Advent as a journey

Advent is often described as a journey and although not at all Christmassy, one of my favourite journey works of art is JMW Turner’s Rain, Steam, and Speed - The Great Western Railway.

The train is crossing Brunel’s Maidenhead bridge over the Thames, a brick arch bridge which was for may years the widest and flattest brick arch in the world. It’s difficult to believe that this arch is made up of such small elements - but it’s still in use today!

The meaning of Advent - Oscar Romero

Sue has given me a copy of the quote that she reads at the start of every Advent which says it all to her. It’s by Oscar Romero, the Archbishop of San Salvador who was assassinated in 1980, reportedly because of his work with the poor:

Advent should admonish us to discover
in each brother or sister that we greet,
in each friend whose hand we shake,
in each beggar who asks for bread,
in each worker who wants to use the right to join a union,
in each peasant who looks for work in the coffee groves,
the face of Christ.

Then it would not be possible to rob them,
to cheat them,
to deny them their rights.

They are Christ,
and whatever is done to them
Christ will take as done to himself.

This is what Advent is:
Christ living among us

1st December: And is it true...? Christmas by John Betjeman

John Betjeman’s poem “Christmas” leads us from the pressure of Christmas shopping - accentuated by Black Friday squabbles - to the meaning of Christmas

The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green.

The holly in the windy hedge
And round the Manor House the yew
Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,
The altar, font and arch and pew,
So that the villagers can say
‘The church looks nice’ on Christmas Day.

Provincial Public Houses blaze,
Corporation tramcars clang,
On lighted tenements I gaze,
Where paper decorations hang,
And bunting in the red Town Hall
Says ‘Merry Christmas to you all’.

And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.

And girls in slacks remember Dad,
And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children’s hearts are glad.
And Christmas-morning bells say ‘Come!’
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.

And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window’s hue,
A Baby in an ox’s stall ?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me ?

And is it true ? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.

The meaning of Christmas

Is it really six months since I last blogged? It’s been a busy summer!

Prompted by the start of Advent again, I’m going to try to do an entry each day with an advent or Christmas thought. 

What does Christmas mean to you?

Simple computer tips – the tab key

Do you remember typewriters? Most had a tab function that allowed the carriage to move to pre-determined columns when the tab key was hit. Some had pre-determined tab settings (the columns that would be used) others had complicated mechanical devices to adjust the columns. The tab function on PCs is similar - but more sophisticated. There are two main uses of the tab key. One is similar to the typewriter tab - more of this tomorrow - but the other is slightly different but very useful. How often do you enter multiple fields - for example your e-mail address followed by a password? You can use the mouse pointer and click on successive fields to achieve this but the tab key is much quicker. Once you have completed entering you e-mail address, pressing tab will take the cursor to the next entry field.

By the way, the term “field” is used to describe the places on a form or similar where you enter some information.

Have a go at tabbing between the fields in the example below. You can enter your details but nothing happens to them on the blog!

First name:
Last name:
Phone number:
Postcode:

Another place that this can be used is when writing a new e-mail. You have to move the cursor between the address fields (the addresses of people to whom you are sending the e-mail) the subject line and the body of the e-mail. There’s no need to move the mouse and click between these: this is much quicker because your hands are already on the keyboard.

Have a go at tabbing between the entry fields on an e-mail

Simple computer tips - the difference between backspace and delete

There are two keys for deleting: backspace and delete.

When editing a document, the difference is fairly obvious: backspace deletes the character to the left of the cursor and moves the cursor back one space whereas delete deletes the character to the right of the cursor. 

Have a go deleting single characters: with a new e-mail or text document, put the cursor somewhere in the middle and try the two delete keys.

When text is marked or selected, both keys have the same effect: deleting the selected text. Incidentally, do you know that if you want to replace some text with something else, it’s not necessary to delete before starting to type? Selecting the text then typing deletes the selected text and immediately inserts the text you type.

Have a go at overtyping: again with a new e-mail or text document, select some text then start typing - the selected text is deleted and replaced by the text you type: no need to press delete or backspace

Simple computer tips - more on the home and end keys

The other great use of the home and end keys is when viewing a long web page - one that has vertical scrolling. The home key scrolls the page back to the top and the end key scrolls it to the bottom.

Have a go with this web site: If you have accessed this with the basic address, you’ll have many posts in view. Try Home and End to move to the top and bottom.

Simple computer tips - keyboard home and end keys

Now let’s look at some of the other strange keys on the keyboard. Home and End are useful keys: when editing text, home takes the cursor to the start of the current line and end to the end. End is very useful when going back to correct an error earlier in the current line - pressing End takes the cursor back to where you can start typing again.

The Home and End keys are in different places on different keyboards but are normally somewhere on the right:

Have a go at moving the cursor with Home and End: type some text into Word or an e-mail* and move the cursor to somewhere in the middle of the text. Press Home then End and see where the cursor goes.

You shouldn’t be surprised by now that shift with Home or End will select all the text from the cursor position to the start or end of the current line. Ctrl is a little different: ctrl-home takes the cursor right to the top of the document and ctrl-end right to the end.

Have a go with ctrl: with the document or e-mail created above, put the cursor somewhere in the middle and press ctrl-home (remember: press and hold ctrl then press and release home then release ctrl) Try again with ctrl-end.

And, of course, ctrl-shift with one or other of home and end will select all the text from the cursor position to the start or end of the document. To select the entire document, press ctrl-home to get to the start, then ctrl-shift-end

Have a go at selecting the entire document: put the cursor somewhere in the middle, press ctrl-home then ctrl-shift-end

* By now you may have realised it’s worth having a document you can use to play with and try out all these ideas. Don’t use something valuable - you may damage it! Don’t forget ctrl-z to undo the last change!

Simple computer tips - cursor move keys - one more option

Shift and a cursor move key selects the text, ctrl and a move key moves one word or one paragraph so if you hold down both ctrl and shift what do you think a cursor move key does? Selects to the next word or paragraph.

Have a go at selecting words or paragraphs: type some text into Word or an e-mail then click somewhere in the middle to put the cursor there. Press and hold the ctrl and shift keys then try the right and left cursor move keys. The cursor moves to the start of the next or previous word. Pressing the same key again selects the next or previous word and so on. The up and down keys with ctrl-shift does the same but to the start of the next or previous paragraph.

Enough of the cursor move keys. Next, some of the other odd keys on the keyboard.

Simple computer tips - cursor move keys - more options

The cursor move keys in conjunction with the ctrl and shift keys have other functions. The simplest is the shift key: using the cursor keys while shift is held down marks or selects the characters starting with the one next to the start position of the cursor. The left and right keys clearly select characters along the line - backwards and forwards respectively.

Have a go at selecting along the line: type some text into Word or an e-mail then press and hold shift and press the left cursor move key. Characters are selected backwards from the cursor position. Now move the cursor to somewhere in the middle of the text, press and hold shift then press the right cursor move key. Again, characters are selected from the start cursor position.

There are shift keys, by the way, at both ends of the keyboard, usually above the ctrl key on the left and the cursor arrow keys on the right.

Pressing and holding ctrl then using the left or right cursor arrows moves the cursor to the start of the next word to the left or right. This is useful if you want to insert a word in the text

Have a go at moving one word at a time: with the text entered in the previous trial, put the cursor somewhere in the centre then press and hold the ctrl key and try the left and right cursor move arrows: the cursor is placed at the start of words to the left or right

Ctrl with the up or down arrow keys moves the cursor to the start of the previous or next paragraphs

Have a go at moving the cursor one paragraph at a time: ensure you have more than one paragraph in the trial document, place the cursor somewhere in the middle then press and hold the ctrl key and then the up or down arrow keys

There’s one more option for the cursor keys - can you guess?

Simple computer tips - the keyboard

Enough of copy and paste, and of shortcuts - although I expect there’ll be more of the latter. Now let’s look at the keyboard, in particular some of the odd keys. I’m assuming everyone knows the basic letter and number keys but what are the others?

Let’s start with the cursor move keys. These are normally bottom right on the keyboard and look something like this:

Not surprisingly, these move the cursor up, down, left or right. The cursor (not the mouse pointer) must be in an editor, e-mail composing program or similar for them to work this way. On some web pages, the up and down keys scroll the page - but not on all pages.

Have a go at moving the cursor: while editing a document in Word or an e-mail, try the cursor move arrows and move the cursor in all four directions.

There’s more to these keys - watch this space!

Simple computer tips - two more CTRL shortcuts

These are two shortcuts I use every day. The first is CTRL-Z - as always, press and hold the ctrl key the tap and release the z key. This undoes the last change you made. Most programs support this and allow you to correct an error. The range of corrections is quite wide: from deleting text, through typing additional text to pasting.

Have a go at undoing: create a Word document or e-mail and type some text into it. Then make some changes - such as pasting additional text or moving text or deleting text. Following each change, type ctrl-z - the last change you made is reversed. 

Most editors will support multiple consecutive uses of ctrl-z - i.e. the previous changes are reversed.

Have a go at multiple undoing: make two or three consecutive changes (remember what they were!) then type ctrl-z repeatedly to see if the changes are undone.

The second shortcut is ctrl-a - this selects the entire file. It is very useful when using Notepad as an intermediary to remove formatting as discussed a few days ago. After pasting the selected text into Notepad. Ctrl-a will select it all before copying again. So to use Notepad quickly, copy the text from the source, switch to Notepad then, in sequence: ctrl-v, ctrl-a, ctrl-c. This is paste, select all, copy.

Have a go at copying through Notepad: copy some text, perhaps from this web page. Switch to Notepad then ctrl-v, ctrl-a, ctrl-c. Then switch to the destination editor and paste (ctrl-v).

By the way, in case you hadn’t worked it out, ctrl is short for control!

Simple computer tips - simple copying by dragging

Here’s another very simple tip - how to copy or move text around in a document. Many editors (such as MS Word and most e-mail programs) allow selected text to be moved or copied to another location simply by dragging it. 

Have a go at moving: type some words into Word or into a new e-mail. Mark one or more of the words using one of the techniques described before. Then click and hold down the mouse button on the selected text and drag it to a new location. As you move the mouse, you’ll get a cursor showing where the text will go to. Release the mouse button when this gets to the right place.

You can also copy (rather than move) text using this method: mark the text as before but before clicking and holding, press and hold the ctrl key. When you then drag, the marked text will stay in place and a copy will be placed at the location of the cursor when the mouse button is released. The ctrl key is usually located at the bottom left of the keyboard.

Have a go at copying: as before, type some text into an editor and select one or more words. Press and hold ctrl then drag the text to a new location. 

More about this simple dragging soon

Simple computer tips - copying only the text

Sorry for the long delay - a few days away and then a concert to organise in Church on Saturday, but here goes...

Often you want to pick up the words from a web site or somewhere without all the formatting. Or perhaps you want to copy words from inside a table without picking up the structure of the table. The way to do this is to find Notepad - it’s a simple program that only saves text so any formatting is lost when when text is pasted into it. I have notepad open all the time so that I can use it to remove formatting.

The notepad icon looks like this:

To us it is very simple: open notepad, copy the text from wherever, then paste into notepad. Then mark and copy it again and past into the final destination

Have a go at copying from this page: first try copying text directly from here into a word document or similar. Probably you’ll pick up the colour and font. Now try pasting into notepad as an intermediary, then marking and copying again then pasting in the destination. The formatting should be removed completely

Notepad is very useful for many things - more to come!