Thread 17 - TalkLair: "Okay, first of all, what's with the outfit? Live in the now, okay? You look like DeBarge."

[RasaSayangEh]

(Previous thread 16).

Spring is springing, daffodils blooming all over our LairGarden, which have not all been picked by a neighbour's kid...

In the TalkLair, the hearth is glowing, books by non-approved authors line the shelves, cosy rugs are down on the floors looking a bit stained by cat hairball regurgitation. The denizens of the lair are a welcoming bunch though, always eager for general chit-chat on all manner of topics. We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey over there in the corner of the cave…

Yup, they're not allowed TikTok/Instagram/Snapchat/ any of the growing list... we told them, back when they were about to start secondary school and we bought them smartphones, the equivalent of "Please do not ask for credit as refusal often offends"

We had been intending to loosen up slightly at 16, which IIRC is/was the age limit for some of these apps. But they turned 16 just around the time when they should have been ramping up GCSE revision, and sadly both have shown themselves almost entirely lacking in self-motivation. So we decided not to allow any further device-based distractions until the summer holidays... now I'm thinking we need to delay even longer...

@moto748e Have a great time in London and meeting your grand-daughter!

I am so glad my kids mostly grew up before social media!

Dismal state of our rail network. Train an hour late, currently stopped God knows where, no announcement of ETA at Euston. And buffet shut, no coffee. 😡

Oh have a lovely day, @moto748e the Barbican and more importantly, your granddaughter! What happy larks!

I'm glad I grew up before social media. I definitely got hooked when it first came out and I remember the horridness of people losing jobs because of overuse - and nasty people - and how many hours of my life I lost to posting nonsense. On the one hand it's been great and there are people I'd never have met who have been deeply important in my life, but my goodness it sucks away at the soul, but I think we are a lot healthier with it now than we were as we can't escape the negatives of overuse but want to keep the positives and I think we're seeing some of that with the younger generations too. I hope. I think we need to stop and think about how hard it grabbed us, and it was very basic then AND we were adults!

Maybe we need to have the internet/social media talk in the same way we have the sex talk, let them know how we found it, that we want them to enjoy it but there are serious issues. And tell them of unexpected, magical events like the night of OneofThree.😊

I was thinking about screen time Vs TV screen time yesterday and I had a thought that was interesting to me but probably shite.

Screen time is generally really short. I've seen people flick through a tiktok or short without registering to get to the next and if they watch it's for about a minute. I see boredom and disinterest. I look at some shorts on YouTube, from about a minute, if their material is of interest to me I go and watch their longer videos. Shorts are very often meant to serve this method. I discovered the marvellous Bernadette banner this way. And property porn.

Digress. Shorts demand nothing of conversation and are a bit like slots at a casino. Mindless.

TV screen, children. The programmes are shorter than for adults but I remember feeling grown up when I could watch things like How we Used to Live. And the way programmes like Play School had different lengths, subtle when we look back, for the little ones and the slightly older ones. The magic of Sesame Street and the education throughout. One of the most important things we were learning was concentration.

My take is it's the quality of time. Half an hour in front of the TV is infinitely better with one, two or three things like, Bluey? I hear it's good quality, than endless scrolling at mindless on the toks for half an hour.

TV was never going to take away our ability to concentrate, I don't think many people who were going to be readers stopped reading but I will acknowledge that TVs in kid's bedrooms was not a good idea.

Like I said, musings, probably way wide of the mark.

Musings many of us share, no doubt. TV definitely less malign, and at least some quality control over content.

BTW, have to say I am GOB-SMACKED to hear that apparently sleepovers are too risky to be contemplated these days. How something that it wouldn't have even occurred to most people to think of as risky, has in the spaces of a few decades turned on its head. WTAF?

@RasaSayangEh backtracking a bit to Norway, we flew to Trondheim and went up to Tromso on the boat. It's probably the most relaxing holiday I've ever had because you're totally not in charge of any decisions - you go to bed with amazing scenery sliding past, and you wake up with more amazing scenery sliding past. We went in February which was absolutely bloody freezing but also incredibly beautiful.

I loved that the boat is a practical thing - you stop regularly at villages and towns that are really difficult to get to by road, so a lot of stuff gets delivered by the boats. There's also a few touristy things to do - we went to an ice bar where everything, including the seats, bar and glasses, are made out of ice, but mostly it was lovely just getting a view into the lives of these small communities.

About half my photos look as though they're auditioning for the cover of an Enya album - we had incredible sunrises and sunsets (though sadly no aurora borealis). The food was nice; alcohol is absolutely eye-wateringly expensive (a bottle of pinot grigio, of the sort that would cost around £8 in a supermarket, was £63!).

It's certainly not the sort of thing to do if you're someone who craves stimulation and party life. But it's absolutely lovely if you like a combination of little outings from the ship and sitting reading/gawping at the scenery.

I once saw a great little map of the constant Baltic quest for cheaper alcohol. I may have some.of these in the wrong order, but it was something like Norwegians go to Sweden, Swedes go to Estonia, Estonians go to Finland, and Finns go to Russia.

I went to Sweden once, to visit a friend working in Göteborg, and remember that alcohol was only sold in a few specialist shops which seemed to always be in a badly-lit side-street. The staff served you from behind a counter with a metal grille up to the ceiling! Friend (a Brit) went to visit his dad's family in Norway for a party and wondered why the men kept disappearing. So he followed them out and they were all gathering behind an outbuilding to drink moonshine.

I'll be OK in Scandinavia then, I don't drink

Gonners · Yesterday 17:32

That's Systembolaget - Vinmonopoliet in Norway. Closed on Sundays. My experience is that they're just modern supermarkets, brightly lit and the prices aren't much more than in the UK.

Canada similar - as least in some.provinces - only selling alcohol through government shops.

In NI we just fence it off in a little gated section, and keep people guessing every year about whether the pubs will get permission to open on Good Friday or not.

If you like Eliot, I recommend this. It's so close to what's in my head for Prufrock that it's quite uncanny: https://julianpeterscomics.com/page-1-the-love-song-of-j-alfred-prufrock-by-t-s-eliot/

It's got to be Finns go to Estonia or Russia for beer, it's not cheap in Finland at all, minimum a couple of euros for a tin of Karhu lager in a supermarket (though they can now sell beer in supermarkets, so that's a good thing)

Oh this is fantastic, thank you. I would say it's similar to what's in my head up until the universe into a ball. Incredible that he wrote it at just 22. One of the books I kept is a volume of his letters, but at about 900 pages long I'm not sure I'll ever get round to reading it now.

I've got the book, the graphic poem, I guess. I love it.

Here she is!

Gorgeous!

I'm really pleased, she looks very well and healthy.

Wonderful @moto748e what a lovely photo!

She does indeed, moto, full of life.

Oh, what a beautiful photo @moto748e! I love a photo of a newborn being held - so much love and hope radiating out.

Ooh, she is adorable @moto748e ... as are you! (Whoops, did I just say that out loud?)

She looks bored!

Me and the girl have been out this afternoon. 3 and a half miles up to Tynemouth, where bought some supermarket sushi and tabouleh; no spoon, so she made one and then another from the cardboard.

The dog was in her pram... yes, a large and actual dog pram, which garnered some attention and passing comments.