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We few, we happy few, we band of brothers

I met my friend Brian for coffee and a chat, yesterday afternoon. Brian is one of those people (like my late friend Mike) bitten by the genealogy bug. Part of the unintended consequences of doing this sort of research is that you get other people contacting you, from all around the globe. These people write to you as they are very distant relatives and because they are using the same genealogy programme. If you know what you’re doing then I understand that it is possible to merge in someone else’s results with your own. Brian had me really worried, for a while as he kept amassing all this data that took hundreds of hours of research and didn’t have it backed up anywhere. I bought him a memory stick and wrote him a small, automatic, back-up programme. Although Brian’s computer literacy has improved, over the years, it still remains at a very basic level and he is happy to admit to this! One of those distant relatives wrote to Brian, from Australia and seemed interested in Sunderland’s annual air show …Brian duly sent the Aussie a bunch of links and his new antipodean acquaintance assumed, on the back of this, that Brian was some sort of computer genius. This is only fantastically funny, if you have ever seen Brian use a computer. Our down-under chum decided to send Brian a file in the hope that he could convert it into a video and it gets funnier because Brian’s computer didn’t have the right programme to open it – so he had no idea what it was. The next question followed as surely as night follows day. Brian asked me whether I could take a look at the file. Well, I thought I would be tackling a simple job. The file in question was a PowerPoint presentation slide show, comprised of text captions and photos. It was some photos of the raid on Pearl Harbour, found as undeveloped black & white film in an old Box Brownie, along with explanative notes that helped the viewer identify the scenes and vessels under attack. If it had been just the photos then a simple screen capture would’ve grabbed the shots and these could have then been dumped into Windows Movie Maker …job done! I did manage to find a utility that did a conversion to the standard Microsoft Audio Video Interleaved format …named PowerVideoMaker (a registered copy of which retails at just under $119 (US)). The unregistered copy leaves an irritating message at the bottom right of the screen. Converted into files ready to make a DVD, this PowerPoint file (originally 538Kb) came out at a staggering 18.4Mb and this is far too big for most ordinary email servers – leaving me little choice but to upload it onto my web site, so that it could be downloaded elsewhere. It took two hours to sort this mess out (at least twenty minutes of which was spent on a fruitless hunt for an illegal registration code). Ho hum!

A while back I made a dedication to my friend Mike and put it at the end of my latest, most successful video clip but I have a minor confession to make. I purloined the part of the soundtrack from a YouTube video clip. It was a screen adaptation of a Shakespearean play …I think it was Henry V. Some guy banging on about a happy few, a band of brothers and quite a bit about the upcoming battle being on St Crispin’s Day and how Englishmen now abed will curse themselves and hold their manhood cheap because the were not around to get killed on this St Crispin’s Day. It might seem unusual for an Englishman, but I am not at all versed in the literary classics. I hated being forced to do English literature, at school, didn't learn a thing, failed the exam and have never looked back since. I am not very widely read and you will find me surprisingly ignorant of most forms of literature (be it modern or classical). When I bother reading books they are invariably Science Fiction. There were some books I had to read way back when I was at school; I didn't like Shakespeare then and I still don't like it now …in fact I think it should be banned! I got kicked around a lot when I was a child and grew up resenting the rest of the world so much that I withdrew into myself (it was the safest place to be) …it also meant that I rejected the establishment so wholeheartedly I don't think my teachers could make me out at all. One of the casualties of this resentment was reading …I didn't read a book that I wasn't forced to until I was nineteen years old. One teacher (back in primary school) used to take all my class to the local public library and make us take out a book …so I selected something well under my reading age that had lots of pictures in it and I got the same book out every time we went to the library. Eventually, even the teacher noticed this and talked to me about it - so I got another book. The book I selected was purely at random and just the first book my hand lit upon, on the library shelves. The only thing I could tell you about it was that it had a green cover. We had times when we were supposed to read the book we had selected and all I used to do was open the book anywhere and stare, unfocussed, at the pages without reading them. I didn't realise that this was a symptom of my withdrawal until much later. Nobody taught me how to write …it was something that was there and developed all by itself.

In fact, the only way I knew of the existence Shakespearean speech, that was part of Mike’s dedication, was because it featured in the film “Renaissance Man” starring Danny DeVito as a guy who was given the unlikely task of teaching a bunch of US soldiers some Shakespeare! I think Mike might’ve laughed at that!

There was a programme in the series “House” (one of just three TV programmes that I follow) on the other night and it featured a story about a deaf guy who had the opportunity of hearing for the first time since the age of four and yet he rejected the chance to hear. Daphne couldn’t understand why anyone would do that – even if it is a part of that person’s identity. “I understand it” I said. “But you wouldn’t choose to have the eyesight that you have” said Daphne. “No” I said “but I was thinking about something else.” Daphne didn’t ask any further …I suppose interest ran out or her attention was diverted. The thing I was referring to was my less-than-agreeable formative years and the permanent damage that was done to my ability to relate to people normally. Granted, the past is a thing that I can’t change, but would I change the experience of growing up distant and estranged? The outsider’s perspective on humanity has its value.

On Thursday I used my newly-acquired petrol strimmer to lay waste to the burgeoning hayfield that had taken the place of my back lawn, in my absence and had a faltering end to the mowing that followed …the fuel line came off the mower’s tank on two occasions and I have now bought a jubilee clip to clamp this into position. Reeking of petrol, I consumed lunch and spent a ‘merry’ hour or so installing a brass curtain rail in a very tricky location. It has been my misfortune to have been instrumental in installing more curtain rails, in the last seventeen years, than anyone else who doesn’t do this sort of thing for a living. By their very nature, curtain rails, tracks and poles are mostly put up near the top of a wall and, with my weak eyesight, it poses an extra problem – I spend as much time feeling what I am doing as seeing. This latest effort was our attempt at a little fuel economy (it never gets any cheaper, these days). My house is a bungalow, but a first storey was built into the loft space a long time before we bought it. Like all modifications, it contains compromises and one of those is insulation. A lot of the heat in the house disappears up the stairwell. The upstairs part of the house is only used when we have houseguests and so the heating could be turned down to a minimum. The brass rail was to be put across the bottom of the staircase and a velvet curtain hung from it, after the fashion of a tapestry – thus damming the warm air downstairs. You might be wondering why so much stress is being placed upon heating the house. Well, it sits on top of a rocky outcrop that looks out over the North Sea! Early results on this are very encouraging. As Ideas go, this one was a winner! Well, it was MY idea! Daphne nearly scuppered it by trying to get me to fit an ornate rail/pole – I think this is typical female behaviour and so one can but smile sweetly and indulge it until it falls flat on its face. Here’s a myth worth exploding …women can ‘multi-task.’ I’m not sure it counts if one of them is always talking on the telephone!

The Internet is a marvellous thing! You can order things that are difficult to buy and they are delivered to your home …theoretically! Recently, I placed an order for three things from selected web sites – two of which the postman has tried to deliver whilst I was out of the house and I will now have to collect from the local post office. I think they stake my place out (coffee, sandwiches, binoculars …the whole thing) and they lay in wait for me to leave my house! I know, I know another conspiracy theory …except I have at least partial proof to the contrary. A few months ago, a guy making a delivery rang our doorbell. Everybody has been in the situation where, for various reasons, you can’t get to the door right away. Daphne wasn’t delayed very much, but there was already a “sorry we missed you” card through the letterbox and whilst the deliveryman wasn’t exactly running away …he was at least walking away at a pace that was brisk enough to be difficult to justify.

Finally, I made a video file for one of my friends today and I will leave it with you as a sort of puzzle. The recipient will laugh on running this clip. I would be interested in your analysis!

Posted by grillocks on 2009-09-19 19:18:44 | Rating: