When Telephones were New technology

Last night at book group there was some discussion about Facebook. Some love it, some don’t get why anyone is on it, some are addicted to Farmville. Driving home I was thinking how this conversation was very representative of my generation, ‘girls’ in our mid-thirties to mid - forties. I can’t imagine young people discussing Facebook; they just use it; What’s there to discuss?

Then I got thinking about how it might have been for my grandparent’s generation in the sixties, when they got telephones for the first-time. Landlines that is, the kind of phones my children will look back on and say: ‘Did we really have a telephone attached to our house with a wire?’

I imagine dinner parties in the sixties - this is a stretch of imagination as I don't think dinner parties arrived in Kilkenny until the mid-seventies, earliest - where conversations might have been like this:

Oh I can’t stand those new telephones. They’re so noisy when the ring.

Oh but it’s wonderful, I can talk to my mother-in-law, when she’s not even in the same room!

Yes, but don’t you hate when people disturb you when they call during dinner?

Oh, I only let my husband answer it, as you never know who is on the other end of the line!

I think the operator sounds so helpful and polite, but I wonder does she eavesdrop?

I always recite my number when I answer; it’s good manners in my view.

Don’t you hate when you get the last digit wrong, and you have to start dialling the number all over again?

They say, everyone will have a phone in their home some day and you’ll be able to dial Australia without going through an operator! Can you imagine?! No, I can't! That's impossible.

Yes, we’ve come a long way. I really don’t now how I’d explain Facebook, Twitter and blogging to my grandparent’s were they still around. (Then that applies to most aspects of my life. You married a foreigner, who’s not a Catholic and you live where?) Makes me wonder what kind of technology my children’s children will have, that I won’t be able to get my head around.

I feel like an ole fogey already!

Library material for kids

The rain is incessant and deafening, and himself is gone away for the weekend to compete in the Birkebeiner race - the largest mountain bike race in the world about which he has lately been obsessed! So what a great idea then to head to the library, return the overdue books I hadn't got around to reading after two months, and let the girls choose a couple of DVDs to watch tonight and tomorrow night. We got Finding Nemo and Tarzan. But look at what we could have procured from the children's DVD section. Yes, none other than the movie 'Fucking Åmål' which according to the strapline is 'Fucking Great!'. I can't tell you much more about it as to actually pick the item up might have lead to all sorts of questions and dilemmas. It was hard enough to get away with taking photos - 'why are you taking pictures, Mommy?' - you can picture the scene.

This isn't the first time I've come across inappropriate usage of the F-word in combination with a Scandinavian language. My teenage niece, who is Danish, has used it in her status update on Facebook. I'm guess it must be considered cool. But is it?

The real Ireland

My emotional attachment to Ireland has grown over the past few years at the same rate as my hair has greyed. The two may or may not be related. However, whatever my misty-eyed view of the ole sod might be, I've few illusions about the reality of growing old, or being ill, or both, back home. Even with private health insurance, staying alive in Ireland is an expensive and challenging business. A recent opinion piece in 'The Irish Times', written by a former expat who returned from Canada to dance with Celtic Tiger, has confirmed what I suspected.

Misery of the returned emigrant

Pill Outrage

I’ve mentioned before that things are quiet here in July, so quiet that the newspaper is reduced to a pamphlet atttached to a few pages of death notices, television listings, and property pages. However, if I was the editor of Aftenposten, I’d have gone front-page with the following little nugget of a story which was tucked away to the side of page six on Tuesday. The headline ran, ‘Approves of Pill for 12-year-olds’.
It seems that prompted by a written question to the Health Minister in March, it has just been publicly admitted by the Department of Health in Norway that girls as young as 12 can get the contraceptive pill from their school health service without their parents being informed. Twelve years of age! I find this piece of information stunning – so stunning that I can hardly articulate my thoughts on the matter - and so wrong on so many levels – physiologically, morally, psychologically in no particular order.
I know Norwegians are far more liberal sexually than us Irish, Brits or Americans – allowing dating teenagers to share beds, for example – but this is an outrage.
I don’t know anyone with children of that age here, so can’t solicit their opinion, or even check whether they were aware of this. I’m very upset about it despite the fact that I’ll have fled Norway before my children hit puberty – which may or may not be by the age of twelve. I’m still without internet access at home so haven’t been able to research the topic further, but I will. But isn’t that Aftenposten’s job? I want to know since when this government approval of the sexualisation of children began, how many girls aged 12, 13, 14 and 15 receive the Pill from their school doctor or nurse, and what was the basis for deciding that 12 was a good cut-off age for the provision of oral contraceptives at school?
I presume if a 12-year-old falls at school and is concussed, their parents will be informed, but it’s none of their parents business if they are pumping artificial hormones into their bodies (and becoming sexually active, believing that as long as pregnancy is avoided, it’s OK to have sex, because that’s the only danger of under-age sex, right?)?
More than anything, I want to know why parents, teachers and doctors are not up in arms over this, clogging radio phone-in lines, filling up internet forums and basically making this front-page news. Maybe they’re all too busy enjoying their holidays, journalists included.
For anyone wondering what story did in fact grab the front page of Aftenposten on Tuesday, it was the ‘news’ that half of boat-owners here don’t bother to carry maps on their boats. Eejits. Who cares? Apparently the newspaper’s editor, or his holiday substitute, thinks we do.

More Photos from Gay Pride

More photos of the Gay Pride Parade. Kudos to all those who managed to walk along those cobblestones in their high heels; I'm filled with awe and admiration at your tenacity!

Oslo's Gay Pride

I've often wondered where one has to go in Oslo to have fun. People don't exactly go around exuding joie de vivre on a regular basis. Well here is a crowd that really seems to know how to celebrate life, have a good time and be friendly. There was greater joy than usual at this year's Gay and Lesbian Parade in Oslo because of the recent legalisation of gay marriage in Norway. Watching these guys and gals was enough to make me wish I was a lesbian - for a few moments anyway. It didn't seem to have exactly the same effect on my husband but he enjoyed the parade nonetheless.