Grannymar

There are times in life when I walk a tightrope.

Sometimes it is by choice yet on occasions it is because I am drawn into a situation or life of another person. Part of the problem is that I am more of a listener than a talker. I have always loved voices and accents. Give me Anthony Hopkins or Richard Burton and the knees go a wobbling!

Being a people person I love back stories and learning what brings people to the place in life they now inhabit. For some it is pure happenstance, while for others it is a series of unfortunate or unexpected events. Sometimes the road seems level, coloured by flowers of joy and contentment, yet for others the path is rocky and rough causing many a stumble or fall along the way.

I don’t like to see any of my friends struggling and the ‘mother’ in me wants to help. Of course my idea of help may seem like interference to somebody else. Removed from a situation we all see things differently. It is a privilege to be asked for advice and it is all the more rewarding when it is accepted, and the person is able to deal with and move on from the problem.

There is one thing sure and that is I will not be bribed. Any information entrusted to me in confidence will not be passed on.

I have no professional training, yet over the years I have listened and talked to many people from different walks of life. Only once have I failed, and failed badly in my book. The person in question at times phoned me two and three times a day. I made myself available whenever they wanted to talk. They wanted to talk and asked my advice, but for every suggestion I made they found an obstacle. These conversations went on over two years. At times they heard but didn’t listen, eventually I realised that the depressed mood was affecting me and the person in question had become so used to wallowing that it had become a way of life. They refused to seek professional help.

I stepped back. I had to. If I let the birds of depression land on my shoulders who would be there to help me? Was I selfish? Did I do wrong?

What would you do?

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!

Well, Down with the Irish Independent! They didn’t print either my letter or an apology. ‘Oldies’ don’t count! I notice that the Weird Wide Web heading has no photograph under it this week.

Further down the page we have a picture of three mature nuns with mobile phones to their ears. The heading reads ‘Holy smokes, it’s the silver surfers!’ No mention of senior citizens there. Good news for Ian & Paddy Anglican, wearing a collar backwards means they won’t grow old!

Since the nuns are wearing head-dresses we cannot see the silver tresses. The title above the picture and article, ‘Holy smokes, it’s the silver surfers!’ might have worked last week, because Grandad is a well known puffer of a pipe, and I have plenty of silver where once I had gold.

In fairness, Elly copied my email last week to Marie Boran of Silicon Republic and she replied to Elly, but not to me. Since the reply was not addressed to me I was unable to publish it. There was mention of an apology, but I have gone through the full paper and can not see it anywhere.

Mr Tony Blair Ex Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and President George W Bush of the United States of America.

Dear Gentlemen,

Together you decided to march into Iraq and start a war. It was not with my consent or permission, and now Mr Blair, you have sailed off into the sunset soon to be joined by your good friend George W. We poor souls are left with the debacle because neither of you have found a way to withdraw without both losing face.

I am paying over and again for this dreadful disaster. Food prices have soared and today I am punished once more. Being old and cold I need plenty of winter fuel to warm my bones. My bungalow is plumbed for oil fired central heating. And as mentioned before I light a real fire for an extra comfort.

Back in February this year I purchased 900 litres of heating oil which cost me Stg£278. Today I bought a further 900 litres and it cost exactly £100 more. Yes, today it cost Stg£378 to keep my tootsies warm for the winter months.

Dear Gentlemen, I am sure that with the goodness of your hearts you will find a way to refund the Stg£378 from either your Salary or pension without missing a cent of it.

Yours sincerely

Grannymar

Over the past few days several of my blogging pals have let off steam about things that were annoying them.

Now it is my turn.

This morning I needed to purchase something (light) so I decided to walk up the town. For various health reasons this walk is not always possible or indeed a good idea. In these parts we say ‘Up the town’ when in fact it is a mile downhill to the centre of our so called shopping area from where I live. The mile uphill on the return journey is rather taxing for me nowadays. I managed my outward journey quite well, but walking along the main street I was almost pushed under a bus! It was only a single-decker so maybe if it had hit me the damage may not have been so bad!!!

So how did it happen? There were shoppers about and I was aware of a young lady approaching with a baby in a pushchair. Being polite, and one of the old school, l I moved to the outside of the pavement to give her room. She paid no attention to me and barged on past. From the side of the pushchair (closest to me), 2 enormous packets of disposable nappies were protruding. The packages hit me as she passed with enough force to knock me off balance. I ended up in the road. She must have noticed or felt the bump!

As I struggled up the hill with more aches & pains than I had on the way down I pondered on the subject of ‘Babies’ & their transport. My gripe is the fact that a) she paid no heed to other pedestrians and b) that the pushchair/buggy/ stroller or whatever you want to call it was the size of an SUV! Maybe if I had to push a tank like that about I would become aggressive.

This evening I browsed the web and was horrified to discover that one of these gigantic pushchairs might cost £300-£400. The weight of a pushchair is approximately 13kg, that’s without the baby! The assembled size is about L130 x W58 x H106cm.

I then read several reviews about these means of transport and the consensus was that they were very heavy when folded and quite cumbersome when trying to lift into the boot of a car or onto a bus. You also need a fairly large area to store them as they takes up a fair amount of room! The sunshade was useless as it didn’t shade the baby from the sun at all. Finally whilst it is lovely having pneumatic tyres, it is very frustrating when you got a puncture. One lady reported having had three!

Now don’t get me started on disposable nappies……