Daily Archives: June 24, 2009

facebook

Posted on June 24, 2009 by | Leave a comment

Facebook is an amazing innovation.

It allows us to dip into the lives of friends, family, acquaintances and other random people you meet at a click. It is staggering what gets announced on that site. The spectrum is huge; what people had for breakfast, engagements, pregnancies, hangovers and births. Birthday cards are redundant you can leave a note on their ‘facebook wall’!

It has to be the most effective, yet laziest way to communicate with people!

The other curious feature is the profile picture. There is a lot of communication in that image; new parents always have their new baby as their facebook identity, new couples display two smiling faces, single boys have action shots, people younger than me have random, quirky shots. It is all rather intriguing.

So I wonder quite what I project with my picture choices, my one line update?

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normandy

Posted on June 24, 2009 by | 1 Comment

A few weeks ago now – I dashed off to see the Normandy beaches along with the likes of Barack Obama, and the required splash of royalty and policticians. As with all places in Europe that have seen the ravages of war early last century, it is almost unfathamable what had happened. The beach is sandy, the sea tranquil. In fact you can even by a sneaky icecream on top of the dunes.

A far cry to the noise, carnage and fear that was experienced along the coast line in June, 65 years ago. And despite these memories there were veterns in uniform with families and friends. Smiling and chatting in groups. This being said if you watched carefully you could see a moment of sorrow flicker across their face. I can not imagine what it must take to go to war – then or now.

I suspect it is  a compulsion rather than anything more calculated that led those people to jump from boats and planes into an armed, and equally as bold and frightened enemy.

War remains such a curiosity for many. While we were there talking to the people who were there, who fought, we met as many people who were playing ‘dress ups’; wearing the kit, sleeping in replica-camps and zooming about in replica cars. It did seem a bit odd to have the fantasy-fancy dress camp together with the real thing. Peculiar.

I am pleased to have been. To have listened to the people who were there.

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Posted in Living in London

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