A Gentleman's Domain

Not Well Met.

I posted a Thursday Thirteen a week or two ago about office-speak.  Several people were kind enough to comment and no one came to the defence of pretentious management twaddle.  There's a surprise!  I've had this in a dusty folder deep in the bowels of my computer for a year or two. I can't remember who sent it to me but whoever you are, thank you.  It is certainly accurate.  I'm sure most of us who have worked in offices have suffered through useless meetings which have been called to flatter the egos of managers who like to hear the sounds of their own voices.  I once worked with one who bought a telescopic pointer which he could keep in his breast pocket, pull out whenever he was giving a talk, extend to its full eighteen inches and point to various words he had written on his beloved flip chart, while the rest of us looked on through  glazed eyes and rapidly lost the will to live.
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Youth Up In Smoke

And here is today’s big surprise.  Prepare to be absolutely shocked, because I am sure that this is something that none of you has ever suspected, not even very slightly.  Have a look at this.  British American Tobacco (BAT), one of the world’s leading suppliers of cigarettes, has been breaking the rules in the Third World by targeting children. Who’d a thought it!  With hundreds of people dying from smoking every day, they have to find new smokers to replace them or  their customer base will shrink, and who better than children?  Get them while they are young.  So, it is alleged, they have been advertising tobacco by giving it a positive, cool image – not mentioning that there is nothing cool about lung disease, body odour and breath like a sewer – and by selling cigarettes singly.  Only kids buy cigarettes one at a time.  When I was at school I remember there was one brand, Woodbines I think or maybe Weights but I’m open to correction, which was available in packs of five, and we schoolboys used to pool our money and buy one of those between two or three of us.  I should imagine that children were the most frequent customers for those.  They have long been banned in Britain, as far as I know, and there is now talk of banning packs of ten as well and increasing the penalties imposed on people who sell to under 18s.  And in most countries in the developed world they have equal, or more severe, restrictions.  Take a look at those graphic health warnings on cigarette packs in Australia and Canada sometime.  So, if these reports are true, they are off to hook in new smokers, especially kids, in third world countries, where there are fewer or no restrictions, and where such regulations as may exist can be ignored or sidestepped.

The bastards!  The sons of bitches!  I’m not interested in any “great debate” or “the jury is still out” crap.  I am convinced that smoking kills, and people who sell this dangerous drug are pushers plain and simple.  Merchants of death may be an overused phrase, but it is still very accurate.  I really hate smoking, as only an ex-smoker can hate it.  It’s true that people who give it up are the most anti.  But how can we stop these people?  So many billions who live in the third world will fall easy prey to them unless something is done. And if this report is true, then I can say on the basis of no proof at all but in the certainty that I am right, that all the other tobacco companies are doing exactly the same thing.

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Thursday Thirteen #59

 Thursday Thirteen

Management-speak.   Don’t you hate it?  Those words and phrases used in offices, usually by people who don’t have much of a command of the language, are not secure in their jobs and try to dress up their activities in clichés and long winded phrases that mean very little, if anything.  It would be a different matter if these word and phrases meant something special, which could not be communicated by using ordinary English, but they don't -- they simply show that whoever uses them is pretentious and stupid.   The BBC recently published a survey of 50 examples that people hate, and some of them coincide with 13 examples of office speak that I have heard and long despised

   

       13 Examples of "Management-Speak" that I can't stand

Incentivize  Do you mean “encourage” dear?

Touch base   Far easier to say you'll be in touch.  No need to go on about bases. Sporting metaphors are always irritating.

Hit the ground running  I used to hear this all the time in sales management.

Lead from the front  That was often stated as a job requirement in sales management. Usually it was a disguised way of saying that you had to sell and manage at the same time. In other words, do two jobs for the price of one.

Forward planning  What other kind of planning is there?

Under the radar   Which means that someone or something has gone largely unnoticed.  This was probably a rather clever metaphor when it was first used by whoever thought it up, but now it is everywhere, like a fungus.

Good to go  Just plain annoying.

Step up to the plate  So is this.

At the end of the day  This has spread so widely in Britain it has reached epidemic proportions.  I hope the USA resists it.

You can talk the talk but can you walk the walk?  This bit of long winded drivel seems to crop up a lot.  I notice that they said it frequently on The Apprentice (Trump’s version, not Sugar’s). Only once has anyone said it to me and I replied “Yes, and I can banana the banana too.”  which is utterly meaningless but did have the pleasant effect of killing the conversation stone dead.

Think outside the box   I don’t think in a box, do you?  Are you trying ot tell em to be imaginative?

Blue sky thinking   I’m still not exactly sure what this is, but I bet there is a better way of expressing it.

Basically   Arrgghhh!!!!

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Mind Your Keyboard, Not Your Language

Well now, here are a couple of things I have read about recently that may interest you.  Both to do with dirt, in one way or another.  Now, I have always thought of you lot as pretty clean – though one or two of you do have dirty minds, I’m glad to say.  But I’m wrong.  You are all positively wallowing in dirt and grime and, shock horror, germs.  So am I, probably.  We can’t help it – it’s just the way things are.  For an explanation, take a gander at this article and you’ll see what I mean.   Your keyboard is positively awash with germs and muck. 

When you think about it, it’s not really all that surprising.  People eat over their keyboards, they cough and sneeze – and who wipes their keyboard after a good sneeze?  In fact, who even puts their hand to their mouth to cover a cough when they are sitting alone at their computer (I do – but maybe I’m just odd.)?   Remarkably, many keyboards are far more germ infested than the average toilet seat.  You wouldn’t want to spend hours at a time rubbing your fingertips over a toilet seat, I’ll bet, but one thinks nothing of tapping away for ages at a qwerty disease incubator.  Next time you use a public computer, stop and think for a moment – you are about to plunge your fingertips into unknown quantities of germs and muck and dried spit and phlegm from legions of previous users!  You know those revolting commercials that show the cartoon fungus that can afflict people's toenails?  I tend to avert my gaze when that come on. Well, little monsters like that probably lurk under your caps lock key! And strangely enough, women are far dirtier then men in this respect.

The microbiologist quoted in the article recommends using alcohol wipes once in a while. I feel vindicated!  For a long time now I have been giving my keyboard the occasional once over with a Wet One – not because I was afraid of germs really, but because I like things to be clean – but I couldn’t help feeling a frisson of embarrassment as I did it, even though I was on my own.  Now, no such frisson will occur!  I will wipe boldly and proudly, imagining that I can hear the death screams of thousands of gems as I do so, confident that even if I haven’t exactly sterilized my keyboard it will at least be a bit cleaner than your average toilet seat.

And the other thing?  Well,  it concerns filthy language.  In many circumstances, I am all for it.  I hate mealy mouthed euphemisms almost as much as I hate bleeps on TV shows during adult viewing time.  In the heated environment of a high pressure workplace, bad language is often the lingua franca.  It was ever thus.  A person who makes copious use of it is one of my fave TV personalities at the moment, the chef Gordon Ramsay.  He swears a lot during “Hells’ Kitchen”   “Ramsay’s F-Word”  and both the British and American versions of “Kitchen Nightmares”  and you know what? The shows do not suffer one iota for it.  These are not children’s shows, and responsible parents should make sure there are no little ones watching.  The swearing is harmless, because it is suitable to the circumstances.

And then, as we read,  the Australians, of all people, have complained. Well, not every single Australian, of course. Just some dickhead politicians.  Ramsay’s shows are very popular there, and some people became concerned at the amount of swearing the man does.  Now, we all know that Australians have a worldwide reputation for being shy, delicate, unworldly and fragile and Senator Bernardi obviously wanted to protect the poor dears from verbal assault. Silly old git!   As if they needed it!  I’m glad to say, it transpires that Ramsay will be able to carry on as before.  As he says, if you don’t like it you can switch off. Watch something else – there’s a novel idea!  Content yourself with reruns of "Happy Days" or do some quilting.  Senator Bernardi is an example of that disgusting attitude of “I don’t like it so you can’t do it.”  and that’s what needs to be stamped out, not a bit of bad language.  Carry on with the fucking swearing, Chef!

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Thursday Thirteen #58

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We have just spent a very enjoyable holiday in England, visiting friends and family and generally relaxing in the countryside.  While we were there we did of course visit a great many pubs of various styles – old and modern, simple and multi-purpose.  Some were a lot better than others but there were none that we actually regretted going to. Here are thirteen of them.

The Red Lion, Long Compton
Apparently this place is quite well known but I had never heard of it.  We had a quiet drink there on the way home from an afternoon of driving and sightseeing.

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The Mason’s Arms, Swerford
Like so many country pubs, this place has become part pub, part restaurant.  We dropped in for a drink one afternoon, only to find it closed, but we went back a few evenings later for a wonderful, if expensive meal.  The waitress was interested to chat to us because she had just finished 6 months as an exchange student at Berkeley.

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The Unicorn Inn, Deddington
This was one of the closest pubs to where we were, within walking distance.  We went here just once, at a time when there were hardly any customers, and we sat in what in effect was a private room for an undisturbed quiet drink.

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The Drabbet Smock, Haverhill
I have no idea what the name signifies. This is a modern gastro-pub, where we had dinner with my daughter and her fiancé.  It was even bigger on the inside than it looks from the outside (a sort of Tardis effect) and was doing a great business.

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The Dun Cow, Dunchurch
This pub in south Warwickshire has something of a reputation as a restaurant.  We went there in 2002 and decided to make a second visit.  The place was buzzing and the food was excellent.

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The Coach & Horses, Adderbury
This place has no culinary pretensions.   Just a nice little pub in a small country town.  We spent a nice hour there.

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The Joiner’s Arms, Bloxham
Another quiet little country pub.  A pleasure to visit.

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The Wharf Inn, Fenny Compton
The Oxford Canal runs right behind this pub and the wharf in question refers to a mooring point there.  In the old days of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when the canals were used to transport goods the way the highways and railroads are used now, there were pubs situated at frequent intervals along them where bargees could eat, drink and even sleep.  In our hard bitten twenty-first century the only boatmen we saw on the canal were there for the fun of it and there were no bargees in the pub when we dropped by – just a few people enjoying an afternoon drink.

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The Three Wishes, Edgware
This pub is in what used to me my old stamping ground about ten years ago, but it was not one I visited regularly.  We found that my old local, the Railway Arms, had closed down, so we dropped in here for refreshment.  I don’t know what the George Michael poster was all about.  He wasn’t there when we were!

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The Silver Cross, Whitehall
This was the only pub we went into in central London.  It’s at the north end of Whitehall, just a few yards from Trafalgar Square.  At 6pm on a summer evening it was full of tourists visiting London and civil servants from the surrounding government offices, popping in for a quick pint before going home.

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The Falcon,  Shipston-On-Stour
We stopped here on the road to Stratford-On-Avon.  It was a nice enough pub but they had an overhead TV playing some sports crap far too loud.

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The Bure Farm, Bicester
We decided to go to a pub we had never been to before, so we drove south along the A4141 until we came to the outskirts of Bicester and went to this place. It is very new, and very large.  Luckily it wasn’t too crowded.  It was a nice day so I suppose we should really have sat in the garden instead of indoors.

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The Blue Boar, Chipping Norton
One of the nicest pubs we visited during our trip.  It’s a very old pub, as the picture shows, but the back has been built onto, and we sat in a rather Mediterranean looking patio and had a rather nice meal at a very good price.

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Non-Stop Flights

Well, we're in England, and jolly nice it is too.  Spring is such a beautiful season here, and the Cotswold countryside looks glorious. We're going to do all sorts of lovely things later today, like go for a long walk etc. But, that's not why I'm speaking to you now. I want to tell you about the comedy of errors  (though I saw, and still see, very little about it that is comic) that was our journey from northern Florida to Heathrow airport.

It was all very straightforward. I made the booking online last February, three months in advance. To avoid the overland trip to Orlando and the zoo that is Orlando airport, we decided to fly out of Jacksonville, which is much closer, and connect to a London bound flight from an international airport, in this case Miami.  So very simple.  A one-hour hop down to Miami and a connection to a transatlantic flight from the same terminal.  Couldn’t be easier. Leave home to get to Jacksonville at around noon and arrive in London the following morning.  Like all overnight transatlantic flights, it would have been tiring but not at all difficult.  I’ve done it at least forty times in my life so far and it has always been a doddle.

I have to say that the part of the journey that was in my control went off flawlessly.  There is no bus or shuttle service to Jacksonville Airport from the town I live in, so we decided to rent a car for a one way drive.  Traffic was light and apart from a brief hold-up in Starke (just a few minutes really) getting to the airport went very smoothly.  We dropped the car off, unloaded our bags onto a trolley ($3.00 to rent a trolley for a few minutes.  Someone’s onto a good thing there!) and trundled off to the check-in desks. 

Now, it is not my intention to cause embarrassment to anyone, no matter how crappy their service is, so I shall disguise the name of the carrier we were booked with in order to spare their blushes, and I shall simply say that we got to the check-in desk for Zamerican Airlines.  It was not crowded but the few people who were there managed to make it seem far more chaotic that it need have been.  For some reason, Zamerican have mixed up the self-service check-in desks with the manned ones, and people like me, who prefer to deal with a human being, were jostling with seasoned travellers who wanted just to swipe their credit cards and check in via a machine.  Shuffling forward a few inches at a time, we did manage to reach the check-in and after receiving our boarding cards we handed over our 3 checked bags, expecting to be reunited with them in about 10 hours time.  Such sweet naiveté! 

[A quick heads-up here for Homeland Security and all other interested parties….   As we were in the check-in line we saw an unattended package on the floor next to where we were standing.  My wife went and told a security guard.  His response was simply to shrug and walk away.  It turned out to belong to a guy in line ahead of us, checking in for a flight to Chile, but the implications are rather disturbing.]

Jacksonville International Airport (JAX) is one of those mid-range airports.  Not big on the JFK-Heathrow-Schiphol scale but not exactly a shack either.   There was enough to occupy our minds, and a Chilis to get something to eat, between going through security (very thorough but fairly quick) and arriving at our departure gate.  Once there, we thought we would have a wait of about 45 minutes before boarding our quick-hop flight down to Miami. Ha!

For whatever reason, the airport people have decided that if you want to wait for a plane in their departure lounges, you need to spend the time becoming better informed. So they have decreed that as you sit and wait for your flight you must be bombarded by CNN -- not just on TV monitors attached at intervals to the walls, but also blaring out of loudspeakers set into the ceiling, loud enough to make them impossible to ignore.  For those who would rather sit and read to pass the time, it is an intolerable intrusion. It also makes it hard to hear flight announcements.  So, instead of reading my book I had to sit and listen to endless chatter (with much repetition, as is the nature all-news TV channels) about Hillary and Obama.  All very important, I’m sure, but not what I was in the mood to listen to just then.

When they took my booking, and my money, way back in February, Zamerican Airlines had obviously decided that a 55 minute window to change planes in Miami was enough.  And if the first flight had been on time, it would have been.  However, after we had been sitting in CNN hell for about half an hour, a technician in overalls appeared behind the desk by the gate and stuck a sign up saying that the flight was delayed by half an hour. There was no one at the desk, so I immediately went to another desk, by another gate, and told the woman there that my wife and I were going to miss our connection and that we wanted to know what Zamerican were going to do about it.  She already had in her possession a computer print-out of all the passengers on the JAX-Miami flight who were trying to make connections (almost all of us, in fact) and she said that she would rebook my wife and me on a British Airways flight leaving Miami an hour after our original connection. Yes, she assured me, our bags would be automatically rerouted.  I’m glad I got out of my seat and went to the desk when I did, because by this time a long queue of disgruntled wannabe connection makers had formed behind me.  Anyway, she slowly and painstakingly entered our information into he computer and printed out travel vouchers for the BA flight.  I thanked her and resumed my seat. 

All along, the board by our departure gate said that we’d be leaving at the new time of 6.15pm.  But 6.15pm rolled round and they hadn’t even started boarding us.  In fact, I don’t even think the plane had arrived.  At 6.40pm they began the boarding process and the little ATR-7 (90 seats and 2 propellers) filled with anxious passengers.  Then we sat on the ground for over half an hour before they closed the doors, and another twenty minutes before they started the motors and pulled back from the terminal.  We finally took off over 90 minutes later than the scheduled time.

The flight to Miami was fairly painless, and I tried to avoid looking at my watch every two minutes.  We landed in Miami, taxied towards the terminal and then were told that we would be taken the last few hundred yards by bus. So, off the plane, down the ladder and into a bus.  “Will we make it?” my wife asked me about our BA connection.  I shook my head.  “It’s taking off right this minute.”

That meant we had missed two connections. I assumed that Zamerican would book us onto a later flight.  Once we got inside the terminal I rounded on the Zamerican passenger agent by the gate and told her what had happened, and that we now required another booking on a flight to London Heathrow.  Gatwick was not acceptable.  She clacked away at her terminal and told me that the next fight to Heathrow was not until ten o’clock the following morning.  Out of Chicago.

There are times when all you can do is nod and say ok.  Getting annoyed would have achieved nothing.  There was another woman from the JAX flight who was being booked onto a BA flight a little later that evening, but she was flying first class, and there were plenty of seats there.  I said that after all that Zamerican had put us through we deserved an upgrade but that was airily dismissed.

So we got a hotel voucher, a meal voucher, and were told where to catch the courtesy bus to a hotel hard by the airport.  The bus actually showed up in a matter of a few minutes and the hotel was almost within sight of the terminal, so we soon found ourselves in the lobby of a very nice hotel.  Well, that can’t be bad, you may be thinking.  A night in a good hotel, paid for by Zamerican Airlines.  And in other circumstances you might have been right.  The thing is, though, that our Chicago to London flight was scheduled to leave at 10.00am and in order to catch it we had to fly to Chicago from Miami at 6.30am.  That meant check in no later than 4.30am.  And that meant asking the hotel reception for a wake-up call at 3.30am.

We had something to eat in the hotel dining room (which was full of passengers from the late JAX flight, all waiting for connections the following day) and went to bed, knowing we had scarcely four hours before we had to get up.  And you know what it is like when you tell yourself that you had better go to sleep soon because you have to be up early.  No matter how tired you are, your body decides to be awkward and rebellious and sleep is a long time coming.  We did manage to fall asleep, though, and were jangled awake at 3.30am on the dot and got dressed in the previous day’s clothes (our bags were somewhere in the airport, waiting to be loaded onto the Chicago flight).  No time for breakfast. We got the 4.00am shuttle bus to the airport and decided to check in and go through security, and then worry about getting something to eat.

An airport at 4.00am is almost empty, as you would imagine.  There were people about, but not many.  Most of the concessions were still closed, and although the whole place was lit up, there were hardly any check-in desks open.   The Zamerican Airlines desks were all unmanned except one in the first class check in, and one in the economy check-in area, where a small queue had started to form.  We joined it, only to be shooed away by some official type who told us that that line was only for check-in for a flight to Haiti.  So we shifted to the first-class line.  The agent in charge there had left the desk but as we stood there she returned to her position and as she passed us I told he we weren’t first class but didn’t know where to check in. She told us not to worry, she would check us in. There was one passenger ahead of us and no one behind us, so it was not as though the first class check-in was crowded.  All well and good, until a woman in a maroon jacket with the Zamerican insignia on it tried to order us out of the line, telling us to go check in “over there” as she gestured vaguely to another part of the terminal.  We didn’t move, and I told her that the first class woman had agreed to deal with us.  She seemed a bit put out at that, but left us alone -- no doubt hoping that we wouldn’t contaminate any first class passengers with our economy class presence.  The first class lady checked us in to Chicago and also gave us boarding cards and seat assignments for the Chicago to London flight.  So at 4.15am we were free to go through security and wait for our flight.

The trouble was, though, the security did not open until 5.00am, so we had to stand in a line of tired passengers, waiting for the security gate to open up.  The airport Starbucks was open, though, so we were able to sip something as we stood in line.  At 5.00am the security people showed up and we went through -- again, it was thorough but fairly quick.

From there we went to our departure gate (CNN at Miami airport too, whether you want it or not), and waited for our flight.  We had a 55 minute window between our arrival time in Chicago and the scheduled departure time to London, so I was anxious that we should take off on time -- which we did.  The flight up to Chicago was smooth and comfortable and actually arrived a few minutes earlier than scheduled.  All we had to do was get to the departure gate for our London flight.  As soon as we were inside the terminal I asked the Zamerican gate agent “Where does flight 90 to Heathrow leave from?”  at which she turned to her computer screen and told me it was at K-12, which was just half a dozen gates away.  No need to go to a different part of the terminal.  Yay!

We walked quickly up to K-12, with plenty of time left before the London flight departed.  There was K-12, and there was a crowd of people sitting around.  Strange -- there were no airline agents at the desk by the gate.  I glanced up at a monitor showing arrivals and departures and saw the following:  “Flight 90 to Heathrow -- canceled”  For some reason, I was not all that surprised.   

There were no Zamerican personnel in sight, but there was a sign telling me where the rebooking center was, and we walked over to it, only to find it unmanned.  There was one red telephone on the desk which was a direct line to the Zamerican booking department, so I picked it up and explained to the woman at the other end what had happened and how the two of us came to be in O’Hare Airport with tickets for a flight that no longer existed.  She offered me a choice: either a flight to Boston that afternoon to catch a connection to London later that evening, or else a flight to London from Chicago a couple of hours later than that.  “No more connections!” I said, “We’ll take the flight from here.”  So she booked us on that.

We had the booking, but no tickets, so we had to go into the main concourse and get an agent to issue them to us.  She did so, and after I asked her she gave us meal vouchers for our enforced stay in O’Hare airport (almost ten hours).  Now, as airports go, O’Hare is not too bad to have to hang around in.  It may be the busiest airport in the world, but it doesn’t give that appearance.  Since we had gone to the main concourse to get our tickets, we had to go back through security again (the third time) but once through it we found that there were places to eat (we had a very nice lunch) and quiet areas to go sit and read.  There was no enforced CNN, and several bookstores to look round.  The long wait seemed like a long wait, but it could have been a lot worse. 

Our flight to London boarded on time, but once we had pulled back from the terminal we found that there were going to be delays.  There were several flights ahead of us waiting to take off and because of the weather (it was pouring with rain) they were going to make us all wait until several incoming flights had landed.  The captain came over the public address system and told us all this, and also said that he was going to shut down one of the engines in order to save fuel.  We sat waiting to take off for well over an hour before we were finally off the ground.

From then on, I’m pleased to report, everything went smoothly.  We landed at Heathrow 7½ hours later, went quickly and painlessly through Immigration and Customs.  We waited about two minutes for our bags, the rental car I had pre-booked was ready and waiting and two hours after landing we fetched up at my parents' house, our final destination, a mere twenty-four hours behind schedule, and everything has gone well since then.  Our return trip is to JAX via Chicago, with a 4 hour stop-over, and I hope Zamerican Airlines will manage to get us from A to B without incident.   If they don’t, I shall report back to you.

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Electric Spaghetti

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Okay, well,  it’s all very nice to have a computer and all.  In fact on my desk here, I have a computer,  printer/scanner/fax, modem, wireless router, speakers, webcam, microphone, hi-fi, cassette recorder, USB extension, and desk light.  Mission control, pretty much.  It look pretty flash, I have to admit.  The downside is that behind the desk there is all this.

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It’s a good thing no one ever looks there but me!

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Thursday Thirteen #57

I missed the theme last week so let me have a go at it this week.  I didn’t want to do a list of 13 things about me all starting with the same letter; I suspect you read enough of those last week. So I decided to do a book list based on a letter chosen at random.  I picked a book off my shelves and decided to look at page 83, line 8, third word, second letter.  The third word in question was “she” which gave me H.  I have used many H books in previous lists, so I can’t use them again, but even so I was able to find just enough.  Quite a mixed bag.  Here they are…..

      13 Books With Titles Starting With The Letter H

A Question For These Times

A Republican sent this to me, so things must be bad...


Question: How many members of the Bush Administration does it take to change a light bulb?

Answer: TEN.

1.  One to deny that a light bulb needs to be changed;

2.  One to attack the patriotism of anyone who says the light bulb needs to be changed;

3.  One to blame Clinton for burning out the light bulb;

4.  One to tell the nations of the world that they are either for changing the light bulb or for eternal darkness;

5. One to give a billion dollar no-bid contract to Halliburton for a new light bulb;

6. One to arrange a photograph of Bush, dressed as a janitor and standing on a step ladder, under the banner "Bulb Accomplished";

7. One administration insider to resign and in detail reveal how Bush was literally "in the dark" the whole time;

8. Another one to viciously smear # 7;

9. One surrogate to campaign on TV and at rallies on how George Bush has had a strong light bulb-changing policy all along;

10. And finally, one to confuse Americans about the difference between screwing in a light bulb and screwing the country.

And after all is said and done, no one will notice that they never actually managed to change the light bulb.

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Thursday Thirteen #56

Last week we were asked to do a TT on the theme of places we have been to, but I’m afraid I didn’t see the instruction until I had already posted mine. So, just one week late, here is my list of…

  Thirteen Places I Have Visited

Portmahommack on the north east coast of Scotland.  We spent an Easter holiday here when I was a child.  It was (probably still is) a charming little fishing port.  We rented a cottage right up by the harbour – I think its the one marked in the photo – and during that 3 week period we explored all over the north of Scotland.  On one of the last evenings there, there was a huge storm. My sister and I ran out of the house and were having a great time standing  on the harbour wall in a howling gale, as huge waves crashed over us until my mother came  out and in an utter fury ordered us back into the house.  At the time we thought she was making a lot of fuss over nothing, but thinking back, and imagining seeing my own daughter doing that, I suspect Mum was terrified!

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Mousehole   (pronounced “mowzell”)  This is another charming fishing village, at the other end of the UK.  It’s in western Cornwall. We spent several Easter breaks here.  I love Cornwall.  Time was, I entertained thoughts of moving there, but I’m not the only one and the county is getting pretty crowded.  It was here that I saw what many small boys like to imagine – my sister falling into a sewer!  It’s ok – we fished her out.

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Ventimiglia  I think that means “twenty miles” in Italian, because that is about the distance that this Italian coastal town is from the French border.  We were spending our summer on the French Riviera and friends who were spending their summer in Italy asked us to join them for a few days.  I  remember it was very warm but windy, and after several weeks of seeing red, white and blue tricolours on every flagpole in France, I kept doing a double take at all the red, white and green ones there.

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Waikiki  How could I not include this one?  I was here for a week.  Somewhere I never thought I’d go.  I swam at Waikiki beach, and was surprised at how shallow it was.  100 yards out I could still walk on the bottom.  Behind me was Diamond Head. Memories of the opening titles of a certain TV show.  “Book ‘em, Dano!”

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Monastir  During a 4 week holiday in Tunisia, in north Africa, we spent about ten days in this town.  It was my first experience of Arab culture, and though there was quite a bit of tourism it had not swamped the local way of life, as I rather think it may have done by now, a couple of decades later.  Tunisia is a secular state, of course, so there were hardly any women in burkhas, but we still used to hear the muezzin calling the faithful to the mosque every day, from the top of a minaret.  I was very disappointed to find out it was a tape recording, played through a couple of big speakers!  The town was very clean, and there was plenty to see, including (pictured) an old pirates’ fort dating back 300 years.

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Gozo  This one of the three islands that make up the country of Malta, situated in the Mediterranean, about midway between Sicily and Libya.  When we were there, there was not much to Gozo but small villages, one so-called town, an unspoilt rural life for the locals, lots of beaches and coves with hardly any tourists. So it was ironic that on the second day there we were in the local market and bumped  into someone we knew from back in London!

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Waterville  The loveliest part of Ireland, in my opinion, is County Kerry, and Waterville is a coastal town there.  We were there once, on holiday with another family. We explored the whole southwest corner of Ireland in a minibus big enough to hold both families (11 people in all). One of these days I am going to get my Dad’s collection of 8mm cine films which he took during those 2 weeks and have them converted to DVD, so we cam see them again.

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St. Paul de Vence  This village in the south of France dates from the middle ages, and is still surrounded by a centuries old stone wall.  These days homes there are very sought after and some of the hotels here are among the best in all of France, with 3 Michelin stars. We did not visit often because my family has never been made of money, but occasionally we ate there.  The house we were renting was across a valley from St Paul, so we used to see it from our patio every day.  Once a year they have a night-time festival to commemorate the time the town was ransacked and burned by Saracens in the 12th century.  They let off fireworks, followed by a pyrotechnic display that make it look as though the whole town is ablaze.  Amazing!

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Labrador  The full name of this Canadian province is Newfoundland and Labrador  but every Labradorean I spoke to was at pains to point out to me that Labrador had nothing to do with Newfoundland, except in name. Some even wanted Labrador to break away and become a province in its own right.  I stayed in Happy Valley, many years ago.  Lots of nice people, and not too many amenities.  There was only one TV channel there then (CBC) and every weekday at 3.00pm the whole town came to a halt to watch “The Edge Of Night”

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Bombay  Yes, I know I should call it Mumbai, but that change had not happened when I was there.  It is apparently the most modern city in India, but even so, alongside the new office blocks, and the majestic stone buildings that were built during the Raj, I saw unbelievable poverty too.  India fascinated me. I can’t wait to go back and have another look.

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Grindelwald  My one and only winter sports holiday (so far).   We stayed in Wilderswil, in Switzerland, and did our ski-ing on the slopes at Grindelwald.  That was a 30 minute drive away, along alpine roads, through the snow. I loved it, but we never went again.  I don’t know why.

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Taipei The capital of Taiwan – the Republic of China, as it calls itself.   I spent a few days here when I was on a round the word trip.  At that time, I didn’t know anyone who had been here and didn’t know what to expect.  I thought it was a rather lovely place.  All the street signs were in Chinese, of course, and I didn’t find it hard to get lost!  But I was never worried, not even at 4.00am, wandering the streets. I knew I’d be ok. I felt perfectly safe.  I can remember to this day the sound of Mah-Jongg tiles clacking away coming through the open windows of so many houses I passed. People stay up very late there, it seems.

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Pacific Highway  I was in San Francisco, and loved the place. I wanted to see what LA was like, and I decided not to fly but to drive down there, and the route I took was the Pacific Highway.  I took my time, it was a wonderful day for it, and I am very glad I went that way.  It was beautiful.  In fact, the route to LA was far more attractive than LA itself, which was a bit of a sprawl.

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The Answers!

Thanks for all the comments about my last Thursday Thirteen.  Most people managed to get a few of the movies, though no one managed all twenty-six.   I would have been staggered if someone had!  Anyway, as I promised some of you in replies to your comments, I am posting the answers to all 26.  Anyone kicking themselves now?
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                    1      Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid 

                    2      The Italian Job (1969)

                    3      Die Hard

                    4      Love Actually

                    5      Blazing Saddles

                    6      K-Pax

                    7      The Untouchables

                    8      It Happened One Night

                    9      Four Weddings And A Funeral

                    10    Singin’ In The Rain

                    11    2001: A Space Odyssey

                    12    A Shot In The Dark

                    13    Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason

                    14   Thoroughly Modern Millie

                    15   The Truman Show

                    16   Magnum Force

                    17   Cabaret

                    18   The Godfather

                    19   My Big Fat Greek Wedding

                    20   Carry On Cleo       

                    21   The (First) Great Train Robbery

                    22   Stand By Me

                    23   Airplane!

                    24   A Touch Of Class

                    25   The Graduate

                    26   King Kong (1933)

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Thursday Thirteen #55

.... I’m cheating a bit.  This is my TT  #55, but I have been at it for 56 weeks. So…. since I missed one week I’m doing a double this week.  Here are 26 lines from movies.  See how many you can identify.  You will look in vain for chick flicks  or sword-and-sandal fantasy, but these are all mainstream movies  that have made the progression from  cinema to TV and VHS and/or DVD.  Nothing obscure here.  Have fun…

1.    “Who are those guys?”

2.    “You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!”

3.    “I read something about them in Time magazine.”

4.    “Children, don’t buy drugs!  Become a rock star and people will give them to you!”

5.    “The sheriff is a nnnnn!”

6.    “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a beam of light to catch.”

7.    “Let’s do some good!”

8.    “Young people in love are seldom very hungry!”

9.    “Some total penis.”

10.  “If we bring a little joy into your humdrum lives, it makes us feel as though our hard work ain’t been in vain for nothin’.”

11.  “What are you doing, Dave?”

12.  “I suspect everyone; I suspect no one.”

13.  “Surely everyone deserves a second chance.”
       “Yes.  Except Hitler.”

14.  “Raspberry!  Raspberry!”

15.  “He was born in front of a live audience.”

16.  “A man’s got to know his limitations.”

17.  “Screw Maximillian!”
       “I do, frequently.”
       “So do I.”   

18.  “I don’t want my brother coming out of that toilet with just his dick in his hand.”

19.  “There’s a hole in this cake!”

20.  “Infamy, infamy!  They’ve all got it in for me!”

21.  “Find me a dead cat.”

22.  “By the time we get there the kid won’t even be dead anymore.”

23.  “No, I’ve been nervous before.”

24.  “My God, you can see Gibraltar!”

25.  “You’re trying to seduce me.  Aren’t you?”

26.  “Beauty killed the beast.”

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Plain Speaking

Have a look at this, while you still can.  I don’t know how much longer this link will work, because I bet there are forces wanting to stop people seeing this.  It’s an excerpt from a program shown an Al Jazeera and I am surprised they allowed it to be broadcast. The woman speaking plain common sense is called Wafa Sultan.   Bearing in mind just how extreme some extremists can be, she is being very brave. What she says deserves as wide an audience as possible.

If you click this link, is should open in Windows media player. It takes a few seconds to load but it's worth the wait.

   http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ai=214&ar=1050wmv&ak=nul

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Thursday Thirteen #54

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A Sweet Discovery

I found a new store the other day, or shop as I will always think of such places.  It is in one of those strip malls that people seem to drive by all the time without ever stopping, and as it is fringed with trees you can never see what establishments are on offer there.  I did, however, see there was a thrift store and on impulse I pulled in , to see if there was anything worth buying and then reselling on eBay for a few dollars profit.  There was, and once I had bought it and put it in the car, I decided to see what else was there.  The mall itself is L shaped, and some establishments front onto a side street.  One of these was a little place that calls itself a “European Supermarket”  Now I know Europe is smaller than the USA but even there the supermarkets aren’t that small!   This place was smaller than my living room, but every shelf was crammed full with various European goodies.  I should say, continental European (nothing British except Twinings tea bags), with a strong bias towards Eastern Europe.  The proprietor is a Russian gentleman and so was at least one of his customers, because I heard them talking in that language.  I bought myself something, as an indulgence really, and went to the counter to pay for it.  Now, I took Russian in school for 2 years many, many centuries ago, but until this day I had never said anything in Russian to an actual Russian person.  I remember very little, to be honest, other than a few words and sentences.  I could have told him that I have a sister, or that the book is on the table, or I could have asked him for directions to the railway station (though I would not have understood his reply). Instead, I asked him how much my purchase was, and when I go the change I thanked him.  Then we reverted to English and I asked him how long he had been in town, and how things were going.  Four years.  So how come I had never heard of this place, since it is only half a mile in a straight line from where I live?  He said he never needs to advertise.  Anyway, I shall be going back from time to time.  I wished him goodbye in Russian, but he answered my “Na zdarovie” with “Hasta la vista, baby!” which I strongly suspect is not what they say to each other back in Minsk or Pinsk or Omsk.

This is what I bought myself. As I say, it was pure indulgence.  I am not a chocolate addict, and I can go for days or even weeks without it but these caught my eye. A German confection consisting of chocolate shells, filled with light marshmallow on wafer base.  Yes, you can get similar here but the ones in my local supermarket are far too sweet to be tasty.  Damozel  put it much better than I when she wrote about it, but European chocolate has far less sugar added than American chocolate, with the result that you can taste the chocolate, not just a lot of chocolate flavoured sugar.  Ok, twelve of them in the box – that should keep me happy for about three weeks!
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