Pynchon

I need to backtrack slightly to Sunday. There are a couple of things that I forgot to mention. It might be interesting. I don't know.

On Sunday I went around to Sister 3's house early to try to sort out her PC. She had been having problems. The plan was that I would be finished by midday, stay for some lunch and then be in the cinema by 3pm watching "The Last King Of Scotland". It didn't quite go that way.

Sister 3 lived up magnificently to my Brother's low standards of computer security. She had let her firewall/virus checker subscription lapse. (Good job I had purchased her a new firewall/virus checker just for that eventuality, wasn't it?) Her PC was riddled with spyware, malware and every other kind of 'ware' you might think of. She had loaded 'strange' software, given to her by her friends. There were weird files on her desktop and various programs loading at bootup stage that shouldn't have been there.

Ho hum. It was about what I expected.

So, after hitting Sister 3 around the head with a rolled up copy of "Web User", I got to work and eventually got most of the problems sorted out. It took hours, and there were some things that still needed to be done, but nothing urgent. I'll be going back there at some point.

There was no time for the cinema, and that was a pain, but truth be told I quite enjoyed myself at Sister 3's. At home I am a very nervous computer user, full stop. I'm very apprehensive about loading new software onto my own computer and I hardly ever change settings. It's the way I like it. I do not like having to sort out the messes if it goes wrong. My attitude? If it works and it suits, leave it alone.

Give me somebody else's computer and I am fearless. I will load, run and delete applications. I will reconfigure software . I will reboot to my heart's content. I will look up solutions on the Internet and implement them (after a backup, of course.) I will damn the consequences and laugh in the face of danger, like Zorro. If only I could be that guy on my own computer...

Perhaps it's that I don't care about anybody else's property? Yes. It might be that.

So, it was a good day at Sister 3's. I introduced by Nephew (he's 10) to You Tube and found some classic clips by the Beatles and the Stones, with which I hoped to improve his musical education. He shrugged and said that they were "OK" and then found a clip by some rapper called Akon, who I had never heard of, which he proceeded to groove to.

What are they teaching kids these days? Savages. Philistines.

(The first time I ever heard the Beatles "She's Leaving Home" was in an English class when I was very young. We had to analyse the lyrics. I remember that it was the first time I realised songs could tell stories, rather than just be about boy meets girl and girl meets boy.)

Sister 1 and my Niece turned up. Sister 1 said that my Niece wanted to ask me something.

"What do you want to ask me?", I said.

"Do you think that Nicole Richie is nice looking?" asked my Niece.

"No, I don't" said I. "She's too thin. She's horrible."

"Told you!", said Sister 1 to my Niece. Then to me "Do you think that most men like girls that are curvy?"

"Definitely. I think more men like girls that are curvy than girls that are thin. I do. Yes."

It turned out that my Niece had become quite picky with her food recently, and sometimes didn't eat very much at all. She said that this was because she wanted to look like Nicole Richie or Paris Hilton.

My Niece is 9 years old. Oh, yes.

I have every confidence that Sister 1 will manage to knock this nonsense on it's head, but I did sit my Niece down and try to explain a couple of things about being healthy and what dieting at her age could do to her body in the future. Also the difference between being curvy and being overweight.

My Niece has always been slim, and has always eaten well, and I will do my best to ensure that the situation remains that way.

Fucking cliched media images. You're looking for trouble, guys. Don't push me.