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 A tentative blog to test the temperature. |
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Ten years ago I was writing several blogs on various subjects - F1 motor racing, Music, Classic Cars, Great Romances and, most crushingly, a personal journal that included my thoughts on America, memories of England and Africa, opinion, humour, writing and anything else that occurred. It all became too much (I was attempting to update the journal every day) and I collapsed, exhausted and thoroughly disillusioned in the end. So this blog is indeed a Toe in the Water, a place to document my thoughts in and on WdC but with a determination not to get sucked into the blog whirlpool ever again. Here's hoping.     |
| Printers I was wondering about a subject for today’s blog post when Andrea started to print something. My immediate thought was, “Do people still use printers?” And there was the subject for today. I haven’t used a printer in ages. But there was a time when I was the printer whisperer. Do you remember how they would refuse to do our bidding and only relent if you knew the right words to speak to them and how to recite the necessary incantations? I was good at that and I don’t think there was ever a printer that I didn’t manage to cajole into doing its job. There was a lot for a printer to do back then. It seemed that we were always printing stuff so that we could… What? What happened to all those pieces of paper we printed off so urgently? I believe most of them were stored somewhere, never to see the light of day again. Which leads to my theory for the day. I maintain that we were in a transitional stage between the age of paper and the age of the computer. The idea of the ‘puter had always been that we wouldn’t have to have all that paper anymore - everything would be stored on the computer’s memory. But old habits are hard to break and, in those glorious, heady, and early days of computer use, we gave in to the need for some tangible thing to hang on to, the paper evidence of our work. And now we’ve learned to trust the machine, especially since the advent of the cloud. We have transferred our affections from paper to the intangible and digital storage of our efforts within the ‘puter. So I ask, “Does anyone use a printer these days?” The answer is that some do, and I shouldn’t ask the question in the midst of writers, most of whom spend hours of their life printing out their novels and poems and suchlike, in the hope of persuading others into publishing the things. But what of everyone else? I suppose some few printers still toil away in offices that haven’t received the (digital) memo yet, but most people will have abandoned the printer in their personal lives. My talent in the use of printers is out of date now and I no longer know all the latest models and which printer manufacturer makes the best ones. Indeed, should I be ashamed to admit that I no longer own a printer? I get a slight feeling of guilt at the thought that I never feel the need to print anymore. How the mighty are fallen. Word count: 438 |
| Zaouli Came across a video showcasing various dances suggested as the favourites of passersby. I have a favorite too but not that I can dance it. It's called Zaouli and comes from the Ivory Coast. Have a look at the video below: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7sTaItgxBhQ |
| Acronyms America did not invent the acronym but it has brought the art to a fever pitch. Everything, it seems, must have an acronym and just about everything does. Scattering acronyms through your writing and speech has become so prevalent that it becomes too much of a good thing. Rather like baskets in basketball, in fact. The whole idea of acronyms was to shorten the business of writing or speaking of something. Which is fine as long as the abbreviation is understood by everyone. But the proliferation of the little blighters has reached the point when only the smug in people understand what is being referred to. It’s a waste of time and effort when every time you use an acronym, you have to explain what it means. The value of the thing is destroyed and it becomes merely a way to demonstrate your superior trendiness than a genuine attempt to communicate. Back in my day, acronyms were only used after they had been explained first. So, if you wanted to refer to the USA, the first time you mentioned it you would write it in full with the acronym in brackets, then subsequent references could use the abbreviation with impunity. It’s a good system and avoids abuse by snobs. So that’s my thinking on the matter. If you really want to communicate and not merely show off, explain the acronym first. Otherwise I, for one, won’t even bother to ask. I’ll just move on to something else. Word count: 246 |
| The Mailbox Clearing out the mailbox used to be a huge task in WdC. In the early days, I was so careful not to throw stuff away that making room in the box became too laborious to undertake. The result was that I didn’t do it until the box was bulging. Then I decided that there was no point in being paranoid. I could not recall a time when I needed to read any mail earlier than the present. Gathering my courage, I clicked on the Select All button and then hit the garbage bin. It cleared the page I was on, not the whole box. It was so much easier than picking and choosing survivors that I gritted my teeth and went through page after page, deleting everything. In the end, I had a pristine mailbox without a thing in it. And it took a few minutes, that’s all. That’s been my system for a few years now and I have yet to regret ditching a single email. Yesterday’s news is yesterday’s news, after all. I just cleared it out again today, so don’t ask me whether I received your email or not - I’ve no idea.  Word count: 195 |
| Bottled Sensations I have lately given up drinking Diet Coke and turned to the various types of flavoured water available these days. They have an interesting array of tastes on offer. Some, such as Peach, Black Cherry, and Lime, are familiar enough, but there are also some that are more in line with the advanced technology of the day. There is Chemical Soup, for instance. Toothpaste Surprise is one of my favourites. And Medical Memory is certainly one worth trying. The subtlety of Lingering Plastic is hard to beat, however. Not that these flavours are labelled as such. They are given much more imaginative titles like Mango, Strawberry , or Apple. The whole field is a Brave New World of invention and imagination, in fact. Word count: 122 |
| Don’t Send Me the Memo Something weird is going on in the language. Words that I have known, heard, and generally become familiar with all my life are suddenly being pronounced in entirely new and odd ways. I don’t mean the occasional obvious mispronunciation by someone who has only read the word before. This seems to be a widespread conspiracy, with lots of people suddenly saying the word in the new way, as though a memo had gone out overnight instructing everyone to use the new pronunciation. And I never get the memo. Not that I would go along with it anyway. An example is what has happened to the word “divisive” recently. In the last few weeks, I’ve heard nobody pronounce it in the old (correct) way of “div-aye-siv.” Suddenly it seems that it’s being said as “di-viz-if.” Not only is it strange to my ear, it divorces the word from its origin, the word “divide.” And that’s just the latest example. You can dismiss me as a dinosaur, but I refuse to be swayed by these sudden bouts of communal agreement to change pronunciation. If we’re to keep the language understandable, we need to stop going along with every mangled attempt at redefining the way words are spoken. If it was good enough for my ancestors, it’s good enough for me! Word count: 218 |
| The Natural Order of Things Many years ago I used to smoke. And there came a time when the particular brand of cigarettes that I smoked began to include picture cards with each pack. Each card was one of a series of twenty-five and had a painting of a famous American beauty spot, with some information about the place on the back of the card. The paintings were brightly-colored and clear, nothing special, but quite attractive; a style that we might call "simplified photographic". I quite liked the cards and started to collect them. Because there were so few in the series, I found eventually that I had several sets of them. They served no useful purpose, unless one considered the information they provided educational. But they were too nice to throw away. My little pile of cards grew from a thin stack to become a fat wad that sat beside my computer, constantly asking the question: What are you going to do with me? It was a question I couldn’t answer. Try as I might, I just could not think of a use for those cards; yet they remained too nice to just dump in the garbage. I was trapped in indecision. I toyed with the idea of separating them into sets but that didn’t solve the problem of what to do afterwards. Collecting seems to be a tendency for many people. Sometimes we can give reasons for starting a collection, an investment for the future, imposing order upon chaos, or creating a showcase of beautiful things. But often our collections spring from a deeper urge that is hard to pinpoint. My cigarette card collection fitted the last category, I think. There was no reason for it apart from, umm, it was nice. Thinking about my motivation has led me to the conclusion that it was part of my liking for order. Life is messy. No matter how we plan and prepare and sort, life has a way of confounding our attempts and insists on being rather more untidy than we expect. There are some people who appear to have mastered this tendency; their houses are masterpieces of neatness and precision, everything having a place and remaining in it. Apart from the fact that one hesitates to enter such a home for fear that one might spoil it, the owners have to be admired for their control of objects within spaces. Most of us aren't like that. We try, but things take on a life of their own to thwart our puny attempts at order. Magazines migrate from the rack to spread themselves on to chairs and tables and floors, videos multiply and start appearing in unexpected places, kids' toys wander everywhere through the house, tools never stay where you left them but turn up exactly where they're not needed. Our dreams of neatness are soon defeated by the chaotic tendencies of the world around us. We learn to live with it. Normally I cope quite well with this rebelliousness of material things; I can live with disorder for long periods of time. But deep within me there must be some sort of drive to a better way for, every now and then, I will be overcome by an urge to impose order. The problem then becomes the vastness of the task; the entire environment is too big to be tackled. So I settle on one place where I can make a start and I tidy and clean and arrange until order reigns in that one small corner of the world. At which point, I stop. The creation of an ordered spot within the whole chaotic universe is sufficient for me; it gives me something to focus upon to escape the general disorder, at least for a few days until things have begun to migrate and rearrange themselves. It seems to me that my occasional collections of worthless stuff originate from the same impulse, this desire to have some ordered area in a constantly changing world. Take the cigarette cards, for instance. The moment I saw the first one, I knew that it could not be thrown away. A goal appeared on the horizon: to collect the whole series and thus create something that was neat, complete and ordered. The fact that the series was so small meant that I could not stop after completing one set; I just kept going. And so my need to have a tiny piece of order in the messy universe was fulfilled in that stack of cards. As long as the little pile stayed obediently on one corner of my desk, the rest of the world was safe from my attempts to whip it into line. I was happy and so was all creation. That's the theory, anyway. It is just as possible that I am merely obsessive-compulsive. Word count: 801 |
| Don't Quote Me Quite often on the net, we are given the opportunity to include a favorite quote in the forms that we fill in. On most of mine, you will find the words, "What's done is dung", which is actually a quote from myself. But it's not really my favorite; I much prefer the last words of General John Sedgwick, the highest ranking Union officer to be killed in the Civil War: "Don't be silly. They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist..." I love the irony implicit in the statement and its outcome. So why don't I put it down as my favorite quote? The problem stems from the fact that it's not quite what he said; the story has been honed down over the years to make it appear more dramatic. Here's what really happened, according to the Wikipedia entry on General Sedgwick: "Sedgwick fell at the beginning of the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, on May 9, 1864. His corps was probing skirmish lines ahead of the left flank of Confederate defenses and he was directing artillery placements. Confederate sharpshooters were about 1,000 yards away and their shots caused members of his staff and artillerymen to duck for cover. Sedgwick strode around in the open and was quoted (Foote, 1974) as saying, 'What? Men dodging this way for single bullets? What will you do when they open fire along the whole line? I am ashamed of you. They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance.' Although ashamed, his men continued to flinch and he repeated, 'I'm ashamed of you, dodging that way. They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance.' Just minutes later, he fell forward with a bullet hole below his left eye. He was the highest ranking Union casualty (the most senior by date of rank of all major generals killed) of the Civil War." Those extra minutes between the statement and the shot completely ruin the irony. No wonder that posterity has seen fit to remove them and truncate the last word. What is surprising is how often famous quotes weren't said at all. We all know that the phrase, "Play it again, Sam", was never spoken in the film Casablanca, in spite of our continued acceptance of it as a catchphrase. The Wikipedia has this to say on the subject: "Ilsa says 'Play it once, Sam, for old times' sake'; in response, Sam tries to lie, saying 'I don't know what you mean, Miss Ilsa'; and she says 'Play it, Sam. Play As Time Goes By.' When Rick hears the song, not realizing yet that Ilsa is there, he rushes up and says 'I thought I told you never to play that.' Later, alone with Sam, he says 'You played it for her and you can play it for me', and then 'If she can stand it, I can! Play it!' In A Night in Casablanca, all this dialogue was parodied using the line 'Play it again, Sam' — a phrase which has incorrectly become associated with the original film." But this is merely the most famous of inaccurate quotes. A little research reveals hordes of them, some the most famous of all. For instance, Lord Horatio Nelson's last words at the Battle of Trafalgar are popularly supposed to be, "Kiss me, Hardy". Not so, it seems. Once again, I have recourse to the Wikipedia entry: "Nelson's final words (as related by Victory's Surgeon William Beatty, based on the accounts of those who were with Nelson when he died) were 'Thank God I have done my duty'. According to Beatty, he repeated these words several times until he became unable to speak. "In his dying hours, Nelson was also attended by his chaplain, Alexander Scott, his steward, Chevalier and Walter Burke, the purser, whose accounts have been available for modern biographers of Nelson. In those accounts, Nelson's last words were 'Drink, drink. Fan, fan. Rub, rub.' This was a request to alleviate his symptoms of thirst, heat and the pains of his wounds (Pocock, Horatio Nelson, 1987, p.331). "It is a common misconception that Nelson's last words were 'Kiss me, Hardy', spoken to the captain of HMS Victory, Thomas Hardy. Nelson did, in fact, say this to Hardy a short time before his death, but they were not his last words, and Hardy was not present at his death (having been called back on deck). Some have speculated that Nelson actually said 'Kismet, Hardy', but this is impossible, since the word kismet did not enter the English language until much later." Which is all a bit more complicated than we had supposed. What is strange about it, however, is that the most noble candidate, "Thank God I have done my duty", has been ignored for the dated and rather odd, "Kiss me, Hardy". Why that should have happened, I have no idea. Then there are the famous words of Julius Caesar as reported by Shakespeare: "Et tu, Brute". As a line from a play, we should expect that this would be inaccurate but it doesn't miss the mark by much, as the Wikipedia makes clear: "His (Julius Caesar's) last words are, unfortunately, not known with certainty, and are a contested subject among scholars and historians. In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Caesar's last words are given as 'Et tu, Brute?' ('And [even] you, Brutus?'). His actual last words are most widely believed to be 'Tu quoque, Brute, fili mi?' ('You also, Brutus, my son?'), or 'Tu quoque, mi fili?' ('You also, my son?'). It is possible, however, that these phrases are translations or adaptations of his last words, which he spoke in Greek, into Latin; Suetonius stated that Caesar said, (a phrase) in Greek, (transliterated as 'kai su, teknon?', or 'even you, my child?')." While Shakespeare's rendering is brief and without the reference to Brutus as his son, it still contains the impact of surprise and betrayal that Caesar felt on realizing that even Brutus had deserted him. Perhaps we should give the Bard more recognition as an historian as well as a playwright. All this indecision and misreporting leaves me with a need for an accurate quote that I can put on those internet forms. A bit of digging has produced the following possibilities: "I'm bored with it all." Winston Churchill, statesman, d. January 24, 1965. Said before slipping into a coma. He died 9 days later. "I've had eighteen straight whiskies, I think that's the record..." Dylan Thomas, poet, d. 1953. "Either that wallpaper goes, or I do." Oscar Wilde, writer, d. November 30, 1900. Perhaps I'll stick with, "What's done is dung"... Word count: 1,099 |
| Brutus and the Bully In all my previous posts about dogs, I have not mentioned the greatest Staffie of them all. Her name was Josie and she was the first of my own dogs; all of the others I have written about were my father's. One day I will attempt to tell her story but she has a role to play in this particular post as she was the reason I acquired Brutus. Jo was the perfect Staffie, all speed and strength, enthusiasm and temperament, intelligence and heart, but she had a weakness. When it came to doggy males, she was a complete and utter tart. Whilst fully aware in all other areas of her special standing as a Staffie, she had no discernment at all in potential mates; if it was male, she would flirt with it. Her reputation must have spread throughout the neighborhood for we often had large male dogs leaping the fence to visit Jo and she would go tearing around the yard with them in her version of a flirtatious romp. Apart from the fact that it was annoying to have these strange mutts visiting, it was galling to see such a lack of taste in Jo. I decided that she needed a more suitable boyfriend, not necessarily to become the chosen mate, but more to dispose of her other suitors. And so I began to look for a male Staffie. Brutus was the ideal solution, being four years old and very big, easily as large as an English Bull Terrier. He had been passed from owner to owner all his life and had some strange traits as a result but, essentially, he was a true gentleman. I became his latest owner and introduced him (carefully - separating fighting Staffies is a difficult art) to Jo. There was no need to worry, as it turned out. Josie asked just one question: is it male? When the answer turned out to be in the affirmative, she accepted him instantly. And Brutus assessed the situation correctly right from the start. He understood that she was the reigning monarch and he merely her consort, a Prince Albert to her Queen Victoria. His experience of being passed from home to home had given him a low opinion of himself and he was happy enough to accept such a secondary status, if only it meant that he could stay. The strange thing was that Jo never flirted with Brutus. She seemed to think of him as a wise old uncle, acceptable since he was male, but certainly not husband material. And he adopted this role without complaint; it suited his more sober view of life. He did succeed in the task for which I had acquired him, however. At the time, we were living in a house at the top of a hill. A large, black Alsatian-cross lived further down the hill and had been in the habit of jumping over our fence to visit Josie. He was the most immediate factor in my decision to get Brutus; I had become tired of chasing the interloper from our yard. So we awaited the first meeting between him and Brutus with interest. Within a few days of Brutus' arrival, it happened. The black dog jumped the fence and started to look for Jo. Instead, he found Brutus. And Brutus lost no time in letting him know that his presence was not required. There was a short kerfuffle and then the black dog headed for the fence with great speed, leaped over it and headed homeward. Brutus watched him go and then returned to the house, well satisfied with his handiwork. The black dog never again jumped into our yard but he did make one mistake that led to another encounter with Brutus. He seemed to think that our fence was too tall for a smaller dog than himself to get over and we would often see him wandering in the road outside. One day he had the bad judgement to become involved in a fight with another dog just outside the fence. Hearing the commotion, Brutus trotted down to see what was going on. There is one thing about Staffies that has to be seen to be believed; they can jump many times their own height. And Brutus was no exception. Often after this incident I saw him walk right up to the fence, crouch slightly, and then bound upwards like a spring released, sailing clear over the fence (about five feet in height) without touching it. But this was the first time that he showed his unexpected talent. On arrival at the fence, Brutus assessed the situation immediately and decided that it was just too tempting. He bounced over the fence and joined in the fight. The other two dogs quickly forgot their quarrel and united against him but they stood no chance against a Staffie intent upon a bit of fun. In seconds they were running homewards and Brutus was master of the field. He seemed slightly disappointed in the quality of the opposition but gathered himself up and leaped back into our yard. Not once after that did the black dog come as far up the hill as our fence. I was pleased that my plan had worked so well but aware that potential trouble loomed from another quarter. Our neighbors on one side had an English Bull Terrier named Oscar. And he was the largest Bull Terrier I have ever seen. Typical of the breed, he had established a reputation for being a fighter and his owners had done their utmost to prevent his escape from their yard. But Bullies can be very determined and, every so often, Oscar would get out and cause mayhem in the neighborhood. I watched him and Brutus eyeing each other up through the fence and feared for the day one of them decided to pay the other a visit. It was a long time before the event occurred and, when it did, I was inside the house, alerted to it only by the cries of, "Help! Oscar's in our yard!" I locked Jo into a room and ran outside. Oscar was trotting down towards the front fence, looking very pleased with himself, and I followed, intending to corner him at the bottom of the yard. Then I saw Brutus making his way up towards the house. They were on a collision course, the dreaded meeting now inevitable. Too far behind to catch Oscar, I could only look on as events took their course. As they caught sight of each other, both slowed their pace. Their chosen path meant that, unless one turned aside, they must meet. Being who and what they were, pride dictated that they not deviate from their route an inch, and they continued, at walking speed now, to approach each other. The distance closed and, eventually and incredibly, they passed each other only inches apart, both apparently ignoring the presence of the other. Then Brutus continued towards the house while Oscar sauntered down to the fence. It was so clear what had gone through the minds of those two dogs as they saw each other. So often had they assessed each other through the fence that they knew they now faced the strongest challenge they would ever encounter. And, in that instant, both had decided that discretion was the better part of valour. They were prepared to fight if they must but only if the other started it. Honour insisted that they not back down but, if no insult was given, then no battle was required. It was the clearest demonstration of mutual respect I have ever witnessed. I caught up with Oscar by the fence and returned him to his own yard. Never again did he cross into ours and Brutus did not use his fence-jumping skills to explore Oscar's territory. They had drawn a line and accepted that there was too much at stake to risk arguing over it. In a way, the incident gives support to the Mutually Assured Destruction policy of the Cold War; when both parties stand to lose everything, war is unthinkable. On a hot African afternoon, two dogs showed that, when respect is mutual and boundaries accepted, peace must be the only option. I'm just glad that Josie wasn't there to complicate the equation… Word count: 1,388 |
| Futon My wife bought a futon that wasn’t made in Luton it’s not a hugely cute un being coloured like a crouton. |
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We don't use it a lot, but once in a while we do. I'd like to print off all the genealogy information I have for our family tree. There's just something about seeing it on paper that makes it more exciting. Once in a while I print off a recipe. 
When you have to write a professional essay citing the APA using APA style, it gets rapidly absurd. I thought major organizations sharing the same acronym was like, illegal. Sheesh 
], I would see references to ISO chips relating to computers in some way. I had no idea what ISO meant, and it didn't really matter. Regarding the social media variant, I never would have guessed In Search Of as the expanded acronym, and would have extrapolated from context, looked it up, or just let it go as a noncritical piece of information.