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One interesting thing about our family, is that, despite the
fact that our ages range from 47 to 14 (at the time of writing) we were all born
at or about the same age as each other! |
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But right at this moment in time, I have the dubious honour of
being the oldest. When I turned 40, I spent a good few minutes assessing
my achievements and comparing my life with others. Now life seems to much
like a game of Monopoly to worry about where you are likely to land next. |
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John |
"life
is too much like a game of Monopoly to worry where you are likely to
land next"
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I
am married with two children; but just when the towering adolescents, that
live with me at the moment, were substituted for the cute kids I once had, I
don't exactly recall. We live in a terraced house in SE London but,
after 21 years and an inheritance, are now thinking of moving somewhere nice. |
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I work for one of the large
companies that were privatised back in the 80s. It doesn't matter
which one, I suspect they all went through the same changes and most of
them for the worse. Funny enough, the worst thing that has happened
to my job and I suspect most of the jobs in the world, is the introduction
of the silicon micro chip. |
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"mobile
phones and pagers those electronic leads and disturbers of the peace" |
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This seemingly innocent
little device is what has enabled computers to monitor every minute of your
working day and mobile phones and pagers, those electronic leads and
disturbers of the peace, to ensure you are never really free. |
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I remember back in the 60's and
70's, predictions that new technology would make our lives so much better
that our biggest problem would be thinking of what to do with our spare
time. Ha! What spare time you do get these days is spent
trying to unwind those twisted nerves, then it's "once more into the
breach" or tea break over - now back on your heads. |
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Theresa is the
second oldest in our family; being a woman, it may be best not to be too
exact. She is also the only female in the house and has a lot to put up
with. Another interesting coincidence is that she is also married with
two children. Isn't life strange? |
"She
is the only woman in the house and has a lot to put up with" |
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Theresa |
Theresa was made
redundant a couple of years ago. That was quite a stressful time for
her. She worked for a company that owned a cork farm in Portugal and
supplied corks and other brewery and pub related stuff. They moved out
of London because a property developer offered them millions of pounds for
their old wharehouse; how could they refuse? |
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They were an
old family firm that had never used new-fangled technology like
computers. This meant that Theresa did not have lot of experience in
that department and hard to learn fast before she could get another job. |
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She
started from scratch, went to a few classes and was told the other day that
she was one of the best "temps" the agency she works for
had! I admire that. |
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"There's
a lot I admire about Theresa, that's why I married her" |
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There's a lot I admire about Theresa,
that's why I married her. She's a mean bass player, incredible organiser
and, despite my feeble attempts at new-man-hood does most of the regular stuff
around the house. |
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If
we are going in order of age, the next one on the list is Simon. He is
17 and at college. He is tall, over 6 feet, intelligent and talented but
lacking in motivation. I once read a line in a book by Leslie Thomas, it
may have been Dangerous Davies. The line was roughly "he would have
made a brilliant artist if only he could paint". This reminds me
very much of Simon. |
"
a brilliant artist if only he could paint" |
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Simon |
He has got quite an artistic bent and
a talent for computers. I taught him to programme in BASIC when he
was still in primary school. Even though this is obviously, if regrettably,
the way of the world, he turned his nose up at formal computer training in
favour of an arts course. He is doing Performing Art, Art and
Photography, Art for the sake of Art and Media Studies. |
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"Simon
is the family thinker. He is also the most popular member of the
family" |
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Simon is
the family thinker. He is also the most popular member of the family,
specially with girls. Even I like Simon, though we tend to argue a lot. |
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Adam is the youngest
and the quietest. Except when he is playing drums or guitar. He
does both extraordinarily well, in fact he was the star of the show when we
did this family gig thing at our club this year. |
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"once
he was shown a guitar and which way to point it, he was off like a shot
with an insatiable appetite for music" |
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He is
very much the doer of the family and once he was shown a guitar and which way
to point it, he was off like a shot with an insatiable appetite for music. |
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Adam |
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He also paints. In fact when
the decision time came for GCSEs, there was almost a punch-up between the
Art teacher and the Music teacher. The Music teacher won.
Probably because she was better looking. |
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He
is tall and very very blonde. you would think that with all these
attributes, he would be fighting off the women but he is also very very
shy. Why? I like Adam but I am also getting ever so slightly
jealous. |
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