And last Thursday at the checkout in Eason's in Derry I met a Fermanagh woman who lives in Austria and has a house here. In the course of a conversation which continued for some time, and went on to involve a meal in the select surroundings of De Burgh Terrace (thanks Wolfgang), she said; "What's that quote from Voltaire on your blog?"
So maybe it's time to kick off again.
Of course, as the Voltaire quote was the product of a two minute search on Google, it was impossible to remember. And so another blogger is exposed for false advertising as a writer who has the works of the French masters at his fingertips.
This piece is getting a little long for the multi-media world of the early 21st century, so here's a pic of Voltaire to liven you all up (always keep one on the desktop) -
(feel free to ignore the quote)
As you can see, Voltaire had a considerable head of hair (with obvious possibilities for a good limerick, which won't detain us here), which rather undermine those writers making a big deal in the media today after Fellaini's performance against Man U last night.
Voltaire's hair was longer, I'm sure you'll agree.
To return to our (temporary) topic, Voltaire's name was actually Francois-Marie Aroet (from now on, your writer will answer only to the name Ampere) and brainyquote.com reveals that he was also known for his saying - "A witty saying proves nothing." I see he echoes Tolsoy - as we all know from our reading of 'War and Peace', bedside stuff you know - that "All murderers are punished unless they kill in numbers and to the sound of trumpets".
To clear up a trifle, and to announce that all future sentences in this blog will begin with the construction 'To [do something or other]', it might be pointed out that Voltaire (1694 - 1778) could hardly be said to 'echo' Tolstoy (1828 - 1910) (who, strangely enough, had a long beard
). So please bear this in mind.
To actually broach the topic announced for this blog, it's about time that a start was made on 'Derry 2.0' for Friday's Journal. The column, usually written by Mark Nagurski, looks at digital tech locally, but as Mark is taking a little break because of his commitments to the CultureTECH festival, coming up shortly www.culturetech.co/ , here's a go at a guest column:
DERRY 2.0
My first encounter with the avant-garde was as a rookie reporter doing a story on the renovations of Fortstewart, not the home of the 3rd infantry division and the largest US Army installation east of the Mississippi, but the imposing house which is the home of the Day family outside Ramelton, overlooking Lough Swilly.
One of the Day daughters was showing me around. I admired a ribbed ceiling, I think above the grand staircase, which had been painted in striking colours.
"Yes, it's rather avant garde, isn't it?" she said.
I could only agree.
I found out the term was a French equivalent of 'ahead of the posse', a Wild West phrase much more familar to a young man who'd spent his teenage years reading J. T. Edson, the English postman, and Zane Grey, the dentist.
Growing up in Raphoe, I wanted to be part of the avant garde, but sadly it was not to be. Whether it was the Raleigh Chopper or Bay City Rollers trousers, by the time I got there the world had moved on. It's a sad thing to finally put on the trousers trimmed with tartan and the stacked shoes and find that, far from being a trend setter, you're an object of ridicule. Phil Coulter has to share the blame.
In fact, it wasn't until I joined the BBC in Belfast in the 1980s that I finally got a taste of the life of an 'early adopter'. Previously, at the Derry People in Letterkenny, and later the Derry Journal in Derry, we were still using typewriters (invented - 1860s) and probably being told we were lucky to have them.
Ah, yes! It's hard to forget the thrill of running around the troublespots of the North carrying what looked like a heavy transistor radio with a handset on top - an early mobile phone. In those days, and probably in these, the Beeb always had the latest gear. The satellite phone was another gadget to bring out in the company of an attractive interviewee.
But as the wheel of life turns around, I seem to be regressing to my childhood in terms of the 'avant garde'. For various reasons, the spare cash doesn't seem to be there to move to the front of the queue for all the wonderful 'must have' accessories of modern life. It's all very well buying 'Wired' magazine and reading about the amazing developments in the digital world, but at some stage you would actually like to GET SOMETHING - and not in the 'Fantastic Reductions' section of PC World because it's past it.
My mobile is a perfectly respectable android HTC model - until you see someone enjoying their iPhone 4s 320GB. At home, the laptop is not a Macbook Pro with OS X Mountain Lion - it's actually an ten year-old Mac Defunct, as it has refused to turn on since we got back from France. And you can only spend so long playing the iPad in PC World in the Waterside before the staff start to look at you funny (great game that, where you slice the fruit with your finger across the screen . . .)
By the time I finally get an iPad (maybe at Christmas - hint, hint), the early adopters will be running around with pCelts, complete with inter-stellar travel and a 'quick fry' option for frozen chips.
Of course, there is a part of me that says 'So what?' Otherwise I might be squirreling away the odd bit of money for gadgets rather than wasting it on old-fashioned stuff like books. After spending hours on the computer at work, do you really want to be on an iPhone or iPad constantly in your spare time, looking after your virtual life while letting real life slip by? Uploading images and video clips from glorious Slieve League rather than 'living in the moment' and letting the memory banks do the rest?
For anyone who reads 'Derry 2.0' regularly, the answer to these questions may well be - 'yes'.
But maybe there's something to learn from the memories of those days many years ago, having races with toy cars and pitched battles with plastic armies, sticking stamps onto the 'Uruguay' page, or just running around the fields, instead of parading around town in tartan trousers. . .
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