the price of scenery

I know it's daft to be sad about having to retire - also rather cross, since the decision was forced upon me by rules and regulations. To go on working I'd have to do lots of courses, training, etc,etc, even though I was doing only 4-5 hurs per week.
After 50 years one gets addicted to the great British public. I shan't half miss my weekly fix.

Did anyone see Downfall?
More4 is useful for showing films before the crits have quite faded from memory - very useful if the nearest cinema is 50 miles away.
I remember Hitler's voice. Pa used to surf the crackly airwaves in the hot summer of 1939 and let me here the result. Ma scolded him, esp for subjecting the child to that ranting and raving.
Fascinating film. But my mind get throwing up some quibbles some of them quite beside the point.
'Hitler's' accent annoyed me. I know he came from Linz, and I've worked there and he didn't sound like the accent in my memory.
How did they produce all the rubble? From the end credits, I presume that a lot of the exteriors were St Petersburg which was still standing the last I heard of it.
How were the people in the bunker supposed to get all their supplies? Lashing of booze, endless packets of cigarettes, and enough food to be going on with.
Did a cyanide capsule really work so efficiently as all that? And did anyone ever find the children's bodies.
If he had lost it so obviously towards the end, why did some of the remaining generals not take charge and least limit the carnage?
How did the Reich ever can to power at all? Fanatics are not usually so efficent. It's always struck me as ludicrous that the great white aryan ideal was miles away from his gang and from Hitler himself.
The idea of loyalty to a sworn oath isn't one that comes naturally to me, or possibly to anyone else these days. It sounded like the old dramas we did at university (European, not Shakespeare, he didn't go on at length about honour)
The secretary really did survive and they had her on the TV quite a few years ago, and I know she's written her account of the last years. So how much of the film was accurate (I'm not sking if it was true, which is a very different question)
It was a fascinating evening

I had radio 3 on while I was reading the paper and something caught my ear.
An organist called Obrecht, employed at Bruges from 1485 on, who died of the plague in 1505 - exactly 500 years ago. How do they know? from old documents in musty vaults?
500 years from now will there be anyone listening to today's music - in fact will there be anyone around in the first place? Men have survived plagues before - how can we take anything seriously when the news bulletins talk about dead parrots? - but if the polar ice caps really do go into meltdown what happens then?
Looking back a future survivor will be drowned in a sea of information, He's not going to search for facts, he's going to have to pick out the gold from the rivers of dross.
'Celebrity' may fox him. What exactly is one of them? If he can see old TV programs with 'celebrity' guests, he'll be hard pushed to know what one of our contemporaries has to do to be given the label.
Will they know David Beckham's name in 50 years?

I look at the children and the grandchildren and wonder what they will remember in another 50 years - total recall or disjointed snatches?
Mum and I were sent to the country in 1940 because Dad had to go for his job, which was arranging evacuations for Glasgow schools.
You'd think that such an upheaval would be memorable, even after all this time.
Memorable for one thing - I cut the apron strings - not completely, of course - but Mum never mattered very much again.
She was too frightened, of the dark, the silence, of our landlord (I don't know why, Charlie blootered was fair game for his wee wife) and of cows.
Imagine being afraid of cows! The boys. as a test, told me to lie down in the field and wait till the cows came to have a look - soft wet noses and great big eyes.
What she didn't know wasn't going to give her conniptions.
- My friend Mathew shared his Woodbine with me, after he discovered I didn't like the milk he stole from doorsteps. Fags from the post office counter were more interesting.
- M. took us both on a swing so high that I could see right over the bar, me sitting down, M. with his feet jammed on to the swing. His surgical boot gave me bruises in a strange place. I can still smell my hands, after being wrapped round the rusty chain for dear life.
- Play with the policeman's chidren, Mum said. Better than hanging around that wee Glasgow keelie from the Gorbals. If we were in the police garden and I needed to pee, they sent me into the bit of garden that was picked out for the purpose that particular day. M. gave me a penny or two, now and then. It's your bum they were keeking at, that's your share.
- we set a field on fire (it must have been a good summer) We didn't mean any harm, our picnic fire just went on spreading until it reached the railway line. One rusty pump was no good. The boys sent me to phone the fire brigade - I had the kind of posh voice that would be believed.
- When I fell off a makeshift slide and broke my arm I just lay in the corner of the shed, not wanting to go home to Mum. I must have moved sooner or later,to give Mum the story she told over and over again. Going to the hospital with Charlie, wondering if he was sober and his car gave up the ghost. We arrived, as I was told many times, in a roadmen's truck stinking of tar.
We went back home in time to watch the glow over Clydebank as it burned, and to dodge the soldiers and police standing guard over Hess's lane. We all came back with our twistec souvenir.
Mum didn't know what we'd been up to. She was left in peaceful ignorance all the rest of her life

It's all very well writing an entry, but it's irritating not to have the hang of connecting.
Say somebody makes a comment - what then? Can you get in touch with them directly? Suppose you invite a friend - what means of connection hve you to this person.
I really don't have the hang of the system at all