I had an unexpected chat this week with a journalism student about some of my shots from back in 1992 but first I had an IT disaster over the weekend.

I had noticed that the screen of my Macbook laptop had been looking like it was failing and on the way out but the first sign was that there was a bizarre flickering at the bottom of the display.

I had a conversation with a friend who worked with computers and he said it would prove to be an expensive repair which was surprising as I have only had it for three and a bit years.

Basically it was looking very contrasty last week and on Saturday the computer refused to recognise my password and you can imagine my Rage Against The Machine. I was basically locked out of various accouts such as WordPress and my Outlook email.

Hopefully a replacement will arrive by Friday but in the meantime I am using an old PC laptop which is approaching 13 years of age and it is understandably slow (but, after regaining access to WordPress today, I can at least write this post).

Having said that I did receive some interest from the journalism student, who is based in London, who had read my post about my time with the Guardian Angels in 1992 when they regularly patrolled the London Underground.

Related post: My time with the Guardian Angels

Apparently they are considering returning to the New York subway following a rise in crime and she was investigating whether their return to London would be welcomed. Personally I felt that at the time they provided a reassuring presence to other passengers (bear in mind I was only with them for two nights in total) but other commentators felt that they were ineffective.

Related article: New York subway violence prompts return of volunteer vigilante group: should London follow their tracks?

I did keep in touch with a few of the volunteers after my time in London and did try to see if they were still going in recent years but, like the student journalist, I found no trace of them. Having said that if they did return it would be definitely be worth revisiting the project for an update.