So how old are your kids Steve?
This was no normal question from my manager! The fact he chose to ask the question in the privacy of his office also suggested that it was leading to something. Roland's body language and cheeky smirk as he asked the question also told me that this was leading to something positive or interesting at least.
Pausing to make sure I had the ages right, not wishing to appear an ignorant Dad who forgets his kid's middle names, ages, favourite friends etc, I helpfully replied "nine and six", pausing for effect and not wishing to give away too much enthusiasm, I followed with "why do you ask?". Continuing to be coy, Roland replied "oh, John Ricewater in Paris has been grumbling that the Australian IT team never contribute people to the global IT projects." "So why are you asking me?' I repeated. "If you're interested, you should talk to David Bernsin". Roland was backing off now. "Is this a long term thing?" I probed. "Could be, I think it will be a good opportunity for you. Talk to David, he asked me to tell you."
Whatever I had to do that day, immediately took a back seat. The possibility of an overseas stint in Paris was the best I could hope for in my career. David's office was a bit 'out of the way' so the "Oh I just happened to be passing, thought I'd drop in" approach wasn't going to work. I couldn't wait to go and talk to him about this but didn't want to appear overly keen either, in case they came to the conclusion that I was not happy or not necessary in my current position.
John Ricewater was from the Corporate IT group based in Paris. An Irish-American living in Paris and one of the few people in Corporate who seemed to understand technology and what to do with it. John had visited our Australian IT outpost a few months earlier and had been impressed with the work my team had been doing. I searched the corporate IT intranet site to find out what I could about the corporate IT "Garaxy" projects. Some creative being, or probably a whole department had come up with names like "Pegasus", "Polaris" and "Orion" to represent the key IT projects which were aiming to take Alcahel into the next era of companies using this promising new thing called the Internet and modern day technologies. It was early 2001 and for the last 12 months, Internet startups had been rocketing from nothing to multibillion dollar companies overnight. The technology and money around internet and computing was challenging everyone in business to look at modern, supposedly smarter ways of doing things. Alcahel was getting behind the wave of euphoria and openly predicting that a series of IT projects were going to set the way of the future.
David wasn't convinced. From a non-IT background, David was a businessman at heart, not an IT guy. He'd seen 2 attempts previously by Corporate to solve its woes with an IT solution fail miserably and didn't think this was going to be any different. "But seriously, John has asked for you specifically after the work you did on the ecom migration." "So what do you think?" I asked. "Well, don't be disappointed if it fails but I think it would be a great experience for you."
I followed with all the questions ;
"How long?" "2, maybe 3 years"
"They pay to move my family?" "Yes, usually have a living allowance as well"
"Based in Paris?" "Yes, La Boetie - Serge's palace" referring to our CEO.
"Kids have to go to a french school?" "If you want to but they have international schools there."
"What about my job here?" "Oh I think we'll survive" I wasn't too impressed with this but reminded myself that I'd told him on several occasions that "Nobody was irreplaceable".
"What about when I come back? Will there be a job for me?" "Your years of service count and they guarantee to pay you at the same rate. Besides, I don't think that you will have a problem!"
Wow, this was all going very fast. My head was literally tingling with excitement about the possibility. I got up to close the door of David's office, sat back down and said..
"There's a problem!".
Friday, November 16, 2007
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Minus 5
The night before I had read a few more pages of "Is Paris Burning?". Snuggled under the brightly coloured doona which was yet another mismatched item in our first floor Paris apartment, I had read to fill my mind with thoughts of what it must have been like here during the war, 56 years ago and to force the nagging realities of my present situation out so that I could get some sleep. It was now morning and I found myself recounting last night's chapter to once again force reality out and allow imagination to take over. The sharpness of the air was electrifying. Out of the apartment and onto the streets of Paris for all of 4 minutes, it was obvious that the thermal insulation of my Australian made business suit was inadequate. Coldness cut through to my legs as if I was wearing nothing at all.
I had a daily walk to the train station which generally took about 7 minutes. Along Avenue de Ternes, down the boulevard, across to the middle where the closest entrance to Porte Maillot protruded to ground level, disrupting the otherwise pleasant park and playground of Boulevard Pereire. The chance of this entrance being open in the morning was a bit of a lottery. A heavy gate of metal bars greeted me at the bottom of the stairs. The gate was almost as foreboding as the stench of human urine, a regular feature of most Parisian Metro and RER train stations. Any attempt by a Parisian to convince me that France was a culturally and intellectually more developed nation than Australia, would quickly fall in a heap when I raised the undeniable savage tendency of Parisians to piss all over their train stations. After 6 months I was becoming a self professed expert on pissing patterns of the secret and sometimes not so secret Parisian Metro pisser but more on this later.
The gate was closed again which meant a 3 minute walk at normal pace to get to the main entrance of the RER train station. Unfortunately, I had timed my departure a bit late and my train was now only 2 minutes and 30 seconds away. My previous personal best from this situation of 2 minutes 15 gave me confidence that I could still make the train. I turned and bounded back up the stairs and burst back onto the centre strip of the Boulevarde. The sight of a balding, thirty-something foreigner running in a suit with briefcase along the dark Boulevarde at 7:13am on a week day had not been a regular occurrence in the 17th Arrondisment, at least not until recently. I guess it didn't feature high on the weirdness scale for the average Parisian because the spectacle rarely attracted a cursory glance, let alone a raised eyebrow. I rounded the corner of the RER station at full pace, then took the steps down two at a time, I fumbled my wallet out of my pocket to get the train ticket which was much more than just a train ticket! Sacre bleu, it was a Carte Orange, not just a "train ticket". It even featured my noir et blanc photo de passporte of 8 months ago, sporting a more youthful face and considerably more hair than I had noticed in the mirror this morning. Passing through the automatic gate, I could hear the rumbling of the massive RER train, arriving painfully on time, two flights below me. The awareness of time and distance was never so apparent to me as it was now. Another 20 metres back meant another 2 seconds and it would all be over. Still moving at full tilt, I knew that I was going to be cutting it fine. The sound of the pneumatic woosh of the carriage doors opening had been at least 5 seconds ago, indicating that there would soon be the sound of the warning beeps, followed by denial and a 15 minute wait in the stinking station for the next train. Fortunately today, the gates had stayed open longer than usual and my ambitious burst of energy for the last 2 minutes and 10 seconds was rewarded with an open carriage door and a new personal best in the 'Gate closed, catch train' event. Breathing heavily, face flushed and sweat beads beginning to appear, I flopped onto the nearest 2 seater. I rewarded myself with a rest and a sense of achievement which was a relatively good start to my working day. Parisians are not early risers. The occupation of 3 seats on an otherwise empty carriage of 50 something capacity on a 7:15am train in the city said it all. After catching my breath, I realised I had not yet followed my usual ritual of paranoid 9/11 induced security and checked for abandoned luggage or suspicious persons of middle- eastern appearance on the carriage. A quick scan under my seat and of the people in the seats behind me, gave me confidence that I was going to survive yet another train trip in Paris, unless of course the bomb was on the carriage floor above me or concealed in something less obvious. As for the suspicous persons check, Parisians all looked suspicious to me and the proportion of people with dark hair and olive skin complexions suggested that middle-eastern was rapidly becoming western-European so there were no obvious baddies to avoid.
It was now early December in the year of our lord, 2001 or "der mill e oon" in phonetic french. The spectacle of the first major terrorist attack on American soil was still relatively fresh in my mind. A regular time waster for my morning train trip was to day dream the possibility of a bomb going off or a screaming suicide bomber bursting onto the train. The visualisation of chaos and destruction sharpened my sense of awareness but turned everything around in the process. Innocent activities by anonymous Parisians were scrutinised with relentless suspicion as if I was a spy on enemy territory. I was determined that terrorists were not going to stop me from doing anything but at the same time, the induced paranoia was spoiling one of my basic beliefs that people anywhere are mostly well meaning and non violent.
My office was just outside the peripherique, the major ring road around the city, in a place called Clichy. The peripherique is a phenomena of modern france in that it defines the border between Paris and the Banlieu, or the 'burbs' as Americanised english speaking people would probably call them. In france, they say that there are only 3 different places you can live. Paris, Banlieu or The Country. Each of these had different Arrondisements, Suburbs or towns but the style of living was basically the same no matter which part of Paris you lived or which part of the country you called home. The peripherique was the defining line. Like the ancient wall of Paris which still exists in places near the peripherique, your place in france and a major factor in how you would ultimately be judged was a matter of which side of the peripherique road you lived on. My office was located in a semi commercial area, somewhere between the Metro station at Clichy and the RER station at St Ouen. From home, I could take the Metro or the RER. The Metro option involved a change of train, about 20 more stops and 15 minutes longer commute. The walk from St Ouen took me past some dodgy building sites and some scary individuals but so far nobody had caused me any grief. Today however, instead of the daily insecurities of life in Paris, my mind was on the freezing temperature and whether I was going to make it to the office. The neon flashing clock / thermometer on Avenue de Ternes had confirmed my expectation that it was f'n freezing. -5 flashed at me like a beacon, the display seemed to hang longer on the temperature reading rather than the time, looking like the neon, like everything else on this exceptional morning was going to freeze where it stood. It was a Friday and while I had a lot to get through in the office, my thoughts had already moved to the weekend ahead. One good thing about the cold days was that the stench of urine in the train stations was not quite as noticeable. Stepping out of the RER St Ouen I drew a deep breath of cold air fragranced with hints of diesel and rotting garbage. The contrasting air flavours added to the diversity of my Paris experience but neither were causing me to feel good about being on the other side of the world from the city of Sydney. As every expatriate Australian was obliged, after the immortal verse by the iconic and all Aussie poof Peter Allen, I still called Australia home. Thinking of the weekend and home lead me to thoughts of friends back in Sydney. I'd seen the forecast on the cable news the night before for Sydney was thirty degrees. As Paris was diving into winter, Sydney was soaring into a hot and dry summer. The ten hour time difference meant that it was now 5:30 on Friday afternoon. The wonderful thing about a company paid mobile phone in Paris was that the cost of international calls, while exorbitant to mere mortals was a nit, a rounding error in the IT Department budget that was only scrutinised if it deviated significantly from the previous month's. Hence the trick was to talk long and often! The magic mobile could traverse everything from one side of the world to the other from morning to afternoon from winter to summer. I hit the address book for my mate Rob, whom I deduced by now would be stuck in traffic somewhere between Parramatta and home in Revesby Heights and hopefully happy for a chat. Since I had left Sydney in April, Rob had been trying to sell my car for me. A Salesman by trade, I thought my 1997 Telstar would be a piece of cake for him to offload. Unfortunately, the manual transmission and boring white, shabby duco had elimined all of the potential buyers. Each rejection was adding to Rob's frustration and bolstering his belief that a friend in need was truly a pain in the arse. In the true style of Aussie mateship, I was rarely delicate with his Salesman ego, choosing sarcasm regularly when commenting on his inept ability to sell. It had been a couple of weeks since I had spoken to Rob. On our last call I told him I had decided to ditch the idea of selling the car. I thought he might be sensitive and disappointed that he had failed on his promise to help me out. Instead the response was something like "thank f.... for that, now I can take this piece of sh.. back to your place and never take another f..ing call from a d...khead wog trying to offer me $100 for it, hoo-f...ing-ray!".
With the car issue behind us, the purpose of my call, for the first time since I had left, was purely as a friend catching up with a friend. Instead of the usual response of "Oh, its you, no, I haven't sold the f...ing thing" or "What do you want?", I was greeted with pleasantly relaxing "G'day mate, how's things?". Checking I had the right number, I quickly replied, "it's me, Steve, I'm calling from Paris". "Yes I know it's you d...head, how are you?" "F...ing frozen mate, it's minus 5 here and I think my goolies are gonna drop off" "F... its f...ing 35 degrees here, I've been sweating my arse off in traffic all f...ing day". The rest of the conversation, laboured with Aussie vernacular and abundant use of the word f..., covered the status of friends, whether Rob had been training at the gym every day and our respective plans for the weekend. Pausing outside the office to finish our call, I realised that the temperature was no longer bothering me. I also realised that while we were six months into our big life changing adventure, things in Sydney hadn't changed a bit. The magic mobile had just added another dimension that it could traverse with just the touch of a button.
I had a daily walk to the train station which generally took about 7 minutes. Along Avenue de Ternes, down the boulevard, across to the middle where the closest entrance to Porte Maillot protruded to ground level, disrupting the otherwise pleasant park and playground of Boulevard Pereire. The chance of this entrance being open in the morning was a bit of a lottery. A heavy gate of metal bars greeted me at the bottom of the stairs. The gate was almost as foreboding as the stench of human urine, a regular feature of most Parisian Metro and RER train stations. Any attempt by a Parisian to convince me that France was a culturally and intellectually more developed nation than Australia, would quickly fall in a heap when I raised the undeniable savage tendency of Parisians to piss all over their train stations. After 6 months I was becoming a self professed expert on pissing patterns of the secret and sometimes not so secret Parisian Metro pisser but more on this later.
The gate was closed again which meant a 3 minute walk at normal pace to get to the main entrance of the RER train station. Unfortunately, I had timed my departure a bit late and my train was now only 2 minutes and 30 seconds away. My previous personal best from this situation of 2 minutes 15 gave me confidence that I could still make the train. I turned and bounded back up the stairs and burst back onto the centre strip of the Boulevarde. The sight of a balding, thirty-something foreigner running in a suit with briefcase along the dark Boulevarde at 7:13am on a week day had not been a regular occurrence in the 17th Arrondisment, at least not until recently. I guess it didn't feature high on the weirdness scale for the average Parisian because the spectacle rarely attracted a cursory glance, let alone a raised eyebrow. I rounded the corner of the RER station at full pace, then took the steps down two at a time, I fumbled my wallet out of my pocket to get the train ticket which was much more than just a train ticket! Sacre bleu, it was a Carte Orange, not just a "train ticket". It even featured my noir et blanc photo de passporte of 8 months ago, sporting a more youthful face and considerably more hair than I had noticed in the mirror this morning. Passing through the automatic gate, I could hear the rumbling of the massive RER train, arriving painfully on time, two flights below me. The awareness of time and distance was never so apparent to me as it was now. Another 20 metres back meant another 2 seconds and it would all be over. Still moving at full tilt, I knew that I was going to be cutting it fine. The sound of the pneumatic woosh of the carriage doors opening had been at least 5 seconds ago, indicating that there would soon be the sound of the warning beeps, followed by denial and a 15 minute wait in the stinking station for the next train. Fortunately today, the gates had stayed open longer than usual and my ambitious burst of energy for the last 2 minutes and 10 seconds was rewarded with an open carriage door and a new personal best in the 'Gate closed, catch train' event. Breathing heavily, face flushed and sweat beads beginning to appear, I flopped onto the nearest 2 seater. I rewarded myself with a rest and a sense of achievement which was a relatively good start to my working day. Parisians are not early risers. The occupation of 3 seats on an otherwise empty carriage of 50 something capacity on a 7:15am train in the city said it all. After catching my breath, I realised I had not yet followed my usual ritual of paranoid 9/11 induced security and checked for abandoned luggage or suspicious persons of middle- eastern appearance on the carriage. A quick scan under my seat and of the people in the seats behind me, gave me confidence that I was going to survive yet another train trip in Paris, unless of course the bomb was on the carriage floor above me or concealed in something less obvious. As for the suspicous persons check, Parisians all looked suspicious to me and the proportion of people with dark hair and olive skin complexions suggested that middle-eastern was rapidly becoming western-European so there were no obvious baddies to avoid.
It was now early December in the year of our lord, 2001 or "der mill e oon" in phonetic french. The spectacle of the first major terrorist attack on American soil was still relatively fresh in my mind. A regular time waster for my morning train trip was to day dream the possibility of a bomb going off or a screaming suicide bomber bursting onto the train. The visualisation of chaos and destruction sharpened my sense of awareness but turned everything around in the process. Innocent activities by anonymous Parisians were scrutinised with relentless suspicion as if I was a spy on enemy territory. I was determined that terrorists were not going to stop me from doing anything but at the same time, the induced paranoia was spoiling one of my basic beliefs that people anywhere are mostly well meaning and non violent.
My office was just outside the peripherique, the major ring road around the city, in a place called Clichy. The peripherique is a phenomena of modern france in that it defines the border between Paris and the Banlieu, or the 'burbs' as Americanised english speaking people would probably call them. In france, they say that there are only 3 different places you can live. Paris, Banlieu or The Country. Each of these had different Arrondisements, Suburbs or towns but the style of living was basically the same no matter which part of Paris you lived or which part of the country you called home. The peripherique was the defining line. Like the ancient wall of Paris which still exists in places near the peripherique, your place in france and a major factor in how you would ultimately be judged was a matter of which side of the peripherique road you lived on. My office was located in a semi commercial area, somewhere between the Metro station at Clichy and the RER station at St Ouen. From home, I could take the Metro or the RER. The Metro option involved a change of train, about 20 more stops and 15 minutes longer commute. The walk from St Ouen took me past some dodgy building sites and some scary individuals but so far nobody had caused me any grief. Today however, instead of the daily insecurities of life in Paris, my mind was on the freezing temperature and whether I was going to make it to the office. The neon flashing clock / thermometer on Avenue de Ternes had confirmed my expectation that it was f'n freezing. -5 flashed at me like a beacon, the display seemed to hang longer on the temperature reading rather than the time, looking like the neon, like everything else on this exceptional morning was going to freeze where it stood. It was a Friday and while I had a lot to get through in the office, my thoughts had already moved to the weekend ahead. One good thing about the cold days was that the stench of urine in the train stations was not quite as noticeable. Stepping out of the RER St Ouen I drew a deep breath of cold air fragranced with hints of diesel and rotting garbage. The contrasting air flavours added to the diversity of my Paris experience but neither were causing me to feel good about being on the other side of the world from the city of Sydney. As every expatriate Australian was obliged, after the immortal verse by the iconic and all Aussie poof Peter Allen, I still called Australia home. Thinking of the weekend and home lead me to thoughts of friends back in Sydney. I'd seen the forecast on the cable news the night before for Sydney was thirty degrees. As Paris was diving into winter, Sydney was soaring into a hot and dry summer. The ten hour time difference meant that it was now 5:30 on Friday afternoon. The wonderful thing about a company paid mobile phone in Paris was that the cost of international calls, while exorbitant to mere mortals was a nit, a rounding error in the IT Department budget that was only scrutinised if it deviated significantly from the previous month's. Hence the trick was to talk long and often! The magic mobile could traverse everything from one side of the world to the other from morning to afternoon from winter to summer. I hit the address book for my mate Rob, whom I deduced by now would be stuck in traffic somewhere between Parramatta and home in Revesby Heights and hopefully happy for a chat. Since I had left Sydney in April, Rob had been trying to sell my car for me. A Salesman by trade, I thought my 1997 Telstar would be a piece of cake for him to offload. Unfortunately, the manual transmission and boring white, shabby duco had elimined all of the potential buyers. Each rejection was adding to Rob's frustration and bolstering his belief that a friend in need was truly a pain in the arse. In the true style of Aussie mateship, I was rarely delicate with his Salesman ego, choosing sarcasm regularly when commenting on his inept ability to sell. It had been a couple of weeks since I had spoken to Rob. On our last call I told him I had decided to ditch the idea of selling the car. I thought he might be sensitive and disappointed that he had failed on his promise to help me out. Instead the response was something like "thank f.... for that, now I can take this piece of sh.. back to your place and never take another f..ing call from a d...khead wog trying to offer me $100 for it, hoo-f...ing-ray!".
With the car issue behind us, the purpose of my call, for the first time since I had left, was purely as a friend catching up with a friend. Instead of the usual response of "Oh, its you, no, I haven't sold the f...ing thing" or "What do you want?", I was greeted with pleasantly relaxing "G'day mate, how's things?". Checking I had the right number, I quickly replied, "it's me, Steve, I'm calling from Paris". "Yes I know it's you d...head, how are you?" "F...ing frozen mate, it's minus 5 here and I think my goolies are gonna drop off" "F... its f...ing 35 degrees here, I've been sweating my arse off in traffic all f...ing day". The rest of the conversation, laboured with Aussie vernacular and abundant use of the word f..., covered the status of friends, whether Rob had been training at the gym every day and our respective plans for the weekend. Pausing outside the office to finish our call, I realised that the temperature was no longer bothering me. I also realised that while we were six months into our big life changing adventure, things in Sydney hadn't changed a bit. The magic mobile had just added another dimension that it could traverse with just the touch of a button.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Close to the wind
Picking up a bit of speed now. The wind is strong and consistent. I wriggle up the side of the tarpaulin as the mast slowly tilts away from the wind. I pull the sail in tighter, check the wind direction by the ribbons on the mast stays and push the rudder to get closer to meeting the wind head on. The rush of the warm river water against the rudder and the frequency of the slap slap slap of the waves tells me that I'm going faster. My catamaran strains against the force of the wind and the mast leans further away from me. I wriggle back again in search of balance and the slap slap slap gets a little quicker. The wind is gusting and changing, I steer, loosen and pull on the sail in an awkward, uncoordinated sequence trying to feel the wind strength, it's direction and the mechanics of the cat to maintain the harmony that gives me the greatest speed. Leaning further over now, the hull underneath me is lifting out of the water. The slightest deviation from my point of harmony drops the hull and slows me down. My arms are aching, pulling the sail in tight with the left and tending the rudder with the right. I relax my grip a little and learn to keep the harmony with less effort. The ribbons tell me that I'm only a few degrees away from pointing directly into the wind. The sail is pulled in as tight as I can keep it and I'm flying. Warm, salty river water sprays into my face, stinging my eyes but somehow adding to the numbness and excitement. The slap slap slap is constant now, the wind keeps its strength and direction to speed me closer to the other side. Land looms quickly in front of me and the need to change my direction is unavoidable. I don't want to stop this, a perfect moment, this harmony I've found is exhilerating. The water colour is getting lighter as I close on the shore. Reluctantly I start to turn. I haven't thought my next move properly. I hesitate and turn back the other way. The slap slap slap slows and I look around to see which direction I'm going to turn. The ferry lane is on my left and a swimming area is on my right. The indecision has taken too much time and the shore is now only metres away. I steer directly into the wind and loosen my grip on the sail. The hull drops into the water again the slap slap slap slows to nothing. I glide slowly forwards, the water is shallow, I can see the sandy bottom. The ribbons tell me that I'm now pointing directly into the wind. The loose sail flops from side to side and the rudder is loose, useless without motion. A strange silence becalms me, a stark contrast to the cacophony of speed that I just had. I look around again, the wind drops. I check the ribbons but they are just dangling. No direction, no speed, no noise. The sun dries the water on my face leaving a crusty, salty residue. I notice the temperature increase. Without the wind and spray it's getting hotter. I close my eyes and savour the moment, relishing the stillness while re-living the excitement of only a few moments ago.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Chat-a-lotum vs. Dad-l-blockum
"Get off m' damn computer nerd child!"
"Oooo Kaay Evil Da, just let me finish"
"I gave you five minutes warning, ten minutes ago, now get off!"
"Ok Ok Ok, I'm saying goodbye now, don't rush me"
"Christ! How many conversations do you have going?"
"Uh Uh, no looooking, p-r-i-v-a-t-e, reemember?"
"Yeah but do you know all these people, or cyborgs, whatever it is you're communicating with?"
"Sortof"
"Whaddayamean sortof?"
"Well this person's from Holland, a friend of Evie who I stayed with in Paris.... she, or he, actually it's a she, judging by their photo, popped up just then and said that Evie had told her all about me."
"Ok so how do you know it's female - anyone could put a picture on their profile"
"Dad! Evie is in the photo with her so I know it's her!"
"Ok, but your using my computer, I assume your Net-time ran out already today?"
"Hmmm, maaaybeee!"
"More like yeessbeee?... now buzz off and finish your homework before I get real mean and block all the computers from chat programs."
"You are pure evil! All my other friends are always online chatting, their Dad's don't block their internet."
"Their Dad's wouldn't know how. They probably all think their little darlinks are working hard on their computemerers!"
"Yes, that's right, we are all workin hard! This is just a little relief now that I've finished most of my work!"
"Ah 'most' - means 'more yet to do' and it's 9 o'clock already so go an finish your work"
"Ok, Ok, but Evie has just come online, I haven't chatted to her since I was in Paris, can I just catch up for 5 minutes? Pleeeaase Daddy Darling?"
"5 minutes and then I'm pulling the plug Miss Chatalot."
"Oooo Kaay Evil Da, just let me finish"
"I gave you five minutes warning, ten minutes ago, now get off!"
"Ok Ok Ok, I'm saying goodbye now, don't rush me"
"Christ! How many conversations do you have going?"
"Uh Uh, no looooking, p-r-i-v-a-t-e, reemember?"
"Yeah but do you know all these people, or cyborgs, whatever it is you're communicating with?"
"Sortof"
"Whaddayamean sortof?"
"Well this person's from Holland, a friend of Evie who I stayed with in Paris.... she, or he, actually it's a she, judging by their photo, popped up just then and said that Evie had told her all about me."
"Ok so how do you know it's female - anyone could put a picture on their profile"
"Dad! Evie is in the photo with her so I know it's her!"
"Ok, but your using my computer, I assume your Net-time ran out already today?"
"Hmmm, maaaybeee!"
"More like yeessbeee?... now buzz off and finish your homework before I get real mean and block all the computers from chat programs."
"You are pure evil! All my other friends are always online chatting, their Dad's don't block their internet."
"Their Dad's wouldn't know how. They probably all think their little darlinks are working hard on their computemerers!"
"Yes, that's right, we are all workin hard! This is just a little relief now that I've finished most of my work!"
"Ah 'most' - means 'more yet to do' and it's 9 o'clock already so go an finish your work"
"Ok, Ok, but Evie has just come online, I haven't chatted to her since I was in Paris, can I just catch up for 5 minutes? Pleeeaase Daddy Darling?"
"5 minutes and then I'm pulling the plug Miss Chatalot."
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