Month: July 2001

Bit quiet today on the blogging front as I get to grips with a long-overdue redesign of the work website. It’ll not exactly be all-singing, all-dancing, but it will use a lot more CSS and some of the tricks I have learnt in keeping Grayblog going for ten months. I’ll let you know when the new version goes online.

The GBlogs recently updated list appears to be offline at the moment. An alternative list of recently updated British blogs can be found here.

They might just as well replace the words “new calls to return” with the word “friends”. And get Anne Robinson to record it.

The cathedral bells were being rung as I walked through the cathedral close on my way to work this morning. I was listening to a discussion on the radio the other day about church bells – the argument was “is this music, or just cacophany?”
I think the jury is out on that one, but it is certainly a striking sound and it does have a certain beauty. The thought that occured to me this morning was that, when the cathdral bell tower was built, the sound must have been the loudest thing (aside from the roars of thunder and wind) that the Cicestrians would ever hear in their lives. It didn’t have to compete with the background rumble of traffic, trains and industry, the blaring stereo from the passing car or even the incessant ring of mobile phones.
It is no wonder that the church had such power and influence over a poorly educated populace. It was the centre of knowledge, erected massive buildings, made enormous noise and had great power and wealth. The populace must have been cowed into submission and subservience – the church was the embodiment of the “fear” of God. Now the roles are reversed, and the church seems weak in the face of commerce, industry, education, wealth and noise of the populace.
And on the subject of musical impressiveness, I defy anything to beat a cathedral organ. When I was on holiday in Lisbon a couple of years ago, I happened to be in Se cathedral just as an organist was rehearsing for a recital – it was fantastic, the enormous (and beautiful) building almost shaking with the sound. What was even more remarkable was that the organist was a girl of no more than 14 or 15 – she was tiny in comparison to the noise that surrounded her.

There is an interesting article in today’s Sunday Telegraph (not on their website yet, so no link) about the “Surrendered Wife” phenomenon, and more particularly, the new book that is coming up by the same author (Laura Doyle), The Surrendered Single.
For those that are not familiar with this work, the basic premise is that men don’t know how to handle modern women, and are daunted and intimidated by powerful, successful wives and girlfriends. This, the author believes, is a barrier to a successful, lasting, loving relationship, and is the cause of many divorces and failed relationships. What she goes on to suggest is that wives and girlfriends should adopt a more submissive role, almost to the point of becoming doormats. The new book will essentially advise single girls to adopt similar tactics in order to get the man they want.
The Telegraph amusingly does two things with the article. Firstly, to get the male point of view, they interview one man. Just one. A 32-year-old city lawyer, clearly representative of the male populace at large (not!). And judging by what he says, and his photograph, he is clearly a complete wanker. His advice is that women shouldn’t “scare the poor bugger off” by being too assertive – he says this as he relaxes in a recliner in his garden, peering over the top of his sunglasses, smoking a cigar as a “blonde bit” brings him a beer. Tosser.
The second thing about the article is the little panel giving “Doyle’s Advice For Singles” (meaning single girls), reproduced here:

• Let him ask all the questions
• Talk about his interests
• Let him reveal what he wants to…. don’t press him
• If he offers you a compliment, accept it gratiously
• Don’t try to change him
• List the traits you like in him
• Never ask him out
• Bite your tongue even when you really disagree with him
• Don’t list your achievements, you will make him feel inferior
• To get a second date, offer him your telephone number
• Think: “There is no such thing as the perfect man, but there are lots of imperfect men to have wonderful relationships with”

I can actually see quite a bit of truth in all this. The part about not trying to change your partner is true – that works both ways. In my experience, if you try to change someone, you just cause resentment and friction. What usually happens is that some of you rubs off onto them, and vice versa, and that is how you both change. And the part about there being no “perfect men” is also true. It applies to women too. There are no “perfect” people – I know I’m far from perfect (a few people believe that I think I’m perfect, but my true friends know that I have a whole bunch of faults and insecurities).
But I also see some serious pants as well. Why shouldn’t a girl be proud of her achievements? OK, bragging endlessly about them is irritating, but that applies to anyone, not just lovers. Bite your tongue?? – why shouldn’t you have an opinion? I always respect opinion, provided it can be backed up with good reason. Let him ask all the questions? – pressure on or what?!
And as for the thing about giving your phone number to get a second date – I mean, say what?? How else do you get a second date? Stalk him??? Hang around outside his flat until he invites you in?? Or am I missing the point here?
And “never ask him out”??? So how exactly do you show your interest?
I’m always fearful that girls I meet aren’t interested in me, so some sort of positive sign is always welcome. Yes, a big, full-on, “shag-me-now!” approach does tend to cause me to back off rapidly, but you can make your feelings obvious without going that far.
Powerful and successful girls can be daunting. But the doormat approach is not the way to a successful relationship in my opinion. The best way is through sharing, mutual respect, understanding and communication – and plain old lust comes into it too. Put all those things into a package, add that “certain something”, and then you get “love” – or something like that anyway.
Or am I too much of an idealist?

Hmmm. I’m having a whole communication crisis at the moment – Orange is down totally in this area (the transmitter that stands in the field next door to work is also not working, but I got a bit of a signal on Chichester railway station this morning – just enough to know that nobody has sent me any text messages or left anything on my answering service – siiigh), MSN Messenger hasn’t worked for days for me (“the service is temporarily unavailable – please try later” – anyone else having this problem?) and my email box isn’t working (“the POP3 mailbox for grayblog.co.uk is not responding: retry?”). I’m feeling a bit cut off at the moment.

Orange still down this morning. Bit of a hangover. Tired, not helped by being up half the night installing NN6 on my PC (it seems “OK” – no better than that).

Another odd night. Beer (and chocolate- thanks Arron) with Paul F, Arron, Matt, Stein, James, Jayne, Dom and Emma, as well as Simon, Claudette, Graham VS, Joel and several others. Few people in anything approaching a cheery mood.
From my own perspective, the day was not enhanced by the Orange network being knocked out locally by a lightning strike – guh.

Rodney is a Blog of Note at blogger. kewl!

A strange ol’ day. More non-ringing telephone time was punctuated by a trip to the shops, a poke about some of the Chichester Festival Fringe things going on around the city centre (all completely mad and packed with people – so gave up), lunch in St Martin’s Tearoom and an afternoon spent reading a book and watching a cricket match in Priory Park as a thunder storm rumbled around the city.
Still, beats the pants off going to work, and is also relatively inexpensive.