belgianwaffle

Reading etc.

Random Links


Posted in: Reading etc.

Please see Mike’s list of 50 things to do before you die which is definitely the best list of this kind that I’ve ever seen.

Nicholas drew this to my attention: “For the three of you who care and haven’t seen it: Match It for Pratchett“. I am one of the three and I suspect my aunt is one of the last two. Are you the other one?

I’m not sure how I found this blog but I love it. I’m not saying that I always agree with it. She does not, oh she definitely does not, approve of people who let their children eat products from the supermarket before they have reached the check out. Guilty. But still, I love her firm laying down the law; she doesn’t have any of that wishy-washy oooh, I wonder what I should do, am I doing it right angst about child-rearing. I like that. I quite look forward to her nuggets of stern advice though, I think, if she saw how I am bringing up my children, she might shoot me.

In a completely different vein, I came across this put together by the mothers of dead babies. It is beautifully written and very moving but only for reading, if you’re feeling strong.

Credit Worthy


Posted in: Reading etc., Siblings

My sister has pretty much always earned more than the rest of us.  And she’s good at saving too, she probably still has her first communion money salted away somewhere.  When we were little she always had her sweets after my brother and I finished ours (then she would share them with us – she was the youngest, we were bigger).

She has, however, not borrowed much and travelled around a lot.   When she lived in England it took her months to get a bank account. When she lived in America, she was refused a store card for some big department store.  The guy in the shop said that this was the first time this had ever happened. When she moved back home, for a long time the bank wouldn’t let her have cheques.  Now that she has her own little business, they have reluctantly allowed her to have the odd cheque but they continue to be suspicious.

My sister is the most solvent person I know.  She likes to have six months’ living expenses in the bank in case of an emergency, yet she has consistently had difficulty with banks due to living all over the place.  Meanwhile, the world’s economy is going belly up because of the  sub-prime mortgages.  Oh God, why did we decide to give our economic well-being over to the banks?  I mean, really, the banks?

Highwater mark


Posted in: Belgium, Mr. Waffle, Reading etc.

I went to see Horton with the children some time ago.  I recognised the voice of Horton as being Dany Boon from Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis.  A film which I understood almost in its entirety (not an achievement to be sneezed at – though I was somewhat helped by the fact that the Ch’tis are essentially Belgian).  And further, I recognised that Horton was Dany Boon based on his accent in French.  This was a proud moment, I can tell you.  Then, I realised that I am probably speaking the best French I ever will and it’s downhill all the way from the end of the month.  I suppose I can pepper my conversation with French words thereby annoying my friends and embarrassing my children.

As part of our preparation to leave Belgium, I am also sorting through our mountain of medical and dental bills.   Before I had children, I never went to the doctor and now I seem to spend all my time going from surgery to surgery with my travelling circus.  It’s all surprisingly complex and, of course, it wouldn’t be, had I done it as I went along.  I wrote a letter to my insurer in my best French and got Mr. Waffle to check it.  The maestro sat down at the computer and made it perfect.  He corrected the French and reorganised the letter so that my various rambling questions were concisely stated and clearly presented.  I was awed:my husband the genius.   “Yes,” he said “I have spent the past number of years perfecting the art of writing in administrative French, I have probably reached the pinnacle of my potential in this field.” Hélas indeed.

Writing about your children on the internet


Posted in: Princess, Reading etc., Twins

A while ago, Dooce had a post about her decision to write about her daughter Leta on the internet.   Then, the Game Theorist had one too.  And he referred to a Slate article about this very same topic.  I have a feeling that Beth is going to do something similar.

Like most people, I am ambiguous about this.  Unlike Dooce, I don’t make money from my blog; does this make matters better or worse?  I’m putting my children in just as much danger as she is and/or exploiting them just as much and I can’t even make money out of it?  On balance, I think it makes no difference.  Dooce isn’t writing about Leta for the money, she’s writing because she loves her and that’s true for all of us.  I started this blog to let my family know what the children were up to.  So now that I am moving back to Ireland I will give it up, you observe.  Not at all.  I love it.  I am keeper of the family archive.  At the end of every month I print down a selection of the 100s of photos we take and put them in an album and carefully label them (don’t hate me).  I write about my children because, I know, if I don’t, I will forget.   I write about them on the internet because I am a show-off and I love the attention.  If I didn’t have a blog, I would intend to write all these things down, but I wouldn’t.  I like being part of a community (no scoffing) and I like that people read what I write (kind, good, generous nice people, unlike, say, my brother who can’t understand why anyone on earth should be interested).   I suppose I could wait until the children are old enough to read it themselves but at the rate the Princess’s reading is progressing, it could be years before we get any progress on this front.

I spoke to my mother about this the other day.  This is the woman who does not use her credit card on the internet for safety’s sake and who, for many years was very reluctant to use the internet at all on the basis that she might accidentally download something illicit or dangerous or both: this despite constant reassurances from her children that you usually have to pay for that kind of material.  In response to my concerns, my mother said briskly “Nonsense, they are very lucky children and they will be delighted to read all about themselves when they are bigger.”   You know, maybe she’s right.

Reading


Posted in: Reading etc.

“If only you knew” by Alice Jolly
This was written by a friend of a friend in Brussels, so it’s a bit difficult to be objective even though I don’t know the author from Adam.  I found it a bit unsatisfactory.  It’s set in Moscow and it’s all high drama and swooning from the heroine who has “father issues”.  I don’t think it was bad but I won’t be rushing back for more.

“Too Close to the Falls” by Catherine Gildner

Again, this was something that I wouldn’t have read by myself.  It was recommended to me by a friend.  It’s a memoir which is not a genre that I particularly like.  It is, however, a cheerful memoir which is well-written and largely unsentimental (with some lapses).  I enjoyed it very much.  It’s about a little girl growing up near Niagara Falls in the 1950s and it’s lovely: warm and funny.  Apparently it was a huge bestseller, I’m not a bit surprised.

“The Lady and the Unicorn” by Tracey Chevalier

This is a dreadful book which I did not like.   The writing is pedestrian at best. It is very didactic.  If I want to know about weaving techniques, I can go and read up on them. If the characters in a book are supposed to be French speaking, I do not recommend inserting French words every so often in the dialogue.  Vraiment, this does nothing to encourage the suspension of disbelief.  On the plus side, part of it is set in Brussels and the plot skips along.   Also, the print is large.  I have read another Tracy Chevalier book (“Falling Angels”) which I thought was only alright but it was much better than this offering which I note was published a year later.  They made me do it for bookclub.   I tried to stop them.

“A Good Man in Africa” by William Boyd

I have never read a bad William Boyd book and this book is good. It is his first, though, and quite different in style from some of his later work.  It is narrated by a hapless British diplomat in Africa and is, in parts, utterly hilarious.  It owes a debt to Evelyn Waugh’s “Scoop” I think and also Kingsley Amis’s “Lucky Jim”.  It is a very well written book and enjoyable but not as well plotted as some of his later stuff.  There is lots of plot, the book has plot coming out its ears but it doesn’t hang together particularly well.  The way he managed the book: starting in the middle, working backwards to that point and then working forwards again was confusing and, for me, didn’t really add a great deal.  All very clever though. For a first book, absolutely superb.  For a William Boyd book, fine.

“The Sorrows of an American” by Siri Hustvedt

How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways.  I think Siri Hustvedt is a brilliant, brilliant author.  She combines beautiful writing with interesting plot and, best of all, interesting ideas.

This book is narrated by an American psychiatrist, Erik Davidsen, whose father has just died.  It covers many many themes including immigration and loss.  It also reflects Hustvedt’s fascination with the mind and how it works.  It was this fascination (which I knew about from her previous work) that propelled me towards “Mad, Bad and Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors from 1800 to the Present”.

Almost every paragraph of this book makes you think in new and unusual ways.  The problem with books that make you think is, in my experience, that they are generally not very readable.  This is a very readable book.   For example, as an Irish person, I used to be very sceptical about Americans who described themselves as Irish.  I would smile and nod and ask where their great-grandma was from but my inner dialogue would run “no, you’re not, you’re American.”  One of the many achievements of  this book is to articulate the sense of loss of the American immigrant community over several generations.  Maybe they are Irish too, just a different kind of Irish from me.

Hustvedt seems to put a lot of herself in her books; this book contains excerpts from her own father’s memoirs.  They are used as Erik’s father’s memoir.  You feel that there is a very thin layer of fiction between the characters in the book and those in Hustvedt’s life.  Inga, Erik’s sister, is the widow of a famous author and the book describes living with him and it is clear that Hustvedt is talking about her own experience of living with Paul Auster.  Erik’s father and mother in the book are very clearly versions of Hustvedt’s own father and mother and, Sonia, Inga’s daughter, a version of her own daughter.  I wonder whether this makes for a better book?  I do feel that it is a risky strategy for an author: she puts a lot of herself in her books and, given what we know about her, I wonder how well she bears up under the weight of that exposure for she strikes me as a very private person.  That though is her problem, not mine.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough as they say.  I give it the ultimate accolade, it is almost as good as “What I Loved”.

Long Dark Night of the Europhile Soul


Posted in: Ireland, Mr. Waffle, Reading etc., Work

Only read this, if you have the faintest idea about the Lisbon Treaty. Really, it’s better for both of us this way.

In Brussels, they think all Irish people are like de Valera who, I believe, said that he only needed to look into his heart to know what the people of Ireland were thinking. At coffee breaks at every recent event, people here would break the ice by asking me what I thought that the outcome of the Irish referendum on the Treaty would be. I would look into my heart and confidently predict a victory for the yes side by a narrow margin. It turns out that I am not de Valera.

Ireland joined the EU* in 1973 and my father started coming to Brussels for expert meetings shortly thereafter. From about 1980, every family holiday would be preceeded by a trip to Brussels. We would camp in Heverlee outside Brussels and drop him in every day for his meeting, my mother gaily navigating the Brussels ring with the three children squabbling in the back. Once his meetings were over, we would pack up the tent and head off to France which was generally sunnier and more congenial, though I still have fond memories of the lego and table tennis in Ter Munck. I suspect he was the only committee member staying in a tent. We used to go and join him for lunch in the Rotonde occasionally. This was the restaurant in the basement of the Berlaymont which is now, alas, defunct. The glamour, the excitement: self-service food, pillars, tap water.

My father became good friends with many members of his committee and they stayed in contact over the years. I even did a language exchange with a daughter of one of the committee members (unsuccessful, her English was much better than my German). My father was still coming to meetings when I started working in Brussels in 1993 and, when he came over, he would meet me for a drink in the Metropole and slip me some very welcome cash.

When I was a student, I was funded under the Erasmus programme to study for a semester in Italy. Almost all of my professional life has, in one way or another, been related to EU affairs. I suppose that I could hardly be called a neutral observer. I love the EU. I suspect that I am a bit of a minority but there it is.

When Irish women were barred from working after marriage in the civil service (and in the banks, just because they wanted to join in) who made them stop? Well, yes, it was the EU. When the Irish Government on accession sought a derogation from this draconian provision and the wretched equal pay legislation which was going to bring the country to its knees who said you must be bloody joking? Well, yes, it was the EU.

When the Irish economy was going down the toilet in 1987 and unemployment was spiralling out of control and the IMF was on the doorstep, who do you think gave us a great deal of money to spend on turning the country round? Well, yes, it was the EU.

When Northern Ireland was a basket case who pumped money into co-operation programmes through the PEACE programme? Well, yes, it was the EU.

When the divided continent of Europe was reunited, when we realised that, actually, having half of the continent behind an iron curtain was like having lost a limb, who gave assistance in money and governance to those countries so that now they are starting to do better and better? Well, yes, it was the EU.

And how come we can work anywhere in Europe and we have a single market? How come Europe can punch its weight in the WTO negotiations? Well, yes, that’s the EU too.

I believe in the EU as a potent force for good for Europeans. I believe it brings us together and helps us to learn about each other. I believe that Ireland is much closer to Berlin than to Boston.

So, the Lisbon Treaty. Well, it wasn’t a particularly clear or lovable treaty. Jon Worth has a copy of the Jason O’Mahony summary on his blog and for my money, that’s probably the best explanation of the contents. Not that anyone cares now.

The purpose of the Treaty was to finally put a close to the institutional (and very dull) angst which the EU has been going through since some time before its expansion to 27 member states. That was broadly it. It was also supposed to answer the Kissinger question, “Who do I call, if I want to speak to Europe?” Frankly, I’m not sure it provided an answer to that. Was it ideal? No, it was a compromise between 27 sovereign states. Was it the best agreement that we were ever likely to get on this subject? Oh yes, I would think so.

Why did Ireland vote no? Looking into my heart has proved ineffective in finding an answer to Irish questions, but let me share my suspicions with you.

Firstly, I suspect the press. The Irish Times which, as you know, has a place close to my heart, had an editorial on Lisbon last weekend entitled “Are we out of our collective minds?” Now, while I agreed wholeheartedly with every word written, I couldn’t help but feel that the tone was a teensy bit unhelpful. I can’t help wondering whether this was also the tone of the political parties, almost all of whom strongly advocated a yes vote. Then, the British media which is almost uniformly eurosceptic is widely available in Ireland and, in some cases, produces Irish editions (Irish Sun anyone?). I have no idea what these papers’ stance was on the referendum but you know what? I can make a good guess. I believe British coverage of EU issues is hugely biased and I don’t believe that this is a fault of the Irish press (I can tell because Irish coverage of EU matters is invariably crushingly dull). I really suspect the British media of stirring up the sovreignity issue which is not something that I have been aware of as a particular concern in the past.

Secondly, people didn’t know what the Treaty was about. I saw the text of the referendum question. Dear God in heaven, that was complex. But, you know what? There was a lot of information out there. I’m not saying it was a particularly straightforward message to understand but certainly a lot of time and effort was spent trying to explain it all. If you wanted to know, you could have found out. But people couldn’t be bothered, they didn’t care enough, they wanted to give the government a bloody nose.

Thirdly, there was the ludicrous scaremongering the European super-state, abortion, prostitution, army, locking up your three year olds bringing in the death penalty end of things. The problem for the yes campaign seems to have been that they spent so much time refuting the more outlandish claims of the no campaign that they had very little time to explain the (oh so dull) merits of voting yes.

So, I reckon, that’s it. Oh yeah, of course, fourthly the farmers were pretty annoyed about Mandelson’s position on the WTO negotiations, that probably didn’t help much either. Particularly since farmers always vote.

I’m gutted. I was really looking forward to the end of the institutional debate (yeah, yeah, I should get out more) and the EU getting to grips with the substantive issues which people actually understand. I believe that a stronger EU is vital for Ireland, vital to ensure that we maintain our position in this globalised world. And I trust the EU to deliver that, it’s not a bunch of faceless bureaucrats, well, yes it is, but they’ve done a fantastic job, the EU has achieved so much but it needs to do even more. And, wretchedly, it’s our fault that we’re going to have a weak, inward-looking, demoralised EU for the foreseeable future. More soul-searching, more “we must communicate with the citizen” (I mean nothing wrong with that per se, just that the citizen doesn’t seem to care), less actually doing things. Mr. Waffle points out that nobody has died and they will hammer out a solution based on the European model: peace through boredom. This is strangely uncomforting.

Any europhiles out there feeling sunny? Please tell me the upside.

*Yes, yes, I know the EEC as it then was.