It’s “Official”: I Hate iOS10

I know it does not matter what someone like me says about something like this. And I know I wrote “nice” things about iPhones yesterday morning. And I do like my iPad and my “old” iPhone.

But I want to “note” this regardless. Yesterday afternoon I had a technology horror that, frankly, I have not had the likes of in a very long, long, long time. Immediately after, I did what we do nowadays at moments like that: I vented on Twitter:

Screen capture of Twitter.

What happened was this. I often use Notes on my always within reach iPad or iPhone for, well, “writing brainstorms” for my manuscripts. Sometimes, they are lengthy “notes.”

Alone Again In Hertfordshire (But Not Really Alone)

The wife is off to Lisbon for two days again for work. I got back a little while ago from dropping her off at the airport. So I’m home alone… with the British spiders:

Photo of a small spider (well, maybe not that small) hanging outside my home office window the other night. [Photo by me, 2016.]

It’s been reported here and there in media that British homes are facing an incursion this autumn of LARGE spiders (as mating season begins). We spotted one walking down the fireplace the other day, and WOW you could’ve put a lead on it and named it. Yesterday, I found another potential “pet” in the small rubbish bin in the lounge… and was I glad I found it before my wife did. (A happening which she did not know about until she reads this post. 3,2,1…)

“A black statue of a bird”

Yesterday was, I know, not the type of post you expect here. It’s Saturday. Let’s smile.

Okay, I want you to name a classic film….

In the hallway, outside my home office. A writing motivation. [Photo by me, 2016.]

…No, no, hang on, not that one. Come on, I mean the title is right there! What kind of “challenge” is that?

No More “Hushed Voices”

I admit I share this nervously. But we must not be afraid to talk about this sort of thing. There is too much of this in the world.

I didn’t receive a birthday card from my sister. That was no shock to me, really, as this was my first birthday my mother wasn’t around. Thus I have further proof that my mother had prompted my sister to do many “ordinary” things in life while also implying she was actually doing them on her own.

Outwardly, my sister looks “fine” and usually appears “normal,” but she has been extremely “troubled” inside for at least a decade. She never moved out of the family home. She hasn’t held a job in many years. She has no friends. There’s something very wrong with her; her behaviors at times have been “bizarre.”

Free Stock Photo: Wood on the beach.

“It will not be prudent, you guys…”

New students at Clark University in Massachusetts have been advised against using the expression “You guys” because it is deemed sexist.

Screen capture of Twitter.

No alternative specific gathering greeting is suggested in the New York Times article that tweet references. We know American southerners famously say “y’all.” The British may say “You lot.” (However, reading the article “You lot” may not be acceptable either given its use by someone sometimes suggests the speaker is claiming superiority to the group being addressed.) Or maybe we could go for “Comrades?”

Kidding aside, I do not recall hearing “You guys” when I was in university in the 1980s and early 1990s. It has really taken hold in the last 20 years or so. I’ve never used it seriously myself.

Victoria Again Reigns

Have you been watching Victoria? We set up to record it before we went off to France. We came home to find the first three episodes happily awaiting viewing.

Screen capture of the Evening Standard, September 4, 2016.

I know I’m a bit behind, but we should be caught up this week. We watched the first episode last night. Based on its reviews and its ratings, ITV seems to have a big hit here.

At my birthday get-together back on Sunday, when I told her we’d recorded it, my 18 year old niece highly recommended it.

I asked: “Who’s playing Victoria?”

Passages

Good morning! We landed at London’s Luton Airport yesterday afternoon to be greeted by the English weather:

Screenshot of my Yahoo weather on my iPhone, 3 September, 2016.

Missing Soulac-sur-Mer already.😉

The “Magnum Opus”

Last night, post-dinner, unexpectedly we had a book discussion which I share in part here as it essentially went. Oh, and we were also drinking, you understand, too. The Mrs had a glass of lovely French wine, and I was consuming – of course – a brandy.

“Truth in alcohol,” so to speak?😉

***

“….So you got inspiration on the beach?” she remarked at the table, having seen me frantically typing away earlier. [I had been making notes about some important new subplot ideas.]

“Yes, something made me think….”

Proofing part of “Conventions” on the beach the other day. [Photo by me, 2016.]

“It wasn’t that topless babe jumping into the Bay of Biscay?” she laughed.

“Lafayette, we are here”

After a false start and second thoughts, a teenage aristocrat and officer from one of France’s then most noble families, Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette, along with several other officers, slipped out of the country in April 1777 from Bordeaux on a small ship called Victorie. (They left without formal permission from King Louis XVI, who had banned officers from traveling to America because England had threatened war with France if France aided the American rebellion.) La Fayette was determined to meet General George Washington and help America in any way he could.

Lafayette Monument: a replica of the Statue of Liberty. Soulac-sur-Mer. [Photo by me, 2016.]

And the rest, as they say, is history. The locality of Soulac-sur-Mer has made it clear on the statue’s base that this was perhaps the last French land that Lafayette saw before reaching America. “Lady Liberty” stands just across from the town’s magnificent beachside promenade.

What The Poet “Said”

It’s a pleasant surprise to have your phone ping around 10pm and find this, as I did last night. I screen captured it earlier this morning. Yes, this is about the time I usually start my day:

Text messages exchange screen capture.

That opener is from my new poet friend, Tracey, in Cambridge. She’d found out who I am through a mutual friend. She’d texted me a few weeks ago that she wanted to read what I’d written.