Our Northern correspondent checks in with the boss
I know I said the other day (ago) that I'd give you the next or previous installment of the online offline friendship league "tomorrow" and I have therefore to explain a fine point of linguistic usage. In normal English usage the word tomorrow denotes the day following this one and is the dictionary definition of the word but in practice in other languages (Spanish and Greek spring immediately to mind) the word for tomorrow is used in a connotive sense rather than a denotive one. More specifically in the aforementioned languages, at least in demotic usages, the word for tomorrow is frequently used to indicate some unspecified futurity or to indicate a logical not today. Clear? Good. Now - onward and backward.
As I was saying the kidz were confident that the Guerilla Distiller visit would work out because they had had previous experience or mixing their on and offline worlds with incredible and unimagined success. On that very first occasion it was Finn McEskimo, his good wife Alfapet and their youngest child Neero who had come to the farm outwith some previously only ethereal or ethernetreal existence.
Finn was originally recommended to Laz as Northern Correspondent for the PoMo circus by his estimable lady Alfapet who had been a reader of that august publication for some months back in the old Spazmac days (almost pre-Caxton in Circus terms). Alfapet, who you should know coined the word carage, is what Brits would think of as a very special needs teacher whilst Finn himslef is a strange mix of eternal student and long term lecturer in something best approximated by "comparative and experimental literature". Needless to say the 3 of them chewed a lot of academic, cultural and literary fat between Finn's occasional commissions and freelance articles for The Circus and a friendship grew among these unlikely companions. When Laz introduced Gill's photos into the mix (Gill is still steadfastly reticent about a direct online presence) things blossomed and Alfapet and she began to converse via email. Suddenly everyone was involved.
And then this summer Finn and Alfapet announced that they were coming to Crete with Neero and would love to visit the farm. Pulses quickened, consciences were searched, qualms were put to one side and an invitation to come and stay for a weekend was issued in short oreder. Two weeks went by in a mood of trepidation but when the Finn family turned up at Ekkentron in Kavros all misgivings evaporated in moments. The 4 of them got on better in the flesh than they had online - they all knew each other so well (nobody had lied or boasted) and Neero was a brick, putting up with these excited and garrulous adults.
The weekend passed in a blur of visiting sites, harvesting lavender and talking - endlessly talking. Talking into the small hourss. An empathy like that in very good families and friendships was quite simply there before they met up and grew in the harsh reality of the flesh. There will be more of these meetings - of that we are sure. All of us are sure.
It worked.
As I was saying the kidz were confident that the Guerilla Distiller visit would work out because they had had previous experience or mixing their on and offline worlds with incredible and unimagined success. On that very first occasion it was Finn McEskimo, his good wife Alfapet and their youngest child Neero who had come to the farm outwith some previously only ethereal or ethernetreal existence.
Finn was originally recommended to Laz as Northern Correspondent for the PoMo circus by his estimable lady Alfapet who had been a reader of that august publication for some months back in the old Spazmac days (almost pre-Caxton in Circus terms). Alfapet, who you should know coined the word carage, is what Brits would think of as a very special needs teacher whilst Finn himslef is a strange mix of eternal student and long term lecturer in something best approximated by "comparative and experimental literature". Needless to say the 3 of them chewed a lot of academic, cultural and literary fat between Finn's occasional commissions and freelance articles for The Circus and a friendship grew among these unlikely companions. When Laz introduced Gill's photos into the mix (Gill is still steadfastly reticent about a direct online presence) things blossomed and Alfapet and she began to converse via email. Suddenly everyone was involved.
And then this summer Finn and Alfapet announced that they were coming to Crete with Neero and would love to visit the farm. Pulses quickened, consciences were searched, qualms were put to one side and an invitation to come and stay for a weekend was issued in short oreder. Two weeks went by in a mood of trepidation but when the Finn family turned up at Ekkentron in Kavros all misgivings evaporated in moments. The 4 of them got on better in the flesh than they had online - they all knew each other so well (nobody had lied or boasted) and Neero was a brick, putting up with these excited and garrulous adults.
The weekend passed in a blur of visiting sites, harvesting lavender and talking - endlessly talking. Talking into the small hourss. An empathy like that in very good families and friendships was quite simply there before they met up and grew in the harsh reality of the flesh. There will be more of these meetings - of that we are sure. All of us are sure.
It worked.
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