Like the paint, I cracked...

The article I am most proud of on this site was written about my dad. Writing it allowed me to express something that I hope one day, before it is too late, I will be able to say (to him!) out loud (or let him read, as we would probably both die of embarrassment).

As I mentioned in the article, he was coming to visit us. Well, now he's here. We've been through the ice-breaking Manchester City performance conversation (surprisingly good) and the weather (surprisingly bad - did I say he'd had a run of bad luck?).

However, there was something hanging in the air between us...we both knew what it was (reading the original article will give you a clue if you can't wait for another line or so), but neither of us could bring ourselves to mention it.

After 2 days we cracked: I dropped in references to the difficulty of painting the fascia around the outside of the house before winter set in, and he pointed out that the walls were a bit dirty above the radiators and where the paintings of the previous owner had hung.

I swore (in writing to a whole community of readers - I know of at least 3 now!) that I would never, ever, under any circumstances ask him to do any decorating for me - after 45 years he deserved a break.

But he offered, honestly, I swear, I never asked. OK, I dropped subtle hints: I bought a pot of paint and some brushes, looked at the price of ladders (damned expensive) and left the catalogues lying around, but surely he would never pick up on this? You don't believe me? You know me too well already...

I'm selfish, lazy, exploitative and currently feeling extremely guilty, but, on the bright side, I have a very nicely painted interior.

Now, I just need to get that fascia painted before winter sets in...

Organised-Panic buying

Like any country, the French have some laws that may appear stupid viewed from outside. For example, 70% of the music played on French radio must be in French (an edict from l'Académie Française which aims to protect the purity of the French language - which anyway they are currently losing because of the pace of expansion of the web and IT technology in general). Another one I like is that it is forbidden to wear shorts in public swimming pools. No, you cannot go naked before you ask; you must wear "correct attire", or, as we say in the north of England, "skimpers" or "Speedos". Apparently this was because too many young scamps were diving in with cut-off jeans.

Anyway, at the weekend, I learnt a new silly law. Apparently, the law stipulates that there cannot be more than a given number of supermarkets per capita (i.e. you can't have a town with 1000 inhabitants with, say, 10 supermarkets). Unfortunately, the law doesn't stipulate the size of the supermarkets, which has led to the concept of hyper-markets. You just don't have supermarkets this big in the UK and you can buy anything in them (last week, my "local" supermarket was selling motor-bikes).

Last weekend, this supermarket had what they call a braderie; literally, a clearance sale - except that it wasn't quite that: it was an well-planned exercise in marketing and selling and gave me an excellent opportunity to observe mass hysteria.

What they did was set up a huge tent in front of the shop. Everything in there was piled into roughly arranged bins and sellers with loudspeakers were continually announcing "Only 1 minute left for the knock-down price of 2€ instead of the marked 10€ for any old crap" (Actually, I added the "any old crap" bit myself). And the people lapped it up. The loudspeaker bearers moved around the tent. Anything that looked like it wasn't shifting fast enough was put on a 2 minute "flash sale". People were following the loud-speaking loudspeakers around the tent from "bargain to bargain". The noise, the carefully organised impression of anarchy, all served to raise the excitement and stress level of the people who no doubt already regret buying most of the stuff they bought. Perfect selling.

Once, a long time ago, I was on Oxford Street in London, and went into a "shop" that, on the face of it, was an auction. Interest was garnered by projecting the voice of the auctioneer onto the street outside and having human gorillas limiting entry to the room. The place was crowded and the "bargains" were flowing from the auctioneer. It shows how long ago it was, because he was selling the original Nintendo GameBoys for £1 or whatever. However, I stood at the back and watched. I noticed after a while that the people getting the bargains were actually part of the scam (because that is what it was) as they invariably headed out of the shop, only to re-appear a few minutes later to make their way back to the front of the crowd. The thing worked perfectly because I watched people being cajoled into buying "lucky-dip" bags, with the promise that they may have the said GameBoys inside. These bags cost £50 because there was "much, much more" inside. However, my guess is that those bags contained nothing but a load of tat (and no, it wasn't me who bought any of the lucky-dip bags - it is pure supposition on my part).

This scam was a revelation to me at the time as I know I am naive, but it was nowhere near the scale of hysteria that I witnessed this weekend - people fighting to get the last low-voltage light-bulb or whatever. I didn't buy anything inside the tent - I couldn't stand more than a few minutes and went into the relatively calm shop where I bought a desk-lamp for 5€, reduced from 10€ - a bargain (and for the record, I was actually planning to buy one before I went there).

The thought hit me that maybe I could have got it for 2€ in the braderie, so, out of interest, I went back to look for it. Sure enough, there it was, at the bargain, knock-down price of...5€. Maybe I should have followed the loudspeaker people around, hoping to get it for 4€ or something?

The outcome of all this? I got home, plugged it in and the damned thing doesn't work. So I guess I'll be back there next week. At least the braderie has finished.

Some things I love about France

One of my first posts on this site was to list 3 things that annoy me about living in France. I also enabled Google Analytics. I noticed that some small-minded idiot found this post by typing "i hate french people" into the search box (presumably (s)he was, however, a big fan of "freedom fries").

I didn't want to become some kind of dropping-off spot for jingoists, so given that I've lived in France for a few years, I thought I should complete the story and write about what I like about France.

However, when I started to think about it, I started to panic: what I disliked was easy, but I really struggled to list the positive things - the reasons I am here (not in an existential sense) and why I don't plan to leave! Could it be that there is no reason to stay?

France is just like any other country - it has its own social and economic problems, and when it comes down to it, the things I like are fairly nebulous: I like eating outside, I like the open spaces, I like the sense of history, I like the love of food, I like the climate, I like the language.

The thing is, you can say this about many places in the world (I once said it of Australia - apart from the language bit). When it comes down to it then, it's not where you are, but who you are with that matters. France just happens to provide the framework, and a damn fine one at that!

God, I sound like Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz", or James Stewart at the end of "It's a Wonderful Life".

What is a paper clip?

I work in the software industry and interview lots of candidates for software engineering posts. I have a section on Google Reader which on a pretty much weekly basis argues the pros and cons of asking programmer-type questions for programmers during interviews. I'm pretty much of the view that you should ask these types of questions, albeit in my case in a standardised form which allows for direct comparison and doesn't penalise syntactic errors.
Anyway, many more intelligent people than me have debated this subject to death and this is not entirely my point.

What I wanted to mention briefly here is a question that I was asked many years ago, and I often wish that I had kept my answer just to see how I got on.

After finishing a degree in Physics, I drifted for some time, not knowing which way to turn, but at least grateful that I had options. One of the options was to become a "technical patent attorney". This would basically have involved protecting the intellectual property of engineering developments. Maybe it would have been interesting, maybe not - fate took me elsewhere. However, I will never forget being asked the following question, with an A4 sheet of paper placed in front of me for the answer:

"Describe a paper clip"

If I asked this question of most people with simply a pencil and paper in front of them, they would be an amazing range of answers - some just completely missing the point altogether. If you have some time, don't try it and don't expect me to be trying it either.

However, with an internet connection and a basic knowledge of search syntax (i.e. the ability to type "paper clip" into a search box, every possible detail, most of which you have no desire to know about, will be available to you...

This is great, but long live pen, paper, scientific analysis and imagination! And paper-clips.

The Bryan Robson Experience

Have you ever had an MRI? I had one today; it was part my why-am-I-having-epileptic-seizures-all-the-time saga? See my older posts for more details.

I should explain that I have had lots of MRI scans in the past (in a previous professional incarnation I studied MRI images of people's knees in order to try to calculate whether their arthritis treatment was working or not).

As I already said, my epilepsy first showed itself in around 1994 when I working with the radiologists looking at the said pictures of knees. It seems crazy now, but it wasn't taken too seriously at the time and I had a colleague take an image of my brain with the result "yeah, no tumour there". Fast, professional and re-assuring.

Times and locations have moved on; today, I felt small, weak and frankly, a bit scared. The French medical system is notoriously protracted, and it was only after a visit to a GP, who referred me to a neurologist (for medication), who referred me to a neurologist (for an EEG) who referred me to another neurologist (for the MRI), that I finally arrived at the clinic.

An MRI is not dangerous in itself. It's very ingenious in fact, but that's for you to find out- if you are ever given the choice between an X-ray and an MRI - take the MRI. If you are claustrophobic, are sensitive to loud noise or have a nervous tic, keep away unless absolutely necessary.

After having a drip inserted in your arm, your head is clamped, headphones placed (obviously) on your head, a panic button placed in one hand and you are slid into the machine. With suitably funereal music, you could almost imagine being sent into the fires for your own cremation. Unfortunately, I was not treated to funereal music - I had "An Englishman in New York" by Sting. Why, I don't know, but there you go.

I once watched a friend playing Counterstrike, a ridiculously violent shoot-em-up game. The sounds from that game reminded me of what I heard for 15 minutes. Repetitive banging with tonal changes for interest (all of course with Sting crooning in the background - although I don't remember songs about Quentin Crisp featuring in Counterstrike).

Anyway, the good news is that I don't have a tumour (God, I hadn't even considered that before the neurologist informed me) and I don't have any dead bits of brain (apart from the bits that I killed this evening with a very nice 2006 Chardonnay.

So now it's back to the old routine of trying different combinations of medicines that might reduce the seizure rate to around 1 per 3 months (according to neurologist 2). I guess I should be relieved by all that, but I feel a little shaken up by it all really.

A little aside:

The funniest thing about all this epilepsy stuff is that I am pretty sure I remember when it was triggered. I was playing for Writtle FC (oh yes, those heady days of amateur football in the Chelmsford area). We had a corner, I was positioned just outside the box and said to myself (wait for it), if this gets flicked on at the near post, I'm gonna make a late run "just like Bryan Robson" and head it in. Sure enough, near post. Sure enough, not quite as good a player as Bryan, a head butt to the side of the head and a somersault that left most people thinking I had broken my neck rather than induced epilepsy. So you see, every cloud has a silver lining - I am not Bryan Robson!

Don't try this at home

You haven't read "Lord of the Flies"!!! A truly great and disturbing novel. You probably don't know me, but trust me, read it.

That said, this week I have been off work and looking after my two sons. One is pre-disposed to cutting wit and the other is pre-disposed to upper-cutting. Chaos theory reigns in our house. A moment of sibling harmony can degenerate into violence for no apparent reason. Those who know us know that this is only slightly exaggerated. I realised that the only way to get through the week with my sanity still hanging on by a thread was to keep them on the brink of extreme fatigue and therefore too tired to wind each other up. Hence, daily visits to the swimming pool.

Anyway, this set me thinking about the above-mentioned classic. I wondered what would happen if the two of them were left alone in the house with no other company (or possibility thereof)? Would they find a balance that would see them co-operate and get through it as a team? Or would it spiral out of control as in the novel? An interesting thought experiment, but one the social services would not look too favourably upon "I'm a scientist conducting a serious experiment..."

I suspect that sibling rivalry lies at the heart of it all and that when it comes down to it, brotherly-acceptance (I wouldn't go as far as saying "brotherly love") would overcome and I would return to find them hopping from one leg to the other in the manner of "Lord of the Dance" rather than hopping from one leg to the other after some kind of knee-capping attempt.

On the bright side, my breast-stroke has come along nicely this week - there is a hint of tautness in my pectoral sagginess...

Mon Père, Ce Héros

So yeah, I've already said loads of times that we just moved house. I've also said that I've been doing some painting and catching up on some dodgy old music. I also did a lot of thinking. One of my recurring thoughts was that "painting and decorating is extremely dull".

I also thought about a comment I made recently on another website. This guy had a full blown argument with his father over a trivial matter. My response was that the real reason for the argument may have deeper roots; all very "Marjorie Proops". I also said that, in general, my conversations with my father didn't get past the fortunes of Manchester City (which are never good) and the weather (not very often good either).

Bear with me, there's a link coming here...

My dad was a painter and decorator for 45 years. 40 of which he spent painting hospital walls! I can't imagine how that can have been. I cannot face any more after 3 days. How could he stand it? Do you know what: I've never even asked him. It's so obvious that he hated his work and couldn't wait to retire. Even more, 1 month after retiring - 1 month - he is diagnosed with prostate cancer.

To summarise: My dad left school at 14, got a job as an apprentice painter, was bullied so much that I can tell it still hurts and left him painfully shy, then painted hospital walls for 40 years, before retiring and being told he had cancer 1 month later.

Through all that time, he never seemed outwardly depressed and was the model father - school plays, football matches, he was there for the rest of his family. But what did I do to thank him? Sod all.
Worse, I "grow up" and buy a house and what's the first thing I say on the phone (after the opening gambits of Manchester City and weather): "Can you come around this weekend and wallpaper the living room..?". I am even now fighting the urge to ask him to do a spot of painting when he comes over to see us in September.

He deserves better, much better - I've got to find a way to pay him back - maybe a Manchester City scarf or one of those flashy weather stations?

Or maybe one day I'll tell him he's my hero...