Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Society’ Category

We’d a special interest in reading to our kids when we were in France and we wanted them to grow up knowing English as native speakers and readers.

Of course, it’s not just the business of reading that matters in our case, it was the topics of the books too. In their nursery school it was the French nursery rhymes and fables that they were coming across so at home we made a point of working our way through the various stories that we came across in our own childhood.

To begin with, we concentrated on the Ladybird range which is for babies up to around five or thereabouts although that’ll depend on your childrens’ interests and notionally their range runs up to around seven. However, just by chance we came across the Usborne range of books which seems to pretty much take over where Ladybird finish although with quite a bit of overlap.

As with all these publishers aiming at the child market, they’ve loads of different ranges of books but the one we chanced on was their Young Readers Series 3. It’s actually aimed at older children than our nearly 4 and nearly 6 year olds but they just love the books so we’re planning on plugging away with those over the next six months or so although with the remainder of the Ladybird ones and some from the Usborne Series 2 mixed in amongst them.

When we were in France, we got a library book from the school each week and read that to the boys in English which is much harder to do than you’d think. After all, if you’ve learned French as a teenager or adult you’ll have missed out on all the words for things like witches and goblins which make up a surprising amount of the reading material that ends up getting brought home. In the end though we were only defeated entirely by one book.

One of the plus points of the current economic difficulties is that just about everywhere you look companies are really pulling out the stops to attract your custom. Not so good for them but it means some great deals are on offer for you.

OK, so they’d call them great anyway as they always do, wouldn’t they? Well, yes, but this time around some of the promotions on offer seem almost too good to be true.

For instance, a family vacation hotel contest being run by a hotel chain wouldn’t be a big deal by itself. After all, the cynical amongst you would figure that there’s only going to be, at best, a handful of winners so it ain’t worth looking at. However, what if you add in a $50 cash card for staying three separate times with the same hotel? And how about throwing in another contest in the form of the Comfort Inn Demi Lovato contest?

You might think that all that promotional effort is going to need paying for through increased prices for you. In normal times, you’d probably be right but then these aren’t normal times and these really are great deals for you. Although you’ll obviously appreciate the contest prizes if you win, in practice it’s the $50 that’s there for the taking which is the most valuable of the “prizes” as we can all pick that one up whereas obviously there won’t be too many contest winners.

Definitely, this is gonna be a great year to go on vacation!

Hawaii is probably the only place in the world that says “holiday” in every sense of the word.

There doesn’t seem to be anyone who it wouldn’t be suitable for in terms of fulfilling their holiday interests. Want a surf beach? It’s surrounded by them. Just want to crash on the beach? There are loads of quiet ones that’ll let you do that too. Fancy seeing a little of the cultures from the Pacific islands? No problem: the students from the Mormon university run a fantastic cultural centre that’ll let you do just that.

That’s just on Oahu too…. the other islands offer even more choice for you and all surrounded by beautiful and spectacular coves as you can see.

With all those advantages Hawaiian vacations don’t come in one-size-fits-all. Sure, you could do the standard flight and hotel deal but you’ll get much more out of your Hawaiian vacation if you choose a vacation rental property as your base.

With the massive numbers of tourists arriving in the islands, Hawaiian Local Travel Information comes in considerable volume so it’s easy to be overwhelmed by it all but then that’s just a good excuse to go back again next year…

Oh, you thought that you had some personal privacy? Sorry, it seems that you’re wrong and that you ARE being watched.

For example, if you’ve found this post by searching with google then they’ll have recorded that search against your name if you were logged in with your google account. If you’ve found it via StumbleUpon then they’ll have recorded that too. Both are “to enhance your browsing experience” or words to that effect but they certainly remove any privacy that you thought you might have in your Internet browsing.

If you’ve you’ve been using the Internet for a while no doubt you’ve commented on some forums or blogs by now. All those comments are available to everyone. Oh, you used a false name, did you? No good because the software will have recorded the IP address from which you made the comment and that can be linked to you. Ah, but your ISP allocates random IP addresses every time you login so you’re OK. Well, no, because the ISP records who gets what IP address so, yes, that comment could be linked to you.

Still, at least your e-mails are private. Not really. The Internet is structured as a network of linked computers so every e-mail you send will have gone through a series of computers to reach its destination and every one of those computers could easily record the contents and who sent it.

It seems like we’ve finally got the surveillance of 1984 and all we’re missing (in most of the world) is the totalitarian regime. Still, perhaps if we wait a few years we’ll have the complete set.

Tiles are a bit of an oddball topic in our house at the moment as we’re looking at redoing both the bathroom (probably) and the kitchen (definitely) which are both more ancient than I’d care to say here. Like really ancient.

Now one common theme in relatively old bathrooms and kitchens was the tiling which, in our case, is just about everywhere and also looking particularly dated in some respects too. So dated that the OH has provisionally ruled “no tiles at all” as a starting point and that’s even including some of the really modern styles like the glass tile which is used really imaginatively in some designs we’ve seen lately.

Of course the problem is that tiles are definitely required in some areas if you’re wanting a new look that will actually stick up the the wear and tear that both rooms get on a regular basis so we’ll have something of a compromise I expect.