My earlier satirical blog about package holidays has made some people on Facebook think that we didn't enjoy our holiday in Rhodes, Greece. Nothing could be further from the truth. We loved it. Peace and quiet. Swimming pool. Food and drink. Excellent.
There is much to be said for package holidays - just don't go on the 'trips' and get a ground floor room. Enough!
Wednesday, 26 August 2009
The curse of email
Why do people still send you work emails when you are away on holiday? Why does the work keep on coming in? Well, life goes on, that's why.
I have developed a method of reducing the stress from this flood, which is occasionally to look at incoming emails whilst I am away, particularly if it is for more than a week. It is often impossible because it is dependent on internet access, but it helps to know what timebombs are ticking away in the inbox. I find this far more relaxing than ignorance. Some people wouldn't, but I do. However, I do not expect myself to respond until I am back at work and nor should anyone else.
I have developed a method of reducing the stress from this flood, which is occasionally to look at incoming emails whilst I am away, particularly if it is for more than a week. It is often impossible because it is dependent on internet access, but it helps to know what timebombs are ticking away in the inbox. I find this far more relaxing than ignorance. Some people wouldn't, but I do. However, I do not expect myself to respond until I am back at work and nor should anyone else.
Sunday, 23 August 2009
package holidays with greasy chips and hot bodies
I cannot decide whether or not I like package holidays. You know the sort - the ones with the bored travel company 'rep' who tries to make you feel welcome by singling out your family to be the only one without the 'welcome pack'. "Oh dear, we are one short, but you won't mind" and "Can I see your paperwork just to make sure you should be here? Nothing to worry about".
This 'welcome pack', if you had it, would tell you about all the rip-off trips to see distant and obscure carpet factories, candy floss spinners or sponge divers. In any of these places you will spend about three hours watching people work, thinking how tragic their lives are, and then being brow beaten into buying a silk carpet, unique candy floss or exceptional bath sponge for thousands of whatever-the-currency-is. Your rational mind will have been washed away by endless cups of sweet hot liquid, purporting to be tea, and you will only realise that the beautiful carpet is quite the wrong colour and design for your home decor once it has arrived through the post about 12 weeks later - if indeed it does arrive.
These holidays generally take place under an azure blue sky, in the blazing sun, by the beach, in a hotel with a swimming pool, and unavailable sun beds. Your room will have a balcony which is constructed with a low enough surround for the smallest child to peer over to enjoy the view of the local builders, at 6 in the morning, power digging foundations for the new hotel next door. If the balcony is carefully designed, the child will be able to scale the railings and fall unhindered and powered by gravity into the cement mixer or the swimming pool some six floors down. Bye bye.
Swimming pool is a misnomer. Actually, very little swimming takes place in a hotel pool because it is generally used as a means of cooling down by simply plunging into it with a very sweaty and very hot body. In fact, very sweaty is enough. You don't have to have a very hot body, but it helps. Where was I?
The food, oh dear, the food. There is a tendency in such places to produce poor quality British style food just because it is assumed that the British won't eat anything else, including good quality British style food. This is the 'greasy chips with everything' mentality. I don't know why they think that people from Birmingham, Bradford and Bognor Regis wouldn't like anything else. At least good British food would be a start - a spicy Chicken Tikka or king prawn fried rice for example.
At least on our just completed holiday in Rhodes we could find genuine Greek food in the local tavernas and nearly everyone spoke the lingua franca, the vehicular language, of, guess what? English. I have yet to go anywhere in the world where I cannot use English to communicate reasonably effectively with the local population where the vernacular was unknown to me. Luckily my rusty French comes back when I need it, but I digress.
The Austrian with whom I got chatting on the local bus in Rhodes assured me that there was no point in the British learning any language but English. He proclaimed that there is only one language which is used in international business and commerce and it is...well, we all know, don't we?
I didn't get onto the cultural and personal identity aspects of language as it felt rather pointless under the circumstances, but I did mention I had learned Welsh. He made no spoken comment but looked bewildered. With a broad smile symbolising the affinity and world peace which can only be maintained by effective communication and understanding, I bid him 'aufeder-whatsit' in his local language and alighted from the bus into the blazing sun.
Now don't burn, don't even allow your self a sun tan, because all this leads to melonoma and melonoma is a serious and potentially lethal skin cancer. Yet so many people still go on these package hols to the sun. Are we all suicidal or merely idiotic? Perhaps we just think 'well, I have to die sometime, so I want to have had a tan before I do'. I guess that's fair enough.
So, do I like package holidays? That requires thinking and you shouldn't have to think on holiday, so I've no idea. Now, where's that carpet factory?
This 'welcome pack', if you had it, would tell you about all the rip-off trips to see distant and obscure carpet factories, candy floss spinners or sponge divers. In any of these places you will spend about three hours watching people work, thinking how tragic their lives are, and then being brow beaten into buying a silk carpet, unique candy floss or exceptional bath sponge for thousands of whatever-the-currency-is. Your rational mind will have been washed away by endless cups of sweet hot liquid, purporting to be tea, and you will only realise that the beautiful carpet is quite the wrong colour and design for your home decor once it has arrived through the post about 12 weeks later - if indeed it does arrive.
These holidays generally take place under an azure blue sky, in the blazing sun, by the beach, in a hotel with a swimming pool, and unavailable sun beds. Your room will have a balcony which is constructed with a low enough surround for the smallest child to peer over to enjoy the view of the local builders, at 6 in the morning, power digging foundations for the new hotel next door. If the balcony is carefully designed, the child will be able to scale the railings and fall unhindered and powered by gravity into the cement mixer or the swimming pool some six floors down. Bye bye.
Swimming pool is a misnomer. Actually, very little swimming takes place in a hotel pool because it is generally used as a means of cooling down by simply plunging into it with a very sweaty and very hot body. In fact, very sweaty is enough. You don't have to have a very hot body, but it helps. Where was I?
The food, oh dear, the food. There is a tendency in such places to produce poor quality British style food just because it is assumed that the British won't eat anything else, including good quality British style food. This is the 'greasy chips with everything' mentality. I don't know why they think that people from Birmingham, Bradford and Bognor Regis wouldn't like anything else. At least good British food would be a start - a spicy Chicken Tikka or king prawn fried rice for example.
At least on our just completed holiday in Rhodes we could find genuine Greek food in the local tavernas and nearly everyone spoke the lingua franca, the vehicular language, of, guess what? English. I have yet to go anywhere in the world where I cannot use English to communicate reasonably effectively with the local population where the vernacular was unknown to me. Luckily my rusty French comes back when I need it, but I digress.
The Austrian with whom I got chatting on the local bus in Rhodes assured me that there was no point in the British learning any language but English. He proclaimed that there is only one language which is used in international business and commerce and it is...well, we all know, don't we?
I didn't get onto the cultural and personal identity aspects of language as it felt rather pointless under the circumstances, but I did mention I had learned Welsh. He made no spoken comment but looked bewildered. With a broad smile symbolising the affinity and world peace which can only be maintained by effective communication and understanding, I bid him 'aufeder-whatsit' in his local language and alighted from the bus into the blazing sun.
Now don't burn, don't even allow your self a sun tan, because all this leads to melonoma and melonoma is a serious and potentially lethal skin cancer. Yet so many people still go on these package hols to the sun. Are we all suicidal or merely idiotic? Perhaps we just think 'well, I have to die sometime, so I want to have had a tan before I do'. I guess that's fair enough.
So, do I like package holidays? That requires thinking and you shouldn't have to think on holiday, so I've no idea. Now, where's that carpet factory?
Wednesday, 19 August 2009
Sunday, 16 August 2009
rest and relaxation
Just at the moment I am enjoying a little rest and relaxation with my family. Wonderful!
Friday, 7 August 2009
Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)
This morning we had a 3 month contract review, with DWP, on the volunteering scheme which WCVA is working on in Wales with the Volunteer Centres here. This matches those who have been claiming Job Seekers Allowance for 6 months to volunteering positions, if they are interested in volunteering. Claimants do not have to do this, it is entirely up to them. This was a helpful meeting.
Chicago
Last night we went to the musical Chicago. On the stage were very attractive and scantily clad young(ish) women singing and dancing raunchy numbers with, I am assured by my wife Rosie, equally attractive men - this was prohibition era Chicago, after all. You know what happened to me that must be the ultimate embarrassment? I am sure you can guess, because it so often happens in semi-darkened rooms and most particularly in bed.... I yawned. Yes, I yawned and my eyelids started to close. I am still trying to recover from the embarrassment!
The musical Chicago is actually anything but soporific. Once I had awakened myself from my near slumber, I concentrated on the show and enjoyed it. Afterwards wife and daughter loitered around the stage door for autographs whilst I went for milk at Tesco. Well, someone has to do these mundane chores, don't they?
The musical Chicago is actually anything but soporific. Once I had awakened myself from my near slumber, I concentrated on the show and enjoyed it. Afterwards wife and daughter loitered around the stage door for autographs whilst I went for milk at Tesco. Well, someone has to do these mundane chores, don't they?
Wednesday, 5 August 2009
Translation from Welsh to Gobbledeegook
I have been asked to translate the blog I wrote in Welsh about the Eisteddfod using an online translation service in order to test it. I did and it leaves me bewildered and incredulous. It translates what I wrote as:
he went me girl Jennie , I go I I ' group Eisteddfod crookedly the I Dig today. He was ' I do much he people in he was going he y the field I see everything. I did I speak he things Russell Owen he Mantle ) , the Minister Health I Fade Hart AND Graham Benfield the prime workmen WCVA Nerys Biddulph Hughes he Brestatyn , Bran Targett he ' group Council signs Everything Wales I go someone he ' group embassy America crookedly London I go much he people friendly other also. we were we signs the field between 10 I go 4.30 o'clock. He was everything excellently!
Clearly the final sentence above does not refer to the translator. For my next trick I will translate English to Welsh. Let's try:
I am quite sure that this sentence will make complete and utter sense in Welsh when it is translated online here.
'Dwi eithaf 'n ddiball a hon ddedfryda ewyllysia gwna chwblha a draethu bwyll pryd dydy cyfieithedig online 'ma'.
Come on you Welsh speakers, how accurate is this?
he went me girl Jennie , I go I I ' group Eisteddfod crookedly the I Dig today. He was ' I do much he people in he was going he y the field I see everything. I did I speak he things Russell Owen he Mantle ) , the Minister Health I Fade Hart AND Graham Benfield the prime workmen WCVA Nerys Biddulph Hughes he Brestatyn , Bran Targett he ' group Council signs Everything Wales I go someone he ' group embassy America crookedly London I go much he people friendly other also. we were we signs the field between 10 I go 4.30 o'clock. He was everything excellently!
Clearly the final sentence above does not refer to the translator. For my next trick I will translate English to Welsh. Let's try:
I am quite sure that this sentence will make complete and utter sense in Welsh when it is translated online here.
'Dwi eithaf 'n ddiball a hon ddedfryda ewyllysia gwna chwblha a draethu bwyll pryd dydy cyfieithedig online 'ma'.
Come on you Welsh speakers, how accurate is this?
Monday, 3 August 2009
Yr Eisteddfod heddiw
What follows is a brief account of today at the Eisteddfod, in the Welsh language (which I hope is understandable to those who speak it).
Mi aeth fy merch, Jennie, a fi i'r Eisteddfod yn y Bala heddiw. Roedd 'na lawer o bobl yno oedd yn mynd o gwpas y maes i weld popeth. Mi wnes i siarad efo Bethan Russell Owen o Fantell Gwynedd, y Gweinidog Iechyd Edwina Hart AC, Graham Benfield y prif weithwyr WCVA, Nerys Biddulph Hughes o Brestatyn, Fran Targett o'r Cyngor ar Bopeth Cymru a rhywun o'r lysgenhadaeth America yn Llundain a llawer o bobl cyfeillgar eraill hefyd. Mi fuon ni ar y maes rhwng 10 a 4.30 o'r gloch. Roedd popeth yn ardderchog!
Mi aeth fy merch, Jennie, a fi i'r Eisteddfod yn y Bala heddiw. Roedd 'na lawer o bobl yno oedd yn mynd o gwpas y maes i weld popeth. Mi wnes i siarad efo Bethan Russell Owen o Fantell Gwynedd, y Gweinidog Iechyd Edwina Hart AC, Graham Benfield y prif weithwyr WCVA, Nerys Biddulph Hughes o Brestatyn, Fran Targett o'r Cyngor ar Bopeth Cymru a rhywun o'r lysgenhadaeth America yn Llundain a llawer o bobl cyfeillgar eraill hefyd. Mi fuon ni ar y maes rhwng 10 a 4.30 o'r gloch. Roedd popeth yn ardderchog!
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