This is something I wrote quite a few years ago. It was interesting for me to read it again. I reblog it in the hope it might be of some renewed interest!
Hi Geraldine, to your question about writing I can only say that I am not a very qualified writer but I love writing. If I talk to people on the phone for instance I tend to forget important messages in the conversation whereas when I communicate by email I can always look up what has been said and remember it better. I think I write my blogs on the whole similar to how I would write an email or a letter. I feel there is always something to tell about my life, what I have experienced, what I have been reading, the movies I have seen and so on.
It depends of course who you want to communicate with. What you write about your life, you can also call it a diary or a journal. You write it either just for yourself in order to remember later on what happened…
Desmond White leads a very modern life, riding his bike around inner-city Newcastle, where he lives on his own in a fifth-storey apartment overlooking the wharf.
Key points:
The Australia Talks survey found 96 per cent of Australians use a smartphone
62 per cent of Australians spend between one and six hours a day on their devices, the survey found
Most people think technology is making life better in Australia
But the 93-year-old was unimpressed when he recently became the owner of an iPhone.
“I had one of the old traditional phones, which was misbehaving. All callers — and I’ve got a lot of callers — would say ‘what’s up with your phone, what’s wrong with your phone?'” he said.
Optus offered Mr White a new phone and he agreed, but he was surprised to find it was an iPhone that arrived in the mail.
“I was expecting one like the old-fashioned stuff,” he said.
Suddenly, Mr White, who once presided over a successful tyre business, found himself unable to perform the previously simple task of making a phone call.
“Everybody promised — I’ve got grandkids and whatnot — to show me what to do with it,” he said.
With most of his family outside of the Newcastle area, Mr White turned to a computer club for older Novocastrians.
“I somehow managed to be able to make a call, and of course receive one … but it would be nice if I could do ever so much more, because I know it has so much to offer,” Mr White said.
“Some of them feel a little bit intimidated, feel a little bit upset because the world is changing so fast.
Ms Keen said the generational gap was particularly glaring when younger people tried to help out.
“They [older people] say, ‘oh I asked my son, or my daughter or my grandson or granddaughter … and they say, ‘oh you do this, this and this, press this button, do that, that’s how you do it’,” she said.
“The person sitting there who hasn’t understood the vast difference in the language and all the terminology, and hasn’t seen that before, is suddenly thrown and they’re thinking, ‘I have no idea what that person did’.
“They go to replicate it later and they have no idea.”
It has been more than a decade since Australians were introduced to smartphones, and the ABC’s Australia Talks survey found 96 per cent of people in the country now own one.
Not surprisingly though, the data shows the older you get, the less likely you are to have one.”
I, Uta, copied the above. This new technology I find very scary. I get the creeps when I am bombarded with terms like ‘the cashless society’! I am not 93 yet, I am ‘only’ 85. But I have very poor vision. The idea that in future I may have to use an iPhone does scare me no end. My husband Peter is very close to my age. However, he knows how to use a smartphone and keeps in touch with the children and he also accesses all the information about the children that is available on Facebook. He spends many hours a day on these gadgets. I find it very helpful that he can always give me information about family and friends. So far it worked out all right that I have to rely on Peter for all this information. I think to have to spend hours and hours on these gadgets to eventually get some valuable information is not a very efficent way to get to the news that is important to me. I think I prefer to keep in touch via email or a ‘normal’ phone call if person to person contact is not possible. So far I have been lucky in that person to person contact has still been possible a lot of the time. And occasionally I still get some beautiful emails! And I like the World Wide Web and WordPress!
“Tutors at the club say where once people would come in curious to explore this new frontier, they are now coming in because they have no choice.”
So this is what the tutors say! NO JOICE? I hope this is not true for me. I just do not feel like going to that ‘new frontier’ and spending the last bit of time that may be left to me with torturing my brain with new things that I feel I should not have to learn at this stage of my life!! Please understand, I am willing to adapt as much as possible to new things that are necessary for instance to cope with climate change, but somehow I feel that new frontier technology I should not have to be confronted with . . . .
It was the morning after my cousin’s funeral. My cousin’s son-in-law went out early in the morning to get some bread rolls for the family’s breakfast. I asked, could come with him for the walk. I wanted to familiarize myself a bit with my cousin’s surroundings, to get more of a feeling about the area where she had lived. So we went for the short walk to the baker’s shop. I had my camera with me. Looking at some of the displays at the basker’s, I couldn’t stop myself from taking a few photos. I think the shop assistant behind the counter looked at me a bit puzzled. She probably thought I was odd taking pictures. Looking at the pictures now I still think the displays look very appealing.
It’s remarkable that all the items are priced. When it says ‘Euro 1,45’ this means it costs less than two Australian Dollars. A piece of cake like this in a cake-shop in Australia would cost more than twice as much!
We went to the KaDeWe today. We bought a very long, crusty loaf called ‘bark-bread’ Lovely treats with our coffee Peter checks his phone Amongst a lot of sweets and chocolates we found this This creation of the Brandenburg Gate is made out ofmarzipan, 50 kilogram of marzipan were used for it.It took 150 working hours to design it!
Some more copies about what I wrote in 2012 about our stay in Germany that year:
Today (2012/10/06) is already the last day of the fourth week of our stay in Germany. The week started with Sunday when we went with Angie on a beautiful boat-tour through the city. The following day (Monday, 1st October), we met Angie at Bellevue-S-Bahn-Station and had morning coffee with her at Thürmann Baker’s Cafe at Hansaplatz U-Bahn-Station. There’s a Post Office at Hansaplatz from where Angie sent off a parcel to one of her sisters. The weather was very pleasant again. Just right for a lovely walk through Tiergarten towards the Victory Column. Angie enjoyed this walk with us. Later on we met Ilse and Finn at the Italian Restaurant close to Hansaplatz, where the five of us had a very satisfying lunch again outside in the garden area.
Afternoon coffee and cake we had upstairs in our little apartment. Angie had booked in at the newly opened Holiday Inn at Alexanderplatz. She left on Tuesday to fly back to America. Peter and I went to Prenzlauer Berg on Tuesday and had dumplings at a restaurant near Rosenthalerplatz.
Wednesday it was time to travel ‘Criss-Cross-Through-the-Country’ to Munich for my cousin’s Urn-Burial on Thursday. On Friday we travelled back to Berlin. Travelling time was about nine hours. We just had to change trains frequently. That way we were able to travel at a much reduced price. For the two nights in Munich we stayed with my cousin’s family. We love this family. They are such friendly people. Even though it was a very sad occasion to meet them, we still had a good time with them.
So far we’ve had always friendly weather during our stay in Germany. Today is the first day where it is quite cold, wet and dark outside.
‘Bienenstich’, a yeast-cake, filled with a lot of thick custard and topped with buttery crumbs. This is what my mum was very good at baking. She used to bake this cake every weekend while we lived in the country towards the end of WWII.
After long searching I have found what I wrote a few years ago about our Saturday nights during 1943/1944:
“Mr.T. and Mrs.T., as well as Tante Ilse and Mum were all good friends. Every Saturday night they came together for some card games. Eight year old daughterEva and I were allowed to stay up late on those nights. For hours we were watching the adults playing cards. At the same time we entertained ourselves with doodling on bits of paper. At around ten o’clock some cake and hot chocolate as well as coffee were served. But the maids did not have to do the serving, They were already in their rooms at this hour. The cake was usually freshly baked, very fluffy yeast cake topped with delicious butter-crumbs and filled with a thick custard. Hmm, yummy!”
So I did mention this yummy cake. A bit further on in this blog I mention that mum did bake this cake every Saturday. It was usually served late at night. Here I mention how mum would like to bake this cake. (Maria made some potato salad every Saturday!)
“Mum was always impressed how quickly Maria worked. Any dirty dishes were washed immediately. She was indeed capable of doing all the housework. Mum was happy to let her do just about everything. An exception was the baking of a large cake on Saturdays, which Mum loved to do herself.”
Following I copy some childhood memories about our landlord, Werner Man:
“Our toilets were “plumps-closets” some distance away from the house. Water for cooking and washing had to be fetched from a pump in the backyard. Fetching water from the pump kept both maids, Maria and Katja, very busy indeed. For lights we had kerosene-lamps, for heating there were coal-fired stoves which could also be used for cooking. Everything was very basic.
Gradually some changes were being made. The first big change was that our landlord had electricity laid on. All the workers who lived with their families in the other part of the building, received the benefit of electricity at the same time. This certainly was a very welcome improvement for them.
The ‘Ausbau’ was built close to a dirt-track which meandered through wide open barley-, oat- and potato-fields. On the track it was a good half hour to walk to the next village. Bike-riding however made it a bit quicker.
Werner Mann, the owner of all those fields that went on for miles and miles, was an acquaintance of Tante Ilse. People said he was a millionaire. Apart from these Ländereien he owned extensive brick-works (Ziegeleien). He was our landlord and he liked to spoil us. With no strings attached! Tante Ilse only had to voice a wish and Werner Mann immediately did whatever he could to fulfill her wish. He spoiled all of us by constantly getting produce delivered to us such as: Potatoes, cabbage (for making sauerkraut), wonderful treacle made of sweet-beets, and coal for our stoves.
Even I, as a nine year old, could see that sixty year old Werner Mann was hopelessly in love with Ilse. I also was quite aware, that she always kept him at a distance. He was happy to just be invited for ”Kaffee und Kuchen” on weekends and to spend some time with all of us. He always came to visit on his bike. On his daily inspection tours of the workers in the fields he also went around on his bike. He owned coaches with horses, but hardly ever used these to go anywhere.
Occasionally we were invited to his place (which people called ‘Schloss’), Then he sent a coach with a coachman to pick us up. Once in winter when there was plenty of snow, Werner Mann sent a ‘Pferde-Schlitten’ (horse-drawn sledge). On this sledge we were wrapped up in blankets under a clear night-sky with the moon and lots of stars shining on us. It was unforgettable and one of the rare highlights in our otherwise pretty dreary country-life existence.
The place, where Werner Mann lived, did not look like a castle at all, even though people called it ‘Schloss’. It was not even a mansion but a rather large, but fairly plain house. There was a huge, fenced in veggie garden next to the house. I have seen the veggie garden only once. However I was very impressed by it, because it seemed to be very large.
When we moved to the ‘Ausbau’, Ilse had already been divorced from her first husband. It was obvious that Werner Mann would have liked to marry Ilse. However, it never came to that. Tante Ilse married Onkel Peter aka Helmut Lorenz on July 20th, 1944.”
So I mentioned in my blog that Werner Mann ‘was happy to just be invited for ”Kaffee und Kuchen” on weekends and to spend some time with all of us.’ And I say he usually came on his bike. I think he did come just for afternoon coffee and cake. Well, as far as I remember mum baked a large enough cake that would have lasted for afternoon and evening. I am sure WM never joined in the evening card games. But he was there for our Christmas Eve celebrations and somewhere I published a picture to prove it.
The following I copied somewhere about the German ‘Kaffee und Kuchen Tradition’:
“You’ll find plenty of cafés scattered across almost every town in Germany. On any given afternoon, you’ll likely discover them bustling with people sharing a tradition that’s become a core of everyday German life.Kaffee und kuchen (coffee and cake) is an afternoon ritual where friends, family, or coworkers will meet for an hour or two to enjoy coffee, cake, and socializing. . . .”
My thoughts about this German Kaffee und Kuchen Tradition are not all that straight forward. Peter for one likes very much to stick to this tradition. The exception is when we go out for lunch. We often have then a cup of coffee straight after lunch. And later on at home we might decide to have some tea instead of coffee.
Usually we have lunch at home. I often feel like having a cup of coffee soon after lunch at home. But then Peter usually talks me out of it and makes me wait till about 3pm so that we can have coffee together. And since Peter is a great cake lover. a bit of cake is what has to come with the afternoon coffee as well!
Something else comes to mind. When we travelled to Australia in 1959 on that huge ocean liner ‘STRAITHAIRD’ we always had a cup of coffee after lunch in one of the ship’s elegant sitting rooms. I think afternoon tea was soon after four o’clock. The children had their own evening meal session probably already at five, since later on there were two different dinner session for the grown-ups. We were told at one stage that late at night there was also some yummy supper to be had. But we never stayed up that late. Unfortunately we misssed out on that! But maybe this is just as well. With yummy breakfast and mid-morning refreshments before lunch we were all too well fed anyway. I’d say, it was a luxury voyage for some poor English and German migrants! Hm, hm, how lucky can you be, I ask myself. It was the voyage of a lifetime, for sure.
I wrote in my post from 24th of October: “Soon I’ll receive a new Visa card in the mail.” Well, this card still has not arrived. In the meantime I got several reminders from wordpress that my subscription renewal is due. They wrote:
“. . . your subscription renewal for auntyuta.com didn’t go through. . . ”
They reckon, it might be because my card they have on file expired. Well, it really should not have expired, but unfortunately this machine in the shopping centre just swallowed it. There was no way to retrieve it. So my bank had to cancel it. But why did I not get a new card? Nobody can explain this to me how it can take such a long time to mail it to me.
To pay for my American WordPress subscription I need a Visa card. Since yesterday I am now in possession of a green eftpos card. But this is no good for payments in other countries. I can use it only in Australia.
Just this afternoon Peter came to the rescue again. He paid the subscription with his Visa card. I am so glad that he did this for me. Now, we are both at a very advanced age. I am rather scared that Peter might die before I die. What do I do then? There are so many things that I depend on Peter for.
For some reason or another I felt very low in energy this morning. This is why Peter helped with the cooking. He made an excellent Bolognaise sauce and I cooked some vegies to go with it. We both liked the meal very much.
Now, for the record: The bushfire season in Australia has started early. Conditions for bushfires are already very bad. Hardly any moisture, in a lot of parts in Australia severely high temperatures with a lot of winds. Last Tuesday we were warned about ‘catastrophic’ fire conditions. To be prepared for quick escapes. Not to expect to get a knock at the door to warn usabout approaching fires. To leave the house early. To go to a safe place.
We have quite a bit of very dry bushland near our home with a lot of undergrowth. Because our whole area was at the highest warning we thought we better leave early. We packed a few things and drove to a shopping centre where we had a bit of lunch. Later on we saw a movie in a cinema that is close to the shopping centre where we parked our car.
After the movie we had some refreshments in the shopping centre and did a bit of shopping. In the meantime a cool breaze had come up. The emergencyinformationof theNSWRuraldid not mention any more warnings. (Peter checked it on his phone)
On the third of January 2019 I wrote and published the following about this movie that is based on a true story:
“Hans Fallada’s book is based on a true story, and this film was made based on Fallada’s book. We saw the film in German. When I say German, I would like to point out, most actors spoke with a very strong Berlin dialect! The acting was very good. However some of the characters in this story are so disgusting that it is hard to watch them. And these very disgusting characters were the ones in powerful positions and the more gentle and better educated characters were always powerless to do anything against the most horrible excesses of those in power. The film shows what happens to simple, not very well educated people that just lead an ordinary life when for some reason they object to how the regime treats them – in this case the Nazi regime.
This movie is set in 1940 in Berlin. Maybe at the time the majority of the population would not have objected much to the way the war was handled by the Nazis. They may have still believed that it was important to support all the war efforts. The propaganda was, that you had to make sacrifices for the good of the nation. If your son died in battle, even if it was your only son, you should be proud of him that he died a war hero. And so on. Only slowly, after several years of war, more and more people would regard this continuing war as madness and wanting to protest against it. It was common knowledge that any protesters would be severely punished. The resistance fighters would have been well aware that protesting against the regime would mean certain death if they were caught.
Monday night’s Q&A panel with guest host Fran Kelly. Source: ABC
Minister for Communications Paul Fletcher said the decision to investigate Monday night’s Q&A program was “appropriate”.
UPDATED
BY MAANI TRUU
“The ABC will investigate whether Monday night’s episode of Q&A breached editorial standards after receiving several audience complaints about the language and ideas expressed by the panel.
The entirely non-male panel featured high-profile feminists – Egyptian-American writer Mona Eltahawy, Indigenous screenwriter Nayuka Gorrie, journalist Jess Hill, business leader Hana Assafiri and anti-ageism campaigner Ashton Applewhite – ahead of this weekend’s Broadside Festival, hosted by the Wheeler Centre.
ABC Managing Director David Anderson said the intention of the panel was to “present challenging ideas from high-profile feminists” but he acknowledged the program was “provocative in regard to the language used and some of the views presented”.
It’s remarkable that all the items are priced. When it says ‘Euro 1,45’ this means it costs less than two Australian Dollars. A piece of cake like this in a cake-shop in Australia would cost more than twice as much!
https://auntyuta.com/2012/10/17/kaufhaus-des-westens/
https://auntyuta.com/2012/10/06/saturday-of-the-fourth-week/
Some more copies about what I wrote in 2012 about our stay in Germany that year:
Today (2012/10/06) is already the last day of the fourth week of our stay in Germany. The week started with Sunday when we went with Angie on a beautiful boat-tour through the city. The following day (Monday, 1st October), we met Angie at Bellevue-S-Bahn-Station and had morning coffee with her at Thürmann Baker’s Cafe at Hansaplatz U-Bahn-Station. There’s a Post Office at Hansaplatz from where Angie sent off a parcel to one of her sisters. The weather was very pleasant again. Just right for a lovely walk through Tiergarten towards the Victory Column. Angie enjoyed this walk with us. Later on we met Ilse and Finn at the Italian Restaurant close to Hansaplatz, where the five of us had a very satisfying lunch again outside in the garden area.
Afternoon coffee and cake we had upstairs in our little apartment. Angie had booked in at the newly opened Holiday Inn at Alexanderplatz. She left on Tuesday to fly back to America. Peter and I went to Prenzlauer Berg on Tuesday and had dumplings at a restaurant near Rosenthalerplatz.
Wednesday it was time to travel ‘Criss-Cross-Through-the-Country’ to Munich for my cousin’s Urn-Burial on Thursday. On Friday we travelled back to Berlin. Travelling time was about nine hours. We just had to change trains frequently. That way we were able to travel at a much reduced price. For the two nights in Munich we stayed with my cousin’s family. We love this family. They are such friendly people. Even though it was a very sad occasion to meet them, we still had a good time with them.
So far we’ve had always friendly weather during our stay in Germany. Today is the first day where it is quite cold, wet and dark outside.