P-off! Scenes of city life.

The Sydney fireworks were apparently a huge success. I walked up to the roundabout and watched both sets, and then watched the people going home.

As I walked up, just before 9 pm, I noticed two young blokes standing facing the wall in the lane, hands on the business end, and about to piss on the walls. I said, 'Hey, guys, I don't think so!" They looked somewhat abashed and I told them about the pub and the likelihood that the pub had toilet and they set off reluctantly. At least they did not threaten to beat me up.

What is it about men that they think it is ok to piss in public, and leave streets and lanes stinking with urine? Is there a male culture that decides these things? There seems to be a lot of yobbo culture about, and an unpleasant lack of courtesy and consideration for others. It makes me want to growl.

Sydney is very quiet at present, and we are just mooching about. It is rather nice.

I went out to Officeworks to buy a diary, but they did not have the one I got last year, so it was a wasted trip. I found a compromise version at the local stationary shop. Now there is a lot of tedious entry of data to be done.

I have been trying a couple of new things on the computer, and am trying to work out what questions I need to ask and what I need to learn when the One on One lessons begin. Like how to load photos...

My children are all pretty expert. But people of my generation are often much slower to learn. I worked in a library, and libraries were among the first organisations to introduce computers, for their catalogues, circulation systems and for data bases. We were trained to use the data bases, right at the beginning of what became the information revolution and later the Internet. Of course, at that early stage, no one had individual computers. Gradually we started hearing about windows. Windows? It took a while for the concept to sink in. Certain people were selected to test systems and to become more extensively trained, while we developed our own data bases. Others, like myself, were left behind, until we perceived the manifold injustice of it all and clamoured to be given the opportunity to learn. Eventually we were all given our own computers, and when computers were upgraded, we were given the opportunity to buy the old ones. I learned basic and elementary stuff and had no need to do the more advanced learning. We certainly knew nothing about graphics, music, photos or downloading.

Because we were part of a large organisation, we had a help desk and in-house training. Being in the business of providing information, we had some idea of how instruction should be given. I knew what I did not know, and how I would explain it to others. Training used to be done along the lines of Press this key and then press that key, etc, with with no explanation of what it was you were trying to do or to learn. We helped them restructure the training. 

But there were all sorts of things we never had to deal with, and thus, once I retired and moved away from the shelter of the help desk, I was on my own. After floundering around for some years, I changed to an iMac, but was/am so inexpert and timid in my exploration of computers that I don't get very far. Hence my new found determination to learn more, and this is facilitated by Sydney's new Apple Shop. This is not an ad for them, but they have been very helpful whenever I have called in. They are marketing service brilliantly.

If I lived in the same city as any of my children I could pick their brains on a far more regular basis, but doing it by telephone is very slow. My son is very helpful, and patiently talks me by telephone through things, like resetting something or other on Dr P's computer, when all the text in the dialog boxes vanished. Stomper knows lots, but she tends to tell me, and my colander like memory forgets most of it. I need someone at my side to explain it as to an idiot, and then to have it written down. They seem to have an intuitive grasp of how it all works, and what to do next. When I download, my desktop becomes cluttered with things and I don't know what to do with them and am scared to fiddle with them. It is pretty pathetic, really. I have some books, but after a couple of pages, my brain bounces off again. I do use Help, but Help does not always have the problem you are looking up, and often Help's index terms are not what you would think of looking up. I remember looking up how to insert particular accents, for example, and there was no heading for accents. (I now have a helpful chart, nicely printed out.)

Slow learning can work out in the long run. I intend to make it so.