Some sounds are very evocative and some words engage the imagination. My regular readers will know that Celina’s brother and family are firmly established in Estoril in Portugal and when her sister moves there in October, the focus of the family will shift from Rio de Janeiro to Estoril. We were there in July to soak up some sun …….. and at exactly 12 noon, a siren sounded over the town of Cascais, some 3 kilometres from Estoril.

Firstly the sound is evocative, as it ties my memory to the old Air Raid siren sounded in England before an imminent air raid during the Second World War; there was a slightly different sound at the ‘All Clear’. And before you think I actually heard them, I was born after the end of the war, so the memory is from watching films set in and around that time!! But was Cascais about to be attacked? No, of course not, this was a signal to indicate the hour, a single note noise. It probably started back in the late 1800s or early 1900s, used throughout the industrialised world to signal the start of work; there was probably one for the lunch break and one at the end of the day – indeed if you look up siren in a dictionary, it says “Factory siren or hooter …… a siren or steam whistle used as a signal for work to begin …. or finish.” The sound was produced by revolving perforated metal discs over a jet of compressed air or steam.

And in this week, the start of the new Academic Year in the United Kingdom, it has similarities to the school bell that signalled the start and finish of lessons.

If you have been watching the world news recently you may have heard, during the report of North Korea’s missile test flight across mainland Japan, an Air Raid Siren. Here is a siren being used in anger, as it were. Such a strange and mournful sound, rising and falling, a wail, a warning to the civilian population that they should head for some form of shelter. The converse of course is equally true, a signal for Civil Defence Forces to head for their work stations to help in the aftermath of whatever unfolds.

Normally the only sirens one hears on the streets are those of ambulances, fire engines, of those of a police car on its way to stop criminal activity or indeed at the end of the shift, to get through the heavy traffic and back to base (sorry, a bit cynical huh?). In The USA the sound for a police car is a perfect 4^th, for an ambulance a perfect 5^th and for a fire engine it’s a perfect 2^nd. However, being musically almost tone deaf none of this means much to me!

At school I was taught Latin, initially by a chap who was the Mayor of Wells as well as a teacher. Inattention or mispronouncing a word got a clip around the ear with a wooden ruler. Later we ploughed through some syllabus but it’s all forgotten, apart from remembering the Dog Latin:

‘Caesar adsum jam forte, Brutus aderat, Caesar sic in omnibus, Brutus sic in at.’

which, when read aloud, sounds like:

‘Caesar had some jam for tea, Brutus had a rat, Caesar (was) sick in omnibus, Brutus             (was) sick in hat.’

I was useless. We probably read bits of Homer and other Greek writers but the whole library of Greek Mythology, that body of teachings and myths concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world etc was, and remains to this day, a complete mystery. Ulysses? The Odyssey? Jason and the Argonauts? Nah! But for some reason the word ‘siren’ stirs my imagination.

 

HJ Draper’s Ulysses and the Sirens

In Greek Mythology sirens were dangerous creatures who lured sailors with their enchanting music and voices towards the rocks of their island. They were incidentally all female, the daughters of the river god Achelous while their mother may have been Terpsichore, Melpomene, Steropre, or Chthon. These names may mean something to you but to me, it’s all Greek! In fact, how do you pronounce ‘Chthon’?

Ulysses escaped the danger of their songs by stopping his crew’s ears with wax so they were deaf to the sirens’ calls. Ulysses himself wanted to hear their song so had himself tied to the mast of his ship so he couldn’t steer his ship off its course. The classical painter Herbert James Draper was one who attempted to portray this struggle between good and evil, for the sirens were undoubtedly evil.

And who could not remember the 1994 film ‘Sirens’? Set in 1930’s Australia it tells the story of Tony, played by Hugh Grant, an Anglican priest newly arrived in Australia from the United Kingdom. He is asked to visit the notorious artist Norman Lindsay (Sam Neil), out of the church’s concern about a blasphemous painting of the crucifix that the artist plans to exhibit. Estella, (Tara Fitzgerald) the priest’s wife, accompanies him on the visit to the artist’s bucolic compound in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales, where incidentally the film was made. There they meet Lindsay’s wife, Rose, two models (one Elle Macpherson), and the maid, all of whom pose for Lindsay.

As the story unfolds, both Tony and Estella find themselves observing the young women bathing naked in a nearby pool and instead of turning instantly away, each pauses to watch, betraying an underlying sensual interest in the lifestyle they outwardly deplore.

 

Portia de Rossi, Elle Macpherson and Kate Fisher as the sirens

If you never saw the film, maybe that’s enough to whet your appetite to watch it now? The film uses the word ‘Siren’ to describe Lindsay’s three models, and also the message they portrayed – a siren call of their lives and surroundings, enticing and tempting others.

Just some scribbles as always!

Richard 9^th September 2017

PS     A hooter, in addition to being a siren-like device, is also the slang for someone’s nose, generally those of the larger variety!

PPS Those of you old enough may remember a garment called a siren suit, consisting of one piece, the ‘jacket’ part of the trousers, so easy to put on in an emergency, much trumpeted by Sir Winston Churchill. His of course was ‘pinstripe’!!

 

 ‘It must be someone’s fault’; ‘I’ll make them pay’; ‘Take responsibility you fuckers’.

We live in a society where increasingly the hue and cry is ‘It’s their fault’ … ‘Sue them’, and all sorts of accusations in between. But how companies actually respond to their customers has always been fairly crucial; no more so than today. Get it wrong and you shoot yourself in the foot. Many of you will remember Jerry Ratner who had started out as a retailer in the jeweller business. In an after-dinner speech in 1991 he recalled being asked how he could sell his jewellery so cheaply; “Because it’s total crap.” he replied ….. wiping £500m from the company’s value. But at the very basic level, all we really want is someone to acknowledge our issue, take some responsibility, make a gesture.

The airlines come in for a lot of stick and some of it’s justified. Our very own British Airways never seems to handle a crisis well; they have yet to learn that customers want to be told something, even if it’s ‘we have no information’, because we assume they know!! Other airlines are no better. When we flew to Brazil via the Antipodes in January we found ourselves on a LATAM flight from Auckland to Santiago, with no vegetarian meal for Celina. The ‘special request’ wasn’t rectified when we flew on to Rio two days later. So on our return to the UK I asked via the travel agent for some explanation from the airline; eventually the travel agent said that LATAM are not obliged to provide options such as vegetarian food ….. so the travel agent sent us some chocolates …… and that made us feel good about them but not about LATAM who for the sake of a voucher or somesuch could have redeemed themselves.

We went with some chums to a local restaurant, The Ginger Pig, some months ago and had a very pleasant evening. It wasn’t crowded and we chatted to the duty manager Rob as we paid the bill and got our coats. I put mine on and was distracted by the conversation ….. until Celina yells anxiously: “You are on fire! Turn around!” Closer inspection suggested that I had backed up against a window sill on which there was a lit candle. The jacket came off, we stamped on it to put out the flames and went home with our ears ringing with apologies etc from the staff.

I expected an emailed apology but nothing happened, so I dropped them a note asking what they were going to do to get my jacket repaired. Without admitting any liability they offered a voucher for £25 – for a meal in the restaurant – so cost to them?£5? They didn’t get it, I thought; one telephone call to the local Trading Standards and they would get a visit, but I didn’t want to do that to a place which is local and where the food’s really good!! So I emailed: “A fortnight has gone by and I await your thoughts on offering to have my jacket repaired as opposed to a voucher towards a meal. I am normally quite patient but there is no more information so you just need to make a better decision!”

The flames took out both outer and inner layers

I collected £25 from the Ginger Pig a few days later and my jacket is now patched. Result!

Moving away from London broke the regularity with which Stewart, who lives in Wimbledon, and I had lunch, to ‘chew the fat’ and catch up. Suffice to say we got together in July at Brew on Northcote Road, Battersea. We had a light lunch of fishcakes, poached egg, Hollandaise Sauce and spinach; Yum! You might think. And it was, but later that night, back in our respective homes, we both suffered the unmentionables.

I texted Stewart the following morning to say my night had been a bit troubled, and he admitted being quite ill; he recovered two days later. Brew went into the predictable: ‘It can’t have been us. We’ve checked batches of food and temperatures and ……. and …… etc etc’. When we pointed out that we hadn’t seen each for months until we met at Brew, that we live 60 miles apart, and so the obvious conclusion was that we picked up something at Brew, they still didn’t buy it and actually didn’t apologise. We eventually got our money back in the form of two vouchers, to be spent in …… Brew!! Er! Maybe not!

An altogether more satisfying exchange took place with Jessica Mason, founder of a bedding company called Piglet In Bed (www.pigletinbed.com). A feature in The Sunday Times a couple of months ago focused on bed linen, inter alia on her company and I thought I would order a duvet cover.

 “God, you have to be quick when you read something in the Sunday Times!” I emailed. “I was admiring your ‘blush’ duvet cover, thought over a cup of tea in the late afternoon I’ll order one ….. and find they have sold out. Congratulations on your success but when will you get some more in?

“Six to eight weeks” came back a speedy response.

Six weeks passed and Jessica told me they were in. I ordered one and it duly arrived via Parcel Force.

Piglet in bed

 “My duvet cover and pillow cases came today. Great colour and we look forward to using them this evening. My only comment concerns the button holes. Lovely choice of buttons but actually the holes are not good. One or two are badly made and hardly wide enough to push a button through. I know I will not button and unbutton them every day but given the cost of the duvet cover they let it down badly.” I offered by way of feedback.

Quick to respond, Jessica emailed: “I am glad your bedding reached you safely. This is the first batch we have sold with this new button …… and I see your point about the holes being too small. Thanks for letting me know about this; we’re working to find a solution. Meanwhile I would like to offer a complimentary set in one of the other colours, with our previous buttons. Please get in touch ……..”

Well, I took her up on her generous offer, the second cover arrived and I reflected on how my impression of the company went through the roof. Everyone should buy something from Piglet In Bed – please!!

Satisfaction comes in all shapes and sizes!!

Richard 26^th August 2017

PS I know some of you feel that we have a bit of a fetish for pigs. ‘Tis true! For me it started in 1989, buying two of the famous Oslo artist Mona Storkaas’ ceramic animals in that city; one a seagull and one a ……pig! Then I got a piggy money box …….. and the collection has grown! So we felt at home buying a duvet cover from Pigletinbed – but when I first read this, I sort-of read ‘Pigs Tin Bed’ which in the What3words locator would put you west of Cromer in Norfolk, UK at a Bed & Breakfast called …. The Pigs!!

Mona Storkaas’ lovely pig mounted on driftwood

My last scribbles described some of the highlights of my ten week ‘Creative Writing’ course and some of you emailed asking for the piece about Nelson, David and Freddie Starr. You were kindly appreciative, so I thought I shouldn’t hide another three little gems that came about either in class or as homework.

We were asked to write about shopping. Such a vast topic but for someone who hasn’t even been to Blue Water, one of those out-of-town shopping acreages, I decided to keep it simple. See if you agree?

For my fresh eggs I normally go to Dean & Perry’s market stall which is erected at the top end of pedestrianized George Street here in Central Hove. The eggs come from chickens in Peacehaven and are really lovely. Dean’s a tall chap and he has to stoop a little to fit under the canvas awning. Having picked up four egg cartons from the side of his stall, I come into view in front. It’s become such a regular occurrence that the whole shop goes somethings like:

“Hellllloooooo! How are you? Just your usual? ….. How many have we got?  …. Remind me, it’s the £1.09s, isn’t it?….. So that’ll be £4.36 ….

“Good morning Doris! How are you?……. Sorry! Be with you in a minute.

“…….So is that everything? These strawberries are the first of the season. No! We had the Spanish ones but these are from the Netherlands.

“Smell good an’ all” says Jim standing beside the stall from where he’s been talking to Dean about the football when there aren’t any customers….

“I don’t want to smell ‘em, Jim, I want to know how they taste .”

“Sorry Doris, two secs! ….. “

“So two dozen eggs and a punnet of strawberries £7.35 call it £7 Thanks for that …. three pounds change then ….. See you next week ……

“Now, Doris what did you want? Yes, the beetroot are cooked, real sweet, I can tell, had some for my tea yesterday.”

I wander back down the street, smiling. Such a pleasure!

In one of the first classes, we had ten minutes to write about a memory of school, for here for sure was something that everyone had experienced, some more recently than others. It did seem a very long time ago but eventually this flowed from somewhere:

Anywhere but here!

I sit at my usual desk. There are twenty of us, all boys, struggling to make sense of Mr Parrish’s mathematical calculations on the board. He has a large nose, a beak, and he’s not confident. It’s a two hour double maths period. On my left is Ray and on my right Ian. Chalk dust lingers on the hot room. The sun streams in through the large windows.

Anywhere but here!

In the distance I can hear the sound of Mr Gough mowing with his tractor, preparing the cricket pitch for this afternoon’s match. I loathe cricket so I’ll skive off somehow.

Anywhere but here!

Do I really want to know how to do differential calculus? Will any knowledge of it help in the future? I take my slide rule and apply myself; I have to!

Anywhere but here!

Mr Parrish’s voice interrupts. He sets homework, reminds us to hand in the answer to his problem and leaves in a flurry of black master’s cloak and chalk dust.

You may guess I wasn’t a fan of school!!

One week the homework was to write about a happy time in your childhood. Thought it strange that as soon as Heather had asked us to write about this, she mentioned that past students sometimes had had a real problem as their childhood had been unhappy! Made me wonder why she had chosen such a potentially volatile memory bank. Yet one has to assume that somewhere in this generalised memory of ‘childhood’ there might be the odd nugget of happiness, even if you’ve labelled the whole as ‘unhappy’. So here is one!

 I never used a Rolodex but understand how they operate. I look at my imaginary one, flip through it ‘A’ to ‘Z’ and realise that finding happy childhood eexperiences are as rare as finding pissholes in a large snow field! Surely somewhere …….

 So it is that I recall, aged maybe 6, walking down Marlborough Buildings in the Georgian city of Bath, the city of my birth, to Victoria Park at the bottom of the hill. It’s midsummer and the tall trees are in full leaf, reaching across the traffic-free road to touch gently in the middle. My heart lifts as I see the ice-cream van in its normal spot. On Sundays it comes in the morning, on weekdays only for the afternoon.

 I put my hand into the dirty pocket of my grey shorts and am reassured by the touch of my threepenny piece, along with a piece of string and my penknife; enough for my favourite ice-cream! There’s a small queue, some adults, some children – all wanting to taste something cool and sweet on a sunny morning; shouldn’t be long.

 My turn!  I get the coin out of my pocket, reach up on tiptoe as high as I can and put it on the aluminium shelf. It’s Giovanni, who I know from past conversations was interned during the war because he was an Italian living in England. He doesn’t know my name but I’m not bothered. “A vanilla block and wafer please?” He reaches into the ‘fridge, picks up a block, adds two wafers and hands it to me. “Thank you” I mutter hurriedly as I feel myself salivating.

 I turn away, carefully unwrap one side of the block, place a wafer on top of the ice-cream, turn it over and remove the remaining paper, replacing it with the other wafer. At last! Holding my ice-cream carefully between thumb and forefinger, I lift it to my open mouth. I smell it, inhale the dusty wafer crumbs, and take my first bite. Now I am happy.

As I said in PC 102, I loved the challenge of having to write something, then, there. Now I just need to get motivated to take it to the next level. Hey! Ho!

Richard 12^th August 2017

They were probably sitting up in bed, my daughter Jade and son-in-law Sam, their sons asleep, peace having descended and racking their brains as to what to buy me for my big decade birthday last year. “Why don’t we pay for your Dad to do a Creative Writing course?” Sam might have said. Funny how I get sensitive to being called ‘Dad’, preferring Pa or Papa! If I had been a fly on the wall I might have heard ‘he needs to improve’ or ‘it might help him’ or ‘he obviously enjoys writing his PCs so this might make them better’. Time moved on and they saw something they liked more; but it had been mentioned to me and the seed sown, so I investigated the course at the City College/MET in Brighton and signed up.

Not really much idea what to expect apart from the sales pitch, which mentioned ‘writing autobiography, poetry and fiction’, and ‘exploring techniques for sparking imagination and tapping into inner creativity’. It sounded interesting I thought. The course started towards the end of April and as instructed I had collected my security pass a couple of days earlier; strange to go and study and have to have a pass but times have changed.

By the time we were ten minutes into the first class the last person had turned up. It’s in my DNA to be punctual, to be there at least 5 minutes before the start, but obviously my DNA is not shared by others!! We were a disparate bunch, genuinely reflecting the diversity of this City, three men, eleven women; I am not good at guessing ages but most 25-45 with one or two older than that. I wondered at some point during those first few minutes whether this class was for me and as the weeks progressed others must have thought the same.

Three dropped out: then there were 11

We filled out a form, indicating what we wanted from the course. Then we started, two hours with quite a lot of student participation, a little whiteboard guidance. We talked about characterisation, writing dialogue, believable plots and connecting people and events; we wrote a child’s simple bedtime story and we practised in class and with our homework. In the warm glow of the satisfaction at having completed each and every class, and having gained a great deal from them all, some things stand out:

One evening we were divided into groups of three and asked to tell the other two of a moment in your past you feared for your life. Then the group would choose one, and in class each member of that group would recount that experience as if it was their own, the others trying to guess whose actual tale it was. Got it? Well, I was grouped with Sophie and Steve; both had more tattoos than the owner of my local tattoo parlour, not to mention enough piercing for them both to leak if they stood on their heads and for Steve some green dye in his hair. We compared our experiences in the corridor, away from flapping ears. Steve told of his drunken stepfather throwing a supper plate at him as a child, shattering across his forehead; I told of being on a yacht in a race across the North Sea when we were hit by a 60 knot line squall which knocked the boat horizontal and the sea poured in: Sophie told of being at a Tattoo Convention in Kathmandu, Nepal at the time of the earthquake in 2015. We choose hers, but left out the bit about it being a Tattoo convention as it would have been visually obvious I have no interest in body art! Fun to recount someone else’s stories as if they are your own.

And then there were 8!

One topic was poetry, a form of expression I don’t enjoy either reading or listening to. The homework was to write a 40 line poem. “Forty lines!” the voice inside my head yelled at me as I reached for a clean sheet of paper and made my first half-hearted attempt; seemed like an impossible task. I eventually produced a basic effort on sailing; the fifth verse for example went like this:

“Sail’s flapping, pull in the sheet,

Yank the winch, clear the cleat.”

Childish huh!

This challenge, of having to do something then, there, in class, in 10 minutes, in 100 words, that was fun! There was nowhere to hide; I wanted to produce something and not respond that I simply found this really too hard and “No, I don’t have anything!” which we occasionally heard.

For homework one week, I had to get someone to give me the names of two famous people and a newspaper headline; from these I was to concoct a story. Thanks Jon for suggesting David Beckham, Nelson Mandela and ‘Freddie Starr ate my hamster”

With a bit of research I produced something which worked; email me if you want to read it.

One of the tasks I found most enjoyable was to rewrite a fairy-tale “with a twist”! Such fun …….. and maybe, just maybe, I’ll work it up into a short story and send it off somewhere.

And then there were 5! Life interrupts; Claudia was unwell, James’ partner had a baby, Francesca was often seduced by an offer from chums of a picnic on the beach in the warmth of the evening, with a glass of bubbly. Difficult huh?

We were given a colour reproduction of an Impressionist painting. Mine was Édouard Manet’s ‘A Bar at the Folies-Bergère’. In class, for this was the last one, we had to write about the picture. Then write about the picture from the point to view of someone in the picture; then from artist’s point of view. And finally create a story connected somehow with the picture. An interesting and challenging exercise.

At the end there were 4; Rachel, who had a delightfully creative and imaginative mind but hated the sound of her own voice, her friend Lydia who contributed lots although was very self-conscious about her efforts, Melanie who was very focused and who clearly will publish sometime ….. and me.

And what of Heather, our teacher? I spent some time on the teaching staff of the Royal School of Artillery and know that preparation beats chaos, confidence wins hands down but then I was simply imparting facts. Encouraging people to write creatively requires a completely different set of skills, trying to tease out ideas, challenging people to think laterally. Although Heather always seemed to have lost her password so she couldn’t log on and register our presence, I actually warmed to her over the weeks – people who write or try to teach writing must have a certain Je ne sais quoi huh?

Richard 29^th July 2017

You get those magazine articles about how so-and-so knew so-and-so and how amazing it was that they had discovered that one of their great grandmothers had had tea with the queen and that the other had had a relative who just happened to be pouring that very tea ……. or some such!! Makes you smile ……. and then life moves on; really too inconsequential to think more about. Or is it?

Planet Earth

Do you know how many babies are born in a single hour on Planet Earth? In round terms 15,000! An average of fifteen thousand an hour, 360,000 in a single day. Seems a lot huh! If you’re interested in such things you might start to wonder whether there is any predictability about when babies are born. There was a large statistical evaluation carried out concerning 6 million French babies born between January 1968 and December 1974. What it found was that there are two different rhythms at play in frequencies; a weekly one and an annual one. The lowest number of births occurred on a Sunday and the largest number on a Tuesday, whilst the month of May was the most popular with the lowest number of births in the months of September and October. This latest figure surprised me as I had always thought lots of sexual activity took place in the Northern Hemisphere winter months of January and February, so there should have been a peak in the autumn. Mind you I have no idea whether the converse is true in the Southern Hemisphere. You can of course prove anything by statistics!

Did you know that a statistical analysis of birth distribution in lunar months shows that more babies are born between the last quarter and the new moon, and fewer in the first quarter of new moon. All those concerned with birthing, midwives, nurses in labour wards, busy doulas and experienced childbirth educators, all believe in the power of the full moon plus changes to barometric pressure from cold-warm fronts to move things along. And why not? Our bodies are, after all, some 65% fluid and we are aware of how the earth’s waters are affected by the lunar pull. If you have every stood on Portland Bill on the English Channel or on the deck of a yacht between the Channel Islands of Guernsey and Alderney ……… and watched the sea being forced by some unseen hand in one direction, in the latter case possible causing the yacht to go backwards relative to the seabed …… ……..  so why should we be immune to this lunar pull?

Back in February this year, the full moon was on Saturday 11^th and the start of the last quarter the following Friday, the 17^th. If you were born around this time, your ‘Star’ sign would be Aquarius and this year you would be a Rooster, according to the Chinese Zodiac which started on 28th January. Aquarians have “a desire to deal with the problems and hopes of all mankind; they are very concerned with the life of the community rather than any particular individual. They need to be in the spotlight and will do anything to attract public attention no matter how freaky or perverse.”  As a Rooster you would be the epitome of fidelity and punctuality, and the human representative of confidence and intelligence! And if you want to buy some jewellery for an Aquarian, choose an Amethyst.

You might think by now that I have completely lost the plot, more than usual some might even think, but all this has been leading up to the main event, a simple record of connections. On 17^th February in London, sometime in the afternoon, Douglas Henry William Yates was born. Douglas is the first son of my nephew Hugh and his wife Hannah (see PC 41); Douglas was one of some 3800 babies born in the UK that day but no doubt to Hugh & Hannah the only one!!

All family babies are a celebration and his birth was exactly that. However, my clock was ticking. My mother-in-law had a bet that her second grandson would also be born on the same day. Celina’s brother and sister-in-law met Hugh & Hannah at our wedding in August last year but had just moved from Rio de Janeiro to Estoril in Portugal; both women were pregnant! Now in Portugal about 520 babies are born each day and completely coincidentally Camila went into labour earlier in the day. That evening, on the 17^th February 2017, on the first day of the last lunar quarter, at around 2325 Joaquim Vasconcellos Rocha Miranda, Camila’s second son was born.

I have known Hannah for many many years but Camila only since 2012, when she was pregnant with her first son. That they met in August last year was not so remarkable but both being pregnant was, surely? I can’t honestly remember when the mythical ‘due date’ was in either case but to have them racing towards the finish line together, living in two different countries but connected loosely by my marriage, was worth a bet huh?

This is a nice story, isn’t it? (and we need nice stories!)

Richard 15^th July 2017

Milestone – “A stone set up on a road to indicate the miles to and from a given place; an event, a stage in life.” (A Roman mile being 1000 paces by one of its soldiers)  (Not sure there are ‘kilometre stones’?)

I never ever imagined I would reach this personal milestone, because actually there wasn’t one, a goal that is! What there was, way back in 2013, was a need to scribble something about what I was doing and to communicate that to those close to me, having given up on the traditional postcard with the ‘Wish you were here!’ message.* So my postcard (PC) series was born, emailed occasionally to a growing address list. Most people probably read the first few as they were mainly about Brazil, a country few in the UK knew much about. My first trip had been with Celina, who became my wife last year, in April 2012. Coincidentally my maternal great grandfather Richard Corbett had been born in Recife in north east Brazil in 1850.

Lagoa with Sugar Loaf in the distance, Rio de Janeiro

These musings developed as I found that I enjoyed trying, not always successfully, to describe where I was, what was going on in my head, or simply to make some observations about my life. In 2016 they morphed into a blog available on WordPress at postcardscribbles.co.uk, thanks to the suggestion and assistance of my son-in-law Sam. And here we are, PC 100, a hundred PCs of about a thousand words each, so in total about 10,000 words. Although that’s a definition of a novel, I have not written one, because that has a beginning, a plot, and an end. And who wants to read a novel of 100 chapters?

For those of you who have been with me since the start, you will have read about marriages (PCs 41 & 77) and deaths (PCs 22 & 60) and you will read about births in PC 101; ‘Hatches, Matches and Dispatches’ my parents’ generation would have called them. You will have travelled with me to the USA, Canada, France, Portugal, Australia, New Zealand, Chile and of course to Brazil. Since I started my PCs this country has gone into a serious recession, had its president charged with impeachment, hosted both the football World Cup and the Olympic Games and suffered both too little and too much rain. Given that it’s some 2400 miles both north to south and east to west, visiting parts of Brazil is quite a project. I sense we have seen more of this wonderful Latin American country than many of the inhabitants, going north to Recife, south to Paraty, Cananéia and Santa Catarina, west to the Pantanal, Foz de Iguaçu and São Paulo, whilst based in Rio de Janeiro.

The view from the Top of the World Highway, Alaska

My maternal ancestors, the Nation family, moved from Somerset in the late 1700s to India, on to New Zealand in 1860, and to the UK via San Francisco and Nevada in 1898. Great grandfather George’s trips to Alaska and Canada in the early part of the last century gave us a focus for a trip that we might not otherwise have made, following in his footsteps right up to Eagle City, some 130 miles south of the Arctic Circle (PCs 43, 44 &45).

Whilst I don’t write to get feedback, some people comment. It’s a little like throwing food onto the surface of a limpid pond. Some fish always bite, but others, living in the murky depths, you won’t see until a particular morsel tempts them to the surface. They feed, and then sink back for a year or so!!  One or two topics have created more comments than others; the most have been made about PCs on Loo Paper (PC 47) and The Loo (PC 54) and on Alcohol (PCs 15 & 16). I am really not sure what a sociologist would make of this? At other times it’s as if I have posted something into a black hole, silence is the only thing that comes back.

I’ve scribbled about Christmas and about Easter and about Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, about Cutlery & Etiquette, about speaking and seeing, eating and talking, and I’m fascinated by the coincidences that are all around us.

 The remains of the fire and sea ravaged West Pier here in Brighton

And I’ve made quite a few faux pas – such as using current when it should have been currant, and being told by Colin it must have been a shocking experience! Very droll! When proof reading you can get word-blind and words like bare and bear get misplaced contextually and I readily admit to being uncertain initially whether it’s perserverance or perseverance?! And of course someone said they weren’t going to read any more as they were too boring, introspective and personal ….. and after 6 months self-imposed purdah came back.

I hope that my scribbles are at least vaguely interesting and occasionally informative? People call it my ‘blog’: “A regularly updated website or webpage, typically run by an individual or small group, that is written in an informal or conversational style.” Well, sort of, huh? Updated only because the thoughts are current and not that they are dependent on the previous ones. I am trying to collate the first 100 with the intention of publishing them in a magazine format. I hope that some of my regular readers will want a copy.

So have a cup of coffee, and enjoy

And now I had better get on with PC 101 about these new births.

Richard 2^nd July 2017

Note: * Technology moves quickly! Four days ago I got a postcard from my daughter and family, enjoying a week in sun-drenched Italy. The postcard was made up of photographs they had taken around the pool, the manuscript message personal and apt, the ‘stamp’ a picture of one of my grandsons enjoying an ice-cream – all courtesy of ‘TouchNote’. So clever!

 

 

 

 

Through the window, across the road I can see the end of the largest Christian Orthodox Coptic church in the south of England. In the early evening sunlight, in the dappled shade provided by the elm tree, it looks idyllic.

 

But my view is deceiving. Zoom in and it’s seen from Room 16 at the Montefiore Hospital on Davigdor Road in central Hove. This morning seems a long time ago. Theresa at the reception desk was on duty until 2100 last night and here she is at 0655 ……. after I give her my name she checks my date of birth (dob) ……. and then asks if I’m with Mr Cass (my spinal surgeon) …… and then checks the dob again.

“This can’t be right” she mutters under her breath but loud enough to hear …. I can see her confusion as she looks at me, my face belying my actual age!!

“It’s the hot yoga!” I say and she understands completely as she occasionally goes to the same studio and is also an aficionado. Up to Room 16. To get this far I had to have a meeting with Mr Cass on Monday, see my GP on Tuesday, get checked at the hospital the same day for MRSA etc, asked again about dob and next of kin, sign here, agree this;  you will no doubt be familiar with this world in some way.

You will have gathered by now the long story roughly alluded to in PC 95 had come to a head. The NHS system advised a ‘watchful and waiting’ treatment; I wanted an MRI to find why I couldn’t walk without a stick. So I had to jump the NHS as this had gone on too long and I was in too much pain. You hear that after people get unexpectedly upgraded to business or even first class on an airplane, they vow never to ‘turn left’ again …. although we do know some people who take this a rub-your-nose-in-it further with a “Oh! You fly ‘Commercial’ do you?” So into the Montefiore, a private Spire hospital for a Lumbar Microdiscectomy at L4/L5.

“There’ll be a vanity bag in the bathroom with shampoo, shower gel etc but if you need anything you only have to ask.” Ah!

After a room visit by the anesthetist, I wait; it’s 0815. Then the assistant anesthetist arrives. “Can you walk?” Up to the second floor in the lift, walk past Theatre 1 and Theatre 2, theatre reception etc; it’s so far it’s like walking from the air bridge to passport control in an airport when you arrive. You may remember that the ‘space blanket’ that was all the rage in the ’70s (a NASA benefit) that’s now ubiquitous in camping stores and in mountain rescue vehicles? Then they developed a self-heating glove ……. well, in the pre-operating room I was covered with a self -heating blanket …… wow, now that’s cool! (Sorry couldn’t resist)

We talk about this and that …. “you might feel a small prick ” …….. “Can I put this oxygen mask over your nose?” and ……… the mind just doesn’t go blank, you lose conscientious very quickly. (I write this and am reminded of that film Lucy with Scarlett Johansson and Morgan Freeman about how we only use 10% of our brain power …. when we are awake!)

I awake in Room 16 a couple of hours later; my lower legs are encased in tight anti-dvt stockings and a wrap-around pack of air pockets, fitted up to a pump which inflates/deflates the pockets every 45 seconds. The pump is noisy but my lower leg muscles get a massage! The bed is one where, with a few inadvertent touches of the control panel, you could completely disappear as the foot end comes up at the same time as the head end, and you’re bent in the middle  ….. and the panic button is for some reason just out of reach.

Gary comes in to explain the physiotherapy support programme and some immediate do’s and don’ts. Gary is the chap whose head I almost knocked off when, on my first private visit to the Radius Clinic in April, he did his initial assessment. After the history take he asked me to lie down on the couch.

“Raise your left leg.” he commanded, leaning over the table, and my body. Yoga is well known for developing joint flexibility, and being ex-army I instinctively had to lift it quickly and er sharply; nothing wishy washy here!! Caught Gary on the temple huh! He remembers!

So now this is post-op and he wants me to understand how to stand up without ripping the stitches in my back. After a few moments I’m on my pins for the first time since the anesthetist’s assistant asked me to lie on the trolley this morning; Gary’s standing beside me holding the two milk-bottle like things into which stuff occasionally dribbles from the operational area. I’ve written ‘stuff’ because I am sure no further inspection or description is necessary.

“Ok. Now we are going to walk to the (en-suite!) bathroom. Do you want a hand?”

Male pride? Male stupidity? Male stubbornness? No way! “Let me try on my own.” (I should have recalled the fact that a chum, in a similar situation after a hip operation, stepped boldly forward …….. fell flat on his face, had severe delayed concussion weeks later ……. and hasn’t really been 100% right since then!) Well I didn’t fall but a quick look at Gary’s face suggested he had thought I would. So, the ‘soft shoe shuffle’ so beloved of literationalists and get to the bathroom, do what was necessary with a modicum of decency but actually more like the dance of the still-connected draining bottles ….. and reverse the process back into bed.

Time compresses. My delayed ‘mid-morning snack’ arrived at 1300, my lunch at 1430 and my mid-afternoon tea & cake (very yummy!) at 1600 ……. and I am expected to eat dinner at 1800. Spoilt you might think and rightly so!

My nurse for the day made a fascinating comment during some banter before going for surgery. The Montefiore Hospital also shares it facilities and surgeons with the NHS in an attempt to reduce the latter’s backlog. He has observed that over the years those coming in as patients under their company health insurance cover, or ‘self-paying’ as I was, are more organised, plan the post-op support needed at home, have a more self-sufficient frame of mind and are more thoughtful than those the State is funding, who just don’t appear to think about anything they can do … expecting the State to do all their thinking for them. We need a national course in self-education, self-reliance, a weaning off, taking responsibility where possible for their own health, welfare, etc.  Rant over!

So Saturday late morning I am discharged with some painkillers and notes from the physiotherapist. “Don’t sit down for more than 15 minutes at a time. Walk as much as you can.”

There you have it, pain free after three months. Thank God I had a choice.

Richard 16^th/17^th June 2017

PS Montefiore? Obviously the ‘mountain of flowers’ but a name taken by Sephardic Jews from Morocco and Italy who excelled as diplomats and bankers.

Cousin Teresa was being serious when we saw her in Sao Paulo back in February (see PC 91). She wanted to take her son to Europe, to ‘show him Europe’, and she had 15 days holiday. We had a similar conversation a couple of weeks later with a great friend in Rio de Janeiro who had the same idea! Same idea and same time-frame. I was reminded of that joke about American tourists ‘doing Europe’. As they got off the coach in a large city, one turned to the other and asked: “Where are we?” His companion consulted her itinerary and responds: “It’s Tuesday so it must be Brussels.”

We are so, so lucky, living in an age when travel is comparatively easy, reasonably affordable and moving from A to B quick. Did you realise, for instance, the cost of air travel has halved in the last thirty years? Those of you who read PC 44 will understand that to get to Alaska in 1900 George had to train to Liverpool, get a boat to New York, train to Winnipeg and then across Canada to Seattle, before taking the ferry to Skagway and his onwards journey overland to Dawson City. His total A – B was 6 weeks, which included 3 weeks to Seattle; we flew there in just under 10 hours!!

Certainly in the 19^th and maybe first half of the 20^th centuries tourism was only available to the rich; before then it was probably a strange concept!! The Grand Tour was an essential part of one’s education if you were wealthy, visiting the cultural hotspots of Europe’s capital cities before going to university. Now of course anybody who has some time and some money can do it. And if you live here in the UK, you can drive, fly, train, cycle across The Channel so easily and go often – lunch in Paris anyone?? But if you don’t ……

The Swiss Alps

When someone says ‘Europe’ I wonder what that means to them. Is it the buildings, the physical shape of history so visible in every country? Incidentally did you know that Warsaw was completely rebuilt after the Germans flattened it in 1944? Is it the smell of the place, like when get off an airplane in say Singapore and are greeted by the ‘smell’ of South East Asia? Is it the history of the place, so influential in the development of the world as we know it? Oh! I know the Chinese invented gunpowder and silk and chop sticks etc etc and having a European centric view is passé but if it hadn’t been for Columbus, Marco Polo, Vasco da Gama, Cook   …… and the Europeans who went out to conquer, settle, invade, subjugate …… what sort of world would we have today? Is it the culture, oozing out of every European pore? Or the geography …. from the Nordic fjords to the Mediterranean coasts, from the wild Atlantic through the Alps to the Black Sea and the border with Asia?

Nowadays if you want to ‘see’ Europe you could just as well go online and virtually visit anywhere. Open up Goggle Maps and have a virtual drive through the Brenner Pass. Rijks Museum? Not a problem …. http://www.rijksmuseum.nl would you do it ….. and off you go, exploring the works of Rembrandt and Van Dyke ……. from the comfort of your chair ….. and not costing a penny. But that’s cheating? Is it? Instant gratification without any cost – sounds like the C21st to me.

So the question is, where would you plan to go and what would you hope to see with a limited time budget – 15 days? Europe is small and extremely crowded, about the same size as, say, Australia …….

….. but the distances are more doable and transport easy.

Many years ago when family were visiting from New Zealand, having collected them from Heathrow Airport we drove into central London before going home. It was nighttime and suddenly there was Buckingham Palace, down The Mall into Trafalgar Square with a floodlit Nelson on top of his column, and at the end of Whitehall Big Ben, physically there, reaching up into the dark sky. You could see the excitement on the faces of both children and adults as they looked out of the car windows. Personally I remember the first time I went to the Louvre museum in Paris …… and stood before the Mona Lisa …… or in Sienna Cathedral staring at the wonderful sculpture by Michelangelo La Pietà ……. and went all goose-pimply because here it was, in front of me, not just some photograph from a glossy magazine.

Fifteen days huh. First time ever? Seven cities/countries – two days each? The must visit list could include London, Paris, Rome & Firenze, Berlin (I’ve never been as it was behind the Iron Curtain when I did my travels in Europe), Vienna (small and compact) and maybe Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum!). But what about the cradle of civilization, Greece, or the Scandinavian countries, or Britain’s oldest ally, Portugal? And if we are talking about the whole of Europe, the capital cities of the old Warsaw Pact countries, the beauty of Bucharest or Bratislava or Budapest must feature, surely? And what about the Baltic States? Or more ‘modern’ destinations like Prague and Barcelona, although they have become victims of their own success at drawing the tourists? If we’re still talking about Europe, then Istanbul must feature? And of course the trouble with a rushed crowded schedule is half the time is spent on a train, in a car, on an airplane, or just waiting at the airport for the latter, to get from A to B; packing, unpacking, packing!

So you get a flavour, a sense of the greatness of this area of the world, for that’s all you can do in fifteen days. Promises are no doubt also made, for it simply whets the appetite for a return trip, when time and money are more flexible.  But come you surely must, if only for fifteen days!

Richard 4^th June 2017

PS I remember the first time I went to Rio de Janeiro and, on the night-time drive in from the airport, saw the floodlit statue of Christ the Redeemer on top of Corcovado! Wow! No more photographs, there it was.

 

 

 

I am not a techie in any sense but am certainly not one of those 65-74 year olds who, according to a survey in today’s paper, have never used the internet; that much is obvious. However, when it comes to a technological problem, I only have a few responses in my kit bag.

The first is a general one, of which most of my readers will be familiar. It goes something like: “Aaggggggghhhhhhhh!” and maybe coloured a little by the addition of ‘f**k’. And when reading this you need to be reminded that this is effortlessly produced far back in the throat and announced into the open void at full volume. Not that technology normally responds to this; after a few minutes you try and rationalise it ……… and find a solution.

The other morning my iPad refused to stay ‘on’. That is, I switched it on and waited for the ‘screen saver’ to appear. As soon as it does, you can normally simply swipe the screen and enter your passcode. Nothing; wouldn’t swipe, simply went out. Blank! No problem, the old ‘soft reset’! Nothing! Maybe shaking it would help? Leave it 3 minutes ….. try again! Nothing! Throw it through the window?

“Why not try and Google it?”

The sage says do the soft reset for 45 seconds. Sure enough, back to normal. Why? No idea? Technology huh!

I am collating all my PCs on my Toshiba laptop, prior to possible publication of the first one hundred. I had about 30 minutes spare on Friday morning so I thought I could add to my collation. Turn on my laptop. Up comes the reassuring stuff then the “Don’t Turn off your computer, Windows Updating ….. 0%” You know these updates are necessary and didn’t need last weekend’s cyber hack to remind you, although they do have a very irritating habit of starting just when you want to do something for 5 minutes, now! So you watch the little figure progress …. 5% … 10% … 15% … 20% …21% …22% … 23% ….. the wretched worm endlessly circling like some demented hampster on its wheel. I went off for a pee, came back and it was still at 23%, the ‘don’t turn off, updating’ continuing to taunt me. And it stuck at 23%. So I unplugged it, knowing I could not turn it off any other way; let the battery run down. Sure enough, after a while, the 23% faded and the screen went blank. Leave for 5 minutes (Not sure why? Cool down? Seemed the right think to do but not being a techie ……! Oh! And I prayed as well. Even smiled at it, as in ‘I love you really!’) Switched back on ……. and after a few flashes of stuff, we got back to the ‘Windows updating …..’ ‘Aaaaggghhhhh’.

 I had used a local computer company before when I had a problem and phoned them.

“Bring it in.” I had some ridiculous notion that if I took it around then and there, they would drop everything else they were working on and fix it before the evening was over. It was raining, a somewhat rare event in the South East this year, so I put my laptop and charging cables into a bag and off I went. Southern Technology is up on Blatchington Road which runs at right angles to George Street; a mere 10 minute walk.

When someone has a first name which don’t translate well across cultures, you tend to remember it, especially as it  makes you laugh; that that is clearly understood and made the most of by its owner is a bonus! “Hi! Fattey” I called as I opened the shop door. Fattey is a lovely 30s something Iranian with a good sense of humour; he would need it I hear you think! He manages the business with Hassan, bearded and more hipster by appearance. The shop has a counter, situated as near to the door as possible so that there is maximum room for the computer peripherals (This generic word covers the chargers, storage devices, cables, bags, add-ons, plugs, boosters, dongles, software patches etc etc) that are for sale. Behind the counter are steps leading up to a sort of mezzanine floor where the repair work is carried out. You see piles of laptops, desk tops, data storage devices, soldering irons, cables and electrical sockets everywhere; in amongst these, reminders of human need, the odd coffee cup and discarded sandwich wrapper, its contents consumed long ago.

Hassan fills out the little work docket, Fattey shouts from the workshop it’s probably a software or hard disc problem, and I hand over my laptop. Hassan says they hope to be able to recover all the data and get it working well. “Is there anything really really important?” “Well. I don’t ‘game’ (Is that a way of saying I don’t play Auto Theft 6 or some such?) and I don’t use it for music or watching videos (I get a funny look from both of them, almost a ‘Well, what do you use it for?’ sort-of look) but all my digital photos are on it, and my Word files are very precious.”

I depart in the rain, praying that it is fixable and soon.

My little brain manages to produce some scribbles about once a fortnight and I was due to post my next postcard this weekend. It’s 90% written ……… but it’s stored on my laptop …… which remains in the workshop of Southern Technology. Unless I get a telephone call in the next hour, they will close for the weekend and I will be unable to post PC 97 as I had planned. So this little tale could well become PC 97 and the other one renumbered. I hope it doesn’t disappoint?

Richard 20^th May 2017

PS So there you have it; no telephone call, no laptop! Fortunately I have a little Notebook.

 

My step father, known by me throughout our thirty eight year relationship as Uncle Philip, died in November 1993. He came from a traditional Scottish family and his values were very much shaped by a strict upbringing, typical of the age, and coloured by wartime experience. Indeed the family motto was ‘Cura et Industria’ (Care and industry) and their crest showed a cornucopia of goodies – suggesting that through hard work comes abundance. He was careful with money and generous of spirit. Above all he was a skilled engineer, a mechanical one at that. He loved technology and things mechanical, always wanting to understand how something worked.

The other evening I imagined having a conversation with him, about life in May 2017! The thought came to my head as I used some grease from a green Duckham’s tin to ease the hinge of a metal gate to stop it squeaking. Uncle Philip had had this very tin ….. using the contents to fill a grease gun for the nipples on his car. I am not a mechanical engineer so I can’t tell you where exactly these said nipples were but ……! He had only two cars in the time I knew him, an old black Riley Pathfinder and then a Rover 3500. Both he cherished and serviced himself.

 

“You wouldn’t know how to service a car today, Uncle Philip” I said rather confrontationally.

“Oh! Why’s that?” he said, immediately bristling with indignation!

“You raise the bonnet and there’s a large cover – and very little else. All computer-controlled and very efficient. Not sure there is even a distributor or carburettor!! Do you remember how you used to check the spark gaps with a feeler gauge …… pick all the gravel out of the tread of the ‘Crossply’ tyres, to ensure they lasted longer?”

“So you’re saying I would not recognise how cars have developed in the last 30 years or so? What else would I be surprised at?”

(Ed: What follows are some of the things that pop in to my head. It’s only a start!)

“First and foremost, the development of the ‘internet’ – the world wide web (www)”

“And what, pray, is the Internet?”

“The Internet was originally a military back-up plan linking super computers across the United States in the 1960s. In the early 1990s CERN proposed a global web concept and by the middle of that decade the public began to grasp its potential. Today its tentacles reach into every aspect of human activity.”

“Such as?”

Communications! There has been such an exponential growth in their development that it’s hard to keep up, unless you’re under 25 and working for a technology company.”

“A what? A ‘technology’ company?”

“They are the new Masters of the Universe! In the latter years of your life you remember the development of the mobile telephone? Looked like a brick which you charged with a bigger brick.”

“Yes! You had a ‘Rabbit’ that only worked if you were within 100m of a rebroadcast mast.”

“Yep. Well remembered! That didn’t last long (20 months). But look at this, my ‘smart’ phone through which I can make telephone calls, either through a local mast or through the internet, and that’s free (!), ……. take photographs as it has a camera…

“Hang on! You have a camera in your phone? That sounds amazing? But how do you see the photographs. It was always so expensive to print them.”

“It’s all in the digital revolution. You can define anything with a series of ones and zeros as in ‘100110111100001001’ – and this has simply turned life upside down. So I can see them on my personal computer, which incidentally is smaller but more powerful than ever. If I want to I can load them onto a web-based site and print them off in an album, individually, however I want them.”

“A ‘web-based’ site? One of those thingamajigs on the internet?”

“Absolutely! I can use my smart phone as a clock/alarm/stopwatch …. I can use it to text people.”

“This phraseology is all so alien to me. Text?” he said, peering over his half-moon glasses.

“Instead of talking to people, I can write to them electronically, either in the form of ‘electronic mail’, shortened to email, which started becoming popular about 2 years after you left us, or, if it’s a short message, by typing it out on my ‘phone’ in the form of a text. The wide availability of hand-held devices, be they a telephone or small lightweight ‘Lap Top’ computer, has ensured the success of this new medium. This is all part of Social Media, a completely new industry with odd names like Face Book, Instagram, Snapchat, WhatsApp, that ensures no one talks face-to-face and encourages the rise of self-obsession. I joke!”

 

Digital Devices

“You’d also be surprised at the development of the devices for seeing video. You will remember how TV size was defined by the Cathode Ray Tube; they got so big the set was almost as deep as it was wide. Now an extremely slim TV monitor can be made with solid- state electronics and the development of pixel technology. A pixel is the smallest element of an image that can be individually processed in a digital display – be it a photograph or video system.” (see below for greater information!)

“You remember that drawer in the hall table where you kept your Ordinance Survey Maps? Actually these days you can get any map on your phone and the Global Positioning System GPS will even tell you exactly where you are, to an accuracy of 5 metres or so.”

“My brain is being overloaded. Quickly, before I fry. What else?”

“Cursive writing (see PCs 56 & 57) is slightly passé. Reading anything, be it a book or a newspaper, can be via an electronic device although, unless you’re travelling, most people seem to prefer the old-fashioned paper book. Learning is similarly available through the internet. And the internet has freed those chained to their office desk; they can work anywhere, provided they can get an internet connection. Your electronic ‘library’ for research purposes is, in the main, provided by a company called ‘Google’; so it’s part of our language ‘to google it’, meaning to go online to find the answer through the Google search engine.”

“Search Engine? Oh! Don’t bother!”

“And the most exciting developments are going to be, I think, in the area of nanotechnology and the use of Graphene. Meanwhile everyone still moans about the weather and politicians of every persuasion, no one has solved the 69 year-old Israel-Palestine problem, and extreme Islam is the butt of blame for most of the world’s woes.”

“The world’s a very different place it seems, but it was ever thus! My father would have said the same; different developments, different times. Thanks for bringing me up to date! Now I must go and tell St Peter all about it, although he probably knows as he seems to have eyes and ears everywhere!”

Richard 7^th May 2017

Pixels: A pixel can be turned on (ie illuminated) and off (darkened) on a computer monitor. Resolution depends on the number of pixels a monitor can show. They have developed from 640 x 480 pixels per inch (PPI), through 1073 x 768 PPI until today’s 1000 x 1000 PPI. Colour depends on how much memory has been assigned to each pixel. For instance, two-bit memory pixels can show 8 colours, whereas eight-bit pixels can show 256 colours.