Silversea Water Cooler: Welcome! Part Five

[eastwoodboy]

17 hours ago, UKCruiseJeff said:

Good Evening All,  from a cold Hampshire where I'm waiting for the bread to finish baking.

 

Sophia ... sad indeed about Lennon although in the 60's Liverpool seemed so far away from London.  Coincidental to the Lennon memory, I was reading this week that Scott English a relatively unknown pop composer passed at the age of 81 a feww days ago.  He wrote many songs including "Mandy"  (originally Brandy) which was eventually performed by Manilow.  What interested me in the story of his life was reading that he wrote "Hi, Ho, Silver Lining".   I was intrigued by this because a good and close mate of mine in "The 60's" was Richard Shirman who had a group that was not famous called "The Attack".  I use to share many days drinking frothy coffee in the Giaconda in Denmark Street with him and beers in the evening in The Ship in Wardour Street,  and they recorded Hi Ho Silver Lining a week or two before Jeff Beck made his name  with it.  Richard always asserted that he composed the song and as this was before the internet and Google, I had no reason to disbelieve him.  Until now.  It transpires Scott wrote it and as Richard died in July 2017 I guess the secret stayed with him. 

 

 

Jeff by extraordinary coincidence The Attack version of Hi Ho Silver Lining was played on Sunday by Tony Blackburn in his programme on Radio 2. It was the record discussed by Tony with his producer and the closeness of the two recordings was mentioned. It must be many a year if ever that version this has been played on that station. If I recall it was in the second hour if you feel like tracing it on the i-player.

 

My only recollection of those days on one of my rare trips to the smoke was an evening with Freddie Garrity and the Dreamers at a location I do not recall. The sort of interaction (having a few beers after the show) betwen performers and punters just would not happen these days.

[UKCruiseJeff]

Hi, it's lovely of you to post that the record was aired.  I never knew or met Freddy, but it was either "I'm telling you now" or "Be my Baby" by the Ronettes that was the very first record I ever bought (for 6/8 .... three records for a £1!) but I can't remember which.  I know he had a reputation of being as skatty as he appeared but you met him so will know!

 

I do remember that Richard was really miffed that Beck released the record shortly after theirs and that if you listen to both it is very clear it is a direct copy of both style and content.  There was an interview with Richard a while back which I've linked.  Micky Most played it to Beck straight from the Decca presses.  I met Micky Most a few times, the last was in a studio when he was recording The Tremeloes.

 

Richard was pretty confident of success with the record and actually had the band become a "limited company".  For some reason I cannot recall, he gve me the "articles of association" and the "company seal" which I have somewhere in my attic.  I have no idea why I still have them and I  have no clear recollection on why he gave them to me but I think there was talk of me managing them as I had an "employment agency licence" having been the youngest person ever to successfully register for one.  We also use to go to "Ready, Steady, Go" together.  I was managing myself under a different name and also acting as an agent for booking UK bands into a club in Paris ("The Locomotiv") where I had a Saturday night for a while (I had a French girlfriend at the time who was a pretty famous singer who got me the gig) and we discovered that as I knew the bands I could book them for less than through the tortuous route the club had been booking them through.  I was also lucky to get a bit of broadcasting work.  There is a lot of stuff I recall from the article - partly because I did some freelance A&R for Elektra which is mentioned.

 

http://ugly-things.com/the-attack-an-interview-with-richard-shirman/

[mysty]

Greetings Coolers!

 

Today's funny.....

 

 

Have a great day all!

[MBP&O2/O]

I see MSC have lost a passenger overboard .... no Man Overboard technology on this particular ship. Cruise Law news has some interesting links on the subject as a whole.  https://www.cruiselawnews.com/

The second article about crew members makes for disturbing reading.

Do we know if SS have adopted - or plan to adopt - the technology.

Looking at various photographs I see no obvious evidence of any instrumentation fitted on the bridge wings?

Equally, talking about ‘other lines’, Cruise and Maritime get a mention on the news today .... two passengers detained for drug smuggling. They are both on their 70’s! https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/two-british-pensioners-70-and-72-arrested-after-large-amount-of-cocaine-found-in-cruise-ship-cabin-a4013806.html

[mysty]

Greetings Coolers!

 

Today's funny.....

 

 

Have a great day all!

[Lois R]

Good morning.....well, yesterday we FINALLY got our computers back up.....so we had 3 days of nothing......Thursday, Friday and Monday. That is ALOT of lost business.....and even yesterday, things were not "fully fixed" until mid day...…….hoping things are smoother today and we still had NO EMAIL when I left for the day either.  I imagine there are going to be 100's of emails for all of us sitting there when we are told we can open our mailboxes...…...

 

Have a good day everyone.

[mysty]

Greetings Coolers!

 

Lois, good news that things are on the upswing at work.

 

Today's funny.....

 

 

Have a great day all!

[jpalbny]

Hi all

 

I think some hack got me. Not sure if it was the recent Marriott/Starwood one, or another, but someone tried to buy a Roomba on my AMEX yesterday. They had my address, phone number, CC#, and e-mail on the order. Fortunately (maybe?) they were stupid (or smart?) enough to use my e-mail to place the order. And they entered my billing address, but had it shipped to Brooklyn. LOL.

 

I saw it immediately, logged on to AMEX, and saw that there was indeed a pending charge. So I contacted AMEX via chat from the website, canceled the card, and stopped the order within a few minutes. Great customer service.

 

I say maybe it was fortunate, because I think my quick action only served to verify that my e-mail is valid. About 30 minutes later the 'bots hit. My email address has been signed up for accounts on about 1000 different websites - yes, that number is not an exaggeration - all over the world, most of them in different languages. My spam folder is bursting. Luckily most of them get filtered there... Some 'bot is having a field day!

 

I am a little worried about all of the signups but not much I can do about it. Most reputable websites need you to confirm that a human actually signed up by clicking a confirmation link in a second e-mail, which I won't do. So most of the signups won't work. The 'bots don't seem to have my email password which is different from all others and pretty strong, so they can't access my email to verify accounts.

 

I have many accounts that use my compromised email address as the login ID, so I changed passwords on any of those that had weak passwords. I figure the next step by a smart hacker would be a brute force attempt to crack another page's login, then hope I use the same password everywhere else. So that will make it harder for them, as I use stronger different passwords on accounts that need it, and weak passwords on accounts without any sensitive information.

 

Any other thoughts?

 

 

Edited December 13, 2018 by jpalbny

[mysty]

JP...my only thought is one of concern for you!  How dastardly that person/persons is/are!  I hope you are not adversely impacted!  Your adventure is coming up soon and you really do not need the extra stress!  Best wishes for a speedy resolution to the remaining issues!

[Lois R]

Hi JP, so sorry about that but glad AMX came through right away.  Thoughts on it? Well, the company I work for just had a major one (I posted about it earlier)……..so it looks like the bad guys are all over the place...….we were down for 3 full business days!

[UKCruiseJeff]

Good  Evening All ...

 

JP - sorry to hear of your probs .... it is terrible.  You are well capable of looking after yourself but in case it might be of some help to your or others I have tried to minimise the effects of identity theft by doing the following stuff.  Recently my details have been stolen by three different hotel groups, two airlines and countless other different organisations.  I know this for sure because of the first suggestion ......

 

1.  If you can register a unique domain of your own that allows you to create email addresses on the fly.  So for examply elts imagine you register jpalbany.com (it is avaiable) - and have it hosted by a low cost host that allows mail.  So you become jp@jpalbany.com and chris is chris@jpalbany.com and you can set the mail so you each receive your own mail.  From then on every time you register for anything requiring an email address you create an email address "on the fly" and unique to that registration.  So your mailings from Silversea would be silversea1@jpalbany.com for example.  This means that when you start getting mail because SS have been hijacked, yougo into SS and change your email to silversea2@jpalbany.com and create a mail filter to automatically delete all future emails to silversea1@jpalbany.com.  This gives you bnoth an effective control over automatically deleting suspect and annoying emails in the future and you can tell SS that the system is compromised.  Most  viruses are sent to hacked email addresses so this will stop them being received so you reduce your own odds of,accidentally opening a nasty. 

 

2.  Alongside the above ensure that every single password you use is different for every registration you make.  This then ensures that if for example you are one of the majority that uses both a single email address and a single memorable password for all registrations, you only have to lose that information once and a bot can automatically trawl around every bank and organisation until it hits other organsiations that you use and discover they can get in.The issue with having a different password for each registration is how on earth do you remember them.  That is simple if you use a formula rather than just passwords.  My method is that the first part of the password relates to my favourite song, the second part my name (or my wifes name in case we both have say bank accounts at the same bank) and the last part relates to the organisation.   A worked example will help.

 

Imagine that your favourite record of all time is All you need is love" by The Beatles.  The obvious way would be to use the intitials ie "AYNIL".  But that might be easy to "bot".  So instead you change it to aYn10  - a combination of capitals letters and numbers ie a 1 instead of I .... the final zero being my substitute for tennis "l'ouef / love".  The next part is the organsiation so lets imagine it was Esso.  You might decide on a 3 for the E a $for the first S and a zero for the "O".  So you have 3$s0   Then say jaypee.  So the password for your account with Esso would be aYn103$s0jaypee.  

 

You may think that sounds like it is tough to remember but I find it simple after I've used it a few times and it is a simple formula you can make easier or tougher as you wish but the prinsiple is to have a formula for password creation that is easy to remember rather than trying to remember hundreds of password or worst using one for all.   By taking these first two steps one email addressand one password does not offer these people access to all your crown jewels.

 

I don’t think there is either much chance of it being guessed or even if found I don’t think it canbe used to guess your other passwords. 

 

Finally ....

 

3.  Use a service like Experian Identity Works.  What you do is you register with them all the stuff that Experian already knows ie all your bank accounts and credit cards and some key email addresses.  Their agents source and buy all the lists that are being traded on the dark web amongst other things and if any of your bank account details or credit cards start to be traded then you are alerted before they have been or as soon as they are being offered.  You can then take action.

 

I have no idea how much protection these three steps give me but I feel it better than nothing. 

 

I hope these ideas help either you or anyone else concerned about this terrible plague. 

 

Sorry about the typos .... ipaditis 🙂

 

Edited December 13, 2018 by UKCruiseJeff

[tgh]

 Commiserations to JP , and a big thank you to UkcJ for the valuable security advice.

Dining with a stranger in the middle of the earth, I was chilled by the depth of electronic espionage and the challenges of corporate or personal survival in this lawless environment.

I hope everyone reading takes a moment to consider their own vulnerability(s)
So far I have been just plain lucky, although swmbo requires constant vigilance for believable wedges.

The subtle, smooth and  very believable incursions challenge all but the most street aware

The attacks across our life are endless.

Mobile phones ,Landline phones , Internet..

Dealing with all this is a huge encumbrance.

I have a library of passwords protected by just one master ( and the mac keychain) … and it's not good enough….

I routinely hang up the landline at any hint of fraud and have offended some folks in the process.

Now I mostly just ignore it, and only respond to mobile calls that are in my contacts.

 

 

 

[mysty]

Greetings Coolers!

 

Today's funny comes courtesy of Miss S......

 

 

Have a great day all!

[mysty]

Greetings Coolers!

 

We off for an early Christmas celebration with our daughter and her lads.

 

Today's funny.....

 

 

Have a great weekend all!

[tgh]

I think I killed the thread..       sorry………..

 

tgh exits stage left     v  e  r  y    q  u  i   e  t   l y…..    

 

(sotto voice ) merry Christmas everybody….

[mysty]

49 minutes ago, tgh said:

I think I killed the thread..       sorry………..

 

tgh exits stage left     v  e  r  y    q  u  i   e  t   l y…..    

 

(sotto voice ) merry Christmas everybody….

You did not kill the thread tgh!  It has been very very quiet here.  I think people are wrapped up in holiday cheer.  🙂 And speaking of cheer......on to the red!

[jpalbny]

No worries tgh. Mysty, we had rose with lunch. And white with dinner. And some G&T tonight for a nightcap. No red, sorry!

 

Appreciate everybody's advice. The spam e-mails have slowed down for now. Waiting to see if the other shoe drops.

 

Had a relaxing day today. It was above freezing so we got to walk outside for a few miles. An unexpected treat this time of year.

 

Then we broke out the Garam Masala that we bought in India last year and made a nice chicken dish for dinner. Marinated in a ginger and spice marinade, fried in butter, and then roasted after a sprinkle of sugar and lime zest.

 

 

 

It was delicious with a semi-dry Riesling from our favorite Finger Lakes winery.

 

Working on the flights for our trip to Ukraine in May. Proving to be tricky business. The big flights are done but the smaller flights will take some more work. Tomorrow is another day.

[Lois R]

Good morning...…..it sure was a long week for me and all my co-workers...…..Friday we had our Christmas lunch. The office bought the meats and everyone brought side dishes. We had beef tenderloin and grilled chicken (the beef was FABULOUS).

We have a BIG smoker that my boss cooked both items on...….yummy!

I baked a carrot cake from a recipe I have been using for a few years now and everyone always gives it a thumbs up. It is from scratch and I found the recipe on the "McCormick" website.  You know, the spice company. Well, they have some good recipes! It was a lovely break from the stressful week of the hacking thing.

 

Hope everyone has a good Sunday and JP,  good luck with your flights AND your food photos look delicious too.

[mysty]

Greetings Coolers!

 

Today's funny for cat owners.....

 

 

Enjoy the day all!

[mysty]

Greetings Coolers!

 

Today's funny.....

 

 

Have a great day all!

[mysty]

Greetings Coolers!

 

The lights are still on in the Cooler Bar...

 

 

Today's funny....

 

Have a great day all

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 19, 2018 by mysty

[tgh]

Keep up the good work mysty, I am still reading…….👀

[jpalbny]

Me too - busy planning trips though so less time to post. Details to follow!

[Lois R]

Me 3 LOL...…….hope everyone is doing well. 

[jpalbny]

So I think we have the Ukraine trip nailed down. Chris's grandparents and parents were born there, but all left in the 1940s as WWII hit. Her parents were young children at the time.

 

Chris visited in 1993 with her Grandfather but that was a bad time to visit, as they had just come out from under the USSR and the country was very poor with no tourist infrastructure. She tells me about hotels with 1 hour of hot water per day, restaurants without menus where you sat down and ate whatever they had to serve, etc...

 

It seems a lot nicer now, especially in the west. There is a city named Lviv (or Lwow), which is where her family is from, and it is getting a lot of press lately as a hot new destination. I'm thinking from the descriptions, that it may be like Prague was before everybody discovered it.

 

Anyway, we wanted to spend a few days in Kiev and the rest of the time in and around Lviv. But getting there proved to be challenging, so I had to use every trick I could figure out! Because the number of airlines that fly to Ukraine is fairly limited, I spend a lot of time looking at different possibilities. I really wanted to do as much as possible on Sky Team since we have status and points there.

 

Ended up booking the transatlantic segments and the final flights to Ukraine on separate itineraries. You can fly to Kiev more easily than you can fly into Lviv, so we made it work by arriving in Kiev first. So we leave from Albany on a Friday night, and go to Paris via Detroit (only only stop). Once in Paris we have an Air France codeshare flight on Air Ukraine direct to Kiev, arriving Saturday afternoon. I got the TA flights through AMEX for $1000 less than the best price I could find on the web (that $550 annual fee really pays off).

 

After Kiev we have a 1h hop to Lviv on Air Ukraine (no codeshare this time). Getting home was even trickier, though. There are only a few places you can go from Lviv, and fortunately one of them is Frankfurt...on a Hungarian carrier called "Wizz Air." But that flight goes to Frankfurt Hahn, and we need to fly home from the big Frankfurt am Main airport. So...we arrive at Hahn on a Sunday afternoon, rent a car, overnight in Mainz which we really like, and drive to the main airport for a flight home to Albany (again, one stop in Detroit) on Monday. AMEX had no issue with the open jaw itinerary and as above, the discount was well worth it.

 

We also have a lot of Hyatt points lying around that we need to use as some expire next month. We own a timeshare that we haven't used in a few years but we've banked a lot of the points, and converted some to Hyatt points. So I booked the Hyatt Regency in Kiev and used Hyatt points for a suite upgrade that looks really nice. The points plus cash deals on Hyatt are really the most cost-effective way to get the most value for your points, I've found. I'm doing that as well for our last night in Mainz. There is a nice Hyatt there too.

 

Lastly, I used a bunch of timeshare points to book a nice hotel room in Lviv, through Interval International. They now have a hotel exchange program. It's not a great financial deal but the points would have expired so it was a nice bonus to get a great hotel room in Lviv for practically nothing. It's the #1 hotel on Trip Advisor so I'm hoping that they have hot water and good food. Sounds like they do!

 

So...after a few weeks of planning, I think I've ticked every box that we wanted. We managed to use Sky Team for as many flights as possible, saved a bunch of $ through AMEX, and used up our timeshare points before they expired. And we are going to a place that we've wanted to visit for years. And where Chris is fluent in the local language so I have a great tour guide!

 

Almost time to start packing for South America. 🙂 Just have to make it through next week. On-call from the 24th to the 30th...

Edited December 19, 2018 by jpalbny