Christmas 2014 - the round robin!

Dear Everyone,

As usual, I’m beset with great excuses why my Christmas cards are all going to be late, and this year’s excuses are no better than last year’s! Forgive me.

Anyway, it’s been a great year, especially for travel. At Easter, my mum, Lizzy and I followed Lottie on her Farnham Youth Choir tour to Ireland, which was great fun. It was only 4 days in Ireland, so mum decided we’d go and visit relatives in North Wales for a couple of days, to bulk out the holiday, and check out some graveyards. Well, SHE checked out graveyards, but Lizzy and I decided we could do without. I quite liked Ireland, although the Southern part isn’t very picturesque - I suppose I was expecting the same kind of scenery as in the “Visit Ireland” adverts! It was a great trip, and the choir was fabulous. They always are.

Sadly, however, that was to be Lottie’s last hurrah with the choir, as she decided, at the end of her school term that she was done with FYC. She’d struggled with the commitment during the year, while trying to get work done for her GCSEs. Since she’s now in two choirs at Farnborough 6th Form College, it’s not as if she’s missing out on choir fun. I know she misses the choir, but I don’t think she believes she’s made the wrong decision. A trip to Guildford Cathedral last Tuesday for their carol service convinced me. Anyway, she’s having such fun at school, meeting new people, making friends, partying, she wouldn’t have time to get to Frensham Heights for the weekly practice. And there’s a selfish part of me that’s kinda glad, because you know exactly who’d be busting a gut to get her there every week, don’t you!!

Her grades for GCSEs were great - I was happy, anyway. I can’t remember what they were, but I know there was an A for English Lit, and one for French, and probably one for Music. She’s doing all those plus psychology at 6th form for A levels. She’s also enjoying NOT talking to any of her peers from Hawley Place, if she doesn’t want to! She’s finding the increase, from 36 to 1500, students in her year to be beneficial.

Lizzy has buckled down a bit to actually work on her GCSEs for this year, having stubbornly decided she was as dumb as a box of rocks last year, and given up on work. And this is despite having moved in with Andrew nearly 2 years ago. I ended up having to be quite firm with some of the teachers, who will accost me in the carpark at school, and tell me how Lizzy’s not doing her work. I try to be politely firm, and point them in the direction of Andrew, but this doesn’t always work particularly well. Of course this is THE YEAR - I’m just hoping that she can get decent enough grades to get offered a place at Farnborough 6th Form, because I think she’ll find SO much to interest her there. It can be somewhat restricted in a school when you have quite such small year groups. Half the options I had at school are completely unavailable to Lizzy, and she’s far from a conventionally bright person. I’m not saying she isn’t bright, because actually, she is, but she doesn’t fit into boxes well. So a curriculum forcing her to take a handful of subjects she hates is just going to piss her off. I remember that for MY O levels, I simply chose those subjects I actually enjoyed, with little thought to whether they’d take me towards a career in the end. Despite the fact that Lizzy’s year is a dizzying 45 students large (percentage wise, that’s a massive increase over Lottie’s year), the choices have been limited or non-existent. So you can see why I’m rather looking forward to her being in 6th form. Hawley Place are doing their best, and the smaller class-sizes are great.

I did say travel had been a big part of the year, didn’t I? Of course there was the usual trip to France for Le Camping - not a lot new there, although it was a somewhat smaller group than usual this year - Jo, myself, Lottie and Lizzy. VERY relaxing. Good weather, great food (despite the fun day Jo managed to burn the potatoes!), and superb company. But THEN, at the end of summer, Ian, Lottie and I followed Lizzy on her school trip to the WWI battlefields. That was a great few days. We stayed in Lille, which is a lovely city, and took day trips out to see various battle sites. I loved the Canadian war memorial up on the hill at Vimy Ridge - really spectacular. We went into the trenches and tunnels. We visited Tyne Cot, which was just heartbreaking. In fact, all the graveyards were beautiful and sad. It really was an interesting trip. We also managed to bump into Lizzy and her group under the Menin Gate, where we’d listened to the Last Post and had a tear or two.

Because I get 2 weeks in Autumn half term, Ian and I went to Bruges with a couple of friends of ours, Jonathan and Nicole, and had a great time exploring the city. It’s really quite small, so one can easily explore it in a couple of days. We DID go to see the Basilica of the Holy Blood, and paid to look at the holy blood - can I just say EEEWWW!! But we drank loads of beer (trust me, Belgium isn’t known for its wine, and with good reason), ate much food, and did the canal trip. Climbed up the Belfry - sent a fat Englishman (in the sad absence of a fat American) up there, too! Oh, and may I say that Belgium chocolate is rather overrated? No? Tough! It is. But that was a great trip. My first time on Eurostar, too!

Trying to think of what else to mention. I’m going to have to go there, sorry. Look, this is the year I had my first breast scan, which went well, I thought, but I got called back in for more tests, where they showed me some interesting dots on the picture, and said they’d decided to biopsy them. So they did - much stabby! And when I went back for the results, they said that on a scale from 1 (you don’t have cancer - yay) to 5 (oh dear!), I’m at an interesting 3. Not good enough to be considered benign, not nasty enough to be considered VERY concerning, still enough to want to look a bit closer. So fairly soon in the new year I’m going in to Frimley Park, where they’ll do a lumpectomy, although in the absence of an actual lump, it’ll be closer to an areaectomy! Turns out there’s no such word. Clutching at silver lining straws, I figure if it’s something, well interesting wigs after chemo, and if it’s nothing, great, AND they’ll be keeping a very much closer eye on me than they would normally! Sorry to slip the potentially crappy into the letter.

By the way, my mum’s well. The family are well. And I’ve lost a ferret somewhere in the house. Better find her while I print this off...

Well crafted movies

Last night I went to see Fury.

Starring Brad Pitt and a really rather good cast (Jason Isaacs with a New York accent, Shia LaBoeuf as good as I've seen him), it was an excellent movie. Well crafted, well designed, well made. But I simply didn't like it.

I wonder if other people are like me - if I'm reading a book, it really helps if I can like the main character, or even a close-to-main character. If I don't like someone who goes through the book with me, I find myself losing interest in reading the story. In fact, unable to find anything redeeming in any of the characters of A Picture of Dorian Grey, I gave up, discouraged by the nastiness of people. Well, the people in the book, anyway.

But let's get back to the movie. As I said, it was well made, but since I'd found it difficult to feel any sympathy for the crew of the Fury (it's a tank), I was unable to care about their fate. I felt more sympathy for the people with whom they interacted in their spree across WWII-torn Germany. The thing is, I'm pretty sure the film accurately depicted how WWII worked out for many of the people involved. 

It was brutal - war IS brutal. There's no two ways about it - it's a kill or be killed situation. And so spree is completely the wrong word to use about their journey. Spree seems to indicate that some joy, or even (I'm sorry) glee has been obtained during the expedition, where it's clear that these men are simply doing what they feel to be their duty. Their duty with no mercy. 

By the time we join the crew, the concept of mercy is completely alien to them, which is probably why I couldn't actually like any of them. And yet, as the movie progressed, I found myself feeling a very small amount of sympathy for these men. Their loss of humanity was part of them, their total commitment to their team the only fellow feelings they allowed themselves. Their mantra was almost "the only good German is a dead German".

Visually, Fury is a delight. Each shot is well set up - it's not sloppy. The colours are desaturated, war grey. The final shot, as the camera pulls up above the tank, brings realisation of exactly how the last battle went. It was a truly stunning parting image!

While I may not have liked this film, like the Tate Modern, I did NOT leave the theatre unmoved. No candy-floss movie this one, to disappear from my mind as I left the cinema, leaving thoughts only of food and Facebook. Oh no, this movie will stick with me.

Ice Buckets

When I first saw the Ice Bucket Challenges going up on Facebook and (to a lesser extent) Reddit, I was perplexed and confused. What was this ghastly looking fad? Thankfully technology allows me to avoid looking like a total noob every time something new comes along, and it wasn't long before perpleximent turned to understanding. Which rapidly turned to fear, in case someone decided to nominate me. So far so good.

Turns out ALS stands for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. More commonly known in the UK as Motor Neurone Disease.

I forbore to comment on other people's challenges, for that aforementioned fear, but applauded, quietly, anyone with the cojones to actually DO the thing. And that lack of desire to comment lasted until today.

Today on Facebook, within the space of a few posts, a couple of my "liked" pages, Zath and The Telegraph, have both posted articles on Why The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Is Bad For You. I was ready to scoff, thinking they must be going down the Korean Fan Death road - "You'll catch your death if you pour that bucket of iced water over your head." You know what I mean. But actually, it's more insidious than that.

Both these pages are suggesting that I, the potential donator, should consider spending my, as they call them, Charity Dollars more wisely. Why would I donate to a cause which takes out, I found out, only about 600 people a year in Canada (that was from the Zath article), when 72000 die from Cancer in the same time frame. They even have a checklist on the page to show me that my Charity Dollars would do far more good in support of Cancer research.

The Telegraph article, on the other hand, tells me that my support of this charity is taking support from OTHER charities I'd otherwise be supporting (the expression used was "cannibalising". It also questions what's wrong with quietly supporting your own charities. I'm not sure that these two points aren't somewhat diametrically opposed - but I'll allow it for the moment.

Both of these articles are labouring under a misapprehension.

Zath assumes I want to be logical about where I donate my money, when my actual charitable donations are, in fact, far from logical. Let's list the charities I support, and you can see why. I support the Parkinson's Disease Association - because my dad had PD, and I'd like to see more done about that. I support the RNIB (that's the blind people) - because I'm heading that way myself. I suppose this could be considered a somewhat selfish reason. But I support neither of these on a regular basis. And based on the Zath checklist, neither of these passes the "should I stick my hand in my pocket for this charity" test.

The Telegraph assumes I'll be making a fixed donation each month/year, and that any attempt to support the ALS Association or MND Association will mean less going to my other (or more "worthy") charities. Nothing could be further from the truth. Again, as a NOT regular donor, I'm much more of a "catch me in a good mood and I'll sling you a fiver" giver, anything I give to charity is a bonus anyway. And for the very reason stated in the Zath article, I doubt either of my preferred charities would be considered "worthy".

While I won't be doing the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge (because ice water, duh!), I WILL be supporting any and all of my friends who choose to do it. Partly because it's always good to raise awareness of areas of research (pink ribbons for breast cancer, anyone?), but mostly because of my friend Claire Brown, who was diagnosed earlier this year with MND.

Windows 9 - Just one thing...

Reading my PC Pro this morning, I was exhorted to write to the magazine and suggest things which Microsoft MUST get right when they move to the inevitable next OS, Windows 9 (or whatever it is they decide to call it). 

As I browsed, I was trying to think about things in Windows 8 I truly can't work with (someone having already addressed the idiocy of sideways scrolling on a machine with no touch-screen), and I came across mention of full-screen apps. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not completely against full-screen apps. Far from it! Let's face it, on the preciously tiny (HA!) screen of the Samsung S3 (all 4.8" of it), a full-screen app is, I'd say, a must. While I DO have the option to have multi-windows open, this isn't an option I've ever even attempted to use. But let's start getting to bigger devices.

My 7" tablet? I'm not THAT bothered by full-screen apps. It still seems logical to fill that small space with the whole of an app. At this size I'm still struggling with the relative sizes of some web sites.

My 10" tablet? At this screen size, I'm actually happy with most of the web sites I visit, and don't feel that the full-screen apps provided for Android are onerous. I'm still happy. There are a couple of apps which seem specifically designed for phones, and appear a little silly on such a HUGE screen, but by and large, I'm happy.

My 17" laptop? At this point it's moronic to have full-screen apps. I can think of a whole lot better use for the screen than filling it with ONE single thing.

My glorious, technicolor, 24" desktop monitor? Absolutely NOT. I run with NOTHING maximised at this size. Nothing at all. Oh yes, sorry - if I'm watching something on Netflix, LoveFilm or YouTube, then I'll maximise it. But none of the programs/games/other web sites fill my entire screen. I don't even like to run with Minecraft maximised.

Can you imagine all that real-estate for just one program? I love to have my windows overlapping, so I can see what's going on in various places - after all, I've got 24 glorious inches! And Oh! That's it, "I love to have my WINDOWS overlapping..." The clue's in the name. Windows.

So, to sum it up, Windows is going to have to be WINDOWS for me. And yeah, I DO like the Aero interface...