Grannymar

Remember this?

You will remember my Post about it and the follow up Apology Huh! I know you eagerly await the outcome so let me recap.

I emailed a letter to the Editor of the Irish Independent because I took exception to the photograph of Grandad & I with Martha Rotter of Microsoft at the Irish Blog Awards 2008, appearing directly under a heading ‘WEIRD WIDE WEB’. I copied my email to my daughter Elly. What is so weird about blogging or the fact that I a sixty-one year old woman and Grandad, who is in fact, a few years younger in age and by a month in blogging time, pass our time with this hobby? Both of us for our pains are rewarded regularly with comments. The wonderful faithful readers range in age from over 80 up to 18!

Yesterday afternoon as I worked about the house I heard the ping announcing an email. It is like the phone ringing, you want to know the details right away. This is what I received minus the email addresses and phone numbers which I removed:

From Marie Boran - Siliconrepublic.com

To
date Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 3:01 PM

subject FW: eThursday

Hi Grannymar,

I have read your blog post ‘Apology huh!’ and to answer you: I didn’t email you because your daughter, who alerted me to your letter requesting an apology from the Independent in the first place, said she would pass on the email directly to you and that you might be in touch.

As I said in the email, I didn’t create the caption ‘Weird Wide Web’, it is a pre-existing section for non-business related technology headlines. In the spirit of openness feel free to publish the email which I sent your daughter on your blog because as I have already said, I am not ageist in the slightest not would I ever wish to cause offence.

To clarify, the letter requesting an apology that you sent to the Independent would never have reached me because Silicon Republic is a separate entity that provides the independent with its technology news.

Yours sincerely,

Marie Boran
Journalist
Siliconrepublic.com
Tel: +353 (0)1 XXX XXXX
Mobile: 0XX XXXXXXX
Email: xxx@xxx.com

‘I didn’t email you because your daughter, who alerted me to your letter requesting an apology from the Independent in the first place, said she would pass on the email directly to you and that you might be in touch.’

Why would I be in touch? I did not know, and from the layout of the page it is not clear that Siliconrepublic.com is responsible for the content on the page. In fact there is a thick blue line under our photo separating it from the large advert and the article ‘Why don’t we do digital dinner?’ written by Marie Boran.

‘I didn’t create the caption ‘Weird Wide Web’, it is a pre-existing section for non-business related technology headlines.’

If the offending heading with the word WEIRD was pre Ms Boran, then I was correct in the first place addressing my correspondence to the Editor of the Irish Independent.

The second e-mail was sent to Elly (coincidently on my sixty-first Birthday) and not to me, therefore it was not mine to print here on the blog without permission.

Last week I phoned the Irish Independent and asked to speak to the Editor. I was informed that he was away and asked if I would like to speak to his deputy. She was not interested in hearing what I had to say she sounded condescending and her manner was almost rude. She informed me that it could take THREE weeks for the Editor to read an email???? Yes I did say three weeks!

On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 9:58 AM, Marie Boran - Siliconrepublic.com wrote:

Hi Elly,

Sorry for any offence caused by the heading ‘Weird Wide Web’ - that’s the section where eThursday does anything different ie not business related, but I can see how this caused offence to your mother. Tell her that I apologize sincerely and that I find nothing ‘weird’ about older bloggers and I am not ageist in the slightest.

Just to reiterate again, I didn’t write the caption ‘weird wide web’ - it is a standard label that is part of the eThur layout and was there before I even worked there but in order to get the blog awards and the fact that your mother won, into eThursday, I had to work around the standards that already exist.

I did write the text ‘Senior citizen bloggers known as Grannymar and Grandad tied for the award of the best personal blog at the Irish Blog Awards 2008′ but I do not see how this is offensive.

I will let the editor of eThursday know that your mother found it offensive to have her picture and name in the ‘weird wide web’ section and wants an apology printed.

Regards,
Marie Boran.

I replied to Marie Boran’s email to me saying that my anger was not with her as a person, but with the use of the heading above our picture. I noticed there was no picture the following week under the heading and the nuns she mentioned and pictured in the main article were well away from it! But then they were using mobile phones and nothing to do with blogging!

Did I get an Apology? I’m not Elly!

On one hand we are told that 60 is the new 40 and on the other we are past it and ready for the scrap heap! It is almost worse than being an adolescent!

I sat on my fury long enough.

You saw this picture and caption here on my blog the other day. I was annoyed not alone for myself, but also for Grandad and indeed for all older bloggers. If we were really weird, a major company like Microsoft would not have offered sponsorship for this category at the Irish Blog Awards.

Tonight I decided to deal with my fury and confront the Irish Independent with the email below.

Dear Editor,

On Thursday last I received a phone call encouraging me to read that day’s Irish Independent. On Page 18 of the Business section I discovered my photo. The surprise was not the photo, because it was taken at a public event.

The shock was the heading! ‘WEIRD WIDE WEB’ The caption was ‘Senior citizen bloggers known as Grannymar and Grandad tied for the award of the best personal blog at the Irish Blog Awards 2008’. Congratulations, you managed to get our names correct. Now before you make any more mistakes we are not married and met for the first time at the event.

I sat on my fury for a few days hoping that it would abate. It didn’t.

Please explain what is weird about older people blogging? Further down the page was a picture of two other Bloggers, young ladies half my age, I know that since one of them happens to be my daughter! You would not dare put a caption - ‘WEIRD WIDE WEB’ above them, I guarantee if you had, my daughter would have your guts for garters!

Am I wrong in assuming that the heading and caption were written by a young journalist? Why is that once silver threads begin to appear we are written off or thought to have lost our marbles? Let me tell you, neither Grandad nor I have lost our ability to use modern technology. We are both familiar with computers, email, blogging, Podcasting, Levelator, Skype and indeed Facebook!

I consider the term ‘WEIRD WIDE WEB’ an insult to all older Bloggers and hope that you will apologise to Grandad and I on page 18 of the business section next Thursday.

Sincerely

Grannymar

It is Tuesday morning in a cold but sunny Dublin suburb and I have a few minutes to play on my blog. So much has happened since this time last week. I at that point was still on the long, short list for The Irish Blog Awards!

So exactly what happened in the week?

1. Finally after 30 years in Northern Ireland I became an Orange woman!

2. I was given a red carpet welcome to Dublin.

3. I was dipped, stripped and went a step further than Cleopatra!

4. I had a Toyboy for dinner.

5. I shared a stage with Grandad.

6. I had Toyboys falling to their knees and shared a couch with Twenty Major!

7. I WON AN ARRANGEMENT OF BEAUTIFUL fLOWERS

Now if it is details you want you will have to wait for my return to home territory. And I plead with all of you not to mention VODKA!!!!!!!

Grandad asked a question on Saturday.

The conditions of his release from a short spell in captivity include lying low and not interfering with his neighbours property or staff building workers, shooting Tourists, or ranting and raving about the dedicated and hardworking personnel who so unselfishly and wholeheartedly give of themselves for the good of Ireland by serving in Government. This leaves little for him to do so in his boredom he committed a few short words to the laptop and asked a question.

Now this was either a ploy to check up on the loyalty of his followers, or to get them to do all the work and fill Cyberspace with their answers and keep his stats up. There is also the possibility that the answers would provide meat fodder topics for further blog posts.

The question he posed was ‘Why do I(you) Blog?’

I quickly sent my first thoughts winging over the Interweb:

• • Elly walked me into it.
  • The novelty.
  • Now to keep in contact with all the virtual friends I have made.

Happy enough with that I went about my daily chores. Alas there was no peace, the question haunted me at every twist and turn.

So, Why do I blog?

Yes, the answers above were all correct. Elly did walk or push me into it. I was her guinea pig for Bar Camp South East way back in September ‘06. I did say “what would I want to do that for? and many other unprintable things as well. But we I got there and my first post was two sentences!!!! Yes two.

Elly was more concerned with me learning about Podcasting. I did my best, and my first effort The Favour was all of two or three minutes. Way to long for anyone to suffer listening to such a dreadful voice!

With time I became more comfortable and adventurous, the blog posts grew longer as did the Podcasts. I learned to insert graphics and photos and last week I managed to add a mini video clip.

Slowly, very slowly over time the comments started to arrive. There are some folk who visit and tip-toe away saying nothing, and that is their right, but there are other stalwarts who visit everyday adding their wisdom, another point of view or sense of fun. At this stage I feel they are my friends and I cherish them. Not being able to ‘Run the Roads’, as they say here in Norn Iron, as much as I would like, I appreciate my blogging friends all the more.

Thank you, Elly for the push! Thank you George for your help also (now where are my flags?). I have learned so much since I started, I discovered there is so much more to learn and most important of all plenty more fun to be had.

So in short I blog, and read blogs because:

• I learn from others.
• Ranting or readings rants, raises my blood pressure.
• The laughter is like jogging on the inside.
• The smile some posts put on my face requires the use of more muscles than a frown, and it also keeps the laughter lines curved upwards giving my face a softer look!
• Then there is the ‘T’ word…..

So please visit more, you are good for my health!

While Grandad was away I tried to hi-jack his blog.

I had a little pressie for him and wanted to add it to his blog.

Alas it would not work. So here it is:

Do you think he will like it?

20th September was a 1st Anniversary for me!

To be truthful it was the first Birthday of my Baby. Now Elly calm down and don’t get all worked up. There is nothing for you to be excited about. Relax and rest up after all that travel round Europe. I will talk to you tomorrow.

The baby I refer to is my blog. The very first post consisted of five lines. Today I could ask the same question “Am I mad or just insane? What would I have to say that would be of interest to other people?”

I suppose I have improved a little and from time to time amused the odd passerby.

There is one thing for sure, it is much more fun that I ever expected. I have made friends across the globe, spoken to a few and physically met several. I hope not to have made any enemies along the road. Granny surely you know I love admire Grandad and his easy way with words.

I am now at the stage of feeling guilty on the days when I fail to find the words for a post. It is now more important to read the work of my new found friends and laugh, learn and sometimes weep at the stories they have to tell. Thank you one and all for help, encouragement and faithfully returning to to leave comments.

I never for one moment thought I would last a month never mind a full year.

Cheers, thanks & hugs!

Back in February I made a Podcast about the day Nancy came to Town. That day we enjoyed lunch at the Crown Bar in Belfast. This popular bar is the only National Trust-owned pub in Northern Ireland and has been described as the best preserved Victorian pub in the UK.

My podcast inspired Grandad to write about his memories of Belfast.

I see in the Belfast Telegraph Newspaper this evening that the work on restoration of the building is almost complete. The ceiling hidden for years by a thick nicotine layer has been scraped and the restorers are discovering the beautiful colours beneath.

Project manager Claire McGill said booths, ceiling and tiles have all been given a new lease of life. More than 100 mirrored glass pieces from the snugs have been restored and will be reinstalled this month.

Nancy, come October it might be time for another visit to Belfast.

Now I wonder if these restorers working at the Crown Bar, had a little go at Grandad’s lungs what wonderful colours would they uncover?

On the night of My Elly’s wedding to George I thought I saw a ‘Gate-Crasher’ sloping about. Well now I know my hunch was correct. It was a little old lady biddy swathed in a shawl. At one point she was down the hallway looking closely at the room next to the Bridal Suite. I was going to ask if she needed help, but decided all the Toy-boys were waiting to trip the light fantastic with me, so I left her to her own devices.

Now not alone do I know she was an intruder but I have evidence of her identity! She admitted it on the internet! Yes she was talking about it on her Blog. It was Granny! She is a Spy! Maybe Grandad put her up to it. So how did she manage it? I know how. It was the mirror.

So how do I know? I have a friend who is a policewoman, she travels all over the US speaking at seminars for business women; she passed this information on to me.

“When you visit toilets, bathrooms, hotel rooms, changing rooms, etc., do you know for sure that the seemingly ordinary mirror hanging on the wall is a real mirror, or actually a 2-way mirror (i.e., they can see you, but you can’t see them)?

 

There have been many cases of people installing 2-way mirrors in female changing rooms. It is very difficult to positively identify the surface by just looking at it.

 

So, how do we determine with any amount of certainty what type of mirror we are looking at? Just conduct this simple test:

 

Place the tip of your fingernail against the reflective surface and if there is a GAP between your fingernail and the image of the nail, then it is a GENUINE mirror.

 

However, if your fingernail DIRECTLY TOUCHES the image of your nail, then BEWARE, FOR IT IS a 2-WAY MIRROR!”

Now I realise that I should have warned my Elly, but the list of ‘Do’s and Don’ts’ I have given her over the years is as long as the M50.

So now that the horse has bolted Remember:

“No Space, Leave the Place”
Every time you see a Mirror, do the “fingernail test.” It doesn’t cost you anything.

Grandad has some shopping to do this weekend. We all know he is no stranger to the craft. Alas when it comes to shopping he has no idea how to do it with style.

Imagine buying a vacuum cleaner as a present for a very special Lady on a very Special Day. Well I think I found the ideal gift:

http://www.iwantoneofthose.com/racing-grannies/index.html

If he is feeling left out there is something there for him as well!

Enjoy.

Grandad and Granny went away for a few days last month. He told us they went to a small comfortable hotel in the west. Part of that story was true, they did go to the west but it was a camping holiday.

After they got their tent all set up, both Granny & Grandad fell sound asleep. Some hours later, Granny wakes Grandad and says, “St James’s Street tonight, look up to the sky; what do you see?”

Grandad replies, “I see millions of stars.”

“What does that tell you?” asked Granny.

Grandad scratches his head and ponders for a minute then says, “Astronomically speaking, it tells me there are millions of galaxies. Time wise, it appears to be approximately a quarter past three in the morning. Theologically, the Lord is all powerful and we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, it seems we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. What’s it tell you, Granny?”

“You are dumber than K8’s dog. Someone has stolen our tent.”