"Point of view" from Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie was, and is, an extremely successful writer. Few would argue that she had a certain amount of insight into the behaviour of humanity, even if it was the behaviour of a particular class of people.

I was surprised to come across the following passage in her autobiography:

Point of view. The point of view of a child. We all knew it once but we've travelled so far away from it that it's difficult to get back there again. I remember seeing my own grandson Mathew when he must have been, I suppose, about two and a half. He did not know I was there. I was watching him from the top of the stairs. He walked very carefully down the stairs. He was muttering to himself, saying: 'This is Mathew going down stairs. This is Mathew. Mathew is going down stairs. This is Mathew going down stairs.'

I wonder if we all start life thinking of ourselves, as soon as we can think of ourselves at all, as a separate person, as it were, from the one observing. Did I say to myself once, 'This is Agatha in her party sash going down to the dining-room.' It is as though the body in which we have found our spirit lodged is at first strange to us. An entity, we know its name, we are on terms with it, but are not as yet identified fully with it. We are Agatha going for a walk, Mathew going down stairs. We see ourselves rather than _feel_ ourselves.

And then one day the next stage of life happens. Suddenly it is no longer 'This is Mathew going down stairs.' Suddenly it has become _I_ am going down stairs. The achievement of 'I' is the first step in the progress of a personal life.

(Christie, Agatha; An Autobiography, Collins, 1977, isbn 0-00-0-216012-9 p65 )

I am surprised, because of the insight I think it shows. I won't attempt to relate it to any of the theories of child development or the human psyche, I think that would be to miss the point. Christie says:

• "The achievement of 'I' is the first step in the progress of a personal life."

and I think she has a point.

I wonder if the next steps are:

• "Becoming aware of 'I' and assessing its behaviour and it's effect on others"
• "Taking conscious steps to influence how 'I' think and behave."

It's amazing where one can find insights! Maybe regaining the "child" point of view has even more point than I thought?

"Communication is a problem to be answered"

and I'm sure 10cc were right, even if they didn't mean communications between computers!

Noreen bought a new laptop yesterday. Ironically enough, it was purchased because the old one had a faulty wireless adapter and had a problem somewhere in the comms software stack. Being old, it seemed like it was better value to replace it (and get all her data streamed across) than spend more money on a 4 year old machine.

Connecting it to the router was no problem (enter the "key" and that was it). Connecting to eMail was no problem either (having all the details in a "little black book" helps. And if anyone wonders, isn't black, it isn't a book, and I'm not going to tell you what it is, where it is or what else it contains!). I noticed that the wireless connection "dropped" once, but put it down to gremlins. Connecting to the existing wireless printer proved much more of a problem. The instructions say that I may have a problem with the firewall. Well, that may be so, but I disabled it for the installation. I also noticed that the wireless connection is "dropping" quite a lot.

Yesterday evening, Noreen and the girls were using the internet on the new machine. Everything works well, when it works which isn't all the time. The signal strength is reported as varying from "Good" down to "Poor". Other things (like this laptop) connected to the same router have no problems. I guess it's back to Anthony, the fellow who supplied the laptop, on Tuesday, after the break.

Setting up eMail accounts - capchas

I've just finished helping my wife set up some eMail accounts. Well, I did one and she did two after I had shown her. Such a simple task, but a little tedious. I'm glad I don't have to do loads of them. And of course, it's made that bit more tricky by having a "capcha" in the middle to prevent bots from creating loads of accounts automatically. I understand the need for them, but I do find them irritating. My character recognition doesn't always agree with the machines!

Cleaning, exam marking and contemplation

The two tasks today have been spring-cleaning and marking exams.

Spring cleaning is something that we do traditionally at this time of the year. It's a chore, but it can be fun. It's important to realise that things are scruffy and that clearing them up is a good thing.

Marking exams was just one of those things which needs to be done. It earns an honest shilling and I'm good at it (though I do get bored).

And contemplation... it's a beautiful day. I think I will go for a longish walk this evening. I've also realised that some pent-up anger I was feeling towards some people really served no useful purpose. Unfortunately, it was being angry about something else that made me realise this. Anger is such a useless emotion (except perhaps when it leads to immediate action). I'm not saying I've got rid of the feelings, but I think I am on the way to disposing of them.

A new affirmation

I don't know why, but I decided to change my "affirmation". The new one is:

I am:

• Competent,
• Confident,
• Successful,
• Achieving my goals,
• And Happy.

Part of a New Year's resolution achieved - That's satisfying!

The last year has been very disrupted for me. I changed (or lost) as job and have moved house (country). As a result of "the move" I still have lots of possessions (mostly books and papers) in storage boxes. This in itself is not really a bad thing, but it has created an opportunity for me to put-off some administrative work that I really should have done.


At the same time, I've taken up improving my Russian. I already had a number of textbooks, and I found (or rather didn't find) that the Russian-English dicitionary I wanted was in one of the boxes I had not unpacked. In a funny indirect way, that was the trigger for me to start sorting out the accumulated admin work.

Once I had started I found the task, that I had probably been avoiding, went more quickly and more easilly than I had been expecting. The apparent volume of the papers shrunk when I removed the envelopes and unfolded the papers. The actual sorting took relatively little time.

It was at this point that a little serendipity crept in. I went to the computer to print out the manifest which lists the contents of all the boxes (in a basic sort of way) and noticed that one of the three boxes standing next to it said "Russian" on the label. Sure enough, the Russian dictionary was in there! I printed the manifest anyway, I expect I'll need it in the next few days.

None of this was a "New Year's Resolution", but it was all on my "List of things to do". All in all quite satisfactory!

Learning a new language - Russian

Part of my New Year's resolutions - write something in the diary every day. This is a start.

For the past week I've been warming up my Russian. It's years since I used it at all, and I was expecting to get nowhere. Actually I've been pleasantly surprised. Bits are coming back to me, and not just the numbers and standard phrases that everyone seems to remember. I'm remembering the patterns for the regular verbs.

The thing I find most difficult, is listening to people speaking Russian. I have some software which has a good number of examples. I expect (hope) that the producers used native speakers. Anyway, that's the bit I find hardest. I seem to be making progress. It's as sort of "tuning in" process. My hearing or understanding is becoming more attuned to listening to Russian.

And for the rest of the day, I have some ECDL (European Computer Driving License) scripts to mark. This has been delayed a little because there was a mix-up with the exam papers and the CD containing what the students had done. I was given the wrong CD, and so had nothing to mark. Still, no harm done and it shouldn't take me too long to work through them.

Outside the sun is shining, and reflecting off the frost on the grass. A bright, pleasant day. I may take some of it off to go for a walk.