Category life

Dec 16 2012

Don’t worry, it will be better in the morning (hopefully).

English: toilet wc

English: toilet wc (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Is there anything worse than a child who is ill? It has to be among the most heartbreaking things in the world. It’s bad enough when you suffer yourself. It’s doubly bad when you have to watch someone else suffering. When it’s a small child, it pulls at your heartstrings.

There are, of course, degrees of suffering and poor baby Maisie only had a tummy bug last night. Even so, it was a fraught and traumatic 24 hours. Because she was feeling under the weather and looking for comfort food, everything she craved was a bad idea; chocolate, sweets and barbecue beef hoola-hoops are not really the order of the day. Calpol is a wonder drug and it took the edge off for a while but after a while it returned with a vengeance.

She was absolutely shattered and unfortunately, her body decided at regular intervals that everything inside her needed to come out somehow. It doesn’t take too much of that process for the body to become completely dehydrated. The best way to remedy this is to drink rehydration salts, but they are an acquired taste and she had absolutely no inclination for acquisition last night.

When your body purges like that, certain parts of your anatomy become sore through overuse and she started to cry every time she went. There is a certain helplessness when you look on with a burning desire to make everything better (which is normally within your power) but this time, there is simply nothing you can do. Maisie alternated between wanting you to cuddle her and pushing you away saying she wanted to be left alone.

She is back with Mummy now and hopefully on the road to recovery.

On the plus side – I taught her to say bum gravy.

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Dec 13 2012

A snarling trail of traffic that stops every now and then for a spot of tetris

Air pollution is high in Indian cities.

Air pollution is high in Indian cities. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Out in Chennai this week visiting the troops. The thing that always amazes me about this place is the traffic. It is quite unlike anywhere in the Western world. The first time your car pulls out into moving traffic (and seemingly certain death), somehow it all happens without collision.

At some point, the driver will probably perform a U-turn to face the opposite direction. You look on in abject terror at the oncoming traffic first from one direction and then the other, but somehow, it just nonchalantly happens.

At first the cacophony of car horns, some melodious, some are so loud they sound like ships coming out of harbor and some so tinny that they wouldn’t sound out-of-place on a 1976 Ford Anglia. But there seems to be a system, one beep for coming through and two beeps for thanks.

Occasionally, the huge, monstrous trail of traffic comes to an obstruction such as a set of traffic lights at which point they jockey for position like some bizarre life-size game of tetris. Then they come to a complete halt and fall blissfully silent as they wait for the traffic lights to kickstart the mayhem all over again.

Motorcyclists with absolutely no regard for their own personal safety lunge for perilously narrowing gaps between a dirty great lorry and a bus and they swoop through appearing completely unruffled on the other side. Sometimes the motorcycles will have pillion passengers, sometimes one of them will be carrying a baby.

They nominally drive on the left, but it seems to be optional as tuk-tuks, bicycles, pedestrians, buses, cows and lorries sometimes choose to go against the flow and make their merry way against the traffic.

Every fibre of your being tells you that all this shouldn’t work. In the West, we have rules and 99% of people follow them and yet we still have crashes. Somehow, the chaos seems to work and I’ve yet to see a collision. I saw the aftermath of one a few years ago, but considering the sheer amount of vehicles – it’s amazing that there aren’t more.

I don’t think I could ever drive in this environment. Being driven is stressful enough, but I do hold a sneaky admiration for those that do. One day, all these roads will end up as sanitized as those in the Western world and a big part of what makes India different will be lost.

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Dec 9 2012

In the navy

Age of Sail

Age of Sail (Photo credit: Mark Faviell Photos)

Have you ever been taken aback? Do you know where the phrase comes from? Has anyone ever told you to get cracking? Have you ever struggled to make head nor tail of something?

English is one of the most pervasively spoken languages in the world. As a dialect developed in an island nation, it’s no great surprise that much of the phraseology comes from a life on the ocean waves. I managed to pick up a lexicon of nautical slang during our recent visit to Portsmouth and I’ve chuckled ever since!

The phrase “taken aback” comes from the age of sail where the wind fills your sails in completely the wrong direction. The phrase “get cracking” refers to the noise made when a sailing ship hoists more sails and the wind fills them making that characteristic “crack”. Naval signallers would typically respond with “can’t make head nor tail of it” when they received a garbled transmission.

The origin of some phrases is fairly obvious when you think about it. If something “takes the wind out of your sails”, you’re not going to make much progress. If you are expecting trouble, it makes sense to “batten down the hatches”. It certainly did if you were on a sailing ship heading into a storm.

Sometimes it takes a while to “get up to speed” on something – again, an expression from the age of sail. Often it takes a while until you “know the ropes”. Once you do, you can “fathom” things out. A fathom is a nautical measure of 6 feet of depth which quite literally referred to the amount a man could grasp.

In nautical terms, everything above decks is commonly referred to as “all above board”. This has come to mean that everything’s open and nothing’s hidden. If it weren’t, you could be forgiven for not “touching it with a bargepole”. But if it had a “clean bill of health”, you would be happy. A bill of health was the report filed by the medical officer on the physical condition of a sailor.

You might think this is a load of “codswallop”. Wallop was a name for beer. In 1875, Hiram Codd came up with a process for bottling carbonated water. Before long, sailors came up for the derogatory term of codswallop as a description of this very poor substitute for the beer they were used to.

I think my favourite nautical term has to be to “get your own back” which refers to the lavatory arrangements on submarines. Essentially, there is a tank into which whatever a sailor produces is deposited. Once the sailor has finished, the contents are flushed out to sea with air pressure.

Unfortunately, there is a top valve on the tank which can, either through incompetence of the sailor or through sabotage, can result in the tank contents coming inboard onto the poor sailor – hence the expression!

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Dec 4 2012

A Victorian Christmas

HMS Victory, Portsmouth Naval Dockyard

HMS Victory, Portsmouth Naval Dockyard (Photo credit: EEPaul)

I have a certain reputation for being Mr “bah humbug” when it comes to Christmas, and yet my wife and I spent last weekend down in Portsmouth specifically to visit the Victorian Christmas fair in the historic Naval Dockyards. It is a magnificent setting combining an old Naval base, some magnificent old ships and all the Victorian trimmings of Christmas.

Trawling through a busy marketplace is not normally my idea of fun and yet the Christmas stalls at the fair were varied enough to be interesting, and I tucked into mulled wine like the best of them. As we walked around, there were loads of people dressed up in Victorian costume. From the bawdy wenches who gave me a hard time as I walked past to the guards and their convicts in manacles who marched around the place shouting “make way for innocent men.”

We paid a visit to Fagin’s tavern where various old-time music acts played. We were treated to Brian, the charming but slightly crap piano player taking us through his repertoire of Christmas tunes. After Brian, on came a Bavarian oompah band, who wanted far too much audience participation for our comfort, especially seeing as we were sat in the front row.

Everywhere we went, someone was either bursting into song or dancing or both. A bunch of orphans with their thumbs tucked into their armpits gave a he artful rendition of “Consider yourself” as artificial snow cascaded down on their heads. There was an excellent band of pipers marching up and down belting out some cracking tunes whilst everyone tried desperately to dive out of their way.

There was an antique shop on site which was packed to the rafters with amazing stuff. They had a magnificent array of weaponry including a surface to air missile and an AK47. There was a German MG34 dating from Word War 2 with my name on it, but my wife didn’t agree. I suppose it was a tad expensive at the best part of £7,000.

She did buy me my Christmas present though. A truly magnificent, atmospheric three-part painting by Rob Huxley which will look awesome in my newly decorated games room.

All in all, it was over far too quickly, and I might have felt the first stirrings of Christmas welling up inside me. I’ll have to learn more self-control.

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Nov 28 2012

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

English: Santa Claus with a little girl Espera...

English: Santa Claus with a little girl Esperanto: Patro Kristnasko kaj malgranda knabino Suomi: Joulupukki ja pieni tyttö (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I find Christmas is a bit like dragging a brick across a table by a bit of elastic. Nothing happens for a long time and then bang! It all hits you at once. Christmas always seems like it’s ages away then suddenly, it’s upon us like a rabid tiger. I try and fend it off with my inner “bah humbug!” but it’s no use – it’s inevitable.

Even though it’s still November (admittedly only just), time seems to be creeping away. I keep seeing updates on Facebook from people who have already put their Christmas decorations up. Down in Cornwall, the old people’s home opposite even had them up two weeks ago.

I don’t mind the inevitable Christmas dinners. I usually have three or four – there’s the office one, the London office one, the partner one and oh yes – there’s Christmas day too. Opening presents is fun too and I enjoy seeing kids faces when they open presents from us.

The bit I find really challenging is choosing presents for everyone. My wife says – what shall we get your Mum this year?  What about your Dad – and my mind goes blank. Not a good sign when they are usually the first two she asks about and that’s before I’ve chosen something for my wife. Of course we eventually get there every year, but it’s a lot of mental anguish in between all those Christmas parties!

christmas tree

christmas tree (Photo credit: peminumkopi)

I have a pathological hatred of wrapping presents – so much so that I bribe one of Julie’s friends to wrap mine for me every year. The princely sum of a bottle of wine usually secures her services and she wraps them with gusto!

Then there’s the question of what we do after Christmas – shall we go away or shall we stay here? Will we have a party? Who are we going to invite. With the kitchen one floor, several worktops, tiles and many doors short, I find it hard to imagine it all being ready in time.

Like everyone, I suspect I enjoyed Christmas a hell of a lot more as a child. Not that I ever believed all that Santa Claus nonsense – I quickly worked out that it was mathematically impossible for him to get to every house in the UK overnight, let alone the rest of the world. We’ve never lived in a house with a chimney and Dad’s assertion that Santa squeezed down the central heating flue sounded very unlikely seeing as every effigy of Santa looked so fat that you’d be forgiven for thinking he’d eaten a reindeer.

Still – ’tis the season and all that – Ho bloody ho!

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Nov 22 2012

The sound of silence

The Noise Within

The Noise Within (Photo credit: Cayusa)

My phone is almost always on silent, which drives my wife mad because I often don’t hear the thing ringing when she’s trying to get hold of me. The main reason is that I don’t really want to disturb anyone else with my ringtone. If I do notice my phone ringing – I try to keep my conversation muted and short if I am in a public space.

Some sounds are pleasant. The sound of water flowing over a babbling brook for example or birdsong on a bright summer’s day. I even quite like the pitter patter sound of rain (if I’m indoors) which is a good job bearing in mind where I live. although people’s tastes differ, almost everyone likes music of one sort or another. I find some people’s voices very pleasant; Lawrence Dallaglio has an amazing voice as does the guy who used to play the lead in Spooks.

Some sounds are unpleasant. Nails scratching down a blackboard make probably the most horrible sound in the world. Breaking glass, screaming and shouting are unpleasant not just because of the sound themselves but also because of what sometimes accompanies such sounds.

As I sat on the train this morning, I was surrounded by a sea of irritating noises. There was the guy who sat opposite who juggled two mobile phones. He was constantly speaking on one of them whilst the other one rang, at which point I assume he told the person on one phone to hold on whilst he answered the other one. I can’t really tell because although his voice was so loud that I heard every word, he was speaking in a foreign language.

Then there was the young girl with ear-bud headphones on. Her music was so loud that just about everyone in the carriage could hear the tinny sound of whichever song happened to be playing. I couldn’t recognise the exact track, but it sounded appalling, and she must be almost entirely deaf. If she isn’t, she will be before long.

They were the main noise polluters but almost everyone else’s phone made some kind of chirp, beep or irritating melody during the hour I was on the train. At one point, I gave up reading my book and took a look out through the window. I just happened to notice a sign at the base of the window. It showed a graphic of a mobile phone with a cross through it and the words “Quiet zone, please  respect other passengers”

God knows what it was like outside the quiet zone.

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Nov 14 2012

The 7 wonders of Fore

English: Photograph of tbe remains of Fore Abb...

English: Photograph of tbe remains of Fore Abbey, Co Westmeath, Republic of Ireland (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

No childhood visit to Ireland was ever complete until we visited the tiny village of Fore in County Westmeath. The place held an absolutely mystical quality. The best bit was the old ruined Benedictine abbey which dates back to the 15th century. You could clamber all over it and once armed with a suitable stick, you could play out your own personal swashbuckling saga.

For a while, we thought the abbey was the sum total of the attractions in the village until one day, granddad took us on a walk around the place. He solemnly told us that we were going to see the wonders of Fore. All the mystical work of a 7th century Irish saint, there are seven wonders in total (although on the day, granddad couldn’t remember what they all were).

He showed us the wood that doesn’t burn, the water that flows uphill and the water that doesn’t boil. He told that the monastery built on the bog was one of the wonders as was the stone above the door which St Fechin raised with his prayers. The ones he couldn’t remember were the mill without a race and the anchorite in a stone. “How do you know the water won’t boil?” I asked him. “Can we take some home and test it?”

He looked at me in horror as if I’d suggested not going to church on Sunday. “You can’t test it – that would be bad luck! You’ve just got to believe it.” At our tender age, that was all that was needed and our scepticism evaporated.

When I returned to Ireland as an adult with my wife, brother and his partner, we told the girls that Fore was the one place we simply had to visit. On the way, myself and my brother excitedly relayed our childhood memories of what was there. We told them all about the abbey and the 7 wonders.

As we arrived, we noticed the transformation in the place. There was now a purpose-built car park and a map board showing the locations of all the attractions. There were nice paths linking everything and little signs by each of the wonders. The abbey was in the middle of a restoration and you could no longer get to the upper floor. The girls were completely underwhelmed by the wonders. Despite the only wondering being done was wondering what all the fuss was about, the place is still magical to me.

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Nov 7 2012

Predicting the future is a very tricky business

future

future (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)

Predicting the future is a very tricky business. Probably because the rate of change in our lives means that by the time you have made the statement or written the article, time has moved on. Because of this, only the foolhardy or the charlatans make such predictions. Here are some famous quotes about the future to give you the idea;

“There are many methods for predicting the future. For example, you can read horoscopes, tea leaves, tarot cards or crystal balls. Collectively, these methods are known as nutty methods. Or you can put well-researched facts into sophisticated computer models, more commonly known as a complete waste of time.”
Scott Adams

“There is no need for any individual to have a computer in their home”
Ken Olson, President of Digital Equipment Corp

“640K [of memory] ought to be enough for anybody”
Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft

“Computers of the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons”
Popular Mechanics Magazine

“One-hundred million dollars is way too much to pay for Microsoft.”
IBM 1982

“It would appear that we have reached the limits of what it is possible to achieve with computer technology — although one should be careful with such statements, as they tend to sound pretty silly in five years.”
John Von Neumann 1949

“I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won’t last out the year.”
Prentice Hall business book editor 1957

“This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication.”
Western Union memo 1878

“We will never make a 32 bit operating system.”
Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft

“The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty – a fad.”
The president of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford’s lawyer, Horace Rackham, not to invest in the Ford Motor Co., 1903

After Obama’s victory in the US elections, I thought that now is a good time to make some predictions about what the world might look like at the end of his 4 year term. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether I’m foolhardy or a charlatan.

My version of the future goes something like this;

After  nearly a decade since the banking crisis, the world economies are booming once more. Growth is positive just about everywhere, but some countries are doing better than others. Africa is the new powerhouse of manufacturing with a constant flood of cheap consumer goods flowing both into the Western economies but also Eastwards into the burgeoning Chinese and Indian middle classes. Living standards are improving in Africa but there are many stories of exploitation, low wages and child labour.

After a long period of inflation in India and China coupled with stagnant wages in the Western world, Western companies are busy either repatriating their offshore operations or moving them to the much cheaper African continent.

The European union now operates two separate currencies; the Northern Euro (or Neuro) and the Southern Euro (or Seuro). The whole world is involved in a massive aid operation for Greece which is now a third world country thanks to the austerity measures and constant recession of the last 10 years.

Screens are rare and have largely been replaced by worn screens in the form of virtual reality spectacles and contact lenses. Keyboards are rarely seen, all input is carried out either via voice or gestures. Wireless networking is now free and universal so cables are a thing of the past.

Scientists are in the advanced stages of testing genetic treatments which render cancer an innocculable condition and treatments have been developed to cope with the effects of obesity and alcoholism.

Someone else will have invaded Afghanistan. The Israelis and Palestinians will still be at each other’s throats although peace talks will be looking promising. There will have been 3 gun massacres in the United States by crazed gunmen. After the last such incident in which a huge number of schoolchildren were gunned down, the USA are seriously considering new gun control laws.

Oil is now running at $20 per gallon and people have abandoned petrochemicals at an ever increasing rate. Renewable energy is the new oil and companies leading the field are booming. Most town and city centres have outlawed petrochemical powered vehicles. Global warming has stabilised and the Northern ice cap is starting to grow back once more.

Do I seriously believe my version of the future ? Well – no, 4 years is far too fast for some of the things on this list, but I live in hope that the more positive items in the list do become true and that we wake up in time to prevent the negative items.

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Nov 4 2012

Why I could never vote for Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney Steve Pearce event 057

Mitt Romney Steve Pearce event 057 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A wise man once told me that if you are hiring someone, you should look for three essential qualities; the ideal candidate should be smart, get things done and not be a jerk. These seem like excellent yardsticks against which to judge the candidates, Barrack Obama and Mitt Romney.

Although the discussion is moot because since the declaration of independence, I as an Englishman, have no say over what happens constitutionally in the good old US of A. Our needs of the future president are somewhat modest. As long as he keeps the wheels on the world economy for the next four years and as long as he doesn’t drag the world into mass conflict, we will be reasonably OK.

So are they smart? There are rumours that Barrack Obama was a C grade in school and college. As you can imagine, it’s very difficult to find dispassionate and impartial evidence either way during an election. What we do know is that he graduated from Harvard with a law degree in 1991 so he must be reasonably intelligent. What about Romney? He also attended Harvard gaining both a law degree and an MBA so he’s pretty smart too.

So far, so good. Do they get things done? No-one could argue that Barrack Obama was dealt a good set of cards by the previous administration. George Dubbya Bush buried toxic waste under the White House lawn in the form of the nose diving economy, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and Guantanamo Bay before handing over the keys.

Obama failed to close Guantanamo. Closing the place is easy. Finding a politically acceptable home for the 166 detainees is another thing altogether. So on this point he failed, although I have more hope that he will close it eventually than Mitt Romney ever doing so.

Although Obama brought the war in Iraq to a close in 2011, the war in Afghanistan rumbles on, but at least there is a timetable for withdrawal in 2014 and the Obama administration managed to scalp Osama bin Laden.

On the economy, since the deep recession in 2009, the GDP growth rate has been positive in the US ever since. For over 2 years, the US economy has added jobs and the trend seems positive. Critics have been quick to highlight the rise in the unemployment rate in the latest figures from 7.8% to 7.9%. You could argue anything with statistics, but there are more jobs and there are more people hoping to find a job which must be a good thing.

Critics also point to the towering deficit. As with lots of countries, the US deficit has ballooned since the banking crisis. The US defect stood at an inflation adjusted $1.5 trillion in 2009. Every year since, the deficit has been steadily reduced to a still eye watering $1.1 trillion, but at least it’s heading in the right direction. To put this in perspective, the US budget has been in deficit for 60 out of the last  72 years and the current figure stands at roughly double the deficit from the previous peak in 1945.

Obama brought healthcare to 32 million uninsured Americans, saved the beleaguered US car industry, stopped US torture and allowed gay people to serve in the armed forces.

Romney famously captained the successful Olympics 10 years ago in Salt Lake City. He was elected governor of Massachusetts in 2003 where he managed to cut the deficit from $3Bn. There is history of him running for the White House before, but until now he retains bridesmaid status.

So they can both get stuff done. Are they jerks?

At the end of George Dubbya Bush’s tenure, world opinion of the US seemed to be at an all time low. Obama has done much to restore that reputation. His smooth, tolerant and patient demeanour was exactly the right tonic. He is a likeable man.

Romney famously wrote off nearly half the country with his 47% comments. During the 2nd Presidential debate, he said he would add 12 million jobs to the economy only to say 45 minutes later that Government does not create jobs. He insulted Britain on the eve of arguably the most successful Olympics ever by calling into question our ability to run the show.

And that is why I could never vote for him. The man’s a jerk.

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Nov 3 2012

Star Wars could do with some magic

English: Opening logo to the Star Wars films

English: Opening logo to the Star Wars films (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There was something magical about Star Wars. Confusingly, it was the first and the fourth film in the saga and it came out when I was just 7 years old. There are not many films I clearly remember watching at the cinema from back then. I remember two. Grease was enjoyable but not really my cup of tea. Star Wars, however was magnificent. It was a classic science fiction fairy tale, with a Princess (Leia), a downright evil baddy (Darth Vader), a loveable rogue (Han) and a rag-tag collection of droids and a farm boy.

I don’t know how many times I’ve seen the film, dozens probably. It was on again last weekend and considering it is now 35 years old, the film wears its years very well. The version being shown was the hobby enhanced edition with all the effects George Lucas added on afterwards to tart up the film. To be honest, I don’t think they add very much to what was already a damn fine film. If anything, the pace seems a little pedestrian, but certainly watchable.

Fast forward to this weekend and we sit here watching the second film in the franchise (or episode V in the new parlance), The Empire Strikes Back. Most people agree that this is by far the best film of the series but I’m not so sure. I like the ice battle on planet Hoth, but I find the training scenes with Yoda very slow. It is still a good film though and ranks among my favourites.

In between these two screenings, there was an enormous disturbance in the Force. A colossal empire by the name of Disney took control of the Star Wars universe. And boy, do I think it’s a good thing. Despite being no lover of Disney, somehow I have been to both Disney World and Disneyland and whilst I don’t like the tweeness and the triteness, I have to admire the vision and production values that lie behind the brand.

After the first three Star Wars films, the franchise was on a real high. It seemed unstoppable. There seemed hardly a child in the world who didn’t own a huge collection of Star Wars figures. A vast merchandising machine went into action and there was Star Wars on just about anything you can imagine.

When George Lucas announced the next three films in the series, episodes I – III, the Star Wars community rejoiced. There would be more wondrous science fiction epics to watch. Only somehow, it didn’t work out that way. There was a fine cast and the effects were magnificent, but where was the humour?  Where was the witty dialog? The interplay between charismatic characters. They were turkeys.

Disney have announced the next three films and let us hope that in these films the Force rediscovers its mojo. If they can hit the high notes that they did with Pirates of the Caribbean, then all will be well in the universe again.

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