Monday 5 September 2011

The Weekend

An uneventful, instantly forgettable weekend.  Even the news appeared to be the consequence of old events.  The only bit of new news (by the way, I do not count sport reporting as news, nor the shenanigans of personality with wayward wick) that struck me was the carrying on with the EDL.

The English Defence League; now what is the English that is being defended?  Is it genetics, or language, or place of birth  that determines English?  The DNA shows 95% of the white indigenous population to be largely Celt.  So much for the Angles, Saxons and Jute invaders (or were they invited?) that were supposed to have driven the Celts to the fringes of Wales and Cornwall.  Anglo Saxon genes are numbered in single fingers - so the English cannot be down to genes.  Speaking English (the term comes from Angle, but is only about 40% anglo-saxon in origin and 40 % French) as the first language, does that make one English?  If it does, then Americans, Australians, Canadians & New Zealanders are also English, and so too the Welsh, Scots and Irish.  It must, therefore, be down to being born here.

Nearly went into a mini rant just then, and I said the weekend was uneventful, and so it was apart from one thing.

We had guests for Dinner Saturday. One, a Luddite, has spent decades knocking everything new (nothing wrong with that I suppose) especially computers. His cry has been, "...waste of time...", "...they tell you lies...", "...they'll steal you identity..." or "...they should be banned; stops kids from thinking...." or more simply,  "...What do ya want one of them for..".  A couple of years ago he was given a digital camera for his birthday - best thing since sliced bread. He started taking photos. That was fine, he could show them on the Telly,  all was sweet and light until he realised that it was expensive to get images printed off.  He started getting his mate, from across  the Road, and then the grand-kids to print them off, but he did not want everything printed so some stayed on the camera. He was reaching the stage of storage saturation.  His mate , they really are an Odd Couple, gave him an old laptop to help with his storage problem - which was accepted because it was free.  Suddenly a "...Road to Damascus Moment..." the light is seen and a dongle is bought and the web is found. Hallelujah ... Angels sing. The instant expert is born, all is clarity except when he needs to scoot across the road because it won't do what is wanted.

They could form the basis for more stories

1 comment:

  1. It’s always good to witness a conversion of a Luddite!

    ReplyDelete