7 January 2011

What’s Happening at Le Brin ?

Well, we had a very busy Xmas and New Year. You may have read that we had a lunch for fourteen people at Xmas but that was surpassed on New Year’s Eve when eighteen people turned up, some of whom I’d never met before, and J hadn’t either just in case you were thinking they were friends of hers!

One of the ‘unknowns', a lady (Karen), handed me a bottle of Glenfiddich (Malt Whisky for the uninitiated) as she came into Le Brin and whispered in my ear that she’d brought it so she could drink it herself (!!) but when she left, it was still unopened so that was a bonus. No doubt, my youngest son, Tim, will beg me to open it the next time he comes down.

We had a great night and managed to get all the speeches and songs over just in time for the ‘Bells’ and then we had a huge fireworks display, putting some of the village shows to shame. Thanks David – getting a large box of fireworks in France in December is no mean feat.

After most of the visitors had departed we ‘hit’ Tan and Angie’s (who had their own guests) where the drinking, singing and dancing continued on their terrace until 4am and amazingly, I was able to walk the 50 metres back home unaided! Astounding!

Of course, the following week was pretty quiet after that. Guy returned from his trip to Ireland with his dad, and Kitty finally decided to come home after spending what seemed like the whole of the festive period at her boyfriend’s parent’s house.

The peace and solitude (once the kids had gone back to school) then allowed me to start writing my book again after a gap of over two years (writer’s block) and it was a bit of a struggle – I had to re-read all that I’d previously written so I could establish where to start and how to continue.

The last words were written up in Normandy at Brian and Lynn’s idyllic cottage and I now know why writers often buy or rent a house way out in the country to allow them to write in absolute peace and quiet. It was such a productive time. I wrote for maybe three or four hours a day, only interrupted by Brian continually asking if I wanted another glass of RosĂ©.

Easterhouse - Nice name, terrible place
The book really isn’t for publication. It’s for my children to understand what it was like to be brought up in the mean streets of Glasgow and then later on in Easterhouse, probably the worst housing estate in Europe. Money was tight, gangs roamed the streets and school was a nightmare. Our mother died and our father ‘did a runner’ …… but I can’t say any more or I’ll give the story away!   

No doubt, Clint Eastwood will read this blog posting and get in touch. I read recently that he’s quite a fan of ‘basic scripts’ which he can then mould into a film of his own making. Just in case you do read this Clint, I’d like my young self to be played by Guy and the older Thomas by Brad Pitt – he’ll need make up of course to make him look younger!

So, that’s about it. The rainy weather has returned, curtailing all outside work which allows me and J, and our friends, to spend lots of time in The Midi, which is no bad thing.

A belated Happy New Year to you all. 

6 January 2011

The 3-Pin Plug

UK 3 Pin Plug
Now I know I write some boring blog postings and some of you are quite quick to tell me they're boring but even I have to admit, that for the normal non-geek person, this one really is boring but as it's my blog, I'm including it. So there!

Sometimes, just sometimes, an invention comes along and you look at it and think why it was never invented before. It’s so simple that it’s beyond comprehension why nobody took the base product and refined or changed it for the better.
Yup – I’m talking about the good old UK 3-pin plug,  a device which has hardly changed since 1946 when it was first introduced.

Icon, the design magazine, recently covered The Royal College of Art's graduate show, and this year, the show-stopper was a plug – the humble old 3-pin plug! Min-Kyu Choi impressed with his neat re-design of the plug which folds down to the width of an Apple MacBook Air. "The MacBook Air is the world's thinnest laptop ever. However, here in the UK, we still use the world's biggest three-pin plug," says Choi.



Choi's plug is just 10mm wide when it is folded. To unfold it, the two live pins swivel 90 degrees, and the plastic surround folds back around the pins so the face of the plug looks the same as a standard UK plug. The idea produced a spin off, too. Choi created a multi-plug adaptor, a compact standard plug sized unit with space for three folded plugs to slot in, as well as one that charges USB devices.

It's so plausible and so obvious a product that it should produce a few red faces; how many more years were we going to attach our palm sized mobiles and wafer thin laptops to an object that's barely been touched in sixty years? Choi picked an everyday product that most other designers find too mundane to dabble with and drastically improved it. Good on him – I hope he makes a million.

5 January 2011

The Innocence of Youth

It’s very interesting watching Guy and Kitty grow into adolescence. Kitty has her first real boyfriend and is now involved in the romance of the century (!) and sneaks little kisses from him when she thinks we’re not looking, whilst Guy has met and dumped his first girlfriend and is now more interested in his mates who have scooters. That’s ma boy! It's cheaper!

Never having been independent enough to go into town before this year, they now disappear at regular intervals with their ‘allowance’ (as Kitty calls her pocket money) and of course, Guy, with his scooter, can pop into town whenever he wants, although there are strict conditions about when he has to be home.

Despite their independence, it’s still nice that as a family we sit down together every night for dinner and a few nights ago, gathered in front of the telly to watch the film ‘The Social Network’.

We all use Facebook and although I knew most of the story, it was interesting to watch it with Guy and Kitty. Kitty wanted to know all the ins and outs of the subterfuge involved in the lawsuit with the Winklevoss twins, whilst Guy was desperately trying to look at Mark Zuckerberg’s coding.

But it’s when we all start ‘fighting’ on the carpet in front of the fire that the memories come flooding back. When they were much smaller, Guy and Kitty would ambush me (a la Kato in Inspector Clouseau) by jumping on my back and trying to smother me, shouting, ‘pile on, pile on’. Occasionally, we’d even get Shadow to join in.

The other night Guy ambushed me. In the old days, I’d simply throw him off but these days he’s quite a bit heavier and stronger and trying to throw him over my shoulder just doesn’t work any more. So I was in this ‘death grip’ the other night, quite unable to free myself but there’s always an alternative way of dealing with assailants – I just tickled him and within seconds his grip on me had loosened and he was lying on his back, completely disabled through laughter.

I love that they’re growing up (fast), but occasionally, just occasionally, the innocence of youth shines through.   

4 January 2011

Heard About Groupon ? Don’t Switch Off – It Could Save You a Fortune.



Some of you will have heard of Groupon, but many will not.

Groupon first came to my attention a couple of months ago when Google tried to buy the company for $6 billion. Now although I’m well out of business life, I still like to follow what’s happening in the market and I’d never heard of Groupon and here was Google desperate to pay $6 billion for them. This needed a bit of research.

It turned out that Groupon is a so-called discount voucher company and the concept is so ridiculously simple that when you work out what it does, it’s one of those, ‘why wasn’t it thought of before’, moments. And it’s so successful, it’s the fastest growing company in the world, will probably sit alongside Facebook, or even be part of it (surely I’m not the only one to see the commercial affinity between Groupon and Facebook ?) and has, whilst spurning Google, decided to list on the stock market or sell some of its stock valuing the company at over $7 billion. I reckon Google will be kicking themselves in a year or two.

‘So Cupples, get on with it, what is Groupon?’

It’s so easy. You register your e-mail address with Groupon (registration takes all of a minute – no kidding!), choose your city and that’s it. Thereafter, you will get a few e-mails a day telling you of ‘special deals’ in the city, or cities, you chose, and a special deal is just that – 61% off a meal for two, 80% off of a Spa stay, £49 for a multi-media course instead of £197!

‘Great discounts, How do they do it?’

Well the vouchers for the ‘special deals’ are usually only available to be bought on the day you get the e-mail but the voucher can then be redeemed over a period of time, e.g. for a restaurant, usually from the following day for a period of one month.  Had I still been working in London, I would have received these e-mails during the day, and could have been in the featured restaurant the following day on my way home. It would have been great. Linked to local Facebook friends or people in the office, it would be a terrific way of socializing on the cheap!

The one thing which is not generally known unless you have a geek like me telling you is that Groupon need to get a predetermined level of interest in a ‘special deal’ before it kicks in, so for example, I could have registered my interest in today’s deal at the restaurant owned by Frankie Dettori (famous jockey) and Marco Pierre White (needs no introduction surely) in Chelsea where they are offering a Pizza and a glass of wine for £5.50 instead of £14 but unless they get the numbers stipulated by Frankie and Bennie’s, you don’t get the deal. I suppose that’s one disadvantage (and I have to admit that I’ve not actually registered for a specific deal yet only having registered for London – I’ve now linked myself to deals in Antibes), you could actually set up a group of friends to go to a specific place and then find they haven’t attracted the necessary numbers.

OK – so how does Groupon make its money?

It’s dead simple. They just take a cut from the discount voucher they e-mail you. And their revenues are growing exponentially.

Final point – I hate spam like the rest of you but I have to say, I don’t mind getting e-mails offering me 60% discounts. One of them might just be the next thing I was going to buy!

Now, you could just register with Groupon and off you go but as I told you about it (maybe not?), and as this is still the ‘season of goodwill to all men, why don’t you send me a quick e-mail and let me submit your e-mail address to them. That way, I’ll not have to pay £5.50 for a pizza and a glass of wine, I’ll get it for free! I just have to book my flights to London to get it!


3 January 2011

J's Trip to Kenya - Part VI

Thursday 9th December

John Odiambo is one of 3 social workers who work with the Isaiah Trust. I had met John on my previous trip but as he is by far the quietest and softest spoken of the guys, I had never really had the opportunity to get to know him.  The previous evening, he had approached me and asked if he could share his story with me and talk to me about one of the girls he takes care of, Evelyn.  “I wanted to explain why I have such a heart for the girls” John began.

John’s story is not necessarily any more tragic than many I have heard.  Both parents died at an early age, the difference being that he was the eldest boy to three younger sisters. 

I too have ‘a heart’ for the girls. I remembered meeting Ruth for the first time and asking if she needed anything.  In our heavily materialistic world, her only request was for “sanitary pads”. No adolescent girl should be in the position of asking for basic needs such as that.  And this was John’s point too.  Many girls turn to prostitution simply because they cannot afford to look after themselves.  Not only selling their bodies to afford food, they sell their bodies to acquire their most basic needs.  

With John’s sisters he knows only too well this was the reason they moved into prostitution. It was their way of maintaining at least some dignity.  John now keeps an eye on 10 girls in the Isaiah Trust program.  “Two of my sisters died having contracted HIV. I don’t want any of my girls to be in that situation ever again”, he whispered.

John and Evelyn
And that is how we came to be doing another home visit this Thursday morning.  Evelyn lives with her grandmother, is top of her class and is poor, was all he would tell me. Touched by John’s story of the previous evening, I loaded up my supermarket trolley with the usual basics for Evelyn’s grandmother.  Having just met John Felix’s grandmother the previous day, I wondering what this one was going to be like.  Still with a heavy heart after talking to John about Evelyn, I filled a carrier bag with sanitary pads, hair shampoo, body lotion (for African skin this is somewhat of a necessity rather than a luxury), toothbrush, toothpaste, soaps and off we went.

As usual Moses drove his old car up a track that would test our 4x4! As we approached the house, we saw Evelyn sitting outside, astride a bench, armed with a bowl of water, a scrubbing brush and the biggest pile of washing I have ever seen.  In another corner of the garden were three older boys, breaking up rocks.  Rocks are a free commodity which when broken up to make gravel can be sold at the local market to building contractors.

We were invited inside to meet Evelyn’s grandmother.  What a difference from yesterday’s grandmother! As I stepped over the threshold, she warmly greeted me and offered up prayers of thanks.  As the other seven orphaned grandchildren gathered around me I was overcome with an emotion that I found hard to identify.  Here was a woman whose grandchildren were her life.  Yes, they had a roof over their heads but certainly no glass in the windows. They had a couple of sofas to sit on and other than the closeness of their family unit that was all. I hastily wiped some tears away. If I started now I knew I wouldn’t stop. This place was filled with so much love it was tangible.  Struggling with my emotions, John, by my side, prompted me.  “You know that Evelyn is top of her class?” he told me. “Ask her how long it takes her to walk to school each day.” Even glancing down at her shredded flip flops, no way was I prepared for the answer. Two and a half hours each way, every week day in rain or shine....this girl is determined to get an education.  

Even Moses was surprised at Evelyn’s daily journey.  We can change that now he said, she must be transferred to St Pauls (a much closer school) come January.  Not wishing to completely bombard this shy girl, I turned to her and asked – “is that okay with you Evelyn?  Will you miss your friends?” She smiled right into my eyes and said, “I will make new friends!” Her grandmother meanwhile was sitting opposite us, smiling quietly and continuing with her basket weaving. Like I did when I first met John Felix, I instinctively knew that this family would be part of my future life.  John had been correct in introducing me and wanting to get me involved.  “Okay, if you’re going to St Paul’s in January, then I guess you need a school uniform,” not to mention leather shoes, I thought!

From school necessities the conversation turned to books.  I still had a donation from Frances on behalf of Olive (a schoolteacher friend who had recently died).  Instead of sending flowers to the funeral, Frances wanted the money spent on school books.  “Do you have libraries here?” I asked.  The response I got was a complete surprise.  There are no public lending libraries throughout the whole of Kenya.  Perhaps in the universities but then only for reference books and manuscripts.  Even in the schools, books are a luxury item. I thought about all of Guy’s and Kitty’s childhood books sold for pennies at the Vide Grenier. The thought of a child growing up without access to books (Enid Blyton, A A Milne, J K Rowling etc etc) was a complete puzzle to me.  “Moses, we need to go to a book shop!” So we all piled back into the little car, Evelyn and her brother Athenas, John Felix, John Odiambo, Moses and myself.  

First stop was to find the school shop for the new uniform.  Moses had said that there shouldn’t be a problem enrolling Evelyn on the first day back in January.  As we entered the shopping mall, out of the corner of my eye, I saw John Odiabo ‘high five’ a small nun.....dressed head to foot in cream rather than the usual black.  We hung back to be introduced to this miniscule lady.  Out of all the people to bump in to, this was the headmistress of St Paul’s.  Evelyn was duly introduced and did an entrance interview for the school there and then! Don’t you just love how God pulls these kinds of surprises on you?

The Kids' First Visit to a Bookshop
Next stop was to order the school uniform to be made (two dresses, one jumper), leather shoes and two pairs of socks.  Where to find a bookshop?  As Moses led us to the doorway, the kids were full of excitement ready to pile in. “Stop right there”, I shouted as they were about to climb up the steps. Having ascertained that this was a ‘first’ for all the kids, I held their attention by commanding them to “Sniff!” All books and stationery shops have the same smell – some sort of clean paper smell - I love it.  I hope those three kids will always remember it now too.  

With Frances’s donation we were able to buy twenty-one books which hopefully will be the start of the Kibos reading library!

Friday 10th December

My time left in Kisumu was flying by.  I’d been here 12 days already and still not had time to visit Moses and Tatu at their home in Kibos! I teased Moses saying that I had not been invited for Chapatis and greengrams yet.  He laughed his belly laugh and promised one of Tatu’s special lunches that afternoon after Prison visiting.
After Prison visiting?? Huh?? I gulped....

Moses explained that I would accompany him on his usual monthly visit to a counselling session with some of the inmates.  The Kibos lunch afterwards was my reward. Once again, my Mastercard and I entered Nakumat supermarket.  This time it was only (??) to pick up 30 loo rolls, 30 toothbrushes and 30 tubes of toothpaste.  Never mind the prisoners, Thomas is going to commit murder when he sees my credit card bill.... after making a hasty phone call to Maurice (prison social worker), we decided we could probably get away with a loo roll for each of the 30, 15 tubes of toothpaste to be shared and 5 (two foot long) bars of washing soap. I assured Moses that I had a supply of toothbrushes back at Covenant.  Having collected the said toothbrushes and counted them, I had a vision of starting a riot – I’d only got 18.....this fact did nothing to calm my nerves as we entered the highest security prison in the whole of Kenya.

The guards gave us cursory glances as we were waved through the main gate having parked up outside the prison on a patch of grass next to a bull.  ‘That’s for Christmas lunch’, we were told by Maurice. The heavy door opened and in we went.  As that door was locked behind us I stared ahead through the next iron doorway which led onto a huge courtyard where 2000 convicts were enjoying a bit of sun after taking lunch. Having signed in, this door was then unlocked for us and we were invited to cross the courtyard to the meeting room on the other side. I felt a sense of unreality.  Where were the security cameras? Where were the closed circuit TVs? Were these guards (who looked equally as scary as the prisoners) only ‘armed’ with what looked like a rounders bat? I’m white, I’m blond, I’m female and I have to walk 100 metres across an open courtyard with only 18 toothbrushes ....

I tried to make myself small and unnoticeable as I walked between Moses and Maurice. I envisioned Thomas switching on Sky News and seeing stories of ‘White woman taken hostage on account of not bringing enough toothbrushes....’ As we got to the other side, it seemed to take an interminable amount of time before the guard unlocked his side of the gate and we were ‘safely’ ushered in to another block.  I breathed a sigh of relief as we were welcomed into a kind of library and offered seats. ‘Phew, that was pretty scary’, I thought. As my heart beat slowed to a more normal pace, we were asked to wait as our group of inmates gathered outside (for what, I wondered??).  The well-spoken gentleman seated behind the desk apologised for the delay - nice shirt, I thought. Eventually, we joined a circle of 22 inmates strangely enough all wearing the same striped shirts (and trousers).  

Introductions over, Maurice wanted each prisoner to tell his own story, what crime they had committed and what goals they were now working towards.  I have to say that in the end, it was a very humbling experience.  The polite ‘librarian’ was in fact an ex school teacher inside for being an accomplice to robbery with violence.  The age range of the prisoners was between 19 and 56.  Nineteen of the twenty-two were serving life.  Their crimes (glad I didn’t know this before I turned up) were mainly for murder, rape and\or defilement. One of the boys had murdered his brother, another had been involved in a ‘fracas’ with his fiancĂ©, yet another an ex policeman.  The saddest case of all was the 19 year old who, on his arrival, had naively traded sex for some scraps of soap. The cost of a clean body was to contract HIV. However, each one in the group, took part, spoke up articulately and honestly, and confessed to becoming born again Christians.  Practically each one said that their crime had been committed as a result of drink/drugs or falling in with a bad crowd. Now being given the opportunity to perhaps learn a trade or help support someone else, they now had a reason for living and moving forward, regardless of their life sentences.

J with the Lifers
As our session came to an end, they stood up to sing for me.  What wonderful African voices in harmony. As I stood up to thank them for sharing their stories with me, the librarian appeared with a present.   “We thought you would like this, we made it in our workshop here.”  I was lost for words as they handed me my very own Chapati stool and rolling pin.  I walked out of Kibos prison feeling much better than how I had felt on my way in.  How is it possible to feel sympathy for murderers and the like?  Should we just lock them up and throw away the key?  Is there a hope that these guys can change their lives around from the inside and in doing so make a positive influence of some of the others? Maurice and Moses both think so. Who am I to argue?