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28.11.05
The grandparents' festival, Ranco
http://www.comune.ranco.va.it/Upload/archivio/4bbbhehb.info.doc
Check the photo at the bottom of the doc. We played some folk music for the grandparents' festival in our village of Ranco - most of the audience seemed to be children though.
Posted by Giles at 17:21 | Comments (0)
21.11.05
Abstraction errors
Recently I've been noticing an amusing category of daily life cock-up which I'd like to christen Abstraction errors. The definition is that they show you've abstracted a situation or action but you've then applied your abstraction wrongly. Perhaps nobody else is prone to this - but if you are, you could add your examples:
Here are the examples I've noticed so far:
1. Trying to shave my armpits instead of putting deoderant (take a stick-like object from the shelf in the bathroom and wiggle it about under your arms).
2. Trying to put my coffee key into my motorbike ignition (to get what you want, take coffee key and put in somewhere).
3. Trying to press ctrl Z when I've made a real life mistake.
4. Thinking about phoning a lost object which is not my mobile phone.
5. Going to the cinema, sitting down and reaching for my seatbelt.
Posted by Giles at 16:00 | Comments (0)
18.11.05
Jokes with security guards
This morning I broke the golden rule of not making jokes about carrying automatic weapons with border control staff.
I rode to work as usual on my C1 scooter but this time with a violin strapped across my chest. It looks quite amazing because the C1 has to be ridden using 2 seatbelts or it won't work. So the violin is really strapped across one's chest rambo/mafiosi style.
Fotios took this quick shot with his PDA.
The conversation with the 2 JRC security guards went something like this. (JRC is actually a different country as far as Italy is concerned and has its own customs point. It is also a nuclear establishment so you have to pass a fancy looking checkpoint to get in.)
Guard 1: Smirk -"What's that - a rifle?"
Me:"No actually, it's a machine gun - is that OK?"
Guard 1:"Yes no problem" - Giggle
Guard 2:"What are you, a mafiosi?"
Me:"Yes that's right, I'm just going to massacre a few people - OK?"
Guard 1: "Fine (va bene)" -without checking contents waves me on
Posted by Giles at 10:01 | Comments (1)
14.11.05
Mobile phone etiquette
Here's a draft charter for non-anti-social use of mobile phones:
1. It has been scientifically proven that ring tones suck badly and are not necessary. Ditch the electronic mozart. I have my phone on vibrate permanently and have never missed a call because of it - or if I have, I was quite pleased about it. Remember - you might think it's cool to play Eine Kleine Nachtmusik in sine wave tones at top volume in a train but chances are, other people probably think you are sad. Ring tones for SMS's are doubly bad.
2. Face to face encounters take precedence unless you have genuine reason to expect that an urgent call is pending.
3. Don't have loud conversations in public. Forcible eavesdropping can be entertaining but as a rule, we don't want to know. Or if we do, perhaps your ex-boyfriend doesn't want us to.
4. If you do have a loud conversation in public of any sort, make sure you tell everyone the juicy details.
5. Don't alter your conversation to show off. "I love you so much."
6. Tell your conversation partners not to ask where you are as it is almost never relevant - and remember - all the other people in the bus/train/plane know where we are....
If you've ever paid money for a ring-tone - please leave me a message to explain why anyone would do such a thing.
Posted by Giles at 21:18 | Comments (0)
09.11.05
Black box for a car
Why not have a couple of cheap cameras in your car keeping a continuous buffer on solid state memory so that when an accident happens, you can prove what happened?
A quick bit of research shows there are some ideas in the pipeline...
That reminds me of the Roger's Profanisaurus entry:
Aeroplane Blonde - a woman with dyed blonde hair (she's got a black box).
Posted by Giles at 19:03 | Comments (0)
05.11.05
Sexism against Men
We all know about sexism when it comes to women and probably most people have noticed it the other way around too but here a couple of snippets from the other side of the fence.
I just came back from my lunchtime swim. I was just getting changed when a fully clothed woman walked through the changing rooms. I've complained about this before but they don't seem to take it seriously. They say the woman in question (who seems to hang out on a semi-permanent basis in the men's changing rooms) is there to look after kids. But why can't she take them to the ladies changing room? I pointed out that there weren't any kids around today and I pointed out that if the same thing happened with roles reversed the chances are the police would be called. I don't think it'll make any difference. I think I'm more bothered by the injustice of it than the actual voyeurism per se.
I read that in the UK 9/10 divorces end with the kids allocated to the mother. I know kids don't like to be separated and they generally prefer the mother, but this seems like it might be an unfair weighting, especially when legislation seems to act as a positive incentive for women to leave their men (what's to hold you back if you know you'll get allocated the house and alimony and the kids even if it's you who broke up the relationship by having an affair (this happened to my sis's husband and others I've heard of)).
In a Father's Day television interview in 2002, Bob Geldof spoke out against laws that favored mothers in custody matters. The response was overwhelming: a flood of letters from anguished fathers, more mail than his advocacy on behalf of Africa had ever unleashed. "I just wanted to be with my kids 50% of the time," he told TIME. "If a man and a woman live together and it fails, that's tragic. But if you have children, whole universes close to you" if you're prevented from seeing them.
"Our system is adversarial," he said, "...The law says it's gender neutral, but 93% of children go to the women — how is that neutral? It amounts to state-sanctioned kidnapping, the willful breakup of families."
And here's another one - positive discrimination for jobs. I'm all for equal opportunity. But all so often, equal opportunity is confused with equal numbers. The success of an equal opportunities policy is sometimes guaged by the whether there are an equal number of each sex in a job category. I recently attended a talk by an equal opportunities officer in our organization where she presented a chart showing that the numbers of women in certain jobs was not the same as the number of men, as evidence that women didn't have equal opportunities. When I made what I thought was a very balanced and un-rabid comment that there wasn't necessarily a connection between equal opportunities and equal numbers, citing for example the zero number of male secretaries in our organization, she jumped down my throat and said I was being controversial and I got the distinct impression several of the women in the room were having violent thoughts towards me.
Finally I came across this in a recent job description pre-interview
"XXXX is an equal opportunities employer and accepts applications without distinction on the grounds of sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, age or sexual orientation. Applications from women are encouraged." (Yes I know it could mean just that women shouldn't be put off applying, it didn't give me confidence in equal opportunities for that job....)
I support true equal opportunities, not inverting an unfair system so it's unfair in the opposite direction.
** Update - sexist nursery rhymes **
You've all heard of the feminist PC attacks on Nursery Rhymes. You might not have noticed a spate of overtly sexist nursery rhymes aimed at the guys. (This is a continuation of my post on Sexism against men). I came across this one for example. The 3 little pigs - 2 brothers and a sister (I'll dig out the text when I have time). The brothers screw up by building their houses out of straw, and the sister builds hers out of bricks. While the brothers are cowering in a corner, the sister then cooks up cauldron under the chimney. The big bad wolf is also male.
Then there's this one: the paper bag princess.
Princess Elizabeth was planning on marrying Prince Ronald, who was practically perfect. Then along came a dragon, who destroyed her kingdom, kidnapped Ronald, and burned all her clothes so that she had no choice but to wear a paper bag. She tracked down and outwitted the dragon. She challenged the dragon to burn forests with fire and to fly around the world. The dragon completes the tasks but after flying around the world a second time becomes tired and falls asleep. Elizabeth then saves Ronald. He didn't even thank her and told her to come back to marry him when she looked more princessy. Then Elizabeth realized what a bum Ronald was, and went off to live her own life.
Here's another one:
What are little boys made of?
Snips and snails, and puppy dogs tails
That's what little boys are made of !"
What are little girls made of?
"Sugar and spice and all things nice
That's what little girls are made of!"
Posted by Giles at 13:15 | Comments (32)