Cockeyed Optimist

Don’t ask!

Well, of course I don’t mean that, really. I work as an editor, mainly helping students with their essays, assignments and dissertations. I just fix their English, their grammar, spelling and syntax. (Spell-checkers are no good for picking up someone who regularly writes “form” when he means “from”, or always puts “with in” when it should be “within.”) I don’t contribute to content (how could I, when I have people covering areas like the stock exchange, health policy, nursing practice, literary criticism, psychiatric disorders, microchip design, signal analysis, sustainable architecture … … I’m only a humble editor and sometime educator and IT engineer, after all is said and

done!).

Over the last couple of weeks I have not only had an above-average workload — who could object to that, it pays OK — but I have also had complications. Misunderstandings about deadlines, suspected plagiarism, people who were told by their grade-school teachers, way back then, never to repeat the same verb, so they say: “he said”, “he asserted”, “he opined”, “he volunteered”, “quoth he”, “he adverted”, “he cried”, “he blurted out” … Stop, or you’ll go blind!

Most of my clients are dear souls, trying to do their best, trying to please their teachers or their supervisors, sometimes struggling with English as their third or fourth language, and in general making a good fist of it. But once in a while, there are exceptions, and I had a few over the last few days.

Sorry for the whinge!

Anyway, I did manage to write Chapter Seventeen of “Kit and the Beeman” while all this was going on.

Read and enjoy!

If you have finished ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’, don’t fret; I have just put up Chapter Sixteen of ‘Kit’, so you can still stay in fantasy land for a while.

The post I did a few days ago about my Dad’s Old-Fashioned Remedies started me thinking about my childhood, and particularly about my wartime experiences.

I had just turned six in 1939, when WWII broke out in Europe, and I was twelve when it finished in 1945, so that period was an interesting time of my life. As I have already explained in passing, in my life story, active warfare passed us by for the most part, except for minor things like seeing bombed houses on the way to school, and being attacked by “buzz-bombs” and V2 rockets, as I explained in that story. But there were plenty of less direct effects that did impinge on us.

Gas Masks

Quite early on in the war, the British authorities were convinced that the civilian population would be the target of poison gas attacks, so a program of distributing gas masks was undertaken. There were several different models, all depending on a filter containing activated charcoal that you breathed in through. There was, as I recall, a rubber flap which sealed this off, so your exhaled breath didn’t pass through the filter (otherwise it would have become damp in no time); instead the outflow passed under the edges of the mask, on your cheeks (making satisfying farting noises if you tried hard). We had to carry them with us at all times, in their cardboard boxes, and practice regularly with them, so we could put them on quickly in the event of a gas attack. Needless to say, this never happened!

Look at this article.

Air-Raid Shelters

I have already said something about these, in the same part of my story referenced above, but here is another article.

Rationing

Food rationing started in January 1940, and persisted until 1954 — 9 years after the end of the war! When I first went to University in 1953, I had to hand in my ration-book to the College kitchen — but during that term they were largely discarded, except for one or two items.

The range of rationed foods varied; the list below (from Wikipedia) is typical.

Later clothes were rationed, too, but since I was largely dressed in family hand-me-downs (we were not particularly rich), this didn’t make much of an impression on me.

Food rations
    * 1s 2d (approximately 1 lb 3 oz or 540 g) of meat (offal or sausages weren't rationed[1])
    * 4 oz (113 g) bacon or ham
    * 3 pints (1.7 l) of milk per week or 1 packet of milk powder per month
    * 2 oz (57 g) butter
    * 2 oz (57 g) margarine
    * 2 oz (57 g) fat or lard
    * 2 oz (57 g) loose tea (teabags were not used widely in the UK)
    * 1 egg per week or 1 packet (makes 12 “eggs”) of egg powder per month
    * 2 oz (57 g) jam
    * 3 oz (85 g) sugar
    * 1 oz (28 g) cheese (vegetarians were allowed a bigger cheese ration, as they gave up their meat ration)
    * 3 oz (85 g) sweets
    * 2 lb (907g) onions (onions were only rationed between 1942-1944)
    * plus, 16 "points" per month for tinned and dried food.

As a parallel to rationing, the government introduced a scheme intended to reduce extravagance in a range of goods, including clothing and furniture. This was the Utility scheme. Goods were supposed to be serviceable and durable, but with no frills. As with rationing, this persisted past the end of the war. When I needed to acquire a suit when I was in the RAF, in about 1952, I went to a quite up-market (for those days) gentleman’s outfitters — Simpson’s of Picadilly — and bought a double-breasted three-piece blue suit with a white stripe — and that was a Utility suit. (It was very boring, even for me, so I regretted the purchase afterwards.)

Here is a fascinating page about clothing rationing and the Utility scheme.

Glimpses of the Real War

As I have hinted, for children my age, if you were not actually bombed, or had family or friends killed or injured, you could live in blithe ignorance for the most part. However, there were some incidents or experiences that could have brought it home to us a little.

• Barrage Balloons



Looking south and East from where we lived, there were times when you could see rows of balloons lined up across the sky. These were intended to be an obstacle to enemy planes, of course; they were tethered by steel cables to mobile winches, and indeed, if a plane caught a cable it could be brought down. Or, the balloon could be cut free — I can remember seeing stray balloons drifting higher and higher and being blown down-wind.

• No Trips to the Seaside

The beaches along the South and East coasts were all closed to the public, and barricaded with steel stanchions and barbed wire to deter would-be invading forces (who never arrived).

• Few Swimming Pools

The open-air pools in our area had all been taken over as reservoirs for fire fighting. There were also steel ’static water tanks’ built around the place for the same purpose. I believe that a few children drowned in these while trying to sail their little boats.

• Air Raid Sirens

These were mounted on the tops of high poles and could be heard for miles. The warning of an air raid was a wavering tone, like
this (with a touch of anti-aircraft gunfire — it still gives me the willies, after more than 60 years),
while the “All clear” was a
a steady note.

• Butterfly Bombs



These were anti-personnel bombs that we were warned about at school (they got us to make crude models of them out of dried-milk cans), they had an extending pair of rotors, which allowed them to drop fairly gently; then if anyone moved them they would go off. None of us ever actually saw one.

• Land-mines

The Germans would drop land-mines by parachute, so they would not go off as they hit; after a delay set by some timing mechanism they would become “live”. I actually saw one of these that had come down in a local park. Of course, you would have had to be stupid to go anywhere near them, but they were certainly a danger, especially to the bomb disposal squads.

• Downed Enemy Planes

This was another experience I actually had. A German bomber had been damaged and it was brought down more or less in one piece in a local woodland. We kids went to look at it, of course. It was guarded by a couple of soldiers and a policeman, but they let us go up and peer through the cockpit window. The aircrew, who were injured but still alive, had been taken away by then, and the plane had been checked for unexploded bombs.

Apart from these fairly isolated incidents (air raids were common enough!), life went on for us fairly normally — but we were the lucky ones.

Let’s hear from others of you who might have your own memories!

My poor sister is suffering from some throat infection or other at the moment, and she tells me she’s gargling with Betadyne, an iodine-based preparation. This set me off on a train of thought about my childhood, our Dad, and a number of his favourite remedies.

I was born in 1933, so when I was little there were very few of the medicines, like antibiotics, that nowadays we take for granted. Penicillin, the first antibiotic, was only discovered by Sir Alexander Fleming in 1926, and did not come into general use until about 1940, after further work by Howard Florey (I won’t give you any references — they come up on Google very easily).

So, instead, we had to rely on –

A Few of my Dad’s Favourite Remedies

Please note — these are NOT recommendations, they are merely for general interest and to feed my own nostalgia.

Seek professional advice before using!

• Tincture of Iodine

This was iodine dissolved in alcohol, I think, and was used both as a gargle and for painting on grazed knees as an antiseptic — it stung sharply, so it was obviously doing some good.

• Calamine Lotion

This was a nice pink colour and was very soothing, for sunburn or rashes of various kinds, and for the sore areas that developed when the damp tops of your “Wellies” (rubber boots) rubbed on your bare legs in winter time. These were also treatable with:

• Zinc and Castor Oil Cream

A universal ointment for all manners of sorenesses and abrasions, including nappy (diaper) rash in babies.

• Precipitated Chalk

This came as a white sediment in a bottle of water. You shook it up and took it internally as a mild antacid, for belly-aches or wind.

• Witch-Hazel

An astringent, of vegetable origin, used for treating bruises and insect bites (and for aftershave lotions and also for haemorrhoids).

• Boracic Acid

Dissolved in water and used in an eye-bath for mild eye infections or soreness. No longer in use!

• Formaldehyde and Eau-de-Cologne

The local chemist used to make this up for Dad. He used to snort it in liquid form when he had a bad cold. After the top of his head came down again there was no chance of any mucus remaining, nor much lining left in his nose. Beware!

• Yeast Tablets

Recommended (by Dad) for clearing up acne or other skin conditions due to “impurities in the blood”. Tasted so bad I had to take them wrapped up in something nice.

• Cod Liver Oil and Malt

This must have been very good for you, because it tasted disgusting! It had the consistency of jam, and you had to take it off a spoon.

• Cod Liver Oil (straight)

Compared with the malt mixture, this was almost pleasant to take, but it needed to be followed by something to take the fishy taste away.

• Andrews’ Liver Salts

Now we’re talking - this was a nice fizzy drink, so it was almost worth having a stomach upset so you could have it.

For anything serious, of course, we went to the doctor. In those days the local practitioner used to dispense a range of standard medicines him or herself, or give a script to be dispensed at the chemist’s shop. The practice we mostly attended was run by a husband-and-wife team, so there was Dr Grant and Dr Mrs Grant! (or was she Mrs Dr Grant?).

So, how about you?

Let’s hear it for some more old-fashioned remedies!

A few days ago, I said I would review OpenOSX Office, which is a collection of applications, all running under Macintosh’s X11 version of the X Window system. The components are: AbiWord; Gnumeric; Diagram; Gnucash; Inkscape and Gimp.

Here is the OpenOSX company site.

The first of these I shall describe is AbiWord, which joins the longish list of word processors that over the years have been offered as cheap or free alternatives to Microsoft Word.

AbiWord as a word processor in its own right

Some prospective users are coming to AbiWord without previous experience with Microsoft Word, and are simply setting out to do word processing for the first time.

They will find that AbiWord can do all that is necessary to produce a range of different documents, from short letters and essays, through papers intended for publication in professional journals, right up to doctoral dissertations.

It can handle changes to fonts and margins (of course), produce hierarchical headings, do dot-point or numbered lists, construct tables, and insert pictures, spread-sheets or diagrams (especially those created with the companion programs in OpenOSX Office — Gnumeric and Diagram).

Macintosh users might be slightly surprised that AbiWord uses control-key combinations (e.g. ctrl+c for cutting and ctrl+v for pasting) where other Mac applications generally use the Mac command-key in these situations. This is easy enough to cope with.

AbiWord as an alternative to Microsoft Word

Those who are used to Microsoft Word might wish to know how AbiWord matches up to it. Does it offer the same functions, and how well do they perform? The short answers to these questions are “most of them,” and “almost as well, but differently.”

Many functions are implemented similarly to those in MSWord

I will not give a complete list of these; suffice it to say that any menu item not otherwise mentioned operates very much the same as its counterpart in Microsoft Word.

The items are not always in the same positions, nor on the same menus, as in Word, but they are there somewhere, and should not pose any problems for a Word user making the transition to AbiWord.

Some functions are different to those in MSWord

There are often equivalents to MSWord functions, but they have sometimes been modified (which can either be an advantage or a handicap).

One example of a command I use a lot is Microsoft’s ‘Paste Special’; this enables you to cut and paste a piece of text from, say, a web page, without importing its format, font and colour when you don’t want them, which a simple ‘Paste’ would do. In MSWord, selecting ‘Paste Special’ brings up a list of options, including the one that I mainly use: ‘Unformatted Text’. In AbiWord ‘Paste Special’ is replaced by ‘Paste Unformatted’, so getting there in one step.

The commands for producing tables are not as comprehensive or powerful as those in MSWord, but they do the job adequately, providing formatting options and the ability to split or merge cells and to convert table to text or text to table. Those familiar with MSWord tables will simply have to get used to doing things a little differently.

And AbiWord’s approach to mail merge is a little different from Microsoft’s, but in some senses more straightforward. Here is what an AbiWord mail-merge data file looks like:

FirstName,LastName,StreetAddr,City,State,Zip
Mark,Gilbert,666 Microsoft Way,Redmond,WA,
David,Chart,123 Easydoc Street,Userville,MD,12345
Dom,Lachowicz,777 GNU Ave.,Utopia,CA,02111

(Thanks to the AbiWord help facility for this example.)

Tabs can be used as delimiters instead of commas, and the data file can be saved with either a ‘.csv’ or ‘.tsv’ respectively. There is also an option to use XML merge data files, but AbiWord is reluctant to recommend it!

The Word equivalent has the same data, but kept in a table instead of this series of lists. If you already have a Word merge table, it can be converted to AbiWord form very easily, using the MSWord ‘Table to text’ command.

And to make use of this data, AbiWord provides an item on its ‘Insert’ menu — ‘Insert Mail Merge field’ — enabling you to paste required fields anywhere in the document that is to be mailed.

File compatibility with MSWord and other word processors

AbiWord claims to be able to work on files generated by a range of word processors: Microsoft Word (.doc, .dot); Rich Text Format (.rtf); Text and Encoded Text (.txt, .text); XHTML (.htm, .html, .xhtml), and, of course AbiWord (.abw, .awt) and GZipped AbiWord (.zabw).

The new Microsoft Word formats introduced with Office 2008 (.docx) are not dealt with (yet).

However, it is one thing to open a file, and another to preserve all its attributes.

I have tried opening existing MSWord files with my own re-defined paragraph styles, but although these appear on the style drop-down menu, they do not remain attached to the headings and so on from the copied file. I need to find out more, obviously!

I hope that I have given a sufficient taste here of the potential of AbiWord to make it attractive to anyone who wants to try it out, either as a new word processor, or as a substitute for Microsoft Word.

I acknowledge that Microsoft Word is a well-developed and powerful word processor, but perhaps it is possible to use a cheaper option for much of your straightforward work.

Happy experimenting!