Arlington Cemetery, Washington DC

Monday May 28^th this year is Memorial Day in the USA, and it’s a time when – like  Remembrance Day which is observed in the UK and most former Commonwealth countries on November 11^th or the Sunday closest to it – we pay tribute to our heroes who fell defending our freedom.

As Wikipedia puts it, “Memorial Day is a federal holiday observed annually in the United States on the last Monday of May.^[1] Formerly known as Decoration Day, it originated after the American Civil War to commemorate the fallen Union soldiers of the Civil War…. By the 20th century Memorial Day had been extended to honor all Americans who have died in all wars. Memorial Day is a day of remembering the men and women who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces.^[2] As a marker it typically marks the start of the summer vacation season, while Labor Day marks its end.

Summer vacation? That’s lucky

It’s interesting to note that schools and universities in North America finish towards the end of May or beginning of June. Far be it from a desire to relieve poor, brow-clutching young students from the stress of study … such dates were originally devised to release children from their schooling so they could return home to their farms and help their families grow and then harvest crops which were their livelihood.

In the UK, our school holidays vary according to where they are geographically, and for reasons very similar to those of North America: when the kids are needed back on the farms to help with the harvest. In England, the school holidays are from late July until early September; in Scotland they tend to be several weeks earlier. Why? Because Scotland is further north and experiences harvest at a different time.

Does it matter which war? 

Arlington Cemetery

Again, according to Wikipedia: “Many people visit cemeteries and memorials, particularly to honor those who have died in military service. Many volunteers place an American flag on each grave in national cemeteries.^[3] By the early 20th century, Memorial Day was an occasion for more general expressions of memory, as people visited the graves of their deceased relatives in church cemeteries, whether they had served in the military or not. It also became a long weekend increasingly devoted to shopping, family gatherings, fireworks, trips to the beach, and national media events such as the Indianapolis 500 auto race, held since 1911 on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend.”

In my own humble opinion, it doesn’t matter which war we’re remembering; it’s about remembering the people who went out there and fought, often to the death, for what they believed in.

Or what they were told they should believe in.

What does cross my mind and make me angry, is that so many of these people who fought valiantly for their countries in countless wars … did so because they trusted and believed in their leaders.

Of course, some of them were right to do so.

But some were not. Many, were not. And for what?

Have a peaceful Memorial Day, USA.

If I had to sum up The Twitter Diaries in just a few words it would be something along the lines of ‘Think Sex and the City on Twitter’.

References to cougars, sex, A-listers, self-made millionaires, divas, fashion designers, and exclusive locations abound; and there’s a supporting cast that includes ambitious career women, a merchant banker, an aging supermodel, a transatlantic TV host, a top Breakfast TV host or two, a Formula 1 World Champion and a multiple Oscar-nominated film star – oh and a hedge fund manager thrown in for good measure too.

The Twitter Diaries is a “first-of-its-kind” ebook co-authored by Georgie Thompson (@OfficiallyGT) and Imogen Lloyd Webber (@IlloydWebber). Georgie Thompson is probably better known as one of the female faces and voices of Sky Sports on British television; and Imogen Lloyd Webber as a freelance writer (for publications as diverse as The Financial Times, The Sunday Times, The Daily Mail, and The Huffington Post), and on-air political contributor for MSNBC.

Apart from the Prologue that sets the scene, The Twitter Diaries is written entirely in twitter posts (direct messages between the characters).

The 21st Century story The Twitter Diaries tells the story of two parallel lives, separated by an ocean but united in cyber space. Two female thirty-somethings – Tuesday and Stella – meet in New York on New Year’s Eve at a mutual friend, Peter Mignon’s, dinner party. The pair develop a 140-character friendship, and as it turns out, 140 characters can change everything.

The two main characters in The Twitter Diaries are @TuesdayFields, a career-driven sports reporter for Wake Up Britain, with a disastrous personal life that includes cheating self-made millionaire Hugo Prince; and @StellaCavill owner of struggling New York-based company Stellar Shoes who has ambitions to be the Tamara Mellon of male footwear. Stella’s life is complicated by her flighty ex-supermodel mother, and by the fact that her relationship with her merchant banker boyfriend is on the rocks.

My preview copy was relatively short but I thought the format worked very well and I particularly liked the thinly-veiled, amusing and affectionate ribbing of British journalist and TV presenter Piers Morgan via the character Peter Mignon. Piers Morgan’s rather upmarket ‘pub’ in real life, The Hansom Cab, becomes The Ferret and Trouser Leg in the Twitter Diaries. And the newspaper once edited by Peter Mignon, ‘The Daily’ (The Daily Mirror?), is referred to as “informative, advisory and utter bollocks”.

Piers Morgan has said of the Twitter Diaries:

“This book is outrageously defamatory, scandalously exaggerated, disturbingly sensationalised, yet also hideously, addictively entertaining. I don’t know whether to consult my lawyer, or my shrink.”

If you want to get involved, Georgie Thompson and Imogen Lloyd Webber are tweeting live under their characters’ Twitter IDs: @TuesdayFields and @StellaCavill. And you can find out more about the book at the Twitter Diaries website. Apparently a paperback version of The Twitter Diaries is due to be published later this summer.

Given Twitter’s popularity, I think it was only a matter of time before someone wrote something like this. Initially, it seemed like an odd idea for a book format but (bearing in mind I read an extract) I found it engaging, and actually I was surprised at how successful a collection of 140-character tweets is as a vehicle for recording a developing friendship.

What do you think of the potential of a book written in this way? Does it appeal to you?

Angela.

Wow, what a week! I have been there watching all the action at the lunchtime and evening shows of the rather lovely Chelsea Flower Show.

I must admit, I sat here feeling a bit sorry for myself. I would have loved to have been there…

The gardens were gorgeous, I loved the main focus on promoting wildflowers, the sun shone …

Chelsea flower show iris image © Nita Joy Designs

When I have managed to visit, it’s normally raining – this always makes us laugh as we sit in wet clothes on the coach on the way home.

I have very fond memories of my visits, and have even shaken hands with royalty! I have also had moments when I have had to dodge out of the way of the camera crews!

I felt that there was a very positive feeling coming from the show this year; as many anniversaries were celebrated and it provided an ideal backdrop to the Diamond Jubilee celebrations. It also showed how horticulture can be incredibly healing, and the joy and necessity of wildflowers.

The planting schemes were lovely with an emphasis on soft planting and it seemed to be the year of the Iris!

There were several gardens that I was very fond of.

In the Show Garden category I loved -

The Laurent-Perrier Bicentenary Garden

I loved the gold winning design that Arne Maynard put together; with the soft planting scheme and colours, I thought it was so elegant with a mixture of roses, hedging, lavender…

Homebase Teenage Cancer Trust Garden

I was delighted for Joe Swift, who won his first gold medal for his first Chelsea Show Garden. I thought the colours he used were beautiful, and the planting scheme with his chosen flowers such as stunning irises alongside the wood, really brought the whole design together. It was very appropriate for a the Diamond Jubilee celebration year. As I watched the footage of how Joe came up with the design, I could really see how he put the plan together, with the urban/suburban feel.

Furzey Gardens

As someone who has visited Furzey Gardens in Hampshire a few times (highly recommended day out), I was so happy that they were awarded a gold medal for all their hard work. The woodland themed garden designed by Chris Beardshaw,  celebrating the trust’s 90th anniversary was lovely and all who were  involved should be very proud, as this was the first time that adults with learning disabilities had the opportunity for direct involvement with putting together a Chelsea garden. I for one hope they will return.

Quiet Time: DMZ Forbidden Garden

This amazing gold medal and President’s award winning garden, was designed by Jihae Hwang  for the 60th anniversary of the Korean conflict. It was a very powerful piece of art in my opinion that brought all the best things about gardening together. The detail that was included spoke volumes. The separation … how even in tragedy nature carries on and provides healing. I really wish I could have had the opportunity to have stood in the middle of the garden and experienced it, as I am sure it was a very emotional place to be.

In the Artisan Garden category I loved 

The Plankbridge Shepherd’s Hut Garden

I had to choose this one as this silver awarded design’s focus, was set with the joy of wildflowers and the inspiration of my beautiful home county – Dorset, alongside reflecting on the the famous author Thomas Hardy’s book ‘ Far from the Madding Crowd!’

I would have loved the shepherd’s hut as a little design or writing studio, set in a beautiful wildflower meadow… a girl can dream can’t she…?

The Brontës’ Yorkshire Garden

This gold medal, small garden people choice award winning evocative garden, was a little piece of inspirational peace, celebrating the 165th anniversary of the Brontë Sisters books -  Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey. The designer Tracy Foster, worked a little bit of magic into the garden, as the landscape mood changed with how the weather was, at any given moment.

Other things I loved about the Chelsea Flower Show

Whenever I am able to visit Chelsea, you will most likely find me in the Great Pavilion, where if I could skip and jump about, I would be running between the exhibits of sweetpeas, foxgloves, lavender… revelling in the scent and wonder of the beautiful flowers that are packed in there.

Also there was a strong message that the impossible can be turned into the possible, with the amazing plant of the year – the foxglove called ‘impossible’ Illumination pink, this highly perfumed flower,which is a magnet for bees, has a very long flowering time – from June to October, because it doesn’t set seed. This is now on my list of plants I would love to have in my garden.

One of the favourite things I spotted (in the very short coverage I may add), was the garden courtyard display by the injured personnel patients from Headley Court. Through working with nature their rehabilitation garden showed how plants can be healing, helping those who are physically and mentally injured from their time serving their country. The garden was a collaboration between designer Geoff Whiten and the military charity ‘Gardening Leave’.

I know how healing nature can be; that’s why I wanted to create and design personalised flower cards, to brighten someone’s day. To pass on the healing that I have received through the beauty of creation, to those who are having a difficult time, or in celebration!

Maybe one day, one of my dreams may come true: to have a stand at the Chelsea Flower show!

So what was your favourite garden?

Anita

Alison Cork's Secret Removers will transform new homes

Will Secret Removers on Channel 4 make moving home magic or mayhem?

Watch out for a new series on Channel 4 from June 12th featuring Alison Cork, home expert, writer and broadcaster, best known for her appearances on This Morning.

A twist on the makeover show, Secret Removers (no, it doesn’t involve hair or Immac) will each week feature a family who are moving home – but don’t know that their belongings and new residence are being hijacked by Alison and her team for a swish makeover.

The unsuspecting family will leave their old place believing their belongings are on the way to their new home – but before it gets there, Alisons’s team will rummage through the family’s stuff and decide what should stay in the new house – and what should be dumped in favour of a new look. The aim is that a chaotic and stressful move ends up being a beautiful experience – with no boxes to unpack – as they arrive to find their newly decorated property ready to live in. But will the designers make the right choices about what to keep and what to intuition make it home sweet home, or a house of horrors?

I must admit that when I used to watch the first in this genre of reality TV shows, Changing Rooms, probably the best ones were when the recipients of the marvellous makeover were horrified by the result – I recall a partcularly distressed woman being pretty angry when Lawrence Lewellyn-Bowen turned her bedroom into a tart’s boudoir. Oh and cringing while a team of handy Andy’s painted flock wall paper shocking pink, or MDF’ed a beautiful fire place out of site. I’m not sure how I’d feel about my “friends and family” risking my new home joy by turning my cherished possesssions (well apart from the ming-ing vase) over to a designer. But from a TV watching point of view I think the delicious anticipation that it might go wrong makes it worth watching – don’t you? I wonder just how risky Alison Cork and her team will be…

Secret Removers, made by Objective Scotland will start at 11am on June 11th on Channel 4

Links:

http://alisonathome.co.uk

www.channel4.com

I cannot imagine life without the Internet – this astonishing (to those of us over 40) channel of communication that is rarely closed.

Many years ago – in the last century, no less – I was chatting with an alternative health practitioner. When she knew I was a web designer she was quite affronted and had no time for such virtual communication. That this, to her, impersonal method of communication might ever come to anything that would add to people’s lives was beyond this lady’s imagining. My points about making the web more personal with our words and images (about all we had in our toolkits then) fell on deaf ears – she was determined that the web was not a good thing.

For some reason this sticks in my (patchy, at best) memory and not just because the web has become something so much more, with social media enriching our lives, both personal and professional, in many ways. Even in those early days I had benefited hugely by an online community supporting women with endometriosis through a very simple Compuserve forum. That was painfully slow by today’s standards, but it was a lot more than we’d had previously. The camaraderie of people who’ve “been there, got the t-shirt” can be immensely positive when we need it.

Sometimes you do need to know when to step back. A group I’ve joined recently specifically for people with Tarlov cysts can become quite draining after a while – hearing about how much pain and how nothing helps for so many can wear you out. At those times I find that leaving it be for a while is best, for my own sanity.

Depression can be another thing helped enormously by online friendships. If you can be brave enough to say something, anything – on Facebook, for instance, there will be someone to give you a virtual hug. And such small things make a difference at such times – it can be surprising who can bring a smile.

And then of course there is Facebook, where we can keep in touch, if only briefly, with old friends and faraway family, or with those too busy to stop and give themselves time to be with people. I think many of us do that – end up on the treadmill for so long and running so hard that we don’t know how to stop and smell the roses.

Virtual is wonderful, but allowing time to meet friends, even if only for half an hour, over a coffee takes your spirit to a higher level. I’ve only recently reminded myself about this and have stopped feeling bad that I cannot get out, and let my friends come here – after all, that is what I’d want to do in their place, so who the heck am I to put them off and not allow them to spend time with me too.

My sister lives in Gloucestershire, I’m in Kent – and yet we chat almost every day thanks to Skype. How wonderful is that! Such daily interactions are surely helping us to be happy and positive, making a difference to those who need it. And when we are old, surely there will be fewer lonely pensioners now – we have the Internet to keep us in touch with friends, family, grandchildren even – how lovely. Of course virtual cannot replace real-life, but it can certainly enhance and enrich our lives. It certainly does mine.

What do you think?

photo credit: barockschloss via photo pin cc

Which app is apt for you and your technology?

I have to confess I am not an Apple girl - more of a Samsung lady. It’s not that I don’t do iPhones, iPad, and iAnything else … just that I have never had the opportunity of using a Mac and phone-wise, was given the chance to use a Samsung and have never looked back.

I’m still trying to get the hang of my latest tabbie and work out synchronisation and how best to integrate with other technology and how to use the apps on both.  So any suggestions and support will be most welcome.

Meanwhile of course I download apps. Yes, you name it I’m probably starting to play on it.

Firstly there are the communication apps. Well, social media of course. How else can I check in, catch up and update you all without them?  I can talk to you as well – free!

Professional apps for work, motivation and general knowledge.  I can work on the move.

I have film guide, TV guide, I-player, TV player and more.

Then there are the useful apps. Essential for the travel by road, by rail, underground and even by air.   Who wouldn’t be without a world clock and instant weather reports?

And the ones in case I ‘miss a bargain’ apps. Groupon, ebay, voucher cloud – you use them don’t you?

Don’t forget the helpful in case I need anything else apps. Colour flashlight, Swiss army knife and measuring tape all essential apps you’ll agree.

And the games apps. I’m increasing my word power, playing Sudoku and wasting time; sorry I meant playing patience. Learning and developing all the time. Where else can I identify numerous logos and frustrate myself because I can’t think of where I’ve seen that before?

And for entertaining the grandchildren I have endless essential apps which keep them occupied for minutes at a time. Best of the apps at the moment is Heckerty although pick up sticks and ant smashing are follow up seconds.

I have recipe apps, cookery hints, culinary delights and more.

And my best app = Do it Tomorrow.

What I don’t have is time. Time to explore them, time to use them and time to actually see how they could make my life easier and I guess both make and save me money.

What apps are you using, and why?

As someone not known for breaking rules, I have a confession to make, albeit an anonymous one.

My child is 11 and I allow him to have a Facebook account.

There, I’ve said it. I am not proud to be breaking the rules and know that it may result in me being banned from Facebook, which I would miss a great deal – much of my interaction with online friends takes place there.

But…

When my boy left his primary school he and his friends ended up in a variety of secondary schools.

At primary school I was not going to consider him using Facebook and he never asked – he had no need, as his younger sister hasn’t at this time. OK, perhaps “need” is a bit much, but you know what I mean, I’m sure. There’s little point interacting online when you see most of your friends every day anyway – and what online stuff is desired is more than adequately provided for in Club Penguin and Moshi Monsters.

But when your friends are elsewhere, and you dearly want to maintain a regular, even daily, contact, Facebook does this perfectly. I think that many parents take a considered view about this too – the decision to allow a Facebook account is based on the maturity of the child, what they are likely to do, how they may handle any negative comments, and the like. That was certainly the case between me and my boy. There was no pestering, he asked, we discussed, I considered and agreed.

Oddly this has been refuted by some who do not know me personally, nor my boy. Quite how that happens is beyond me, but such is the way of some online relationships. Already I have guided and watched my boy learn how to handle arguments, nastiness and other such negativities. And I’m impressed at his calm and that he has not, so far, over-reacted (as it is easy to do online).

Yes, I keep an eye on things – he has “friended” me, his auntie and various other friends’ mums – for him there is no reason not to (and I’ve yet to embarrass him too much ). And I do also monitor his emails for now, so that I can step in should anything untoward arise. But it hasn’t, and really, he and his mates just want to keep in touch. It has also opened up other communications, with faraway cousins and family – this is a lovely bonus for us all.

I think Facebook would do well to have a junior account, or a parent-supervised and approved option – not all children are as secure and/or responsible as those I seem to know. But for now I am happy for my son to enjoy this way of keeping in touch, of continuing friendships and learning how to engage and interact online. My trust in him is based on experience and knowing the person he is.

But what do you think? Have you allowed your under-13 to have a Facebook account? If so, why, and if not, why? We’d like to hear from you.

photo credit: Paul Mayne via photo pin cc