I had chips for lunch yesterday. I went to the Maison Antoine. It has been many years since I had the opportunity to check out what are, by common consent, the best chips in Brussels and I was not disappointed. There was a notice in the window saying that, as potatoes are small at this time of year, punters may get the odd small chip in their servings. The upset caused by this is deeply regretted.
Belgium
More from the Filipino community
Our babysitter’s husband has been awarded Belgian citizenship and there was a celebration in the local town hall to celebrate this (knowing Belgian celebrations I suspect that it was accompanied by a vast range of edibles, I digress). Like me, the local mayor was rather pleased with himself for knowing that they speak Tagalog and asked the newly minted Belgian citizen how to say “welcome” in Tagalog. In fact, it appears that there are over 170 languages in the Philippines. Our babysitter and her husband speak Illonggo along with 7 million other Filipinos and their grasp of Tagalog is rudimentary, much like mine of Irish. Our babysitter tells me that her husband was very flustered and started asking his friends and relatives in the room how to say “welcome” in Tegalog. You can imagine the mayor must have been a bit surprised that this guy was having difficulty telling him the word for “welcome” in what the mayor believed to be his native tongue. Our babysitter, however, came to the rescue she advised him to “for heaven’s sake, tell him how to say it in Illonggo, it’s not as though he can tell the difference”.
People, there’s a whole world out there.
Linkedy link
Today we went to Ghent. Although Ghent was, as always, very pleasant, the whole experience was so exhausting, I have no energy to describe it. Have a couple of links instead.
Men breastfeeding: all they have to do is try.
Jojo’s fantasy life: you will really like this.Â
My sister’s attempt to ensure that her carbon footprint is suitably significant: 186,865 kms and 5 continents so far this year.
French as she is spoken
I heard a man on the radio the other morning talking about the Walloon economy (unwell compared to thriving Flanders – I suspect that if you had the slightest interest in hearing that, you knew it already). Anyhow, he was saying that the benefits from the Flemish economy also help Wallonia “ce que nous economistes appellons ‘le spillover’â€. Is there no word in the language of Voltaire to cover this concept? Or self-service restaurant “le self†or air conditioning “l’airco†or a car park “le parkingâ€? The final insult to the French language was delivered on the radio this evening. The Belgian ambassador to Sweden has written a book and he was being interviewed. “So”, said the interviewer, “if two diplomats have a ‘spirited exchange of views’ it means they had a huge fight, right?” “C’est vrai” said the diplomat” que la langage de la diplomatie, c’est la langage de l’understatement” Tell me, is there really no equivalent for the word “understatement” in the language of diplomacy? Good grief. You will note that I am making progress on my aim of becoming a grumpy pedant in two languages.
And, in an entirely unrelated matter, please consider what is possibly the greatest waste of money, ever. I appreciate that this is a challenging category in which to excel, but I think you will agree that this product sees off the opposition in style. Credit for disseminating information on this new high in the tasteless, expensive and useless goes to Spirit Fingers.
Insights gained on public transport
I was on the metro recently (standing) and an elderly woman and her son were travelling together.  He was about my age and she was possibly in her 70s and looked very unwell.  She was leaning heavily against the wall for support.  Nobody got up to give her a seat. I looked very disapprovingly at the eight sitting commuters in my line of sight.  I didn’t say anything because her son was with her and I thought that, if he didn’t say anything, then it was hardly my place to step in.*  My deepest disapproval was reserved for a young man in his 20s with no visible handicap who was sitting comfortably while talking loudly on his mobile phone and casually surveying the rest of us.  I gave him my look of utter disdain. I have had some practice with the look of utter disdain. I once had to employ it against a range of men in their 50s and 60s who felt it was perfectly acceptable to warmly squeeze the shoulders of young women who came within their ample range.  I have to say that in that context it was not particularly effective and perhaps my friend D’s approach would have got better results, she suggested that I say to the next squeezer “touch me again and you pull back a bloody stumpâ€.  She told me that she had had good results with that in the past.  I opted to go for her sister’s approach of refining my look of utter disdain.  I spent some time curling my lip while she (the sister) sighed despairingly and said “no, no, that’s a come hither lookâ€.  I had always felt that she was entirely wrong about that.  However, the other day when eventually, the metro emptied out, I ended up sitting beside the loud young man.  I gave him my concentrated look of utter disdain and he winked at me. Well, that does explain a lot about the squeezers.
*Being helpful is sometimes not very helpful.  Witness the man who very helpfully rushed to help me put the boys’ buggy on the tram this morning.  He refused to let any passengers get out wrested the buggy from me and started pushing it forcefully on to the tram. In his enthusiasm, he managed to wake both boys (who had been sleeping peacefully) by somehow collapsing Daniel’s side of the buggy and poking Michael in the eye with the parasol. Both woke up and began to howl in understandable indignation. Struggling to make myself heard over the bawling, I thanked my helper through gritted teeth. There’s no pleasing some people.
Summer
The weather is beautiful here today and I have just started working slightly reduced hours meaning that I have a half day on Wednesday. The Princess and I have just lunched and she is now napping while I idle. It all feels very illicit. I have been using the time to catch up on old emails. Maybe this is a little mean, but let me quote to you an email text in full:
“Hi,
Sorry, but I’m a French spoken guy. I would like to know how jou translate “Choisir c’est renoncer” in English. Hint: in Dutch it’s: Kiezen is verliezen. By the way, do you know an English spoken guy who would be happy to correct my English … and I would correct his French. The problem is that because of my job when I post a request I need an answer rather quickly (a couple of hours ). Thanks and Congratulations about your baby.â€
OK, Fabian, since you ask, I too searched the internet to find “choisir c’cest renoncer†in English. It was not there or at least I couldn’t find it and since you are mailing me and the title of my blog post was your best bet, I presume you experienced similar difficulties. If it’s any comfort to you, I looked up the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations in hard copy and couldn’t find it there either. Yes, this is a quality blog. Thanks for the tip on the Dutch translation though, if I’d known that at the time, it would have made all the difference.
Tempting though your offer to an “english spoken guy†is, I’m afraid that I can’t, just now, identify someone who would be willing to provide a free English language revision check in a couple of hours, even in exchange for your kind offer to do likewise to a French text.
Thanks for congratulations on my baby, it makes your message so personal. Actually, I have twins and a three year old: which particular baby did you wish to congratulate me on? No, I am not bitter. No, really. The sun is shining and I only have two loads of washing to do.