Vanishing Assets…

I’ve started walking into work. It started when Mr BB insisted on getting up early and walking into work and occasionally walking home again. I felt a mild guilt but convinced myself that my new, improved, strict diet would be all I needed to shift the weight before the wedding, Exercise? Pah! over-rated. Of course this was grand until I stood on the scales and realized I had somehow managed to gain weight despite the new, improved, strict diet. Again. And exercise might be necessary after all as we have 6 months, one week and one day to the wedding* and my ass is quite big. OK it’s the size of Co Cork. It’s large and spreading daily. My tummy is large and wobbly and any assets that normally benefit from being voluptuous are verging on the ridiculous. So exercise it is.

I started yesterday and it wasn’t bad. The weather is cold but bright and sunny, and we walk together until the Harold Cross Bridge on the canal. This is fun. We chat (well, to be honest I chat and Mr BB nods) and it’s a nice start to the day.

The problem starts once I cross the bridge and am on my own. I am not good at taking exercise on my own. I am easily bored and as I can’t read and walk through traffic at the same time ( I have tried) I am not really a fan of the solitary walk. I used to run in the gym on a tradmill and the only way it was tolerable was with a magazine in front of me and earphones and the TV turned on. I suspected that as I trudged on alone, down into New Street and around the side of St Patrick’s cathedral, I might get a tad – discouraged.

Yesterday I tried to do it sans aides. Just me, the pressing mass of humanity, the big city and the road in front of me. Yeah. That worked. Firstly much as I adore Dublin and I do, I spend a fair proportion of my time working in the city anyway so it wasn’t exactly a stimulating sight seeing tour. The pressing mass of humanity are frankly a pain in the bum and a bit of a shock to the system for a woman who has carefully cocooned herself in the car for the last ten years. And the open road was dirty, littered and above all, long.

Today I stuck on the headphones and cranked up the volume on the I-audio. I nearly got knocked down by a bus trying to find something to listen to so I clicked on the first thing I could find after picking myself up and cursing Bus Atha Cliath; this turned out to be a compilation of hits from the 80s and early 90s. A surprisingly good choice except that I now have “The Heat is On” banging around my head. But at least I came in in better form.

Yes, I will do it all over again tomorrow. I have pledged to three times a week minimum. So if you pass a huffing puffing unfit overweight blond singing “FOOTLOOSE” tunelessly as she trudges by, say hello. It’s almost certainly me!

*not that I’m counting or anything

It’s easy to be “brave” behind a screen..

Lots of discussion Chez BodhránBangerthis week on cyber bullying; the school my sister’s children attend is experiencing a wave of it right now, and this week brought some fresh examples among adults (far more vicious and malicious than the children) on some  websites I’ve been reading. Including wedding websites, gods help us.

I also came across this on the BBC website:

Fight cyberbullies, schools told

Bullying has evolved, ministers say Schools are being given guidance urging them to take firm action against pupils who use mobile phones and the Internet to bully other children and teachers.More than a third of 12 to 15-year-olds have faced some kind of cyberbullying, according to a government study. Ministers are also launching an awareness campaign on the social networking sites used by many pupils. Schools will be advised when to confiscate mobile phones and how to get hurtful material pulled from websites. ‘Happy slapping’ Schools Secretary Ed Balls said cyber bullying was “insidious” and had grown with technology and changes in society. Schools needed to get to grips with newer forms of bullying, he said. Examples cited include threats, intimidation, harassment or “cyber-stalking”, unauthorised publication of private information or images, impersonation and so-called “happy slapping”. Ed Balls said: “The vast majority of schools are safe environments to learn in. However, we know that behaviour, particularly bullying, is a key concern for parents and bullying of any kind is unacceptable. “Cyberbullying is a particularly insidious type of bullying as it can follow young people wherever they go and the anonymity that it seemingly affords to the perpetrator can make it even more stressful for the victim. “One message that I want to get across to young people is that bystanders can inadvertently become perpetrators – simply by passing on videos or images, they are playing a part in bullying. contd http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7005389.stm

Now I am easily annoyed by people crying “oppression” at every hand’s turn and I can’t stand politically correct fascists; but I’d sooner pander to them any day than accept the level of bullying I’ve seen on-line on occasion. Too often (and I’m thinking of some specific examples I saw this week) all it requires to maintain a culture of bullying on a site is a level of hypocrisy among the general populace of the community. A pattern that I saw over and over again was – Someone posts a pretty innocuous post. One of  core group responds with something almost breathtakingly rude/aggressive/offensive. I’ve seen homophobia, snobbery, racism, all over what wedding shoes someone likes. When challenged on this the perpetrator will respond with increasingly cruel comments. Finally more than the original poster will start refuting them, at which point the rest of the core group join in, attacking those who object for being over sensitive, asking why they are over reacting to comments on an Internet site, calling them insecure and them rather bizarrely claiming victimization themselves. And all to the thunderous silence of the vast majority.

I’ve always cautioned against fighting in public for the simple reason that onlookers will tar both parties with the same brush, no matter how in the right you may be. You are making the group uncomfortable – therefore you are both to blame. Adult cyber bullying follows this pattern. At least children have the excuse of youth and ignorance; fear of their peers one hopes is something they will outgrow. Sadly many remain at a playground level of morality in this regard – they will not stand up and be counted.

My sister’s school is implementing many of the measures outlined in the UK report cited above. I only wish that adult sites could do the same. I recently read and recommended Clay Shirkey’s excellent article on group dynamics  the best exposition of the subject I’ve ever read. My favourite paragraph remains

the group structure is necessary to defend the group from itself. Group structure exists to keep a group on target, on track, on message, on charter, whatever. To keep a group focused on its own sophisticated goals and to keep a group from sliding into these basic patterns. Group structure defends the group from the action of its own members. 

and I frequently quote it as a reason for formal moderation of a group. It would be lovely to think that unlike children we do not require supervision but as an adult I can honestly say I would prefer a level of moderation to the “lowest common denominator” rule that seems to dominate group dynamics in many on-line communities.

 But whether I’m right or wrong about moderation, cyber bullying is a strange and cowardly phenomenon.

Skip to my Lou, Disaster….

Mr BB and I went to a wedding in Kildare yesterday, a lovely day and we drove home to his place in Kildare for the evening. Of course we were up til all hours chatting with his family and then got up early to drive back to Dublin to take delivery of a skip to clear the old house (Mr BB) and go to work (me).

First little wrinkle came at 7.30 when we were still in Kildare, and the skip company delivered the damn skip. I had to get my Dad up to go round and sign for it. He did so and then watched in horror as the young fella driving the skip ripped one of the gates off the driveway.

A total disaster compounded by bad new from a friend and a general air of disaster about the day so far. And it’s Mr BB’s birthday, something I’ve been really looking forward to, a chance to spoil him and so forth, instead of which he’s clearing out the house, we’re worried about the gates, and I was in bits this morning over my friend. Poor man, he’s going to remember this birthday all right but for all the wrong reasons.

Hopefully i can cheer him up this evening, we’ll go out for dinner and a few beers with his brother and his sister and niece are on their way up to bring him lunch. My sister and my niece are going over too with cookies and cake. We all love him, you see.

Weddings, and other trials…

We’ve had quite a weekend, Chez BodhránBanger. On Friday we sacrificed pride and dignity in pursuit of that most elusive of animals, the Good Wedding Band ™ which of course refers to the timehonoured pursuit of gatecrashing someone else’s wedding for 15 minutes to hear the band play. It’s a terrible and uncivilised thing to ask unsuspecting couples to do. Bands provide you with a list of “venues” ie weddings that they are playing and you turn up, skulk around the back and slink off miserably everytime anyone looks crosseyed at you. It’s horrible – truly mortifying and made worse in our case by finding the bride right behind us at one point.

I swear on our day, I am going to make the authorities seek out any such unfortunates and buy them a pint. It truly is an evil of wedding planning. On the plus side we have our band; they were great (and that is through the fog of discomfort and embarrassment) with a huge variety of songs so we were pretty impressed.

Saturday saw us at the Pre Marriage Course. This is an institution that I thought was a complete waste of time and energy and which I feared would drive me into a coma. But we talked about it beforehand and decided if we had to do it, we’d at least engage and try to get somethign back out of it. In the event  and partially owign to this attitude, we got a lot out of it. It’s well run, and has been modernized beyond recognition. The last person in my family to get amrried did so in the 90s and they were still at the stage of expecting Virgin Brides and  husbands willing to support their entire families without somplaint. Now they openly acepted the fact that people live together, that many really didn’t want to be there at all and that the women in the audience were earning as much as or more than the men. 

It was lively and interesting, and we may even have met the priest who will perform the ceremony – with a bit of luck anyway. Not everyone was willing to aprticipate in the course; there were a lot of younger couples who looked completely blank for most of the day but noone could top the fellow in front of us who actually fell asleep. The room was quite warm but it was at the most interesting point in the course and he’d had a puss on him all day so the most popular theory is that he was just being pig ignorant. His unfotunate girlfriend nearly died of embarrassment.

Sunday we more or less took off and Monday became a day of trial and tribulation. Ntl and the curse of the utilities struck in full force and not even Mr BB’s legendary ability to soothe and coax all administrators and workmen could prevent it being a day of sheer horror.

I won’t bore ye with the details but 10 phonecalls passed between NTL and us on Monday alone, not counting the daily phonecalls during the week, and they still managed to completely mess up our order. And we have no broadband. Apparently the wilds of South Dublin can’t expect braodband or at least not our little enclave. Our neighbours up the road can have it. Our friends ten minutes further in to town can have it but we apparently can not.

I was a bit put out by this but the next disaster completely overshadowed it. My precious silk flowers for the wedding arrived – and were missing one Bride’s bouquet. Yes the most important part of the damn thing. Plus the other items ordered were too small and one set were not as ordered, in terms of colours etc. I had a small nervous breakdown and rang the suppliers only to be treated to one of the worst examples of customer services I’ve ever experienced. This continued into this morning and at this point we are awaiting confirmation that the missing item is in fact extant – not merely a figment of some demented flower maker’s fevered imagination – and most importantly is in transit to me.

If not, stand by for a headline along the lines of “Silk Flower sellers in Mysterious Freak accident” (“I can’t explain it, I’ve never seen a full 10″ bouquet go into such a small place!” )

Luciano sings with the angels

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6981032.stm

Years ago at a certain world cup, in 1990, Pavarotti sang Nessun Dorma and everyone listening, even those who hated classical music and despised opera, felt as if they were attending a clash of giants, a contest of titans, an event of momentous importance, their hearts swelling with the music and the hair on the back  of their neck tingling.

It took a couple of hours to wear off and realise it was just a football match

 Such was the power of his voice, such was his power to move. Remember that today as the world remembers Pavarotti, as the Critics rush to assure us that this temor is more perfectly pitched, that voice much technically brilliant, that he was popular and populist, remember – no voice could match his in its power to touch the heart and raise the soul.   

None shall sleep, Nessun Dorma….Sleep well, Pavarotti.

Nessun Dorma, from Puccini’s Turandot

NTL hate me…….

I really have no luck with utility companies. If I try to sort out an electricity bill, everything goes wrong. If I have to come into contact with Bord Gais, then the issue will escalate from simple to Byzantian in nano-seconds! I no longer blame the service companies as I am obviously under a curse that affects Television, Telecommunications, light and heat.

So far the joy of moving has been unalloyed by the curse of the utilities but then we decided to move the NTL account over to the new house. HAH! that was a mistake. Well it was a mistake to move my account. I got overconfident. Everything had gone so smoothly. I thought I’d risk it.
But it was merely an illusion; beneath the surface the curse was lurking, waiting, biding its time. It sucker punched me, in short.

I rang up and asked to move my account from X house to Y house. They agreed. Then they rang back to explain that sadly they couldn’t actually find Y house. I explained where it was, I gave them the address, I even gave them google map co-ordinates. Nope. They insisted our new house didn’t exist. They were very nice about it, sympathetic even. But there it was - I was obviously mad in the head and lived in a cardboard box somewhere with delusions of digital TV eligibility!

I tried a few times but that was it; we didn’t exist. Mr BB then got onto them using his NTL account from his old place and lo! they were no longer confused, and they gave unto us an appointment to get Digital and Broadband. Til I got a message from my flatmate from a year and a half ago to say they rang her (noone can explain this to me….) with the news that they’d be around the next day to reactivate my account. Mr BB rang to explain that no, they need not attend upon us on the morrow as he had already arranged it all and please could they stop giving his fiancee heartattacks? They agreed and said that adding to my stress would not be conducive to maintaining good customer relations. Which is why eharing from them at half one today to complain they were outside the house and where were we came as a bit of a surprise….

I explained the situation and true to form the actual people sent to do the work grasped the situation immediately and were very decent about the waste of their time. Mr BB reminded me to cancel my NTL account as it really didn’t do to be paying for a service I was no longer receiving so i dutifully rang up to do so; only to be greeted with blank surprise and the remark “But sure you’re down for a moving of account order on that account, why are you cancelling it?”

Cue another round of explanations until to my utter relief and joy Iwas transferred to a really nice man who gently talked me down off the ledge and cancelled my account (well, accepted my thirty days notice of account cancellation! Note to NTL even the ESb only require 7 days!) and who kindly went and checked to make sure Mr BB’s order was actually still on file. I really don’t want to explain to him that I inadvertently managed to cancel his broadband and digital TV!

So the curse has struck, no doubt the ESB will cancel us in a week or so or the Gas will inexplicably get turned off; but for the moment peace has been restored, and we await the arrival of braodband and digital tv, with breath baited and hearts a-trembling….

Be it ever so ‘umble…

…there’s no place like a rented house for which you are paying through the nose but which provides peace of mind, privacy and the beginning of a new life together….

 Well, here we are folks; writing to you from the surrounds of our (very) bijoux, two bedroomed townhouse. We signed for it on Friday morning and decamped that very evening (was it really only yesterday?) We had pretty much packed the kitchen and the majority of ornaments and precious objects (the jug my nephews made me last year, the paintings my niece did aged 3 and 2 months, that sort of thing) so really last night was spent lugging them to the new house and  unpacking them, That was the fun bit because when I say “our little house” I assure you that’s exactly what I mean - little. I have rarely seen so little cupboard space, so half our glasses are in storage under the stairs. But I found a place for my good crystal glasses and for the most important ornaments and the spare room is going to be home to most everything else!

It was a good relationship test, tired after a long week and a hard day in work unpacking reams of newspaper wrapped kitchen implements. I am happy to report we both survived it with good humour intact and by 12am had pretty much unpacked the kitchen and lots of other miscellaneous items: bedlinen, towels, etc.

Mr BB and his brother are hard at work, moving heavy possessions (that would be his 40″ TV in other words!) and I’m just trying not to remember how much we’ve left behind and how much will be freecycled or Skipped in the next three weeks. And how much we have to clean in order to hand the house back in good order.

But you know, nothing can diminish the happiness of having a place to call “our home” albeit small and rented. One moment encapsulated the experience for me as I awaoke this morning. I heard a floorboard creak and found myself thinking “Ah feck. She’s up.”

Then I remembered – never again will I have to compete with Ms Narky Nickers for the shower of a morning! Never again await the sharp little rap on the door and the highpitched accusatory whine of “I’m going to be late, I’m going to be late!” Blessed, Blessed Day.