Has the ubiquitous email replaced the letter and letter writing?

There is a bombardment of advertising, emails and temptations to get us into mode to spend money on Christmas and gifts.

Last posting dates for surface mail have, for most places abroad, been and gone. That being so, it tells me, at any rate, that the 'buy now for Christmas' exhortation is a tad late. It is too late for me anyway as my preparations have been done and dusted.

Many of my gift parcels are winging their way to their recipients as I write, and others, here at home, are ready for gifting. There is still a bit of wrapping to do for nearest and dearest, which has to be done surreptitiously. All that is left are the greetings cards. I hope those will be on their way by the end of the first week of December.

Recently, while waiting at an airport, I decided to treat myself to my annual Mars bar. I kid you not, it is an annual event. I selected what I wanted at the counter, a pack of two Mars bars, there were no single bars. Feeling the pack, I realised that the size of the sweets was probably less than half of the thickness of the original Mars bars I used to buy. Therefore the two in the pack were not going to amount to anything more, (probably less), than I used to eat once a year. While it was a nice rationalisation for me, it is, I believe, a genuine fact.

Happy with my decision, I went on to make my purchase, to be told that I could have another, the same, or a different sweet bar in the range, for the price that one sweet bar cost. There were no kids in sight to offer one to, so I decided to take the plunge and accept the two for one offer, just for me. I selected two packs of Mars bars. I couldn't face the prospect of a caramelised biscuit with milk chocolate all over it.

In this closing year of 2007, I admit, I have now eaten two years' worth of Mars bars; this year's quota and next year's as well.

There were a couple of things that really irritated me this week.

There is very evidently a father in this story, a father who has been every bit as high profile, if not more so at times, than mum. I don't hear of him being drugs tested for anti-depressant use or any other kind of medication, nor do I read anything that suggests he could be sued for neglecting his children.

Trevor Philips of the Race Relations Council has publicly stated his views on the imminent Oxford Union speeches from the leader of the British National Party, Nick Griffin, (not a sidekick, it's obviously too high profile a venue for that) together with David Irvine, the holocaust denier, (see my previous blog). They both peddle the same type of agitating, sectarian philosophies. Philips, is reported as saying that it is a disgrace that the Oxford Union has invited these two people to the university, essentially, given them a high profile platform.

Is not the university student body affiliated to the national union of students;if so, what is their stance on this controversial matter? Who actually invited these individuals and truthfully, why? There does not appear to have been any comment by the senior staff body. No doubt there will have to be a security and police presence; who will pay for it?

Oxford is one of this country's top universities and like all other campuses it has an international student body, a student body representing all creeds and beliefs. Is that a reason to design a potentially divisive and explosive situation? This is hardly going to assist cultural cohesion, nor do much to enhance race relations, which of course, is what the two speakers and others like them desire. This foment plays into their hands.

There are a lot of unanswered questions that do need to be addressed.

This week there has been media attention given to speakers invited to The Oxford University Union.  The invited guests were the Holocaust denier, who is also described as a discredited historian, David Irvine, plus someone representing the British National Party. These two guests have a lot in common judging from the views they represent.

Hubby literally choked on his food tonight. We had just decided to turn off the radio, a BBC radio 4  'comedy' programme, which was chuntering on in its usual inane fashion, interviewing a writer, whose literary chat was impenetrable.  The interviewer stopped the flow of the silly diatribe with stark truth about the nonsense.  This was followed by a variety of spoof audience feedback.  Suddenly  the disconnected voice pronounced;

I suggested that perhaps, just perhaps, the BBC might be trying to get in touch with reality, with the world outside Broadcasting House and connect with its audience.

There were two interesting flight scenes depicted in two different forms in a museum in Marseilles, France. The first was set around a very old, large and very detailed model steam liner. The glass case must have had a special finish on it.  My photo was totally fuzzed. It was therefore, not suitable to show you. I could barely make it out myself!

The second picture, this one, I did get a reasonable result.  It is a mounted poster of a painting which like many, were the advertising medium of their day.

Does anyone know what kind of plane this was?  Would it have been an early passenger plane?

Today I was having a light lunch with a friend. The process went like this:

Waitress took order. We both had the same soup with crusty bread.

We chatted for a while.

Soup eventually arrived but the table had not been laid with any cutlery with which to sup it.

My soup was tepid. I returned it to the kitchen for heating. Friend preferred hers 'cool' so that was fine for her.

A latte for my friend and a cafetiere for me, were requested for after lunch drinks.

A different waitress served that part of the order. She served the order the wrong way round and served a cappuccino laden with cocoa powder instead of a latte.

With apologies, the cafetiere was placed in front of me but the waitress did not see she had provided the wrong type of coffee for my friend. All was explained.

The Latte cup appeared tipping on the saucer and the contents spilling into it and over the table. More apologies and offers to replace the drink. It was easier to clean the table and wipe up the saucer, to save risking repeat performance.

The total bill was to be split. The first waitress tapped out the numbers at speed on the calculator. She charged us the wrong amounts. My friend clarified the mistake so more speed tapping on the calculator followed.

The girl could not work out my change without the electronic till giving her the sum and another member of staff told her what to do. I purposely counted it back in my hand to check for myself and hopefully, demonstrate how change should be manually calculated.

We paid our dues without leaving tips. I hope it wasn't too subtle a message. What a shambles!

I was reminded this week that it is the time of year, already, to make up parcels and packages in order to miss the postal crush and rush.  I have therefore, tootled down to my local post office at various times with packages, some for sending abroad.  So far, I have not had to join any long queues; I have bought stamps, having a choice of theme or every day designs though not for the European stamps; for some reason there were no festive designs available yet, for them.

"There's a lot we don't know behind the counter here," I was told.   

Never a truer word said...      

When visiting Chinatown in London, I love peering at the menus of the restaurants, that's if I don't get accosted to try a meal. If that happens I move on, though, it was half tempting to investigate the special offer "I will get for you..." at one such establishment. It was a cold night and at the front of a number of the eating places, there were young men and the occasional girl, trying to keep warm, trying to look cheerful and encourage customers to eat in at their place.