While I was sleeping ...

I first heard of Web 2.0 technology a few months ago when I started a new job. The term was brought up at every coffee break, meeting and water cooler interface. I asked a colleague to explain. So it’s YouTube, Wikipedia, Face book, and all those facilities that put publishing power in the hands of us all without editorial interference. Life’s a gas. We were at a bbq yesterday and two of the younger guests (in their 20s) sat huddled together looking at a phone screen. Zoe was checking out Face book to try and piece together her vodka fuelled clubbing the previous night. Apparently, if Face book were a country it would be the 3rd largest in the world after China & India. Completing memory blanks is clearly one of its uses…

Alex got a new Blackberry at work last week and its strength is e-mails. She can deal with and delete so much before she even gets to the office. It’s amazing how many pings she got over the weekend – do some people not have a life? In the light of Alex’s acquisition I revisited my own i-phone and checked out the latest apps and downloaded some new ones.

The “on this day one” tells me that Shakespeare was born on this day in 1564. My mind-mapping tool, gives me perspective on complex issues I deal with daily and allows me to come up with creative and innovative solutions. I have a to-do tool, where I can schedule in tasks, resources and the order I need to do things in. The torch is useful when I drop my wallet in the car in the dark and the level tool helps when I need to erect shelves correctly. The gizmo that plays sounds to fall asleep to (garden, airport etc) also doubles up as a joke thingy to play birdsong sitting in the doctor’s windowless waiting room. To appease my sporty adventurer side I play bowls, pool, solitaire and even fly in with my helicopter to rescue strange business men while weaving my way around a series of hazards. I can convert stones and pounds into kgs, which make being overweight not quite so serious. I can read a novel (Anna Karenina currently), and check out 3 articles a month, free from the Financial Times.

As we lay in bed yesterday comparing our telecommunication devices, the i-phone won out on style, functionality and general sexiness. So, while I have my home e-mail linked in to my i-phone, it wasn’t until I got to work this morning that I became aware of another instance of Web 2.0 publication – the Marryoke. In my inbox a round robin e-mail from a distant colleague thanked us for our good wishes on his marriage and provided a link to a 3 min clip of his wedding. It’s hilarious. It’s a Marryoke. Geddit. Marriage combined with karaoke. So Web 2.0 has truly arrived.

Cable for the Treasury and Adonis for the Sin Bin

It seems the heavy hitters from both camps of Labour and Conservative are agreed on one thing. They have to stop the roll of Nick Clegg in advance of tonight's big election debate. The papers are full of inane revelations about Clegg as they have searched around the cupboards to see what they can drag out. We know they are seriously rattled when they have to look back to utterances made in a more youthful past, the price he paid for his Putney house and how much its value has gone up by.

It's been a full week since the airspace was closed over these islands and I have yet to see even a speckle of volcanic ash near the Piccadilly Line. Adonis the Greek has admitted they may have got it wrong by closing down the airspace so comprehensively and for so long. Walsh, the Irishman who runs Britain's favourite airline has suggested that airlines themselves should judge whether its safe to fly. Less government regulation would keep the skies open for business. Hmm. Isn't that what the city said to New Labour all those moons ago?

An Icelandic Ash Story

There are a lot of people not where they should be today. Before we left the Village, Alex was getting calls from members of her staff who were caught up in the Icelandic Ash situation. One in Hawaii with her California residing corporate mother, one just married in Albania to overcome her partner’s deportation order from UK, one adventurer in Poland, one on honeymoon in Spain, one at a conference in New York, and the last with family in Turkey. The Icelandic ash has dislocated a lot of people. It even drilled down as far as the Village with some stuck in faraway places. But the situation, while exasperating for those involved as well as financially challenging for the knowledge economy (yawn), does open all sorts of possibilities arising from unplanned situations. Could these few days change people’s lives in any significant way? Could this be fodder for the plots of novels and plays? We were totally unaffected as we drove and ferried back from the Village to the Piccadilly Line.

It’s time to open the joint bank account. So this morning, we both dodged out of work after checking our respective in-boxes and met at the bank armed with passports, utility bills, debit cards, cheque books, driving licences and all the other paraphernalia required for the process. The bank was empty! Was everyone out of town because of the Icelandic Ash? I approached the bullet proof glass screen and stated why we were there. The girl’s look combined puzzlement with a complete lack of interest. She called her friend over. Her friend looked at the computer screen. Then asked us had we brought ID. I was fully prepared and listed our entire catalogue of proofs of ID. She looked back at the screen. You can see an adviser at 12.00. Well, I quietly seethed, do they want our business or don’t they. Alex signalled to me to calm down so we sloped off for coffee.

Back at the branch at high noon, our adviser went through our application and all our evidence, and entered data painstakingly into the computer. He then telephoned someone and rattled out a list of numbers. We could hear the disembodied voice on the other end of his line. The adviser looked at me accusingly. Did you use to live at …. ? Well yes I did, but that was back in 1997, I said. So much information, so little knowledge. There were more numbers exchanged over the phone, then he put the phone on hold and asked me for a post code which I wrote on a piece of paper and slid across the table to him in silence. You see, the person on the line must not know that we are there in earshot. All the while he looked anxiously at the screen and moved and clicked the mouse from time to time. With the phone still stuck to his ear, he eventually, gave us a big, nodding smile and the thumbs up. We had a joint bank account. It had taken three full feeds of the parking meter but, at last, we are now united formally by something. I wonder, though, should our adviser have not made more of an occasion of it and said something like, I now pronounce you credit worthy - you may kiss your co account holder.

We shook his hand and thanked him as we were leaving. He then told us with some pride that we were his first joint account. The person who normally does the opening of joint accounts at the branch was stuck in Rome because of the Icelandic Ash.

Rest in Peace

The graveyard where the Village dead are buried is about two miles up the hills in a lofty spot overlooking the upper lake and the surrounding hills. This morning the birdsong was glorious with not a trace of the volcanic ash from Iceland. There was a great sense of peace as I picked a path around the headstones, recognising the names and being surprised at how young people were when they died. There was John, the alcoholic, Bart the suicidal schizophrenic, Sally who died of cancer in Scotland, TP, who was blown to bits by an IRA and Helen who died in a car accident in the Netherlands. What do they say? That as long as there’s someone alive who remembers you, then you are not dead at all. So, dear parents and friends, it was comforting to touch base with you again.

The last 10 days or so in the Village have been wonderful. The weather has been glorious and Alex and I had a good relax. The regret is that it’s such a long drive from the Piccadilly Line but the distance is a part of the peace.

Reformation ll - Bring it on...

The deities of religion and money are timeless and both have been discovered to be deeply flawed. The bankers have lined their own pockets with ill gotten silk while the church has systematically covered up its failings. Indeed, failings is much too weak a notion to attach to the atrocities carried out by officers of the Catholic Church. Their actions are utterly shameful. And the worst of it is that the top brass contrived to protect the abusers. The local Bishop to the Village has recently admitted his part in the cover up of activities of some priests in the past. The suggestion is that these acts of obfuscation go right to the top, even to the Pope himself. There is talk of a citizen’s arrest when he visits Britain, but the likelihood is that state diplomacy will intervene and this will be avoided.

The general distaste felt for the church has even seeped as far as the Village. When the two Marys knocked on the door the other evening selling tickets for a raffle to raise funds for the refurbishment of the Church I parted with the fiver. They told me that they were getting a lot of doors slammed in their faces. The reasons are uncertain but could have something to do with a previous priest in the Village who left very suddenly a few years ago without explanation, leaving rumour and innuendo of sexual abuse in his wake. Or it could be Father John and the new house that was built for him. Father John arrived in the Village a short while after the mysterious departure of the previous priest. He was warmly welcomed. Now, while the parochial house needed updating in estate agency speak, and looked like it might have had the same designer as the priest’s house on Craggy Island, it was by no means in as bad a condition. However, Father John took one look at it and refused to live in it. The people of the Village had spent a few years of their lives running money spinning events to erect a new dwelling house Father John. They so wanted him to stay and be happy. In the Village the priest has a vital function. He comforts the sick, advises troubled souls and provides a moral compass. The priest and the church provide a sense of occasion and meaning to the important events in life – hatching, matching and dispatching. So, a house had to be rented for Father John while his new four bedroomed house was being built. So, it was little wonder then, that people felt badly let down, when just two weeks after taking up residence in the new house, Father John announced from the pulpit he was leaving the Village. The house has been vacant since and the Village has no full time priest.

I have progressed from being a lapsed Catholic to an occasional one and have followed the unfolding events and revelations with deep sadness for the victims of abuse and deep anger at the powers that be. That the Church is in complete disarray and chaos is without doubt. They have been contemptuous of the people and moreover thought that they would get away with it. While there are many good priests who are as appalled by the revelations as everyone the main body of the church are its people. I call for the immediate arrest of every priest, bishop, cardinal or pope who has been implicated in any abuse, no matter how long ago. Those who had any act or part in cover ups should be arrested for perverting the course of justice and be tried by a court of law set up by the state. We all live by the rules and pay taxes to the nation state and so should the church. But the church does not agree with state law on many issues, all related as it goes, to sex. And so they hide behind the curtain of Canon Law, whatever that is. The church does not permit abortion, divorce, contraception or homosexuality. And the deep irony here is that their crimes all relate to sex. Do these men lose all sense of reality in that rarefied male seminarian world of incense and flowing robes so shrouded in secrecy? Change has to happen. We have had Vatican 2. Reformation 2 is now long overdue. What the church needs to do is reflect life in the 21st century. Here are my minimum demands for the New Church.

Allow priests to marry
Allow women to become priests
Give homosexuals the same rights as heterosexuals.

Marriage in Crisis

There’s something reassuring and strengthening about old school friends and we all need the valve of trusted friendship without any judgement. As a group of four, when we can co-ordinate our diaries it’s good to take the time out. It has been three years since we managed a girly overnight together. Then, it was in a glorious health spa boutique style country house hotel with an award winning restaurant. This time, it was in our house in the Village with a menu of lamb stew and Apple Crumble. Alex, well known to them all, was there and morphed in gracefully. Each sleepover takes on its own personality or form. In the past we have been through all sorts – childbirth, sibling death, parental dependency, losing children to the gap year / emigration, hysterectomy, menopause and coming out. The other night the theme was the fragility of marriage with Stella on the sofa on this occasion.

Stella married Dan a little later in life, on the rebound from Peter and had two boys – now aged 16 and 14. Two years ago Dan signed for a £6m euro business development loan, mere moments before the economy collapsed. Last year Stella checked Dan into a Psychiatric Unit after he had contemplated suicide. It was only the thought of how the dog would get home from the beach that saved him. When Dan was in hospital Stella realised that there was absolutely no income to put food on the table in the designer kitchen of their detached house in the exclusive estate on the right side of town. Stella had been a successful career woman in her own right and her savings had gone into the business. It was the worst year in Stella’s life. In order to pay school fees she cashed in all their insurance policies and to cover weekly bills she took a job on the beauty counter at a local department store. At the time, she gave us the impression that this job was to “get out of the house”. In reality, it was a living hell for Stella.

Stella cried her heart out that night as her story came out. Dan, as it goes, is on his last legs with Stella. He’s now working for another company on a year’s contract. Peter has swanned back in to the fringes of her life. Peter represents all that is elusive and exciting to Stella. But as we pointed out to Stella that night, Peter was a taker while she was a giver. In Stella’s eyes, however, it seems Dan is a no hoper. But, he’s the father of her boys we said. It seems, dear reader, that the collapse in the economy mirrored a collapse in the fragile veneer of a middle class lifestyle of the three week family holidays in France, private school, golf club membership and girly shopping breaks in various cities of Europe. Stella’s uncontrollable sobbing was heart wrenching to see. The shock of it was that Stella was the confident, successful, glamorous and smart one of us. And we all love her spirit. She has a generous soul and people are naturally drawn to her.

There are three possible endings to Stella’s story. The first is that she will stick with Dan and muddle through, secondly, she will leave Dan and rebuild her life, bank balance and support her boys or thirdly, Peter will come back into her life, offer commitment this time and be a stepdad to the boys. It’s clear that her sons' interests are paramount and she will do all she can to protect them. But it’s also clear that she has lost respect for Dan. I will keep you posted.

Off the Piccadilly Line for Easter

Alex dreamt last night that she bought a table. Did I like it I asked. The dream did not get that far. It was a cigar table made of oak and it was extendible. It was only £150. The last phew days have been a whirl but our offer was accepted on a house which we only saw by chance on Thursday at 2.00pm. By a quarter past 4 we had seen it for a second time with Blue, offered the asking price and had the offer accepted. Hurrah.

In the local we bumped into Gavin from Northumberland. Did you try the omlette yet he asked. No, Alex apologised. Gavin said he missed out on one vital ingredient - orange pepper. Alex made a mental note. I asked him if he played the guitar. I am razor sharp you see. His finger nails on the right hand were a shade too long for a bloke because Gavin is a blokey kinda bloke. You could easily picture him, Denis Hopper and Jack Nichoson riding easy across the good old US of A. So, after the finger nails we got talking music. Gavin's getting a band together. It's brilliant music he said. Gavin was full of praise for himself. What genre is his music I asked? Gavin said I would have to listen and decide the genre for myself. But the nearest he could come to would be blues / rock, maybe. Gavin's band is not a pub band. His is more a Wembley Arena, O2 Arena sort of outfit. He's short a few personnel for the band. He needs a second female vocalist and a rhythm guitarist. For the last rehearsal his 65 year old guitarist travelled down from Newcastle. But Gavin needs to lower the age profile of the band.

So he gave me his CD. The cover was a lined page from an exercise book with the seven tracks listed out. The titles were dark - Storm Clouds, Black as Hell, Hillman Avenger Blues - clearly, an album with an edge. Gavin did everything on the album. He wrote the songs, imagined and realised the soundscapes, played all the instuments (apart from the drums) and did the vocals. The unheard album sat tantalisingly on the table, in the soft plastic CD cover with its handwritten tracks, as we listened to Gavin explaining the oeuvre.

I had had enough. I needed to end the pain. I slipped the album off the table and went back to the cottage and put it on in the kitchen and left the door open. Our garden abuts the local's garden so I knew it would be heard there. By the time I got back Gavin was in shock. He just loved listening to it. And it was great to have him there, illuminating amd annotating for us. And, dear reader, I have to tell you. This album exceeded all expectations. Gavin was right. This is no pub band. His sound demands an arena worthy of it. Some of his tracks evoked the sound of the live Leonard Cohen while others reminded one of The Boss. Rock on Gavin. I only wish Jim could fix it for you.