Reading etc.

Headline from Saturday’s Irish Times: “German and Polish relations hit new low over treaty”. Really? A passing acquaintance with 20th century history would suggest that this is improbable.

Everything I know about adoption, I learnt from Kateri. This knowledge, has made me, if possible, even more outraged by the case of Tristan Dowse. Tristan was adopted in Indonesia by an Irish-Azerbaijani couple when he was 2 months old. At that time they thought they couldn’t have children of their own. In fact, they had a daughter just before Tristan’s first birthday. By the time he was nearly two, Tristan’s parents decided that the whole adoption thing wasn’t working out and dumped him in an orphanage in Indonesia and never saw him again.

The case was covered extensively in the Irish media at the time but, reading the details in the high court judgement, if anything, makes the whole thing seem more grim, depressing and inexplicable. The only rays of sunshine are an eventual happy ending for Tristan and the fact that the Irish public services appear to have covered themselves in glory.

Email from a friend who works in an international organisation:

“When I was a lickle boy, one would often be asked “are you going to be a priest when you grow up?”, and even from a very young age my reply was that there was only one cardinal in Ireland, and anyway an Irishman could never become Pope, so there was no point in my becoming a priest. Which would tend to suggest that, with such an attitude to nationality-related promotional vacancies, I was predestined to become a[n]….official (notwithstanding the fact that the fact that Ireland would incredibly produce not one but two secretaries-General).”

Very small prize, if you identify the international organisation.

From Saturday’s Irish Times:

“Hello World! I’m Jamie Duke Callaghan and I arrived on May 1, 2007. My sister Molly Mae and Mum and Dad…are thrilled. Momo, John, Momo, Donal and loads of other people have been really good to me and I am looking forward to a great life. Bring it on…”

In the unusual names segment of competition:

“…A treasured sister to Fulton, Sofia, Mia and Sabastine…”

Has anyone else seen the ad for some accountancy body featuring a man wrestling with some enormous shark thing? There he is reeling in the enormous fish looking delighted with himself but, the advertisement claims, it wasn’t as exciting as the time he got his accountancy qualifications.

“[C]reative creatives creating creative creative” indeed.

I have just finished my first Jilly Cooper novel. Words cannot express my disappointment. No sex until page 431. What is going on here? Also a cast of characters so vast that they are listed over several pages at the start. There’s a special page for all the animal characters. It’s just as well. “Rowan had a whip round”. Hang on, who’s Rowan, is she Hengist Brett-Taylor’s greyhound or the school secretary? Or is that Brett Hengist-Taylor? Furthermore, never having read any of the Rutshire (Rutshire, honestly, has she no shame) novels, I am less than interested in the fate of Rupert Campbell-Black’s (or should that be Campbell Rupert-Black?) offspring and marriage.

Her characters are largely unashamed tories. I quite enjoyed Hengist saying that he worked in a private school so that he could avoid the dead hand of the “Council of Europe”. If you know nothing about the EU or could conceivably confuse the European Council with the Council of Europe (different, utterly different, trust me here), then this may not provide you with the same amusement value as it did me.

She has, however, some of my prejudices which is always welcome in an author.

Hideous, sandal wearing, doubtless eco-clothing clad, new agey, know it all aggressive breastfeeding character (rejoicing in the unlikely name of Poppet): I know you’re hurting.

Paris Alvaston (equally unlikely name of leading handsome male student): I’m not and hurt is a transitive verb.

I did read it until two in the morning a couple of nights running but that really says more about my lack of self restraint than the entertainment value of this tome.

I am just back from bookclub where we read “Mother’s milk” which I absolutely loathed and all the others loved.  I could not abide the main character, Patrick, who whined and whined because he had been disinherited.  I could see that it was well written but I couldn’t really get over my desire to shake Patrick and tell him to cop himself on. The others saw his whininess as symptomatic of his upbringing and were fascinated by the wider theme of how unloving mothers can damage their children and whether we are destined to repeat our parents’ errors.  Alas for all the nuances I missed.  I won’t be rereading all the same.