rule and reference to the group. It will be before rule 100, and use our new load balance group, and assign our new address group (i.e. target devices) to it. 

Add a rule 90, then change the "source" to reference the new address group. 

Now we need to define the actual rule. It's a "modify" rule, so navigate to the modify branch under rule 90, then reference our new load balance group in the lb-group slot. 

And Save ("Preview")

That's this step done.

Finally - Apply to Interface

A firewall rule is nothing unless it is actually applied to an interface, as per the original solution:

As you might have suspected, following this method you don't have to perform this step, because we have modified the existing rules "live" (called "balance" by default) and all our changes are already in place on the interface they originally applied to (eth2 in my case).  (shown below for completeness)

Testing

Before we change anything else or try our devices, check what is currently happening: our new group has no traffic (as we expect)

Now we play something on the SONOS / Amazon Echo, to see which WAN link the media comes down. Since the IP addresses of the devices have not yet changed, nothing new happens, and (happily for this test) the data comes over the 4G link (eth1): exactly what I am trying to prevent.

And another check from the command line (i did sneakily change the weightings to 91/9 in the meantime, for those with a beady eye). 

Now we reboot the devices so that they acquire their new static IP's. (Seems you can't ask Alexa just to reboot, which is a shame :) ). We can confirm that the devices (e.g. Echo) have picked up their new IP in the .23x range, which they have:

So,let's play some music again and re-examine the interfaces. Look at all that lovely red = eth0 = ADSL...  just what I wanted.

And finally, confirm the stats from the command line, we see LB-ADSL-primary load balance group is now pulling data in the right proportions:

Very happy. Case closed!

If you are a Londoner, this may make you cross [fire statistics analysis]

The tragedy at Grenfell tower ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire ) has turned a lot of attention to what has been happening in the fire service. There are numerous claims of improved performance, and counter claims of "fiddling the figures". So, the question is, what does the data really look like?

FRA (Fire Rescue Authority) and FRS (Fire and Rescue Service) data is publicly available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/fire-statistics-data-tables

There are many many tables and sheets of data available, and it has been a challenge to keep this "brief".

The data above covers the whole of England, broken down by authority. The starting point is to accept the data and take it at face value, before performing analysis and drawing conclusions. Indeed, analysing the data can help to determine its integrity.

There are various caveats associated with the data as it is provided, and these need to be understood. Indeed, something that is quickly apparent, is if you don't know how to handle this data correctly, you will make mistakes and errors that will lead to incorrect conclusions. I can say this with authority, because I made a few initially! 

Simple things like changes in capitalisation of dimensions between time periods, can cause aggregation to fail. Similarly, much of the data contains totals as well as broken down data, causing the risk of double counting for those not paying attention. Finally, most of the sheets do not have raw data, but have year by year drop downs - necessitating copious amounts of copying-and-pasting to reassemble the underlying information.

What changed when?

Much public discourse has been made of the fact that accounting systems changed, particularly during the tenure of Boris Johnson as Mayor. Indeed, the accounting system did change, from a paper based one to an online one (2009/10), which ultimately has provided greater granularity and timeliness. In my opinion there is no obvious attempt to "cook the books" due to the change of this system of recording.

Further discourse has covered the classification of fatalities, with the claim that, for example, fatalities later in hospital began to be omitted from statistics. Neither the accompanying notes, nor the evidence from the data supports this hypothesis.

Indeed, the data includes non-fatalities as well as fatalities, and classifies the former into different types, which includes the nature of the hospital treatment. It is hard to envisage such a well-classified data set, collected from 10's of individual authorities purposefully being manipulated to consistently exclude one type.

Note - due to the fact that injuries can become fatalities quite some time after the initial event, data for the most recent year is not necessarily complete. Fatalities may rise in due course, while injuries decrease. For the present year at the time of writing, ending financial year April 2017, data is considered complete up to January 2017 (thus is lower overall than previous years)

So we can dispense with introduction and get to the meat of this subject, the notes from the data sheets themselves are posted at the end of this page.

Let's look at the data - England - the broad trends

The first chart is total Fatalities due to fire, in England, over the period since 1981. The chart below includes a computed trendline to best-fit the pattern.  Over the last 38 years, overall fatality has, basically, steadily fallen.

We can see that same data, now broken down by location type; and this is one of the first of several important steps in making correct sense of the data. Prior to 1999, data is only available as a whole for dwellings. But subsequent to that, it is classified by dwelling, road vehicle, other building and other outdoors.  This important, because I want to focus on dwelling fires.

Looking at fatalities naturally leads us into considering non-fatal injuries as a comparison.

Here the story is rather interesting. The first point to note, is that prior to 2009/10 and the introduction of the online reporting system, we did not have any sub-classification.   This does open the door to potential misuse of the data - e.g. to compare "severe hospital" injuries post 2009 with "all injuries" pre 2009 and claim an astonishing drop.  However, if one were to do that, the discontinuity would be so great, that it would be immediately obvious. In contrast, the properly aggregated data shows the same post-1989 falling trend in injuires as with fatalities.

Perhaps of equal interest in the above chart is the steep rising trend in injuries from 1981 - 1998.  The data itself does not give the answer to why this happened; undoubtedly numerous factors are responsible. (Amongst those reasons may be changes in fire regulations, and for those who wish to explore them, a summary can be found on wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_fire_safety_legislation_in_the_United_Kingdom)

The shape of this chart is likely to lead some readers to suspect malfeasance is afoot. However, as before, while we see a reversal in trend, we do not see a marked discontinuity; rather a turning of a worsening situation to an improving one - which is of course the intended effect of fire regulations and fire prevention policy. In truth, we should be glad to see this effect.

The natural next step is to plot fatalities and non-fatalities against each other to see any correlation. Here I have broken the data down into decades (by colour).

Looking at the 80's and 90's what we see is a trend that is most probably a result as a focus on fire fatality prevention. As fatalities decrease over those two decades (starting at the far right and working left), injuries increase. You can plot a fairly good fit trend line through the brown and blue marks, which tends to suggest that fatalities were being "turned into" injuries. I.e. the seriousness of the worst fire injuries were being reduced.  Many factors could contribute to this trend, such as improved fabrics and materials, improved building materials and building standards. (e.g. measures such as fire doors which delay the impact of fire, thus reduce risk of death but may not prevent injury from smoke).

Then we have the inflexion point at the turn of the millennium, where the previous rising injury trend is fully reversed. Now fatalities AND injuries are falling.

It's tempting to suppose this sharp turn is mysterious, but perhaps it is not as sharp as we might think: there is a cluster of 10 or so points at the turning point of this chart, representing a whole decade turning fate around.  It is not the turnaround I find most surprising, but the sharp descent as we come into the 2000's and 2010's. Here the improvement in injuries is as rapid as the worsening was pre-2000. This must surely be attributable to some significant interventions?

One that I particularly suspect is the introduction of smoke alarms. Smoke is a key cause of injury, and the availability of an early warning to escape smoke injury must likely have a dramatic effect. Indeed, smoke alarm ownership rocketed during the 1990's.

Causes of Fire

Once again, for the curious, we can look at general causes of fire, before looking specifically at dwellings. This can help us understand whether factors outside the control of the individual (such as home wiring, manufacturing standards of appliances etc.) have a role to play.   Causes of fire are shown below. I have chosen to show them as a percentage of all recorded primary fires, so that any relative rising or falling trends can be seen.

Unfortunately the data contains a large number of "other/unclassified" records, so I have replotted the chart with that line removed (data NOT recalculated).  The new plot seems to suggest cooking appliance fires on the rise, but we shall below, all is not what it seems.

If we now look at causes of fire, but this time for dwellings only (with "other" still included), well, that's different picture - this time we see a much flatter line for cooking appliances; though perhaps not surprisingly they account for 50% of dwelling fires.

Somewhere along the line I expected to see smokers' materials drop too (especially with the advent of e-cigarettes), but that actually seems to have changed little. Electrical distribution causes have risen slightly over the period. Again, in the light of revised building standards, this seems counter-intuitive, but on the other hand, older buildings continue to age and presumably increase in fire risk from older wiring. 

What's happening in London?

The data above sets the broad context for the events that triggered this article. The analysis above has not found any obvious discrepancies in the data. That is not to say that data, or portions of it, could be used and quoted out of context, either deliberately or inadvertently. But that is left for the reader to judge for themselves.

One of the key thrusts of discourse surrounding London fire and rescue services has been the budget cuts imposed. The headline budgets, of course, go towards vehicles, premises, equipment, training, staff etc. We have data for staff for Greater London - which speak for themselves.

Stepping back, you can't argue that while there have been cuts to fire service staffing since 2010, fire fatalities and injuries have continued to fall, suggesting that the cuts themselves have had no impact.  This is probably an unwise conclusion, for various reasons:

1. The fall in fatalities and injuries, as we saw earlier, is part of long term, nationwide trend stretching back at least 36 years. Other factors, which improve fire safety, are clearly at work here; and cuts to budget may simply be serendipitously "riding on the back" of the general trend.  Removing "slack" in the service has a certain logic to it, but cutting too deep can only have negative consequences in due course. 
2. The fire service does not just provide reactive response but also proactive preventative measures, such as education and fire-checks. Unlike "fire response", proactive measures have a longer term, delayed impact and the effects may not be seen until several years down the line.
3. The fire service is essentially an insurance policy. It needs to be there when you need it, otherwise it is not effective insurance. By definition this implies it must also be resourced at times when it turns out not to be needed.

The data shows that both reactive and proactive functions have suffered during the time period of budget cuts. The chart below shows response times in minutes (x axis) vs. number of incidents in a given year. Broadly, incidents have been falling, so higher incidents (y axis) are earlier in time.  

When you look at the cluster around 6.5 minutes, all of which occurs from 2010 onwards, you can't help but think someone made a conscious decision that 6.5 minutes was the target response time. Sadly, the data is not available to look at the actual distribution. 

The conclusion here is stark, response times have increased from 4.5 - 4.7 minutes to 6.5 - 6.7 minutes DESPITE the number of incidents decreasing.  This suggests that cuts have not simply been to remove "slack", but have been much deeper, to the tune of 40% or more worsening of average response times.

Proactive measures

Interestingly, there are reports of 25% reduction in fire inspections as a result of budget cuts ( http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tower-block-fire-safety-checks-10641046 ).

However, the number of inspections itself does not tell the whole story, because the quality of those inspections may also matter. The available data actually reports number of inspections (not broken down by type, sadly) and also number of hours performing inspections. These are plotted together below.

So, here’s a classic kind of chart which lets you tell whichever story suits your purpose: over the period 2010 - 2016, fire inspections have actually increased on aggregate. If you are a politician, that would be a good number to quote.

But the number of hours spent performing them has radically fallen, by 56% on the 2010 level, and 58% on the 2013 level.    This means a 2016 inspection was being performed in well under half the time It was 5 years previously. One might question whether quality suffers as a result, or if something else has transformed the nature of inspections.

For me, personally, this is the most telling, and I hazard-to-say, shocking insight.  The door is open, potentially, for some form of technological solution to have slashed the time taken to perform inspections, but there has been no other evidence forthcoming to support this position as yet.

Regrettably it leaves my analysis somewhat inconclusive, and we sit and wait for promised enquiry to reveal a deeper set of facts about the events and context surrounding Grenfell tower. We can only hope that we do get those facts.

---

The statistics in this table are Official Statistics.                                                                    Source: Home Office Operational Statistics Data Collection, figures supplied by fire and rescue authorities.

Contact: FireStatistics@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk                                                                        

Next Update: Autumn 2017

The full set of fire statistics releases, tables and guidance can be found on our landing page, here-                                                                                        

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/fire-statistics                                                                                        

                                                                               

Financial Years                                                                                        

2015/16 refers to the financial year, from 1st April 2015 to 31 March 2016. Other years follow the same pattern.                                                                                        

Note on 2009/10:                                                                        

Before 1 April 2009 fire incident statistics were based on the FDR1 paper form. This approach means the statistics for before this date can be less robust, especially for non-fire incidents which were based on a sample of returns. Since this date the statistics are based on an online collection tool, the Incident Recording System (IRS).                        

General note:                                                                        

Fire data are collected by the IRS which collects information on all incidents attended by fire services. For a variety of reasons some records take longer than others for fire services to upload to the IRS and therefore incident totals are constantly being increased (by relatively small numbers). This is why the differing dates that data are received by is noted above.        

Note on Imputed figures

During 2009/10, Greater Manchester and Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Services were unable to fully supply their casualty data. As such totals for these Fire and Rescue Services were imputed. For these imputed records detailed breakdowns are not available. As such, some detailed breakdowns may not sum to their corresponding totals.                                                   

The England total hours figures above for "Number of Fire Risk Checks carried out by FRS" include imputed figures to ensure a robust national figure. These imputed figures are-                                                                                        

2015-16: Staffordshire                                                                                        

2014-15: Staffordshire, Surrey                                                                                        

2013-14: Cleveland, Staffordshire, Surrey                                                                        

2012-13: Cleveland, Staffordshire, Surrey                                                                        

2011-12: Cleveland, Lincolnshire                                                                

2011-12: Bedfordshire, Cleveland, Greater London                                                                                        

Figures for "Fire Risk Checks carried out by Elderly (65+)", "Fire Risk Checks carried out by Disabled" and "Number of Fire Risk Checks carried out by Partners" do not include imputed figures because a large number of fire authorities are unable to supply these figures.                                                                                       

1 Some fires are excluded when calculating average response times. Please see definition document for a more detailed explanation.                                                                         

2 Primary fires are those where one or more of the following apply: i) all fires in buildings outdoor structures and vehicles that are not derelict, ii) any fires involving casualties or rescues, iii) any fire attended by five or more appliances                                                                

3 The largest components of 'other buildings fires' are incidents in private garden sheds, retail and food/drink buildings

4 Typically outdoor fires that are ‘primary’ because of a casualty or casualties, or attendance by five or more appliances5 Typically outdoor fires not involving property                                                                        

Definitions

1 Primary fires are defined as fires that meet at least one of the following conditions:                                                                                

(a) any fire that occurred in a (non-derelict) building, vehicle or outdoor structure,                                                                                

(b) any fire involving fatalities, casualties or rescues,                                                                                

(c) any fire attended by five or more pumping appliances.                                                                                 

2 Includes fatalities marked as "fire-related" but excludes fatalities marked as "not fire-related". Those where the role of fire in the fatality was "not known" are included in "fire-related". Fire-related deaths are those that would not have otherwise occurred had there not been a fire. i.e. ‘no fire = no death’.                                                                                

3 Dwellings includes HMOs, Self contained Sheltered Housing, Caravans/mobile homes, Houseboats, Stately Homes and Castles (not open to the public).                                                                                

4 If more than one smoke alarm was recorded for a fire, the fire is categorised under the most positive operation status of all the smoke alarms recorded.                                                                                

The data in this table are consistent with records that reached the IRS by 4th January 2017.                                                                                 

1 Accidental is defined as when the motive for the fire was recorded as either Accidental or Not known. As such this excludes deliberate fires.                                                                                                        

2 Other breathing difficulties includes: Choking and Other breathing difficulties.                                                                                                        

3 Physical injuries includes: Back/neck injury (spinal), Bruising, Chest/abdominal injury, Concussion, Cuts/lacerations, Fracture, Head injury, Impalement and Other physical injuries.                                                                                                        

4 Other includes: Collapse, Drowning, Heat exhaustion, Hypothermia, Other and Unconscious.