belgianwaffle

Archives for 3 April, 2004

LRB


Posted in: Reading etc.

A friend gave me a subscription to this publication.  I was most pleased.  It suits all my pretensions.   As I am fond of saying, my parents paid good money for these pretensions and I don’t see why I shouldn’t use them.  The first copy arrived last week and it is very hard.  Long, long book reviews.   Not bad in parts though (there’s damned with faint praise). We’re not going to throw it out when we’ve finished it, we’re going to pile old copies up in the spare room so that when my sister-in-law the publishing exec comes she can be impressed.

Am not sure that this is what the editors intended but the small ads are the best bit.  I mean, you may think I’m pretentious (think of the ballet lessons, the elocution classes), but what kind of person puts in the following:

“Am I the only one here writing personal ads to his imaginary childhood friend?  For the last time: are you a fourteen foot high Stegosaurus-Bagpuss cross breed with the voice of Ed Bishop, an ability to vaporise Sunday school martinets and turn cod liver oil into Vimto?  If you are out there Basil de Bumps, please answer.  Spoilt commitment-hungry only child, 38 (the sort who took his library books back before running away) needs help from therapeutic London F, more Jenny Hanley than Angela Carter.”

Note the use of the colon.  And they’re all like this.  Extraordinary.  By the by, if any 20sixers want to get back to this man you can reply to Box No 06/10.  I think I might make an extract from the LRB small ads a regular feature of this section. What do you reckon? And does anyone know what Vimto is?

By the by am reading “The Dante Club” following rave reviews and finding it bitterly disappointing so far.  Will update in due course.

Comments
cha0tic

on 03 April 2004 at 16:51

Vimto yum. They do fizzy vimto now. But it used to just be a cordial. Try it. You might like it
belgianwaffle

on 04 April 2004 at 18:36

Hmm. Thanks for enlightenment. Do you think I’d have to go to the UK to get some or do they sell it in the Delhaize?

More about me


Posted in: Family

I received the following email from my friend C following my last posting:

“Welcome back to blogland. I was checking out your latest entry and I noticed a link called ‘More About Me’. Hilarious. A web site in which you talk endlessly about yourself and there’s room for a link called ‘More About Me’. Slightly disappointed that the link contains no more about you, apart from the fact that you’ve only been a twentysix user since November last year.”

Should I put in an update to keep C happy or is there really more than enough information available from my entries?  Hard to know. Would you like to know my interests and hobbies?  Do you care? Don’t you know that mostly my interests and hobbies consist of mopping up baby vom? Will this lure you in to read my entries?  Very hard to know.

Well, let me tell you more about me. I speak loudly and clearly.  This is a severe affliction to me. Particularly since I’m Irish and most Irish people speak in soft musical tones. I blame my father for this, when I was growing up he used to say to me “Her voice was soft and gentle and low, an excellent thing in a woman”. Not sure where the quote is from, probably John Knox, sounds like the kind of thing he’d say.  Anyway it used to drive me insane.  You know how it is, action/reaction.  Latest manifestation of this, occurred the other night in the cinema with the Glam Potter (Big Fish, since you ask, it was ok, and, no, I still haven’t seen Lost in Translation).  We were early and before the film started I began explaining to her my plans for the future and when we might move back to Ireland. All this arose because she has put her daughter down for school and am wondering whether I should do the same for the Princess or will we be back in Ireland by then.  School starts at two and a half in Belgium so the problem is reasonably imminent.  I digress.  I was expounding away and suddenly the GP hissed at me “Stop”. “What?” “Everyone in the cinema is listening to you because you’re speaking so loudly.” Oh dear, well I’m sure they were just rivetted by my future plans.. On the plus side, I am excellent at presentations, even the people right at the back can hear me.

On the new 20six platform, my background music will be very loud to drown out the sound of me muttering to myself. Well, actually, no. As a middle of the road music fan, I like my background music to be just that, sort of subdued Norah Jones. In fact when I was at home last week, I had to come down stairs in my pyjamas and ask my father to turn down his music. I grant you, that felt a little odd.