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Archives for February 2008

Happy Birthday

1 February, 2008
Posted in: Boys, Family, Princess

Today is my mother’s birthday. Yesterday, I gathered my children together to get them to sing happy birthday winsomely.

They gathered. I attempted to record them but the camera was out of battery and it kept shutting down despite their winsomeness. Mr. Waffle hunted for more batteries. While he did so, the Princess went to get some plastic cake which would add lustre to the singing display. Daniel wanted the cake. The Princess would not give it to him because he was only a baby. We encouraged her to share nevertheless. She lost her temper and said she would not sing unless she alone held the cake as was only right because only she could hold it properly. She began to cry joining her brother in disharmonious weeping. Michael was beside me for the duration hoping to get his gums around the new batteries that were being slotted into the camera “Can I? Can I?”. We removed the cake from the arrangement, the batteries were safely stowed in the camera and the Princess led her brothers in song. And yes, I know, it’s a bit dark.

Happy birthday, Mummy.

The Weekend of the Rat

4 February, 2008
Posted in: Belgium, Family

Thank you all for your kind comments on my children’s singing. Just as well you did because my mother has still not inspected the winsome mites on Youtube. True, she is a little dubious about the computer and all its works. True, also, she had them sing live to her on the telephone but that is not the same thing at all. Her defence is that she has had a busy weekend, what with the rugby and everything. This is, clearly, no defence at all; she should have struck to berating the computer which, in my parents’ house, is known as the monster in the study. She has, however, started the book I gave her for her birthday. My sister-in-law recommended it to me and lent me her copy; a decision, I suspect, she now regrets as I still have it in my grubby little mitts. Lest there be any confusion, I hasten to clarify that my mother got a span new copy. A copy she has been reading with interest. It is set in the 1930s and is a series of funny tales (I think “gently humourous” is the kind of expression the blurb writers would go for) about the fictional diarist’s life in the English countryside with her husband and two daughters. “It really,” said my mother “gives you a feel for a period, it reminds me of Di Lampedusa“. As I told her, I suspect that this is the first time this comparison has been made.

This morning the joys of communal living were manifest from 6.00. Normally we wake our building when the children start screaming at 7.30. However, the students on the top floor were going away and spent their time from 6.00 huffing and puffing up and down with ski gear. It appeared that the best way to get poles down was to fling them into the stairwell and let them bounce to the ground floor while laughing manically the while. Maybe it just sounded that way.

We took ourselves to a museum to let the boys run around and work up an appetite for a nap. Is there anything more appealing than a large museum with few visitors, endless corridors and enormous rooms filled with odd items? Usually this museum is empty but today, we coincided with a series of activities to celebrate the Year of the Rat and a distressing number of people were milling about in the foyer. Happily, they all appeared to want to sign up for calligraphy demonstrations and we were allowed to inspect the exhibition of miniature Chinese houses in peace. We also admired Cinderella’s carriage in splendid isolation. All in all, it was a very satisfactory morning, the only crisis was caused by one of the bottles we had brought for the boys leaking all over the bag it was in and my husband’s jumper. Daniel pointed to the wet floor and said sagely “Michael spill actimel“. (Actimel is the work of Satan, the kids all love it because of its knacky little bottle and then they can’t get their mouths round it and spill it down their fronts. Every time I give them a bottle, the two lads say “very careful”. I digress.) On leaving, the foyer was still heaving and, in a very Belgian way, the lady in the cloakroom was refusing coats (see proof they’ve never had this many people before). “It’s full, I’ve already said it’s full, go away, do you expect me to hang your coats on the wall?” she said angrily to a crowd of innocent punters who, having purchased their tickets, were not going to be let into the museum until they had divested themselves of their coats, something Madame in the cloakroom was steadfastly refusing to allow them to do. All that was missing to make it a classic Belgian scene was for someone to start complaining about the linguistic regime.

Tomorrow is the start of mid-term. Herself has been signed up for a week long course of sport to which she is looking forward with all the enthusiasm of a condemned prisoner. It’s a bit difficult to get to and the hours are different from school, leading to some logistical difficulties. When the boys were in the bath this evening I explained at tremendous length to my husband that, if I had to leave work early to collect herself I would prefer it to be Thursday because I have a lot on tomorrow and then I’ll have to leave a bit early on Tuesday, because it’s pancake Tuesday and we’ll be making pancakes and then I’ll be a bit frantic but, if on the other hand, I collect her on Thursday, I can get a good run on things on Monday, leave calmly on Tuesday and, by Thursday, all should be well for me to knock off a little early and collect herself, but, on the other hand, if I did have to collect her tomorrow, then he should let me know because I would take the car to work. He said, “what, sorry, I wasn’t listening, do you want to get her tomorrow or Thursday?” “Thursday”, I said, a shade coldly.

In our continuing efforts to illustrate to our sons that they both have a mother and a father and that they have not each been assigned to a particular parent, I took Daniel rather than Michael out of the bath again. My impudence was greeted with an outburst of angry weeping from Michael. I explained firmly that I am Daniel’s Mama too. “NO! Daddy, Daniel’s Mama!” he said. I think we have a mountain to climb here.

And finally, did you see that Carla and Sarko got married over the weekend? Maybe they should have waited until the Year of the Rat started. Don’t be like that, it’s supposed to be auspicious for marriages.

Travel Agents, first against the wall when the revolution 3.0 comes

4 February, 2008
Posted in: Belgium

Mr. Waffle and I went to a travel agent for the first time in many years recently. We wanted to check availability of ski holidays for this year and our internet research was proving a little difficult.

The woman tittered (oh yes she did) when she heard that we were thinking about booking something for this year. The first week we suggested was all booked up. “It’s too late, forget it”, she said gloomily [don’t they get a commission, for God’s sake?]. We persisted. She sighed audibly. “How about the week of March 22?” I said. She raised what was left of her eyebrows and tapped her long manicured fingers on the desk, “Ah March 22, you might get something it’s so late, but there will be no snow”.

“Could you try it all the same?”

“Oh but it’s EASTER” she said contemptuously having peered at her calendar, “there will be nothing”.
Maybe some snow after all then. There was one one star apartment left which, she said, she would very much advise against taking, particularly with a family.

We left in a huff. She smiled merrily. Another victory for Belgian customer service.  If we can’t find anything, the Princess will murder us.  She and I have been looking at children skiing on youtube and she fancies the notion of herself whizzing down the slopes.

Enough Already

7 February, 2008
Posted in: Mr. Waffle, Princess

Her : Je n’ai pas déjà fini.

Him : Pas encore.

Her : Je ne peux pas dire ‘pas déjà’ ?

Him (diplomatically): Pas encore est mieux.

Her : Je ne peux pas encore dire ‘pas déjà’?

Some random things from the internet

7 February, 2008
Posted in: Reading etc.

I am indebted to Nicholas for the information that Terry Pratchett is unwell.  Alas, I am very sad but Mr. Pratchett appears not to have lost his sense of humour.

Pensionbook, courtesy of the lovely Bobble.

Superb coverage of the Martin Lukes trial in the FT: http://www.ft.com/comment/columnists/martinlukes

English Catholics

8 February, 2008
Posted in: Reading etc.

The English are a funny bunch and particularly funny in their attitudes to catholics. I found an article in the Independent which struck me as bizarre. I have commented on bits of it because it’s my blog and I can. You can read the whole thing here, should you so wish. It is, inevitably, inspired by Tony Blair’s conversion which has flummoxed the nation.

“In 2006, it was revealed that Father Seed had regularly been celebrating Mass at 10 Downing Street for cradle-Catholic Cherie Blair and the couple’s four Catholic-educated children. Did Tony attend too? Father Seed looks surprised that I even need to ask: “Of course.””

Well, yes, because I would have thought that it would be rude not to, particularly if it was a family mass. For me, it would be odd, if he hadn’t gone along. You know when he married Cherie, he promised to bring any children up Catholic. That’s what we’re like, us Catholics, we think of everything. And isn’t the expression “cradle catholic” hilarious and faintly derogatory? Almost implying she became a catholic before she knew any better and had she been older and wiser she certainly wouldn’t have done it, not like Tony. I’m forced to point out that, by rights, their children should be “cradle-catholics” as well and not just catholic educated. Where will it all end? Rome will invade.

“Father Seed, though, is a friar, a member of a religious order that is part of the Franciscan family. So, while the Jesuits were founded as a quasi-military religious order to reconvert Europe after the Reformation, the Franciscans have an older, less aggressive mandate: to support those in need. That is how the man sitting opposite me sees his work: helping people through a spiritual crisis. Whether or not they end up converting is immaterial. “We are all Christians. And that’s that. Therefore the pilgrimage we make is a movement of Christ, and if it is an authentic movement, we should be joyful about people becoming Catholic or Anglican or Methodist.””

Of course, for us, the Jesuits are the intellectuals of the Church, though conceding their role in the counter-reformation, for me the Jesuits say smart, smart, smart not agressive, agressive, agressive. You know, we send money to the missions, you know we actually are supposed to want to convert everyone, even the nice Franciscans.

“So he started going to say Mass in their flat above Number 11 Downing Street. Father Seed is eager to portray this special treatment not as a privilege, but as a kind of torture. “Mrs Blair” – he never uses their first names – “absolutely hated it. She hated not being able to go to Mass with everyone else.”

I absolutely believe this. Part of the nice thing about going to Mass is that sense of Catholic community and though I never appreciated it when I was younger, I do now. Mass at home is nice from time to time for a special occasion. All the time, and they must have felt slightly cut off.

“For some in the press,” he continues, “it seems that Mr Blair’s reception came in the end as a shock. Though there was no reason why it should. I suppose it is the phenomenon that Catholicism is seen as seriously naughty.”

It is an odd choice of words. Catholicism is more traditionally seen as rather upright, moral and – at least in matters sexual – not in the least bit “naughty”. Only when you are married, straight, in the missionary position, not using a condom and want to conceive a baby is about as naughty as it gets.

Have to say that I am with the journalist here but I get what the priest says as well. To the English, Catholicism seems to be all about exotic foreigners, smells and bells, ceremonies and rites and not children running up and down the aisle inadequately restrained by mortified parents.

“I was asked to preach in the Tower of London,” Father Seed counters, “on the 400th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot. I think I was the first Catholic priest to get in – and get out.” He has a nervous laugh. “And there is something about that; that Catholics were once about to blow up Parliament. There is still something mysterious and naughty about us. It is to our advantage. Catholics in this country are, in reality, a fairly conformist group, but we are still seen as nonconformist. Had Mr Blair become a Methodist, for example, I don’t think there would have been the same reaction.”

I think that this must all relate back to the whole issue of loyalty to Rome; although it is extraordinary that this should still be an issue as it is many centuries since Rome has been a temporal power, though I can see how it could have been an issue, say around the time of the gunpowder plot. Lytton Strachey’s “Eminent Victorians” is very good on the 1870 Vatican Council and the impact the declaration of the doctrine of papal infallibility had on the English [if memory serves something like – they’ve gone too far this time]. Would like to quote “Eminent Victorians” to add glamour to the text but cannot find it. Am nevertheless pleased that I have, in the sentence before last given the impression that I have read several books on the 1870 Council which, unfortunately, we all know, is far from the truth.*

“The question of Blair’s timing, though, remains interesting. By leaving it until he had left office, there was a sense that Tony Blair was either embarrassed by his decision, or regarded it as improper for a Catholic to be prime minister. Hardly evidence that Catholics are conformist? “I don’t think it is that,” Father Seed corrects. “There are some good reasons why he did it when he did it, but they are more private. But the time was right. If it had happened while he was in office, it would have caused him more difficulty, that blurring of the public and the private. The same would be true if it had been immediately after he left office. By waiting, it was very dignified, very correct, very quiet. No announcement.” Was he there at the private ceremony? “I can’t say,” he replies. I take it as a yes.”

The timing is interesting though, isn’t it? Was Britain not ready for a Catholic Prime Minister or was it just a matter of personal conscience for Tony Blair. It seems a little unfair to speculate but my feeling is that a practising Catholic would have a lot more difficulty in winning the affection and the votes of the English than an Anglican who went to services a couple of times a year. It is the exact opposite to America where you must parade your religion or risk electoral suicide. Do you think that there might be a middle ground?

* Found the whole of “Eminent Victorians” on line here.

Have a look at this quote:

“He [some minor bit character, never mind] was now engaged in fluttering like a moth round the Council, and in writing long letters to Mr. Gladstone, impressing upon him the gravity of the situation, and urging him to bring his influence to bear. If the Dogma [of papal infallibility] were carried, he declared, no man who accepted it could remain a loyal subject, and Catholics would everywhere become “irredeemable enemies of civil and religious liberty.” In these circumstances, was it not plainly incumbent upon the English Government, involved as it was with the powerful Roman Catholic forces in Ireland, to intervene? … There was a semi-official agent of the English Government in Rome, Mr. Odo Russell, and round him Manning set to work to spin his spider’s web of delicate and clinging diplomacy. Preliminary politenesses were followed by long walks upon the Pincio, and the gradual interchange of more and more important and confidential communications. Soon poor Mr. Russell was little better than a fly buzzing in gossamer. And Manning was careful to see that he buzzed on the right note. In his despatches to the Foreign Secretary, Lord Clarendon, Mr. Russell explained in detail the true nature of the Council, that it was merely a meeting of a few Roman Catholic prelates to discuss some internal matters of Church discipline, that it had no political significance whatever, that the question of Infallibility, about which there had been so much random talk, was a purely theological question, and that, whatever decision might be come to upon the subject, the position of Roman Catholics throughout the world would remain unchanged. Whether the effect of these affirmations upon Lord Clarendon was as great as Manning supposed, is somewhat doubtful; but it is at any rate certain that Mr. Gladstone failed to carry the Cabinet with him; and when at last a proposal was definitely made that the English Government should invite the Powers of Europe to intervene at the Vatican, it was rejected.”

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