Monday, March 19, 2012

It all makes work

Dealing with the growing list of Blogger glitches puts me forcibly in mind of a song which I've known and loved since childhood. It sums up to a T the feeling of being trapped in a vicious circle of incompetence, so I will leave you to enjoy the dulcet tones and biting wit of Messrs. Flanders and Swann, while I relax with a nice pot of tea.


38 comments:

  1. Dear Pepetua, I'm still sitting here grinning because I laughed out loud at that video song. It all started when we got to Friday and the painter painted over the gas tap. One of the cats jumped off the desk when I started laughing. I've never heard that song before, but I'm going to listen to it again and again--probably each time I return to your blog. Thank you!!!! Peace.

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    1. Isn't it wonderful, Dee? I'm so glad to have introduced you to it. As a child I knew it off by heart and it still makes me chuckle every time I hear it.

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  2. Hello Perpetua:
    Now this is splendid, as is the video clip!!

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    1. Hello Jane and Lance. Yes, I've finally discovered how to put pages on my blog, which is the real bonus of all this upset. As for Flanders and Swann, they have always been great favourites of mine.

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  3. Google needs to put you on their payroll is my thinking.

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    1. LOL, Rubye. The Blogger help forums (or Google Product Forums, to give them their new name) are staffed entirely by dedicated amateurs, with Google employees just popping in and out occasionally to make announcements - usually to say that they are working on whatever bug has just become apparent.)

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  4. Thanks for your helpful page. I've only just noticed that Blogger has changed my URL without my permission - not really sure about the implications of this or what other problems may emerge.

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    1. Nancy, glad to be of help. I'm afraid Blogger asked no-one's permission to do this, but just announced the fact in the link I post on my page. The big problem so far is that the change removes all links to Blogger tools and widgets on the front page, so that as well as the Quick Edit tools disappearing, people are seeing their Facebook and Twitter links not working. Thankfully, doing the fix I mention seems to get things working properly again.

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  5. The video clip is brilliant - I have always enjoyed hearing it and it is just as relevant today as decades ago.....nothing changes eh ??!!

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    1. Absolutely, Jean. I could think of nothing better to sum up recent Blogger events. :-)

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  6. Excellent stuff, Perpetua. And having pages is quite nice - I discovered that early on, though I keep forgetting to update them! Axx

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    1. Thanks, Annie. I knew about the possibility of pages and kept meaning to explore it, but then forgot again until I wanted to keep this information easily available. Now to do the sock pattern one I promised people months ago....:-)

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  7. I can't comment on Blogger but I do love Flanders and Swann. This song is one of my favourites. For our first year here at Castle Beastie we lived in a virtual workers' commune: the whole place had to be re-wired, then the joiners patched up the mess that the sparkies had made, then the plasterers, then the painters, then the carpet-layers...! They were a nice crowd but we often found ourselves singing this song! My father-in-law used to know umpteen F&S and Tom Lehrer songs by heart. Sadly, he has dementia now and does not really communicate, but still thoroughly enjoys humming along when we sing some of these old favourites to him.

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    1. DB, I would much rather discuss Flanders and Swann than Blogger. :-) I've loved their songs ever since I first heard the Gnu song on 'Children's Favourites' in the 1950s and later they were joined in my affections by Tom Lehrer's wonderful satires. It's so sad when memory fades as it is doing for your father-in-law, but music can often be a way to re-establish contact, even if only temporary, when other things fail.

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    2. Yes, music and rhyme can reach him when ordinary speech just washes over him. We went to his care home to sing him carols at Christmas, and each one of the dementia patients in the room just lit up with pleasure. He loves to hear old favourite poems too. I wonder if other carers have noticed the same response.

      By the way, the Gnu song was the first F&S song that I heard too. I have a CD of theirs in the car and we all love singing along like loons... :D

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    3. DB, I experienced this over and over in my pastoral work. When visiting parishioners with severe memory problems I found that they would respond to the Lord's Prayer or favourite psalms or other passages of Scripture (in the AV, of course) when they didn't even recognise me or know what day it was. The power of early memory!

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  8. Thanks for a chuckle Perpetua!

    Oh and if you remember me mentioning the problem I have had recently posting on WP blogs...ie it wouldn't let me use my Ayak username with the email address I,'ve always used..no answer from WP so now I'm having to use my husband's email address for WP if I want Ayak to appear. I'm utterly confused...blogging used to be such fun :-((

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    1. You're very welcome, Ayak. I think we bloggers need all the chuckles we can get at the moment.

      Don't give up hope yet of hearing back from WP support. I've only contacted them once and it took several days before I got a response, but it was from a real live person who knew what he was talking about. This thing about email addresses and usernames is new and I've read several complaints about it on various WP blogs. I'll think about it and get in touch with you directly.

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  9. I remember hearing "The Gas Man Cometh" somewhere, sometime during my lifetime! It certainly fits the bill with Google/blogger, they're about to turn my hair totally white instead of just gray...or maybe I'll just be bald from pulling it all out! So happy you're one step ahead of the game! Certainly helped me to come over and read up on what they're up to! Thank you for sharing your Google knowledge!

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    1. Hello Theanne and welcome to my blog. I feel I know you already from Ayak's blog. Glad you enjoyed the song. It's been part of my life for as long as I can remember.

      Being in the US I don't think this latest development is going to apply to you, so you can relax. It's a way of having local country domains outside the US, as described in the link on my page.

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  10. And the right handed honeysuckle and the left handed bindweed....

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    1. ...climbing above the mud, mud, glorious mud or the bedsteads the Bedstead Man leaves around....

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  11. Such a charming song, Perpetua! I've not heard it before, but it gave me a good chuckle. You're being quite persistent in getting the blogger issues confronted and publicized. You're performing a good public service :-) Blessings to you! Debra

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    1. Debra, I'm delighted to be the one to introduce you to Flanders and Swann. They are very much part of the fabric of life for many Britons of a certain age. :-) As for Blogger, I would dearly love not to have to wrestle with it for a long time to come....

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  12. Perpetua, Dare I ask, what are 'pages'?

    Love Flanders and Swann -- and the 'Gnu' song, too -- brings back lovely memories of my aristocratic grandmother who loved to sing it and then laugh like a queen!

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    1. Broad, it's a way of having what amounts to permanent stand-alone posts, with links either in your sidebar or below your header. Mine are below my header. I'll email you about it as it would take too long here.

      Glad you enjoy Flanders and Swann too. I usually find that Lehrer fans like them too. :-) I love the image of your grandmother singing the Gnu song!

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  13. Oh, Perpetua, can you see my grin from your window over there? It is as wide as the ocean that ocean that separates us. Today, it could be "the cable man cometh". Very funny, indeed.

    I know close to nothing about technology, but, in reading through your comment thread, I'm wondering if the wordpress comment problem is because blogger changed everyones' URL. Wordpress has been making a few changes of their own, so, hope it all settles soon.

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    1. Glad you enjoyed it so much, Penny. as you can see from earlier replies, I've always loved the wit of Flanders and Swann and so much of it hasn't dated.

      Thanks for your suggestion about WordPress, but my WP problem slightly predates the Blogger URL change and is about my email address rather than my URL. I'm managing to comment OK now, thank goodness.

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  14. Hello Perpetua,

    As you know, I don't fortunately have any 'bother with Blogger', hence my recent lack of comments here. But like you & certain other of your commenters. I too am a great fan of Flanders & Swann. Along with your featured 'The Gas-man Cometh', my other great favourite is 'A Transport of Delight' "......it's worth it just to ride inside, that 30 feet long by 10 feet wide, inside that monarch of the road, observer of the Highway Code, that big six wheeler, scarlet painted, London Transport, diesel-engined, 97 horse power omnibus!" I clearly am a Briton of a certain age :-)

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    1. Ricky, I know you are safe within the WordPress fortress and immune to Blogger's bugs, but even WP has been causing slight problems to some of us recently...

      Glad to know you too are a Flanders and Swann fan and I can just hear them singing the one you quote. I'm afraid your last birthday puts you squarely into the 'Britons of a certain age' bracket, but as you can see there are plenty of Americans who have enjoyed being introduced to them too. :-)

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  15. Another fan of the London omnibus. Many many years ago I babysat the daughters of Michael Flanders, the younger one was a bit of a brat and wouldn't tell me her name as she said no one ever remembered it. Try me, says I, it was Stephanie so I told her I couldn't forget that name. She still doubted me until I told her it was my sister's name. Quite unusual in those days, as was my Christian name then.

    I sympathise about people forgetting her name though, it happens a lot to me, or else I am just Martha's Mum, never Adam's Mum although he is the elder.

    PixieMum aka Madeleine

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    1. Hi Madeleine - a pretty name and I have 2 friends who share it, so won't forget it. You must have grown up with the big red London buses, so no wonder that song appeals to you. :-) I love your reminiscences about the offspring of the famous. It's reassuring that no-one is immune from (hopefully temporarily) brattish children.

      Were your parents Francophiles? Madeleine and Stephanie are both very French names.

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  16. The reason we had these unusual names was because my maiden name was fairly common and parents wanted something different. Also, apparently just liked the names.

    there was another girl in my class with the same surname, we are not related, but still friends and both of us living in the same district still.

    Both sister and I have been fortunate that our married surnames go well with our Christian names too.

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    1. Not so unusual nowadays, of course. The list of popular names has changed so much since my childhood. DH and his 2 brothers were all given monosyllabic names, on the basis they couldn't be shortened and were easy to shout. :-)

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  17. Hi, Perpetua!

    I had never heard that song before, but love it! And it is so applicable to the Blogger headaches as well as innumerable other life happenings. Thanks!

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    1. Good evening, Kathy. So glad you like it. Flanders and Swann were hugely popular when I was growing up and indeed brought their revues across the Broadway in the 50s and 60s, but that's a long time ago now. It's such fun to revisit them. :-)

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  18. Gorgeous, Perpetua - I'm such a fan of F&S that I've got the 'whole works' book of songs, so if you want a reminder any time just let me know (how about "We're terribly 'House and Garden'"? And I've got CDs of all of Tom Lehrer's stuff too! (Nothing like one-upmanship, is there!!) Haven't had time to do anything with my blog page yet - and have already forgotten all you told me, I fear. Will get round to it sometime, but may need a refresher. Pax et bonum.

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    1. Hi Helva. It's fun seeing how many of my friends love both Flanders and Swann and also Tom Lehrer. :-) I have just about everything of Lehrer on CD, but as yet nothing of F&S, which I'm about to remedy, having enjoyed rediscovering them on YouTube.

      Tut, tut, we should probably have ensured you made notes during our blog tutorial session. Next time....

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I welcome your comments and will always try to respond to them. Thank you for reading.