belgianwaffle

High Tech – A History


Posted in: Reading etc.

1970s – That tennis game where you moved a cursor up and down to bounce a tennis ball to your opponent at very low speeds. Also, my cousins’ very exciting video recorder. You could make people go backwards. At speed.
1980s – A pointless course on COBAL in school. My sister’s acquisition of an Apple MAC.
1990 – My first job. The partner with a computer the size of a house on his desk who the other partners all laughed at. The phone that needed its own suitcase when you lugged it on business trips.
1993 – Traineeship in a large organisation. We had some kind of convoluted internal email. All of our usernames consisted of first four letters of surname followed by first two letters of first name. This led to some amusing nicknames. Look, we were trainees.
1995 – Real email in a real job. Windows 95 – Where do you want to go today?
1997 – The boyfriend who said that his Finnish ex-girlfriend said that everyone in Finland has a mobile phone. Complete refusal to believe this was so.
1998 – Become aware of internet shopping and the intranet is hot.
2000 – Marvellous new search engine called hotbot.
2001 – Online travel booking. Put directions to my wedding and other stuff on a website (arranged by technically gifted brother-in-law). Feel like the bees knees.
2002 – First googled, I think. Apparently, Arthur C. Clarke said that trying to get information from the internet was like trying to get a cup of water from a waterfall. He meant before Google.
2003 – Buy a computer for home use. Set up blog. Buy a digital camera.
2004 – Discovered the joys of RSS, I think.
2005 – Joined Flickr.
2006 – Joined Youtube.
2006 – Got my own domain name as my blogging host sinks beneath the waves.
2007 – Joined Facebook.
2007 – Joined Twitter. Gmail, maybe.
2008, 2009, 2010 – Nothing that I can think of. I may be getting old or else I don’t notice the new things any more.

Do you remember when you first googled?

Fat


Posted in: Ireland, Reading etc.

Chris Cactus was thinking about fat children on his blog over the summer and contrasting the current crop with his own experience. He got quite a nasty reaction to what seemed to me an uncontroversial post, so I am treading softly here.

Chris’s post started me thinking about the fattest girl in our year in secondary school. One day a group of us were sitting around talking about clothes sizes and she was there. I was fascinated – what would her clothes size be? She was enormous. When she told us her size, it was all I could do not to gasp in amazement. In fact, I was so surprised that I remember to this day what size she said she was. She was a size 12 (that’s 8 in American sizes) and, obviously, in retrospect, not enormous at all. But it makes me realise how skinny we must all have been. It was just normal that teenagers were skinny. That was just the way it was. It wasn’t good or exciting to be skinny, it was normal, ordinary, under-whelming and certainly nothing to be pleased about.

A lot of us cycled to school but certainly not all of us. Cork’s first McDonald’s opened when I was 16 and it was a source of great excitement and interest but I think I only actually crossed the threshold once. I only got sweets and crisps at the weekend, and only then, if we visited my granny who had a stash in the kitchen. Stopping for an ice cream was hugely exciting.

I think that a big part of the problem is that we are so much more affluent in Ireland now than we were in the 70s (although that may be about to change, of course, so watch this space for skinny children) and children expect to get a lot more of everything. Also, I feel that we are not half as good at saying no as our parents were. And our children are getting fatter as a consequence of their expectations and our anxiety to please. What do you think?

Mass Appeal


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland, Middle Child, Twins

In his sermon this morning, the priest told us a story about how he was sitting in the grounds of All Hallows when he was approached by a well dressed woman. She told him with great frankness about her relationship with a married man. And then explained that he was about to be sent abroad by his company. She said that she did not think that she could live without him and asked the priest to pray that he would not be sent abroad after all. Two questions occur. Firstly, why would she think that this was a good line to take with a priest? Secondly, why would the priest think that this was a good story to tell at the children’s mass?

Later there was a collection for the Sick and Indigent Roomkeepers Society. Daniel got a pile of change from his father but kept back 2 coins for himself to buy sweets after mass. I pointed out that the collection was for people who didn’t have enough food or clothes. “Alright,” he said reluctantly, “I’ll put one coin in the collection.” I suppose we have to consider this to be the equivalent of the widow’s mite.

Ireland’s National Sport


Posted in: Ireland, Middle Child, Princess, Twins, Youngest Child

I think I have written before about how surprised I was to come back from 5 years abroad and discover that rugby had become Ireland’s national sport. It suffered from a number of difficulties in the past, namely, the GAA used to frown on “foreign games” and it’s dangerous – particularly for amateurs. On the plus side, it seems to be the only team sport where we do well in international competition. Now the GAA doesn’t care and my sons are coached by Daddies in rugby shirts. It’s still dangerous though.

Regular readers will recall that my children go to an Irish language school. For historical reasons, one might not expect that to be a bastion of rugby. Further, the Princess’s teacher is from Mayo. Insofar as there is national expertise in rugby, its seat is emphatically not in the West of Ireland. This has not deterred this teacher who is an avid rugby fan. During gym, my daughter’s class have been practicising the haka. She has taught her brothers. They look deeply alarming when they do this. We all sat and watched the New Zealand players doing their haka this evening before Ireland proceeded to lose to New Zealand. As I have previously mentioned, the Princess knows all the words to Ireland’s call and sang along with gusto. Where will it all end?

More Customer Service


Posted in: Cork, Ireland, Princess, Work

When I first got my own car, about 15 years ago, I went to my father’s insurance broker for cover. The broker is based in Cork and I live in Dublin and, from time to time, I have considered changing to a Dublin broker but I never got around to it. Today, I called the broker to check something on my renewal quote. Our conversation went like this:

Me: Hello, I’d like to check etc.
Him: That’s Anne, is it? I’ll get your file.

I haven’t spoken to him in a year or more and he still recognised me on the phone straight away. He didn’t need my insurance number, my surname, my date of birth, my phone number or a six digit activation code to find my file. I don’t think that his brokerage will be losing my custom any time soon.

And in completely unrelated news, the Princess lost her front tooth last night (a dramatic event I completely missed since I was out winning the office pub quiz with my crack team). Now she looks like this.

003

I’ve been saving this


Posted in: Belgium

My friend J who sometimes sends me things from Brussels sent me an email about an event in Anderlecht. Anderlecht is an urban cutting edge commune (some people might call it rough but, as someone who lives across the road from a boarded up house, I wouldn’t).

The event is called “Action « crottes de chiens » ce samedi à Anderlecht”. No, you have not misunderstood – it’s called “Action “dog poo” this Saturday in Anderlecht.” I suppose I should contextualise this by saying that there is more dog poo on the pavements of Belgium than there is anywhere else in the developed world but it still doesn’t stop it being odd, I think you will agree.

For any francophones among you, the full text is reproduced below. Let me translate some highlights:

This is a festival to make dog “poo-poo” owners aware of their responsibilities.

On the agenda for the day is a “Poo parade” [which will open with] a float with a giant dog poo which the students from the local school have designed…

People often ask me whether I miss Belgium – well, I think you would only get the crotte parade in Belgium; it’s the home of surrealism for a reason, you know.

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[L]es comités de quartier des Etangs et Frans Hals à Anderlecht organisent une opération festive de sensibilisation des propriétaires de chiens baptisée « Crotti-Crotta ». Le but: leur rappeler leurs responsabilités (chiens en laisse et ramassage des crottes) de manière ludique. Cette action a été initiée par la cellule de sensibilisation Propreté de l’échevine Monique Cassart en collaboration avec la Maison de la Participation dans le cadre de la campagne RéapPROPRiez vous votre commune.

Au programme de cette journée, une grande « Parade de la crotte », qui débutera à 14h rue Frans Hals. Un char avec une crotte géante, réalisée par les élèves de l’école P18, ouvrira le cortège. Des flyers et des sacs à crotte seront distribués aux propriétaires de chiens par les habitants du quartier et les élèves de l’école.

Cette parade se rendra place Bizet avant de rejoindre le terrain Marius Renard où une démonstration de la brigade canine est entre autres prévue à 16h. Cette journée, qui se veut avant tout festive, se clôturera par un barbecue au parc Marius Renard.

Par ailleurs, ces deux comités de quartier ont convaincu deux grandes enseignes commerciales des environs de vendre du matériel de ramassage. En effet, ce n’est pas tout d’obliger les propriétaires de chiens à ramasser leurs crottes, encore faut-il que ce matériel soit facilement accessible au public, et pas uniquement dans les magasins spécialisés.