Mom's favourite flower used to be, and may well still be, fresia, so here is a virtual birthday fresia. I hope you have a fabulous day, mom. You deserve it. Lots of love.
If you look closely at the (1983) television screen you will see two images, one on the left and one on the right, and a smaller image at the bottom, boxed in. C d iddy biddy webcam and Mac Mini on top of the tv? Not only did Rocco arrange for the webcam to video chat through the ancient tv set, we also managed to establish a three way chat with mom and dad in Lethbridge and my sister in Edmonton. Ma and Pa are on the left, K is on the right, and their view of us is in the little box at the bottom of the screen. There was a slight problem synching all three views and audio tracks up at the beginning (much humourous sign display ensued) but overall the experiment was successful. V. cool, as some would say.
She's now on her way to Alberta then on to San Diego for a week of surfing with her cousin. We gave her a good send-off here with lots of pseudo-meat, beer, and Sega Genesis, of all things!
Hailey is 15 months now and has mastered the word 'cat'. Let's just say Sophie was mildly traumatised by all the attention she was getting. To distract her, Rocco tried to get Hailey hooked on Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
Academic admits to profane hoax on literary rival
LONDON — A biographer of English poet John Betjeman has confessed to writing a hoax love letter that duped a rival author, a British newspaper reported Sunday.
The Sunday Times said Bevis Hiller admitted sending the fake letter to A.N. Wilson — complete with a coded four-letter insult aimed at Wilson.
“It's a fair cop,” the newspaper quoted Hillier saying when confronted about the letter.
Wilson thought the passionate letter — ostensibly written by Betjeman to a Second World War colleague, Honor Tracy — was evidence of a previously unknown extramarital affair and included it in his recently published book Betjeman.
Wilson acknowledged the letter must be fake last week, after the Sunday Times pointed out the first letter of each sentence spelled out “A.N. Wilson is a shit.”
The newspaper quoted Hillier saying the hoax was prompted by annoyance at the attention received by Wilson's book, published after his own three-volume biography of the poet.
“When a newspaper started billing Wilson's book as ‘the big one,' it was just too much,” Hillier was quoted saying.
The two men have a history of animosity. Hillier previously denied involvement in the letter hoax but told the newspaper he thought Wilson was “despicable.”
In a 2002 book review, Wilson said Hillier's biography of Betjeman was a “hopeless mishmash of a book.”
Wilson's publisher said the letter would be removed from reprints of Betjeman.
