Janet Gogerty's Blog: Sandscript - Posts Tagged "brownies"

'Are you on Facebook?' A common question; in days gone by people would have asked 'Are you on the telephone?' More recently the question in social and business contexts will have been 'Are you on the Internet?' Now it is usually assumed you are and the query will be 'What's your e-mail address?' If addressing the elderly, tact is required, some would be insulted at the suggestion that they may not be keeping up with the times, whilst others will retort angrily that they have no intention of getting a computer.
When I was in the Brownies I had to resit my Golden Hand badge - I had failed the telephone test. All that was required was to make a phone call, in my case at the home of a stranger ( a respectable middle aged woman I hasten to add; now days she would have had to go through numerous checks first ) as my parents did not possess a telephone, which was the reason why I was nervous.
My mother, tied up with two younger children, once sent me and my sensible older friend to a phone box with a message for my father at the office and detailed instructions for the telephone box. We failed to master buttons A and B and the message was never sent. You will gather that our friends and neighbours did not possess a phone either, perhaps it was considered too expensive or unnecessary.
Now we can skype across the world with several people and several generations squeezing onto the screen.
But Facebook is different from e-mailing and skyping, it is not personal and most of us have a love hate relationship. Are we there to see people's holiday pix, show off how many friends we have, to have a laugh or check if family members are still alive? I logged in recently to be confronted with a large, square, brown fury creature with a large shark mouth. In various shots he was depicted with a cigarette in his mouth, a can of beer in his fury mitt and a piza on his plate. This was my introduction to a new family member from Japan, Domo Kun Plush, who now shares a rented room with a human family member. You never know who you are going to meet on Facebook.

Sandscript on Tour

It has been a great weekend of sport, or there has been ‘nothing on television’, depending on your point of view. Football, Wimbledon finals, Grand Prix, which I don’t count as sport and the start of the Tour de France.
When I was a child, cycling back from Brownies one summer evening, speeding down my favourite hill, a near disaster occurred. At the bottom of the hill was a T junction, I took the right turn too wide, there was a screech of brakes and the doors of a red sports car flew open to reveal an irate couple who asked which school I went to. Foolishly I told them the truth, stupidly I related the incident when I got home, convinced I would be mentioned in morning assembly and my parents contacted by the headmaster. I had let the school and Lord Baden Powell down. I was not mentioned in assembly or called to the headmaster’s office. I could have kept quiet about the whole incident. Those were small quiet roads, I was unlucky a car happened to come along at the wrong moment, I’m sure the event was not as dramatic as I recall. It was not the only mishap on that hill. On a similar evening I fell off my bike before I even got to the bottom. An ‘old’ lady came out and invited me into her house for first aid. I knew I was not allowed in strangers' homes, but she seemed kind and wouldn’t take no for an answer. In her tiny sitting room the television was on, ‘Look’, a nature programme with Peter Scott; this reassured me I was safe. She bathed my grazed knee with Dettol, then I raced home at top speed to avoid explaining why I was late. When I returned to this place as an adult I was astonished that my hill was merely a gently sloping road.
Anyone who has ever ridden a bike can appreciate the terror and thrill of riding downhill and sympathise with the hard slog of riding uphill. We can enjoy the Tour de France from the comfort of an arm chair. The people of Yorkshire had a closer view as the race started in their beautiful county; as the commentator repeated endlessly, people had turned out in their thousands, or was it millions? In the run up to the event locals had been painting their sheep in the colours of cycling jumpers, creating bicysculptures and renaming the pubs in French. At home we enjoyed the added spectacle of viewing Yorkshire from the air; ancient abbeys, patchwork green fields with drystone walls and narrow roads winding and dipping. Each year I have the rules explained to me, but never understand. This is not a simple race of who comes first, but three weeks of varied terrain, too many cyclists, complicated team work, a points system and the awarding of different coloured jumpers. But that does not matter to television viewers; there is the scenery to enjoy and the spectacle of riders sweeping downhill, gracefully rounding bends and occasionally crashing. There were also the young Royals to observe and a preview of the baby sized yellow jersey that would be presented to Prince George, for less effort on his part than for the real sportsmen.