Out of the way

SxSW (South by SouthWest) is a huge festival of music, film, interactive stuff, in Austion Texas. There are those who have suggested it is just an excuse to spend a week drinking at someone else's expense - and for some people that is true - but there are intersting things there too.

This year I went for a repeat of a panel I was on last year - so here are some impressions.

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Some random thoughts from a weekend of doing things physically and mentally challenging, and a week or two of not writing...

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I used to spend lots of time in Bristol. But it has been a long time since I was here. Finally we are back in the beer garden at the Prince of Wales... :-)

Screen readers allow blind people to use the web (and computers in general). We have just got Opera working with screen readers again, and in a major way...

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I am in a gorgeous part of the countryside (maybe I will manage to post a photo of the gorge by and by) around Oslo at a meeting. It's hard work - despite the green, the water, the trees, I have seen mostly a screen and been in many many hours of meetings.

Working more than eight hours in a day is hard. I get compensated today with a comfortable bed, a good meal, nice wine.

Today I know two women were buried. One, I never knew. The friend of a friend, she was known in some way to many. A life extinguished prematurely, a person who is clearly missed. I see my friends' pain, and understand a little of what I have been like in the past, when I could not share something that hurt so.

The other was a friend. I have lost friends before, but I have never been able to imagine this. She was murdered, apparently by the man who was supposed to have been her lover, the one person who, of his own free choice, was meant to protect her from harm.

I can't understand. I can believe that she is gone in my head, but in my heart she is still somewhere there, complaining about work, looking forward to a holiday, wanting to do something and instead putting it off for some obligation, writing quietly, thinking about tomorrow or last week.

I can't find it in me to forgive and forget. I simply do not care what happens to him. I don't want him to die, or be killed, because that cannot bring her back, cannot take away the pain of the people who love her. I think I hope he lives a long time, and knows what he has done. Maybe he will realise, maybe he will one day understand and learn something. What other good can come of such a tragedy, such a waste of a life, the loss of a friend, a sister, a daughter, a loving person loved, with hopes and dreams and ideas and life?

As long as one person remembers her smile, the way she opened the door or shrugged her shoulders or disappeared into her thoughts, she is still with us. Her body lies with her grandmother in a place I may never go, but her memory is free to visit.

Words can only reflect the emptiness inside. We can do no more than go on loving, caring for ourselves, our lives, and the people around, those who have graced our lives with a moment, with years of their life.

Valete.

And if anyone has any say in it, I would like to have a week of good news please.

In latin, senex meant "old man". My creeping senility shouldn't automatically be associated with losing marbles. I turned 36 recently - not yet an old man, but no longer a young one. (I can be legally excluded from various dating services in Australia, who cut off at 35, and can't go on a Kon-tiki meet-market singles cruise for the same reason. So there are some blessings )

My Granny, who is in her 90s, is not well, having been quite sprightly until recently. I thought that she would no longer be with us last weekend, and was glad to be in Australia and able to see her. She is still in hospital, and at any time her condition can only be described as unstable. I can't predict the future any more than the next person - she may get better, and live to be 105, or 125. She may not. It depends on many things, including whether she really wants to.

Perhaps all of these things are twice my current lifetime away from me. Perhaps not. We lose people from time to time. An ex-colleague passed away very recently, somewhat unexpectedly and apparently peacefully, at an age between Granny's and mine, leaving a number of people dealing with their first experience of losing a colleague at work. Others have dealt with it many times over.

Life is a gift. The lives of those who pass through our own, and our own life, are a short time we have. But if I could, as Woody Allen said, achieve immortality not through my work, but by not dying, would I? I don't know. Every new day is a gift, and people are precious in part because you never know how long they will be there. (In larger part, the people who are really precious to me are so because of the particular person they are...)

So how should I be passing my days? How should I note the accumulating years? I guess I will finish my life, some time, having left undone things I wanted to do and things I really should have done. There are times when I should have stopped, looked around, sat down in the grass and done nothing, instead of obsessively reading mail (or writing my blog ) or running off on some very-important-at-the-time errand or crusade. There are other times when I should have got off my backside and done something.

I didn't make it to see Granny in hospital today. I hope she's OK. I'll go see her tomorrow. She doesn't want to be there. I don't like being in hospital either.

Happy birthday to me. I guess Timboctou was out of the question this year. Still. I get to go to the Gathering, and do some cooking. That will be fun (and a little cold in medieval clothes). If I see you somewhere, ask and I might bake you a cake In the meantime it is one of those moments when I should do something. Make dinner, in particular.

OK, Ben tagged me. So, the four things thing...

Four jobs I've had

1. Sculpture Restoration. Queen Victoria monument, Melbourne
   
2. Cleaner. Prahran Swimming Pool, among other places.
   
3. Performer. Reciting poetry in the middle of the bush, and other oddities
   
4. Ski Instructor. I was helping out in a ski shop in exchange for gear and lessons, and did my instructor's ticket. I think only once did I help give a "real" (paid) ski lesson. Lucky the real instructor was there, I guess, since people were paying for it
   

Four movies I can watch over and over

1. Harold and Maude
   
2. The Princess Bride
   
3. The Negotiator. (I was surprised by this one. I have watched it in planes, hotels, etc and can watch it again. Although I never went to the cinema to see it, and can't imagine doing so).
   
4. Blade Runner
   

Four places I have lived

1. Footscray, in the west of Melbourne
   
2. Juan-les-Pins, in the south of France
   
3. Oslo, Norway
   
4. Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
   

Four television shows I love to watch

1. Cricket.
   
2. Dunno, I am not much of a TV watcher really. I don't have one, so don't complusively watch much if anything.
   
3. Whatever is playing. I do have a problem with being distracted by TV if it is on. Although I don't really love it.
   
4. 4 Corners.
   

Four places I have been on vacation

1. New Zealand
   
2. Whitsunday Islands
   
3. Mt. Hotham
   
4. Paris
   

Four of my favourite dishes

1. Roast Lamb. And lots of stuff with it.
   
2. Sashimi.
   
3. Meat Pie.
   
4. Goỉ Gà. (I don't recall if that is the right spelling sorry).
   

Four websites I visit daily

Sorry folks. I really don't visit any site daily. Some days I don't even pick up my computer. Google would be closest though.

Four places I would rather be right now

1. Melbourne, hanging out with friends and family.
   
2. Antarctica.
   
3. In a kitchen.
   
4. In a nice quiet green park, where it isn't too cold.
   

Four bloggers I am tagging

If two of these people keep the meme alive I would be surprised. But I am not really a compulsive blogger anyway. But hey, here it is.

1. BrianJ
   
2. Phoebe
   
3. TimBL
   
4. Danbri
   

Make of it what you will. I tend not to like doing these actually. I avoid doing Myers-Briggs thingos and the like. I think it is because I don't like describing myself in terms that are prescribed by others based on assumptions that

I have lost my bag a couple of times recently in travelling. It happens, but the difference in circummstances was just incredible. In one case I was totally appalled, and in the other I was very impressed.

The first time was flying US Airways. I had been marked on their random selection of passengers to watch (you can see this on your boarding cards), so every time I went through security on that ticket I got the full extra treatment. Taken off to one side and checked super-"thoroughly" (unfortunately despite taking a lot more of my time they didn't actually do a very good job :-( ). The final part of the flight was meant to be Puerto Rico to Madrid via Philadelphia. Unfortunately the flight out of Puerto Rico was a couple of hours late. (Surprisingly, given the appallingly disorganised check-in system, they had the plane ready to depart almost on time. But then something held us on the tarmac for a couple of hours). The result was that I missed my Madrid flight, and had to spend a night in Philadelphia.

They offered a $10 voucher for food at a hotel, and accommodation in the hotel itself. Only problem was, there was nowhere to spend the $10 voucher at the hotel. So I simply didn't eat until the next day. $10 for a 20-hour layoer isn't really that great anyway, in a hotel where a coffee costs $4.

I looked up their site and discovered that while it is horribly unhelpful, the one thing they say is that they will reroute delayed passengers, if flights are available (read "cheaper than your original"). So the next morning I went to the airport. I was not able to do what I was returning to Europe for, and my next stop would have been Boston, so I asked to be re-routed directly. The first helpful person I dealt with in the entire journey did indeed manage to change my flight. At the last minute he even asked me if I had any baggage checked, which I did. He looked at my ticket and baggage check, but I had already been told that getting my bag out of the container was a process of manually looking for it that the airline would prefer not to do.

When I arrived in Boston, my luggage had indeed not made it. The people at the luggage desk said that it was possible it hadn't been taken off the flight.

The security implications of that are quite a worry. A passenger who is marked down for extra surveillance changes route, to avoid catching a trans-atlantic flight. But their luggage is simply left on the plane. This is, as far as I know, illegal. It is certainly a fundamental failure of security process, at the most basic level. Disrespect for passengers, safety, the airline itself, and the security regulations that have supposedly been strengthened since US Airways was chosen as a target airline on 11 september 2001 (presumably because at that time they were not very good at security) on this scale was, to me, incomprehensible.

My bag was last heard of in Madrid. It definitely did arrive there. The next thing that US Airways told me was that the bag was lost. They asked me for an address to send a claim form, and offered me a toothbrush and some soap. They did not actually have a form at the lost luggage office that I could fill in, or so they claimed. Given the apparent aversion to providing any other kind of helpful service, I actually believed them.

That was apparently the entirety of their efforts to retrieve the bag. I have received no further compensation, they do not know where my bag is, they have not contacted me, and they apparently do not even have a system that I can use to contact them from outside the US. They took an amazingly bad decision through pure laziness (they had 8 hours from when I changed flights to when the plane that would fly ot Madrid arrived - the first time they could start loading it), swept it under the carpet along with the things I needed, and have seemingly decided to pretend it never happened. Meanwhile I was left in Boston in February, in a blizzard, with nothing but the clothes I had on the plane, and a toothbrush. 0 points out of 10 for efficiency, service, security.

A total failure on every level is hard to achieve - it requires a culture where virtually nobody cares about what they are doing. Which makes me wonder if it extends to things like aircraft maintenenance and safety training - other airlines have been known to simply not do maintenance in tight economic circumstances. Either way, I do not want to be relying on US Airways for anything again.

Recently I flew to North Carolina, from Oslo. It was one of those trips with two dfferent tickets. I flew SAS Oslo-Copenhagen-New York, and then I had a short time to clear customs, change terminals and check in to a different airline for another flight.

My flight out of Oslo was delayed about 15 minutes, which meant I had to go directly to the second flight, arriving as one of the last passengers after they had announced the flight was closed. On arrival at New York I was called over the Public Address, and informed that my luggage hadn't arrived. They asked me to go to the Luggage desk when I celared customs, which I did. (I have never seen this before - my previous experiences have always been that when it didn't turn up I had to wait half an hour to check, then go to the desk myself).

I was shocked by their courtesy and professionalism. After the US airways experience I am less than normally easygoing about my luggage, and I have lower expectations. But with no prompting they gave me enough cash to cover my immediate needs, asked me where I owuld be staying and where I lived normally, for a temporary and a permanent phone number (US Airways were not even capable of reccording a non-US number), and checked when and where I would be going next in the unlikely event they couldn't deliver my luggage in the next 3 days.

The efficiency was amazing. I had plenty of time to make the connection, I had cash in my pocket, I had an overnight kit (T-shirt, proper toiletries), they had been incredibly polite, helpful and proactive, and I had a website address where I could track my baggage.

Since I was flying to a different city, I expected it would take a while to get my bag. I was called at 9pm, and happened not to be where I was staying, so the delivery driver offered to come back later. He had trouble finding the place, had trouble getting hold of me, but he made the effort and my bag was delivered sometime after 1 am, with all the courtesy and efficiency that one expects at 10am on a quiet day.

SAS, thank you. Missing a tight connection can occur. Knowing that I would be waiting for my bag, ensuring that I could promptly get on with what I was doing, and that I got it as soon as possible, is a credit to the organisation and to the actual people involved. I have forgotten the names of the people at US Airways who were so useless. I don't know the names of the people who were so helpful and courteous at SAS, but to each annd every one of you, many thanks. It is a little extra effort that minimised the incovenience to a pleasant experience.

We're lucky in Norway. We complain about the price of rent, food, beer, a tram ticket. It's true, they are more expensive, and more expensive relative to a salary, than anywhere I have lived. But I'm not starving.

Today, I am full. Well-fed, happy, content. We had a Long Lunch, and everyone who was here (about 20 people over the course of the day) made something. A couple of things with neither recipe nor name, Bread, Cakes, Couscous, Custard, Fruit Salad, Pasta, Quiche, some Polish pancakes and Swiss potato and meat dish and Swedish sausage dish whose names I don't know (but I have a rough idea what went in them, and I'm keen to try making them myself), Soup, Stew, Stuffed cucumbers, Thai red duck curry, Tzatziki. Some people followed a new recipe, some did things they have cooked before, some just put ingredients together and came out with something. And surprisingly, 20 people all managed to do something great.

The kitchen was a madhouse for 9 or 10 hours. The living room was filled with people eating, and the supply of plates, glasses, cutlery was pretty heavily pressed. We did a lot of washing up during the day, we had some wine and a few beers, we filled the freezer with leftovers and ourselves with food.

It's all an excuse. Much as I love eating, and cooking, and a glass of wine, what made the day was the people.

The Opera folks who came to spend a precious day off work hanging around with the same people, and feeding them. It's nice to work with people like that.

The people who don't work at Opera, spending time around a bunch of geeks who work on the same thing and often end up talking about it, or even working on it, at home. It's great to actually meet nice people who will come and play a crazy game like this, a gathering of friends and strangers together. It's what makes life something more than a bunch of expatriates filling in another weekend in a strange country.

It's great to host something like this. Because it is nice to have people come around. Because our fridge is full of food, and when I come back from being away it is impossible to imagine there won't still be some of it left. Because it was a fun day. Because if you put something in, you get so much more out.

I am hoping to get Joen's chocolate cake recipé out of this ;-) I'm not a big cake eater, and when he made another one I said I wouldn't have any of it because I had already hit my limit. But I did, before it vanished.

The trick is not to eat too much of anything. Otherwise there is no room left for the next thing, and you wait to be a bit hungrier again and discover that you were missing something great. There must be a size limit for a long lunch, but maybe if we do it again we will have got even better at working around each other and can still pull it off with everyone making something.

We'll see, when we decide to try it all again.

"...is with a bottle of beer and a gut ful of anger and a belly of fear..." -- Hunters and Collectors

Jock died at home, talking to his wife. 82 years old, he had run away to sea as a child of 14, been a sailor and a soldier, had a family in the country, and grown old. When the end finally came it is hard to know if it would have been a relief, or if he was still worried about his family and how they would be when he was gone.

He had children and grandchildren of whom he was immensely proud, he had mates in the Caledoniand Society, in the Masonic Lodge, in the RSL (Returned Services League). Often they were the same people.

So when the old men lined up to farewell a comrade-in-arms, it was something that was important to those who shared it, and something only they really shared. He never really talked about being in a war, about being sunk 3 times, being in advance of major landings, being a soldier in some particularly bloody conflicts. A group of old men stood in line to place a hero's ribbon and a poppy on a little wooden box, and remember things taht had happened. I heard snippets of stories from people who will soon not be around to tell them - about a shell that carried away the bloke next to him, or about a bomb that threw him into the air as he ran across a miniefield to man an anti-aircraft gun.

Those were things that he never shared with anyone who didn't have to go there. And although it was his job, and it was his job to prepare more people to go there, when his own son was in line to be drafted, it seems he was mighty relieved that a government he could never support stopped sending soldiers to a war that wasn't being won.

The man I knew wasn't a soldier. He was a bloke with a sly "who me?" grin as he fed the dog a few scraps from his plate, a man immensely proud of his children and grandchildren, fiercely loyal to his wife, and an outgoing, social, bon vivant who quietly lived out his time.

The only war story he ever told me was the first story I understood through his accent. He was in New York for the first time, and he and his mates were accused of being in the english navy. Prouder than they were strictly truthful, they pointed out that they were scots, and were therefore logically in the scots navy. And they were served something that claimed to be tea, although it was made with little bags sitting in cups. They had to teach the folks at the café how to put leaves in a pot, and make tea like it was meant to be.

The one vision I had of his presence at the funeral was during teh singing of the first hymn. It was Amazing grace, with none of the jazzy sound that he would have put into it. And I could see him just quietly tapping away with a couple of brushes and the "what, me?" look that he would have hadd if caught drumming in a church.

As I write this, I am sitting in the seat where he used to take his tea and a biscuit, and then another one (which would usually end p inside the dog). I think he had a life well lived, with great joy as well as hardship, and that he went quietly, as he would have chosen to go.

Funerals should all be filled with old mates, people who are no longer steady on their feet or clear in their eyesight.

Vale Jock. I think I'll have a cup of tea.