Home  >> Stories  >> The Tale Spinner #2012-32

---

IN THIS ISSUE

• Kate Brookfield ends her story about their year in India
• Lyle Meeres concludes his tale about Newfoundland and Labrador
• Irene Harvalias likes the suitcase-packing video
• Catherine Green discusses an evolving language
• Pat Moore makes an important discovery
• Carol Shoemaker forwards a senior´s reaction to technology
• Mile Quigley posted things we learn about computers from movies
• Sites are recommended by Catherine Nesbitt, Pat Moore, and Tony Lewis

Kate Brookfield concludes her account of their

YEAR IN INDIA, 1984-1985

There was one more tragedy for India in 1984. This was on the night of December 2nd, when a chemical leak caused a cloud of lethal gas to escape from the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. The next day the news spread through the media of the extent of this catastrophe. Hundreds of people died immediately, and more than 20,000 people required hospital treatment. The city of Bhopal had a population of 900.000 people and chaos broke out as thousands of people tried to escape the area. What was shocking to me was the news that the planes coming into India were not filled with aid workers, but with lawyers from the United States What is even more disgraceful is that many of these lawsuits have not yet been settled.

We wondered what was going to happen next. Despite these events, we decided to take the time to tour the subcontinent. Caroline was adamant that she did not want to travel with us. She felt safe in Chandigarh and I suspect her friend Ritou warned her of the dirt and danger of travel in India. For whatever reason, she was determined that she was not travelling in dirty India. It was her suggestion that she stay at the school as a resident student. I think in retrospect, she regrets her choice, but life as a resident in an Indian school was also a life experience for her.

Michael did not have to teach at the University, so he, Robert and I set off to see the rest of India. We travelled the subcontinent for three months, reaching the southern tip at Cape Cormoran in Tamil Nadu, where the Indian Ocean meets with the Bay of Bengal. We mainly travelled by train, always buying first-class tickets to ensure a seat, and on one stretch to Madras, we had a sleeper. It would take me too long to recount all the places we visited, but I will highlight a few memorable stops.

The ashram of Mahatma Gandhi in Gujarat near Ahmedabad was one such place. Gandhi lived here and practiced his philosophy of living a peaceful life and searching for truth. He introduced methods of farming that included using everything that came from the land. After his death, there was a surge of interest in Gandhi and his teachings, and crowds started to go to this place on a form of pilgrimage. The huge numbers of visitors prompted the government to build a tourist complex near the house. When we visited, the interest in Gandhi had waned and we were the only visitors in this huge complex of individual bungalows set in formal gardens. Unfortunately, the lamps to light the footpaths were not functioning. We were told that it was because they could not pay the bills. But the accommodation was clean and one of the few places where we were provided with mosquito nets. In the morning, we were invited to take breakfast at the house. There were other visitors at the breakfast, which was served by the ladies of the house. We were told that one of Gandhis original followers, who was with him when he was assassinated, was still living in the house. She was about 90 years of age and we did not meet her.

This site tells you more about the ashram, which is now a world heritage site:

The south of India has loads of Hindu temples. The Moghul influence did not extend to the far south so there are not the large fortress palaces seen in the north, but the ancient Hindu temples and carvings are magnificent structures. We particularly liked Mahabhalapurum on the Bay of Bengal coast in Tamil Nadu. We had come from Madras, and Michael had his pockets picked while waiting to buy bus tickets. Indians do not know how to line up so they push close, and he could feel someone opening his back pocket, but the crowd was so dense he could not move his arms, nor could he see the thief. It was probably a child. So we arrived in Mahabhalapurun with no money.

Michael had to go back to Madras to contact American Express, and he left Robert and me in a hotel where they accepted our Visa card. We were there for three days. We ate fresh pineapples until our mouths were sore, and went down the beach to eat local lobster cooked on a campfire for a few rupees, compared with the hotels high prices. Mahabhalapurun is known for its massive intricate wall carvings. The carvings were buried in sand for centuries, thus preserving them from weathering. For more on this place visit

Another interesting trip was the boat journey from Cochin in Kerala to Bombay. The first part of the journey was on a small boat known as the Backwaters Boat Trip, a popular tourist attraction. The boat glides through shallow waters, with palm trees on the shoreline. Here we saw the local people on small peninsulas of land eking out an existence with a few hens and small shacks for homes. In the water, small one-sailed craft with fishermen were dragging huge nets. Cashew nuts and coconuts were piled high in simple canoes made from tree trunks. It was very peaceful and a good place for bird watchers. The boat trip ends at Aleppy.

Here we took a bigger boat and travelled overnight to outside Bombay. I was looking at the water and saw flashes of green light which I was told was phosphorus. It was magical, and made me understand why people believed in fairies and other mythical creatures.

As mentioned earlier, we also went back to Rajasthan, and took an overnight camel safari, sleeping in the desert. My camel driver kept asking me if I wanted him to take me to Pakistan, as this was the desert that divided the two countries. We had paint thrown at us during the Holi Festival, when the people celebrate the triumph of good over evil. This represents to me the colour and joy of the people of India. They love festivals, and we saw many gods carried in the streets, with a lot of noise from drums and the people.

After the colour, the noise of India is also something hard to forget. It is very hard to find a quiet place, unless one goes high into the mountains. We did do that on another visit to India, but that is another story.

This concludes my narrative of our year in India 1984-5.

Lyle Meeres concludes his story of a fascinating trip:

FINDING NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR

On the tenth day, we left Clarenville and drove to Brigus, where we visited the Hawthorne Cottage National Historic site. We heard about Captain Bob Bartlett, a skipper who prepared the way for Peary´s dash to the North Pole in 1909.

Gull-free garbage container (click to enlarge)

We walked to a man-made tunnel through the rock, created to make it more convenient to unload fish, and then past some interesting houses. One house that is unusual to our eyes is called the "salt-box house." Those we saw were typically two-storey wooden homes; apparently there is also a bigger house that is the "biscuit box house." The slope of the roof differs.

In a little gift shop we saw a sign that made us chuckle: "A MEAL WITHOUT WINE IS CALLED BREAKFAST."

Quidi Vidi Village (click to enlarge)

Then it was on to St. John´s. Near the city we saw our first fields. In the city, we toured with a teacher-guide who showed us the waterfront, Signal Hill with its tower and great view, and picturesque Quidi Vidi village. with its old-fashioned fishing village with sheds, stages, and little boats below a towering cliff. The harbour is part of the Quidi Vidi beauty, but the entrance is so narrow even a kayak has to be careful.

We heard that a polar bear had wandered onto the cliff once not too long ago. Wildlife officers didn´t want to kill him, but if they shot him with a tranquilizer dart, the bear would fall into the water and presumably die. So they had the fishermen go under the cliff with their nets, the bear was shot with a tranquilizer dart, and when it took effect, he toppled over the cliff edge and into the nets. The bear was moved far away.

Somehow before our farewell dinner, we were told another joke. Two tourists and their guide were driving and far from civilization when they were caught in a terrible snowstorm. It snowed for six hours, then twelve, then twenty-four. In the car, the little group was cold and hungry. One tourist scrambled into the back and searched around for a bit of food. What he found was an old-fashioned lamp. When he rubbed the dust away, the grateful genii said, "You may have three wishes." The trio in the car agreed that the fair way to do this was if each took one wish. The first tourist said, "I´m cold, hungry, and lonely. I wish I was back home," and whoosh, he was gone. The second tourist said, "I´m cold, hungry, and lonely. I wish I was back home," and whoosh, he was gone. The guide picked up the lamp and said, "I´m lonely. I wish I had my clients back...."

Our final tour day we went in heavy fog to Cape Spear National Historic Site where we walked to a sign that declared: "Canada Begins Here ... or ends, depending on which way you´re going."

The fog continued throughout our drive to Bay Bulls for a boat tour to Witless Bay to see the bird sanctuary. We saw no whales, but we could see thousands of birds on the islands. Some clusters of birds were puffins with orange beaks and orange feet. The birds lose the orange in their beaks after mating season. They are poor flyers. They take off from water like flat stones being skipped. Puffin young stay in burrows for six weeks or more, at which time their parents ignore their cries for food, forcing the young birds to make their own way. Tough love. It was a cold, foggy boat ride but at least no one forced me out of the boat to find food.

Marker buoys (click to enlarge)

In the afternoon, Nina dropped us off at the number one cultural site in St. John´s, the museum called The Rooms. The displays tell the natural and human history of Newfoundland and Labrador. Upper floors are devoted to the Provincial Art Gallery. The main current display traced the history of fishermen and sealers and said much about the lifestyle of residents. It was very effective art. Lower floors held historical and natural displays, including a bit about the Titanic.

We separated. Then we started to walk back to our hotel. The map made it look close, but since the map left out all the in-between streets, it was a goodly distance, and most of it steeply downhill. A bonus was seeing the brightly-coloured houses along the way. When we saw the others again, they all commented on what a long walk it had turned out to be (and this despite the fact that most of us are determined walkers).

At the hotel we gathered for a farewell drink. As we chatted, I thought that this group would stay in touch. I´d heard that so often with other trips and other groups, but rarely did people follow up. At home, we have heard from four others already.

John had a craving for Chinese food, and we agreed to go our own ways to find dinner. Pat and I just crossed the street to a pub that Nina had said was good. It gave us a good last look at the people who made so much of the trip successful. Pat had mussels and I had fish and chips. While we munched and sipped, we watched the very personal, very friendly greetings that guests got from the owner and the waitress. Then it was our turn. The owner came over and talked to us at length.

The next morning we were up at 4:30 for our ugly stick: the flight to Toronto.

Thinking about the trip, Newfoundland and Labrador have little soil but lots of rock, boulders, erratics, trees, gulls, clotheslines, ponds, bogs, brooks, snowmobiles, lobster traps, dandelions, woodpiles, villages, space, fog, wildflowers, moose, whales, lighthouses, people with ties to the land ... and language differences.

Just consider the language in the lyrics of one traditional song:

I´se the b´y that builds the boat
And I´se the b´y that sails her
I´se the b´y that catches the fish
And brings them home to Lizer.

It says something that I bought a dictionary of Newfoundland and Labrador. At one point when we came near the town of Dildo, Nina told me to look up the word and tell the group what I found. I found that "dildo" is a thole pin, which means that it is a stick fastened to the gunwhale of a rowboat to hold the oar in place. I suspect that some in our group had a different meaning in mind.

At first, Pat found it difficult to follow some of the speech. It is like hearing a foreign language: too fast to follow easily. People have created their own sayings, and people come from different backgrounds. Some words evolved; others did not (the past tense of "dig" may be "digged"). Pronunciation can be different. An "h" may be silent, or it may be added as in "I´m going to give the orse some hoats." I noticed that the "th" sound could be pronounced "d." A "d" sound may be left off the end of a word as in "roun" for "round." The "oi" sound may become "i" as in "pint" for "point." It keeps conversation interesting: you find you pay close attention. We got so we really enjoyed the sound of spoken language. I suggest listening in pubs.

ED. NOTE: To hear the song I´se the B´y, click on

CORRESPONDENCE

Irene Harvalias writes: I LOVED that video about packing. I thought I was a good packer until I saw that one! What a winner! I hope I can remember how to pack by the next time I travel anywhere!

Catherine Green forwards this older but clever post:

LANGUAGE TRANSITION

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the fourth yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi TU understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

If zis mad you smil, pleas pas on to oza pepl.

Pat Moore is not the only one who has made this important discovery:

DON´T WASH YOUR HAIR IN THE SHOWER!

I don´t know WHY I didn´t figure this out sooner! I use shampoo in the shower!

When I wash my hair, the shampoo runs down my whole body, and printed very clearly on the shampoo label is this warning, "FOR EXTRA BODY AND VOLUME."

No wonder I have been gaining weight!

Well! I got rid of that shampoo and I am going to start showering with Dawn dishwashing soap instead. Its label reads, "DISSOLVES FAT THAT IS OTHERWISE DIFFICULT TO REMOVE."

Problem solved!

If I don´t answer the phone I´ll be in the shower!

Carol Shoemaker sends this one for those interested in

MODERN TECHNOLOGY

I was visiting with my daughter and son-in-law last night, when I asked if I could borrow a newspaper.

"This is the 21st century, old man," my son-in-law said. "We don´t waste money on newspapers. Here, you can borrow my iPod."

I can tell you, that bloody fly never knew what hit it....

Mike Quigley posted this in a local MindLink group some years ago, but little has changed in the meantime:

WHAT WE LEARN ABOUT COMPUTERS FROM THE MOVIES

1. Word processors never display a cursor.

2. You never have to use the space-bar when typing long sentences.

3. All monitors display two-inch-high letters.

4. High-tech computers, such as those used by NASA, the CIA, or some such governmental institution, have easy-to-understand graphical interfaces.

5. Those that don´t will have incredibly powerful text-based command shells that can correctly understand and execute commands typed in plain English.

6. Corollary: You can gain access to any information you want by simply typing, "ACCESS ALL OF THE SECRET FILES" on any keyboard.

7. Likewise, you can infect a computer with a destructive virus by simply typing "UPLOAD VIRUS." Viruses cause temperatures in computers, just like they do in humans. After a while, smoke billows out of disk drives and monitors.

8. All computers are connected. You can access the information on the villain´s desktop computer, even if it´s turned off.

9. Powerful computers beep whenever you press a key or whenever the screen changes. Some computers also slow down the output on the screen so that it doesn´t go faster than you can read. The *really* advanced ones also emulate the sound of a dot-matrix printer as the characters come across the screen.

10. All computer panels have thousands of volts and flash pots just underneath the surface. Malfunctions are indicated by a bright flash, a puff of smoke, a shower of sparks, and an explosion that forces you backward. (see #7, above)

11. People typing away on a computer will turn it off without saving the data.

12. A hacker can get into the most sensitive computer in the world before intermission and guess the secret password in two tries.

13. Any PERMISSION DENIED has an OVERRIDE function.

14. Complex calculations and loading of huge amounts of data will be accomplished in under three seconds. In the movies, modems transmit data at two gigabytes per second.

15. When the power plant/missile site/whatever overheats, all the control panels will explode, as will the entire building.

16. If you display a file on the screen and someone deletes the file, it also disappears from the screen. There are no ways to copy a backup file - and there are no undelete utilities.

17. If a disk has encrypted files, you are automatically asked for a password when you try to access it.

18. No matter what kind of computer disk it is, it´ll be readable by any system you put it into. All application software is usable by all computer platforms.

19. The more high-tech the equipment, the more buttons it has. However, everyone must have been highly trained, because the buttons aren´t labeled.

20. Most computers, no matter how small, have reality-defying three-dimensional, real-time, photo-realistic animated graphics capability.

21. Laptops, for some strange reason, always seem to have amazing real-time video phone capabilities and the performance of a CRAY Y-MP. 22. Whenever a character looks at a VDU, the image is so bright that it projects itself onto his/her face.

23. Computers never crash during key, high-intensity activities. Humans operating computers never make mistakes under stress.

24. Programs are fiendishly perfect and never have bugs that slow down users.

SUGGESTED WEBSITES

Catherine Nesbitt suggests this site for a video of awesome people and amazing animals:

Catherine also sends this URL for a very clever advertisement:

Pat Moore fprwards this link to a video of a home off the grid. Margy and Wayne Lutz were camping in Coastal BC when they discovered their dream home: the float cabins of Powell Lake. They´re not houseboats, but "float cabins", that is, they´re permanently anchored to shore. Float cabins were first built on Powell Lake as inexpensive and portable homes for loggers and fishermen. Since then they´ve become regulated and the 200 float cabin owners here these days lease their water lots from the BC government for $500 per year:

Pat also sends this link to a video that will cool you off if you are finding the heat unbearable:

Tony Lewis forwards this link to an amusing video of an admiral being interviewed

Tony also sends the URL for a video of The Jovers, who were a husband and wife funny vaudeville-style act that is wonderfully entertaining as its witty and Fe Jovers laugh is contagious. In this clip they are performing live at the MGM in Reno in 1980. Fe is now 83 and lives with her daughter, as her husband passed away a short time ago. Please share this video to help make it go viral so Fe will know how many people are still enjoying their wonderful performance.

Daphne Koller is enticing top universities to put their most intriguing courses online for free -- not just as a service, but as a way to research how people learn. Each keystroke, comprehension quiz, peer-to-peer forum discussion and self-graded assignment builds an unprecedented pool of data on how knowledge is processed and, most importantly, absorbed:

Peggielene Bartel and Eleanor Herman wrote a book, "King Peggy", about an American secretary who woke up one morning to find she had been chosen to be the king of a village in Ghana. I recommend the book as a glimpse of a life that is immeasurably far from our own, and as an example of the changes that can be wrought by a strong-minded woman when confronted by seemingly insurmountable problems. This site shows pictures of King Peggy and her associates and her kingdom:

Matt Kilby explains how to plant a tree on a swale that is approximately 2 km in length. Matt explains his method for growing trees for maximum survival in a fairly harsh environment at Mulloon Creek Natural Farms near Canberra, Australia. Eventually this swale, designed by Geoff Lawton, will support a forest of trees based on sustainable and sensible design:

To check out the features of the "freedictionary", which changes daily, go to