Skylark, I agree with Yogi. As you know, my parents had 3000 books, my brother is a librarian, and I have hundreds of books.

 

Your story is very similar to this one I saw the other day on the BBC website:

 

Leading Charles Dickens biographer Claire Tomalin has said children are not being taught to read with the attention span necessary to appreciate the novelist's works.

Tomalin said Dickens's depiction of an unequal society was still "amazingly relevant", ahead of nationwide celebrations to mark the 200th anniversary of his birth.

Children were now unable to appreciate this due to "being reared on dreadful television programmes", she said in an interview with the Press Association.

"Children are not being educated to have prolonged attention spans and you have to be prepared to read steadily for a Dickens novel and I think that's a pity."

 

 

I think a strong case could be put forward for Dickens being Britain's greatest ever writer. The reason being that his writings are for everyone and that much of what he had to say is every bit as relevant today as it was then. Injustice, poverty, greed are still with us.

Thanks for explaining that El, very complex and not surprising really, that some are taken in on it.
You really have to be on your guard and knowledgeable in so many things, regarding law changes and circumstances etc.
Unfortunately it is easy to dupe some people if they are told what they need, or want to hear 
 

Yes i agree re Dickens, and the anniversary has brought some debate, and its a good thing IMO. I dont necessarily agree that children dont have attention spans these days, they can sit in front of a computer game for hours! Possibly different than sitting still and reading, of course. But if encouraged i am sure they will find it just as exciting, using their imagination etc

It does make me sad about children not wanting to read.  I read to my grandsons and encouraged them with many interesting books but it just didn't 'take' and neither of them read nowadays   I taught my daughter to read before she started school and she is a real bookworm.

My middle son is the same, even though I read to him as much as the other two.

Youngest son is a bookworm like me, and eldest son falls somewhere in between.

Just popped back to say goodnight. Is it me or has the forum had an update? Things look a bit different  Where the dialogs etc are, looks very big!
Maybe Lori been looking and thinking we are getting older and need  larger print  
Anyway goodnight all 

Oh have to say, yes my son doesnt read very much these days but as said the encouragement and choice was there. The sad fact is with some children, they havent had the encouragement , outside the school gates . Its good to have the subject raised again, good old Dickens eh? 

I think there's been some tweaking going on, things definitely look a bit different.

I'm quite happy with the larger print though, for obvious reasons.

Goodnight Skylark, see you tomorrow.

Nite Yogi, good to see it wasnt just me! 

I thought it was just me, I tried to remember if I had touched any different keys.

 

Signing out now, so hugs for everyone and speak to you all tomorrow.

I think a few of us were wondering if we'd done something to change it.

Goodnight Squiggle, speak to you tomorrow.

Sweet dreams squiggle I'm reading a dog called Christmas right now, well between watching series 3 of vampire diaries that is I'm really enjoying it so far, I'm half way through

Skylark, I love daffodils! And bluebells you have good taste

Goodnight all, off for a read.

Hugs for Summer and Ros.

Night yogi enjoy your book

night yogi and summer

Good morning everyone

 

A cold night here, but there is no frost here due to cloud cover. Looks as if there will be snow in England on Friday - my brother is due to come and visit me then, so that may well get affected.

 

Chetlenham were beaten by Crawley last night which means that Crawley replace Cheltenham at the top of division 2. That was always going to be a tough match. Cheltenham's next match is at Hereford, if it takes place, and it will be interesting to see how they react to the defeat.

Good morning Sorry El, but the mention of Crawley made me think of Downton Abbey lol I hope that Cheltenham keep their spirits up and play a good game at Hereford. Does your brother support Cheltenham too..? My curtains are still drawn because I'm laying in but I can hear birds chirping outside

Summer, as I don't watch Downton Abbey I didn't realise that it was about the Crawley family

 

I don't think my brother supports any football team. I worked in Cheltenham for many years and I still shop and bank there so I have as much connection with Cheltenham as Gloucester.

Hehe yes, mr Matthew Crawley is the dashing heir to Downton and our hero I think it's great that you support both Cheltenham and Gloucester, I often get asked if prefer north or south, but I love both. There's no need to compare or pick a preference, our hearts are big enough to give many places a share.. I'm rather partial to the midlands too, my dads family are from there

Good morning everyone, a really heavy frost today and as the birds had cleared the bird table (again ) I had to fill that up again before I ate my breakfast.  I hope everyone has a good day, keep warm and be careful in case of ice.  I am glad you are enjoying the book Summer.

here's my makeover photos for you..

 

the room was previously magnolia, with plain brown blinds & lampshade. i like it so much better now lol

Nice job, Summer - well done 

 

Yesterday I went to bank a cheque from a client only to find when I got there he hadn't signed it. So I went round to his house and left it there with a note for him to sign it. He dropped it off yesterday evening and I've just been over to the bank to bank it. I'm hoping that the cheque clears but I wouldn't be surprised if it bounces. There weren't many customers in the bank this morning and I had a bit of a chat with the cashier. It turns out that he comes from Transylvania. As you can imagine, he tends to get people making jokes about not being able to eat garlic bread, was it comfortable in your coffin last night, must be difficult for him to go home during summer when it's still light etc . I couldn't hear any sign of an East European accent. He said that the Transylvanian accent is closest to Polish. I said I knew some Polish people and couldn't detect any similarity. He has been in this country for over 5 years and as there aren't many people from Transylvania he knows, he had become Anglicised. He has learned a number of languages and made a point of when watching foreign films to ignore the subtitles and listen to the voices. Nowadays he dreams in English.

 

Yesterday I had a phone call from a company accountant who knew someone who was starting a new business and would need an accountant. The company accountant didn't do tax returns etc and had been given my name by an ex client of mine.

 

I decided not to accept the potential new client for a couple of reasons. The main one being that the ex client had suddenly stopped using me as his accountant without explanation and never paid my final bill which I eventually wrote off. It seemed very strange to me why someone like that would recommend me. The potential new client was setting up a car repair place in town. I know it's fictional but would I want The Arches (Eastenders) with Phil Mitchell/Derek Branning in charge - I don't think so.

here's 2 more.. yogi, i think you will appreciate the doggies

 

the dried roses i put on the memo board are from tuscany, i was given the posy of flowers from the table at the wedding and set about drying them straight away. they made it back home in my suitcase in a reasonable state, and i've been drying them for the last 7 months! today i pulled the bouquet apart and put the best flowers on the memo board. 

my SIL aka the bride, is coming round later, she's going to scream when she see's them!

I think your room looks beautiful Summer,I love your attention to detail well done.

 

So interesting EL about the guy from Transylvania, well done him.  I think your instinct has guided you right over the potential new client, if the recommendee was problematic then I too would be wary of anyone he recommended.

Talking of Eastenders, I see that Mandy's mother Lorraine is coming back. She left the series almost 20 years ago. The returning Lorraine though will have to be played by a different actress (Victoria Alcock) as it would be rather difficult for the original actress to play the part for an unusual reason. Lorraine was originally played by Linda Henry who of course is Shirley Carter. I wonder if there will be any indirect references to this in the script.

Good afternoon everyone.

It's still very frosty here, I had to use boiling water from the kettle to de-ice the birdbath so the little birds could get a drink.

Summer, your room looks beautiful, you have very good taste. I love the little doggies, as would my future DiL. She loves Westies and used to have one called Hamish.

El, I think you are right to refuse that particular client - and you made me laugh with your "Arches" reference.

It was interesting to hear that the Transylvanian gentleman now dreams in English, after a comparatively short time in Britain. I suppose he rarely hears his native language being spoken now that he lives here, as I don't think there are many Transylvanian communities in the Britain.

Quite often over lunch I watch Doctors on BBC1. The stories are extremely varied, sometimes tragic, sometimes funny, sometimes mundane, sometimes quite exciting. From time to time they will throw something very different.

 

This is a link to today's episode in iPlayer.(I've just noticed that Seattle has changed the link module so that a new window is the default rather than the current window)

 

It's the opening scene which is unusual. The rest of the programme is OK but it is the sort of story that Ingmar (not Ingrid) Bergman could have made into a deeply profound film, which this isn't.

 

If you don't want to see the rest of the programme but want to know what the explanation is read what follows which I've made white so you can see it by highlighting it : there is no explanation to the phenomenon which we never see. It just happened.

A quick hello, been a busy wee bee today 
Will be back later x

izzy wizzy, let's get bizzy

 

I probably won't be back on today as I have to have an early tea then go off to see a new client.

 

Bye bye everybody, bye bye

 

Bye EL (I could hear Harry Corbett's accent) I hope your new client looks promising.

El, I clicked on the link and watched the episode of Doctors. Is there a name for this type of phenomenon, where a group of people have some sort of "vision", or was it something the scriptwriters made up?

Hope all goes well with the new client.

Signing out, hugs for the night owls.

Night Yogi, I'm signing out too, sleep well everyone, speak to you tomorrow.

night yogi and squiggle

 

and  a for everybody

Sooty! as a child I had a sooty nightie, it had a little pocket at the front and in it was a sooty hand puppet! Lol thanks for triggering my memory there El!

I went to see the artist tonight, it was brilliant, I thought it very clever, entertaining and charming. Uggie the dog, well I just fell in love with him

Sweet dreams all

Good morning everyone

 

Yogi, there is a term in psychology called the Rashomon effect where a group of people who have witnessed the same event try to rationalise it in their own ways resulting in very different explanations. It is called this after Akira Kurosawa's film Rashomon where a man's body is found in the woods, a woman has been raped, and the various people involved in the story give very different accounts of what happened. It was made in 1950 and is considered one of the masterpieces of Japanese cinema.

 

I met the new client who is a Polish dentist. She was recommended to me by another Polish dentist client, neither of whom is my own dentist who is also a Polish woman. She raised various questions but two were unusual. One was did I have my files kept securely locked away in case my house was broken into and the files were looked at. The other was how easy was it for her to sack me as her agent. That one suggests to me that this is unlikely to be a long lasting client - she will probably get me to do the accounts and tax return the first time and then do it herself.

 

Summer, I'm glad you enjoyed The Artist. For squiggle's benefit, can you confirm that what little dialogue there is is in the form of title cards rather than subtitles?

Good morning everyone. Damp and dreary weather this morning.

El, thanks for the information on the Rashomon effect, I've never heard of it before.

Re the new client, what strange questions. I think you are right to expect her to be a "one-off " client, rather than a long term one.

Summer, I hope you like the flowers.

Good morning everyone, I love those flowers Yogi, I think Spring flowers are my very favourite.

 

I have an unusual problem with my boiler, it won't switch off.  That is I have to turn it off at the electrical plug for it to go off.  I am just checking to make sure the same thing occurs today before I report it to the insurance company (I have home cover).  Oh well I suppose it's better than not coming on at all, I suppose it must be to do with the control unit.