True Love

I have just entered Alain and my name into the Love Calculator:

I have entered hordes of name combinations and have not been able to beat that, so it must be true love!

Scaramantic discovery

Alain and I went to South Africa for Christmas last year. As usual, before we left, I returned all the books, DVDs etc that I had borrowed from people as I am always paranoid that the plane will explode and... well, I don't really want to die not having returned other peoples' property to them.

I mentioned this to one of my colleagues who told me that I was definitely not Italian to which I proudly replied: 'I am not in the slightest bit scaramantic!'*

To my chagrin, I have since discovered that I do have (at least) one scaramantic quirk. While on holiday, I lost a rather expensive work-related item which had to be replaced on my return. My boss emailed me to tell me that I should be careful not to lose it. When I read this email I had the overwhelming (and obviously irrational) feeling that her telling me this had increased the probability that the replacement would be lost in the near future.

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*The reply to this statement was quite amusing, but perhaps not suitable for a mixed audience. I am dying to tell you - please email me and I will fill you in.

10 January 1998

This post is to remember Alain and my wedding day, 10 January 1998. The wedding took place in Durban, South Africa.

The photographer really liked the little flower-girl and there were literally hundreds of photos of her and only about 10 of me! She is all grown up now and still very beautiful.

To give you an idea of how long ago everything was: the first film we went to see as a married couple (on our honeymoon) was 'Titanic'. There isn't really much else to say except that we are still happily married.

Happy New Year!

It is 2007! Can you believe that seven years have elapsed since we were all panicking about the millenium bug?

I would like to take this opportunity to say 'Happy New Year!' and share a festive philosophical musing.

Karl Marx famously stated that "Religion is the opiate of the masses" and, more recently, Bill Watterson drew a television with a thought bubble saying "Karl Marx ain't seen nothing yet".

If the destiny of the masses is to relinquish the power that they have over their minds and lives, it is sad that the trend of western society is to choose television over religion. Religion, with all its faults, at least has the advantage of calling people to high ideals and a structured community. Has the overall result of progress merely been the transfer of dependance to a lesser god?