Blogfest

  Yesterday was 'B', or Big Day, in the Bloggers' world. We came from near and far and even further to attend a Blogfest, meet our peers and increase our education, thereby, increasing our fulfillment in and our capcity to communicate through our blogs. For the most part we were  women. That is, each woman was entirely a woman, so far as I could tell.  What I meant was,the constituency was made up mainly of women. I make this pedantic point because, for me, one of the sessions that had the most impact dealt with the unmitigated glory of technology, that is, the internet, in the education of the young. Does the computer go on about the order of words in a sentence and the way meaning is conveyed? Of course it does if you ask it to. What it doesn't do is lighten your day with the sight of the teacher whose skirt is tucked in to her knickers at the back where you can see it as she stands at the blackboard but, clearly, she can't. Nor can you bring it an apple or flowers at the end of term.  We were offered impressive examples of how the world was opened to pupils who, otherwise, were missing the lifeblood of education. My growing and physical discomfort culminated in a question which I wrote down in order to be secure in asking it, in spite of a serious attack of performance anxiety. (Those of you loyal and tender readers, may remember, part of my professional life was treating performing musicians for just that complaint, which the older among you may well call 'stagefright.' Odd what a refining up will do to the name of a condition; as in 'laryngitis' versus 'sore throat.'). The question was:  how did the Speaker and the Panel see the contribution of human relations in the Cyberworld? Where was the place for them and, indeed, the time? Dear Reader, there was no Q and A slot. I would have asked it in a genuine 'want-to-know way'. I felt alarmed and saddened and intensely concerned. Of course, no-one seriously expects Cyberspace to obliterate human relations. But hang on a minute isn't that more or less implicit in what the eminent professor has just said; in a confined arena, education, it's true, and formal education at that?. But education makes an impact and here you have a very worried old lady. Will there be generations who communicate only via keyboards and Smart  whatevers? Oh Dear, I am in danger of ruining  Sunday. Happily, that was the most challenging event in an otherwise brilliant and superbly well organised day. I can't wait until next year....if I'm spared, that is. Can't maake too many plans at my great age.

To change the lilt, I shall report on a lighter note. I have cards with all my details and contacts on them.: pure Downton Abbey. Some also have the link to 75 going on 40. In the early morning rush, I couldn't find those so, in the Minicab taking me to the venue, I wrote the link in ink. Arthritic hands, jerky drive, you get the picture. When I arrived I was presented with a gadget with my name and the name of my blog on it, about the size of a large credit card, on a lanyard to put around one's neck. This gadget, when tapped by another's, would recall all the protaganists details, down, I believe, to the name of the store from which one bought one's underwear.( "Don't we all" as Lady Thatcher once said.)  So much for giddy-making illegibility and old-fashioned old lady communication. Bore da.