Today is All Saints’ Day, a public holiday in many countries, not intended for celebration but to go and tend the graves of deceased family members. Pedro Almodovar’s film “Volver” begins with such a scene and involves a woman supposedly dead reappearing, not actually a ghost, just hidden away for a reason I have completely forgotten. It must be time to watch the film again.
And, of course, last night was Hallowe’en, a celebration which has become Americanised just about everywhere I have been. Friends and family have been sending round photos of their small people dressed up in ghoulish costumes, some of which look expensively impressive or impressively expensive.
Which brings me to Hallowe’en vocabulary, since I found something about it weeks ago. “Ghost” is a good old English word, going back a thousand years, to earliest recorded language. It’s original meaning was “vital spark”, which makes the expression “the ghost of an idea” quite apt. Its most common meaning today, “a disembodied soul” connects to the ancient folkloric notion of the spirit being seperable from the body and thus having a continued existence after the body has died. Hence the idea of haunting and also of opening a window when someone dies, to let the spirit escape.
I like the idea of a “banshee”, originally meaning “woman of fairyland”, but on reflection it’s probably another sexist, anti-feminist term. Banshees, after all, are supposed to be female spirits that wail under the windows of houses to foretell a death in the family. So much for pretty fairies! Mind you, fairies were not always benevolent creatures like the fairy godmothers, but more likely mischievous creatures lime Puck, or even downright nasty. Think of Morgan Le Fay in the Arthur stories.
Then there is a “wraith”, originally meaning the the exact likeness of a living person seen as an apparition just before that person’s death. I suppose that’s why if someone looks very pale and wan we can say they look wraithlike.
And finally: “Ghoul is a relatively recent English word, borrowed from Arabic in the 1700s. Because it’s spelled with gh-, it looks vaguely like the Old English words ghost and ghastly (which share a common root in the Old English word gāst, meaning “spirit” or “ghost”). In fact, it comes from the Arabic word ghūl, derived from the verb that means “to seize,” and originally meant “a legendary evil being held to rob graves and feed on corpses.” The word was introduced to western literature by the French translation of Arabian Nights.”
That’s the topical, linguistic bit over with.
So here’s a little something I came across for the paranoid traveller in most of us:
Read platform number
Hear platform number
Walk to platform
Reread platform number
Get on train.
Worry you are on the wrong train.
Oh, the number of times I have got on a train, only to ask the other passengers if this train goes to my destination.As a student I used to travel home by train at the end of term, changing trains at Manchester. As I was usually travelling in the latish evening I was always concerned that I might fall asleep, miss my changeover and end up in the middle of who knew where.
Also as a student, I spent time as an “assistante” in southernFrance, trying to persuade recalcitrant schoolchildren to speak English. Students did not travel by plane then. Ryanair and Easyjet were things of the distant future. On one occasion my train stopped for half an hour in Paris. There was time to go to a cafe on the station. Imagine my panic when I got back to the platform to find no train there. Then I discovered that it had moved to a different platform.
Phew!
Thursday, 1 November 2018
Wednesday, 31 October 2018
Modern world problems!
For a brief moment this morning I thought we had internet in the hotel room Not so. So here I am in the foyer. and here, finally are some photos.
The stripey beach hut:-
The classic Citroen Dyane:-
A bonus classic Renault 4L - we also had a red one of these;-
Today it was raining when I set off on my run. I knew it was raining but I put on my waterproof jacket and went out anyway. When I discovered how hard it was raining I cut my run short. Coward!
My Fitbit might not even recognise it as a run. Like many tech devices, it is bossy and if I run too slowly it will tell me I have been for a walk! At other times it reminds me to get up and move around, insisting on a certain number of steps an hour during the daytime! A small dominatrix on my wrist!
Some time ago I read about teachers expressing concern that children were turning up at infant school without the necessary dexterity to hold a pencil or scissors, or even their knife and fork, correctly. They had spent too much time being entertained on mummy’s iPhone or iPad and not enough holding fat, stubby wax crayons and scribbling in colouring books. (No danger of that with our smallest grandchildren. Both have enjoyed scribbling from an early age. The next youngest, just starting school, can write her name, recognise most letters and a fair few words, and is the most careful colourer I have seen in a four year old. The tiniest watches her mother doing work for her job as a teacher and wants to join in, “writing” on papers of her own. She also tries to “help” her older siblings when they need to highlight notes as part of their homework. Proud grandparent, as you can tell!)
Now I read that a certain Prof Roger Kneebone, a professor of surgical education at Imperial College London, has said students are arriving at medical school without the required manual dexterity to perform simple, necessary surgical tasks such as sewing up patients after operations. Wow! (What a good name for a gentleman in the medical profession, by the way!) Another study found that “frequent smartphone users may be more prone to experience pain in their thumbs” than counterparts who did not use phones as often or at all. You see, I am right not to use my thumbs to write text messages!
Of course, there are some who say that children will soon have no need to write as they will use keyboards for everything. Where will the artists and draftsmen come from if nobody has pencil-control? Where will the hand knitters and embroiderers be found? Is mine the last generation to have such skills.
The hi-tech aficionados also say that surgery and stitching up wounds will also be done by robots in the near future. Such is the modern world.
Another modern world problem is the difficulty of discussing topical matters without being given a, usually derogatory, label. Trying, for example, to discuss gender-identification logically, or indeed to question at all any attitude other that TOTAL freedom leads to accusations of “transphobia”. Here is an article on that matter from the Guardian.
And, on a completely different topic, here is a link to an article about the best way to make coffee. We have become coffee snobs and favour the Moka pots, ubiquitous in Italy. The report says this about them:-
“Yes, they’re cheap (John Lewis is selling Bialettis for £20), but the coffee is often hugely bitter and over-extracted rocket fuel. Priming the chamber with coffee that is ground to the right size is fiendishly difficult and coffee should not be boiled. For maximum character, brew at 90C-96C (194F-205F). Takes practice: 5/10”
What a load of nonsense, our coffee is never bitter and nothing could be simpler to use than one of these little machines.
I do however agree with the comments on Cafetières:-
“In theory, this should be a sustainable and superior option to the moka. In reality, it is impossible – blame steeping it too long, your juddering plunge action, a misjudged grind-size or the way the filter bends at its edges – to produce cafetière coffee that isn’t flat in flavour, full of bitter grounds or both. A gritty 4/10”
Mind you, their suggestion that you should freeze your coffee beans and freshly grind them each time you make coffee, smacks of someone with more time on their hands than most of us have.
The breakfast coffee in this hotel, by the way, is rather superior as hotel breakfast coffee goes!
The stripey beach hut:-
The classic Citroen Dyane:-
A bonus classic Renault 4L - we also had a red one of these;-
My Fitbit might not even recognise it as a run. Like many tech devices, it is bossy and if I run too slowly it will tell me I have been for a walk! At other times it reminds me to get up and move around, insisting on a certain number of steps an hour during the daytime! A small dominatrix on my wrist!
Some time ago I read about teachers expressing concern that children were turning up at infant school without the necessary dexterity to hold a pencil or scissors, or even their knife and fork, correctly. They had spent too much time being entertained on mummy’s iPhone or iPad and not enough holding fat, stubby wax crayons and scribbling in colouring books. (No danger of that with our smallest grandchildren. Both have enjoyed scribbling from an early age. The next youngest, just starting school, can write her name, recognise most letters and a fair few words, and is the most careful colourer I have seen in a four year old. The tiniest watches her mother doing work for her job as a teacher and wants to join in, “writing” on papers of her own. She also tries to “help” her older siblings when they need to highlight notes as part of their homework. Proud grandparent, as you can tell!)
Now I read that a certain Prof Roger Kneebone, a professor of surgical education at Imperial College London, has said students are arriving at medical school without the required manual dexterity to perform simple, necessary surgical tasks such as sewing up patients after operations. Wow! (What a good name for a gentleman in the medical profession, by the way!) Another study found that “frequent smartphone users may be more prone to experience pain in their thumbs” than counterparts who did not use phones as often or at all. You see, I am right not to use my thumbs to write text messages!
Of course, there are some who say that children will soon have no need to write as they will use keyboards for everything. Where will the artists and draftsmen come from if nobody has pencil-control? Where will the hand knitters and embroiderers be found? Is mine the last generation to have such skills.
The hi-tech aficionados also say that surgery and stitching up wounds will also be done by robots in the near future. Such is the modern world.
Another modern world problem is the difficulty of discussing topical matters without being given a, usually derogatory, label. Trying, for example, to discuss gender-identification logically, or indeed to question at all any attitude other that TOTAL freedom leads to accusations of “transphobia”. Here is an article on that matter from the Guardian.
And, on a completely different topic, here is a link to an article about the best way to make coffee. We have become coffee snobs and favour the Moka pots, ubiquitous in Italy. The report says this about them:-
“Yes, they’re cheap (John Lewis is selling Bialettis for £20), but the coffee is often hugely bitter and over-extracted rocket fuel. Priming the chamber with coffee that is ground to the right size is fiendishly difficult and coffee should not be boiled. For maximum character, brew at 90C-96C (194F-205F). Takes practice: 5/10”
What a load of nonsense, our coffee is never bitter and nothing could be simpler to use than one of these little machines.
I do however agree with the comments on Cafetières:-
“In theory, this should be a sustainable and superior option to the moka. In reality, it is impossible – blame steeping it too long, your juddering plunge action, a misjudged grind-size or the way the filter bends at its edges – to produce cafetière coffee that isn’t flat in flavour, full of bitter grounds or both. A gritty 4/10”
Mind you, their suggestion that you should freeze your coffee beans and freshly grind them each time you make coffee, smacks of someone with more time on their hands than most of us have.
The breakfast coffee in this hotel, by the way, is rather superior as hotel breakfast coffee goes!
Tuesday, 30 October 2018
Ongoing problems. And intolerance.
Internet in the hotel continues to be erratic, to say the least. At times I connect but when Phil, seated next to me, tries his laptop tells him that he cannot connect as there are too many users!
As a result of these vagaries, I did not manage to post photos yesterday. So I was going to post them today but the laptop is being stupid and won’t let me log on to the internet. So here they aren’t. Maybe tomorrow!
Yesterday or the day before, at breakfast, I saw one of the hotel staff remonstrate with a couple of young athletes, members of a team of some sort who have been sprawled around the foyer for days or playing table tennis barefoot in the area near the dining room. It seemed that they were having a second breakfast and the staff member was telling them that “breakfast is just once”. They tried to protest that they were just having a cup of coffee and a bun but she was adamant. “Tomorrow once only!”
I did wonder how going back in for another round was different from someone who ate two breakfasts’ worth of food at one sitting. At least one of the young people we went to Greece with recently regularly had at least three plates of food at breakfast time. Mind you, the breakfasts were better there than here!
The heatwave did not materialise yesterday. The lizards I saw must have been opportunists, taking advantage of the little bit of sunshine available for that sort time. Rain has come back here. Storms are forecast. But it could be worse. Venice for example is flooded. Of course, we all know Venice suffers regularly from “acqua alta” - I have photos of Saint Mark’s Square looking like a swimming pool - but water levels are reported to be up by 150+ centimetres. That’s an awful lot of water. I feel quite glad that we have seen Venice several times before the tourism overwhelmed it and before it sinks into the lagoon.
I read that experts say that Trump’s rhetoric stokes hatred and in particular antisemitism. His own daughter is married to a Jew and converted to Judaism, so where does the antisemitism come from. Maybe it’s just general anti-foreigner stuff. Apparently he wrote that “some very bad people” were mixed into the caravan of several thousand people, mainly from Honduras, currently travelling through Mexico. “This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you!” Trump added. Odd use of capital letters noted!
And finally, there is a rumour going round about a new 50 pence coin being minted in the UK to celebrate Brexit. As with the idea of a day of Brexit celebration, I find myself wondering what is the point. The new coin is said to be going to sport the words “Friends with all nations”, or something similar. So we can be friendly with all nations but feel free to verbally abuse and even punch in the face anyone who does not speak English on the public transport system.
Another case of government declarations somehow authorising intolerance and violence!
Yesterday or the day before, at breakfast, I saw one of the hotel staff remonstrate with a couple of young athletes, members of a team of some sort who have been sprawled around the foyer for days or playing table tennis barefoot in the area near the dining room. It seemed that they were having a second breakfast and the staff member was telling them that “breakfast is just once”. They tried to protest that they were just having a cup of coffee and a bun but she was adamant. “Tomorrow once only!”
I did wonder how going back in for another round was different from someone who ate two breakfasts’ worth of food at one sitting. At least one of the young people we went to Greece with recently regularly had at least three plates of food at breakfast time. Mind you, the breakfasts were better there than here!
The heatwave did not materialise yesterday. The lizards I saw must have been opportunists, taking advantage of the little bit of sunshine available for that sort time. Rain has come back here. Storms are forecast. But it could be worse. Venice for example is flooded. Of course, we all know Venice suffers regularly from “acqua alta” - I have photos of Saint Mark’s Square looking like a swimming pool - but water levels are reported to be up by 150+ centimetres. That’s an awful lot of water. I feel quite glad that we have seen Venice several times before the tourism overwhelmed it and before it sinks into the lagoon.
I read that experts say that Trump’s rhetoric stokes hatred and in particular antisemitism. His own daughter is married to a Jew and converted to Judaism, so where does the antisemitism come from. Maybe it’s just general anti-foreigner stuff. Apparently he wrote that “some very bad people” were mixed into the caravan of several thousand people, mainly from Honduras, currently travelling through Mexico. “This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you!” Trump added. Odd use of capital letters noted!
And finally, there is a rumour going round about a new 50 pence coin being minted in the UK to celebrate Brexit. As with the idea of a day of Brexit celebration, I find myself wondering what is the point. The new coin is said to be going to sport the words “Friends with all nations”, or something similar. So we can be friendly with all nations but feel free to verbally abuse and even punch in the face anyone who does not speak English on the public transport system.
Another case of government declarations somehow authorising intolerance and violence!
Monday, 29 October 2018
Stuff going on here and there,
My run this morning took me down to the sea front and along the cycling / walking path in the direction of nearby Buarcos, past the yellow striped beach huts, which are probably summer cafes and ice cream parlours. The path rejoins the road before it gets to Buarcos proper, so I turned back towards Figueira, ran a short distance on the pavement and then back onto the boardwalks along the beach.
And then it started to rain on me. It was forecast though so I was not really surprised! Just a tad disappointed!
Later I walked into the centre of Figueira to buy supplies of this and that. On Saturday we got tied up with hunting for chess venues and yesterday, being Sunday, everything was closed. We now have supplies of coffee and nibbles to keep the chess player happy. The rain had stopped, however, the sun had come out and on my way back to the hotel I even had to carry my coat. And I saw lizards scuttling up a wall. Does this mean the heatwave has returned?
On my travels this morning I came across a very well preserved Citroen Dyane. As I stopped to admire it the owner appeared and started to talk to me about it, how old it is, what other old vehicles he owns and so on. So I told him that I used to have, long, long ago, a bright red Citroen 2CV, um dois cavalhos, or possible carvalhos, of which I was inordinately proud. I felt my limited Portuguese was doing quite well and then he asked if I was Spanish. So I guess my pronunciation is somewhat influenced by my Spanish.
We continue to have problems accessing internet in our room, indeed in the whole hotel. At reception they told us that they are having problems because an antenna was blown down by Storm Leslie. Poor old Leslie must be getting blamed for everything! And then he said that the hotel is full and lots of people are using the internet, slowing everything down. They are probably all chess players! So I am posting this evening, when the chessplayers are busy trying to defeat each other.
Out in the wider world, away from my lotus-eating, hedonistic existence, there has been a shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, USA. Another crazy anti-semite with links to right wing organisations. Nine people were killed, maybe eleven.
All of this did not stop POTUS going on with his mid-term campaigning. "We can't let evil change our life and change our schedule,” he said. “We can’t do that. We have to go.” He added: "I'll go. Not that I want to go. But I think I actually, in reverse, have an obligation to go.” He added: “We condemn the historic evil of antisemitism and every other form of evil. “And unfortunately, evil comes in many forms. And we come together as one American people."
His regret did not prevent him from joking about the fact that the rain had messed his heir up, although some people had told him they preferred the natural mussed look, or so he said. In the end it’s all about the Donald!
He also apparently said that the 'results' of the shooting would have been 'far better' if their had been armed guards - a solution he has also promoted to stop school shootings “If they had protection inside, the results would have been far better,” he said . "If they had some kind of protection inside the temple, maybe it could have been a much different situation. But they didn’t.”
So presumably all churches, synagogues and mosques should all have armed guards inside. Go to worship your god but be prepared for a possible shoot-out! The mind boggles!
Some better news tells me that Ireland has voted to remove blasphemy as an offence from the country’s constitution. In a referendum, 64.8 per cent of voters were in favour of changing the law, with 35.1 per cent supporting the status quo. The result was largely expected, as the article on blasphemy in the constitution is generally agreed to be outdated and obsolete. Well, yes! I should think so!
No one has ever been charged with the offence in the history of the Irish state, but it does carry a fine of up to €25,000.
Here is a quote from the Irish PM:
“What we want to have in Ireland is a 21st Century constitution for a 21st Century republic. We’ve already reformed our Constitution to allow for things like marriage equality, women’s right to choose. We believe that having a criminal offence for blasphemy in Ireland is a bit outdated so we’re asking people to change that. It’s very much part of a reform of our whole Constitution to make the country more modern.”
Quite so!
And then it started to rain on me. It was forecast though so I was not really surprised! Just a tad disappointed!
Later I walked into the centre of Figueira to buy supplies of this and that. On Saturday we got tied up with hunting for chess venues and yesterday, being Sunday, everything was closed. We now have supplies of coffee and nibbles to keep the chess player happy. The rain had stopped, however, the sun had come out and on my way back to the hotel I even had to carry my coat. And I saw lizards scuttling up a wall. Does this mean the heatwave has returned?
On my travels this morning I came across a very well preserved Citroen Dyane. As I stopped to admire it the owner appeared and started to talk to me about it, how old it is, what other old vehicles he owns and so on. So I told him that I used to have, long, long ago, a bright red Citroen 2CV, um dois cavalhos, or possible carvalhos, of which I was inordinately proud. I felt my limited Portuguese was doing quite well and then he asked if I was Spanish. So I guess my pronunciation is somewhat influenced by my Spanish.
We continue to have problems accessing internet in our room, indeed in the whole hotel. At reception they told us that they are having problems because an antenna was blown down by Storm Leslie. Poor old Leslie must be getting blamed for everything! And then he said that the hotel is full and lots of people are using the internet, slowing everything down. They are probably all chess players! So I am posting this evening, when the chessplayers are busy trying to defeat each other.
Out in the wider world, away from my lotus-eating, hedonistic existence, there has been a shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, USA. Another crazy anti-semite with links to right wing organisations. Nine people were killed, maybe eleven.
All of this did not stop POTUS going on with his mid-term campaigning. "We can't let evil change our life and change our schedule,” he said. “We can’t do that. We have to go.” He added: "I'll go. Not that I want to go. But I think I actually, in reverse, have an obligation to go.” He added: “We condemn the historic evil of antisemitism and every other form of evil. “And unfortunately, evil comes in many forms. And we come together as one American people."
His regret did not prevent him from joking about the fact that the rain had messed his heir up, although some people had told him they preferred the natural mussed look, or so he said. In the end it’s all about the Donald!
He also apparently said that the 'results' of the shooting would have been 'far better' if their had been armed guards - a solution he has also promoted to stop school shootings “If they had protection inside, the results would have been far better,” he said . "If they had some kind of protection inside the temple, maybe it could have been a much different situation. But they didn’t.”
So presumably all churches, synagogues and mosques should all have armed guards inside. Go to worship your god but be prepared for a possible shoot-out! The mind boggles!
Some better news tells me that Ireland has voted to remove blasphemy as an offence from the country’s constitution. In a referendum, 64.8 per cent of voters were in favour of changing the law, with 35.1 per cent supporting the status quo. The result was largely expected, as the article on blasphemy in the constitution is generally agreed to be outdated and obsolete. Well, yes! I should think so!
No one has ever been charged with the offence in the history of the Irish state, but it does carry a fine of up to €25,000.
Here is a quote from the Irish PM:
“What we want to have in Ireland is a 21st Century constitution for a 21st Century republic. We’ve already reformed our Constitution to allow for things like marriage equality, women’s right to choose. We believe that having a criminal offence for blasphemy in Ireland is a bit outdated so we’re asking people to change that. It’s very much part of a reform of our whole Constitution to make the country more modern.”
Quite so!
Sunday, 28 October 2018
Out and about in Figueira.
Yesterday morning I got up and ran round the local park, snapping shots of trees broken by the recent hurricane as I went. Even in the sunshine it gives everywhere a slightly shabby air.
On the seafront various places are boarded up, pending repair from Storm Leslie.
In the land of the Anglophile Portuguese, I have spotted these language errors:-
By the time we finally located the Assembleia Figueirense where the opening gathering of the great and the good, with lots of speeches of thanks to sponsors, would take place, Phil was more than a little hangry. Hangry is a term I have borrowed from our daughter, who uses it to describe various of her offspring when they are grumpy because of hunger.
Serendipitously we were close to a little restaurant, Cais do Heleno, where we were served excellent fish, “robalo”, and a half litre of vinho verde, which they have on tap, all for around twenty euros.
And the view over the estuary was quite nice too.
All we need to do now is manage to get wifi in the hotel room. Currently we go down to the reception area, as the receptionist tells us that their service has difficulty reaching our end of the hotel! She gives Storm Leslie and the hurricane as a partial excuse. We have our doubts.
So it goes.
On the seafront various places are boarded up, pending repair from Storm Leslie.
In the land of the Anglophile Portuguese, I have spotted these language errors:-
- The ladies’ toilets at Oporto airport are labelled “Nao fumadores”, “Non fumeurs”, “No smokers”. So ladies who smoke are not allowed in. Where are they supposed to go for a pee?
- In our hotel, arrows direct you to the “Toillets”. I seem to have a bit of a toilet theme going on here.
- And there is a bar on the sea front which offers a range of “gin’s”.
By the time we finally located the Assembleia Figueirense where the opening gathering of the great and the good, with lots of speeches of thanks to sponsors, would take place, Phil was more than a little hangry. Hangry is a term I have borrowed from our daughter, who uses it to describe various of her offspring when they are grumpy because of hunger.
Serendipitously we were close to a little restaurant, Cais do Heleno, where we were served excellent fish, “robalo”, and a half litre of vinho verde, which they have on tap, all for around twenty euros.
And the view over the estuary was quite nice too.All we need to do now is manage to get wifi in the hotel room. Currently we go down to the reception area, as the receptionist tells us that their service has difficulty reaching our end of the hotel! She gives Storm Leslie and the hurricane as a partial excuse. We have our doubts.
So it goes.
Saturday, 27 October 2018
Travel. Bonding. Forces of nature. Freedom of speech.
We were met at the airport yesterday by a Portuguese gentleman, connected in some way I am unsure of with the chess event that Phil is playing in, whose name I still do not know, despite his having picked us up three times, at least. He greets us like old friends. No need for a laminated sheet with our name on.
He tells me something in a stream of Portuguese. Gradually I work out that he has to pick up someone else, a Cuban chess player, and that we need to wait. He has great faith in my Portuguese, and thinks I understand and speak more than I really do. Phil says it may be that I am almost the only person who speaks to him, in the sense of making conversation, when he collects them from the airport, and certainly the only one who tries to communicate in Portuguese! In any case, we have clearly bonded and swap photos of our respective delightful grandchildren.
We collect the Cuban, Rodney García something or other. (South and Central Americans and Cubans often have unlikely names, a curious mix of Anglo-European and and Hispanic.) And we set off for Figueira.
En route the driver points out places that suffered from the hurricane a couple of weeks ago. Huge trees are bent and broken, snapped as if made of straw. Behind our hotel is a paço, a kind of stately home, the Sotto Maior. The gardens are also full of bent and broken mature trees. Nature is a powerful force when she gets going.
Back in the UK I have left unfinished a library book, Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver. The story revolves around migrating Monarch butterflies that end up in the USA instead of Mexico. One of the consequences of global warming, climate change or whatever else some people do not believe in. The power of nature!
It’s not just butterflies that are on the move. There are thousands of Hondurans, also some of them with odd names, trekking their way to the USA, believing that Donald Trump will have a change of heart and let them in.
We are going to see are of this, of course. Between conflicts zones and areas of desertification more and more people are going to be seeking somewhere else to live. Will they be allowed in?
Meanwhile, if your name is Tommy Robinson, who should not in my opinion be given houseroom anywhere, you can find yourself invited to lunch at the House of Lords - I think it was lunch - and now to speak to Congress in the USA.
Oh, yes, he has freedom of speech, as should everyone, but still he should not be encouraged!
He tells me something in a stream of Portuguese. Gradually I work out that he has to pick up someone else, a Cuban chess player, and that we need to wait. He has great faith in my Portuguese, and thinks I understand and speak more than I really do. Phil says it may be that I am almost the only person who speaks to him, in the sense of making conversation, when he collects them from the airport, and certainly the only one who tries to communicate in Portuguese! In any case, we have clearly bonded and swap photos of our respective delightful grandchildren.
We collect the Cuban, Rodney García something or other. (South and Central Americans and Cubans often have unlikely names, a curious mix of Anglo-European and and Hispanic.) And we set off for Figueira.
En route the driver points out places that suffered from the hurricane a couple of weeks ago. Huge trees are bent and broken, snapped as if made of straw. Behind our hotel is a paço, a kind of stately home, the Sotto Maior. The gardens are also full of bent and broken mature trees. Nature is a powerful force when she gets going.
Back in the UK I have left unfinished a library book, Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver. The story revolves around migrating Monarch butterflies that end up in the USA instead of Mexico. One of the consequences of global warming, climate change or whatever else some people do not believe in. The power of nature!
It’s not just butterflies that are on the move. There are thousands of Hondurans, also some of them with odd names, trekking their way to the USA, believing that Donald Trump will have a change of heart and let them in.
We are going to see are of this, of course. Between conflicts zones and areas of desertification more and more people are going to be seeking somewhere else to live. Will they be allowed in?
Meanwhile, if your name is Tommy Robinson, who should not in my opinion be given houseroom anywhere, you can find yourself invited to lunch at the House of Lords - I think it was lunch - and now to speak to Congress in the USA.
Oh, yes, he has freedom of speech, as should everyone, but still he should not be encouraged!
Friday, 26 October 2018
The future of the human race!
I have decided that young people are possibly alien species. This is as a result of travelling on public transport and observing them.
This morning we were up bright and early to catch a bus to Oldham Mumps, where we caught a tram to Manchester Victoria, where we caught another tram to Manchester Piccadilly. There we wrestled with the machine for prepaid tickets to persuade it to give us the tickets we booked yesterday for a train to Liverpool South Parkway. Quite why the booking system would not allow us to print our own tickets is a mystery. And our iPhones are insufficiently sophisticated to use the app for that particular train-line. Sigh! And finally, after the train, we caught a bus to Liverpool John Lennon airport.
Anyway, I am pretty sure that young people have already developed thumbs which work in a different way from mine. They manage to hold their phones and type with their thumbs, a skill I do not possess. Our middle granddaughter finds it highly amusing that I type mostly with my two forefingers and occasionally bring in a few more fingers for support. On a touch screen keyboard, though, two fingers are usually all I can manage. This must be an age thing for I saw a lady on the tram, a lady of advanced years, although not quite so advanced as mine, with beautifully painted, obviously false, sparkly nails. One finger, her middle finger, did not have the fancy nail; this she used to tap messages and access apps on her phone.
Before seeing the lady on the tram, however, I watched teenagers on the bus, on their way to school, almost all of them plugged in to a fancy phone. One of the them held his phone horizontally flat, at right angles to his ear to listen to his music. When his friend joined him they proceeded to swap and compare things they had found on u-tube, all highly amusing.
Not much later, on the tram I overheard a conversation between two slightly older teenagers, probably sixth-form college students. They were discussing the future, a future in which one of them maintained that owning smart phones would be obligatory. Everyone will need them to pay for stuff. Tangible money (his terminology) is already on the way out. Soon it will be a thing of the past. Not only that, all humans will be chipped, rather as dogs are now. This too will be obligatory. They are already in use in the USA!! So he maintained! All those Mexican children who were separated from their parents have been chipped! On Trumps orders! So he maintained!
We will undoubtedy follow suit, he also maintained. His friend, so far relatively quiet, asked why. Well, he was told, we are always behind the Americans in technology. Whereupon his mate pointed out that it was “one of ours” who invented the computer!
At that point we got off the tram.
Then there are the clothes. Ripped jeans. So many exposed bony knees. Will they all have arthrotic knees in the future?i eemember when we used to buy new Levi’s and wash them at least five times before wearing to get rid of the new look. Just as they reached the perfect level,of fabric softness, they began tomwear out at the knees and we had to start all over again. No doubt, our parents thought we were crazy not to patch them. Nowadays, they would be perfect?
On the plane I overheard a little conversation between a small boy and his father. This was just after the plane took off.
Small boy: Daddy, are we still on earth? Or are we in space?
Daddy, after a pause: Well, we are in the atmosphere.
Small boy: What’s the atmosphere?
Time for some explanatory diagrams, I thought.
Later in the flight I heard the same small boy reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to himself, carefully working out the words, spelling them out and occasionally asking for a meaning.
Brilliant! There is hope for the human race, after all!
This morning we were up bright and early to catch a bus to Oldham Mumps, where we caught a tram to Manchester Victoria, where we caught another tram to Manchester Piccadilly. There we wrestled with the machine for prepaid tickets to persuade it to give us the tickets we booked yesterday for a train to Liverpool South Parkway. Quite why the booking system would not allow us to print our own tickets is a mystery. And our iPhones are insufficiently sophisticated to use the app for that particular train-line. Sigh! And finally, after the train, we caught a bus to Liverpool John Lennon airport.
Anyway, I am pretty sure that young people have already developed thumbs which work in a different way from mine. They manage to hold their phones and type with their thumbs, a skill I do not possess. Our middle granddaughter finds it highly amusing that I type mostly with my two forefingers and occasionally bring in a few more fingers for support. On a touch screen keyboard, though, two fingers are usually all I can manage. This must be an age thing for I saw a lady on the tram, a lady of advanced years, although not quite so advanced as mine, with beautifully painted, obviously false, sparkly nails. One finger, her middle finger, did not have the fancy nail; this she used to tap messages and access apps on her phone.
Before seeing the lady on the tram, however, I watched teenagers on the bus, on their way to school, almost all of them plugged in to a fancy phone. One of the them held his phone horizontally flat, at right angles to his ear to listen to his music. When his friend joined him they proceeded to swap and compare things they had found on u-tube, all highly amusing.
Not much later, on the tram I overheard a conversation between two slightly older teenagers, probably sixth-form college students. They were discussing the future, a future in which one of them maintained that owning smart phones would be obligatory. Everyone will need them to pay for stuff. Tangible money (his terminology) is already on the way out. Soon it will be a thing of the past. Not only that, all humans will be chipped, rather as dogs are now. This too will be obligatory. They are already in use in the USA!! So he maintained! All those Mexican children who were separated from their parents have been chipped! On Trumps orders! So he maintained!
We will undoubtedy follow suit, he also maintained. His friend, so far relatively quiet, asked why. Well, he was told, we are always behind the Americans in technology. Whereupon his mate pointed out that it was “one of ours” who invented the computer!
At that point we got off the tram.
Then there are the clothes. Ripped jeans. So many exposed bony knees. Will they all have arthrotic knees in the future?i eemember when we used to buy new Levi’s and wash them at least five times before wearing to get rid of the new look. Just as they reached the perfect level,of fabric softness, they began tomwear out at the knees and we had to start all over again. No doubt, our parents thought we were crazy not to patch them. Nowadays, they would be perfect?
On the plane I overheard a little conversation between a small boy and his father. This was just after the plane took off.
Small boy: Daddy, are we still on earth? Or are we in space?
Daddy, after a pause: Well, we are in the atmosphere.
Small boy: What’s the atmosphere?
Time for some explanatory diagrams, I thought.
Later in the flight I heard the same small boy reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to himself, carefully working out the words, spelling them out and occasionally asking for a meaning.
Brilliant! There is hope for the human race, after all!
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