Siblings

on 20 April 2005 at 14:50

I now imagine him kipping in a doorway. Or possibly a field. Which sounds about right for Mr feckless ….

on 20 April 2005 at 14:50

ps poor mite

on 20 April 2005 at 14:56

Hmm…you sure you didn’t just take a handy day off? Didn’t leave herself out in the rain on purpose last night or anything? 😉
How is the job going by the way?

on 20 April 2005 at 19:13

That’s just plain cruel. Dragging a poor, sad child from her sick-bed and force marching her to the local Amazon. And you complain about lack of sympathy among those around you… !

on 21 April 2005 at 20:02

Pog, feckless, but concerned for his own comfort, he will be looked after like the lilies of the field. Poor mite recovered, thanks. Loc, no absolutely not, when I take a handy day off, madam will be at the creche. Jack, yes, I’m mean.

Stalking

18 April, 2005
Posted in: Siblings

“Dear Siblings,

Look an email from Peter Devlin. Even though they play in obscure places and are not prolific on the album front, it is good to be a Devlin’s fan!!!

Should really be in bed but far too excited too sleep now!!!

Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2005 20:22:15 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: thank you……

i wanted to write and thank you for your very kind words in the note we received in vancouver . colin and i read it on the journey back to seattle and it put a smile on our faces at the end of a very long and tiring tour. it means so much to get feedback from people who really appreciate what we are doing. thank you.and we must say thank you for making the effort to travel from chicago – we would love to go back there and play , possibly in sept / oct when we hope to return to n.america with the full band for a tour. maybe we’ll get to see you then. in the meantime, take care of yourself and thank you once again.
sincerely,
peter devlin.”

Not much on capitalisation the Devlins but yes,
very good to their fans. On the strength of their caring
attitude to my sister and a quick listen to their stuff from this site, I have purchased the album “Waves” from Messrs. Amazon and have been instructed by my sister to encourage you to do likewise.

Comments

on 19 April 2005 at 02:16

Can’t say they do it for me – but very decent of them to write back. Your sister isn’t Lorraine Keane from TV3 by any chance? Because apparently she pretty much stalked a Devlin until he went out with her. And now they’re married. If she’s not, maybe it’s an idea for her to work on?

on 19 April 2005 at 10:44

Blimey. Mind you, if it was a handwritten note I’d be really impressed ….

on 20 April 2005 at 12:25

Good man, Jack. Locotes, must pass this news on to my sister. Think based on form she must have a good chance with the other brother. Does this mean Lorraine Keane would be related to me, though? Ah, pog, you’re no fun.

on 20 April 2005 at 12:46

Me? How can you say that? Hmmm?
(Pretty boys, them Devlins ….)

on 20 April 2005 at 12:57

I’d say it’s just the photos, pog.

on 20 April 2005 at 12:59

Is it? Damn.

on 20 April 2005 at 14:54

Hmm…the future relation to LK could be a problem alright, though at least being in Belgian-hiding you wouldn’t see her often. She’s Ireland’s most fashionable woman though (allegedly) – so that’s bound to be handy…

on 20 April 2005 at 18:58

Whatever chance ‘waf2 has of landing a Devlin is likely to be seriously undermined if one of them ever comes across this discussion. None are bloggers by any chance are they?
Anyway, he’s probably just after her money… 😐

on 20 April 2005 at 19:01

Or worse: her innocence…..

on 21 April 2005 at 20:05

Loc, this is no comfort. Jack, I only wish I could work up to that kind of fame. And what innocence?

Sympathy

16 April, 2005
Posted in: Siblings

Email from my feckless brother:”Checked in to the Blog for the first time in a while today…….it seems you were unhappy with the level of sympathy your rash was getting with the
family and turned to your blog readership for some more.

Good to see the Blog still survives notwithstanding the pressures of parenthood, ‘serious’ illness and gainful employment. Strange to see you out past your bedtime when I called last night…..hope you had a good night”

Comments

jackdaltonon 17 April 2005 at 12:43

I think that’s a very commendable and brotherly sort of email. Telling it straight and yet no eviseration or excoration involved.
In fact, I’d be proud if I’d written something like that to my feckless and self-indulgent sibling….

belgianwaffleon 17 April 2005 at 13:58

Heather, that is the correct response. Jack, go to the back of the class.

poggleon 18 April 2005 at 10:33

The cheeky b…. – erm – brother.

belgianwaffleon 18 April 2005 at 19:56

No, no pog, right the first time.

Impressed

20 February, 2005
Posted in: Siblings

More complex anecdotes from my brother’s skiing holiday. He managed to annoy his instructor by getting into some mild difficulty on the chairlift. I am not quite sure how this happened but he placed himself so that the instructor ended up sitting on his lap and had to jump off the lift from a height.Â Apparently this had never happened to the ski instructor before in 20 years instructing. How empty his life must have been.

It appears that the ski instructor was a bit of a rough character and he started telling his class racist jokes.Â My brother said to me “I didn’t know where to look”. I was a bit surprised by this, because my brother is a bit of a lad and I would have thought that hearing racist jokes would have formed part of his past experience. But this is not all. My brother decided that something would have to be done and that night while buying drinks at the bar, he said to the ski instructor “You know man [favourite word of my brother’s – it works very well in a Cork accent], you can’t tell those racist jokes”. Gobsmacked, I asked “what did he say?” “Well” said my brother ” I thought he might be a bit annoyed but in fact he said – yeah, I suppose you’re right”. And that, apparently, was that. No more racist jokes for the week.Â I am quite proud of my laddish brother. Whereas I, bleeding heart liberal that I am, would have been appalled but never had the nerve to say anything.

Comments

Friar Tuck

on 21 February 2005 at 16:54

Re your sister: I worry less about her than I do Cher. With all her silicon bits, I wouldn’t think she would need anyone’s support.
Re your brother’s skilift incident: I tried that once with my English teacher. She saw right through it.

on 23 February 2005 at 19:52

Pog, you are correct. FT, you are probably correct also.

Security

16 January, 2005
Posted in: Reading etc., Siblings

Those of you who have been concentrating will know that my sister lives in the US. Her important job involves her flying to Mexico next week, business class whereas mine involves me flying economy to a ludicrously less glamourous location, but this is just a bitter digression.

We were chatting yesterday and she told me that her (American) bridge partner and his (American) girlfriend went out for a drive last week and they stopped to take pictures of a beautiful sunset with the girlfriend’s Christmas present, a snazzy new digital camera. Silhouetted against the sunset, romantically (we have to take their word for this) was an oil refinery.Â As they were going to drive off, they were stopped by the police who asked for their driving licences. They opened the window and handed them over. Then they were asked for the car keys. They handed them over and the police wandered back to their car with these items. The bridge partner was a bit distressed by this as his car has electronic windows and they were open and it is cold in the North of the US in winter, I understand. But he didn’t like to protest. And as his car windows were open he was able to hear the following dialogue:

Policeman to radio: Will we take them in for questioning at this time?

Radio: Cackle, cackle

Policeman to radio: Ok, not at this time.

The policemen returned to the car, gave them back their keys and drivers’ licences and wiped their photographs. Then they said “your details have been passed on to the Department of Homeland Security and you may be called in for questioning in relation to this incident any time over the next 12 months but you are now free to go”.

I’m only glad my sister wasn’t there, she’d probably be deported by now.

And does all this not chime rather depressingly with the extract below from December’s LRB?Â“The Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben does not want his fingerprints taken and, unlike like most European critics of the evil empire, he has been willing to forego an academic visit to the United States in order to prevent it happening. What is at stake, he explains, is the Â‘new Â“normalÂ” bio-political relationship between citizens and the stateÂ’. Fingerprinting makes Â‘the most private and incommunicable aspect of subjectivity .. the bodyÂ’’s biological lifeÂ’ part of the system of state control. […] For Agamben, fingerprinting is not just a matter of civil liberties: it is symptomatic of an alarming shift in political geography. We have moved from Athens to Auschwitz: the WestÂ’s political model is now the concentration camp rather than the city state; we are no longer citizens but detainees, distinguishable from the inmates of Guantanamo not by any difference in legal status, but only by the fact that we have not yet had the misfortune to be incarcerated Â– or unexpectedly executed by a missile from an unmanned aircraftÂ [this] political developmentÂ is not, according to Agamben, peculiar to the United States under the Bush presidency. It is part of a wider change in governance in which the rule of law is routinely displaced by the state of exception, or emergency, and people are increasingly subject to extra-judicial state violence.

Comments

on 17 January 2005 at 11:54
(
Comment Modified) Mr Agamben is, depressingly, absolutely right ….
See UK ID cards: The Chief Constable for the Manchester area, who is pro, said in justification of his support for the scheme something along the lines of: ” for instance, just look at this weekend when there is a street festival – I have no idea who is in the city.”
Well, forgive me for wondering why the f**k it’s his business to know where I am at any time at all?

Beth

(Homepage)

on 19 January 2005 at 02:08

Cross my heart we aren’t all psycho freaks – just the ones in power at the moment.

on 21 January 2005 at 22:38

Pog, it’s all very depressing.
Beth, I know, especially the bloggers clearly..

on 21 January 2005 at 22:40

Bobble, kind of funny all the same about them not being able to get your digital print…

Double standards

5 November, 2004
Posted in: Siblings

My brother came for a lightening mid-week visit.Â It was very nice to see him.Â I find that family make for relaxing visitors.Â My brother arrived and slung his coat over the chair and I barked “hang that up”.Â With other visitors, I tend to say “Will I hang that up for you or would you prefer to leave it there on the chair?”Â He went out with some friends on Wednesday night and I said to him “Take off your shoes when you come in and tiptoe down the corridor.Â I swear to God, if you wake my baby, I will rend you limb from limb”.Â With other visitors, I tend to say “ok, see you later then, we might be in bed when you come in, but we’ll leave a light on and, oh, don’t worry about the baby, she sleeps like a log”.Â Still, I don’t think many visitors would ring me in the early hours of Thursday morning and say without a trace of guilt or shame “Where is it you live again, I’ve forgotten and the taxi driver needs to know”.

Swings and roundabouts then.

Comments

on 05 November 2004 at 11:59

I wish I had a sister like you…. 🙁 0

on 05 November 2004 at 17:00

I’m highly suspicious he did that on purpose to teach his overly-strict sis a lesson…

on 06 November 2004 at 11:55

Norah, thank you, and a sweetie too. Jack, really?? Loc, no, that’s how he is. He is a middle child who prides himself on his vagueness, he was also born under a lucky star.

on 06 November 2004 at 12:12

yep… really.

on 06 November 2004 at 12:35

Jack, am touched. You clearly have no older sister of your own who used to torture you…poor Jack.

Friar Tuck

on 06 November 2004 at 17:28

Hey, I resent the implicatoins of your “middle chlid” comment!
BTW, would you mind taking care of those misspellings? Thanks.