Hey, Google!

J has always kept up an up-to-date household. Me, not so much, but he has always been on the ball with gadgets. We had a ‘Home PC’ since 1982 and all the upgrades since, and we were first on the block with a video player. Oh yes, we were. We’ve run the gamut of giant video cameras propped on the shoulder, all the way down to dinky things that made us laugh that we ever toted the camera bags around on holiday in ‘the old days’. Now it's all on the phone of course, although I like my wee point and shoot, digital camera. We had the best stereo players (still have our fandabidosy Sony one from the ‘70s although it’s up in the loft). Then the stereo towers got smaller and smaller until we ended with a wall-hung B&O model that I still very much like. I’m not in a hurry to change my giant, deep-backed B&O television as I know and like the interface it uses, but he has the flat screen in 'his room', where he keeps all his DAT tapes and player, plus ancient LPs and CDs and all he needs to still listen to them (and all 'his' books despite the e-reader he has).  

He took a while to get into mobile phones, but is now hooked of course, and knows how to do stuff with them that I can only imagine. I do like that we can turn on lights while we’re away, or have the central heating turn on for us coming home, from the train. All via the phone.

The latest doodad makes us all very ‘Space Odyssey..y'. Took a while to see the use in the thing, and it’s not completely ‘SMART’ compatible (so for instance, doesn’t close the curtains remotely - leaving aside the fact we don’t have any) but it is quite the handy thing for asking questions you want the answer to, and of course, listening to music! Who needs a stereo of any description, or CDs (or LPs for that matter) nowadays?

However, the hilarity of getting it to actually do what you want is, alone, almost worth the price. We’re not quite speaking with HAL yet, and to be honest, I rarely approach the thing at all, but when you get it right, it is good. It’s just that, we don’t always get it right. This is an example of how it goes.

J: Google, please play xx by xx (no reaction, you have to say Hey Google).

J: Ffs (only, not as an acronym)… Hey Google, please play xx by xx.

G: Sure, playing abc by xyz on Spotify.

J: No, not abc, I said xx by xx! (music by total unknown plays on as you have to say Hey Google, stop, first).

J: Google stop. (music plays on… I interject with ‘say hey!’)

J: Hey Google, (schnagglefaggleskwatchsplutter) play xx by xx ffs (music plays on, he’s still not said ‘hey google, stop’ first).

J: (speaking loud and articulate, like 2 inches from the thing) Google, play xx by xx (music plays on).

J. Arghgh! Hey Google, stop! Hey Google, will you please just bloody play xx by xx. Any time you like!

G: Sure, playing xx by xx on a Spotify playlist.

J: Thank you. At last! (no reaction, because of course you have to say…)

J: Hey Google, volume down please (no response because ‘it’ (she?) can’t hear him and we’re bouncing off the walls!

J. (back to 2 inches away) Hey Google, lower the volume please (volume lowers).

So we’re ten minutes further and we finally can listen to whoever it is he has requested. And then it stops after one number because he didn’t ask for the album, and it just played one track. 

It’s smashing like, great sound (I do hear it with my CI and HA on), but I can’t help thinking we need some kind of improvement to the voice recognition.

When the boys are over, it’s a constant ‘hey Google…’ with them asking it questions as well as playing daft Dutch stuff), which is great fun but ‘she’ doesn’t always understand Dutch as is tuned to UK English and IF they use English they have a dutch accent (and a Scottish accent throws things out of kilter too). And that’s another thing! I don’t like this beatch in her English accent, saying ‘sure’ to me all the time!! ‘Shoa, hee’s xx by xx …’ Grrrr.

All this is not even exaggerated. Well, maybe a bit… but not a lot. Still, he got one for upstairs, ‘for when the boys are over’ and a rival one for in his room.

We now also have another one of the things (the rival version, called Echo) that he listens to before falling asleep in bed. Which I don’t even know is on (deaf). That one also replaces our radio alarm, which I never hear anyway and tend to wake up before it goes off, which is good, because when I don't, I barely hear it but it has him almost hitting the ceiling when it turns on, so loud. I only know that Echo is doing anything at all, from a wee light that whirls around, and I know to just say Echo stop, to shut it down. All mod cons, me!

I like it, I do, and with four of the feckers in the house, we are still up there with the Jones’ I’m sure, but I think I like my ‘retro’ record player better and will stick to that when doing the ironing. The wait is now on the 'rivals' rising up in the battle of the robots and taking over this asylum, so I'm keeping them on-side for now.

Knickers to that!

Knickers eh? What a strange garment.

I was contemplating them... as you do... and the more I looked at the various sizes folded neatly on my shelf there, the more the mind boggled at the whole industry that has arisen over the years, around just that (relatively) small item. It's big business, from the six pairs for a tenner made in some horrible dungeon in India, to one tiny bit of fluff for... oooh, way too much!... made in some horrible dungeon in India. (Well, who knows!)

It's a fairly modern bit of apparel by all accounts and used to be very 'sensible', going on the examples still to be found from Victorian days. Imagine if your knickers were to be on display in a museum. Arghgh. Big giant bloomers, originally crotchless too. I suppose the long gowns worn at the time kept the drafts off. I do wonder why anyone would want antique knickers of any persuasion from any previous owner, even if she was the Queen. 2nd-hand of any age do not appeal to me one bit! I suppose it's handy, for historical purposes if nothing else. Bras, I can see, sure. Knickers... not so much. 'If they're not new, they're not for you!'

There was no such thing as knicker elastic in those days either so, untying when you've a long gown on top... hmmm, makes sense to be open to the elements so you don't have to do that. So now I'm imagining the horrors of the easily-tripped-over hems on grand staircases with legs akimbo, head over heels... bad enough nowadays, with crotches intact! Not counting the risque crotchless affairs available.

I remember when first married, we had two old age pensioners in the flats below and they shared the same drying green with us. Old Maggie used to rail at us about old Janet with her dainties hanging out for all to see... 'You can't tell me she wears them!' she'd rant. 'They're just for show! Do you see the size of them?' They were indeed of the rather tiny variety, and given the age, not to mention shape, of Janet, they were on the small size. You can't know though. How would we know?! Though Maggie did have a point, there was no finding out for sure. It was hilarious listening to the rants, I have to say. Discussing your neighbour's ludicrous, knicker-wearing habits has to be up there with the best of comical memories. Aaah, good times.

Myself, I've never taken to those string affairs... thongs, whatever they're called. I know plenty wear them, but have never seen the attraction. I suppose they can look good on a beach but the examples of actually attractive derierres are few and far between... let's be honest here. Not worth the horrors that are displayed with impunity... and man, but they're uncomfortable (I did try). I really don't see the point of them and dread to think what the neighbours would say if they saw them hanging out on my line!

I will admit to, fairly recently, still buying the ones that are just too bloody wee. I mean, they fit, sure, but they don't... cover. Ye cannae tuck yer vest in! I've finally capitulated though, and will no longer subject myself to the discomfort of anything but nice, comfy BIG pants. You can get them nice now too! You can! 

They do look horrendous on the line, I agree. Even I can hold them up in disbelief that 'these are mine?!' but I'm now that pensioner neighbour that Maggie was wont to ridicule behind her back and really, what IS the point of flaunting wee bits of lace and elastic that merely make you look ridiculous - and are uncomfortable to boot?

I am at peace with myself that there will be no more 'dance of the seven veils' at the bottom of the bed. Comical as it was to start with, it didn't used to make him want to poke his eyes out like it does now. So, the tiny knicks really are history... or at least will be when the currect supply runs out. I don't see any of my cast-offs turning up in a museum display cabinet in the year 2345, but then again, I won't be around to complain about it so, fire ahead you historians.

I do have some nice ones, damn it though. I'll probably never even get through all of them because, as is usual, I tend to keep rewearing the newly-washed comfies until they wear out, which isn't fast, not really, and the wee useless things stay unworn at the bottom of the pile. Then I buy new ones. I think the trick is to combine 'giant' with 'pretty' with 'practical' with 'comfy'. They do exist, and not all of them are extortionately priced, so I'm golden for a whiley yet.

So. This was not to gross anyone one about the thought of my knicker collection, but just to get it off my chest about one of the luxury problems we women all face at some point in our lives. There are more pressing problems in the world, I do realise, but I have little or no say about most of them. 

I feel so free now... almost like I'm not wearing knickers.

The Old Days

I had been thinking, as you do, of ‘the old days’.

Now, that’s a loaded phrase really, as it means different things to different people and what’s old to one, is really, REALLY old to another (although at my age, living witnesses to that much older are thin on the ground)… But also, not all THAT old to yet another. It’s the nature of things.

For instance, when I see the likes of The Old Grey Whistle Test repeated on the telly… that looks so dated and so long ago, and then Top of The Pops repeating stuff from… the 90s… what? That’s not long ago? I don’t even KNOW that stuff! Hah! And yet that generation look on it as 'history' already. Funny how music does play such a role.

Things in the world are definitely different to when I was a kid though. I only just make the cut and can’t say, in wee quivery old granny voice, ‘there were no tellies when I was wee’… but only just. The one we had was the iconic giant wooden box with small screen.

I remember too when we got an ‘automatic’ washing machine that superseded the washhouse. It was a weird-looking thing, noisy and a bit of a stood-in-the-way item. We used a clothes pulley to dry the washing too, which is quite the chic item to have nowadays, great to hang dried flowers on for instance… haha, the very idea. I still would rather like one for clothes to be fair. Funny thinking of it hanging over our heads in the kitchen.

It’s more in my adult life though, that I notice the huge changes in the world. Of course, things always change, but when you think of videotape players not even being around when your kids were small, the mind boggles. We were the first in our neighbourhood to have one, and this huge thing would be handed around, house to house, for others to have a go on it. Imagine! A Walkman… man, it was so small compared to the huge cassette player I had bought him ten years previously and which was lugged around faithfully just the same. Then DVD players… and those minidisc things… home computers for goodness sakes… we bought them all early, for a fortune every time. It’s all on our phones now, and more, and it all costs less!

How things are done changes too of course. I know the world is a different place, but my ‘hen night’ was a boozy mistake of a party. One night ending in a pile of puke, shortly before my wedding day, and I know all my friends did the same. Now, it’s weekends in Prague, or a week on Ibiza! I couldn’t have contemplated that. ‘Newly weds’ are often late 30s… older… with whole lives behind them and they have already lived together for years or have kids, perhaps even together, before marriage is even mentioned. Even younger ones wouldn’t dream of moving into a house without having, well, everything, first. Some things are better right enough.

Music changes too. I remember as a teenager, the phrase ‘it’ll never take the place of music’ being said about a favourite ‘album’ of ours, by ‘the older generation’. How we laughed. Look now… I cannot get my head around some of the stuff they call ‘music’ now and it will never take the place of music! It’s like, what goes around, comes around. But our music was the best. Said our parents.

I can appreciate loads of music from before my generation I just often find myself unable to follow new stuff at all, and yet kids belt it out… you see them at filmed concerts, and the new ‘stars’ of today have just as huge followings as the stars did when we were kids. The musicians of my generation (yes, I hear myself saying it, bah) are still great musicians though. I just cannot imagine anyone getting nostalgic for techno though! Mind you, I can’t differentiate one track from another, nor one ‘producer’ from the other, and I know people can.

Nostalgia eh? We’ve managed to see most of our ‘heroes’ live in concert, if not at the time we first knew them, then at silver, hell, golden anniversary tours, and they were (are) still great although I prefer it if the likes of Jagger doesn’t jump around as he used to... really too old. But I still hear myself say ‘these new fly-by-nights will never be having reunion tours’… followed by headline news of ‘Take That’ already doing similar (for instance, and they were my kids’ generation). It won’t happen with the new, new ones though! Will it?

I honestly think, if the dead could come back (never mind The Rapture, just plain old visiting) they would run back to wherever they came from. Everything gets faster, louder, crasser, cheaper, madder, ruder… All. The. Time. And doesn’t look to be slowing down any time soon. Despite lockdowns and viruses. Will there be a limit? Or will it all go ‘retro’ at some point?

I do try to keep up. I’m not in my box yet. And yet, there seems to come a point when you just turn into the old person that says ‘remember when…’ all the time. This all may or may not have to do with me researching things on genealogy sites and ‘finding’ evidence of direct family from way back, who couldn’t have imagined the world of today in their wildest dreams. Even my parents were around long before regular flights abroad were ‘normal’ (never mind even considered for hen nights!).

So hold on to your hats you young things. It’s going to be a wild ride… assuming us lot leave enough of the planet around for you to ride on.