When to keep schtum?

Overmark - otherwise known as highlighting. If you have successfully highlighted text, you can press Control C to copy, or Control X to erase. Move the cursor to the place where you want to place the text and press Control V to paste. I used to work on an Apple and it worked with that as well as MS. I much prefer using these key codes to having to deal with right clicking and a drop-down menu.

Well, overmark just puts a coloured band over the text you want to copy but I do not have an ipad so I am now in a position where I know even less about it than you do.

Thanks for trying to help Flickety but I am still lost! No mouse on iPad and what's an overmark function?

gracesnan If more older women were prepared to be assertive like you we wouldn't be overlooked so much.

Bellasnana
1) run the overmark function (Hold figure down on right hand button on mouse) while you ruin it over the text you wish to cut or copy.

2) With mouse cursor still within overmarked area let go right button and press left button.

3) This will bring up a short menu listing 'cut', 'copy' and 'paste' among the options. Click on 'copy' or 'cut', which ever you choose

4) Move directly to the place you want to place the new text.

5) right click the mouse then left click, which will bring the menu up again and this time click on paste

- and there it is.

gracesmum that's funny a very similar thing happened to me last week. A member of my tennis club who is a Scot (but lives in London and France) gets terribly stroppy when she is referred to as English - its only the French who do it, they lump us all together - its understandable. So to soothe the particular Frenchman who was reeling from her wrath, I said "well the English can't wait for the Scots to get their independence, they won't need to turn their clocks back in deference to the Scottish farmers any more". Just my little joke and not intended to offend. WELL she rose another few feet up into the air and called me tactless! I thought I was laughingly smoothing over a difficult moment! Then she marched off in a huff! Don't think she'll be speaking to me again - am I bothered?

The lady in question sounds very like my younger sister gracesmum. There are days when she pushes all the wrong buttons and I'm not happy to let it go.

I find being assertive takes practice- it is too easy to let things go for an easy life and while I agree you should pick your argument wisely, nevertheless I felt getting this particular ( albeit trivial) item out in the open actually cleared the air for me. The lady in question is quite a bit older than me (into her 80's but in full possession of the marbles so I can't put it down to forgetfulness!) and very opinionated - sometimes I do wonder if any of it is a wind-up as she can say some outrageously right wing things, but I suspect not(!) But the fact that she was so adamant that she knew was like a tiny little red rag to a bull to me !! As I said if the boot had been on the other foot, I would have been happy to "bow to her superior knowledge".

Standing up to people when they make unacceptable statements, especially in public can also take courage but reminds me of the poem which starts:
"First they came for the Communists, but I didn't speak out...."

On a similar vein . I'm 'friends on Facebook' with a girl from work, she's seemed a nice jolly girl. However, she has been posting a number of unpleasant posts regarding Muslim women wearing burkas, hijabs etc. These posts seem to come from a society called Britain First, who call these women 'mosque monkeys' or 'ragheads' .The woman's husband seems to be very strong on this and adds a lot of very offensive material in his comments. He keeps saying he is proud to be British. I pointed out that I'm proud to be a member of a country that allows people to express their cultural way in the manner of their dress ie burkas, turbans etc. Needless to say I am hiding their comment and have reported them to Facebook

As one who said I would let it go I'm in total agreement with thatbags.
In my opinion it's not a question of being a doormat or not standing up to someone.
It's how much importance you put on the need for the other person to know you are right.

I would have just pointed out that David Mellor doesn't have a daughter knowing that she'd be googling him as soon as she got home.

I saw one of those plaque things today: it said 'I could agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong'. Nice put down, I'm saving it for Mr H!.

I do try to be nice to people and not to get confrontational, but sometimes it is so good to be able to be able to say "There! You were wrong and I was right!!!" If nothing else it confirms that the brain is still ticking over.

gracesmum I would have done the same. But it doesn't make you popular!

Gracesmum, it sounds as though she welcomed your email. Is she younger than you? I sometimes feel young people who don't know us well make all sorts of assumptions. Well, that one that we don't know anything,and have staggered through life not noticing things, springs to mind.

Sound like you don't care if you piss this particular member off, gracesmum so why not stick up for yourself. And it takes a bit of gall to turn up to a book group having not bothered to read the book. (Spent several hours of a sunday recently reading the dreary Casual Vacancy so that i could hold my head up!)

Tegan I think the plonker you have in mind is Michael Gove.

Keeping quiet over trivial things is not the same as keeping quiet over important stuff and doing the former does not make one a mouse or doormat, so long as one can speak up when something really matters.

No reflection on you, btw, gm. Just a general remark as several people have mentioned how important it is that women are not afraid to be assertive when they need to be.

Thing is Gracesmum that so many of us (me included) just let it go for a quiet life, or can't be bothered, or are not confrontational. This means folk like the lady in your group just keep on being objectionable and upsetting people. So, I say, well done you and I hope to be able to follow your example should the need arise

Thumbs up to you graces, I would have checked once I got home just to confirm to myself I was right (which quite obviously is always the case anyway) and probably do exactly what you did - in a courteous manner of course!

I wouldn't argue face to face because my memory is so poor, but I would have checked the facts and mentioned it to her next time.
I'm much stroppier now than I used to be, and I blame you lot totally!


Good for you gracesmum

Good on you GM!

I think I would have printed the article and taken it to the next meeting!

I'm just impressed that you know how to 'cut and paste' as I wouldn't have a clue how to do it!

Dammit, tell 'em you are right! You can do it nicely (as you plainly did, gracesmum) so that you don't come over as a big-headed know-it-all but it has long been a female trait to shut up, instead of standing up! I'm with you, every time.