Frizz

Yesterday a group of us went skating, luckily missing the rain. There were a few left over puddles on the ice and we had a couple of wet bottoms, but I won't name names! Little John was a star. And as always it was magical, there is something very special about skating and especially about skating outside.

What I have been doing instead, is checking out WordPress and I'm considering moving Frizz. I was thinking about it this time last year, but then I thought it would be too big a technical leap and I wasn't sure I could justify buying some hosting space (would I keep blogging?), but now it seems a good project for the New Year. It's still going to be a huge technical leap, but I've actually been enjoying raising my geekiness level over the last few days. So just to say, there might be some rather dramatic changes to Frizz in the coming weeks.

Well, I thought I could use a blogging break, hence the silence. During this time I've eaten too much and felt sick quite a bit, the word gluttony has come to mind quite a lot, we are talking cake, chocolate, fudge, mince pies (gluten free thanks to Anna), Big R's amazing raspberry, lots of cold Salmon, an assortment of fine cheeses... the list goes on. Sandy and I went for a lovely Christmas morning walk, Sandy kited out for the occasion. Clapping hands, I got a genealogy programme from Big R and S, so I have somewhere to write down all the family info I've been finding out. And I haven't watched any TV, which I think is a first. I have been 'going' to watch Barefoot in the Park for about three days now, but it never seems to happen.

All that wrapping is exhausting...

I'm about to go off for my traditional last minute wander around the shops. Happy holidays!

Red and gold and twinkling lights. A big table with friends sitting around chatting, laughing. Divine hot chocolate and good conversation. And a little one. Thanks everyone for coming it was lovely to see you all.

Keeping on the privacy theme, I've just discovered NO2ID.net

Labels: Privacy

I'm lazily listening to Woman's Hour when Jenni Murray says she has some news of her own... I hold my breath, because she says it in a way you know it's something serious... she has breast cancer. Murray is Woman's Hour, it's never the same without her. So I'm wishing her a very speedy recovery, she says her "prognosis is excellent", I hope it's not long before she's back where she belongs and that she knows she has the well wishes of so many of us.

For the second time this week, someone who I would never have imaged to have any Jewish ancestry, has just told me that they think one of their grandfather's might have been Jewish.

Gosh, Virgin.net seem to have had a customer service policy change. So I had a call this afternoon responding to my email problem... and now it's working again. I'm impressed...

Are you thinking about opting out of the NHS database? I have serious doubts about the idea that if I go for any medical service my records would be openly available. The only benefit would be if it would mean that the NHS would start taking a more holistic view, but I doubt that would genuinely happen and then the negatives seem to outweigh the positives. What do you think?

Labels: Privacy

My email is down: "550 mail not accepted from blacklisted IP address..." Honestly, I haven't been sending out spam...

Hi, Welcome to Virgin.Net Chat and Remote Assistance. My name is Gavin. How may I help you?
11:33 Hi, I just tried to send an email and it says 550 mail not accepted from blacklisted IP address
11:34 Ok, we do know of this issue and we are working to resolve it
11:36 can I do anything to change the IP address I'm on? [shows how much I know]
11:37 No, this is a Virgin issue and we are working to resolve it as we speak
11:46 how long do you think it will take?
Info: NTRsupport session ended

Well I guess that means they don't know how long it's going to take...

Love those "minor delays".

London culture... Velazquez at the National Gallery.

Time magazine has chosen YOU as their person of the year.

I've just found out that I have an ancestor who in 1609 was burnt at the stake by the Portuguese Inquisition. I think that might be more information than I wanted or needed to know.

Labels: Berlin

Just had a Skype conversation where I was able to have control of the other persons desktop using WebDialogs Unyte - I feel like I just jumped into a new age...

Last week I was mortified because John remembered that I'd been late to his birthday party last year... So yesterday I managed to only be a little late, arriving at the same time as a set of grandparents, so I think that's acceptable. It was a fun day. I bought him some walkie talkies - which we tested. Then after everyone had gone we had a go at Operation, which was a lot smaller than I remember, but just as hard. John; "this is really hard isn't it". Me; "yes it is".

OK, so I've written to the company to ask why they are recommending/selling such a toxic product. I feel a bit better...

I've been feeling so guilty about the new thing with a strap that it's stayed in the bag all week. I finally took it out to spray it with some lethal smelling stuff that actually says on the can that it's "dangerous to the environment". These days you have to read the label for everything.

Saw half of The Holiday at a screening with V here... very plush. Bumped into K which was nice, except he was rather amused (we are talking big grin) when I admitted to being a Nancy Meyers fan, my sentimental streak. V dragged me out mid way through; it was awful, but I would have been happy to stay.

Yes, I still have the bite turbos - there is no consolation on this occasion in being right. I had a glimmer of hope when I persuaded the Ortho to test whether my teeth were actually touching them and of course one tooth was touching, I could even feel it before he put the blue paper between my teeth, which was enough for him to say they had to stay. Same wire with different kinks in it. Same elastics at the front. At the moment I have various sore bits, especially the front teeth, which need bringing forward. But all looking good. He asked me if I was enjoying it and I wouldn't say enjoying is the right word, but it's definitely interesting to see how things are changing and not having jaw ache and having better looking teeth is of course something to smile about, (sorry couldn't resist).

Labels: Braces

An update on the Orange story; I tried again yesterday to get through and about three times today... if I hear the phrase "we are experiencing a high volume of calls" one more time... So a tip, if a bit of an obvious one, forget about trying to get through to the billing department, just go straight to the I'm really fed up, I want to leave department and get them to put you through to the billing department - works wonders. I got my £30 credit on my £120 bill.

Then I tried to do the I'm leaving bit for real, what's the best deal you can offer me. I pretty much failed; a mixture of speaking to the wrong person, in the end I was telling him what phones they had (how sad is that) and my heart not really being in it, so the best they could do was offer me forty minutes less for £10 a month more... How is that a deal? So I guess I'm going to have stop pretending to leave.

Wire change tomorrow, I think everything has moved quite a lot, except for the deep bite, which doesn't seem to change, so I think I'll be keeping the bite turbos.

Labels: Braces

I've been telling friends about all the relations popping up all over the place and how I felt about being in Germany - comfortable but... and well it all got a bit too much today - lots of emotions and thoughts flying around in my head. Especially there is this thought, what if things had been different, would we all have known each other? Of course that's silly, because I wouldn't be me, but still. Then I've been reading a little about Portugal and the Inquisition, now I've got actual names, it's not just some line in a history book, it's putting a different light on recent history, like it's all happened before... so many times.

Another part of the story is that there are past Chief Rabbi's popping up all over the place and coming from what I thought was such a secular family that's thrown me a bit.

Labels: Berlin

Trying to get through to Orange to sort out my bill and tariff (16 mins 46 secs). I have such a gripe about this; my tariff ended hence the £120 bill. According to Orange they don't have the ability to send out information warning about tariffs ending - except that they are a telephone company - perhaps they forgot?! Even my bank manages to send me text messages these days. A says she had the same thing happen to her, they must be making a fortune (22 mins 51 secs).

So, I'm not sure I've got it in me to do the whole "I'm leaving unless you give me a really good deal" act. Last time I did this I spoke to a lovely woman who was incredibly helpful and gave me a really good deal, but I think it did take a few calls to find her. Also, there's the question of which phone to go for? Thinking environmentally I was going to just hold on to the one I've got, but I've been a bit careless with it lately, my subconscious falling into that whole it's a year or so old about time for a change, don't have to be so careful attitude and the sound has gone a bit fuzzy. So I have been looking and the only one that's caught my eye is the Blackberry Pearl, but then I'd have to go for the push email, because that's the whole point and that's going to cost more (26 mins 01 secs). To continue holding or to hang up? 35 mins 04 secs - hanging up.

Pinochet dies at 91

Well, I sort of went on the march today. I missed the actual march and joined them outside Downing Street. I wish I could do marches, but I have a really hard time being one of the pack… Even the little bit of chanting I caught at the end started to freak me out. I just get very uncomfortable; I'm no good at black and white – even when it's right. The turnout was shamefully small, which I don't understand, so I'm glad I went. As a bonus I met some really interesting people and afterwards a bunch of us went for some slow fast food with lots of chat. What was unsaid was at one point we were descendents whose parents had escaped one genocide in conversation with someone whose country is being ravaged by another.

Labels: Darfur

Yesterday Anna and I went down to Bicester Village for some Christmas shopping. Mostly things were far too expensive; they hadn't quite got the factory outlet spirit. Despite that we both managed to find ourselves presents, I'm in a bit of denial about mine - a little bit expensive, but one of those never to be repeated opportunities.... lets just say it has a strap.

Then I rushed into town for Silvia's birthday dinner, at a really friendly South American restaurant in Fulham, for a lovely meal and yummy chocolate cake.

A friend just sent me a chain mail and unless it's a charity thing I don't tend to send them on. This one was of the daily mail variety about car jacking, so I thought I'd check it out and Google led me to BreakTheChain.org.

I'm number two on Google for "fixing frizz in photoshop", that's got to be disappointing.

This Sunday is Human Rights Day. There are various events taking place for Darfur including in London, Jerusalem, Washington DC, Paris, Melbourne, Addis Ababa, Dar es Salaam. For more info see the Globe for Darfur site. For some background info on the situation.

So I want to contact someone. Do I phone their landline? Skype them? Instant message them? Email them? Call their mobile? Text them?

OK, at the risk of this sounding a bit unbelievable, I arrived home to discover another email from another 'new' cousin...

Good day: lovely lunch with a friend, had sweet conversation with a stranger on the street who said he could help my wrist - his sweatshirt matched my jacket (the green one). Shop replaced my broken umbrella for free, had nice Skype conversation with a friend - I am loving Skype - great for displacement. And of course email from new new new cousin.

Bad day: mobile phone bill for £120 - how? Got very wet, was late for meeting, almost got run over; twice.

Try this out - World Map game. I had a go and it's quite depressing how bad my knowledge of geography is, the only thing I can say is that I think I got the right continents, but really that's not saying much. [via]

Well, we spoke for ages and the new, 'new cousin' seems very nice and really she didn't know anything about us. I admit it, I have an odd family. It was one of those conversations where an answer would lead to another question. Not only didn't she know about us, but she didn't know about various ansestors who at the very least, because for one reason or another they are quite interesting, I thought she would have known about. Her story regarding the black sheep being sent to America is completly the other way around - that he saved his pocket money and ran away.... first to London, where he worked to save the passage for America. It's all very intriguing, although my aunt is adamant that my grandfather put him on the boat! I couldn't understand as we had all had contact with the genealogist, how we hadn't known about each other, but the genealogist hadn't thought to give us the further generations - I guess he thought we already knew of each other, a fair assumption to have made. A said if it was her she'd be tempted to get on a plane and I am.

There is something odd going on with Blogger Beta and it's not giving me the option to add any formatting automatically. I'm too lazy to write in the codes - when it's working I'll add the missing links from the previous posts.

So the story continues, there was a black sheep in the family; one of my grandfather's siblings was packed off to America as a young boy in the 1920's. I didn't consciously know about this side until a few years ago and no one that I know has had contact with them since perhaps the 1950's. So the 'new cousin' was asking me what I knew and I had to say nothing, but there were children and grandchildren and great grandchildren leading from this branch on his family tree, but genealogists seem to 'swap' information so he didn't know them either. By the time L and I had arrived back in Berlin he had done a search, found an email for someone whose name matched a person on his tree and sent a message. Me of little faith, I thought there's no way it's going to be right, but low and behold an email arrives back, the 'new cousin' had indeed found the relation and they in turn didn't know anything about us. This is all very surreal and rather amazing. His daughter is going to call me this evening.

Yesterday, I finally joined Skype and let the programme do an automatic search for contacts and the first call I had, within minutes of joining, was from another person who is a very distant relative, actually I've no idea how, but also another genealogist (something in the genes?). The sad thing is that I've had contact with him, as has the new cousin and the branch in America in the past, but he seemed unaware that none of us knew each other and from what I can gather we are all more closely related to each other than he is to us. During the conversation he mentioned another person, this time in England and when I commented that I'd never heard of him, he said "but he's your relation". The mind boggles. He's promised to send me some details – I feel like I've opened a Pandora's box or am playing parce the parcel and the music's got stuck and I'm unwrapping all the layers.

I've wanted to see Daniel Libeskind's building for the Jewish Museum since it opened in 1998, but even so I didn't rush to get there, I dragged my feet. I got a little lost, must have walked past the signpost and unexpectedly ended up at checkpoint Charlie instead. We'd gone through on the school trip and a friend had had film confiscated after she'd taken a picture at the crossing, so I was struck by how something so serious and scary then, was now just a tourist attraction. Grim Eastern block buildings and cars, a cliché I know, marked the contrast between East and West then. I walked through and looked up at the shiny new buildings. Then I headed back the way I came, but still couldn't work out where the Museum was. A man on a bike stopped and shouted something in German to me; I proudly managed a German response.

So there it was across the road.

In the basement of Libeskind's building are three intersecting axes, one leading to the Garden of Exile and Emigration, whilst another leads to the Holocaust Tower and a third to a long steep staircase up to where the exhibition starts and represents the difficult road to a reemergence of Jewish life in Germany. In the Garden there are tall concrete posts, which I walked between on uneven ground, finding it hard to keep my balance, but it is outside, there is air and light and olive trees shade it. In the Tower there is a never ending darkness broken only by a single split window so high it is completely out of reach, but giving just enough light to see and feel the awful isolation, fear, and complete desolation. Libeskind is brilliant; his building says everything, without words, or exhibits, speaking directly to my emotions.

I walk up the steep staircase to the permanent exhibition, I know from friends that this might well disappointment me, but I hope to be surprised. When I finish the exhibition what I'm left with is a dawning reality that a history really was destroyed. There are just not enough exhibits to tell the story properly, either the museum did not understand what was needed or that all the artifacts really were destroyed and perhaps there was a resistance from exiles to send family possessions back. I don't know, just that again I left with an incomplete picture of Jewish history in Germany and a growing frustration.

Links abound; the last book I ever gave my father was Amos Elon's The Pity of It All a history of German Jewry. I was reminded of it a couple of weeks ago, because Another Road Home was by his daughter and she films her father at a book reading. So now I will dig it out in the hope that it can fill in some of the blank spaces.

Labels: Berlin

With the idea that I wanted to know more, the next day I finally headed off to the German History Museum, where I wondered around for almost five hours soaking up the information. I only found a little of what I was looking for, titbits of explanation. In many ways it felt more like a history of Europe, taking a wide sweep, understandably; it reminded me of just how related to each other European countries are, with a connected and interlocking history, but I wanted details – how did people live in this part of Germany, at that time and then in another part, at another time. I left with back ache and only a little more clarity, thinking well OK, the Jewish Museum will give me the answers, even though I'm not sure I want it to be a separate history from the greater population.

Labels: Berlin

I dragged L along with me to meet the 'Cousin'. We took the train out of Berlin's impressive new central station, a double-decker train (how come we don't have those?) and arrived in the town with the 'Cousin' (P). L saw him first, a very tall man holding a large sheet of paper – the family tree. P had moved back to the town where many of my ancestors lived after the reunification of Germany. I was expecting a small village, but it was a large town, surrounded by water and absolutely beautiful; hardly any war damage. P took us on a driving tour, an old house where the family had lived, the place where the synagogue had been; a plaque marking the spot, a street (kinda outside the town) named after a great great uncle. A lovely lunch at the Schloss, an almost Disney affair, a better Apfelstrudel, lots of talking, trying to work out who was who. Names that previously were just anonymous words on paper and dates that I hadn't thought much about were brought to life, I want to know more, who were these people and what were their lives really like? And P's side of the family only partly Jewish, had stayed throughout the war, lost jobs and university places, kept their heads down and been 'OK'. It was a lovely day, a bit of a whirlwind, in my head a constant background of questions and emotions.

Labels: Berlin

I have been a bit slack, to say the least, at updating. What with the cold and rushing around. I will play catch up tomorrow.

Labels: Berlin