Thursday 27 July, 2006This post in This Ongoing War, an insightful blog written by an Israeli, shows the impact of war on soldiers and ordinary people alike.

Erica and I ate our meal this evening at the kitchen table with the large french doors that give onto the garden flung wide. From time to time lightning jagged through the dark clouds over Harmergreen Wood on the ridge that lies between Robbery Bottom and Digswell. Thunder rumbled above and around, no great cracks and claps, but a general background grumbling.

Thunder reminds me of childhood fears during nighttime storms, when I would run through the darkened house to my mother’s bed, hoping, hoping that I would reach my safe haven before the next flash of lightning, the next rumble of thunder.

One night - I must have been 5 or 6 years old - I dreamed I was at the circus. The spotlights flashed and the drums rolled. They rolled so loudly that I woke up - to a thunderstorm. I scrambled for safety.

One hot summer day in 1960, when I was 12, I was playing with friends outside in the grounds of Nevill Holt, my prep school (for those not familiar with the peculiarities of British education, a prep school is a school for children aged 7 or 8 to 13, with prepares them to go to “public” school - that is to say, a private school for 13 to 18 year olds). Nevill Holt, a mediaeval manor house, was located on top of a hill and looked the valley of the River Welland towards Rockingham Castle in Northamptonshire. As we played that sultry afternoon, a strange murk slowly filled the valley below. We looked up from our games - tag, flying gliders, Jokari, French cricket - our attention drawn by crumping noises emanating from the sinister cloud. Thunder was coming, that was clear.

But the storm did not break until after lights out and we were in bed. I remember seeing luridly coloured clouds flying past, framed in the dorm’s large window. And then what a storm! Lightning entered an open window in the school’s swimming pool in what had been the stable block and lifted the tiles in the pool. It was a while before we could have our swimming sessions again.

Technorati Tags: lightning, Thunder, storms, Nevill Holt

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Baha’is are forbidden to confess their sins to any other human being. We can bring ourselves to account each day only with God. Nevertheless, I am going to confess to be a Mac user. In fact, I’ve been a Mac user since November (you see, I can even remember the month) 1987, when I bought a Mac II.

In days gone by (and not so long gone by), this confession would have caused PC users to go puce in the face and hoot with derision at such a stupid heretic. How could I not see that Windows (I suppose I should put ? or ? here) would dominate the world? Well, my friends, despite the derision I have remained faithful to the only true platform; I rejoiced at the advent of OS X - indeed I was an early adopter; I rejoiced at the change from Motorola to Intel (more ? and ?) chips - and have a MacBook Pro, which I love!

And now the smirk is on the other side of the face. iPod is cool (yes, I have an iPod), Mac is cool, and PC users are changing to the only true platform.

Here’s some good stuff about switching. Go on, have a look. You won’t turn into a sandal-wearing, bearded person (that’s me, by the way) just by thinking about switching.

But regrettably we Mac users still cannot use the essential Baha’i research tool, Ocean. That’s for PC users only.

But here’s something we can all use. Thanks to Ian Vink, Baha’i Research is a web-based application that allows anyone, whether they use a PC or a Mac, to search Baha’i and other sacred texts (and other writings).

How’s that for non-discrimination? Mind you, Mac users have to use Firefox. Luckily I like Firefox. Safari, the Mac browser, which I also like, won’t handle Baha’i Research for some unfathomable reason.

And there we are, back to the Ocean (unfathomable, geddit? Oh, perlease!).

Technorati Tags: Baha’is, Mac, Windows, OS X, MacBook Pro, iPod, Ocean

Thursday 27 July, 2006 London was unbelievably hot yesterday, over 30C and very humid. I used the Central, Piccadilly and Victoria lines; all of them were hot, but the Piccadilly Line at around 5 p.m. was almost unbearable.