Why do we let this creepy company called Google spy on our emails?
By Angela Levin
To many, the colourful home page of Google is the friendly face of the internet. Indeed, the company, which was created 12 years ago by two American PhD students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, has always prided itself on its quirky presentation.
The hallways of the ‘Googleplex’ headquarters in California are stuffed with pianos, lava lamps, games and funky furniture for the enjoyment of staff, its webpage often features specially designed logos for days such as Halloween, Christmas and national festivals and – crucially – Google gives away its software for free.
Add to that its rather hippyish business principles (‘You can make money without doing evil’, ‘You can be serious without a suit’, ‘Work should be challenging and the challenge should be fun’), its corporate philanthropy and its clashes with the Chinese government over free speech, and it is easy to see why Google is often regarded as a warm, fluffy ‘good guy’.
Pride: The 'Googleplex' headquarters in California, pictured, are packed with lava lamps, pianos and funky furniture
The only mystery seemed to be how, exactly, it managed to achieve revenues of more than £15 billion last year.
In truth, though, it is a creepy, multi¬national company that spies on us, as I found out a week ago after I foolishly left my laptop in the back of a London taxi.
I made some disconcerting discoveries about Google that have left me deeply unhappy about the business practices of this most apparently ‘cuddly’ of corporate giants.
Like 190 million others, I had signed up for Google’s free service Gmail to write and receive emails.
This was a new development for me, replacing Microsoft Office Outlook, which was largely trouble-free but which I found cumbersome to use away from my home internet connection.
Various friends advised me to switch to Gmail, saying it was easy to use and accessible from anywhere. It was simple to set up an account, and at first I barely noticed the advertisements that pay for the service. There is space for eight adverts down the side of the screen on the Gmail page, plus another across the top.
I was bereft when I lost my laptop and absolutely overjoyed a few days later when the taxi driver emerged from the snowed-in wilds of Essex and returned it to me. I immediately emailed friends with the good news.
But within a second of the email being sent, a column of adverts had appeared down the right hand side of my Gmail screen. The adverts offered me the chance to ‘save hundreds’ on a new PC.
A shiver slid slowly down my spine. The adverts were being specifically targeted at me because of what I had written in a private email to a friend. Though I found the discovery deeply creepy, I carried on using Gmail, noticing all the time that I couldn’t write anything to anyone without Gmail offering me comments, suggestions and temptations.
Electronic spy: Angela Levin found that using Gmail made her a target for adverts based on information in her private emails
This might just be tolerable when the email is innocuous. But it certainly was not when I recently emailed a lawyer about a difficult and sensitive problem and back came a host of offers advertising various lawyers and help with a legal compromise agreement.
I felt as if I were being stalked and the experience left me with a raft of questions. What does Google know about me? How dare they invade my privacy? And is there a hidden agenda?
A honey-voiced Google spokesman was quick to respond to my call and insisted the adverts were generated not by a human being, but by a computer programme that all servers use to scan emails looking for spam and viruses. And that no information was read or sold to advertisers.
That may be true, but Google does use the content of your emails for commercial gain. It scans your words and searches for key words in the same way it does when you use the Google search engine.
When a key word from your email matches a key word in an advert in the Google bank, the relevant adverts electronically line up to hit first your email page and then your pocket.
Advertisers are invited to bid for key words. Popular phrases such as ‘cheap flights’ command vastly more money than, say, ‘arachibutyrophobia’ – the fear of peanut butter sticking to your mouth.
The advertiser is then charged on a cost-per-click basis – the more people who click on the advert and go through to the advertiser’s website, the more they pay. This is how Google makes its £15 billion a year and it is what you are signing up for, however inadvertently, when you click on Google’s terms and conditions.
It doesn’t, of course, explain why they also scan emails that arrive from non-Gmail users.
In theory, there are ways you can fool Google and block the adverts. The robotic searchers seem to have a smidgin of sen¬sitivity, and if you mention suicide, murder, death, 9/11 or some other catastrophe in your email no adverts will appear, but only, it seems, if you type in the word often enough.
An American professor of new media, Joe McKay, discovered that the ads disappear if you mention something tragic at least once every 167 words.
Another twist: The Google street-mapping car gathered personal information
You can get the same effect through the liberal use of vile four-letter words in your email, but this seems more to protect the sensibilities of the advert¬isers, who might not want their products to be associated with such language. In practice, of course, neither course of action is workable. It also helps to carefully ¬balance the pros and cons of using Gmail.
On the one hand it is free, but then so are Hotmail and Yahoo – which both also rely on advertising, but which don’t appear to trawl through your emails and hit you with intrusive ads within milliseconds.
Gmail does have some advantages – it allows several people to have access to documents at the same time.
But given that your messages are stored on vast remote servers that could be vulnerable to hackers, it makes sense for you to delete emails that contain sensitive information, and also to create a separate email address for online shopping, as these are the messages that will draw the most attention for marketing.
And remember that while emails may seem ephemeral, they can be difficult to delete. Once a message is erased, it may take up to 60 days before it disappears from the Google servers - and Google admits that it keeps back-up copies in case of system failure.
Whatever precautions you take, anyone signing up for a Gmail account must trust that Google won’t use the sensitive, revealing information contained in the emails you send and receive for any other purpose.
But can it really be trusted? Consider the Street View debacle. A few years ago, Google offered detailed aerial pictures of the whole world to viewers of its Google Earth service.
Then, at what must have been enormous cost, Google sent out vehicles with specialised equipment across several continents to capture street-level views of both main and side roads in cities, town and villages.
Initially it sounded fun to have the possibility of a virtual tour of any street. And how philanthropic to record our landscape for posterity.
But the next thing we heard was that these vehicles were not just taking pictures, but also searching electronically for wireless networks, logging whether individuals had secure or insecure wi-fi – and gathering personal information.
It was a gross invasion of privacy and rightly caused an uproar. Google quickly apologised, saying it was a mistake. But how could it mistakenly do something that had nothing to do with its stated purpose?
The question remains: if a company can misbehave so badly once, why can’t it happen again?
If Google is so ethical and friendly, then how has it become a sinister multinational giant that spies on the contents of my personal email?
As for me, I am switching back to the less sophisticated Microsoft Office Outlook. I’ve come to believe that free email is worth exactly what you pay for it.
Now I don't feel I was over reacting!
Monday 13 December 2010
Music Lover?
There is an awful lot of snobbery around music and it pisses me off no end.
Tonight saw the final of the ‘X Factor’ and I was sad to see it end. The two finalists, Matt Cardle and Rebecca Ferguson, put on a great show and the boys from ‘Take That’ looked, as they always do when performing, as if they were having the time of their life. They obviously enjoy performing, Robbie is a great showman (if you ignore his growing tendency to gurn) and Gary Barlow writes great pop songs. What struck me when I saw them perform live (as men not boys) was how humble they are. OK- that was obviously without Robbie as he is unlikely to have even heard of the word 'humble' but they are very talented guys.
Yet no doubt tomorrow the tabloids will be full of stories of back stage squabbles, although if the reaction to Matt’s win from his ‘rivals’ in anything to go by, who all seemed very happy for him, the stories will be largely invented, but controversy sells newspapers and keeps the show in the publics mind in the run up to the Christmas No 1. If this phenomenally successful show is mentioned at all in the broadsheets it will be in the form of lamentations about exploitation of plebs and substandard talent and rage against the machine.
My family, and many others, have had several enjoyable Saturday nights where we either got a takeaway or one of us cooked a nice meal and, with some wine and beers, we gathered together to be entertained. Just like the old days when families gathered to watch 'The Generation Game' or 'Morcombe and Wise'. The XF is the entertainment show of the new century and entertained we certainly were. There was lots of laughter, debate and yes, enjoyment of the music. It is this enjoyment of this type of music that puts my family, and all the other millions of families who tune into the XF, at the bottom of the music appreciation league table.
At the very top of this table is, I suppose, Classical Music. Beethoven, Strauss etc, the very names that strike a cord in some peoples hearts (take Stephen Fry as an example, go on please take him) only serve to bore me. Along with opera, with composers such as Wagner, not to be confused with XF’s Wagner Carrilho, who caused much debate in my house, but the Wagner who composed, among other things, ‘Ride of the Valkaries’.
Stephen Fry, a big fan of Wagner, speaks about his feelings of angst surrounding his love of Wagner’s work, not from an angle of wether or not Wagners music was worthy of such admiration but because Wagner was also greatly admired by Hitler, indeed it is said that Wagner’s music inspired Hitler. I can see his point. I loved 'I Love You Love Me Love' by Gary Glitter but in light of his paedophile tendencies I have been reluctant to listen to him even since the court case and subsequent jail sentence. I can feel you all judging me now, but come on - 'I'm The Leader' would still be an anthem if Glitter had been a normal guy like, eh, like Bill Wyman, and actually married his child bride. But hey, The Rolling Stones were higher up the music league table than The Glitter Band.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDIaH3RtYHw
Now I want to be careful about making sweeping generalisations but it can't be helped sometimes. The fact is generally the working classes do not frequent the opera. Even if they liked the music seeing it performed live is very expensive. You would also have to live near a big city to access it I imagine, or have the funds to stay overnight in an hotel. If you were coming from say, Cambridge, to visit the Royal Opera House to see a performance of Carmen for instance you would need at least £100 each. Listening to it at home is obviously an option but opera needs to be played LOUD and you can bet that the council do not receive many complaints from neighbours about Marie Callis belting arias out of next doors flat at 3am.
Most of what we non posh people know of opera and classical music has been as a result of a certain compositions being used in a film soundtrack or on an advert. Take Bachs Air on G String- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiHR11QqIoI&feature=related
I remember being impressed when I found out the name of my grandparents budgie, Tosca, was from an opera. 'What made you name the budgie after an opera?' I asked my Nan. 'What you on about?' she asked. 'Tosca' I said 'it's the name of an opera'. 'No it ain't' she replied 'your grandad named it after a race horse'.
When exposed to classical music some of us just don’t get it. My school took us all to the opera once, at the Royal Opera House. The building was intimidating and we sat through a performance of an opera that I can’t even remember the name of, or who composed it. It was in Italian which didn’t help. Some pheasants had an altercation with some of the aristocracy and someone got stabbed (on the stage you understand, not among us school kids). I remember there was a lot of sobbing, hand wringing and heartbreak. A bit like ‘Blood Brothers’ without the show stopping tunes. Give me ‘Like Marilyn Monroe’ any day.
Having said all that I remember many years ago watching 'Philadelphia' starring Tom Hanks and it featured several compositions by Mozart in its soundtrack. In the context of the film these were incredibly moving and I was able to appreciate how people were carried away by certain pieces of classical music but I would never actively seek this music out and listen to it.
'Do you like opera?' the dying Tom Hanks character asks Denzil Washingtons character. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b0p9mTJOJI&feature=related I know that Maria Callis can sing, I know Mamma Morta is a big number and this scene is beautifully acted by Hanks and Washington (who remains still for the most part, and silent but manages to convey his thoughts) and I appreciate Hanks character's description of what is happening in the music. but I just don't get it. Therefore I am culturally bereft and only fit for 'popular' music. Ahem, the name for this genre is a bit of a give away don't ya think? Popular means people like it, which for some immediately makes it less valuable. And because for me the ‘Blood Brothers’ triumphs over the opera with a forgettable name I am not a proper music lover. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EWG1SUd1c0
Not only are we judged on the type of music we listen to but it would seem that the musicians themselves have a very clear idea about who should and shouldn't listen to their music. For instance is seems The Smiths are not best pleased that Cameron claims to be a fan.
ttp://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/11/suzanne-moore-morrissey-david-cameron
Moore says 'Call me superficial, call me a snob, call me a bloke – but music matters, and I don't trust people who don't think it's important.' Nor do I love. It is interesting that she says 'call me a bloke' because I was coming to the conclusion that men are the authors of the music league table. When Moore says 'call me a bloke' she is acknowledging that men are serious music aficionados and she is saying that her appreciation of music is as sophisticated as that of a mans. Woman can embrace publicly all genres of music. We girls can party with pop, cavort with country, revel in reggae and even dance round our hand bags to disco and our men will laugh at our little foibles. If we know our 'Dark Side of the Moon' from our 'White Album', if we can identify a blues cord, if we dress up to the nines and sit breathlessly through 'Madame Butterfly', if we keep our love for Abba a dirty little secret, well then we can officially be called Music Lovers. Poor men don't have that luxury. Admit to liking the Carpenters and you will be ostracised. It is much more socially acceptable to admit that you don't like football much and you have never got the hang of the offside rule. Sing along to a bit of Barry Manilow and you won't see your friends for dust. You will become one of those men 'who keep himself to himself'. No matter that you like a bit of ACDC, no matter that you pen a few protest songs before you fall asleep at night - if you like anything that is middle of the road you street cred is worthless. Unless you are gay. Being gay is for some reason the 'get out of jail free' card when it comes to musical tastes. Gay men can embrace their Kylie's and Garland's freely without being judged at all.
For some reason my son is an exception to this rule. NOT you understand that he listens to the Carpenters, although I think he would agree that 'Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft' is a fine example of great voice, naff lyrics. Karen's not the aliens. Nor is he gay. But he is open about his eclectic taste in music and he still has friends.
With your mind you have ability to form
And transmit thought energy far beyond the norm
You close your eyes, you concentrate
Together that's the way
To send the message
We declare world contact day
My son loves music. All good music. He hears a piece of music and if it hits his 'spot' no matter what type of music it is, Rock, Blues, Soul, Country, Heavy Metal, Jazz, yes even classical, he will try to find out more about it, who wrote it, the history behind it and who else has recorded it. Take the other night when I stumbled on Johnny Cash. The next day I asked him if he has listened to any of his music and was surprised when he said yes, named a few tracks and said what he admired about him. This is a boy who grew up listening to Rap and R&B music, who thinks Eminem is on par with Shakespeare in his dexterity with words and who still spends hours in his bedroom listening to Rap, yet the list of music he enjoys grows day by day. He thinks Take That are great, lists Burt Baccarat as one of his favourite composers and loves Leona Lewis. Yet he also loves Nirvana, Santana, Jay Z, Eminem, The Rolling Stones, The Who, BB King and Led Zeppelin to name just a few. We joke that if they bring back 'Name That Tune' he would be a series champion. So is he a music lover?
My daughter on the other hand worries me with her lack of music appreciation. On the league table she is in special needs. There, even I am judging. I try not to critise anyones taste in music. It is a really individual thing - just what it is about a song or a piece of music that makes you sit up and listen, makes you sway, what penetrates your mind and soul is anyones guess. It matters how old you are, what your friends listen to, where you are when you first heard it. It matters if you can hear the instruments, which instuments strike your personal chord and if the lyrics are your thing, are telling your story.
I felt all flushed with fever, embarassed by the crowd
I felt he'd found my letters and read each one out loud
I prayed that he would finish, but he just kept right on
Strumming my pain with his fingers
Singing my life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
Killing me softly with his song
Telling my whole life with his words
Killing me softly http://www.lyrics007.com/Fugees%20Lyrics/Killing%20Me%20Softly%20With%20His%20Song%20Lyrics.html
What hits the spot in one persons soul might miss the mark completely in someone elses. It's the same with comedy. I once dated a guy who, when I said I liked a certain comedian, snorted and said 'the guys not funny'. I wanted to say 'Well excuse me, thousands disagree with you, nay millions. What you mean is that you don't think he's funny. Which means you are a soulless, humorous prick'. I didn't say any of this of course but it was a nail in the coffin. His taste in music was pretty naff too.
Saturday 11 December 2010
Reflection
This morning I woke up in my bedroom to absolute silence. My bedroom is tucked away from the main road so luckily I am spared the noise of traffic as it drives over the speed bumps and I am buffeted from the sounds of passers by but I am normally woken by the alarm on my phone (a calming gong, in as much as a gong can be calming) which wakes me up without dragging me unceremoniously from my sleep. This morning my gong was silent. Usually before the gong sounds I am often woken by birdsong or by the cat meowing for her breakfast. This morning all the birds must have flown somewhere warmer and the cat was silent too, snuggled up fast asleep with the lazy dog. In the summer, when my windows are open wide I can usually hear the sounds of the street getting ready for a new day. Even at my early hour of rising the sound of distant traffic and the odd aeroplane are reminders that I am not alone in this world. If I am starting work later than usual and have had the chance to stay in bed until around 8 o’clock I hear children on their way to school, cars starting up in the car park and, on Tuesdays, the bleep bleep bleep of the reversing rubbish truck. Yet there is something very special about experiencing silence in a huge city like London. I am sure that non city people mistakenly think that we metropolitans live in a world of noise pollution.
This morning with the double glazed windows shut tightly against the cold winds and sounds of the outside world I could only hear silence.
Intrusive noise must be absolute hell to live with. Having neighbours who blast out music day and night, who slam doors and shout and scream at each other must fray the nerves and make you crave peace and quiet. In fact peace and quiet must suddenly become a luxury that is out of your grasp. Parents with a baby who constantly cries must bury their heads in pillows and sob, desperate for the crying to stop so they can get some sleep. Yesterday I met a parent of a constant crier and she said 'All I want is for her to stop. I can't even think anymore'. This was shortly after I met another parent who lives on the 6th floor of a tower block with a child with Autism. Not only does he demand 24 hour attention (and his means of communication is to bang things) but the bedroom they share is next to the lift shaft and even without his sensory needs the constant noise of the lift disturbs their sleep and, let me tell you Messirs C&C, their happiness quota is pretty low. For both these parents 5 minutes of silence would be golden. Sufferers of Tinnitus too must be an unhappy lot. This is something I have always dreaded happening to me as living with a constant buzz in my head would drive me insane.
Yet knowing all this still the silence this morning worried me. It was so total that I felt scared. Alone. Often I want silence so I can think clearly or even meditate. Sometimes I have to mask the sounds that are out there with other sounds so that I can think, for instance when I am in the car. I do a lot of thinking in the car, not in silence, but by covering up the external sounds by sounds of my own choosing, the music I listen to whenever I have the chance. How lucky am I to have the choice? How stupid am I to fear 5 minutes of complete silence? I should thank my lucky stars.
The opportunity to spend some of our day in silent reflection is our right. Silence allows us to reflect. Yet most of us fear silence, even gaps in conversation are something to be filled, usually with careless, meaningless words. Reflection is a something that most of us don’t do enough and it is a priceless tool. However to do it justice it is best carried out in silence. With the windows closed.
Be Still – For Now
If we lived in a world of silence
Exactly what would we hear?
Just our beating heart and gentle pulse?
Or would our thoughts drive us insane with their sudden
Clarity?
Perhaps our touch would become too intense
With a sensitivity that is impossible to manage
As we become familiar with the person within?
Or would we crave an internal intimacy that
Engulfs?
Would we would crave for sounds that mask
The sometimes scary space that silence has created?
Or would we start to hear the things that matter
Would we finally understand that we sometimes need to be
Still?
This morning with the double glazed windows shut tightly against the cold winds and sounds of the outside world I could only hear silence.
Intrusive noise must be absolute hell to live with. Having neighbours who blast out music day and night, who slam doors and shout and scream at each other must fray the nerves and make you crave peace and quiet. In fact peace and quiet must suddenly become a luxury that is out of your grasp. Parents with a baby who constantly cries must bury their heads in pillows and sob, desperate for the crying to stop so they can get some sleep. Yesterday I met a parent of a constant crier and she said 'All I want is for her to stop. I can't even think anymore'. This was shortly after I met another parent who lives on the 6th floor of a tower block with a child with Autism. Not only does he demand 24 hour attention (and his means of communication is to bang things) but the bedroom they share is next to the lift shaft and even without his sensory needs the constant noise of the lift disturbs their sleep and, let me tell you Messirs C&C, their happiness quota is pretty low. For both these parents 5 minutes of silence would be golden. Sufferers of Tinnitus too must be an unhappy lot. This is something I have always dreaded happening to me as living with a constant buzz in my head would drive me insane.
Yet knowing all this still the silence this morning worried me. It was so total that I felt scared. Alone. Often I want silence so I can think clearly or even meditate. Sometimes I have to mask the sounds that are out there with other sounds so that I can think, for instance when I am in the car. I do a lot of thinking in the car, not in silence, but by covering up the external sounds by sounds of my own choosing, the music I listen to whenever I have the chance. How lucky am I to have the choice? How stupid am I to fear 5 minutes of complete silence? I should thank my lucky stars.
The opportunity to spend some of our day in silent reflection is our right. Silence allows us to reflect. Yet most of us fear silence, even gaps in conversation are something to be filled, usually with careless, meaningless words. Reflection is a something that most of us don’t do enough and it is a priceless tool. However to do it justice it is best carried out in silence. With the windows closed.
Be Still – For Now
If we lived in a world of silence
Exactly what would we hear?
Just our beating heart and gentle pulse?
Or would our thoughts drive us insane with their sudden
Clarity?
Perhaps our touch would become too intense
With a sensitivity that is impossible to manage
As we become familiar with the person within?
Or would we crave an internal intimacy that
Engulfs?
Would we would crave for sounds that mask
The sometimes scary space that silence has created?
Or would we start to hear the things that matter
Would we finally understand that we sometimes need to be
Still?
'I Know A Song'
'The Defamation of Strickland Banks' is still in my CD player (this is a record, excuse the pun, or is it a spoonerism?) and for weeks I have been wondering which song it is he knows:
http://www.songlyrics.com/plan-b/i-know-a-song-lyrics/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdkjemF-Fbg
Assuming it isn't one of Bank's own compositions (and, if it is, it has to be 'Love Goes Down') I've been toying with the following possibilities:
'The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face'
It is little wonder that The X Factor's Matt Cardle's version of 'The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face' has had so many hits on YouTube - I defy any woman to listen to this and not wish he was singing it for her. Not because he is cute - but because it is a powerful song. I almost cry when Leona Lewis (Ex X Factor) belts it out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-5M93tovEs&feature=related
Who would have thought the song was written by a political folk singer? It has been covered by scores of people including Bob Monkhouse. Fortunately I have been unable to find this version so you have been spared the experience of hearing Bob murder this love song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-5M93tovEs&feature=related
But I did stumble on a version by Johnny Cash and, like Matts version, it hits the spot. That place at the bottom of your spine, which when hit, stops your heart beating for a nano second and transports you to a place and time when you loved.
I also love that it says 'kissed your mouth'. Sounds much more passionate and raw than 'kissed your lips'. And it is a song that oozes passion.
The first time ever I kissed your mouth
And felt your heart beat close to mine
Like the trembling heart of a captive bird
That was there at my command, my love
That was there at my command.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdSIlVZhsDw&feature=related
Beautiful.
http://www.romantic-lyrics.com/lf34.shtml
Or then again the song he knows might be:
'Hurt'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmVAWKfJ4Go&feature=related
http://www.lyrics007.com/Johnny%20Cash%20Lyrics/Hurt%20Lyrics.html
Too depressing? Maybe. But The Man In Black has class.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Cash
Yet it may be a beautiful love song written by Bob Dylan and sung here by another X Factor finalist- Rebecca Ferguson.
'Make You Feel My Love'
http://www.bobdylan.com/#/songs/make-you-feel-my-love
Her nerves get the better of her in this performance but all is forgiven. She has talent if not the 'X Factor'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFAZ6TvK-3c&feature=channel
http://www.songlyrics.com/plan-b/i-know-a-song-lyrics/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdkjemF-Fbg
Assuming it isn't one of Bank's own compositions (and, if it is, it has to be 'Love Goes Down') I've been toying with the following possibilities:
'The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face'
It is little wonder that The X Factor's Matt Cardle's version of 'The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face' has had so many hits on YouTube - I defy any woman to listen to this and not wish he was singing it for her. Not because he is cute - but because it is a powerful song. I almost cry when Leona Lewis (Ex X Factor) belts it out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-5M93tovEs&feature=related
Who would have thought the song was written by a political folk singer? It has been covered by scores of people including Bob Monkhouse. Fortunately I have been unable to find this version so you have been spared the experience of hearing Bob murder this love song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-5M93tovEs&feature=related
But I did stumble on a version by Johnny Cash and, like Matts version, it hits the spot. That place at the bottom of your spine, which when hit, stops your heart beating for a nano second and transports you to a place and time when you loved.
I also love that it says 'kissed your mouth'. Sounds much more passionate and raw than 'kissed your lips'. And it is a song that oozes passion.
The first time ever I kissed your mouth
And felt your heart beat close to mine
Like the trembling heart of a captive bird
That was there at my command, my love
That was there at my command.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdSIlVZhsDw&feature=related
Beautiful.
http://www.romantic-lyrics.com/lf34.shtml
Or then again the song he knows might be:
'Hurt'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmVAWKfJ4Go&feature=related
http://www.lyrics007.com/Johnny%20Cash%20Lyrics/Hurt%20Lyrics.html
Too depressing? Maybe. But The Man In Black has class.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Cash
Yet it may be a beautiful love song written by Bob Dylan and sung here by another X Factor finalist- Rebecca Ferguson.
'Make You Feel My Love'
http://www.bobdylan.com/#/songs/make-you-feel-my-love
Her nerves get the better of her in this performance but all is forgiven. She has talent if not the 'X Factor'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFAZ6TvK-3c&feature=channel
Wednesday 1 December 2010
Music Lover
There was a point in my teens when I often used to wonder what I would choose if faced with the choice of being deaf or blind. Both horrific options. But every time I decided that I could live without sight but being deaf would be impossible to cope with because listening to music was my life.
In the 1960s we had a radiogram. I loved that radiogram. It was big, wooden and shiny with sliding doors, large chunky knobs and a big speaker. Behind one sliding door was the record player and behind the other a place to keep all your records. In the centre was the radio with its dial and buttons. This whole thing took up half the living room, much like today’s flat screen TVs, but unlike the flat screens the radiogram were seductive.
Once, when left at home alone, I varnished that radiogram and everything else in the room that looked vaguely as if it was made from wood. Including the clock on the mantelpiece which had been a wedding present to my parents. My mum arrived home just as I was making a start on the wood panel effect wallpaper that lined one wall of the room and she, not surprisingly, wasn’t best pleased. It was a replay of the time me and my cousins had shampooed my aunts carpets with Crazy Foam. Sometimes adults are just so ungrateful.
Someone I knew once used to collect radiograms, which at the time I thought was rather odd, because as a collectable it not easily accommodated. A collection of three would be take up a lot of room and any more than that would need a room of their own. En masse it would be difficult to appreciate their purpose and attractiveness. Looking at the various images of radiograms on the ‘net reminds me just how beautiful some of them are. Some had televisions and drink cabinets incorporated. So practical. Flat screen TVs are so boring in comparison.
Ours was beautiful to me and I loved to twiddle the radio dial, turn the knob from mono to phono and sort through the various LPs stacked in the side compartment, all of which belonged to my mum. I have never known my dad to listen to music.
LPs of Matt Monroe, Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey, Dusty Springfield, The Bachelors, and her all time favourite – Joe Dolan, lived in that compartment. Whenever 'Make Me an Island' came on the radio my mum would stop what she was doing and sing along and when she had a few drinks and got maudlin this was one of her favourites. The Stones, The Beatles, The Who, they all passed my mum by and, until Tina Turner went solo, her tastes were firmly of the crooner type (with the exception of Bassey and Springfield as my mum liked to belt out songs of lost love after a few drinks).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61J8b8NwSDI
Before I discovered David Bowie and added ‘Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars’ to the LP collection the only LP that belonged to me was ‘Half a Sixpence’. I was not a fan of Tommy Steele, or indeed musicals in particular, but this was a gift from my dad and I played it non stop and loved to sing along. Fortunately I was left home alone a lot from an early age and could indulge in a melody of Distant Drums, I Who Have Nothing, Delilah and Crash, Bang, Wallop.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_a_Sixpence
Before the Bowie moment I dallied with others. For some strange reason I was obsessed with Kenny Roger's ‘Ruby’, Middle of the Road's ‘Chirpy, Chirpy, Cheep Cheep and The Archie's ‘Sugar Sugar’. In my defence I was only about 9. Fortunately as I entered my teens I had an epiphany moment when I saw Bowie sing ‘Starman’ on Top of The Pops and was thus saved from a lifetime in a music wilderness.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muMcWMKPEWQ
Even though my love for Bowie was deep and pure I was still seduced by other types of music and embraced wholeheartedly Glam Rock, Punk, Soul, The Sound of Philadelphia, Motown and Soul music. The highlight of my week was Sunday evening listening to the Top Twenty on the radio. By this time the radiogram had gone to radiogram heaven and I listened to it on my little ITT transistor radio. This and a ITT radio cassette were another present from my dad and each week I would hover over the radio, trying to maintain absolute silence as I held the microphone to the radios speaker and try to anticipate when the DJ would start to speak so that I could press the ‘off’ switch. Both these ITT devices had a wooden effect but I resisted the urge to varnish them. They were my pride and joy.
I also had a portable record player and would spend hours in my room listening to cracking 45s or bad recordings of my favourite songs. For the rest of my teenage years listening to music replaced reading of books but both offered an escape from my world, at least for a few hours.
My husband-to-be smashed the radio, cassette player and record player during an argument, along with many of my records. In reality, one one level at least, I was both deaf and blind.
In the 1960s we had a radiogram. I loved that radiogram. It was big, wooden and shiny with sliding doors, large chunky knobs and a big speaker. Behind one sliding door was the record player and behind the other a place to keep all your records. In the centre was the radio with its dial and buttons. This whole thing took up half the living room, much like today’s flat screen TVs, but unlike the flat screens the radiogram were seductive.
Once, when left at home alone, I varnished that radiogram and everything else in the room that looked vaguely as if it was made from wood. Including the clock on the mantelpiece which had been a wedding present to my parents. My mum arrived home just as I was making a start on the wood panel effect wallpaper that lined one wall of the room and she, not surprisingly, wasn’t best pleased. It was a replay of the time me and my cousins had shampooed my aunts carpets with Crazy Foam. Sometimes adults are just so ungrateful.
Someone I knew once used to collect radiograms, which at the time I thought was rather odd, because as a collectable it not easily accommodated. A collection of three would be take up a lot of room and any more than that would need a room of their own. En masse it would be difficult to appreciate their purpose and attractiveness. Looking at the various images of radiograms on the ‘net reminds me just how beautiful some of them are. Some had televisions and drink cabinets incorporated. So practical. Flat screen TVs are so boring in comparison.
Ours was beautiful to me and I loved to twiddle the radio dial, turn the knob from mono to phono and sort through the various LPs stacked in the side compartment, all of which belonged to my mum. I have never known my dad to listen to music.
LPs of Matt Monroe, Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey, Dusty Springfield, The Bachelors, and her all time favourite – Joe Dolan, lived in that compartment. Whenever 'Make Me an Island' came on the radio my mum would stop what she was doing and sing along and when she had a few drinks and got maudlin this was one of her favourites. The Stones, The Beatles, The Who, they all passed my mum by and, until Tina Turner went solo, her tastes were firmly of the crooner type (with the exception of Bassey and Springfield as my mum liked to belt out songs of lost love after a few drinks).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61J8b8NwSDI
Before I discovered David Bowie and added ‘Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars’ to the LP collection the only LP that belonged to me was ‘Half a Sixpence’. I was not a fan of Tommy Steele, or indeed musicals in particular, but this was a gift from my dad and I played it non stop and loved to sing along. Fortunately I was left home alone a lot from an early age and could indulge in a melody of Distant Drums, I Who Have Nothing, Delilah and Crash, Bang, Wallop.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_a_Sixpence
Before the Bowie moment I dallied with others. For some strange reason I was obsessed with Kenny Roger's ‘Ruby’, Middle of the Road's ‘Chirpy, Chirpy, Cheep Cheep and The Archie's ‘Sugar Sugar’. In my defence I was only about 9. Fortunately as I entered my teens I had an epiphany moment when I saw Bowie sing ‘Starman’ on Top of The Pops and was thus saved from a lifetime in a music wilderness.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muMcWMKPEWQ
Even though my love for Bowie was deep and pure I was still seduced by other types of music and embraced wholeheartedly Glam Rock, Punk, Soul, The Sound of Philadelphia, Motown and Soul music. The highlight of my week was Sunday evening listening to the Top Twenty on the radio. By this time the radiogram had gone to radiogram heaven and I listened to it on my little ITT transistor radio. This and a ITT radio cassette were another present from my dad and each week I would hover over the radio, trying to maintain absolute silence as I held the microphone to the radios speaker and try to anticipate when the DJ would start to speak so that I could press the ‘off’ switch. Both these ITT devices had a wooden effect but I resisted the urge to varnish them. They were my pride and joy.
I also had a portable record player and would spend hours in my room listening to cracking 45s or bad recordings of my favourite songs. For the rest of my teenage years listening to music replaced reading of books but both offered an escape from my world, at least for a few hours.
Tuesday 30 November 2010
Wimps and Tyrants
My infant school teacher, Miss Osborne, was nice enough. Plump and pretty, although a little bit wimpish. One playtime, as we were all lined up ready to go into class, she was stung on the neck by a wasp and screamed so loudly that all us little children burst into tears. It didn’t help that after the initial ear piercing scream Miss Osborne ran around the playground flapping her arms in the air and crying hysterically. We were all shocked and scared and, worryingly, I don’t recall ever seeing her again after this incident. Maybe she was ashamed of causing us all trauma and was too embarrassed to face us again or maybe she died of anaphylactic shock.
Female primary school teachers in those days were either wimps or tyrants. Lots of them seemed to burst into tears for no real reason. Miss Ramsbottom, another infant teacher cried more than any of the children in her class and another tearful teacher (this time in the juniors) actually ran out of the class crying and we all had to write her a letter of apology. 'Sorry Miss for making you cry. We won't do it again'.
There were more wimps than tyrants but in my final year at Junior school we had the tyrant of all tyrants…Miss R.
Miss R was in her late sixties (or maybe even her seventies) and she was a spinster with whiskers. She would sit at her desk with her legs apart giving everyone a view of the contraptions she used as underwear and the elastic bands holding up her stockings. It looked like she had some experiment going on between her legs with pulleys and straps. The elastic bands must have caused her a great deal of discomfort which may explain her pinched expression. Miss R wore tweed skirts and lace up brown brogues. In fact she was a caricature of a scary, grumpy old teacher. She would pinch and shake us and use the ruler for any minor infraction. Miss R was a stickler for neat hand writing, saying our prayers and selling us charity stamps, that when stuck onto a card the card, when filled, would buy us a little African child that we could then name. The child (you had a choice of boy or girl) naturally remained in Africa but he/she had the good fortune to be sponsored by a 10 year old in the UK who forsake their sweets for the sake of a stamp. I only ever managed to complete one card (not because sweets were more important to me, but because my mum was on a tight budget, so tight that pennies really did need to take care of themselves) and named my little African baby ‘Adrienne’ which was my favourite name at the time.
There were a couple of male teachers who didn’t fall into either camp. On the whole the male teachers were interesting, fun and able to control, with ease, a class of thirty children. Mr C and Mr L, both big Irish men with a sense of humour and an excellent control of their tear ducts were my favourites. Primary School would be a much better place if it wasn’t dominated by women.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jul/12/primary-schools-male-teachers
Female primary school teachers in those days were either wimps or tyrants. Lots of them seemed to burst into tears for no real reason. Miss Ramsbottom, another infant teacher cried more than any of the children in her class and another tearful teacher (this time in the juniors) actually ran out of the class crying and we all had to write her a letter of apology. 'Sorry Miss for making you cry. We won't do it again'.
There were more wimps than tyrants but in my final year at Junior school we had the tyrant of all tyrants…Miss R.
Miss R was in her late sixties (or maybe even her seventies) and she was a spinster with whiskers. She would sit at her desk with her legs apart giving everyone a view of the contraptions she used as underwear and the elastic bands holding up her stockings. It looked like she had some experiment going on between her legs with pulleys and straps. The elastic bands must have caused her a great deal of discomfort which may explain her pinched expression. Miss R wore tweed skirts and lace up brown brogues. In fact she was a caricature of a scary, grumpy old teacher. She would pinch and shake us and use the ruler for any minor infraction. Miss R was a stickler for neat hand writing, saying our prayers and selling us charity stamps, that when stuck onto a card the card, when filled, would buy us a little African child that we could then name. The child (you had a choice of boy or girl) naturally remained in Africa but he/she had the good fortune to be sponsored by a 10 year old in the UK who forsake their sweets for the sake of a stamp. I only ever managed to complete one card (not because sweets were more important to me, but because my mum was on a tight budget, so tight that pennies really did need to take care of themselves) and named my little African baby ‘Adrienne’ which was my favourite name at the time.
There were a couple of male teachers who didn’t fall into either camp. On the whole the male teachers were interesting, fun and able to control, with ease, a class of thirty children. Mr C and Mr L, both big Irish men with a sense of humour and an excellent control of their tear ducts were my favourites. Primary School would be a much better place if it wasn’t dominated by women.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jul/12/primary-schools-male-teachers
Monday 29 November 2010
'Man is remembered by his deeds'. Knute Nelson
When did the term 'do-gooder' become an insult? I imagine almost immediately if the programme 'Ian Hislop's Age of Do Gooders' is anything to go by:
http://channelhopping.onthebox.com/2010/11/29/ian-hislops-age-of-do-gooders-review-have-i-got-do-gooders-for-you/
This was a very interesting and informative programme and well worth watching.
As do-gooders go Wilberforce is a good one to start with and known to most of us because of his work to abolish slavery but how many of us outside the worlds education and medicine know about Robert Owen or Thomas Wakely. I suspect the term 'bloody do-gooder' was used to describe Owen by the women whose homes he demanded be inspected for cleanliness. But how ahead of the time was his vision for education? And Wakely? The Lancet was the blog of its day, anonymous and revealing.
http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-owen.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Wakley
Octavia Hill would certainly fit in with the coalition government 2010. 'We have made many mistakes with our alms: eaten out the heart of the independent, bolstered up the drunkard in his indulgence, subsidised wages, discouraged thrift, assumed that many of the most ordinary wants of a working man's family must be met by our wretched and intermittent doles.'
http://www.infed.org/thinkers/octavia_hill.htm
Hill, like Owen, set up inspections of tenants housekeeping skills. It seems working class women of those times were a dirty lot, lacking the luxury of washing machines (or, in some cases, running water) vacuums, electricity, Domestos or maids. But unlike Owen Hills inspectors and rent collectors were female. These 'Hills Angels' gave advice to the women they collected rent from and, as Hislop observed, acted as early social workers.
I look forward to the rest of this series and it was good to see Hislop out of his HIGNFY seat although without the studio makeup his complexion is not a pretty sight. Heaven knows what it looks like in high definition. Last week at a friends house I had the misfortune to see Simon Cowell in all his high definition glory and it's not a pretty sight.
Before 'Do Gooders' I caught Miranda Harts sitcom 'Miranda'. I have seen the trailers for this but never managed to see it until this evening. I like Ms Hart. And I think this sitcom will grow on me. Mondays are looking good.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_(TV_series)
http://channelhopping.onthebox.com/2010/11/29/ian-hislops-age-of-do-gooders-review-have-i-got-do-gooders-for-you/
This was a very interesting and informative programme and well worth watching.
As do-gooders go Wilberforce is a good one to start with and known to most of us because of his work to abolish slavery but how many of us outside the worlds education and medicine know about Robert Owen or Thomas Wakely. I suspect the term 'bloody do-gooder' was used to describe Owen by the women whose homes he demanded be inspected for cleanliness. But how ahead of the time was his vision for education? And Wakely? The Lancet was the blog of its day, anonymous and revealing.
http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-owen.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Wakley
Octavia Hill would certainly fit in with the coalition government 2010. 'We have made many mistakes with our alms: eaten out the heart of the independent, bolstered up the drunkard in his indulgence, subsidised wages, discouraged thrift, assumed that many of the most ordinary wants of a working man's family must be met by our wretched and intermittent doles.'
http://www.infed.org/thinkers/octavia_hill.htm
Hill, like Owen, set up inspections of tenants housekeeping skills. It seems working class women of those times were a dirty lot, lacking the luxury of washing machines (or, in some cases, running water) vacuums, electricity, Domestos or maids. But unlike Owen Hills inspectors and rent collectors were female. These 'Hills Angels' gave advice to the women they collected rent from and, as Hislop observed, acted as early social workers.
I look forward to the rest of this series and it was good to see Hislop out of his HIGNFY seat although without the studio makeup his complexion is not a pretty sight. Heaven knows what it looks like in high definition. Last week at a friends house I had the misfortune to see Simon Cowell in all his high definition glory and it's not a pretty sight.
Before 'Do Gooders' I caught Miranda Harts sitcom 'Miranda'. I have seen the trailers for this but never managed to see it until this evening. I like Ms Hart. And I think this sitcom will grow on me. Mondays are looking good.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_(TV_series)
Sins of the father
It must have been a very bad time for my parents, trapped in a marriage neither of them wanted, trapped into parenthood before either of them were ready for it. This was the time before the pill, before the sexual revolution and at a time when the expectation was (for the working classes at least) that you left school, got a job and got married. Once married you had babies and stayed married until one of you died and released you from the life sentence.
My parents stayed married for around 12 years. Most of those years were spend in a bubble of shouting, screaming, breaking furniture and the occasional spilling of blood, on both sides. I never saw my dad actually hit my mum but on one occasion, in a terrible argument, he threw a tin of Johnson’s baby powder at her. It hit her in the face and caused a deep gash near her one of her eyes. Pandemonium broke out as, what seemed like a torrent of blood, squirted from the wound, covering the furniture and my sister’s push chair, which had to be replaced. My mum must have run out of the flat because my next memory is of my dad on his hands and knees sobbing. Shortly afterwards my mum and I walked the short walk to St Thomas’ hospital so she could have the injury medically taken care off. This must have been around Christmas (’67) and the nurses were taking the decorations down and they gave me lots of angels and stars to play with. My mum had to wear an eye patch for weeks and then have some plastic surgery. The scar is still visible today – if you look closely enough.
The scars my husband gave me are fading too. The physical ones anyway. I have a feeling the mental ones will never fade. On the bright side they remind me of some of the lessons I had to learn. On the dark side they reiterate what my mum told me as I was growing up and that we all get what we deserve.
It took me a long time to get the image of my dad on his knees sobbing out of my mind. Up until that point I thought he was the strongest person in the world and I was scared by his reaction. Scared and convinced of his remorse. I knew this demonstration of remorse was important somehow and related it back to my mum, begging her to forgive him. She did. And it went a long way in making me forgive my husband when he cried and begged forgiveness for the injuries he caused me. It’s just what grown ups do isn’t it? Hurt each other and forgive each other.
I was a nightmare child. Clingy. Demanding. Petulant. I know these thing not only because this is what I have been told ‘we had to tie you in your cot because you just wouldn’t stay there’ and ‘I even had to take you to the toilet with me, you never gave me a minutes peace’ but because I can remember being clingy. I would wake up in the night and scream because I saw ghosts on the bedrooms walls, demanding that my mum held my hand until I fell asleep. I remember being in Ireland and worried that I would be left there, in that cold house, with those people who made my life hell, that my mum would return to England without me. So I used to scream and cry when she left the room. This did not make me popular.
Being popular for a child is pretty important. I was immensely relieved to hear my grandson’s teacher describe him as being a ‘valued and popular member of the class’. I did not become popular until I was in the 4th year (what is now Year 6). That was the year that I had my first proper hair cut. I can remember sitting in the hairdressers chair watching as my long lank hair was transformed with each snip into shiny, bouncy layers that framed my face – a face which now looked pretty. When I arrived at school the next day I was suddenly the most popular girl in school. All the girls said they loved my hair and, strangely, now all the boys wanted to talk to me and tease me. Prior to that ‘Feather Cut’ I had been invisible. That year also saw ‘hot pants’ become the coolest fashion item around and when I wore them on school journey I had several boys vying for my attention. A few months ago one of those boys (now a 50 year old Born Again Christian) gave me a copy of the photograph taken on that school journey. Thirty of us kids sat on the beach, dressed up in our Sunday best and there I am, hair feathered, wearing my hotpants (how I wish it was a colour photograph, they were purple Lurex) and wearing a huge smile.
My friend Kitty, who I met at secondary school later that year, says that my haircut was the reason she approached me in those first weeks at the new school. Kitty claims that she came up to me and asked me where I had gotten my hair cut. ‘Oh...my hair?’ I allegedly replied ‘it just grows this way’. Thinking about it now this wasn’t the lie Kitty thinks it was. If I had it cut before the school journey of 1971 it must have been cut in the spring of that year. So when I started secondary school in September it would have been months since the visit to the hairdressers and my hair would have grown considerably. So I was right when I said ‘it just grows this way’. I will have to remind her of this
My parents stayed married for around 12 years. Most of those years were spend in a bubble of shouting, screaming, breaking furniture and the occasional spilling of blood, on both sides. I never saw my dad actually hit my mum but on one occasion, in a terrible argument, he threw a tin of Johnson’s baby powder at her. It hit her in the face and caused a deep gash near her one of her eyes. Pandemonium broke out as, what seemed like a torrent of blood, squirted from the wound, covering the furniture and my sister’s push chair, which had to be replaced. My mum must have run out of the flat because my next memory is of my dad on his hands and knees sobbing. Shortly afterwards my mum and I walked the short walk to St Thomas’ hospital so she could have the injury medically taken care off. This must have been around Christmas (’67) and the nurses were taking the decorations down and they gave me lots of angels and stars to play with. My mum had to wear an eye patch for weeks and then have some plastic surgery. The scar is still visible today – if you look closely enough.
The scars my husband gave me are fading too. The physical ones anyway. I have a feeling the mental ones will never fade. On the bright side they remind me of some of the lessons I had to learn. On the dark side they reiterate what my mum told me as I was growing up and that we all get what we deserve.
It took me a long time to get the image of my dad on his knees sobbing out of my mind. Up until that point I thought he was the strongest person in the world and I was scared by his reaction. Scared and convinced of his remorse. I knew this demonstration of remorse was important somehow and related it back to my mum, begging her to forgive him. She did. And it went a long way in making me forgive my husband when he cried and begged forgiveness for the injuries he caused me. It’s just what grown ups do isn’t it? Hurt each other and forgive each other.
I was a nightmare child. Clingy. Demanding. Petulant. I know these thing not only because this is what I have been told ‘we had to tie you in your cot because you just wouldn’t stay there’ and ‘I even had to take you to the toilet with me, you never gave me a minutes peace’ but because I can remember being clingy. I would wake up in the night and scream because I saw ghosts on the bedrooms walls, demanding that my mum held my hand until I fell asleep. I remember being in Ireland and worried that I would be left there, in that cold house, with those people who made my life hell, that my mum would return to England without me. So I used to scream and cry when she left the room. This did not make me popular.
Being popular for a child is pretty important. I was immensely relieved to hear my grandson’s teacher describe him as being a ‘valued and popular member of the class’. I did not become popular until I was in the 4th year (what is now Year 6). That was the year that I had my first proper hair cut. I can remember sitting in the hairdressers chair watching as my long lank hair was transformed with each snip into shiny, bouncy layers that framed my face – a face which now looked pretty. When I arrived at school the next day I was suddenly the most popular girl in school. All the girls said they loved my hair and, strangely, now all the boys wanted to talk to me and tease me. Prior to that ‘Feather Cut’ I had been invisible. That year also saw ‘hot pants’ become the coolest fashion item around and when I wore them on school journey I had several boys vying for my attention. A few months ago one of those boys (now a 50 year old Born Again Christian) gave me a copy of the photograph taken on that school journey. Thirty of us kids sat on the beach, dressed up in our Sunday best and there I am, hair feathered, wearing my hotpants (how I wish it was a colour photograph, they were purple Lurex) and wearing a huge smile.
My friend Kitty, who I met at secondary school later that year, says that my haircut was the reason she approached me in those first weeks at the new school. Kitty claims that she came up to me and asked me where I had gotten my hair cut. ‘Oh...my hair?’ I allegedly replied ‘it just grows this way’. Thinking about it now this wasn’t the lie Kitty thinks it was. If I had it cut before the school journey of 1971 it must have been cut in the spring of that year. So when I started secondary school in September it would have been months since the visit to the hairdressers and my hair would have grown considerably. So I was right when I said ‘it just grows this way’. I will have to remind her of this
Sunday 28 November 2010
Domestic Bliss
‘I see Helena Bonham Carter has signed herself up for parenting classes’ I told my daughter.
‘Who’s she?’
‘You know, that posh Gothic looking actress, has a role in the Harry Potter films’
‘Oh, who does she play? Mrs Weasley?’
‘No, I can’t remember exactly who, Draco’s mum? Anyway she is a baddie in the films’
‘No, I don’t know who you mean’.
‘Yes, you do. She played a monkey in the film ‘Planet of the Apes’ and is sort of married to some director and is usually in films with Johnny Depp.’
My daughter’s ears prick up at the mention of Depp. ‘Hmmm, I think I know who you mean.’
‘Anyway she and her 'domestic partner' (wiki's words not mine) apparently live in separate houses next door to each other. Isn’t that civilised? That must be the secret of a happy 'almost marriage’. And how sensible is she to want to take parenting classes?’ I reached for the remote control and switched on the TV. A comedy sketch show was on, featuring impressionists. And who were they impersonating at that very moment? None other that Helena Bonham Carter and her husband Tim Burton!
There's more - we switched over and 'The Corpse Bride' was showing. This dark animation, directed by Burton, features the voices of Bonham and Depp.
There’s even more – later that evening deciding what to watch we came across ‘Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street’ the musical, starring, yes you’ve guessed it, Helen Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp (whose singing voice is obviously modelled on David Bowie’s, during Bowie’s ‘Anthony Newly’ stage of course). The film is directed by….Tim Burton. Spooky!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helena_Bonham_Carter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweeney_Todd:_The_Demon_Barber_of_Fleet_Street_(2007_film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpse_Bride
http://www.showbizspy.com/article/219016/helena-bonham-carter-admits-she-needs-parenting-classes-to-help-her-become-a-better-mom.html
They are certainly an unusual couple. Three years ago Helena, in an interview with Playboy magazine said the following:
The household of Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter is outfitted for Christmas – just not in the traditional manner.
"He (Burton) decorates it with dead babies and slime balls and things," Carter, 41, tells Playboy magazine in its January issue, about trimming the tree with boyfriend (of six years) Burton, 49. "It looks lovely and glittery from afar, and then as you get closer, you realize it's rather gory."
Lest anyone get the wrong idea, Carter, who stars with Johnny Depp in Burton's new movie musical Sweeney Todd, says, "We're not that dark. What I love about Tim is that he retains a certain innocence and a childlike quality. He sort of forgot to grow up. I think I've definitely forgotten to grow up, which is great."
Carter, who in 2003 gave birth to the couple's son Billy Ray – and is expecting their second child later this month – adds with a laugh, "At some point, [Billy] will probably want parents. He'll have to look elsewhere."Of their life at home life, where she and Burton share separate, yet attached, houses, Carter says: "Mine looks like Beatrix Potter. ... He has dead Oompa-Loompas around and multicolored fiberglass alien lamps. But then he has some nice red-button sofas from Sleepy Hollow. So it's a funny and good mix."
A newspaper had to print an apology earlier this year for saying the family lived in three connecting, but separate, houses. Burton in one, Carter in another and the children and their nanny in a third. The writer of the piece described this arrangement as 'chilling'. Certainly I would agree that three houses in which to house one small family is a bit extreme but if you can afford two connecting houses that sounds like heaven. Both Burton and Carter have their own tastes on interior design and both value their own 'space'.
'We haven't got a passageway [connecting the two homes] - we've just got a room ...between the two. And to me it makes complete sense: if you've got some money, and you can afford it, why not have your own space? It really is a great idea. You never have to compromise emotionally or feel invaded....I'm surprised when people find it weird, to be honest. It's not even that separate, really - it just looks like a quite big, strange house. And there's a sense of choice about things - you see each other when you want to.'
I am not sure what she means by 'compromise emotionally' and that by having your own space means never having to do it. If only it was that simple.
It seems Carter was very upset by the allegation that the children were housed in a 'unit' with just a nanny, and felt this painted her as a bad mother. Maybe this had something to do with her decision to take parenting classes. Or maybe Billy and Nell have reached the stage were they want grown ups as parents.
As a parent said to me this week, talking about his Autistic son, 'N is my teacher. I take my lead from him'.
‘Who’s she?’
‘You know, that posh Gothic looking actress, has a role in the Harry Potter films’
‘Oh, who does she play? Mrs Weasley?’
‘No, I can’t remember exactly who, Draco’s mum? Anyway she is a baddie in the films’
‘No, I don’t know who you mean’.
‘Yes, you do. She played a monkey in the film ‘Planet of the Apes’ and is sort of married to some director and is usually in films with Johnny Depp.’
My daughter’s ears prick up at the mention of Depp. ‘Hmmm, I think I know who you mean.’
‘Anyway she and her 'domestic partner' (wiki's words not mine) apparently live in separate houses next door to each other. Isn’t that civilised? That must be the secret of a happy 'almost marriage’. And how sensible is she to want to take parenting classes?’ I reached for the remote control and switched on the TV. A comedy sketch show was on, featuring impressionists. And who were they impersonating at that very moment? None other that Helena Bonham Carter and her husband Tim Burton!
There's more - we switched over and 'The Corpse Bride' was showing. This dark animation, directed by Burton, features the voices of Bonham and Depp.
There’s even more – later that evening deciding what to watch we came across ‘Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street’ the musical, starring, yes you’ve guessed it, Helen Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp (whose singing voice is obviously modelled on David Bowie’s, during Bowie’s ‘Anthony Newly’ stage of course). The film is directed by….Tim Burton. Spooky!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helena_Bonham_Carter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweeney_Todd:_The_Demon_Barber_of_Fleet_Street_(2007_film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpse_Bride
http://www.showbizspy.com/article/219016/helena-bonham-carter-admits-she-needs-parenting-classes-to-help-her-become-a-better-mom.html
They are certainly an unusual couple. Three years ago Helena, in an interview with Playboy magazine said the following:
The household of Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter is outfitted for Christmas – just not in the traditional manner.
"He (Burton) decorates it with dead babies and slime balls and things," Carter, 41, tells Playboy magazine in its January issue, about trimming the tree with boyfriend (of six years) Burton, 49. "It looks lovely and glittery from afar, and then as you get closer, you realize it's rather gory."
Lest anyone get the wrong idea, Carter, who stars with Johnny Depp in Burton's new movie musical Sweeney Todd, says, "We're not that dark. What I love about Tim is that he retains a certain innocence and a childlike quality. He sort of forgot to grow up. I think I've definitely forgotten to grow up, which is great."
Carter, who in 2003 gave birth to the couple's son Billy Ray – and is expecting their second child later this month – adds with a laugh, "At some point, [Billy] will probably want parents. He'll have to look elsewhere."Of their life at home life, where she and Burton share separate, yet attached, houses, Carter says: "Mine looks like Beatrix Potter. ... He has dead Oompa-Loompas around and multicolored fiberglass alien lamps. But then he has some nice red-button sofas from Sleepy Hollow. So it's a funny and good mix."
A newspaper had to print an apology earlier this year for saying the family lived in three connecting, but separate, houses. Burton in one, Carter in another and the children and their nanny in a third. The writer of the piece described this arrangement as 'chilling'. Certainly I would agree that three houses in which to house one small family is a bit extreme but if you can afford two connecting houses that sounds like heaven. Both Burton and Carter have their own tastes on interior design and both value their own 'space'.
'We haven't got a passageway [connecting the two homes] - we've just got a room ...between the two. And to me it makes complete sense: if you've got some money, and you can afford it, why not have your own space? It really is a great idea. You never have to compromise emotionally or feel invaded....I'm surprised when people find it weird, to be honest. It's not even that separate, really - it just looks like a quite big, strange house. And there's a sense of choice about things - you see each other when you want to.'
I am not sure what she means by 'compromise emotionally' and that by having your own space means never having to do it. If only it was that simple.
It seems Carter was very upset by the allegation that the children were housed in a 'unit' with just a nanny, and felt this painted her as a bad mother. Maybe this had something to do with her decision to take parenting classes. Or maybe Billy and Nell have reached the stage were they want grown ups as parents.
As a parent said to me this week, talking about his Autistic son, 'N is my teacher. I take my lead from him'.
Wednesday 24 November 2010
Memories
We were not allowed to have a bath. You would think that having moved into a flat which not only had an indoor toilet but also boasted a separate bathroom we would have been allowed to use this wonderous thing. The flat we had lived in previously didn’t have such luxury. There we had to share the outside toilet with the other families on the landing and it did not have a bathroom. The flat only had two rooms, a living room with a scullery and a bedroom. The flat we moved to was on the forth floor of a block and Mum made the bathroom out of bounds the minute we moved in by filling the bath with soiled nappies (my sisters, not mine). Once a week she would take us to the local baths where you paid a couple of pennies for the use of hot water and a bath. This was not in Victorian or Edwardian times, but in the Swinging Sixties. My mum might have been worried about the cost of taking baths at home although I don’t think we were exactly poor. Certainly working class but not poor. My Dad had a good job in a factory and my mum always had nice new clothes. I think she worked once, for a couple of weeks, in a sausage factory. Nonetheless we were never allowed to have a bath, instead we had to have a ‘wash down’. I was only allowed to wash my hair once a week and even then I was only allowed to use half a sachet of shampoo. Conditioner hadn’t been invented, and even if it had been I would never have been allowed to use it. My mum only bought red Lifebuoy soap, Signal toothpaste and black hair dye. These were the only items, along with my dads razor, in the bathroom cabinet. It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I rebelled and took a bath every night and washed my hair (unless I was having a period, as apparently you risked death by washing your hair at that time of the month). I was a very smelly child. And I wore National Health glasses. It is a wonder I had any friends.
My mum didn’t like cooking either. So if she had to cook it would be done grudgingly so that bits would be burnt, other bits would be raw and all of it was unappetising. The fridge was always empty – apart from a pint of milk. When I met my friend Kitty I was amazed to see the inside of her mum’s fridge, filled with cheeses, cold meats (in Tupperware! So posh), salads and soft drinks. It was a relief when my dad left and mum gave up cooking. The Chippie provided for my dietary needs.
My mum was very fussy about housework but not at all concerned about home comforts. The carpets were threadbare and the furniture had seen better days. Even when she could afford it mum would never spend money on things for the home. I was always embarrassed about asking friends home. They lived in homes with fitted carpets and G Plan furniture. My room in the flat near Lambeth Walk was empty except for a bed. My baby sister must have been in my mum and dads room. I don’t remember any toys and certainly no books. But I must have had toys. There is a photograph of me with a lot of dolls but this was taken at my Nan’s home so I suspect that was where my toys were. I did have a special doll, Bella, that must have lived with me because I would have been inconsolable without her. My Nan used to make her the most wonderful outfits. When I was 7 we moved to a flat in a tower block and I remember I had toys there. I had an Etch-a-Sketch and Spirograph which I loved. I never had a Sindy (too expensive) but I did have a Tressy doll. I also had a Silver Cross dolls pram (must have been a gift from my grandparent) before we moved but my Dad used it to move some items to the new flat and it broke under the weight. I know I was mortified.
My Mum and I spent one Christmas in Ireland when I was about 11. On Christmas day I didn't have any presents to open as they were all in London (as was my Dad). No one thought to buy me anything to open on the day itself and I remember watching my cousins excitingly opening their gifts and one of them allowing me to have a go on the Spacehopper that Santa had delivered. When I got home I was given my present, a Lilliput typewriter which I loved. But by the end of the week it had been hurled across the room and smashed to bits by my dad who had got annoyed by the tap tap tapping noise it made as I typed. My next door neighbour Jeanie had been given a typewriter too (the more expensive Petite Typewriter) and she used to let me have a go on hers until we fell out when she stole my Tressy.
My Nan used to buy me colouring pencils, magic markers, pads of paper and I loved staying with her because she played with me. She loved Scrabble and we would spend hours playing this, it was the travel version (Travel Scrabble) so it even came on holiday with us. My grandparents took me to the South Coast, Dorset and the Isle of Wight. My Nan would cook me tasty meals, my Grandad would take me everywhere with him. Every Friday night the 'Evening News' would publish a ramble and each weekend grandad would cut it out and we would walk it that weekend. My main memory of him is walking with him in bluebell woods singing 'Ive Got Sixpence' http://www.retro-lyrics.com/lyrics/ive-got-six-pence-lyrics-364.html and I don’t remember them ever shouting at me and they certainly never smacked me.
My Dad would play cards with me now and again. He would always play to win and would get very angry if I won a hand, which hardly ever happened as he was an excellent player and I wanted him to love me.
When I was 6 I asked if I could go to school on my own and my parents said ‘yes’. The journey was about a mile and took me across two main roads and a few less busy ones. Maybe they were looking rid of me. I used to go to the shops to buy dads paper when I was 5. On the way back I would walk along pretending to read it so that passers by would be impressed - 'look at that little girl reading the paper - she must be a genius'! When I was twelve I took over cooking Sunday dinner (the Chippie closed on Sundays). My mum would have had me up chimneys if London wasn't a smoke free zone.
Although my dad had a car I don’t remember ever being in it with him. Not surprisingly as he had a Bubble Car http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_car. This gave way to a Ford Zodiac which I had to spend ages at the window to make sure no one nicked it. The only time I remember being in a car with him is after he and mum had split up and he took me to Southend in a beautiful blue Ford Cortina.
The toiletless flat was next to the factory where my dad worked. I used to see him as me and mum walked back from the shops and I loved the smell of sawdust and how kind his workmates were to me. I used to pick a pretty white flower (bineweed!) that grew on the fences surrounding the bombsites to give him. The firm used to give the children of its workers the most wonderful Christmas parties with lots of food and Santa would bring us amazing presents. One year they thought I was a boy (having a unisex name) and I got a tool kit. But the best thing was they would take us to the London Palladium to watch the pantomime. My mum came one year and embarrassed me by screaming ‘Malcolm I love you’ when the singer Malcolm Roberts came on stage in the 1971 production of Cinderella.
It is shocking that I never had any books. The only one I can remember is ‘Kittens with Mittens’ which I think belonged to my sister. When we moved to the flat in the tower block I joined the library and a whole new world opened up for me. A world of Hans Christian Anderson and Enid Blyton. I used to love going to that library. The children’s area was in the basement and was my favourite place to be. In fact I was exactly like Roald Dahl’s ‘Matilda’. And my mum and dad weren't very different to hers either.
Why am I sharing all this? Well kids, you aren't interested in this stuff now but one day you will be. I am going to ask my mum to talk to me about her childhood. She never has very much to say about it but I want to know what her home was like, what she was like in school, what her relationship with her parents was like and how things changed when her mother died. My mum was just 6 when her mum died and left a family of four children, my mum the youngest, with their father. Maybe that is why she struggled as a parent.
My mum came to England to be bridesmaid for her oldest sister and she never went back 'home' to live. She met my dad and they married. She was 23 and he was a mere 20. When I asked her why she married him (having been told she had never loved him) she said 'I fell in love with his mum and dad.'
10 months after they married I came into their life and for my mum this meant life was over. She hated being a parent, saw me as the reason she was trapped and spent the next 17 years telling me she hated me, I was stupid, ugly and that she tried to abort me but chickened out at the last minute. Abortions in 1960 were illegal and very risky and I know she tried drinking lots of gin in order to go through with it but it didn't numb her enough to put herself in the hands of back street abortionist. 'I wish you were dead' was the mantra of my childhood.
Even in my darkest moments I am always glad she failed.
I would have loved to have grown up in a proper house. With a garden. In a proper family. I would have loved to have had a pink bedroom filled with books and games and toys. I would have loved to have come home from school and be greeted by the smell of home cooking, to a mummy who smiled sometimes, kissed my cheek, and was happy to see me. I would have loved to chat to her about my day, show her my homework, be told how clever I was. How pretty. I would have loved to have been run a bubble bath (Matey) and told to make sure I washed behind my ears. I would have loved a dad who took the time to talk to me, to sit me on his knee and read to me. I would have loved to have got through one day without being hit, without shedding tears.
'When I was Seventeen' http://www.top40db.net/Lyrics/?SongID=73059 I ran away from home and from everything I had ever known. Well everything except the being hit and shedding tears bit.
My mum didn’t like cooking either. So if she had to cook it would be done grudgingly so that bits would be burnt, other bits would be raw and all of it was unappetising. The fridge was always empty – apart from a pint of milk. When I met my friend Kitty I was amazed to see the inside of her mum’s fridge, filled with cheeses, cold meats (in Tupperware! So posh), salads and soft drinks. It was a relief when my dad left and mum gave up cooking. The Chippie provided for my dietary needs.
My mum was very fussy about housework but not at all concerned about home comforts. The carpets were threadbare and the furniture had seen better days. Even when she could afford it mum would never spend money on things for the home. I was always embarrassed about asking friends home. They lived in homes with fitted carpets and G Plan furniture. My room in the flat near Lambeth Walk was empty except for a bed. My baby sister must have been in my mum and dads room. I don’t remember any toys and certainly no books. But I must have had toys. There is a photograph of me with a lot of dolls but this was taken at my Nan’s home so I suspect that was where my toys were. I did have a special doll, Bella, that must have lived with me because I would have been inconsolable without her. My Nan used to make her the most wonderful outfits. When I was 7 we moved to a flat in a tower block and I remember I had toys there. I had an Etch-a-Sketch and Spirograph which I loved. I never had a Sindy (too expensive) but I did have a Tressy doll. I also had a Silver Cross dolls pram (must have been a gift from my grandparent) before we moved but my Dad used it to move some items to the new flat and it broke under the weight. I know I was mortified.
My Mum and I spent one Christmas in Ireland when I was about 11. On Christmas day I didn't have any presents to open as they were all in London (as was my Dad). No one thought to buy me anything to open on the day itself and I remember watching my cousins excitingly opening their gifts and one of them allowing me to have a go on the Spacehopper that Santa had delivered. When I got home I was given my present, a Lilliput typewriter which I loved. But by the end of the week it had been hurled across the room and smashed to bits by my dad who had got annoyed by the tap tap tapping noise it made as I typed. My next door neighbour Jeanie had been given a typewriter too (the more expensive Petite Typewriter) and she used to let me have a go on hers until we fell out when she stole my Tressy.
My Nan used to buy me colouring pencils, magic markers, pads of paper and I loved staying with her because she played with me. She loved Scrabble and we would spend hours playing this, it was the travel version (Travel Scrabble) so it even came on holiday with us. My grandparents took me to the South Coast, Dorset and the Isle of Wight. My Nan would cook me tasty meals, my Grandad would take me everywhere with him. Every Friday night the 'Evening News' would publish a ramble and each weekend grandad would cut it out and we would walk it that weekend. My main memory of him is walking with him in bluebell woods singing 'Ive Got Sixpence' http://www.retro-lyrics.com/lyrics/ive-got-six-pence-lyrics-364.html and I don’t remember them ever shouting at me and they certainly never smacked me.
My Dad would play cards with me now and again. He would always play to win and would get very angry if I won a hand, which hardly ever happened as he was an excellent player and I wanted him to love me.
When I was 6 I asked if I could go to school on my own and my parents said ‘yes’. The journey was about a mile and took me across two main roads and a few less busy ones. Maybe they were looking rid of me. I used to go to the shops to buy dads paper when I was 5. On the way back I would walk along pretending to read it so that passers by would be impressed - 'look at that little girl reading the paper - she must be a genius'! When I was twelve I took over cooking Sunday dinner (the Chippie closed on Sundays). My mum would have had me up chimneys if London wasn't a smoke free zone.
Although my dad had a car I don’t remember ever being in it with him. Not surprisingly as he had a Bubble Car http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_car. This gave way to a Ford Zodiac which I had to spend ages at the window to make sure no one nicked it. The only time I remember being in a car with him is after he and mum had split up and he took me to Southend in a beautiful blue Ford Cortina.
The toiletless flat was next to the factory where my dad worked. I used to see him as me and mum walked back from the shops and I loved the smell of sawdust and how kind his workmates were to me. I used to pick a pretty white flower (bineweed!) that grew on the fences surrounding the bombsites to give him. The firm used to give the children of its workers the most wonderful Christmas parties with lots of food and Santa would bring us amazing presents. One year they thought I was a boy (having a unisex name) and I got a tool kit. But the best thing was they would take us to the London Palladium to watch the pantomime. My mum came one year and embarrassed me by screaming ‘Malcolm I love you’ when the singer Malcolm Roberts came on stage in the 1971 production of Cinderella.
It is shocking that I never had any books. The only one I can remember is ‘Kittens with Mittens’ which I think belonged to my sister. When we moved to the flat in the tower block I joined the library and a whole new world opened up for me. A world of Hans Christian Anderson and Enid Blyton. I used to love going to that library. The children’s area was in the basement and was my favourite place to be. In fact I was exactly like Roald Dahl’s ‘Matilda’. And my mum and dad weren't very different to hers either.
Why am I sharing all this? Well kids, you aren't interested in this stuff now but one day you will be. I am going to ask my mum to talk to me about her childhood. She never has very much to say about it but I want to know what her home was like, what she was like in school, what her relationship with her parents was like and how things changed when her mother died. My mum was just 6 when her mum died and left a family of four children, my mum the youngest, with their father. Maybe that is why she struggled as a parent.
My mum came to England to be bridesmaid for her oldest sister and she never went back 'home' to live. She met my dad and they married. She was 23 and he was a mere 20. When I asked her why she married him (having been told she had never loved him) she said 'I fell in love with his mum and dad.'
10 months after they married I came into their life and for my mum this meant life was over. She hated being a parent, saw me as the reason she was trapped and spent the next 17 years telling me she hated me, I was stupid, ugly and that she tried to abort me but chickened out at the last minute. Abortions in 1960 were illegal and very risky and I know she tried drinking lots of gin in order to go through with it but it didn't numb her enough to put herself in the hands of back street abortionist. 'I wish you were dead' was the mantra of my childhood.
Even in my darkest moments I am always glad she failed.
I would have loved to have grown up in a proper house. With a garden. In a proper family. I would have loved to have had a pink bedroom filled with books and games and toys. I would have loved to have come home from school and be greeted by the smell of home cooking, to a mummy who smiled sometimes, kissed my cheek, and was happy to see me. I would have loved to chat to her about my day, show her my homework, be told how clever I was. How pretty. I would have loved to have been run a bubble bath (Matey) and told to make sure I washed behind my ears. I would have loved a dad who took the time to talk to me, to sit me on his knee and read to me. I would have loved to have got through one day without being hit, without shedding tears.
'When I was Seventeen' http://www.top40db.net/Lyrics/?SongID=73059 I ran away from home and from everything I had ever known. Well everything except the being hit and shedding tears bit.
Monday 22 November 2010
Maxims
Living by the rules is not always easy. Living by maxims can be even more of a challenge. Take these, favoured by George V:
Teach me to be obedient to the rules of the game.
Teach me to distinguish between sentiment and sentimentality admiring the one and despising the other.
Teach me neither to proffer nor receive cheap praise.
If I am called upon to suffer, let me be like a well bred beast that goes away to suffer in silence.
Teach me to win, if I may; if I may not win, then above all teach me to be a good loser.
Teach me neither to cry for the moon nor over spilt milk.
Some maxims, like these for 'manhood' are a lot easier to adhere to:
Your dog must be larger than a toaster.
Tip well.
Never use the word 'blossom.'
Outperform the GPS.
Always hold the door.
Never use emoticons
Then there are maxims that, if taken note of, will help you get by in this harsh and demanding world:
If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
He who hesitates is probably right.
To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.
To succeed in politics, it is often necessary to rise above your principles.
Two wrongs are only the beginning.
Maxims for women:
Don't sweat the small stuff.
If you want everlasting love - surrender.
When you are old you will look at photographs of your younger self and marvel at how hot you were - and how stupid you were not to be able to see it. Enjoy your youth.
Max the maxims for a better life!
Teach me to be obedient to the rules of the game.
Teach me to distinguish between sentiment and sentimentality admiring the one and despising the other.
Teach me neither to proffer nor receive cheap praise.
If I am called upon to suffer, let me be like a well bred beast that goes away to suffer in silence.
Teach me to win, if I may; if I may not win, then above all teach me to be a good loser.
Teach me neither to cry for the moon nor over spilt milk.
Some maxims, like these for 'manhood' are a lot easier to adhere to:
Your dog must be larger than a toaster.
Tip well.
Never use the word 'blossom.'
Outperform the GPS.
Always hold the door.
Never use emoticons
Then there are maxims that, if taken note of, will help you get by in this harsh and demanding world:
If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
He who hesitates is probably right.
To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.
To succeed in politics, it is often necessary to rise above your principles.
Two wrongs are only the beginning.
Maxims for women:
Don't sweat the small stuff.
If you want everlasting love - surrender.
When you are old you will look at photographs of your younger self and marvel at how hot you were - and how stupid you were not to be able to see it. Enjoy your youth.
Max the maxims for a better life!
Sunday 21 November 2010
The Man With The Key In His Hand
He said ‘take the time to indulge…
To find the space in your day, in your heart, in your mind
Wherever it is that your soul resides,
Search for a place to stop thinking and start being
To embrace the layers that are full of light and knowledge’
He said it would bring an understanding
That would ultimately set me free
He said all this…
The man with the key in his hand.
He said ‘be aware of your dark side and that of others…
It has its purpose, its aim, and its compelling attraction
Search for the meaning behind it
To reveal its secrets and harness its power,
Recognise the difference between feelings and emotions
He said it would bring an acceptance
That would ultimately set me free
He said all this…
The man with the key in his hand.
He said ‘Life is full of awe and wonder…
If you know where to search
You might find it in work that fulfills and excites you
Or in the discovery of your true self,
Look within carefully and deeply’
He said it would bring an awareness
That would ultimately set me free
He said all this…
The man with the key in his hand.
He said ‘Patience is a lesson worth learning
For life can be tiring and sometimes dull
Recognise the value of the journey,
Reflect, use meditation, control destructive emotions
Make time to take care of your soul’
He said it would bring a contentness
That would ultimately set me free
He said all this…
The man with the key in his hand.
He said ‘There is a right way to live
Whenever possible promote and pursue truth,
Strive for peace and battle for justice
For sometimes a peaceful man has to take up his sword
Be afraid, embrace your fear, let it feed your flame
He said it would bring a courage
That would ultimately set me free
He said all this…
To find the space in your day, in your heart, in your mind
Wherever it is that your soul resides,
Search for a place to stop thinking and start being
To embrace the layers that are full of light and knowledge’
He said it would bring an understanding
That would ultimately set me free
He said all this…
The man with the key in his hand.
He said ‘be aware of your dark side and that of others…
It has its purpose, its aim, and its compelling attraction
Search for the meaning behind it
To reveal its secrets and harness its power,
Recognise the difference between feelings and emotions
He said it would bring an acceptance
That would ultimately set me free
He said all this…
The man with the key in his hand.
He said ‘Life is full of awe and wonder…
If you know where to search
You might find it in work that fulfills and excites you
Or in the discovery of your true self,
Look within carefully and deeply’
He said it would bring an awareness
That would ultimately set me free
He said all this…
The man with the key in his hand.
He said ‘Patience is a lesson worth learning
For life can be tiring and sometimes dull
Recognise the value of the journey,
Reflect, use meditation, control destructive emotions
Make time to take care of your soul’
He said it would bring a contentness
That would ultimately set me free
He said all this…
The man with the key in his hand.
He said ‘There is a right way to live
Whenever possible promote and pursue truth,
Strive for peace and battle for justice
For sometimes a peaceful man has to take up his sword
Be afraid, embrace your fear, let it feed your flame
He said it would bring a courage
That would ultimately set me free
He said all this…
Gifted and Talented
I have some great dreams. Not as in Martin Luther Kings ‘I have a dream’ but as in sleeping dreams. Last night I dreamt the screenplay of a film which, on waking was crystal clear, but as the last remnants of sleep fell away I was left only with the title – ‘Gifted and Talented’ and a couple of the elements of the story line – two teachers on a G&T training weekend in some seaside town, who discover, along with the purpose of education, the fact they have great sex together.
My friend C was involved in this dream. In my dream she revealed that she used to be married to Bill Nighy and that he might be willing to play the part of the aging headteacher of the school that had sent our young idealistic lovers on the G&T training. Luckily C and Bill had remained on friendly terms and she felt it shouldn’t be too difficult to get him to agree to play the part for a nominal fee.
‘Gifted and Talented’ was intended to be a more realistic mix of films like ‘Nativity!’ starring Martin Freedman http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1242447/and ‘Happy Go Lucky’ directed by Mike Leigh http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1045670/. Both these films had Primary school teachers as the heroes. The trouble with having great dreams is waking up and realising your dreams will never become a reality. Which if different from the kind of dreams you have when you’re awake. For those there is always hope. This is particularly true starting tomorrow for Aquarians when the Sun moves into their sector of the solar chart. According to Sally Brompton this gives me and fellow Aquarians the opportunity to make a wish and watch it come true. My favourite Astrologer, Jonathan Cainer does not mention this amazing opportunity but talks instead of ‘a gap in the matrix’ which he says means that something I thought was one way is actually another. Maybe I should be careful what I wish for.
My friend C was involved in this dream. In my dream she revealed that she used to be married to Bill Nighy and that he might be willing to play the part of the aging headteacher of the school that had sent our young idealistic lovers on the G&T training. Luckily C and Bill had remained on friendly terms and she felt it shouldn’t be too difficult to get him to agree to play the part for a nominal fee.
‘Gifted and Talented’ was intended to be a more realistic mix of films like ‘Nativity!’ starring Martin Freedman http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1242447/and ‘Happy Go Lucky’ directed by Mike Leigh http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1045670/. Both these films had Primary school teachers as the heroes. The trouble with having great dreams is waking up and realising your dreams will never become a reality. Which if different from the kind of dreams you have when you’re awake. For those there is always hope. This is particularly true starting tomorrow for Aquarians when the Sun moves into their sector of the solar chart. According to Sally Brompton this gives me and fellow Aquarians the opportunity to make a wish and watch it come true. My favourite Astrologer, Jonathan Cainer does not mention this amazing opportunity but talks instead of ‘a gap in the matrix’ which he says means that something I thought was one way is actually another. Maybe I should be careful what I wish for.
Thursday 18 November 2010
The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret.
I have yet to read a novel by Nora Ephron – mainly because her work is catorised as ‘chic lit’ and I don’t generally read chic lit. The films she is responsible for are also ‘chic’ films and, although enjoyable, they also are not really my thing. But I am getting old and in recent years Ephron has been writing about the aging process from a womans point of view so she has seeped into my consiousness. Ephron is an interesting woman.
Wiki:
Ephron was born in New York City, eldest of four daughters in a Jewish family, and grew up in Beverly Hills;[1] her parents, Henry and Phoebe Ephron, were both East Coast-born and screenwriters. Her sisters Delia and Amy are also screenwriters. Her sister Hallie Ephron is a journalist, book reviewer, and novelist who writes crime fiction. Ephron's parents based Sandra Dee's character in the play and the Jimmy Stewart film Take Her, She's Mine on their 22-year-old daughter Nora and her letters to them from college. Both became alcoholics during their declining years. She has been married three times. Her first marriage, to writer Dan Greenburg, ended in divorce after nine years. Her second was to journalist Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame in 1976. Ephron had an infant son, Jacob, and was pregnant with her second son, Max, in 1980 when she found out that of Bernstein was having an affair with their mutual friend, married British politician Margaret Jay. Ephron was inspired by the events to write the 1983 novel Heartburn, which was made into a 1986 film starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. In the book, Ephron wrote of a husband named Mark, who was “capable of having sex with a Venetian blind.” She also said that the character Thelma (based on Margaret Jay) looked like a giraffe with "big feet. Ephron has been married for more than 20 years to screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi and lives in New York City.
Ephron has been in the news this week because her latest book 'I Remember Nothing' http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/40074698/ns/today-books has caused some debate. Alex Baldwin, the actor, has alledgedly had a swipe at Ephron and what he sees as her failure to move on after a messy divorce (her second, the first being as painless as a divorce can be).
The Guardian:
Is Nora Ephron the secret target of Alec Baldwin's attack on a divorcee?
The actor Alec Baldwin appears to have launched an attack on Oscar-winning director and writer Nora Ephron in online magazine the Huffington Post, to which they both contribute.
Earlier this week, Baldwin wrote a comment piece for the Huffington Post's divorce section extolling the virtues and health benefits of forgiving and forgetting messy settlements. The article referred to a friend of his, "Cal", the victim of what Baldwin sees as a continued campaign of malice from an ex-wife, "Dora", despite their having separated 30 years ago, and both being happily remarried and thereafter enjoying great professional success. Many have suggested these are lightly veiled references to Ephron and her ex-husband, the journalist Carl Bernstein, who had an affair with Margaret (later Baroness) Jay when Ephron was pregnant with their second son. She subsequently adapted the events into a novel, Heartburn, which was made into a successful film in 1986 starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. Now married to Nicholas Pileggi – the screenwriter behind Goodfellas – Ephron recently published a new memoir that touches on the incident, I Remember Nothing: and Other Reflections, an extract from which ran in the Huffington Post on 8 November. It largely concerns the damaging impact of her divorce and her continued pain over the episode. In his piece, Baldwin makes reference to his own difficult separation (from his ex-wife, Kim Basinger), his "life-shortening custody battle" and the book he subsequently wrote about "the iniquities of family law, particularly in California". But Baldwin says he has now come to terms with the trauma, unlike "Cal's ex-wife [who] seems to have a condition that, sadly, you often see in high conflict divorces. She simply cannot shut up about her anger, her betrayal, her unresolved feelings, and her bottomless contempt for her ex, who has been a devoted and great father to their two wonderful children."
Baldwin heard a very different message from Ephrons words than I did. Maybe he is a friend of Bernstein? Yes, I too heard how hurt she was by her husbands ultimate betrayal. How the hurt continued to escalate as they both (but Bernstein in particular) handled the situation very badly. She says to her interviewer 'I mention all this so you will understand that this is part of the process: once you find out he's cheated on you, you have to keep finding it out, over and over and over again, until you've degraded yourself so completely that there's nothing left to do but walk out.' Her next comments, 'Now I think, of course, I think, who can possibly be faithful when they're young? I think, Stuff happens,' And, 'my religon is - get over it'. Does this sound like a bitter, angry woman? Not to me.
Here are some of her 'quotes':
'He was, in his way, as close to a Zen master as I've ever had, and all of us who fell under his influence began with his style and eventually ended up with our own.'
'Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.'
'Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel like I've accomplished something, learned something, become a better person. Reading makes me smarter. Reading gives me something to talk about later on. Reading is the unbelievably healthy way my attention deficity disorder medicates itself. Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it's a way of making contact with someone else's imagination after a day that's all too real. Reading is grist. Reading is bliss.'
'In my sex fantasy, nobody ever loves me for my mind.'
'I have no desire to be dominated. Honestly I don't. And yet I find myself becoming angry when I'm not.'
'Sometimes I believe that some people are better at love than others, and sometimes I believe that everyone is faking it.'
These quotes are my thoughts. I wish they had sprung from my lips.
The Mail had the following article today:
Does divorce make you a better wife second time round?
By Tessa Cunningham and Eve Ahmed
Does suffering the pain of divorce mean you will try harder to make your next marriage work and, therefore, be a better wife? In her new book, I Remember Nothing, Nora Ephron, writer and director behind such films as When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless In Seattle, claims this is true.
There follows interviews with two twice married women, one who agrees with this premise and the other who doesn't. I suppose proof is in the pudding although I suspect the one who thinks she has learned from her mistakes will find out one day that she hasn't.
I may have blogged before that only one of my friends is happily married. It seems I was wrong.
None of them are.
Wiki:
Ephron was born in New York City, eldest of four daughters in a Jewish family, and grew up in Beverly Hills;[1] her parents, Henry and Phoebe Ephron, were both East Coast-born and screenwriters. Her sisters Delia and Amy are also screenwriters. Her sister Hallie Ephron is a journalist, book reviewer, and novelist who writes crime fiction. Ephron's parents based Sandra Dee's character in the play and the Jimmy Stewart film Take Her, She's Mine on their 22-year-old daughter Nora and her letters to them from college. Both became alcoholics during their declining years. She has been married three times. Her first marriage, to writer Dan Greenburg, ended in divorce after nine years. Her second was to journalist Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame in 1976. Ephron had an infant son, Jacob, and was pregnant with her second son, Max, in 1980 when she found out that of Bernstein was having an affair with their mutual friend, married British politician Margaret Jay. Ephron was inspired by the events to write the 1983 novel Heartburn, which was made into a 1986 film starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. In the book, Ephron wrote of a husband named Mark, who was “capable of having sex with a Venetian blind.” She also said that the character Thelma (based on Margaret Jay) looked like a giraffe with "big feet. Ephron has been married for more than 20 years to screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi and lives in New York City.
Ephron has been in the news this week because her latest book 'I Remember Nothing' http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/40074698/ns/today-books has caused some debate. Alex Baldwin, the actor, has alledgedly had a swipe at Ephron and what he sees as her failure to move on after a messy divorce (her second, the first being as painless as a divorce can be).
The Guardian:
Is Nora Ephron the secret target of Alec Baldwin's attack on a divorcee?
The actor Alec Baldwin appears to have launched an attack on Oscar-winning director and writer Nora Ephron in online magazine the Huffington Post, to which they both contribute.
Earlier this week, Baldwin wrote a comment piece for the Huffington Post's divorce section extolling the virtues and health benefits of forgiving and forgetting messy settlements. The article referred to a friend of his, "Cal", the victim of what Baldwin sees as a continued campaign of malice from an ex-wife, "Dora", despite their having separated 30 years ago, and both being happily remarried and thereafter enjoying great professional success. Many have suggested these are lightly veiled references to Ephron and her ex-husband, the journalist Carl Bernstein, who had an affair with Margaret (later Baroness) Jay when Ephron was pregnant with their second son. She subsequently adapted the events into a novel, Heartburn, which was made into a successful film in 1986 starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. Now married to Nicholas Pileggi – the screenwriter behind Goodfellas – Ephron recently published a new memoir that touches on the incident, I Remember Nothing: and Other Reflections, an extract from which ran in the Huffington Post on 8 November. It largely concerns the damaging impact of her divorce and her continued pain over the episode. In his piece, Baldwin makes reference to his own difficult separation (from his ex-wife, Kim Basinger), his "life-shortening custody battle" and the book he subsequently wrote about "the iniquities of family law, particularly in California". But Baldwin says he has now come to terms with the trauma, unlike "Cal's ex-wife [who] seems to have a condition that, sadly, you often see in high conflict divorces. She simply cannot shut up about her anger, her betrayal, her unresolved feelings, and her bottomless contempt for her ex, who has been a devoted and great father to their two wonderful children."
Baldwin heard a very different message from Ephrons words than I did. Maybe he is a friend of Bernstein? Yes, I too heard how hurt she was by her husbands ultimate betrayal. How the hurt continued to escalate as they both (but Bernstein in particular) handled the situation very badly. She says to her interviewer 'I mention all this so you will understand that this is part of the process: once you find out he's cheated on you, you have to keep finding it out, over and over and over again, until you've degraded yourself so completely that there's nothing left to do but walk out.' Her next comments, 'Now I think, of course, I think, who can possibly be faithful when they're young? I think, Stuff happens,' And, 'my religon is - get over it'. Does this sound like a bitter, angry woman? Not to me.
Here are some of her 'quotes':
'He was, in his way, as close to a Zen master as I've ever had, and all of us who fell under his influence began with his style and eventually ended up with our own.'
'Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.'
'Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel like I've accomplished something, learned something, become a better person. Reading makes me smarter. Reading gives me something to talk about later on. Reading is the unbelievably healthy way my attention deficity disorder medicates itself. Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it's a way of making contact with someone else's imagination after a day that's all too real. Reading is grist. Reading is bliss.'
'In my sex fantasy, nobody ever loves me for my mind.'
'I have no desire to be dominated. Honestly I don't. And yet I find myself becoming angry when I'm not.'
'Sometimes I believe that some people are better at love than others, and sometimes I believe that everyone is faking it.'
These quotes are my thoughts. I wish they had sprung from my lips.
The Mail had the following article today:
Does divorce make you a better wife second time round?
By Tessa Cunningham and Eve Ahmed
Does suffering the pain of divorce mean you will try harder to make your next marriage work and, therefore, be a better wife? In her new book, I Remember Nothing, Nora Ephron, writer and director behind such films as When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless In Seattle, claims this is true.
There follows interviews with two twice married women, one who agrees with this premise and the other who doesn't. I suppose proof is in the pudding although I suspect the one who thinks she has learned from her mistakes will find out one day that she hasn't.
I may have blogged before that only one of my friends is happily married. It seems I was wrong.
None of them are.
Wednesday 17 November 2010
We Are Being Watched
I have had my concerns about Facebook for some time now. There are a couple of games on there that I like to play which is why I had not deleted my page. I do a lot of thinking when I play these games, I mull over work issues, plan, dream and occasionally fantasise. Other than that I don’t use FB very much. Things I don’t like -the status thing, it makes me cringe, the cryptic ones ‘Tom is contemplating the crockery’ just as much as the mundane ‘Laura is so exhausted, gym was tough tonight’ and the only useful purpose it has is for sharing photos, video clips and music (although I often spend Saturday mornings dreading the photos that are going to be uploaded by friends from the night before – why can they never get my good side?). I have friends whose partners complain about the amount of time they spend ‘chatting’ on line and as for the comments, well some of them expose their writers as ignorant, racist or sexist. The ugly face of FB. If you are not on the ball and regularly check your security settings you could be sharing more than you think. For instance every posting you make from your smart phone also includes your postcode ‘Sandra is in SW3 7YT' if you don't uncheck a box buried in the small print.
So tonight I deactivated my account. I unfaced myself. Debooked. What made me make this monumental decision? The fact that I am being watched. And how did I found out that I was being watched?
On Sunday I decided to buy new lampshades for the living room having lived with the orange balloons for far too long. So I logged on and searched the B&Q website and looked at a few. If you click on an image you can zoom in and get a really good view of the items, along with product information. I then had a look on the Argos website and even (I am embarrassed to say) checked out the reviews. Yes, the reviews on the various lampshades. There were pages of the things. People had taken the time to write ‘excellent value for money’ and ‘bigger than I expected’. I said to my friend G that I felt a bit of a saddo checking out the reviews on lampshades. Holidays yes, hairdressers certainly, but lampshades? G reassured me that he researches everything he buys. As I always thought the man has too much time on his hands despite having three kids under the age of 8 I wasn’t that surprised. I imagine him sitting hunched over the lap top as his wife J entertains the children by juggling, singing and pulling faces and, as she breathlessly looks over at him with a sweating pleading face, he shrugs and says ‘I’m a bit busy right now love, we really need to replace our toothbrushes and I’m near to making the final decision, just another twenty three reviews to read then I’m all yours’. Anyway I digress. This was on Sunday. Today, while playing ‘Starries’ on FB what do I see at the top of the FB page? The lampshades I had viewed on the B&Q website! So how does what I looked at on the B&Q website end up on the FB page? What is the point of clearing history if this sort of thing happens? More worryingly I 'reserved' the items which meant giving my postcode and mobile number. Who has this information and who are they sharing it with?
Facebook hit by new security concerns over privacy settings
By Dan Raywood
Users of Facebook could be giving away their personal information due to the way the website's privacy settings work. A team from the University of Cambridge's computer laboratory has showed how Facebook public profiles could be used to find out personal information despite appearing to contain only a few details. In the paper, titled ‘Eight Friends Are Enough', the team pointed out that it was possible to reconstruct a user's friends list in a way that could allow marketers,governments and even criminals to understand the private relationships between different people.
It claimed that a search for a specific Facebook user will display every user's name, photo and eight friendship links. Affiliations with organisations, causes, or products are also listed. The paper's author Joseph Bonneau, said: "This is quite a bit of information given away by a feature many active Facebook users are unaware of. Indeed, it's more information than the Facebook's own privacy policy indicates is given away. "When the feature was launched in 2007, every over-18 user was automatically opted-in, as have been new users since then. You can opt out, but few people do - out of more than 500 friends of mine, only three had taken the time to opt out. It doesn't help that most users are unaware of the feature, since registered users don't encounter it." The paper further claimed that the public listings are designed to be indexed by search engines. In the team's own experiments, it was able to download over 250,000 public listings per day using a desktop PC and a fairly crude Python script. Bonneau said: "For a serious data aggregator getting every user's listing is no sweat. So what can one do with 200 million public listings? Facebook's public listings give us a random sample of the social graph, leading to some interesting exercises in graph theory. As we describe in the paper, it turns out that this sampled graph allows us to approximate many properties of the complete network surprisingly well." "This result leads to two interesting conclusions. First, protecting a social graph is hard. Consistent with previous results, we found that giving away a seemingly small amount can allow much information to be inferred. It's also been shown that anonymising a social graph is almost impossible."
"Second, Facebook is developing a track record of releasing features and then being surprised by the privacy implications, from Beacon to NewsFeed and now Public Search. Analogous to security-critical software, where new code is extensively tested and evaluated before being deployed, social networks should have a formal privacy review of all new features before they are rolled out (as, indeed, should other web services which collect personal information). Features like public search listings shouldn't make it off the drawing board." Facebook claimed that its publicly searchable pages were only introduced after an extensive privacy review. A spokesperson told the Guardian: "Public search listings are a way for those users who wish to allow people to find them in search engines to share limited elements of their Facebook profile. Their creation, continued presence, and the particular elements contained within them are entirely configurable by users. "Changes as to the presence or content of a public search listing may be made easily by any user on the privacy settings page."
Do you have a Blackberry? A smart phone? The following report has been denied by RIM … still it is food for thought.
BlackBerry to allow Indian government to monitor messages
Research In Motion's move could permit officials to lawfully access corporate customers' communications
BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) is ready to allow Indian authorities access to the emails and messages of its most high-profile corporate customers, according to a ministry official in the country.The secure communications of India's 400,000 BlackBerry owners could soon be lawfully accessed by government officials, the unnamed interior minister said, adding that RIM is preparing for "providing live access" to customers' encrypted servers. "They have in principle agreed to provide us recorded data from their servers," India's the Mint business newspaper quoted an unnamed Indian ministry official as saying. "Now they have assured us that they will discuss the issue first among themselves and find a way to meet our demands. Later, they would be providing live access to BES [BlackBerry Enterprise Server]," the official told the paper. However, the threat of a blackout for the 400,000 BlackBerry owners in India still looms after months of terse, but largely fruitless, negotiations between RIM and India's telecoms ministry. The Delhi government has opened up a front against Google, Skype and the many mobile carriers operating in the country, citing security fears over the level of encryption employed by the companies. Officials suspect the culprits of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack, in which 116 people died, used encrypted BlackBerry devices. RIM today said: "RIM has once again found it necessary to address certain media reports in India containing inaccurate and misleading statements and information based on unsubstantiated claims from unnamed sources. "All our discussions with the government of India have been and continue to be productive and fully consistent with the four core principles we follow in addressing lawful access matters around the world. Any suggestion to the contrary is false." The company added that any "lawful access" negotiations would abide by four principles: that it was legal, that there would be "no greater access" to BlackBerry services than other services, that there would be no changes in the security for Enterprise customers, and it would not make "specific deals for specific customers".
Last month RIM escaped a ban on the BlackBerry communications of its 500,000 customers in the United Arab Emirates, while Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Lebanon have also raised concerns about the Canadian company's security policies.
The chief concern of India, which is the world's second largest mobile phone market behind China, surrounds communication passed between corporate BlackBerry devices using Enterprise servers. Organisations using BlackBerry Enterprise Servers (BES) host their own server and encryption key – which only it can use to unscramble encrypted emails and messages – thereby offering a higher level of security.
RIM has publicly remained defiant, insisting that it would not offer special deals to specific countries and that security measures for its Enterprise customers would not be compromised. Informa Telecoms & Media forecasts that there will be more than 600,000 BlackBerry sales in India this year and that India's smart phone market will have reached approximately 12m – a figure forecast to grow to 40m by the end of 2015.
The increasing popularity of smartphones running Google's Android operating system has eroded RIM's grip on the corporate communications market in 2010. RIM's most recent smart phone release, the Bold 9780, has failed to make an impression on consumers or traders since its launch in October.
Use Google as a search engine? Home page? Then Google knows all about you, what you like, what you buy, where you shop, where you holiday, maybe even your sexual preferences. It knows if you are worried about your weight or that little rash on your elbow. It certainly knows your political views. It knows the last restaurant you ate in and the last major purchase you made. It knows if you are married, single, gay, straight. Use a mobile? The phone company knows where you are. It knows who your friends are and someone somewhere in that company will know if you are having an affair and if you are one of the twats voting for Widdecombe and Wagner. If you use a loyalty card in the supermarket even Tesco knows all about you too. They can even predict your weekly shop. Amazon knows what books you read in bed, what music is playing in your car. Texting? Instant messaging? Pinging? Poking? Those words are out there. Emailing? Blogging? More words, thoughts, ideas, words mundane, words profound and words personal. Hundreds of words revealing all. Hell, Google, Yahoo, Tesco and Amazon know more about you than your nearest and dearest.
Before FB let you leave you have to give them a reason. This is compulsory. It lists several and adds a comment box. Did I make a clean break? No, I didn't want FB to know I was leaving it forever so I chose the 'I need a break' option. The 'it's not you, it's me' reason. It was harder than breaking up with a lover. There are things I'm going to miss. The friends, the camaraderie, the odd fun and games. The company. I won't miss the hold it has, the time is demands, the constant bombardment of information and the questions. Best they don't know I'm not coming back. Unless they read this of course.
I am going into hiding.
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About Me
- Katie Clapton
- Rat symbolizes such character traits as wit, imagination and curiosity. Rats have keen observation skills and with those skills they’re able to deduce much about other people and other situations. Overall, Rats are full of energy, talkative and charming.