NHS covid pass

I decided to check how I get an NHS COVID19 pass / QR code.

Update: Thanks to all that pointed out the couple of subtle clues on how to get an NHS login, which I missed initially.

I googled, and it seems you can ask for a letter or get it digitally, cool. But you need an "NHS login".

Well, I don't know what an NHS login is, but there is this helpful site, https://help.login.nhs.uk which tells you all about it. Nice.

This looks comprehensive. But I don't have an "NHS login", so let's try the "How to set up [an] NHS login"... https://help.login.nhs.uk/setupnhslogin/

OK, we have "What is NHS login" and "What you need to set up an NHS login" (yes, an "an" this time). There are other pages with more information on how to prove who you are, etc. There is the "Where can you use NHS login". OK, good.

Update: For those saying "just use the NHS app", I'm in Wales now, and it does not work!

Update: Oooh, it says clicking the button lets you create a login there, missed that the first time, but the the actual login page does not say that.

But call me thick, and maybe I am being blind here, but where is the "Register for an NHS login" or "Create an NHS login" link or "how to" on that? I looked around and cannot find it. It does not seem to actually tell you "How to set up NHS login" at all, missing that one crucial step of how you start the process!

I kept looking and I found the NHS COVID pass page, https://covid-status.service.nhsx.nhs.uk which has a login link.

Nothing about registering or creating an NHS login on there either. What am I missing.

Well, on a whim, I clicked on the "Continue with NHS login" link, even though I don't have one. Is continuing with NHS login when I don't have one "hacking"? A breach of The Computer Misuse Act 1990 maybe? You then get a login page...

Well, I don't have an "NHS login". What I did not spot initially was the "If you do not have an NHS login" bit. This seems to be the first clue that maybe I can make one if I enter my email address anyway. Why is this hidden away behind a "Continue with NHS login" link?

So now I get the option to "Set up a new NHS login". This is what I had been looking for all along. How the hell is this not on the the help site, or, well, anywhere before you actually try and "login"?

Update: One page for COVID19 Pass does say "You will need an NHS login to use these services. You'll be asked to create one if you do not have an NHS login already" but the page you then go to does not say that, just "continue with NHS login".

Anyway, I continued to create an NHS login. You go on through a few info pages, and create a password, and then this error...

Well, that is helpful. Giving that the previous page was password selection, and I used the browsers password manager to make a "secure" password, I naturally assume it is as password issue. So I try entering a password manually. I tried several passwords, simpler and simpler, and no joy. It simply would not work.

Then, on a whim, I tried a different email address. Just to be clear, that first page does do some validation on email addresses, e.g. ...

So I really had no reason to expect that it was unhappy with my valid email address. But indeed, using a different email address, it actually allowed me to proceed beyond the password set up. I have emailed them asking that they correct my email address, obviously.

When it came to mobile checking, I decided to use an 07 number, rather than trying 01 number, as clearly it is a stupid web site.

The domestic (48 hour!) QR code does not need any more than name, DOB, NHS number. The other longer pass needs ID image and a video and I'm waiting for that to be confirmed now. However, having seen someone else's, I note that the document says this...

OK, so it has an expiry, but how exactly does that expiry "protect you data privacy". The barcode does not fade after 30 days. The "data" is still in the expired barcode, and can still be read. So how exactly does the expiry protection anything - how does it do any more than cause inconvenience for the user?

Indeed, I am told if you request a COVID letter, there is no expiry - so do they not care about your data privacy when sending a letter, or was that just a lie? Having an expiry actually makes "data privacy" worse - if you printed the QR code, you will have to dispose of that securely somehow every time it expires. Why not just be honest?

And finally... The Welsh site https://gov.wales/nhs-covid-pass-prove-your-vaccination-status says :-

But the "domestic" QR code it gives you says ...

So how do I get a QR code valid in Wales?

Three weeks in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

Three weeks in Wales now, and it has been fun. I have felt very much in limbo still - much like when we were trying to get the purchase sorted. It makes it very difficult to get much work, or anything else, done, but I really feel the limbo is coming to an end and normality resuming (as much as lockdown can allow). The fibre being in and working is a turning point as well.

That said, there are a number of jobs still to do, and we have to sell the old house. It is finally ready, and needed a lot more work than we expected. It looks really good, so should be on the market next week.

We have been finding more and more little things that suggest the previous owners finished things in a rush somehow, or possibly just ran out of money. It is weird, but daft things like the tap fittings not tightened up, so one came off (thankfully we managed to sort before water everywhere - well done James with finger-in-dyke style shouting for help). We have tightened the toilet seats. We have done loads of little things we did not expect, as well as the larger things we did (like utility room, and my office, and so on).

Sadly the drive was a challenge - a very nice new driveway (basically, the whole house as been re-done very nicely apart from these minor niggles). But it ends on the existing tarmac out to the pavement, and creates a sharp hump. The removal van bottomed out and could not come in to the drive all the way, and it does not agree with James's Tesla - for some reason he wants to keep his battery pack intact! So, new driveway outside was one expense we did not expect, but nicely done. To our surprise the cables for the electric gates were not exactly what you would call "buried" - yet another small "detail". They are now.

We had it raised quite a lot as you can see by how much they raised the water cover. Now the Tesla can get over it cleanly... Looks nice.

I have also convinced my wife that my teletype is like her suit of armour, something to have on display in the hall. It still plays "Adventure" game on demand, and connects to the WiFi allowing it to be texted. I even got a birthday text on my teletype from someone :-)

I had been wary of unpacking it - and was pleasantly surprised to find it all in one piece and working. It now prints the guest wifi password of the day every morning :-)

P.S. Yes, the scales are now linked to print your weight on the teletype - thanks for the suggestion :-)

I am finding Abergavenny really convenient - everything so handy and just easy to walk to. Yes, I have sort of turned from an M&S snob to an Aldi middle aisle browser. Well, maybe not quite that far...

Where do I now live?

I'd post a lot more pictures, but it is an odd situation to be honest. With my last house we had lived there long enough that things like director's home addresses in Companies House was normal, and expected, unless you had a good excuse. My address was, by no means, secret in any way.

But if I say what sort of place I have bought, or almost any details, it will be obvious where I live. Do I want the world to know? Does it matter? It did not matter for the last 23 years (well, one journalist turned up on my doorstep for something once). At least for now I am not telling the world, so if you have worked it out perhaps don't post your conclusions just yet. It's annoying as it is a house with some character, and a shame to keep quiet in many ways.

Even so, I am feeling at home, and looking forward to life in Wales...

Internet in Wales

Having moved house, the Internet access was obviously going to be, err, "fun". It has gone through several stages...

What was meant to happen...

The first thing to realise is that we are not new to this - I mean, I do run an ISP after all. We know that phone lines, broadband, and fibre can take time to install. I have one of the best teams in the industry when it comes to dealing with BT, and they were on the case from the day we made the offer.

Fibre installs can take a lot of time, and need a survey, so I was happy to pay for the survey and get the fibre ordered months before we even exchanged. I had already looked around and worked out there was ducting, which even cut the corner of the property, so even a "dig" would not have been much work. As it happens the survey said overhead as they now use fibre cable not fibre tube (more on that in another blog). This means no excess charges, and no extra delays (in theory). So the fibre order went ahead. Basically, if we did not buy for some reason, we could cancel without too much cost involved, but ordering early would mean a good chance of fibre when we move in, or shortly after.

However, knowing the possibility of delays, phone lines were also ordered for broadband. The phone line(s) appointment was then set up for the day we exchanged, which is when the previous owners would allow BT access to install (previous BT access to survey had been done). At the last minute, BT cancelled that appointment due to "system problems". Several more appointments agreed and cancelled in the two weeks before we completed. All "system problems".

At one point a BT engineer did arrive to put in two phone lines, and got to the loft, and said that there was an existing service there (previous owner's) and so he was not allowed to install. The idea is that BT had just announced delayed appointments for any new install where there was already a service due to COVID, but this (a) was not to affect existing orders like this one, and (b) was to avoid BT engineers in people's homes - yet this engineer was already there. All he had to do was fit the sockets on the spare pairs, but no! He spent way more time in the house than he needed because he was on the phone arguing the toss with Ben at my office!

Several more cancelled appointments, and, well, read on. Suffice to say we did not have even DSL when we moved in, in spite of months of planning. The following stages happened over the first week or so - improving Internet almost day by day.

Flaky mobile

Day 1 was hectic, and all we had was mobile with 1 bar signal if you stand in the right part of the house.

4G dongle + small AP

We then progressed to a set up with a 4G dongle hanging out of a window connected to a FireBrick and a single Apple AP. This allowed WiFi in some of the house, with maybe 1Mb/s and lots of latency, but it was progress. This was a set up we had ready as a starting point.

4G dongle + better APs

They next step was where we get proper WiFi in the house. The FireBrick and dongle in the loft, but working out where to put the APs. Running network cables and a PoE switch, we worked out we can actually cover the whole house (inside) with 2 APs - one for North and one for South. This is because the house is essentially built in two parts and so has a thick stone wall across the middle.

Thankfully we have the services of JLP Property Management (son-in-law) to help, and run the cables in the walls. All neat any tidy, though the APs were hanging from a wire on the wall, we had good WiFi coverage.

The FireBrick and dongle and PoE switch were all set up in the loft, and worked a bit better than just dangling out of a window.

1 ADSL

Finally, after 3 days, we get an ADSL line, a whole 16Mb/s down and 1Mb/s up. Yes, ADSL not VDSL. It seems there is a cab, but it is full, and so on a waiting list!

This arrived at the same time as the fibre engineers! Yes, ordering a proper fibre install, and PSTN, months in advance and the fibre guys turn up at the same time! You would not believe it. However the fibre install cannot be completed as someone has fenced off some scaffolding around a BT chamber by the market in town. Arrrg!

Even so, on one ADSL we have progress. I started the work to sort out my proper IP addresses making my life a lot easier. I also got a small 19" rack for the loft, as you do.

Wired Internet

Next step was getting some wired Internet to some places in the house. Thankfully, and very luckily, we found the four phone sockets in the building were done using network cabling, so we could trace them, change the ends, and get network to some places. The front room TV/SkyQ/AppleTV could all now be wired in.

1½ ADSL

Next was the second PSTN/ADSL line. Obviously this was expected to be 16Mb/s too. But no! There was an underground fault, so only 6Mb/s.

The engineer took all day and gave up, said the underground team would sort in the morning. Even the escalation team at BT said next morning, but no, magically that was cancelled, and so not done.

I did however release a change to the FireBrick to allow it to adjust uplink speed based on speed data sent from the ISP end (which we now do on A&A lines) to allow uplink bonding to work better.

Another AP

The internal APs were fitted to the wall with some 3D printed brackets (once I found, and unpacked, the printer). Given the rather thick stone walls, an external AP was installed to cover the garden. We are now all properly set up with nice roaming WiFi throughout the house and garden, all connected to ADSL lines!

It actually looks like an external AP one side of the house is no use the other side even, the thick walls mean no WiFi even just outside the house. Oh well, another AP needed.

2 ADSL

BT finally fixed the second ADSL line. We have now put in the queue for a VDSL upgrade.

It took 6 days to get around to it, but the second ADSL is 15Mb/s (first now 14Mb/s), bonded. Sadly they are aluminium wires through...

Unfortunately they are far from perfect - seems some backhaul congestion, so a lot of jiggling line rates, forcing VoIP over just one line. And avoiding someone trying to use Disney+ during the day while we work.

Fibre

BT finally arranged access to their chamber. The fibre is 1Gb/s but will be only 90Mb/s backhaul for now. Even so, this should be a very reliable and low latency 90Mb/s, and is 90Mb/s up and down. Finally some decent internet, but with ADSL fallback, well, except...

The fibre, once installed and tested, should be provisioned. This is usually that day, or maybe at worst a day later. However, that was Thursday... If not for the scaffolding, it would have been Monday 1st.

Come the following Tuesday they finally say there is some connectivity issue, and suggest it is a "simple fix reversing the fibres between the patch panel and the ADVA", but they won't do that until the next day!

By Wednesday they had done a "hand over" of the Etherway - i.e. the fibre to the exchange was complete, but somehow the actual circuit back to London was not. As usual BT insist we wait, this time 2 days, and we know that nothing will actually happen during those two days, so we have to chase again on Friday. And, of course, we were right, nothing happened for 2 days. Now on to Friday we are told they have an issue with the VLAN tag!

And no, nothing happened on Friday, so nothing will happen until Monday now, in spite of all my efforts to escalate.

We are in to the third week after the engineers came and put fibre in, and we have issues like this: "The system identified a HSMDA port for this circuit and HE services are not supported on HSMDA cards, it was routed to 20347789:4/2 which is of the type ALN - HS-MDA (V2)" - yes I managed to get someone to tell me what was actually happening. Still no working fibre link though... "this will also involve a truck roll to get engineer to re-cable".

Apparently, I am now told (17th) that they should have it all working on Friday (19th). We'll see...

Friday 19th - updates during the day - by 4pm the new Etherway and Etherflow orders in place, so just waiting for something to happen. Should be "today" apparently. Remember, they installed on 1st, which would normally be the day it is live.

Finally 19:22, BT say the link is live and end to end tested and ready - except it does not work. They claim not to be any to see my kit on the line. Tried fibre and copper ports, and yep, comes up 1Gb/s on fibre port as expected, but still no joy. Arrrg!

OK, took me half an hour, but I checked the SFPs, and a simple mismatch, but I had a wired SFP/SFP cable which just worked - sorted and finally working. The SFP mix up was never going to work, but that did only waste half an hour...

Faster fibre

We will be upgrading the fibre to 1Gb/s as soon as we have a new 10Gb/s back end installed in London. We'll also have a nice shiny new FireBrick FB9000 prototype on the end of it really soon. These will take a bit longer, so more on that later.

Life in the slow lane

My first week in Wales! I even have a Welsh driving licence now?!

I have a blog post about the Internet access, but the Internet is still not sorted (thanks BT!), so that will be a few more days.

I have a blog post about starting to sell the old house, but that has run in to issues, and will be a few more days.

Suffice to say, things are taking time.

But I am getting the hang of Abergavenny a bit, as much as one can in lockdown. I seem to be averaging around 3 walks to Screwfix every day at the moment!

This house is a bit odd in a way - newly refurbished to a very high standard, but we get the feeling they ran out of money, as some of the finishing details seem rushed. All just little things - the odd screw missing from a telephone socket; A fault in the backup immersion circuit that has not been fixed, so just not connected instead; Some boarding in the loft not quite finished; The drive is all nice, but just outside the gates has not been re-done at all (still part of the property) meaning cars scrape as they drive in/out. Nothing important, just not quite "finished" :-)

Today’s fail :-) pic.twitter.com/3bQBydFmvN

— 𝖱𝖾𝗏𝖪 (@TheRealRevK) February 7, 2021

They did take all the toilet seats we think, as they all have cheap and nasty and not quite fitted properly plastic ones now. They took the light fittings, all except the nice one over the staircase, which they tried to sell us, and we declined! They did take all the bathroom mirrors and just taped up the power feeds and wrote "LIVE" on them. They took the Tesla charger, as expected, but also the cable from the consumer unit and the MCB! Nothing really a surprise (we did get a fixtures and content list), but a tad tacky...

There is a hot tub, yay! We are not sure what to do with it yet - no, I am not looking for advice on chemicals, etc (I have plenty already), thanks. But we discovered, after a week, that they have left it switched on, so it has been sat there at like 38C for a week it seems!

Oh, and I got the council tax bill, obviously!

We have had some success stories though - the utility room looked like it was going to be really hard to sort out, but it turns out the washing machine fitted perfectly with just a shelf raising, and the tumble dryer fitted perfectly with a unit removing and a tile removing. We were even lucky drilling the 4" hole as we think it may have once been a door or something - it was new brick and insulation and not stone! (I say "we", when I mean "Jim", obviously).

Many more things still to do, but we are settling in. I hope to get my desk today, which will be really helpful, as trying to work on a wobbly drop leaf table surrounded by boxes is "challenging". It is only 3.3m long, but getting that worktop upstairs is going to be, shall we say, "fun"... Just fitting stuff in to a 60% smaller "man cave" space is a challenge in itself.

Fingers crossed for next week going well with the fibre finally working and my office set up...

Life in Wales

It is a long time since we moved house!

One of the reasons we chose this house is that it has been refurbished to a high standard in the last year or so. It is over 120 years old but all modern inside.

The owners did some things very well - power sockets - loads of them - every bedroom has five double sockets so every corner is well covered. This is, in my opinion, quite unusual. So well done.

But these were not terribly technical people, so even in the 2020's they had UHF cabling and something called "telephone" cabling to some rooms. I believe it is the old way people used to talk to each other - and being phased out in a few years anyway :-)

One saving grace is that the telephone wiring was actually done using cat5e cable, so we have traced which wire goes to which room (with one mystery 5.7m cable run we cannot find) and we are repurposing for networking.

Sadly the satellite cabling is also slightly lacking - when I did our old house, decades ago, I ran 2 coax to each room and 4 to the main living room. That has been used for Sky, Sky+, SkyQ, and old UHF in various ways since, and not needed upgrading. In the new house - one coax to living room, and one coax to one of the bedrooms. Thankfully the SkyQ works off one cable giving us around ¼ of the channels. I don't watch Sky, but my wife (and the grand kids when they stay) do. So the challenge is neatly getting a second coax from the dish one end of the house to the living room the other end without looking untidy. Part of the challenge of any work is the metre thick stone walls in places.

We have WiFi sorted now, well, sort of - I need to print a mounting bracket once I unpack the 3D printer. But it is working with a North and South side AP, one each side of the stone wall in the middle of the house.

Of course we have no Internet as such - the WiFi is connected to a 4G dongle, which just about works. This is because PSTN and Fibre services ordered early November are not in. How the hell a simple PSTN line for broadband can take BT plc t/a Openreach this long is beyond me. They have cancelled loads of appointments (system problems). At one point last week the engineer did turn up - and was in the loft ready to connect two spare pairs (just had to fit sockets!) - and refused to. Apparently because COVID! Yes BT have some new rules on not doing new line appointments - but that is not to impact orders in flight like this, and the guy was in the house, with the previous owners, and actually got to the loft before deciding not to install. It is mental! Since then loads more appointments cancelled.

If only I worked for an ISP! Well, the team I have are some of the best in the business, but even they are pulling their hair out over this. BT keep agreeing an appointment and then not turning up or cancelling for no reason. It has been escalated and escalated many times. It is now a house with "no existing service" and I think telecoms even makes me a "key worker" but no, BT are just failing. It is not even that BT are refusing to install, they are agreeing the "system errors" are wrong, and agreeing a new appointment, but then failing. We are not asking for special treatment at all - just a simple PSTN line install for broadband - bog standard - not even running new cable as there are spare pairs to the premises.

The PSTN lines are the quick and easy install to be there until the much longer lead time fibre Ethernet install is done. We know they take time. The irony here is that BT claim to be coming to do the fibre today! I'm not holding my breath, but that would be truly crazy if a full Etherway install can be done before simply connecting a new PSTN line. I was, however, sent a box of "Fibre Aid" via Amazon from someone (I have since found out who, guessed right first time), to give to the engineer if he has any problems. I hope he has a sense of humour.

There is still a lot of unpacking to do - the biggest issue for me is that I am moving to a room that is maybe ½ the size of my former "man cave". I agreed to the move for my wife's sake, as she loves the new house. I love it too, except for the room I have been allocated. It was to be a room ⅓ of the size, but we could not even stack all the boxes from my man cave in there which proved my point slightly :-)

There are loads of other challenges, including the tumble dryer and washing machine not fitting in the space in the utility room, but thankfully we have a son-in-law that is a sparky and handyman living a few miles away (almost all of the close family now live in Ebbw Vale, hence moving here).

The new rules (Wales, June 2020) - a little different to England

The new rules (here) come in two force 1st June, and are similar to those in England, but not quite the same. These are the main changes that I can see.

Section 8 covering leaving home is replaced. This now covers leaving or staying outside your local area, and being indoors with someone not of same household or carer. This is different to England which simply covers sleep-overs. There are a similar (non exhaustive) list of reasonable excuses as before. There is also an 8A which, unlike England, requires you to work from home if you can.

There is a similar restriction on gatherings, but unlike England allowing up to 6 outside from any household, 8B restricts to two households maximum in Wales.

What does this mean:

• Like England, gatherings from different households indoors are not allowed, except for some reasonable excuses. Note, Wales has a non-exhaustive list of excuses for such gatherings, so slightly better than England.
• Like England, being outside is now fine in itself - but you are restricted to your local area - so no trips to Barnard Castle for the Welsh. This means we could expect some police checks on people driving still, maybe, as they may want to check you are not outside your local area.
• Like England, gatherings are still not allowed outside, but the restriction is more than two households, not more than 6 people as in England.
• Welsh has not added the elite athletes exceptions present in English legislation.

I am unsure how this works if someone in England leaves their local area and goes to Wales. The Welsh rules cover being away from your local area, so that is probably not allowed.