Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Society’ Category

I’m sure that many of you have photos just like this one. It was taken in 1909 and shows my great grandparents and their whole family at that time.

You won’t have terribly many photos like that because at that time having your photograph taken was a grand event and, as you can see, everyone dressed up for the occasion. In fact, that remained the case for quite some time afterwards and it was really only as we edged into the 1950s that the number of photographs taken went up with cameras getting into the hands of amateurs in large numbers.

So, chances are, that you have quite a lot of photos from the 1950s and in increasing numbers through to the 1990s.

And then we all began to go digital and took even more photos than we ever did before.

Yet, how many of those digital photos will be printed? Don’t forget that it’s almost certainly only going to be those that are printed that will be available to future generations. Your grandchildren certainly won’t have anything capable of reading that SD card with your wedding photos on it for sure. Ah, but you wiped it when you copied the photos onto the computer, didn’t you?

But what about those photos on the computer? Have you taken a backup copy of them? You certainly can’t depend on the hard disc lasting forever so if you haven’t a second copy of them, chances are that you’ll lose them sooner or later. Even if you do make backup copies, how good are you at maintaining them? After all, backup discs wear out too. And, of course, there’s the issue that your grandchildren probably won’t be able to read that backup disc anyway, unless you’ve made a point of copying it onto the latest type every 3 to 5 years (don’t forget that USB drives have only been available for around 5 years and probably won’t be around for another 5).

So, despite us taking lots more photos, I suspect that our grandchildren will only have a very small selection of them to look at ie those that we’re printed out over the years.

As for video? No chance. Right through the 1980s you probably recorded your video on VHS but now that those players are starting to be phased out, have you bothered to copy those tapes onto your computer or onto DVDs? If you don’t do it within the next five years or so, you could find that you no longer have something capable of playing the tapes.

One of the more peculiar aspects of life here is that we are sick at almost exactly the same time every year.

Why that is, I don’t know but it’s been happening for four years now. Each June, we’re sick within a few days of the same time the year before, likewise each September.

In some ways, we can understand June. They’re spraying the fields at exactly the same time each June so we pretty much take it for granted that something in those sprays is causing it.

September is different though in that it’s in the midst of the grape harvest so there isn’t any spraying going on.

Weird, huh?

One thing’s for sure: the weather doesn’t mess around over here – it’s either one extreme or the other.

We’re just through a really major thunder and lightening storm the like of which you just don’t see in Northern Ireland.

All being well normal south of France weather will be resumed tomorrow with the sun and cloudless skies that usually characterise September here.

One thing that’s fascinating about blogs is that they are written by people from all over the world so you can get a little slice of what it’s like somewhere completely different.

I’m a bit of a sucker for travel stories and of course there are loads of travel stories in Asia which is brilliant as it’s a really interesting area of the world, totally different from this side of the world and with lots of things to talk about.

For example, they’ve got the largest attraction in the world (the Great Wall of China, of course) but naturally they do ordinary stuff out that way as well so you can find out the best makeout spots in Sydney too which I must try out some of these days 🙂

What’s interesting too is that two of the cheapest cities for shopaholics are in the broad area of Asia ie Hong Kong and Bangkok which are both interesting places to see for all kinds of other reasons. I’m not sure if Buenos Aires really qualifies to be the third in that list though as it wasn’t all that cheap when I was there.

If you cast your mind back to 2004, we had an appointment for the medical visit for the residence card for Wendy just before Christmas. After sitting for around two hours we told them that we couldn’t wait any longer as we’d guests coming. They said they’d make another appointment for us.

We just received a phone call saying that the appointment is for September 29th. Yes, almost three years later!

Still, at least they’re making up for it now as it’s an all day affair rather than the brief visit that it was supposed to be last time.