Being counted as young again

I have recently started a bowls* course. There are at least three clubs within walking distance and it's been on the 'to-do' list for about three years. It's funded by someone - erm, the national association with lottery money? - and as part of that, they collect demographic stats on who's benefiting from it.

I'm not saying bowls is a game played by old people, but the youngest age group on the form was 18-55!

* _{Lawn, played on an almost flat lot of grass, rather than crown green, played on grass with a big bump in the middle, indoors, played on carpet, or ten pin...}

Not so much lazyweb as 'I can't find on the web' part 2

The annoying sound issue with the TV is a definite hum whenever the volume is not set to zero. As no-one here is deaf, the volume usually isn't particularly high and so you can always hear the hum.

The DVD has its own speakers - and no audio input - so that's ok there, leaving the TV from a Virgin box and assorted files from a Raspberry Pi running the-media-centre-previously-known-as-XBMC.

The last one should be simple: just plug some speakers into the audio out on the Pi! Alas, the sound from that socket turns out to be notoriously bad. Not only is it from an 11-bit DAC rather than a 16-bit one, it's also distinctly noisy. And that's where I was last month.

But it turns out that you can get a box that takes an HDMI video+audio in and splits out the audio to separate outputs before passing on the HDMI signal. For about £15-£20.

And it works! There is a small amount of noise, but it's much quieter and a higher frequency, so I can't hear it unless everything is silent. Depending on the cause, it's possible moving the router or using a smoothed PSU may cure it entirely.

It's meant taking my speakers back from JA's PC - they're a pair of powered Kenwood speakers that I bought for £50 or £60 back in the late 80s / early 90s from somewhere on Tottenham Court Road. They've been used with multiple PCs since then and my only regret is that I didn't buy the larger pair for an extra £20. I've a memory that I was en route to staying somewhere and size was an issue.

An ok replacement has been got for her (another £18), so the total cost has been £34. Which is less than another TV. Hmm, get a second one for the Virgin box - the speakers have two inputs - or swap cables around every time?