Terry Barnes
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terryb72.bsky.social
Terry Barnes
@terryb72.bsky.social
630 followers 880 following 2.8K posts
Dad, fiancé, widow, reader, cyclist, camper. Parent to 3 wonderful teens, one with cerebral palsy and two neurospicy. Terrible synth player. Green. Long history in Telco and ISP. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ally & dad. Brighton-ish

Profile pic is middle-aged man head shot.
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terryb72.bsky.social
Powerchair on a tube train. Winning at life!
Child2 on the district line in his power chair. He is wearing a dr who Christmas jumper and reading a dr who book.
December 13, 2025 at 11:35 AM
terryb72.bsky.social
Looks like it's going well!
A screenshot snippet of some messages with child1 where he is giving me a dish by dish breakdown of his Indian meal.
December 12, 2025 at 10:51 PM
terryb72.bsky.social
Today's work listening.
The cd case of The Magnetic Fields - i.
December 12, 2025 at 11:01 AM
terryb72.bsky.social
Imagine!
An umbrella that looks like a giant Tunnocks tea cake wrapper
December 11, 2025 at 4:16 PM
terryb72.bsky.social
1992! Jesus. The year I turned 20.
The cd inlay of The Beloved's Sweet Harmony
December 10, 2025 at 11:00 AM
terryb72.bsky.social
How the shit is this 33 years old?
The cd case of The Beloved's Sweet Harmony
December 10, 2025 at 10:40 AM
terryb72.bsky.social
Now playing! Work music...
The CD case of Belle and Sebastian's If You're Feeling Sinister.
December 10, 2025 at 8:32 AM
terryb72.bsky.social
Child1 unable to find the correct nativity figures. He has improvised.
A nativity scene populated with anime figures.
December 9, 2025 at 1:57 PM
terryb72.bsky.social
New bed day for child2 today. This thing has been broken for months and the repair folk say it's so old they can no longer maintain it - it was already used when he got it a decade ago. So at some point today, a new one will arrive!
Child2's old hospital style bed with broken side that led to child2 learning new swear words when it repeatedly fell off in the middle of the night.
December 8, 2025 at 9:28 AM
terryb72.bsky.social
11 years ago! Natural History Museum.
A man in blue jeans and a black jacket sits with three children, one on his lap. Incredibly, almost all of them are smiling.
December 7, 2025 at 8:05 PM
terryb72.bsky.social
More stuff!
A test desk - like the manual boards operators used, but with meters and testers and stuff for testing lines. Big exchanges might have had a dozen or more of these. Testing is automated now but a really useful skill to know. When the operators got a call about a fault they'd scribble it down on a docket and pop it in a little shuttle thing and then it would go into this air tube system which emerged next to the test desk. The basket is to stop them flying all over the place. Supermarkets use a similar thing now for sending cash from the tills to the back of the shop. 1960's equipment. Each one of these cards is an amplifier or transformer and would be used to make one telephone call loud enough when it got to a distant exchange. Me looking up a fault code. These manuals aren't used any more, it's all online. This room hasn't been used for 20 years. Exchanges used to have permanent staff - this one had a dozen when I worked here - but modern equipment is very reliable - even more so when idiots aren't fiddling with it - so now there are maybe 4 or 5 people covering a whole county.
December 7, 2025 at 4:56 PM
terryb72.bsky.social
I spent my last day in 'large telco' wandering around the exchange I was an apprentice in with the guy I was an apprentice with. I asked for redundancy to just be dad for a while. Extra poignant as my friend Ian has now passed away so this was our last day of larking about together while being paid.
A telephone exchange DDF. Used for connecting two bits of equipment to each other. Every wire here carries 30, 120 or 480 telephone calls. Alarm panel from a System X telephone exchange. Makes 'Unit C' because it was the third exchange in the building since it opened in the 1930s. The building also has Unit D and Unit E. From painful personal experience it is important to know which exchange has the fault on it before you begin work. A control room for a digital exchange. No longer used, but three people would sit here behind monochrome monitors and deal with faults as they arrived. The bookshelf at the back contains all the manuals and one of my jobs as an apprentice was to do the monthly filing updates. Even though this room hasn't been staffed regularly for well over a decade it still smells faintly of Steve Wright's pipe tobacco. Part of a System X telephone exchange. This one was installed in about 1986 and is now redundant. Makes you feel old having stuff you worked on heading for the dumpster.
December 7, 2025 at 4:46 PM
terryb72.bsky.social
Only recently did it strike me that my late wife looked quite like Servalan. Less evil.
Jacqueline Pearce playing Servalan in Blake's 7, and Maria, being herself.
December 6, 2025 at 3:52 PM
terryb72.bsky.social
A quick google is all it takes.
and offensive term, largely replaced by "disabled" or "person with a disability". The word "handicapped" can reinforce negative stereotypes, as its historical use implies powerlessness, and the term itself emphasizes disadvantage.
December 6, 2025 at 2:36 PM
terryb72.bsky.social
In my sleeping bag in child2's room. Child1 wants to take his siblings out for brunch which is lovely but the house is bloody cold & so I am waiting for the little fan heater to it warm enough for me to want to get out of here and get child2 dressed.
A man cocooned in a sleeping back on a camp bed.a fan heater is just visible top left and an overflowing laundry basket because without heating it's very hard to dry the clothes after washing.
December 6, 2025 at 10:27 AM
terryb72.bsky.social
Singing a song live at the wedding paraphernalia works! Trying to build the smallest set of things that will work without spending lots of money or needing a transit van full of shit. This can just plug into the DJ's PA.
A small laptop, controller keyboard, audio interface and mic stacked rather precariously on a cardboard box.
December 4, 2025 at 10:14 AM
terryb72.bsky.social
Let's get this show on the road!
A laptop installing Reason and Arturia V Collection, next to a Behringer musicians' sound card.
December 1, 2025 at 5:28 PM
terryb72.bsky.social
Mehari was a 'quirky' choice. Dutch import. Mine was lime green. One of the promises I had to give Maria was never to put any of the kids in 'one of your fucking rotten old deathtraps'.
November 30, 2025 at 11:45 AM
terryb72.bsky.social
Amazing stuff! Early Christmas present for them
Child2 with his sushi on the tray attached to his wheelchair. 1&3 with the sushi they made. Child1 has a gob full of sushi.
November 29, 2025 at 10:48 AM
terryb72.bsky.social
Sushi school!
3 teenagers awaiting Sushi school. One is in a power chair with a grey top, one has dark hair, one is wearing a red gap top. An array of sushi things is in front of them.
November 29, 2025 at 9:38 AM
terryb72.bsky.social
The problem with the heating not working is that you have to use the immersion heater and fan heaters. Jeez.
A smart meter remote viewing unit showing electricity usage so fa this month of £322.
November 25, 2025 at 7:31 AM
terryb72.bsky.social
The Live Trains app is available.
A screenshot from the Live Trains app.
November 23, 2025 at 2:46 PM
terryb72.bsky.social
November 22, 2025 at 11:02 PM
terryb72.bsky.social
Cabaret Voltaire!
Cabaret Voltaire on stage at the Gardner Arts Centre
November 22, 2025 at 9:24 PM
terryb72.bsky.social
I must get round to these at some point.
A screenshot of a Mac screen showing 652 unread emails.
November 21, 2025 at 1:50 PM