Had I but known: Araminta, philistine, encounters Jon Vickers.

My thanks to Zen for his earlier post,  Opera, my real musical love..

Now I have to confess that I am not a great opera fan, but do enjoy some of the better known arias or should that be arie! Alas, when I was younger, I was rather more interested in the Beatles, or occasionally Bach.

Zen’s post reminded me of something I have not thought of in years, and took me on an interesting trip around cyperspace to solve the puzzle.

When I was at a loose end in my early twenties, I worked in a rather splendid country house hotel; not so much as a career move, because I hadn’t actually decided on a career, but more to help out  family friends.

One of the guests was an opera singer who was singing at Covent Garden, he preferred the peace and quiet to unwind after his performances and disliked staying in London hotels. He also enjoyed his food and the hotel restaurant was quite well-known nationally and internationally. All I could recall was that he was Canadian and his Christian name was Jon.   Continue reading “Had I but known: Araminta, philistine, encounters Jon Vickers.”

What did we do before?

I have just got a computer back after nearly 3 weeks without one.

That’s ok, you may think, but it has actually proved to be some of the most difficult 3 weeks of my life.  Why?  Because I now realise that I rely so heavily on the internet for all that I do in my life.  Take it away from me and I am floundering like a fish out of water.

Ok, I do blog and do bits for fun online but I am actually amazed at how many things I actually do do without even thinking about it.  I bank, shop, for everything, use it for researching, use it most importantly to do alot of my socialising and it was horrid having this inabillity to do these things.  I didn’t even have a computer until 5 years ago and since my husband and I split up, I do use it, as I have already said for everything.  Talwyn was letting me use her i touch for the little bits that that would allow me to do, and they are great little inventions, but they can’t compare to the lovely new animal that is now sat on my lap purring away.

I reckon that it was the ‘out of touch’ thing that got me down the most.  My friends are scattered mostly all over this country now, let alone the world and we all use the internet for keeping in touch-very rarely do we phone each other, but stay in touch via email and facebook and I have felt totally cut off from them all. The world is most certainly a much smaller place now because of the world wide web and very scarily, I am not sure that it is a world that I could cope in without technology.  I would be totally lost.

xxx

A word of warning…

If you moderate comments made on your blogs, beware of accepting comments from “strangers”, unless you have anti-malware software already installed. Fortunately I do, which prevented what looked like an innocent enough, although gushing commentary, on one of my few blogs. He/she/it provided unusually full detail – e-mail address, URL, and so on. Had I clicked on any of the links it would have introduced malware into my p.c.
MY anti-malware software recognized the URL address as potentially dangerous, and warned me, when I checked it out. I suppose “strangers” in this context mean non-definitelynotmyt gang members!

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do.

Gardening with the radio on is a Sunday treat. I have a solar powered, wind up radio and if it is sunny or at least relatively bright I can listen all the time without winding. (I am however indoors just now as a large cloud followed by a heavy downpour brought me inside.) Continue reading “Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do.”

The politics of immigration and identity

Most countries that try to assimilate immigrants, such as France and America, can point to a defining event when their national identity “began”; Britain did not have the same kind of revolution. But it has much else to inspire newcomers: a sweeping history that is also broadly progressive, a language everyone wants to speak, longer experience of racial diversity than most European nations. And “Britain” itself is a civic invention rather than an ethnic community, created in 1707 to supersede more blood-based notions of Englishness and Scottishness.

Interesting quote from an article in the Economist.

Tetris

If you don’t know what it is, don’t bother to read on or you’ll be terminally bored.

I’m not a computer games kind of person. Really, I’m not. I probably could be if I made an effort but I’m not sufficiently competitive to be gripped while there are other things to be done – cycling, writing, brushing duckweed off the pond  and stuff. Continue reading “Tetris”