Monday, September 29, 2008

six or seven degrees of separation?

By how far are we divorced from ourselves? What is the distance between the person we show ourselves to be, and the very core of our souls? How many steps does it take to step out, walk the paths of other people's lives and return to us?
Sorry, I came over all philosophical there. In fact, I'm just going to try a little blog game. You've probably all heard of the idea that we are only separated from any other person by six degrees of separation - you want to find someone, you talk to a friend, then a friend of a friend, that that person's friend, then their friend, then their friend, and a friend after that, and voila, the person whom you seek - but how many steps does it take to get back to oneself? To be exact, how many blogs would I have to go through before finding a link back to this site? And what kind of blogs would I pass through on the journey? Let's see how many I have to go through. There's a single rule: I can't return via the first blog I link to.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Far off signals

I've found myself a little busy this past week or so, and at the same time strangely reluctant to do much, hence my not posting anything, somewhat ironically considerring my previous post. Anyway.
Last tuesday, I returned home, panting and sweating from another evening spent dodging vehicles as I cycled from work, and as ever parked the bike in the garden. Coming back out of the garden entrance, I looked up, and noticed that the Satellite Dish Fairy had been. Alongside our humble Sky minidish, through which the house receives the standard terrestrial channels and about 15,000 other channels of what is mostly mindglop, there was a bloody HUGE new satellite dish. It probably has the ability to pick up signals from TV stations beaming from Arcturus. It only took me a few seconds to surmise what had happened: Nurel had been hankering after Turkish TV ever since coming across a programme, via the internet, called 'Asi' several weeks ago. She spent the best party of two weeks, almost NON-STOP, watching it in 8-minute bursts courtesy of YouTube. To that end, she'd been scouring eBay and Gumtree for cheap satellite dishes, and had even mentioned ones up in North London, over in Yorkshire, even in Wales.
It turned out that she'd actually bought one via eBay for £50, driven up to London (with Sean in tow), collected it, driven back, phoned a local friendly Turkish Satellite Installation Guy to install the bloody thing, and left me to come home gaping in surprise at the whole thing. Which she did: I have to admit I admire the speed and efficiency with which the whole deed was accomplished. So now we have about 15,000 additional channels, this time in Turkish.
Now, this is actually no bad thing, for several reasons. Firstly, it means the boys are getting some badly-needed additional Turkish input - not just the language, but also exposure to Turkish culture, or perhaps the Turkish media's interpretation of what Turkish culture is. What I mean by this is that, for example, watch Eastenders and say that that is an entirely accurate description of what British culture is. However, it can only be useful. Second, Nur's clearly suddenly much more comfortable and happier. Third, while watching snatches of it I can indulge in mentally translating things and also indulge in my love of wordplay and mockery. Next, by having it on in the evenings it makes me much more inclined to go and do something more productive - I become far more aware of how passive I feel in front of a TV when I'm watching something in a foreign language. And lastly, our house suddenly feels like a little corner of Turkey, and that is no bad thing at all.

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

'My friends, I have wasted a day'.

Or, What Have You Done Today To Make You Feel Proud?
The quote in the title is from Suetonius' The Twelve Caesars, and is reputedly what the Emporer Titus said one day at a banquet when he realised that he had done nothing that day to help others or improve their lot. Had he ruled longer, he may well have gone down as one of the better Roman Emporers - however, his apparent generosity of spirit could well have buggered up Imperial finances and undone all the hard work of his father, Vespasian.
The alternative title is that of the song, and is one of those upbeat catchy things they do at sporting events, e.g the Olympic party in London, and an exhortation to positivity with a capital P. In fact, capital O-S-I-T-I-V-I-T-Y, as well. It's the kind of music that goes with videos of people smiling and laughing on sunny days, or waving their arms in sporting triumph, or quite possibly as the background music to an advert showing some bloke who has sucessfully managed to shave his face with some new multi-bladed razor without ripping through his jugular, and is now getting admiring looks from his significant other, before heading off in his private jet helicopter to the golf course.
On the whole, I prefer the melancholic air of Titus. How is it possible, each day and every day, to do something to make you (sic) feel proud? Make yourself feel good, yes, but proud? The problem with exhortations like this is that, while they sound like good ideas, they in fact set you up to fail. Imagine examining your day at the closing of it; You look at what you have done, and ask, 'what have I done to make me (sic) proud?'; What if you've done things that make you feel Okay, but not outright proud; Wouldn't you feel a bit of a failure? And imagine that day in, day out - you'd end up feeling like a total loser, decide there's no point, and probably rip through your jugular with your new multi-bladed razor.
We cannot possibly aspire to do uplifting things on such a regular basis - such demands finally lead us top failure. So how about a slightly different question - 'What is the difference between this morning when I woke, and this evening before I sleep?' If there is even just a slight difference - a new thing learned, a task completed, a fear faced - then that is good. If the answer to the question is truly 'nothing', then we can sigh like Titus, but then look ahead to ther next day, when new chances may arise.

Monday, September 01, 2008

Back to work today. Bah. Actually, it's not that bad: At least I'll be able to keep myself fully occupied with something other than child-centred activities. I can't say that I hugely look forward to the summer holidays, simply because I find myself flailing around for things to do, and also because I can't get any concentrated work done because of aforementioned parental duties. In addition, this year money has been horribly tight, which has meant that we haven't been able to get away whatsoever. We were considering just taking the tent and pitching somewhere, but the weather's been so bloody miserable it's just as well we didn't - I can't envisage it as having been anything other than a very damp experience. However, I am determined that next year we'll have a decent jaunt in Turkey.