So everything is rosy

Well not quite.

While my computer (mrrrrrmmmm) is gorgeous and my email is working fine,  Barney’s business website appears to have vanished off the face of the (virtual) earth and his email remains unsorted.

I spent most of today rooting around in every virtual corner of the universe and every account I could think of without discovering a way to access the vanished website.  I do have a screen print of a message which suggests that the server associated with it is – um – not well?  It’s just a bit suspicious that I can’t find the thing immediately after setting up a new machine.  But it can’t be connected?  Can it?  I just don’t see how.  I mean even if I can’t get into (as in edit) the website, it must still be sitting out there somewhere and typing it’s name into a web browser ought to reveal it?  No?

Yes damnit!  It ought.

Tomorow (Or monday) I shall ring some people and ask them what our account name/passwords are. They ought to be able to find us since they send us an invoice for the website hosting and we give them money every month?

Computers are as bad as children.

When I went to Brighton I saw this

fly!

and I thought, when I was very small, I dreamed of flying down the stairs.  Next morning I tried it.  Mmm.  Not well thought out but gave me a useful lesson in distinguishing dreams from reality and in losing faith in dreams.  Also gave me a slightly sore backside.

Then, also, I imagined a web that covered the world and through which people of all kinds and in all places could instantly communicate.  (I had a bit of help with that one since it’s been a staple Sci Fi / Fantasy theme since long before I was born).  And now – look at us all – typing away all over the globe to each other.

Then, again, I dreamed of making music.  This was very very hard when I was about five and couldn’t read or write music.  I imagined a machine that would listen to me singing (tunelessly and repetitively down on my knees with a sheet of paper, on the floor) and write all the notes down for me.  Now I have Sibelius on my computer and with a little more effort (and a lot of money) I could make it do that for me though of course, now I can read and write music as well.

So what do our children learn about dreams and reality?  Sometimes it seems that whatever we dream of, can be made very nearly real.  Not quite but nearly flying, not telepathy but nearly instantaneous communication, not exactly listening to me but setting out my music ready for anyone to read and playing it back to me so I can hear what I’ve written (even when its written for a whole orchestra)

And as for children,their dreams can be made perhaps a little less real.  Think of  Barbie and the endless, unreal magic of Disney films.  All those little doll figures with houses and furniture and pets and grooming parlours and hair you can restyle yourself and *shudder* baby dolls that even wee!

A child dreams of a furry fourlegged friend and gets a barbie dog.

A child dreams of a baby and gets a floppy thing with a horrifically realistic head which she can then dangle alarmingly over the handle of her horribly realistic pram.

A child dreams of winning the fights in his head and gets any number of things that shoot stuff out of the ends.  Including water.

A child dreams of being one of the best and gets to play killing games online with amazing reality effects.

A child dreams of driving Dad’s car and gets to hurl a super car round a super track in a super cityscape on a super wide HD Screen.

Reality becomes relative doesn’t it.  Dreams metamorphise into something virtual.

Phew!  I’m going back into the virtual world.  Real life is far too ambiguous for me.  At least in here I know where I’m not.

Marmite, hoping and praying for cheese on toast.  Dream on Marmite.

please?

Youngest, with a child.  Nearly all the photos of her at the party showed her with a child, usually on a hip.  Unusually, this is one of her children.

I don’t know what they were looking at.  Probably a child : )  Hopefully, at some stage I’ll see a photo : )

Cheeky boys

At last – all my wires tidied up and completely rationalised.

(What d’you mean not tidy?  You should have seen them before!)

After

After the party

After

Now I have to go and minister to He W ho Has Had a Tooth Out.  He is sad.  He forgot that, though the removal of bad teeth relieves pain, there is a lot of pain involved in the removal and the subsequent recovery.  I Remember this Experience Well so I have Sympathy.   I have just read Music and Silence by Rose Tremain and so I am Strongly Tempted to Capitalise Everything as one of her best and naughtiest characters did.  It’s a very good read.

(It seems like not all the photos have arrived properly.  If they still haven’t arrived later, I’ll repost them)