---

On cycling with wife

Got wifey a bike for her birthday.

We've been out lots.

My arse is so sore.

School Quizzing (2)

While I was enjoying house quizzes, the senior quiz team's dominance was coming to an end, with no natural successors to the all-conquering ones. Our History teacher, head of quizzing had one option open to him - throw the kids in at the deep end. From Form IV onward myself and the future team captain were in the team (plus sixth formers) with the idea of a pair of promising Lower Sixthers being with us for our Upper Sixth year. It almost worked - yes, we got hammerings while in Forms IV/V but by our Upper VI we were ready.

Step one - Blockbusters. Oops - the Head vetoed that one long ago. We don't do that sort of thing.

Step two - Irish News schools' quiz. We got off to a dreadful start in the area final and lost. Oops. Step three - Schools' Challenge: we cruised to the semi final and...

It seems strange when you watch a quiz on TV, that people answer so quickly. It's the rush of the moment, I think - it's doesn't seem as fast when you are the one pressing buttons (I know, adrenaline and quizzes don't seem to go together). I remember only one question from that semi final:

"Who was the wi-"

The other team buzzed - Solomon was the answer. I was slower by less than a tenth of a second. In the end, a single question was enough to separate us and our conquerors won their final.

OK, we lost. We came close but it didn't work out (oh well). The final of the BT Academic Decathlon hardly made up for it. Our teacher, retiring this year as it happens, hoped to see some of us on University Challenge (it never happened). My quizzing career was to reach the heights of the Empire Bar and beating the KY Jelly Babies (what a name) to win a space hopper. Fifteen to One was culled when I eventually decided to apply. Apart from twice-yearly church table quizzes (on a winning streak at the moment) and watching Eggheads with Mrs, my quizzing career is over.

Sure, it's only a bit of craíc...

School Quizzes (1)

For whatever reason I've been feeling a bit nostalgic about our old school quiz team. Some people get to remember heroic moments on the pitch/track/court in their school's colours, while I look back to my days pressing a buzzer.

When I started secondary school, the quiz team as-was was a big thing. Over a three year period they would win UK-wide quizzes, the BT Academic Decathlon and go to the States. They even managed the holy grail of school's quizzes - a Schools' Challenge and Irish News Quiz double. Never before in our strongly rugby-oriented school had the geeks been as widely applauded.

My initiation into this was the inter-house quizzes in the junior school. Held in the lecture theatre at lunch-times over a three week period there was never a seat left. Well over a hundred people crammed in to see the prize nerds of Forms I-III. There was something of a pivitol moment that year for me and my very-fast finger.

Mrs Jones: "Which planet is furthest - "
Smith: "Pluto"
Mrs Jones: "Correct"
Me: "No it's not!"
Mrs Jones: "Pluto is furthest from the sun, she is right"
Me: "No, from 1979 to 1999 its orbit crosses with Neptune. Pluto is not furthest."
Mrs Jones: "My decision is final"
Spectator: "He's right"
Me: "You're wrong Mrs Jones, Patrick Moore says so in a book in the library."

(Wikipedia also says so, here)

It was a lost cause though. That question cost us the tournament. In my first-year innocence I brought the book to her - she didn't care though because she was 'right'. The fact is, she was wrong. Nowadays the lefties say competition is bad for kids as losing hurts. Well, losing did hurt: it also made me determined not to let it happen again. I devoured even more books and for the next two years we destroyed all opposition. It's probably also where my "You are wrong, I AM right" attitude comes from.

To be continued....

Computers ruining Margaret's world

Margaret is a happy 61 year-old.  She does her office job well and enjoys it.  Well, she did enjoy it, until her managers decided it was time computers were brought into the office (yes, there are paper-based offices in 2006).  Now she is feeling very stressed and flustered and thinking of quitting.

She's been 'trained', in a manner of speaking.  A day long course showing her and her colleages how to use the software involved a lot of terms that made no sense to here and a 'teacher' whose only memorable line was "It's easy- click, click, click, you see?"
It's not easy, and Margaret didn't see.  The fob-off was encouraging her to use Solitaire to develop her non-existant mouse-skills.

She has never used a computer before.  Her managers have 'People Like Us' syndrome - they think everyone is like them and if they aren't - well, they aren't making the effort, are they?

Last Friday, myself and IrishEyes went over to see Margaret and help her set up her PC, bought second-hand.  She quite literally knows nothing.  Google is a source of delight, email a source of confusion.  She is afraid to turn the computer off in case everything on it is lost - not realising they have come on a bit since her son's BBC Micro 25 years ago.  She wants to learn, but at 61 years is finding the learning curve a little steep.  When she asked "Apart from the Internet, Solitaire and playing a CD, what else can it do?" we realised how little she knows.  This was compounded when I had to explain Word as a sort-of typewriter - she had no idea what a word-processor was.

I'm sure she is not alone.  There are probably millions of Margarets around our world for whom computers are an invention of a younger generation that have only suceeded in over-complicating things and ruining children's attention spans.  They have lived their lives writing with a pen and paper and seeing no reason at all to change - nor do they see why their otherwise happy jobs should be ruined because the boss decides he should be able to 'dial in' to the admin system on Sunday afternoons, whatever 'dialling-in' is.

Maybe she has a point.  If it wasn't for computers, I'd happily wait for my local bookstore to get in whatever title I wanted instead of One Clicking at Amazon ; my handwriting would not have deteriorated to nothingness; I wouldn't be bored by 99 channels with nothing on and I would actually have to talk to the readers of this blog, face-to-face, instead of hiding behind a screen.  Nor would I have just been asked by a Very Senior Person for some piece of information Right Now that we all know rightly could wait a while.  Off I go....

The Nephew Speaks...

Hearing children learning to speak can be funny (maybe I am cruel).  "Yabba, jabba, babba....." - which Mother understands but everyone else just says "Is that right?"
The Nephew is putting sentences togther now and counting "One, Two, Fwee, Four, Five, Seven, Six, Eight!" <

The "TR" sound is a problem.  Thomas the Tank Engine is a "Frain".  When he fell over, he "Fripped".  His trucks are a source of amusement to the adults....

Is your town becoming Belfast?

Is your town becoming Belfast?

Not that long ago, the distinction between towns in Northern Ireland was simple. Anywhere outside of Belfast was viewed as 'the country' and viewed with disdain by those in Belfast. The 'culchies' (agricultural types) saw Belfast as an over-industrialised hole full of complete tossers with no sense of reality.

Unfortunately the people in Belfast realised what the culchies knew all along. The city itself was mostly ok, but ruined by the people who lived in it. Of course all of the Sammies (as they were then known by the culchies) thought other people were to blame. No Sammy viewed himself as a problem.

To escape the grim reality that was Belfast, some Sammies decided to move out. They went really far - 5 miles up the road to Glengormley, viewed as the edge of the world because the local bus service stopped there. For a few years this was fine - the Sammies lived among ordinary hard-working folk and learnt how to be nice to others. Then the other Sammies realised there was life outside Belfast and followed. The Glengormley people went to Ballyclare, Antrim, etc to get away while Glengormley itself became an extension of Belfast - full of little tossers with no sense of reality, all out to fiddle the dole, con other people and generally put one over on the system that they think is there to help them never do a day's work.

Over time, more nice Sammies moved to places like Lisburn, Portadown and even as far as Derry. Unfortunately it only took a few years for the scummy types to find them and what used to be nice towns have now been taken over and become an extension of the state of mind known as 'Belfast'. Bizzarely, educated types from culchie backgrounds have gone to study at Queen's Uni in Belfast and found it a nice place to live. The simple reason is due to a mass exodus, most Sammies (these days known as Spides) have deserted their ancestral home. Those sammies that remain have turned to drug dealing in order to afford somewhere to live, as DHSS benefits cannot keep up with property prices in the City.

So the question is, how do you know if your town is becoming Belfast? Here are some ways to tell.

1) Formerly quiet bars are no longer safe to sit and have a quiet pint. Instead the sensible people have been replaced by loud, brash tossers who pour pint after pint down their throat and challenge anyone near them with "whatdyathinkyerlookinat, like?"

2) Street corners are now populated by spides - uneducated thickos in shell suits whith lots of gold chunky jewellry from Argos or H Samuel, often sharing a bottle of cheap cider / spirits. People who walk past are laughed at for dressing normally.

3) You cannot enter a shop without hearing the loud Belfast accent arguing with a shop assistant "Like, the this is too dear, like, the shop down the road, like, does it for half the price, like"

4) In the event of (3), above, you marvel the person in question can recognise the difference between a high number and a low number.

5) Sensible minded people cross the road in fear of Millies. These are female spides, but prone to turning on anyone whose ability to read threatens them.

6) You enter JJB Sports (or B&Q) and ask for a pair of running shoes (or a hammer) and the person stares at you blankly and replies "huh?". This person is not a spide, but has been in school among spides who have refused to be educated and have intimidated those among them who wanted to learn to read and write.

7) You often hear spides referring to former school friends who "like, thought they were, like, too effin good for us, like." This refers to the person in question learning to read, write and think and realising they had to get far, far away for their own good. A common escape route is university in GB.

8) In the event of (7) the person in question, if they have remained local, may drive 'like, a big swanky car, like'. This is the reward for their hard work as a dentist, accountant, etc. It is hated by those who drive a more simple car, paid for by benefit fraud.

9) The people in (8) often refer to "Like them effin foreigners like come here and take our jobs like and get like all the help they can like in getting a house". This is translated as "Those nasty foreigners come here to work hard, pay their taxes and not be a nuisance and show us up for the lazy bunch of dole scroungers with no intention of working that we really are."

and,
10) Like, people all around you, like, speak in this, like whiney accent, like and can't, like, stop saying, like, between words, like.