10 posts tagged “qotd”
In honor of Vox's launch tomorrow, what's your favorite feature or aspect of Vox?
In addition to the lovely big editor fonts, QoTD has had me writing more personal blog posts than anything else this year. It's fantastic inspiration on tap. All the design and photo/video sharing and social networking is very nice, but QoTD is the perfect example of how a really simple and technically trivial feature can make all the difference. I'd be fascinated to see what percentage of Vox blog posts are QoTD-derived; I'd guess that it's significant.
What are your personal memories of September 11th?
I was staying with my friends Gayle & Lev in Portland, Oregon. Another friend was in town, and she came over to spend the night. Lev woke us up, calmly telling us that terrorists had crashed planes into the World Trade Center. I was still trying to work out if this was some weird joke when I turned to my friend to see her in tears.
There was much mailing, and seeing the net and various mailing lists go nuts, and I posted a really long message to one of them. I watched the TV with the others in the house. I tried to work out what would happen next.
The following day I had been due to fly to San Francisco, and back to London a day or two after. Instead, Quinn (who was also around, and also had to get back to SF) and I hired a car and had a post-apocalyptic roadtrip southwards. I'm certain that I saw a passenger jet fly past us at one point.
How many places have you lived in your life?
Hendon, Hendon, Jerusalem, Hendon, San Francisco, Hendon, Finchley, Palo Alto, Chalk Farm. With a bit of luck, in a month's time: San Francisco again.
What's your middle name? Is there a story or history behind it?
This is a bit of a sore point at the moment, actually.
My birth certificate calls me Jeremy Grahame.
My Hebrew name is Yoram Boruch ben Avraham Zvi.
My mum says my English middle name is Benedict.
My dad disagrees.
My credit card calls me Yoram J B Grahame.
My driver's license calls me Yoram Jeremy Grahame.
My doctor's office calls me Jeremy Grahame.
My passport calls me Jeremy Grahame.
My son's birth certificate calls me Yoram Jeremy Grahame.
When I went to the Passport Office recently to get my son his first passport, this caused problems.
My wife is begging me to change my name by deed poll to Yoram Jeremy Grahame.
But my recently-approved US Visa calls me Jeremy Grahame. So it would cause problems with that.
I believe that under British law, a person's name is not a single canonical legally-defined thing. I read a mailing-list post on this topic in relation to the problems it would cause for the beleaguered ID Card proposals, and I've tried to find it ever since but haven't managed. (I'll post it here if/when I do.)
This post has turned out much duller than I thought it would.
Who's your favorite movie villain?
Jeremy/Sebastian, the young upper-class landlord from Naked. I don't think I've enjoyed hating any movie villain quite as much as him.
Are there any snacks, food or candy that are no longer made that you desperately miss?
Huh? But I can go buy you one right now...
Yes, you can. But they're not kosher any more. Haven't been for several years.
When one lives in England as a Jew who keeps kosher, one becomes subservient to the ways and whims of - what is locally known as - the list. Growing up, there's only one bit of it that you're really concerned with, which is the bit about confectionery. (This has now been made available as a free 2.5MB PDF called "The Kosher Nosh Guide") You get used to stuff popping on and off the list seemingly at random as manufacturers tweak not only the ingredients but processes. (Kosher ingredients that share vessels with non-kosher are thereby rendered non-kosher) And you also get used to your friends in the playground having ceaseless arguments about which colour of Smartie is made from beetles' blood. (Answer: they currently all are.)
Feast is a victim of the former - gelatin was added and has tragically stayed. While I haven't purchased the list in a while (as my level of kashrut-observance has dipped somewhat over the years), I still stick to stuff that has "Suitable for Vegetarians" on it. So my new friends are Snickers and Maltesers ice cream bars, mmmm.
(Bloody hell, food giants really have no idea how to make decent referenceable websites, do they?)
First car: C-reg metallic blue Honda Accord hatchback, inherited. Can't remember what happened to it, but somehow it morphed into my second car, an A-reg metallic blue Honda Accord hatchback (also inherited - perhaps it's a family curse or something). Anyway, that car died on the road to Reading in '97, having tired of flashing its oil-change-required light at me for over a month and so just went BANG. (I learnt my lesson.)
Then there was an H-reg red Honda Civic hatchback (purchased) which I lent to a friend's wife. She scraped it rather badly on parking, but I forgave her and lent it to her again, because she wasn't going to scrape it a second time. She realised this too, so instead she forcefully rammed it backwards into a VW van, writing it off.
After that came my current car, a green Rover 416 saloon - at least, it says Rover on the badge, but it's actually a Honda (really). I don't know why always drive Hondas, or why I treat them so badly. It's currently parked outside, covered in months-old birdshit and with one door bent partially open by a thoughtful person who relieved me of my stereo. Sometimes I actually make it to places without incident, but it's not often. Need a lift?
Goat's cheese. (Is that apostrophised correctly?) Anyway, hated it as a youngster, now I love it to bits. Works really well on pizza with sundried tomatoes, too.
I have a remarkable collection of famous rabbis all the way along the branches of my family tree, though most of them are reached through my father's mother. Among them are the Rizhiner Rav, who was descended from the Maggid of Mezrich, and you can trace back from him to the Baal Shem Tov, who's credited with the creation of Hassidism (this was in the 18th century). There's also the Maharal of Prague who wrote a number of notable texts on Kabbalah (as in proper Kabbalah, the not-allowed-to-touch-it- until-you're-over-40-and- know-the-whole- Talmud-backwards version, not the Los-Angeles-celebs- and-Madonna-wearing -red-threads-and -drinking-"Kabbalah water" version) but is most famous for his starring role in the story of the Golem of Prague, supposedly created to guard Prague's Jews from the many antisemitic attacks and blood libels of the day. So I'm proud to be descended from the original roboticist and the original Hassid, even though they are likely both doing 78RPM in their graves when looking at me.
Closer to home, my father and mother were both born in England, though my father's father is the only one of my grandparents with that distinction. Further back all the lines go to Eastern Europe - Germany, Austria, Poland and Russia. (I'm totally
Ashkenazi
- none of that Sephardi
ululating for me, alas.) My father's father's family are bakers. My father's mother's family were well-off and lived in Austria until the Nazi menace gathered; on the eve of the war my grandfather wandered in and out of Nazi-controlled Vienna to grab the family's entire wealth (which had been consolidated into a single necklace) and then, to avoid detection, came back through Germany
. My mother's father was on the last Kindertransport
out of Berlin as a teen, and helped run the camp that had been set up in Wales for young survivors. That's where he met my grandmother, who had come through Auschwitz.
