Monday 19 June 2023: Tapwater

Monday 19 June 2023: Tap-water

I rarely drink tap-water neat. As it happens, I did so at about 04:15 this morning when I woke, ostensibly to answer the call of nature. This was my first time, drinking plain water drawn from the tap, possibly in a year. The issue is less about taste: I do not enjoy the mouthfeel of water that has not been carbonated. Tap water feels kind of greasy in my mouth, and consequently mildly unpleasant. The same applies to water from drinking water fountains. (Water in countryside streams even feels greasy to my touch.) Moreover, I do not experience uncarbonated water as quenching of my thirst. In contrast, fresh (as distinct from stale) carbonated water both quenches my thirst and does not have a greasy mouthfeel. I read, probably in some informal publication, four or five decades ago, that thirst quenching is about stimulating the saliva glands and then removing the saliva from the mouth (probably by swallowing the saliva-laced drink). I neither know the truth of this assertion, nor have I been able to corroborate it. However, if true, then it makes some kind of sense that flavoured water, such as fruit juice, a herb tisane, a barley drink, beer or wine would stimulate my saliva glands with their flavour.

I drank some carbonated bottled water last week. The weather was quite warm, and I had been outside in the vegetable garden all afternoon trying to clear a prospective plant bed of rank, shoulder high weeds. I felt hot, sweaty and thirsty. I drank half a glass of cold carbonated water from the fridge and it slaked my immediate thirst. Frequently, however, I run the risk of mild dehydration, and either I forget to drink or, if I am away from home, I avoid drinking so as to avoid the need to find and use a toilet. Ever since I discovered that caffeine (in tea, coffee and hot chocolate) was significantly elevating my blood pressure for stretches of several days at a time, I have had to eschew these drinks - sadly, including their decaffeinated versions, although I have no understanding of why this latter should be the case. (Please, someone, give me an injection to neutralise the hypertensive effect of caffeine, so that I can return to Monsoon Malabar double-espressi, to cups of my cherished Assam and Darjeeling blend, and to mugs of thick, steaming hot chocolate.) The weather being warm, I thought that I ought to drink some more, but I could not face drinking more water neat, carbonated or not, so into the next glass I poured a serving of our own home-made elderflower cordial (there are many elder bushes around the garden and orchard), and then filled the glass with the cold, carbonated water. That was a most pleasant drink.

I am ideologically uneasy about bottled water, partly because the industry uses mountains of plastic (which ends up accreting in enormous garbage patches swirling around the world's oceans), partly because transporting bottled water has a heavy CO2 footprint, and partly because the sale of bottled water is about spivs making enormous amounts of money (in 2021, the UK bottled water market was worth £1.64 billion) out of a commodity that people can simply draw from the kitchen tap. The foregoing notwithstanding, I have written before about having a strong preference for San Pellegrino bottled water. I do actually like the taste of it, and on a hot day (preferably somewhere in France or Italy) I should be happy to drink San Pellegrino bottled water all day until it was time to switch over to drinking wine for the evening. San Pellegrino is heavily mineralised (very hard), giving the water its flavour. As far as I am able to tell, it is the dissolved carbonates and bicarbonates of calcium and magnesium, as well as the absence of nitrates, that give San Pellegrino water its distinctive taste.

I have visited  Rome only once, twenty-five years ago. As well as the spectacular fountains, such as the Fontana di Trevi, and the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi in Piazza Navona, there are countless everyday public drinking fountains around the centro storico. The freely available water in these drinking fountains is considered to be high quality spring water, and hygienic having passed through a water treatment plant. One evening, I was dining in a pizzeria, and was asked what I wished to order to drink: "Acqua frizzante o acqua minerale?" The bottled water on the menu (ironically, it seems that San Pellegrino is not very popular in Italy) was more expensive than the vino da tavola, so I opted for the acqua minerale. The waiter took the empty water jug from the table, popped out of the restaurant to the public drinking fountain on the corner of the street, filled the water jug, and brought it back to my table. The memory still makes me chuckle. 

Sunday 18 June 2023: The EVRSTR V508 digital voice recorder

Sunday 18 June 2023: The EVRSTR V508 digital voice recorder

My history of using voice recording machines stretches back thirty years. The EVRSTR V508 is my second digital voice recorder. I believe that the shape of the machine can be described as a 'candy bar'. I like the size and weight of the machine - I find it a good size to handle and to use the controls, and a good weight (my first digital voice recorder was both too small and too lightweight for my clumsy fingers to keep a good hold). The microphone is positioned sensibly, at the top of the machine, and works entirely well (see below). On either side of the machine there are sockets: on the left for earphones, and on the right for a remote microphone (neither supplied). On the left side, towards the bottom, there is a tiny USB socket, used both for USB recharging (a process that appears to be managed automatically) the inbuilt battery, and for communication between the device and a computer. The controls on either side of the machine are sliding switches. It is vital to remember to 'save' a recording by sliding the record switch back from the 'record' position to the 'save' position, otherwise the recording will be lost when the on/off slider switch is slid back into the off position. There is a slot for a tiny data storage 'card', and another slider switch to determine whether a recording should use internal memory or the data storage card. There is a denoise slider switch, but I am unable to comment on its effectiveness. There is a delete button, but I have not used it, preferring instead to manage the audio files using a computer. There is a 'reset' hole that would probably require a pin or needle to operate.

On the front face of the machine, the control buttons are reasonably intuitive in their operation: a central run/pause button, right and left ‘next file’ (or next function) buttons, top and bottom + and - buttons (I mostly use these for varying the output volume, but they have other functions in other contexts), an ‘up-one-level’ button, and a menu button. There is a monochrome LCD screen measuring 22 x 22 mm. A small speaker occupies the bottom of the front face of the device. The size and quality of the speaker means that it is useful really only for monitoring, and not for listening, for which earphones are necessary.

The only thing on the bottom/base of the machine is a pair of holes for the attachment of a lanyard (not supplied). I consider this to be essential, and I have re-employed a lanyard from a long-defunct cellphone. On the back of the machine are labels for the corresponding switches, etc.. on the two sides of the machine. This is useful, although I imagine that the labels will rub off through wear. On the other hand, I have used the machine every day for the past nine months, and the labels seem to be doing fine. The impression I have is that the machine has been very thoughtfully designed with every intention to make its use feel intuitive. The quality of appearance of the device lies somewhere between the cheap and tacky on the one hand, and the stylish executive on the other.

The machine has two basic modes of operation: sound recording and playback. Technically, there is a third mode, which is navigating the menu system.

Sound recording is excellent. I mostly record in the open air while out walking. Later, I use Dragon Dictate to transcribe the WAV recording into an MS Word file. The two circumstances in which the recording is poor is when the weather is windy, and when there is noise from road traffic. In contrast, on one occasion during the spring when I was outdoors dictating, there was more bird song than usual. Later, back at home, I was able to separate some of the bird song from the dictation, simply by using Audacity, and was thus able to produce an excellent bird song recording in addition to my dictation. I have no doubt, therefore, that the machine would be capable of recording a lecture (as advertised). The audio files are named according their date and time stamp, which suits me well. This naming/stamping has been entirely reliable, unlike the unreliability of the same for my first digital voice recorder.

I often preload the device with music, podcasts and audio books, thus enabling me to listen using earphones to audio material while I am out and about. This works well, and is simple to use. The display screen shows what is playing. The machine can also be used to store files of other types (such as JPG files) transferred onto the device from a computer.

In recording mode, a tiny red light (LED) is visible in the top right-hand corner of the screen. The light is steady on pause, and flashes slowly when recording. This way round feels counter-intuitive to me, and I regret that I have frequently become confused about which state relates to which. There have been many occasions when, working through some difficult cognitive issue, thus dictating in snatches, I have managed to de-synchronise my dictating and recording, resulting in several minutes of recording only the sound of my footsteps on the road surface but none of my dictation. (My first digital voice recorder was even worse in this respect, so the EVRSTR V508 is something of an improvement.) I wish that there were a setting to be able to reverse this way round. Peering at the recording timer shown on the display screen resolves the issue, but this usually requires reading spectacles which I am unable to wear while out walking. Besides, focusing on whether the machine is paused or recording disturbs my elusive trains of thought. Further, whilst the red light is bright enough to be clearly visible while I am indoors, it is insufficiently bright to be visible when outdoors in daylight. I know that a brighter red light would consume more electricity, but it would, for me, make the machine marginally more functional.

Having an inbuilt rechargeable battery is a huge improvement over constantly juggling AAA batteries (as was the case with my first digital voice recorder). With a fully charged battery, I imagine that the recorder could last a full day before requiring a recharge. I say this because several hours of use requires only five or ten minutes of recharge. I do not know how long the rechargeable battery will last (the number of use/recharge cycles), and as it is not replaceable, this determines the lifespan of the machine. However, I have no sense that the use that I have given the device to date has had much impact on the machine at all, so I am hopeful that it has many years of life left in it.

Overall, I have been and continue to be very satisfied with the machine, and would recommend it. Maybe a fancy executive digital voice would be even better, but at a much higher price. Therefore, the EVRSTR V508 is good value for money.