Hard copy

If you have children, you've probably experienced that weird phenomenon where you're remembering a time before they were born and you suddenly think "But who was looking after the kids? Where were they?". I have something similar with mobile phones, as well, especially when I think back to my university days. 

I interact with my C20 girls most days: HB and Charlie at work in Manchester; Milly at uni in Lincoln; and Izzy in South Sudan. When I was studying in Liverpool, I'd phone my folks maybe twice a term! It's quite staggering how mobile phones have changed all that.

But there is a secondary phenomenon and that is that fact that with our smartphones we all have a camera on us at all times and most of us make good use of that. In fact, when was the last time you saw a phone ad that focussed on call quality or signal strength? The manufacturers know it's all about the lenses and the photo processing. 

And I love it. My favourite app is Instagram; I love seeing the world through other people's eyes: their perspective, their view of what's interesting and noteworthy. And yes, what they had for breakfast.

But my only issue with all of this is that we amass these enormous digital photo albums but how often do we look through, them cluttered as they are by the shots we took, trying to capture the moment or view we were after? 

I have had a couple of solutions to that. Blipfoto is one, of course, and so is getting my favourite Instagram shots put onto fridge magnets (much to the Minx's dismay). But recently I have found a third: a great little device for printing photos, the Canon Zoemini. I'd recommend it unreservedly.

Izzy was recently in New York with her boyfriend, on some of their scheduled R&R from work, and she sent me a photo of them that was taken there. It reminded me a bit of the cover of 'The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan' and when I told her this, she sent me another photo of herself on the same street. I loved it so much that I printed it off on the Zoemini and stuck it in one of the frames on my desk at work. 

The picture that's already in that frame was taken, I reckon, nearly twenty years ago. It's Izzy and the other twentieth century babies on the front wall outside our house. That's a young Izzy on the right. 

Extra: Dan - my little (!) jobbing musician - is playing guitar in 'The Wedding Singer' all this week at The Grand in Lancaster. Dean and I went to see it, this evening. I'm not a huge fan of musicals, tbh, but it was well done and Dan's playing was fab.

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No scales
Reading: 'In Aleppo Once' by Taqui Altounyan