The difficulty is that I may not have time to read all of these before I die. And the library just called to say that the two books I reserved have come in. Sigh.
Bedside Table
Reading etc.
Fair and balanced?
Driving home from my sister’s flat late one night I heard a programme on FM104. The idiot presenter had found two poor people (Liz and John) who were going to be spending a fortune (and I do mean a fortune) on their daughters’ first communions: stretch limos, 1,000 euro dresses, the lot.
He then found a number of middle class people to criticise Liz and John and how they chose to spend their money. [“I am from a very good family and I would never spend money in that way. Pictures of those communions circulate on the internet afterwards and people laugh at your children”] I thought that these people were patronising and deeply, deeply unpleasant. What I found disturbing was that the presenter did nothing to try to balance the coverage. John and Liz were a bit on the inarticulate side and the presenter joined right in, criticising their choices and mocking their spending. It was very nasty listening.
I suppose I’m not quite FM104’s target demographic but I won’t be going back there any time soon.
Parents’ revenge
For reasons I will not bore you with, I have discovered what is on the leaving certificate English syllabus (yes, yes, it’s all true, we’re familiarising the children with some of the easier poets to make them a shoo in for high grades in 12 years time). Roger McGough who was unknown to me is on the list, I looked him up. You may like his work. A sample is reproduced below. Whether it is suitable for cranky adolescents is a moot point.
PAY-BACK TIME
O Lord, let me be a burden on my children
For long they’ve been a burden upon me.
May they fetch and carry, clean and scrub
And do so cheerfully.
Let them take it in turns at putting me up
Nice sunny rooms at the top of the stairs
With a walk-in bath and lift installed
At great expense…..Theirs.
Insurance against the body-blows of time
Isn’t that what having children’s all about?
To bring them up knowing that they owe you
And can’t contract out?
What is money for but to spend on their schooling?
Designer clothes, mindless hobbies, usual stuff.
Then as soon as they’re earning, off they go
Well, enough’s enough.
It’s been a blessing watching them develop
The parental pride we felt as each one grew.
But Lord, let me be a burden on my children
And on my children’s children too.
From the birth announcements
XX-YY – K and D welcome their beautiful daughter SÃabhra-Róise Antònia Elizabeth …. Born safely and gently in water into the loving arms of her mother under the professional eye of homebirth midwife …and to the early morning delight of her brothers …
It’s the proselytising that gets me. The subtext of “not born in a hospital with an epidural, oh no, not for us, and certainly not by cesarean section..we found that with a TENS machine it was all wonderful etc. etc.” Oh the politics of giving birth. I also draw your attention to the innovative use of accents (two Irish, one Spanish) which ensures that this child’s name will never be spelt correctly except, fair dues to the Irish Times, on her birth announcement.
AA and BB – C and J are delighted to announce the birth of our beautiful baby girl, Lady Ruby Mae …. A … little sister for India and Domino.
Do you think Domino is a boy, a girl or something you might wear to a masked ball?
Yeah, I know, it’s easy to mock and if these children’s parents ever find this site, I am doomed. My own brother has described the Princess’s name as just the wrong side of pretentious.
Things that happen to you when you are over 40
I have spent the last number of evenings alphabetising our book collection. This is disturbingly entertaining. I may be going insane. In a dull meeting today, I found my mind wandering longingly to the four shelves that then remained to be tackled.
I have a burst blood vessel in my eyeball. It is not an attractive look.
Ireland won the rugby Grand Slam. Alarmingly, I remember when we won the Triple Crown in 1982. Last Sunday afternoon we saw the bus bearing the victorious players and pieces of plate go by while we were stopped at traffic lights. If the children become international rugby stars, we will remind them of this moment – my brother is working hard on their skills, only this evening he had them all practising doing a scrum together.
I am cycling to work and finding that the world of cycling in Dublin is very macho. It’s all men in lycra with high visibility vests and sporting helmets. I miss Brussels where there was a gender mix in the cycling population and all the competitive macho cycling took place deep in Flanders.
I discover that my writing style has started to resemble that of a a TV critic, desperately trying to knit together disparate elements under an unlikely unifying theme.
Reading
Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer
I enjoyed this. Mortifying disclosure, but there it is. Lots of plot and free rein is given to the Mormon talent for giving people really odd names (thank you, Kara for the insight into this lesser known Mormon trait, Kenneddee must remain a favourite).
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr
This was recommended to me by a friend. It’s a child’s story about being a refugee and it’s great. Much better, I think than “The Diary of Anne Frank”, this may, partly, be because the narrator is still alive at the end. My edition was somewhat belittled by having exercises for children at the end (how would you have got on with rationing?). I cannot understand why publishers feel this kind of thing will make their offerings more appealing, particularly when they are publishing classics. What next a section at the end of “Pride and Prejudice” – how would you look in an empire line dress? That said, there was a very nice short piece by the author at the end talking about her experience from an adult perspective.
American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
This is a great book. I read “Prep” when it came out and did not like it much and I was distinctly dubious about this one but it was excellent. It’s very long and it is a wonderful feeling when you are on page 15 of a 500 page book and you know you’re going to love it. It’s an imagined life of Laura Bush using real life incidents. It made me take an interest in Laura Bush for the first time. It also made me sympathise with her and think that it was a pretty invasive book. But good. It is very well written as was “Prep”. Unlike “Prep” the action does not take place exclusively in a small boarding school and for Ms. Sittenfeld’s style, this is a big bonus. She is, I think, slightly obsessed about class in America and, funnily enough, this book has less on that than “Prep” though the immensely lengthy bit on Princeton reunions was, frankly, too much for me. Overall though, this book is fascinating both for the imagined character of the American wife and her relationships with others. I was very sad to finish it. I plan to dig out more of her back catalogue.
End of Term by Antonia Forest
Speaking of back catalogue, I am now actively pursuing Antonia Forest books. When the publishing exec was back recently she rooted round in her bedroom and found a very battered copy of this book (every page has said farewell to the spine but mercifully all still there). I did enjoy it and I do intend to ferret out all the books in the series but I think that the first, fine careless rapture may have worn out. I am fascinated to discover through my internet research that the books were written over about 30 years and although only 2 years of fictional time elapse between the Marlow twins starting out in third remove and moving to upper fourth (I think), the author has blithely set each novel in the time in which it was written. I will report back. You stay on the edges of your seats out there.