March 2009 Issue

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Another Month ---

Another newsletter to dream up. Bryan has just phoned to say that a newsletter is due. I am up to my eyes with things to do at the moment. I use my computer very little these days, when I do it is mostly to do something for my son.

I have probably written about it before, if so I am sorry but I am going to write about the reason for not using my computer much these days.

I have always been a collector. Give me two of something and I start collecting them. For this reason when computers came along I took the opportunity of making some sort of order of my collections.

At school it was marbles and cigarette cards. Later it was 78rpm gramophone records. My record collection was outdated by the introduction of LP records so I had to start again. As if this was not enough I started collecting records of particular artists - mainly Bing Crosby. I joined a Crosby club and sometimes gave a talk about Bing and played his records. After a while it became difficult to think of a theme for my talk and I would spend hours combing my collection for tracks with something in common that I could base my talk on. Then computers came along and I was able to enter details of all of my records from where I could do a search and give a talk about tracks with something in common, such as containing the word blue etc. This was wonderful at the time and I spent hours entering my records in a database. Then cassettes came along and I could make my own recordings from the radio and make up my own compilations. Wonderful, I built up a large library of hundreds of cassettes. Great, until CD's came along and off I started again, collecting over a thousand. I did not buy indiscriminately. No, I collected recordings by certain artists so that I could make a database of their recordings and so collect everything that the particular artist had recorded. Video cassettes had also come along and off I went again collecting films and I recorded several hundred. Then what? They became out of date and it was then possible to record to CD. So my video cassettes were transferred to CD and I would wait impatiently for a film that I didn't have to come along on TV so that I could record it. Frustrating - but all part of the fun. Then guess what, along came the internet and you can now download practically anything. Not only this but newspapers give away films on DVD's. It is all so easy now and as the DVD's collected from newspapers are of a very wide variety, it is frustrating and impossible to make a theme of my collection.

It is for this reason that I do not use my computer much these days. It has all become too much - keeping up with things.

I have a similar sort of problem with other items that I have been collecting over the years. At one time I was very keen on stamp collecting. I have several albums of stamps carefully collected over the years but this hobby has been ruined for me by the kindness and generosity of friends. Three friends who also collected stamps died and their widows, knowing of my friendship with their husbands, have given me their collections so it would take all of my time sorting thousands of stamps and putting them into some sort of order. Before this task could be completed it would be the turn of my collection to be added and passed on to somebody else.

Coins? Yes I have collected them too. Not a lot of value but another bug that I have been bitten by. I have several sets of the old penny and halfpenny dating back to 1860 (no I haven't got a 1933 penny).

Medals? Yes I have a collection of these, or did have as they have now been passed on to my son. They are service medals from the great war and the last war.

Please don't tell me what you collect as you will start me off again and I have grown a bit tired of trying to keep tabs of everything, this being the cause of not using my computer so much these days.

I do the boring things like doing my income tax and keeping tabs of my bills. I would like to think of a way of not having to do this but I suppose it is simpler than keeping notes on paper as I used to. I have got copies of gas and electricity bills going back to 1940. Mad? I must agree but I am addicted.