old-fashioned

[ewein2412]

My cousin is getting married tomorrow, very quietly with only her parents and sister and husband's family attending, in the same lovely old mansion where we had our own wedding reception.  I thought it would be nice to send her a telegram--you know, it would be delivered to the desk of the bed & breakfast where they're staying, and they could put it in their wedding album.  Tim said he didn't think I could find anyone who would send a telegram anymore.  I swore I can find ANYTHING in The Land of the Lost--I mean, come ON, what is the Internet FOR if not for the instantaneous transfer of words????

So... We were both right.  Western Union sent their final telegram exactly two years ago.  But, there are still posey telegram services available on the web.  The first one I tried would send a whole 14-line sonnet for a mere $158.  The next one I tried charged 96 pence per word plus delivery, which was BY POST and therefore "not guaranteed by a specific date." Nine words cost £23. 

 

So I gave up and sent flowers instead.  The local flower shop does a guaranteed same day delivery service.  Flowers and delivery together cost me £20.  And guess what?  Um, hello--when you order flowers you get to include a ten-line message FOR FREE.

So my cousin and her new husband get their wedding telegram after all.

--------------------------------

 

I want to say "Isn't the Internet wonderful" except I also want to say "Isn't the Internet STUPID"

--------------------------------

ETA: The flowers arrived about two hours after I ordered them, at exactly the same time as Efa and Bruce.  They were unloading their car when the delivery van pulled up.  It was the same shop they'd ordered their wedding flowers from and at first they thought they'd come a day early!

 

Comments

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

::sigh:: What ever happened to personal service....

[mhari.livejournal.com]

It certainly is. Both those things.

[marguerlucy.livejournal.com]

What about SINGING telegrams?

Are those defunct? Do you have to send podcasts now?? ;)

[ewein2412]

yup!

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Eoy. So now, instead of saying, "If you have a Message, send it Western Union" we're stuck with saying, "If you have a Message, send it with a lovely boquet of seasonal tulips and irises with a sprig of babies' breath" instead?

Well, thanks for warning me.

I guess.

[ewein2412]

well, what we're REALLY saying is, if you have a message, text it.

or post it in your blog.

if you happen to live in Addis Ababa you're sorta out of luck, though.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Was I being too obscure (again)? I was thinking of the Hollywoood MGM studio mogul (Goldwyn, I think) who dismissed movies with messages with the immortal line, "If I want to send a message, I'lll call Western Union!"

Oh, and NPR posted a piece on The Last Telegram (Feb. 2, 2006) at
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5186113
with some cool links - and then there's this
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11147506/

[ewein2412]

Was I being too obscure (again)?

No, I'm just dumb! Or shall we say, not UNIVERSALLY culturally literate.

When I googled "telegrams western union" or whatever it was, my first two hits were telegram services (include Western Union's defunct service, which is pathetic in its innocuousness)--all the following hits were "goodbye to telegrams" media reports.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Dumb?! Oh, never! But despite what Dorothies Sayer & Dunnett express, no one these these days can be universally quote-literate.

I just thought it was one you would know . . . . Well, now you do!

[ewein2412]

I *do* know it. I just didn't recognize it.

[ewein2412]

...and incidentally, I am in the middle of The Game of Kings and I don't recognize ANYTHING.

Oh, except for "There was a lady loved a swine." I know that one.

I can't even keep ONE of the freaking plots straight. But it is all very melodramatic and swoony.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Is this your first time with Dunnett? Boy, are you in for a wild ride!!! Don't worry about the plots - just hallucinate in time to the music, and it will all work out. Oh, and feel free to give me a shout if you need moral support. In my opinion, everyone needs a Lymond Buddy.

Do you Skype, perchance?

[ewein2412]

Do you Skype, perchance?

alas, no. and yes, my first time. Don't know how I missed it. I think it must be a very odd experience to read it from one's home turf, as it were. I know every castle and island and priory and earthwork up close and personal.

I will know who to come to when I get desperate! sartorias has a lot to answer for, too.

[ajl-r.livejournal.com]

Yes, but be warned when you get to the 'Pawn' title. Definitely paper-hankie time in places. :) They are wonderful though, even if at times one gets a bit baffled, and the next series is equally good.

[ewein2412]

yipes, sartorias gave me a similar warning about this one, equally vague, couched differently, but just as ominous. I was worried I'd forget by the time I got there but now I'm not so sure.

[ajl-r.livejournal.com]

It's worth the hankies, anyway. :) The whole way through both series I was both enthralled by the stories and appalled by my own lack of intelligence in not being able to keep up with all elements of the plot and the allusions. And I started as an historian...shame, deep shame. Eventually, I gave up trying to remember where every single thing fitted together and just swam with the avalanche, as it were.

[ewein2412]

well, that's exactly what I'm doing. but I don't mind doing that, it's how I read (and why I'm not a historian)

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

You really shouldn't feel dumb; Dunnet is a master manipulator who does it all with very clever narrative tricks. I learned a huuuge amount about pure technique from looking at what she'd pulled over on me, and taking it apart to try and see how it worked.

[ewein2412]

the astonishing thing is that she hasn't influenced me, I swear. I've never even heard of her. God knows how I missed her; even tim saw what I was reading and said, "Are you enjoying that? It's kind of a classic, right?"

Every time when I stop reading and go back to my own deathless prose it just seems lifeless and plodding. blah.

[ajl-r.livejournal.com]

Well, that's a little bit of comfort, thanks.

I particularly liked the way she reversed the blond body into being the villain in the next series (not a spoiler - manifest from the start). I wondered if she'd got sick of all that physical beauty...hard as that would be!

And, O revered blog owner, us readers appreciate lots of different styles. :)

[ewein2412]

us readers appreciate lots of different styles

thank goodness!

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Given up yet?

While I was reading PAWN IN FRANKINCENSE (which does not take place in your neighborhood), I dreamed my leg was being chewed on by an ichneumon.

[ewein2412]

I'm nearly done. I'm so pissed off that I have to LIKE him, I was all set up to hate him. She won't pull THAT one again! (not with this character, anyway).

Pawn takes place in Malta, right? unfortunately we spent new year's week there last year, so IT will be familiar too! (I've a ways to go before I get there, though. I just ordered Queens' Play today so it will be here when I'm ready for it.)

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

1) Actually, she will. In every single book. It's brilliant how she convinces you to hate him, even when you know from sad experience that he will turn out to be raping virgins & ripping children from their mothers' teats for entirely virtuous and benevolent reasons. . . . Get used to it.

2) Disorderly Knights is Malta - half of it, anyway. Pawn starts in Baden, and fetches up in Istanbul, with many colorful stops along the way.

Queens' Play is Da Bomb. Have fun!

[ewein2412]

oh, I've been to Baden and Istanbul too.

actually, I am Lymond.



I'm just kidding about Baden and Istanbul. But I nearly drowned myself in the swimming pool earlier, when I thought of it. It's not a good idea to burst out laughing under water.

[ewein2412]

OMG Dandy Hunter!!!

So, the scene where Richard and Francis are camped in the wilderness together cracking each other's brains apart, is it POSSIBLE that I wrote The Winter Prince without having any prior knowledge of this? I swear, it makes me believe in whatsitcalled--not inherited memory but that dubious early anthropological theory that an entire people can call on the same memory individually

sheesh

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Oh, god yes! Listen, how do you think I felt when I realized that I had single-handedly re-invented justabout every boyloveslash trope in the books? With my very own characters, of course, but still - there is no question but that there is a wiring people share. Doesn't make me think of race memory (is that it? something Jungian, I think?) so much as a notion that there are maybe nine and sixt ways of throwing the cards down and constructing your tribal lays (you know that one, right?), and one of them is right for us - and involves people who love each other beating the crap out of each other, for instance. A kind of emotional DNA that says that, as some people tend to scratch their left eye with the pinky of their right hands, so some of us just want to - well, you know. I imagine men who fetishize, say, fur (or wearing their wives' socks, or anything else) experience a similar shock when they realize they're not the only ones. It's hard-wired into us; or at least the propensity for it is, nourished by who knows what external factors.

So - welcome to Dunnettland. We knew you'd feel right at home there.

Carved on your liver, ennit?

[ewein2412]

ok, so.

Am halfway thru Queens Play at the moment and JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW that it took me to about page 70 to stop going "Who are these stupid Irish weirdos and when are we going to cut to the chase?" But I pegged Robin Stewart STRAIGHT away (HAH!) and, further on and further in, in my finest hour, spotted not only the use of poison but also recognized specifically WHAT poison. Which is really rather scary.

who knows, it may prove useful knowledge someday.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Poison, eh?

You worry me sometimes.

But in a **good** way!