Errors

In the absolute fear that something might happen to my blog one day, whereby all of my entries would disappear into the black hole of the internet (can you see I have utmost faith in technology?), I copy all my blog entries into a word document to act as a back-up. Also, with my blog representing a diary/journal for me, it would be wise to have a hard copy for the future too, something to show the grandchildren so to speak, and so the word document thing seems to be a good idea because it will be really easy to just print it all off sometime. I don’t copy every entry across as I do it but rather spend half an hour every month or so copying all the recent entries across. This is when I notice the spelling mistakes. As soon as I hit ‘Ctrl V’ in MS Word, red and green lines appear under various words. I then spend the next minute correcting that entry of its spelling mistakes before moving on to the next one. In an attempt to improve my spelling (I have mentioned my weakness in this area before) I jot down the interesting or common mistakes and I just thought I’d share a few with you now…

• referring, preferred. These two are very common errors for me because I don’t do the double ‘r’. I’m aware of it now and will try to rectify it.
• inhaled. I typed ‘inhailed’ originally, which I now find quite amusing because it would suggest some involvement of hail stones!
• squeamish. I used a double ‘e’ but since I don’t often write this word, I’ll let myself off.
• vitamins. I have a real block with this one. I want to type ‘vitimins’ because that’s how I say it. ‘Medicine’ is a similar problem that I can never get right. It has three syllables and again the middle one causes the problem. I always want to write ‘medecine’
• Broccoli. I normally put one ‘c’ and two ‘l’s.
• Profusively. Apparently, this word does not exist but it’s been in my vocabulary for years. I assume I mean ‘profusely’ but I looked that up in the dictionary and it’s not got quite the same meaning. I have therefore not only invented a word but its meaning too. Yet the problem is that I can’t tell you what ‘profusively’ means. I can use it in the right context but I can’t explain it. Listen to me… I’m talking about a word that doesn’t exist!
• Carvery. MS Word does not understand this word but the Oxford dictionary thankfully does. The world would be a worse place without ‘carvery’…
• Repertoire. Yes I know I’m studying French! It still doesn’t look right.
• Occasional. Don’t get me started on ‘occasional’ and ‘necessary’. Two of the worst words ever dreamt up.
• Memento. I’ve always spelt it ‘momento’ and this probably explains why I get it confused with ‘momentum’. I mix up the meaning as well as the spelling and once got Debs in a right flap because I confused her with it all too!
• Overran. Bet you never knew it was two ‘r’s did you? Bet you’ve never written it either.

And that concludes the most interesting spelling errors on this blog for the past two months. Bet you’re glad you read this entry aren’t you! A point of greater interest, perhaps, is that on my Word Document Back-Up Blog, I have now written 69 pages! That’s pretty impressive for 4 months I think. I never planned on doing this amount of blogging when I first started back in November.

It’s All Happening on the Uni Front

Everyone at uni seems to have a really hectic schedule at the moment but mine’s not too bad. Current tasks are as follows:

• Reading a novel by Rousseau (18th century French guy) so that we can comment on his thoughts on the role of women in the next Georgian Britain seminar. Luckily, we can split the reading between the members in the group and I have finished my 30 pages today (It’s about 100 pages long). It’s called Emelius and Sophia and is unexpectedly gripping, so much so that I overran this morning’s study and had a late lunch.
• Learning anything I can on German history since 1945. I know very little about this and so I have no idea of the key events that I need to pick up on. We had a lecture on West Germany from 1945-1963 this week and it was quite interesting so I’m not dreading the topic. I picked up two books that looked fairly easy going yesterday. One’s on East Germany, the other’s on the West.
• Long essay (4,500 words) on Nazi propaganda. It’s not due in until April I think but it’s one of these that will probably take a month. I’ve read one book on the topic already: ‘Politics and Propaganda’ by David Welch. I only planned on glancing through it but he writes well and I found it very interesting. You may blame the German’s for the Nazi past but they were bombarded by this propaganda in every aspect of their lives for twelve years and, if they didn’t conform to it, they were subject to Nazi terror. History’s not as black and white as you think.
• Long essay on Thomas Telford’s works in Shropshire. I’m quite excited about this and have discovered a new interest that I didn’t know I had. I think I’ve found a hobby in studying civil engineering! I’ve been reading up on the history of road and canal building, bridges, tunnels, aqueducts/viaducts and it’s all really good stuff! What’s more, so much of it is still around for us to see and plays a key part in our country’s heritage. I will be trundling off to Shropshire in the next couple of weeks for a day or two, complete with camera, textbooks and notepad and pen. A real little historian I’ll be!
• French revision! I have a test next Tuesday, which I’m not looking forward to because I know I won’t have improved since December’s exam, when I just scrapped a 2:1, and it’s supposed to be harder.
• Preparing French oral. I have to talk to the class for 3 minutes on ‘worker’s rights to holiday’ e.g. how many days, bank holidays, paid holidays etc and I’m not allowed notes.
• French essay on whether cars should be banned in towns to help the environment.

I think that’s it for the immediate future. On reflection, that is pretty hectic!

Oh, I got my slavery essay back yesterday and I got 61. I thought it was better than this myself but it’s this Oxford lecturer again. Enough said.

Have to dash now to go and help mum with the dinner.

The Forsyte Saga

The Forsyte SagaJames Cellan Jones   —   DVD / VHS product page Rating:

As a family, we got the 1967 version of The Forsyte Saga out of the local library to provide a bit of family entertainment. We didn’t know much about it but dad had heard of it (it was his idea to get it out) and Debs and I had heard of the recent adaptation that had been shown on television. We weren’t sure what to expect and after the first of the 26 episodes, there were mixed reviews amongst the family. I was really into although I couldn’t understand why because it didn’t strike me, even afterwards, as something that I’d like much. Deb’s was convinced that she didn’t like it and said she wouldn’t watch another one. Dad was curious about it, seeing some potential and wanted us to give it another go and mum was half-hearted, with no great opinion either way. We disciplined ourselves to watch another couple of episodes and by the fourth or fifth one, we were all addicted. We’ve now seen eight and it has to go back to the library. We’re most probably going to buy a copy for ourselves.

The story is about the Forsyte family, a wealthy respected family in high society Victorian London. The men are committed to property, money and investment and the women to gossip. There is plenty of scandal within the family, which provides for the gossip. One man (the main man, who narrates the story) falls in love with his daughter’s governess and leaves his wife and his family to live with her. They become very happy, with two children and years later his father accepts him again as his son. Another storyline follows a young lady whose guardians are about to move away. She has had a proposal from one of the Forsyte men but plans on refusing it because she doesn’t love him. However, her guardian’s husband says that if she doesn’t marry him, she’ll have to come away with him where they will have their own ‘fun’. Scared, she accepts the Forsyte man but has a very unhappy marriage, later falling for a man who is designing her husband’s new house. Coincidently, he is engaged to her cousin! It gets a bit confusing sometimes. The architect falls in love with her too and they secretly go on seeing eachother, although it’s not too secret in the Forsyte family because news travels fast. When she returns to her husband one night, he demands where she’s been and when she replies ‘heaven’ he rapes her, which is about the only piece of news that the family members don’t like to share. Later her lover, the architect, dies and she leaves her husband with the intention of committing suicide. There are many other ’sideline’ stories going on too but these are the main ones so far.

It’s quite heavy stuff in places but strangely captivating. The whole series covers the events of the family over a couple of generations and so, between episode one and episode eight, we have already moved on about 12 or 15 years. The actors are ones that we recognise from other things and I understand that in its day it was extremely popular. It was shown on Sunday nights and it would be all the talk on Mondays at work. I understand that it wouldn’t be for everyone, especially as it’s fairly old (I personally never see this as a problem), but for its day, the sets and costumes are quite good. The camerawork is a bit unsteady, especially in outdoor scenes, but you get so involved in the story that you don’t really notice. I would say that if you’re interested, you should give it a fair go. Try not to make an opinion on the first couple of episodes – you need to watch about four or five to allow yourself to get into it and make a fair opinion. Like many programmes, it improves as it goes on and we’re totally addicted now.

Here Comes the Sun

Just took the dog for a walk at 5.40pm and it was still what I consider to be light. This means summer’s well and truly on its way! People don’t realise that it’s getting lighter in the evenings because it’s still cold but we’ve got to make the most of it – before we know it, summer will have come and gone and we’ll be back in the dark depths of winter.

P.S. Don’t you just love the song ‘Here Comes the Sun’. One of George’s best.

A History of the Guitars in My Life

I spent half an hour changing the strings on my Fender Strat this morning and polishing it. There’s something so satisfying about spending a bit of time caring for a good instrument. It’s a great guitar and looks so good when it’s been cleaned up a bit. When I first got it over 4 years ago, I was so cautious and told anyone who went near it not to spill anything, knock it or even touch it. It was my pride and joy and I preferred to just look at it on the stand than actually pick it up and play it. I suppose that’s understandable in a way because it was the greatest investment in my life until that point. However, dad saw what I was doing and reminded me that it was an instrument, a tool, not an ornament and how the odd scratch doesn’t do it any harm and will actually give it a bit more character. Four years on, it has had a fair few knocks, I’ve dropped it once or twice and it’s fell over on it’s own accord a couple of times. It has a chip on the neck, another on the head, which I’ve grown to love, and the fret board is getting very worn. I love it. It’s exactly as dad said. It gives the guitar character. You know it’s yours and you can remember where each of the scars came from, so it’s like a memento of all the places and times you’ve played. It’s far better than having a pristine, shiny instrument sitting in the corner of the room. If anyone has one like that, I know straight away that they don’t really play. All the “real” guitarists I know have completely battered guitars. One friend, Gavin, has got a Rickenbacker bass (same make as John Lennon’s electric and would fetch a bit of money) and it’s in a terrible state. The paint’s even coming off the main body but you know that it’s been everywhere with him, to all his gigs, and you know it’s a good guitar that’s been worn in, with its own sound. All the pros’ guitars are in the same state too. You watch the Eagles, Eric Clapton and Joe Brown on the tele and, unless it’s a brand new one, their guitars will have suffered a bit too.

Dad bought two effects pedals off the net last week. We’ve got the chorus one and the delay/reverb one. They’re really good. It’s not easy to overdo it and they’re really simple to use. The chorus one sounds good on ‘Here Comes the Sun’ and the other one is good on any Shadows’ tune. They look good too, I think, and you can buy a case to put them in so when you’re doing a gig you can have them all in one place and choose which combination of the five effects you want.

I’m going to look into buying a new tremolo arm for my Strat because the current one kicks out at a funny angle and it’s not as comfortable as I want it. I also want to look into buying one of those record-and-playback machines that I’ve mentioned on here previously but I think that might have to wait until birthday time because I imagine they’re pretty dear. The other thing I want to buy is a new capo. I’ve seen one of different design to the one I currently use and it looks a lot more practical.

Oh, I didn’t want to leave this entry without a brief mention about my two other guitars. I don’t want them to fall out with me for only raving about the strat because I’m sure they would. My other main guitar is a Yamaha acoustic (closest picture I could find). It can be plugged in as electric and has a single cut away in the body. Dad bought this one for me when I was about twelve and it’s really swish. It’s had a few knocks as well, though. Dad’s got a yamaha acoustic too but his doesn’t have the electric capability or the cut away and his only has silver tuning pegs, whereas mine are gold . Mind you, he beats any of my guitars with his Guild Starfire (fairly close pic). Now that it class. Oh, my other guitar is a lovely little classical one. There’s nothing special about it but it really is nice to play a classical once in a while. It lives on top of my wardrobe so it doesn’t see the light of day much but it’s the one we take on holiday in the caravan (because it’s lightweight and won’t break the bank if it gets stolen and needs replacing) and it gets plenty of use there. I’m sure the other two must get jealous of it because they never leave my home town! I did have another classical before that one, which my dad bought for me off a mate for a fiver. I loved that little thing because it was my first guitar but it had major problems, like the action was far too high, and once I got the newer one, I reluctantly let it go up the charity shop. I think I’ve got it on video somewhere though.

If you’re a non-guitar-orientated-person, I congratulate you for getting to the end of this entry.

So Much Dancing…

I had a really good time at dancing last night. I spent some time helping people out with the tango but spent most of the evening dancing with Adele. She moved up to our Thursday class from the lower Tuesday class a few months ago and is really picking things up well. She’s definitely got a natural gift for it and I want to help her as much as possible. She’s mastered the waltz, quickstep, foxtrot and cha cha to the extent of the other Thursday people and in some cases she’s better. However, she’s done limited amounts in the other dances and so we always have something to work on. I’m hoping she can pick up (and get confident in) a fair amount of each of the dances before we go on a dancing weekend holiday in four weeks time. Last night we got to do jive, which we haven’t done in ages and she picked it up really well. We also got a fair chunk of the rumba done too. She loves dancing and I couldn’t be happier than to help her out with it. The added advantage is that I get to go over and commit-to-memory the man’s steps, which is excellent for those occasions when people ask me to remind them of the steps or help them out. We also did a tiny bit of salsa last night. I don’t think Ronnie’s all that keen on it but he’s kind enough to play us a track now and then. It’s really difficult with the salsa dancing because we have very little time to practice. We learn a new routine each week at salsa (which is great, no way am I complaining) but then we struggle remembering it. Adele and I run over the steps on Mondays sometimes but we don’t have any music so it’s not like we’re dancing it properly. Our only chance is on Thursdays, so we have to make the most of it. I think we were both shattered by the end of yesterday and I only realised how much dancing we’d done when I was driving home at 10.40pm thinking about how little I’d spoken, let alone danced, with others in the group! There’s just so much dancing to be done, with so many people and yet there’s always so little time!

Modified Teeth, MP3 Logic and the Rebel in Me

Went to the dentist again this morning to get the treatment that my dentist recommended last week. I had a composite filling followed by two ‘resealings’. The first one is kind of like a real filling but not as bad. It’s what they do when a small hole of decay is starting but hasn’t got too far. They call it a ’sticky filling’ and it involved the slightest bit of drilling but, because it was only on the surface, I didn’t have to have the injection (phew!). The other good thing about composite fillings is that they are white/cream (they choose the colour to match your tooth), not silver or black, so you can’t actually see it. A smooth white tooth looks way better than one with a black hole in it. You’d never know I’d had problem with the tooth. Mind you, the colour wasn’t exactly an advantage because it’s on the side of a back tooth anyway. It could have been black, silver or rainbow coloured and you still wouldn’t have seen it. The sealing bit was fine too and involved no drilling. This is where they just put a layer over the top surface of the tooth to seal it against damage if it looks prone to getting some in the near future. (This is where the excessive coke-drinking came in.) If you look at your back tooth, it’s got four quarters to it and the dips between them made a nice brown cross shape for me before. Now it looks like I’ve got typ-ex (sp? you know what I mean) in those dips but I suppose it’s better than brown. The lady that did it was very nice. She had an excellent bedside-manner and when I showed a bit of interest in what she was doing and why, she started explaining every step and what it did and why she needed to do it. It was very educational and ideally I would have liked a mirror to watch the whole operation. I didn’t dare ask though because she had a lot on her plate already and my hands were already tied up in being in charge of the saliva-sucker  I got my tongue stuck to it at one point .

I think I know why my MP3 player’s bust. I worked it out while reading the instruction manual for my new phone. It said ‘do not receive or send calls while charging the battery because this may short-circuit the battery’. I was listening to my MP3 player when I was charging it and it conked out. I reckon I’ve done the battery in. The problem is that the device has no screws on it, so I’ve no idea how to access the battery to try changing it. Mmm… must investigate this one further.

One of my lecturers rescheduled next week’s lecture to 5.30pm tonight because she happens to be wining and dining in London next week. No chance I’m going. Can you imagine the traffic there are that time and then it’d be a bit of a rush to get to dancing. It’s not worth it so I’m going to be a rebel and skip my first uni lecture ever! In all seriousness, if she changes it, she can’t expect us all to fit in at the drop of a hat. It’s her problem if she wants to cancel it, not ours.

Oh, we had pancakes again yesterday (I wasn’t in on Tuesday so we couldn’t have them then), so that’s made it twice in about eight days. 

I went to see Joe Brown, a really good fifties/sixties musician, a few weeks ago and I’m going again soon (different venue) because he was so good. The seats aren’t brilliant but I’m sure it will still be good.

That’ll do for now. I must get down to some study because I haven’t done any yet today and Debs wants me to go shopping with her at 4pm so I haven’t got much time.