Fifteen minutes of fame

I know I'm a bit late in blogging about this, but as you know I've been doing some down time, and as this incident happened before I re-surfaced, this has been my first opportunity to tell the story.

Some weeks ago, you may recall that hooligans following Rotterdam's Feyenoord football club to an away match against AS Roma went on the rampage in Rome and did no small amount of damage - even taking a chunk out of one of their ancient fountains. Then at the end of February, we received the news that the Rome club would be playing in Rotterdam and that the Italian fans would be congregating in our very own Oude Haven. It was also reported that AS Roma's followers were looking for revenge… not a happy prospect for those of us living on historic barges in the harbour.

So the day before the invasion I spoke to my neighbour, Pieter, about his plans. What precautions was he going to take, I wondered. He put down the length of wood he was holding.

"Hmm," was his first answer. Laconic? Maybe, but Pieter is never unnecessarily quick on the uptake and likes to ponder on the bigger picture before speaking. He stared into the sky.
"I'll probably just pull in my loopplank," came the rest of his reply. Eventually.
"Aah," I replied, also taking time to think. Since I didn't have my gangplank set up - it being dismantled for some work to its support structure - this could have implications of the watery kind for me. How was I going to get on board without taking a dip?
Pieter saw my concern (I'd probably paled visibly) smiled, and gently assured me he'd let me get on board after work before raising the 'drawbridge'.

Much relieved, I went ashore and took myself off to the local supermarket. As I was walking back round the quayside, a dapper young man bearing a notepad and clipboard stopped me. Speaking in Dutch he asked me if I'd be prepared to answer some questions about the forthcoming threat to our peaceful life. I looked round him just to make sure there were no sneaky cameras. I'd already shied away from one request to be interviewed for the local TV station, but not seeing any lenses lurking, I agreed.

The young journalist was from a well-known local daily paper. He asked me if I was afraid of what might happen the next evening. I hedged a bit. We'd never had any problems with football fans before - well not if you don't count the ones who got hopelessly drunk and thought they should go diving after the bikes, chairs, phones and shopping trolleys that regularly get hurled into the harbour during these events. But we were a bit worried about this revenge thing, I said. Was I going to go elsewhere? he asked. To this I responded with further hedging, but mainly because I'd run out of comprehensible Dutch by then. Luckily, he was the kind of person who likes to finish sentences for people (probably goes with the job), so I just nodded and smiled. By the time he let me go, I realised I'd only said just a few words myself, and he'd managed to fill in all the gaps.

Imagine my surprise then when the next day when one of my students waved the paper at me: "You're famous," she shouted with great glee. When I looked, I saw I'd been quoted 'verbatim' in an article about the upcoming match. I read the text with some amazement. I also couldn't help but be proud of what I'd 'said' in the article. It all sounded so fluent, so complete and so Dutch. And my student seemed terribly proud of my Dutch skills too. So much so that I didn't have the heart to tell her to what extent I (hadn't) contributed to the quote.

As it happened, the night of the football match was a very quiet evening in the harbour and there was no cause for any alarm. Police swarmed the quays and all the fans were collected after having a couple of drinks and were driven to the stadium in buses. AS Roma won, fortunately, so there was no need for them to go hunt the monuments. As I said to my students with a wink the following week, it was actually more peaceful than a standard student night out in the harbour. They just smiled.

Happy howlers

So I've been busy marking exams this weekend, and as always happens, there have been some real howlers in the students' assignments. We teachers have compiled a list of the funniest, and I've cried with laughter over them. For this particular test, they had to write a cover letter for a job application and I just love to think of what employers would say if they saw these gems (imagined employers' reactions in brackets):

1. I have been interned in the US for three months last summer (right, now that's a recommendation!)

2. I gained my Bachelorette diploma from an international school (what's that? Some kind of cheer-leading certificate? Oh no! He meant Baccalaureate!)

3. I would like to waste my valuable time at your company (oh, you would, would you? Well, we're not going to waste ours by employing you!)

4. I think I have almost enough knowledge to work for your company. (Hmm, almost enough?)

5. I have experience behind bars…. (are you by any chance friends with number 1?)

6. If you employed me, I would make suggestive comments… (I think you'd better team up with number 5!)

7. I can help promote customer intimacy and provide personal interference… (now this is just going too far)

8. I am therefore sending you two pages of my CV so you can read about my details further (OnlyTWO pages? How long is it? and is this just to tease us? Where's the rest?)

As I said in my last post…kids! Don't you just love them??

Springing back

Blogger - my favourite corner of the net. No, let me correct that, blogging is my favourite internet activity, followed closely by Twitter, which I can always link to this blog.

That's why I'm tentatively trying to get back to it again. I miss it here - my space, my place.

So I thought I'd start with a short spring and a small hop - given the time of year and the fact that bunnies are going to be prominent in our world what with Easter coming up and all.

Here's something that might make you smile - it gave me a chuckle.

A couple of days ago, I was walking home from the bus stop. My leather bomber jacket was well zipped up, my scarf was wound tightly round my neck, and my boots were up to my barely visible knees (I was wearing one of those jersey-knit dresses).

As I walked, a young girl of about eighteen passed me skittering on improbably high heels and dressed to a 'T'. Then she stopped and turned to me:

"Mevrouw," she said, a question in her voice.
"Ja?" I responded, thinking she was going to ask for some directions.
"Je ziet er heel goed uit voor je leeftijd." Which loosely translated means: you look really good for your age. Well, as you might imagine I was surprised out of my trudgery and stammered my thanks. I'm even sure I blushed. So she smiled at me sweetly and skittered on.

It was only after she'd teetered out of view that I stopped to muse on what she'd actually said: "good for your age". Right.

Of course it was too late to ask just how old she thought I actually was… although on reflection, I didn't think I really wanted to know! And how she could ever have seen what I looked like packaged as I was...

All the same, it put a spring in my step that even sending off my Master's thesis last week hadn't done.

Kids (because in truth that's all she was). Don't you just love them? It had me grinning for the rest of the day.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! HERE'S WISHING YOU ALL A WONDERFUL 2015

And in other news, the final tally for this blog at midnight last night was 99, 399 views. I'd been hoping to make it to 100,000 by the end of the year. Nearly, but not quite. Just my bit of fun.

Even so, many many thanks to everyone who has read, commented and looked at my special place over this past year! I can't be precise about how many of those have been in 2014, but the average has been 4500 a month, so that's about 55000 this year. Fascinating yes? I thought so too :)

Have a great year and keep coming here!

UPDATE: As of 18:00 today, Jan 4, 2015, I have topped the 100,000 views mark! Four days over my goal date, but I'm very chuffed!! Thanks to everyone all over again!!

The 21st century family: A short story for the new year

I wrote this story a few years ago, but somehow it seems even more relevant today.

Mother is in the kitchen making the family meal. She has a cookery book open on the table, and as she reads down the page with a floury finger, she glances over at the blackboard sitting on the fridge to see if an ingredient she has run out of is on her chalked up shopping list. Good. She smiles to herself. It is. Then her attention is distracted by the calendar on the wall next to the blackboard. She mustn't forget her pottery course that starts during the week. She's looking forward to that. She always meets nice people at these courses. Oh and yes, on Friday she's going to the ballet. Alone probably. She smiles ruefully and looks through the kitchen door to where father is sitting, laptop on his knees, typing furiously, jabbing the keyboard with his heavy fingers. His face is expressionless, but the speed and violence of his two pronged attack on the computer suggest heavy matters are going on in his Internet world.

Her thoughts are interrupted noisily by the entrance of Emily (In a relationship with Stephen White. From London, England. Born on May 18, 1996. At least that's what her Facebook page says).

"Mum, where's dad? I need to ask him something?"

"Where do you think he is, pet. On the Internet. Surely you can see that from here!"

"Yes, but where is he?"

"How, should I know, lovey! Have you tried his usual haunts?"

"Yes, but he's not been on Flickr, or MSN or Pinterest, and I couldn't find him on Facebook! He hasn’t even done a blog post since he came home...."

"Well, sweetie, you could try just going through that door and asking him yourself. You know. Speak to him? In person?"

"Oh come on, Mum," scoffs Emily scornfully. "That's sooooo last century! Get a life, won't you?"

"I thought I had one," sighs her mother, looking wistfully over at her calendar.

"Oh, I know!" Emily exclaims suddenly. "He's started a Twitter account now. He's probably tweeting. I should have checked!"

"Twitter? Tweeting? Isn't that what birds do?" Mother asks, slightly bewildered by her husband's apparent metamorphosis.

Emily shrugs her shoulders exaggeratedly. "Maaaarm! When are you going to get...."

"...with it. I know." Again Mother smiles apologetically at her daughter. Emily’s thoughts have already changed track, though.

“I’ll just send him a DM...” she decides happily, and bouncing out of the kitchen she heads upstairs to her bedroom.

Mother’s eyes follow her, a thought struggling over her face. “A.....DM?” She wonders if she even speaks the same language as her daughter anymore. More or less used to her husband’s internet addiction, she knows that if she wants to talk to him, she has to dial his mobile phone number – this being about the only way she can break his concentration from the screen in front of him. Her daughter, however, makes her feel even more alien in her own home. DM’s? Tweeting? Whatever next?

Just then the front door to the house opens again, and Justin walks in (Single. From London. Born on October 5, 1994).

"Hi Mum," he mutters, grabbing a handful of raisins from the packet on the table.

"Justin! Where have you been? I've tried calling you four times and sent you three Whatsapp messages! It was your dad's birthday yesterday and you didn't even come home to wish him a happy birthday!

"Sorry mum. I left my phone at Dave's. I couldn't call. And anyway, I was in the middle of a serious international gallactic battle!"

"Yes, dear, I'm sure you were, and may the best side win, but even that shouldn't have stopped you from letting me know where you were. There is still such a thing as an email, you know."

"Oh come on, mum....anyway, I did wish dad a happy birthday. I did it on Facebook. Didn't you see? Oh no, of course....you're not there yet are you?"

He smirks slightly at his long-suffering mother.

At that moment, Emily rockets back into the room.

"Wow, mum! Dad's having this amazing row on Facebook. D'you want to see? It's getting quite vicious!"

"I thought he was on this Twitter thing?"

"He is, but you can link it to Facebook of course," Emily's look says it all "and that's what he's done. Anyway, take a look at this! It's wicked!"

Mother is torn between looking at her daughters iPad screen and stepping through the kitchen door and asking her husband what on earth is going on. The iPad wins.

What she sees bemuses her. The slanging match going on between her silent partner in the lounge and someone called David Malkovsky (In a relationship with Anastasia Chownyk. From Kiev. Born 15 January 1962) about the Ukrainian question is loaded with expletives, ugly threats and virulent remarks. And she hasn't heard a thing. Except for the two-pronged jabs at the keyboard of course. It seems like years since the two of them have had any conversation lasting more than a few seconds, and this one has to have been going on for at least an hour. Totally without her knowledge!

Looking at her offspring, she is suddenly amazed that they are even still speaking to her. Verbally. With their mouths and tongues, that is. Her husband only seems to communicate in grunts these days, or through the Internet. Her children, on the other hand, know far more about his life than she does, even though she spends most of every day in the same house as him. And the reverse is probably true too, she realises, as Emily skims down her Facebook profile displaying comments and 'likes' made by her father.

Mother makes a decision. Throwing down her tea towel and washing her floury hands, she grabs Emily's iPad from her daughter's protesting clutches.

"Right then, you two. Show me how to make one of these Facebook accounts. It's obviously time, as you so succinctly put it, that I got a life!"

And with silent regret, she glances over at her calendar, mentally crossing off some of the activities listed on it. If you can't beat them, you have to join them, she supposes. And then she envisages the long evenings ahead - sitting with her loved ones, in hopefully companionable silence, but all the while getting what they call 'a real life' on the Internet.

Watching as Emily and Justin argue over the details to put on her profile page  ("Should she be married, or just in a relationship?"), she smiles at their shared enthusiasm ("And let’s just put her birthday and not the year. We don’t want our friends to know she’s that old!"), and wonders when it was that her children last did something together. Will this be the last time? And what is she getting herself into now? She squashes the doubts resignedly. This has to be the way forward if she wants to share any kind of life with her family.

Anyway, what was the saying from that long forgotten movie? "Resistance is futile".

Audience? What's that then?

This is a post I've had as a draft since last year and never published. It seems quite a good moment to post it now as I'm in the same place again teaching-wise, not to mention being too immersed in work to write a new one. 

Just in case any of you don't know this by now, I'm a teacher. It's how I make my living and it's the day job I'm not about to give up because truth to tell, I really enjoy it. I know, I know. I moan and groan about having to work, but the rewards of really helping my students achieve something they've previously been unable to do is verging on addictive. Oh did I mention that my subject is writing? In English. Surprised? No, well, maybe not.

Sometimes I teach oral English skills. I'm doing that now with two groups of first year International Business students. They are a delight, but as yet, they haven't grasped the fact that seventy percent of their oral communication is about non-oral communication and reaching out to their listeners or audience needs more than mere words.

Like most teenagers, they think that surly and sulky looks lean and mean. They'll learn in time that a smile will leapfrog the inch and carry them a mile. They'll also learn that while accuracy in spoken language is admirable, it's something few people - even native speakers - achieve, so it's not the most important consideration.

Mostly, though, I teach writing skills to Master's students, Phd'ers and administrative staff, and I love that. I feel that accuracy and variety of language are much more important in the written than in the spoken word - not that I count myself as any kind of expert, especially as I'm nowhere in the PhD'ers league. But what I can help them to understand is the importance of knowing that whatever they write is largely determined by the expectations of those reading it. It's also about the craftsmanship of putting ideas, thoughts and opinions into textual form in a way that exactly suits the reader - or as we like to call it, the audience.

As a writing teacher, I've become very aware that this aspect is often ignored but incredibly important. I show my students models to demonstrate the difference between an academic text, a narrative text and a business text - how to say essentially the same thing for three different readers. It amazes them, and to be honest, it still amazes me too. I love the fact that we can re-shape, re-structure and re-package our language in this way and for me, this is one of the major delights of the written word.

So which style do I like best? That's hard to say. One of the most appreciative audiences I've ever had consisted of the management of the health insurance company where I worked for ten years in South Africa. It was my job to write the 'visit reports' - accounts of meetings with member firms I'd been to see as part of my job as assistant marketing manager. In theory, these should have been dry factual accounts, but I enjoyed adding my own take to the reports; brief descriptions of the people I'd met, the offices they worked in or the other employees in the firms, so in truth they were more like short articles or interviews than minutes of meetings. That said, if the managers hadn't told me they looked forward to reading my weekly write-ups, or if they'd criticised my style, I'm sure I'd have changed it, but my audience was receptive and so I carried on.

This brings me to the point that isn't really much of a point. I'm just rambling really. But the point is (yes?) it doesn't matter so much what you write as long as you write it right for the right types. So that's it. The audience is what matters, and in a language generally regarded as being 'writer responsible', it's our task to keep our readers happy by writing in a style they expect and like for the content they've chosen to read.

Sounds easy doesn't it? Well luckily for the teacher me it isn't, because if it were, I'd be out of a job. For the writer me, well that's another story. I wish it were just a bit easier to find the right audience…but I'll keep trying.

My fourteenth Christmas

This year's harbour lights

My first Christmas in the Oude Haven was at the end of 2001, so this is my fourteenth end of year festive season as the proud caretaker of my lovely Vereeniging. Every year, the winter seems to change. Some are just plain cold, but not enough to stop us having the occasional spuddle. The photo below is one from December 2008, when my daughter and I decided to go for a row with a broom and a homemade paddle (we really did - and they worked perfectly!). Yesterday, we went for another spuddle, except this time we had a smart electric motor and a battery on my increasingly decrepit little rowing boat. Now you'd think that would be much more efficient, wouldn't you?

Well, the occasion will enter the annals of the ridiculously memorable because we wired the motor up the wrong way so everything was in reverse. I'd done about four pirouettes before my daughter grabbed the tiller and figured out that reverse was forwards and left was right! I did feel an idiot, but in hindsight it must have looked very funny.

The fact that we were trying to tow another rowing boat 'to help out' a poor neighbour who was rowing against the current just made things even funnier. Poor Bas didn't know what we were up to except that we were running rings round him. It was icy cold, but I wish I'd had a camera on me to capture the moment.

Then there are the snowy Christmas seasons. I know everyone seems to think we've not had a proper winter in years, but I have photos to prove otherwise. These three were taken in 2009, one of the prettiest winters we've had with lots of real snow and icicles as well as plenty of sunshine to make it all sparkle. Children playing ice hockey on the canals made a beautiful scene and everything was frozen solid.

This one below was, I think, earlier, but I don't know exactly when. The trees on the quayside have been gone for years, so I suspect it was back in 2005 or 2006. My photos are not always dated very well as the cameras were not set to the right date and time on occasions. Needless to say, this was a very snowy winter in the Oude Haven.

Last winter was unusual in that we had no snow, no frost and everything remained growing, even my annual primulas, begonias and geraniums. They all survived to flower again this spring. This last week, though, we had the coldest days since the winter of 2012/2013 so maybe things will be back to normal again. Much as I hate the cold, I think it's probably a good thing. The earth and the land need the ice and frost to kill the bugs, and snow gives lots of good things to the ground, but even still, I'd prefer not to have too much of the white stuff. Give me freezing temps with sparkling sun rather than this kind of whitout.

That aside, Christmas in the harbour is lovely as many of the barges put up lights in their rigging. This year, lighting up evening will be next Friday, so here's a taste of what's to come. I know I've shown this one before, but I love the atmosphere. This was Christmas 2006.

I'll be keeping my head in my books over the next few weeks, so I'll take this opportunity to wish you all a lovely holiday wherever you're going or what you're doing. May it be peaceful and joyous whatever your persuasion. I won't sign off completely as I might post again, but for now…

Happy holidays and blessings to those who value the season's spiritual message XX

Being a public presence in private (or vice versa)

I keep reading things about privacy on the Internet and how to keep it. Friends are posting statements on Facebook about what they do and don't permit the social media giant to make use of. It makes a lot of sense, I know, but for me I think it's really too late. Actually, it's always been too late. The thing is, ever since I bought my barge in 2001, it (the Vereeniging) has been an object of curiosity around the world and has consequently graced the world wibe web in a variety of forms ever since. You think I'm exaggerating, don't you? Well, let me explain.

Firstly, the interest was local. When we brought the Vereeniging back to Rotterdam from the town of Grave in the east of the country where I bought it, the man who helped us wrote an article about my engine and posted it on an internet site about traditional Dutch marine engines. In it, he named my barge and me, so before I even had a blog or any other presence on the net, there I was. The web had me entrapped before I could even do anything about it.

Alas, I can no longer find the page, but here is the engine in question in full swing.

Industrie single cylinder engine

It was then some years before I decided to start this blog. However, during this time, my barge was the subject of many a tourist's photo, an artist's painting and a historian's interest. Many of these have somehow found their way onto the internet, and in the case of history articles, my name has been mentioned too as the Vereeniging's owner. What's more, if you look on the photo website, Flickr, and put Oude Haven into its search field, there we will be several photos that include the Vereeniging in them somewhere. Then there are the artists who decorate the quayside, drawing and painting as if no one has ever done this before. Bless them. They post these pictures on the Internet to garner public interest in what they do - hardly surprising, as our harbour is very picturesque.

Here is a water colour painting of the harbour that I happened to come across and is one of many that is floating around our world wide web. See the Vereeniging on the far right. I don't know who painted it, but I really like it.

Water colour painting - artist not known

Apart from this, if anyone cares to type my name into Google, they will find several pages of entries about my books and my blog. Since both have been around since 2006, this means any attempt at anonymity is likely to be slightly useless. So what do I do? I'm on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. What chance do I have when my professional and personal life are liberally plastered over the walls of the web?

Well, the answer is not very much. But I think the point is that I have a museum exhibit of a barge, so it's natural that it will be the subject of fairly wide interest. Added to that, I have written two memoirs about my experiences with my Vereeniging, and both of these are available to whoever cares to read them.

The Vereeniging in 2001

As regards my private life, well, surprising though it might seem, that is still very private. I rarely say anything about my daily life, my work, my family or my relationships on the Internet, or even in my books. I write about my barge and the life I experience around me. That's it. It's kind of like hiding in plain sight, and for me it works. I sometimes cringe at the number of entries I can find referring to me in the search engines, but for all that, I'd challenge anyone to know what I have actually been doing and where I've been today. I only ever publish what it suits me to do so. The rest remains between me and my family and friends.

It's taken some practice, but I think I've nailed being a public presence in private quite well. My barge has taught me that. So, designers and programmers of Facebook, Google and any other sites out there, do what you will, try as you might - you'll only find out what I choose to tell you!