Along with the misdirected emails, it appears that in the last couple of weeks I am in the scam/spam machine. Some Sarah somewhere has had her data shared, and unfortunately she shared mine!
Seriously, do people really click through? Do they give their bank details to strangers? Their passwords?
Does anyone believe that they have been the lucky recipient of free money. From a person they don’t know, or a service/website that they have never used?
Do the scammers make any money out of this at all? I guess they must to persist.
One of my favourite things to do is to imagine what I would do if I won the lottery. Isn’t it everyone’s? Doesn’t have to be the the EuroMillions…you know I’m not greedy, just enough to:
Clear our mortgage.
Not have to work ever again and same for my partner, as it wouldn’t be fun to be not working on your own.
Help my family; Mother, sister, younger brother; so that they too are comfortable.
Treat my friends; different friends would benefit from different things – would be great to be able to gift money as, well, who can’t put it to good use?
Support local charities/maybe set one up. Covid has thrown a lot of inequalities into the harsh light of day, it might be my bias but I think our town could benefit from a cultural centre; where do the young people practice in their bands or put on a show? Where are the local artists showing their work? the local authors/poets? I honestly don’t know but it would be nice if there was something/somewhere for people to explore and showcase their creativity.
Get a new car, or at least new to me, mine is 16 years old – still working and I love it, but I imagine I would like parking more if there were sensors or a rear camera! (fancy modern stuff!).
Employ a gardener to sort our our garden – it looks like a battlefield re-enactment site, it needs work! And some nice plans/trees.
Throw a party; post Covid obviously, but wouldn’t it be nice to have friends and family together for a weekender?
Travel; again post Covid, would be amazing to see other countries and explore, with no time constraints.
Bit of a mix really; somethings that benefit me and mine directly, some for the community. I am definitely not one of those people who would continue working, and who thinks the money wouldn’t change me. I don’t think it would change my personality, but it would change how I behaved. Hopefully not in an asshole way, hopefully it would make me more generous and considerate. I wonder if this list would have been so different last year, pre-pandemic? I am not a big stuff person, I don’t need or want shiny baubles or fancy ketchup flavours; I want hugs, and laughs, and to spend time with the people I like, and love.
Well, we will never know. I am obviously not clicking on the links to get access to these riches. I am not currently playing the lottery, so I am not in it to win it. I have a savings bond, but in the years I have had it, I have only ever one £25. That is not life changing!
I was struggling with a title for this post as well, hacked off is taken! And thanks now to my extreme procrastination, I am finishing/posting this on International Women’s Day, a better person would have planned it, but I am going to take it as a sign!
This week’s misdirected mail, has irked me somewhat. The title of the organization is WomenHack and while after a bit of research (Google/LinkedIn) it appears to be a recruitment company, I am still irked. Why? Oh let me start!
Firstly the name of the company! WomenHack? What is the intent here? What is it supposed to mean, or inspire? They appear to be American so I appreciate we have cultural differences…but still…hack? women?
Back in the olden days hack meant to manipulate code ( software ) to do something it wasn’t supposed to do; or go somewhere you were not supposed to be; or gain access to information that was not yours; break in to NASA; to break into the phone messages of celebrities and great headlines from private conversations! There are lots of not very good films about this form of hacking; they normally show lots of elaborate lights, circuits, and beeping noises to show you the progress ‘through’ the system. It should be said that in the films, hackers are often the ‘goodies’, a great example of the genre is Hackers.
Now, I am in no way saying hacking is cool, or good. It is used for nefarious purposes; for other governments to influence elections or referendums, to steal data and blackmail people, to sell data, and obviously gain money or power. Try for a minute now, to apply this version of hacking to women. We are to manipulate a system to do something that it is not designed to do? What?; manipulate it to hire women? That the system is not designed for this??? My head is actually exploding.
The system, especially IT companies, which WomenHack seem to be targeting, are definitely not designed by or for women. However, and this is a big however, labeling is important. And when you name something targeted at women, as being an exception, as being different, you are maintaining the status quo rather than changing it. An employment company aimed at women, that describes themselves as hacking, doesn’t, in my view, value women in the workplace.
Deep breath!
And the second, maybe more grating, is the way hack seems to be used as a synonym for tip. Lifestyle ‘hacks’ (it grates to even write that) all seem to be related to either housework, or food making. Both, unfortunately, considered ‘women’s’ work, and shocking landing on female plates, metaphorically, and in reality to a greater degree then men during this global pandemic. So, how do we apply this to women? We can hack women to…make them fit more easily into the corner cupboard? to make 16 different pastries from a ready made pasty pack, with a knife, a hazelnut spread, and some jam? Come on.
Not sure who the Sarah is who signed up for this particular event, it is the most local Sarah to me in a long while. There are more than a few of us in this here London! But no, it is not me, and I can’t imagine it, I dislike the name, I dislike the exception, I feel patronized by the password to access the event, I wont share it as it is not fair to the company, but it is shockingly lazy!
Good luck with the search Sarah, though I think that this might not be the door you want to open. Or more importantly this door is the hacked version, the backdoor. Go through the main entrance, you are worth it.
Words I never thought I would write. I am, as I have said previously, Irish, baseball is not a thing in Ireland. It is definitely one for the North Americans. Though I have been to a baseball game. On a work trip to Baltimore many, many, years ago we were brought to see the Baltimore Orioles play. And I use that word loosely as it didn’t seem that much happened at all. It was a work do though so it was mostly an opportunity to drink beer in plastic cups during the day. We were given (and made to wear) baseball shirts; and they were made of polyester, I should mention that it was the summer. In Baltimore. They made us wear polyester. Melted doesn’t even describe it. The beer was needed just to hydrate!
Riveting stuff! Anyway, what am I going on about baseball for? Well, as the point of this blog was the random emails I get…this is an interesting one. I have done my best to redact the stuff that identifies the individual.
When I first glanced at it, I was thinking that this could be about the stereotypical ‘sports mom’; the one that is presented in media as pushing their child into competitive sports, and who wants their child to be first/best. And sure then I did a tiny bit of research (aka I googled some stuff!), as I have absolutely no knowledge of Baseball outside of ‘Field of Dreams‘, ‘Major League‘, and ‘ A League of their own‘. So, no baseball in the last oh almost 30 years (oh it hurt to do that calculation!).
Turns out Minor League AA and AAA baseball is an actual thing, it has it’s own acronym MiLB. It is not a school team or a local team. An actual professional team. Now, in my mind, someone who is playing professionally, getting paid to play, does not get their mail sent to their parent. The mail seems odd based on the fact that to be in MiBL you need to have been drafted. And again, from films, that means someone saw you play, and said, hey they are good. Lets bring them to a try out. But this mail is about evaluating…maybe there is more to it than the films? (really? films are not accurate portrayals of reality? ?).
The person who sent the email is an agent, agents don’t work with children (I am guessing, maybe the odd one, but lets just go on my assumptions here). So, again, why on earth is he emailing the mother? Another case of defaulting to the mother who is the parental unit who gets things done? It is probably this, and it does irk me. As does the mail in general. This is probably an age thing, I am from the generation who grew up without email (got my first email address in 1994!), and who were thought to write letters. Bane of my language learning years, all those letters to fictional pen-pals in Irish, French, German, and Spanish. Saying where you live, how many siblings you have, where you go to school, I think I can still reel them off, will refrain and get back on track, such as it is. My issue with the mail is that it has no salutation, too busy to say hello Mr. Agent?, too busy to close the mail, with a thanks/regards/etc? And no actual name on the mail, just the signature. It is probably just me, but I find all of this lazy, and rude. It costs nothing to say hello/goodbye or please/thank you. No one is charging by character in the mail, there isn’t a word limit. Take a bit of time with it.
Baseball Sarah has a son, who even though he was signed up, didn’t turn up for his evaluation, and didn’t tell his agent. Ok, there is a lot going on in the world, but if you wanted, really wanted, to play any sport professionally, you would be on that, at least in my world. Though, I have seen the marvelous Last Chance U , and was amazed by the self sabotage of some of the young players, and also saddened that they had managed to get themselves in such difficult situations. So, maybe there is a chance this Baseball Sarahson is struggling, and Baseball Sarah might be able to help him.
Will Baseball Sarah be one of the lucky ones, one of the ones whose offspring makes it, and is able to provide for his family, buying a house and a car for them? We will never know. It is unlikely that the next email I get from the Baseball Agent be a transfer of funds from earnings? I jest, I have told them I am the wrong Sarah. The only emails I get about money are ‘standard spam’.
Fingers crossed for SarahSon, maybe he will go down in history, with all the fortune and fame that goes with it. The good version of the future. As the song goes rooting for you.
This title is not going to make any sense at all if you read this post. Let me explain. I got this email the other day from Booksy.
Welcome email
I looked it up and understand that they are a site that enables small businesses to create bookings with clients, great idea I am sure there is a lot of need for this type of thing. And then I got the ‘booking’ mail.
Booking email
And I’ll be honest, I half read it (as I do most things). I replied and said that this was not the right person. And then I drifted a bit. I thought this was a personal trainer, and so Let’s get physical was imagined, I had stuff about lunges/burpes/squats all entertaining stuff.
And then I got this mail.
So, here I am. And I am really confused. Totally derailed. My whole shtick as it is, is emails to Sarahs, and how people get their emails wrong. This is a Joseph and a Liam. Not even close. Even their surnames are not close. Even more confusingly, it seems that the person, Joseph who signed themselves up, who booked – what turns out to be an O.A.P haircut with Liam, is the person who input their details incorrectly.
They signed up, booked an appointment, and got it all wrong. I am wondering about the other guy too, did he see the email details? Did anyone show up for the appointment?
Maybe a Sarah signed up for her elderly parent/friend/neighbour and miss typed her own address and confusion has abounded today, and no hair has been cut. It is at the smaller scale of all the things that haven’t happened this year. Ultimately feeding into the huge impact that not being able to get a hair cut (or other beauty related treatments) has had on our morale and on the economy. £28 billion. That is a lot of money to disappear from peoples pockets. That is a lot of wild untamed hair.
It is reminding me that I need to get my own hair cut. Last cut in March, I missed the gap in the last lockdowns due to procrastinating (surprise that!), and I still haven’t gone. No idea what to do with it; I look like a lion at the moment when it is down, all wild and mane like.
Think it is time I get it cut, contribute to the economy, add a bit of order to my domain.
Back in the 80’s in Ireland there was a TV programme on RTE hosted by Marty Whelan called Where in the world. It was a geography based quiz show where two families competed. That was prime time telly in the late 80’s and early 90’s. People today forget how lucky we are to have choice. In Ireland we had only one television station for most of my childhood, and programmes didn’t run 24 hours…what did we do with ourselves?
Anyway, only bringing it up to create a segue to today’s topic, or at the rate I write, this months topic. International Sarahs! Today’s post is brought to you with inspiration from Brazil, Switzerland, and Canada. As you will see not only are these very different countries; geographically, culturally, politically, etc. They have produced very different Sarahs
Lets start with Brazil
Marcele, a Brazilian Nutritionist
Been watching The 3 Percent on Netflix so I realised that this email was from a female, and when I read these and when I say read I do mean that loosely – I don’t speak Portuguese, but it is a Latin language and I speak Spanish and French so I am always happy to have a go at Portuguese, I thought it was some sort of nonsense, a scam maybe?, however, when I read it today, after hitting the Google translate button (hands up who had noticed it?) I am thought to myself. Great idea, a community of women who are building each other up, learning to move in the business domain (which is built for men, by men), and learning how to stop procrastinating! Ha, I definitely need to learn to stop procrastinating! I have never been to Brazil, just saying the word conjures Samba, Caipirinhas, and Carnival. 2 out of three for me (Samba and Caipirinhas, Carnival with all the people? from the bar!) I thought Brazilian Sarah would be the furthest from me, but maybe, we are closer than I was expecting. Fair play Brazilian Sarah, go forth and conquer. Well done Marcele for initiating the group!
Heading north and then west from Brazil, brings us to Vancouver, Canada. Somewhere I have visited, and regularly vote one of the best places to live. My main memories of Vancouver revolve around eggs. Yes, eggs. We had just gotten off a train from Toronto to Vancouver, 3 days on a train, the absolute horror. You can imagine, young, vaguely smelly, hungry, lost. We were walking through a park and asked the first person we met where we could get a nice breakfast, you really cannot beat a good breakfast. We were pointed to what I think was a supermarket that also did fresh breakfasts. We had delicious eggs, toast, tea, all the good stuff. It was so nice to not be on the train! The train did have a dining carriage and food, but there is something about food on trains/planes/boats it is never as good as food on land. I have another Vancouver egg story, but I will leave it for another day. Always leave wanting more.
So, what does Canadian Sarah do? Well it appears she is very community minded and has signed up to complete market research surveys that give back to the community. Some of it appears to be standard market research, and some more community or province orientated. I imagine she probably works in IT – don’t most people? drinks protein smoothies instead of meals, is concerned about pollution and traffic, and probably cycles to work. From my limited time in Vancouver, way back in 2000 it seemed a nice place, full of outdoor healthy people. I am not an outdoorsy, active person person. Close, but still no cigar.
Canadian Market Research
And this leads us to Switzerland, a place, precisely no one ever has said that they wanted to live, maybe apart from the people who are born there, or people who yodel, make clocks, and eat chocolate? Swiss Sarah signed up to emails from the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst; what pray tell is this? Well a Museum (pretty much a universal word) for contemporary art. This is where we splinter. I could definitely do a week/weekend in the mountains, eating sturdy food, Fondue is the food of dreams; melted cheese that you dip other foods into, count me in. Clocks are important, love being able to tell the time rather than guess by the position of the sun (I can’t tell the time by the position of the sun, I occasionally guess, and say things like ‘later’ which is not useful). And then contemporary art, what is it? That is a question I ask most times I encounter an exhibition. What is it? What does it mean. I could probably make that at home. How much? I am not a complete philistine, mostly I just don’t get the point, it doesn’t seem like art to me. I am not a Swiss Sarah
I am none of these imaginary Sarahs.
As Brian said ‘We are all individuals’. Yes, yes we are.
This post has been in my head a while. Well not directly as a post but thinking about the differences in governments and handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. Spoiler, I am going to go political, but hopefully with a bit of humour, as sure, if we are not laughing…then what?
I received this email a while ago as you can see from the date (procrastination is my strong suit!). It is from a photographer in New Zealand.
I had to redact a bit of this email as when I did a quick search, the person was the first post so it would be easy to find them, and I think that it is kinda unfair. So, obviously I had a look at the photo, and equally obviously I told the sender that they had the wrong Sarah so the intended Sarah should have access to her photo now. Nobody panic.
New Zealand, a country that has by and large done a fantastic job in managing not just the spread of the disease, but also in managing the health of the nation, and by health I mean in general – mental, economic, etc. And here I sit, in the UK, a country that has not managed to achieve anything good during this pandemic, it has been shambolic. It is really amazing how bad the government has been; to quote their own term, they are ‘world beating’. No one should aim to crush the nation’s morale, spread the virus, and trash the economy, but that appears to be what they have done. God alone knows if that is what they set out to do, they are grossly incompetent so it is likely that they aimed, misguidedly, for the opposite.
How do I get humour in this, you wonder, I wonder. Well first thing is the picture…
Kiwi Sarah
I know this is a set up for a professional portrait, but, it does come across a bit Stepford wives. The two parental units, and three children, all colour coordinated. And then there is the fact that the male unit has a beard. I am sure he is a lovely person, and this is not an attack on him. It is the beard. Slightly reminiscent of Kris Kristofferson (my mum is a big fan)…no reflection on Kris, this is my personal opinion on all men with beards, they are not to be trusted. Perhaps I am scarred from reading The Twits by Roald Dahl when I was a child, the main characters, the Twits, had beards that they used to store morsels of food in for later…or find morsels in, yuck. And this is what I think of when I think of beards; where have they been, what have they touched, what is living in side them. I think of germs. (Not sure if it is too early for jokes about germs??)
Secondly, the porch, ok this might be a bit of stretch but here goes.
So, both pictures from internet searches, and with links to the owners so I hope this covers copyright! My own porch is very much in the style of the UK one, it is really just an additional level of security, and a place for the postperson or other delivery person to put packages, it is not somewhere that you could hang out, even if the weather permitted, and as this is the UK, it is unlikely to.
The New Zealand style porch is the one that I dream about. I have a Kiwi friend, who recently moved back there from the UK (and is so glad that she did!), who has sold me as it were on the trip to visit (background – I hate flying and NZ is the other side of the world!) by telling me about sitting on the porch, in the late afternoon, watching the sun go down, drinking Kiwi wine, all the good stuff that they don’t ship abroad. And oh my, is it a place I want to be. As an aside when searching for NZ style porches I have discovered that there are more than one variety of spider that have the name New Zealand Porch…and oh dear god do I never want to encounter any of them!
And then, lo and behold I got accidentally sent a photo of a UK family during lockdown (yes I told them they had the wrong Sarah). Now, context is obviously key in all cases. But just take a look. Just a quick one.
We have a UK Sarah, with her family, extended, as it appears to be multi-generational family unit, on what appears to be a grey day, against a grey brick wall, behind my excellent Photoshopping to disguise them, they are smiling, they do look like they are having a nice day out, however their scene setting leaves a lot to be desired. A damp grey wall. Not exactly a photo for the mantle piece. But probably one for memories, ‘that time during lock down when we met half way between our respective abodes and took a photo against the wall as it was the only background that was not a car park’, maybe they were taking a photo to check if the camera still worked, it is possible?
And Kiwi Sarah, hanging out on her porch with what appears to be her family (and is in all likelihood, during lockdown they were hardly going to fake it, Kiwi’s are far to sensible for that type of malarkey!) 3 kids, 2 boys and a girl, and bearded man.I know the NZ family have a bit of a leg up here, as they have had a professional take their portrait, but still. The wall is still grey, but it doesn’t look like it might be harbouring life.
UK Family Photo
NZ Family photo
And our last set of comparisons, I will need to take a breather here ( you won’t notice) and get a cup of tea. And review about 17 times just to make sure I am not saying anything that will get me sued! My initial thought here was to say ‘leadership’ but I feel it only applies to one country, so I will go with Prime Minister. Yep, I have gone there.
Alexander “Boris” de Pfeffel Johnson
Jacinda Kate Laurell Ardern
I could probably just stop this now and it would be clear what I am saying about the level of competency, integrity, and just straight up know-how that divides these two PMs. Both PMs of islands, where the boarders are easier to manage. Boris, as he likes to be called, has a straight up majority in parliament, and can effectively pass any legislation he deems fit (very similar to a dictatorship…we can play spot the difference at a later date). Jacinda, so called as that is her name, has to negotiate with her coalition parties.
Boris, delayed lockdown, despite it being a path numerous other countries had take to prevent the spread, because he said it was the inalienable right of ‘the people born in England’ to have a pint, lets not think of the rights of those born in Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland?. Maybe it was because he believed it was/is our inalienable right to catch the virus? Jacinda, locked down hard. Despite objections. Closed the boarders and kept everyone at home with her team of five million. Boris, left the boarders open, everyone was advised not to travel, but no so much as to actually do anything as rash as close the boarder. Boris shook hands with the sick in hospitals, and caught the virus. Jacinda – no record of anything so reckless or to be honest, stupid.
No one has any experience of handling a global pandemic. The last one was the Spanish flu of 1918 and all of those in charge then, are well dead now (time, it gets us all). But still, it is not hard to see the patterns emerging across the globe, and actually do something! Or learn from your mistakes and missteps, improve as you go along. No plan survives contact with the enemy, but you have to have one to start, and inspect and adapt as you go forward.
Oh I could go on, but I would be here for days! Even if you are ambivalent about his politics, it is, you would have to say more than a bit surprising that he won’t admit to the number of children he has fathered. It is inconceivable ( I feel a bit like the Sicilian in The Princess Bride here) that in the so called modern age you would deny your child’s paternity, it is really easy to prove. Boris is a documented liar, having been fired from previous posts having been caught in falsehood. There is even a web site listing the falsehoods of recent political times. What else exactly is he hiding?
Jacinda on the other hand, to be fair it is not as easy to deny your children when you are the mother, but by all counts just the one, freely acknowledged. It is also much harder to find actual evidence of lying (I haven’t spent days looking, just your standard internet search) some to be expected cross party stone throwing, not a lot to be honest, I think I found more about her opinion on lying than any actual lies. No one has complied a web site of her falsehoods that I have found.
Not sure I managed the chuckles in this post, maybe I am just not feeling it, when I know my friends in New Zealand can go out as normal, not as the new normal, the term we are all applying here. Surely there is a better new normal? One where people are supported by their government, when the people in charge are in that position because they are capable?
Surely, one day, in the near future, (it was supposed to be 2021, but I don’t think it will be happening for a long while) I will be able to travel to New Zealand, without the two weeks of quarantine either side, and see my friends in person, go swimming in the sea, drink chilled Malborough white wine on their lovely porch, and relax?
Here we are, islands, and humans, caught in swift moving currents out of our control and out of our understanding. We move forward, as that is all we can do.
I got this email the other day and being my normal self, I didn’t read it properly at all. I was fixated on the Pelican bit. Pelicans in the park? Where? why would you go on a tour to see them? This might be a thing that people do, even in these weird and wonderful times. Not me though.
What do I have against pelicans I hear you ask? What could they have possibly done to you that you wouldn’t go see them frolic in the park? Well, now, that is an actual story.
So, I am Irish, and that almost defaults to mean that I was raised Catholic. Being raised Catholic; I say raised as I am not a practiser of any religion, I go more on the be nice approach; we made our (holy) communion as part of schooling, and when you make your communion, your first holy communion (oh how easily all the words come back, I can feel my self bowing my head with the holies!) it is the done thing to have a day out to celebrate with the family.
Back in Ireland, in the 80’s, where we lived, the thing to do was to go to the Zoo! Dublin Zoo with family for a picnic, ice-cream, etc.. Adventures and excitement! You can hear us sing in the back of the car ‘We’re all going to the zoo, zoo, zoo, you can come too, too, too’. Annoying if you were the driver or any adult, all four of us kids under seven were all singing with the excitement!
We went to the Zoo for my sisters communion. She was wearing her communion dress (white, full dress – like a miniature wedding dress, worn on multiple occasions as they were expensive and likely to be grown out of within months). We must have looked around the zoo, and then it was time for lunch, or at least refreshments, and we sat down in a green area for our picnic. Eating soggy sandwiches, warm diluted orange (orange cordial – back in the 80’s there were only two types, orange, and black current (aka Ribena)), snacking on crisps that were mushed, hoping that the chocolate had not melted; all the good things about picnics.
I remember my sister and I heading across the green area to the pond/lake?. Little did we realise that this took us through the area where the pelicans were snoozing. It goes almost without saying that we woke them up. I don’t know what it was about my sister, or her dress, but oh my, the pelicans loved her/it. I clearly remember my sister in tears crying, as the pelicans tried to put their beaks up her dress. And people laughing, and other tourists taking photos!
This is a pelican.
Pelican, beak open
Isn’t that what people do when they see something happening?, if they think it is funny or something to be recorded, they take a photo. They don’t intervene. Imagine being a child being attached by a pelican, they are big – can be between 1- 2 meters in length. It would be enough to scare the actual bejesus out of you, and would be fodder for many a counselling session. My sister was fine, in case you are wondering, our parents must have bought ice-creams or something to calm us down.
All of this came to mind when I read the title. Little did I know that the Sarah in Queensland was intending to take her small person to an Early Learning Centre. My early learning was stay away from the big sleeping birds on the green. I do wonder what this young person will learn?
Gil Scott-Heron said that the revolution will not be televised, because the revolution would be live, and on the street. And it is, live and on the street, he was however wrong about it being televised. Thanks to technology and social media the causes for the revolution have definitely, categorically, been televised, and watched on replay. There is no hiding from it. The response is being televised, and published on all media channels. If you are not seeing it, you are not watching. This is not the time to cop out.
This is a difficult one to write, as a white Irish person, I have never really thought about race as I have lived in mostly white places, and only recently, having read a friend’s comments about growing up gay in Ireland, did it really hit home that I wasn’t (am not) doing a good job at understand perspectives, and life experiences. I started writing this blog as a way to channel my creative energies and entertain, probably only myself!, and I can safely say that when I consider the other Sarahs’ lives I hadn’t considered that they could be BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour). It really just did not occur to me.
This doesn’t make me a bad person, it does mean, however, that I am ignoring my unconscious bias, I know it is there, I am just not actively doing anything about it. Pretty crappy behaviour Sarah!
Ireland is, as some of you might know, predominately white. When I was growing up, we had one Indian family, one Chinese family, and a bit later one African family. My town had a population of about 15,000. Can you imagine what it would have been like to have been part of these families? When I was about six or seven, I have this memory of complaining to my Mum about the girls in my glass copying my homework, specifically my Irish homework, the girls who copied it were Chinese, and Indian. I think I was frustrated that they never did their homework, ( was/am such a swot!). I distinctly remember my Mum telling me that I should help them, as they probably had no one at home to help them with their Irish homework as they were new-ish to the country, that their parents didn’t speak Irish like mine did. Go Mum, she understood.
In the 1987 Roddy Doyle had his book The Commitments published to great acclaim. There is a famous quote in it “The Irish are the Blacks of Europe…” Writing this now, it really sounds strange, what in gods name did he mean? Back then however we all understood it, we Irish people. We were the underclass of Europe, we had been colonized, our land taken from us; our culture and language outlawed; penalised. The British worked really hard to eradicate the Irish. In the UK in the 1960’s it was common to see signs saying ‘No Blacks, No Irish, No dogs’ I always felt that racism didn’t apply to me, I couldn’t be racist as we were the same.
In doing some, admittedly brief, research on these themes I discovered a book called ‘How the Irish became White’ (which I really need to read, and to read more about Frederick Douglass an American abolitionist who spent time in Ireland in the 1850’s and 60’s and worked as part of the Liberation movement. We started as allies!) having read a synopsis, and reviews of it, it basically analysis how the Irish moved to the US to escape oppression from the British in Ireland, and instead of uniting with the oppressed BIPOC in the US, they joined in with the oppression. God, what is it about people, that the only way to come up in the world is to push others down? When will people realise that your life/society/world gets better if you lift the others up? If you help people, everyone benefits!
We white people created this, we systematised racism, consciously and unconsciously, over hundreds of years, over thousands (millions?) of lives. It is easy to tear someone down. It should not be hard to lift them up. We need to do the hard work now, which is to change the system, to become actively anti-racist. We, white people, need to do this. To paraphrase many a shopkeeper; we broke it, it is our responsibility, we own the fix.
Where am I going with all this? That I have learned, even if it is belatedly, that as a white person I am complicit in racism, not because I am consciously racist, but because I am not consciously or actively anti-racist. I need to self educate, I need to be active in my support. I need to wake up, to activate.
Common parlance with the Covid pandemic is ‘flatten the curve’; how about we apply it to our society and flatten this curve, this pandemic of oppression and mistreatment, that has destroyed countless lives? I mean, Jesus Christ, isn’t it about time?
Well, I had an idea for a post, and was going to write about events that I have been mistakenly invited too, however it was a bit depressing as all I can think about are all the places that we are not going to get to this year, and maybe not even next year. I am not even thinking about international travel, a trip to a campsite within cycling distance of the sea or some water would be good for me. Who knows when that is going to happen? Even if it is ‘allowed’ and I use that word loosely, I am not sure I will feel comfortable, travel, visiting places, and people definitely on the back burner for now.
So, what to write about? I though I would look at the random, varied, and international marketing emails I get.
Having a name that used to be the number one name for girls in the world, is only five letters and is familiar across countries and cultures as it is mentioned in religious texts means that I have always been fairly lucky in that people can mostly pronounce it correctly. I always feel for people with different names, whether they are Irish, Indian, or Arabic, or any other nation, as people, and I guess I would have to be honest and say, English speaking people, normally just fall over and fail to pronounce them correctly. I always think it is so rude to get someone’s name wrong! Imagine getting your own name wrong?? On a slight tangent here; the scene in Catastrophe where Rob Delaney’s character tries to pronouns his new daughter’s name Muireann (Irish name) makes me cry laughing, find a clip and watch it, then watch the whole series if you haven’t already (am not affiliated – just saying!).
Do we attribute it to the autocorrect/autofill? You start typing and your email provider automatically completes it, and shows you the name and not the actual detail of the email address? You assume it is the right one? Email addresses are unique by design, there are over 300 million entries when you search for my name with your preferred search engine, do people not realise that they are not the only person with their name, or name and middle initial combination? You needed to get your name in during the early days of email, I am showing my age!
Lets start with an outlier:
This mail, and I may be exaggerating seems to be aimed at what I would probably call, somewhat mockingly, a prepper. Based on the current world scenario they might be right, but I am going to let that one slide for the moment. What caught my eye on this one is the tag ‘always be ready’ and on their site it looks like you can be, the search options include ‘Law Enforcement’ (wtaf?), Fire/EMS – these are people who are all out for the worst case scenario, but they can’t get their email address right? I consider myself prepared when I have remembered to bring my bags for life to the supermarket, or the shopping list with me (seriously, how many times can one person write a list and leave it at home?). Am a little bit worried about what they are preparing for, maybe in their future there will be no need for email, or writing…
This Sarah has wondered far past my imagination. I wish her good luck, and I hope it is not as bad as she expects!
Moving on, no pun intended:
Now this cracked me up, if this was directed at me they have definitely missed the motivation mark. I find myself crossing my arms like a moody teenager, saying ‘make me, no, you move!‘. It also seems slightly misaligned to the concept of social distancing while people do interpret it in nuanced ways, I think even Dominic Cummings would struggle to interpret it as ‘united’. A bit of local humour there!
Anyway, I only ever once signed up for a gym. I lasted about 3 months as one of the girls I worked with also went to the gym and she gave me a lift after work. That is the only reason I made it, I got driven too and from the gym of an evening. I have a feeling that driving too and from a gym defeats the purpose. This Sarah however is in Florida (bet it is scorchio there today), haven’t been to Florida – it always comes across as hot and that is not what this pasty Celt looks for on holiday. I hope this Sarah is managing to get the appropriate socially distanced exercise, and has not missed out on the online classes. Maybe she is closer to me that I think, she didn’t give the gym her correct address, maybe she really doesn’t want to be found, or be made crush it what ever that is! I am with Homer – what’s a GYM (he sounds it out, doesn’t translate well to the page but it is more like GUY-AM) – TV roll activated!
Ok last one for today:
Ok, this one got me, when I read the headline my first thought was oh! I want a bee hive! Yeah I am that person. Having a bee hive sounds amazing. We are lucky and have a fairly large garden, and bees, well, essential to the survival of humanity and they give you honey. What is not to love? Also, I have always imagined that one day I would own a hazmat suit, not for current world situations, just that I seem to attract insects and they bite, and I am allergic so I swell up which is unpleasant, and I am not good in sun light as I am quite pale so would like the shade provided – anyway a bee keepers suit would be close enough; get back on track, Sarah!
Obviously I clicked on the link and was a little dismayed to find that it was a purveyor of bee related products, no actual bees or hives. They have a few stores in places that I have only read about or seen on TV; Myrtle Beach, Boulder (am scared of Boulder thanks to Stephen King, you could not pay me to go there!), Charleston, all so exotic! And they sell Mead…honestly have you ever drank mead? I have, it is not nice, if there was no safe water, sure I would drink Mead, that is partly how it came about! No to Mead. Only in desperation. I haven’t tasted this Mead so I am prepared to be corrected, it seems unlikely in this lifetime though. Anyway, I can imagine that this is the type of place that only exists in tourist towns, for people to buy treats on a day out, and sign up for the newsletter to avail of the sign-up discount. We all do it.
There is an old saying go tell it to the bees, and I remember my mother telling me when I was younger that you should always tell your problems to the bees, not sure what they do with the news but maybe the act of telling helps with the problem. Seems like there is a lot to tell the bees at the moment. Maybe I will look into getting a hive!
Haven’t written any posts recently as well it just didn’t seem like the time to be imagining alternative lives when we have landed in the Corona-verse. The reality that none of us imagined existed. Where our lives have changed beyond what we would have consider reasonable anytime before March this year! And no one knows if or when things will change, not soon for sure, we can hope.
But this missent email struck a cord as it is a gift from a granny that I don’t have. Both sets of my grandparents died long ago and I didn’t know them at all. I have memories, and on receiving this email I started to remember the little I know.
I am not at my home home, and was looking for pictures of my grannies to see what they looked like and to remember their faces – and I only have these, from my parents wedding day! Which I think was 1972 or 73.
My Parents Wedding day, 1972 or 73?
God people had a lot of hair in the early 70’s! It is really hard to see as this is actual size and there is no enhance that can change the existing photo, no matter what endless series of CSI try to tell us.
My Mum’s Mum, Granny Carton, Sheila, is the lady in the blue suit, third in from the left. My father’s Mum’, Granny Allen, Mary, is the lady in the white/cream coat, third in from the right. They would both have been in their 40’s when this photo was taken, my Mum got married when she was 23 (so young!) so I am assuming both grannies had their kids in their 20’s as was the way, it might have been even earlier!
I have more memories of my maternal granny, Sheila, than of my paternal granny Mary as my parents separated when I was seven-ish and we didn’t really see them after that.
Memories of Sheila; grey short hair, sore legs, sitting on her chair in front of the fire, she had a funny expression when we used to ask what was wrong with her legs, I remember it as ‘I jumped over a stile and a hen pecked me’ ; your guess is as good as mine here! ; she drove a yellow Fiat 127; she was a piano teacher, though I don’t remember ever hearing her play the piano; she bought me a pair of red shoes when I cried as my sister had gotten new shoes and I didn’t (in my defence I would have been 4 or 5!); she had raspberry, logan berry and blackcurrant bushes in the garden and we used to run out to eat the berries in the summer; the journey down used to take hours, days, probably not really but it felt like it when we were kids; that you could and still can see the mountains from the house; that there was a big blue vase/urn on the stair landing that scared me; I remember my Auntie Betty coming up to the house to tell us that Granny had died, we had no phone at that time; I remember seeing her dead in the room and being encouraged to talk to her, we all sat around her bed, it was probably the first time I was in her room, she was yellow from the jaundice, cancer, she was in her early 50’s. Still a young-ish woman.
My other granny, Mary, I don’t really remember at all; I remember being in the house in Dublin, Rathgar, they were posh!; the door handles were too high for me to reach; her hair was always ‘set’ similar to the photo above; they used to serve us drinks but never tell us what they were! not standard kids fizzy drinks like coke or orange, but mixers – what I now know to most likely have been Rose’s lime cordial; there was a distinctive smell in the house, and they had a bathroom in the under the stairs space which was definitely fancy; shopping for my older (by just over a year) sister’s communion dress, probably in Arnott’s, I think she bought it, my sister was the first grandchild, they were interested, I was always too young for any trips or stay overs with them; I remember my farther ringing them to say we were on our way over once, not a home you just dropped in on; after our parents separated we saw them maybe once, and the annual Christmas £10 book vouchers ended in my teens, and ended our contact with them. She died in 2013, in her late 90’s I think, I missed the funeral as I was not in Ireland at the time, I hadn’t realised that she was still alive, this is really sad.
I was wondering what types of lives these women had; Sheila married Joe, who I think was a crane driver/operator, the story in our family is that the first meal she ever cooked him was rice pudding, it was all she knew how to make, her family had a shop and possibly a maid. I can’t imagine her sharing a cake recipe. Mary, I don’t know her background but Thomas her husband was a professor/lecturer at University College Dublin (UCD), and wrote a book about the Irish Language. Sheila had 10 children, 5 of each, my Mum is the second eldest, Mary had five boys, I believe my father was also the second eldest. Sheila died in her early 50’s, Mary in her 90’s. Worlds, lives apart.
In a way the email made me sad, or maybe more truthfully feel sorry for myself. How lovely it would be to have memories of these two women who’s genes I possess, to know if I have their personality traits or looks, to have any concrete interaction that hasn’t been dulled or shaped by years and my own bias. How lucky grandchild Sarah is, to have a granny who shares her cheesecake recipe, to have a granny who emails. That Sarah will have interactions and evidence of her granny and their relationship. While we may all get fed up with the barrage of social media, there are things to be thankful for, emails from loved ones, family WhatsApp groups, and surely the improvement in photograph quality and definition is one we should all be glad of.
I will make the cheesecake at the weekend, and share the results with the lovely Grannie Annie, I think it sounds great, and I love to make a cake!
IJustHaventDoneItYet 