From time to time I treat myself to a copy of the International Herald Tribune. It pleases me to get a North American view on what we are doing, and how we are doing it in Europe, and the local view on their own doings and happenings in America.

Hereabouts, in my view, we are fed a very limited diet of information on the USA.

Given that these days I receive most of my information via radio, I find that the rounded and opinionated packages delivered by Richard Downes illuminate little, as I do the answers of some poor devil who has agreed to stay up half the night to field questions from Cathal Mac Ciolle and Aine Lawlor, as they are most often academics who deliver opinions that are even more predictable than those of Downes.
Pat Kenny can manage an interview that takes a direction of its own but too often it is with the - 'I'll just tell you how I advised the President' - Niall O'Dowd or, for some reason, a favoured taxi driver.
And then there's the prefectorial Mary Wilson, who knows it all already and, when she can take time off from correcting her minions, Fergal Keane and Philip Boucher-Hayes, is distant and dismissive of any unfortunate correspondent delivered to her.

Wow, forgive that rant, especially since its delivery was not my purpose here.

Anyway, anyway, yesterday was one of those days when I bought myself an IHT and it did not disappoint.

Having found out what they think about their handling of their 'financial cliff' problem and our handling of our Euro problems I turned to a column that appears from time to time on the opinions pages entitled 'Meanwhile'.

This column may be about anything and by anybody but is often a wry observation, a sideways glance or an illumination of a thought, preference or deed that surprises - often by its obviousness.

And yesterday was one such day when Verlyn Klinkenborg, who is a member of the New York Times editorial board, tells the story of how, having endured twenty years of a vocal chord problem that had distorted his speech, he had had it restored to its norm by successful surgery.
He pointed out that he had to take this 'normality' of his voice on trust because it was entirely the opinion of others, there being no substantial recording of his speech before its deterioration.

He went on to point out that while we accumulate copious photographs of the progress of our lives, unless it is an individual's profession, there is unlikely to be any accessible recording of a person's voice.
He muses-on that this has always been the case since the inventions of photography and sound recording and that, for instance, he regretted that he had no recording of his mother's voice, she who had died twenty years ago but noted that he had no recording of his father's voice either, he who had died just four years ago.
It's simply not what we do.

He noted that the ubiquitous smart phone is equally, instantly capable of making sound recordings as it is of snapping pictures but, largely, we don't do it.

He goes on, and it is a beautifully rounded and crafted piece, but it is its ending that particularly caught my attention:

And if I really could go back to an earlier self, here's what I'd say: while capturing sound is now so easy, make sure you record the voices you will want to hear again. The sound alone will say everything someday.

Now, as you know, my brother died recently and I realised, at once, that I have no record of his distinctive voice.

And then, and this I think emphasises Mr. Klinkenborg's point almost perfectly, I phoned Canada last week to speak with my brother's wife.
There was nobody home.
The voice on the answer-phone message was my brother's.
I was quite taken aback.