belgianwaffle

Reading etc.

Cheese eating surrender monkeys slammed


Posted in: Reading etc.

A bunch of MEPs went to the US to hear about CIA renditions. They heard Mr. Michael F. Scheuer, Former Chief, Bin Laden Unit, CIA describe us lot as follows

“effete sanctimonious Europeans who take every bit of American protection offered them while publicly damning and seeking jail time for those who risk their lives to provide the protection”

He added:

“If the Rendition Program is halted, we will truly be able to say, by paraphrasing the late film actor John Wayne, that: War is tough, but it is a lot tougher if you are deliberately stupid”

Hmm. He has a way with words.

“On the issue of how rendered al-Qaeda leaders have been treated in prison, I am unable to speak with authority about the conditions these men found in the Middle Eastern prisons they were delivered to at President Clinton’s direction. I would not, however, be surprised if their treatment was not up to U.S. standards, but this is a matter of no concern as the Rendition Program’s goal was to protect America and the rendered fighters delivered to Middle Eastern governments are now either dead or in places from which they cannot harm America. Mission accomplished, as the saying goes.”

I feel I’ve heard that before somewhere. Mission accomplished, mission accomplished, why does it ring a bell?

“Finally, I will close by saying that mistakes may well have been made during my tenure as the chief of CIA’s bin Laden operations, and, if there were errors, they are my responsibility. Intelligence information is not the equivalent of court-room-quality evidence, and it never will be. But I will again stress that no rendition target was ever approved or captured without a written brief composed of intelligence information that persuaded competent U.S. government legal authorities. If mistakes were made, I can only say that that is tough, but war is a tough and confusing business, and a well-supported chance to take action and protect Americans should always trump other considerations, especially pedantic worries about whether or not the intelligence data is air tight”.

The full text of Mr. Scheuer’s testimony is here. I think it speaks for itself, really.

Procrastination is the thief of time


Posted in: Mr. Waffle, Reading etc.

Him: You know it has to be in by Tuesday?

Me: Yes, absolutely but let’s go to this European Open Doors thingy this morning.

We live in the capital of Europe, it is a thrill for us to enter its institutions. We went to the Committee of the Regions (don’t ask, you don’t need to know) where the Princess sampled sweets from 41 European regions and the boys were wafted to the ceiling by armfuls of helium balloons. We all came home with a lot of pins. We had intended to go to the Berlaymont and inspect the farm animals, face painters and Beatles tribute bands imported to make the head office of the European Commission seem open and approachable but our children were too light headed from their Committee of the Regions treat to face it. A friend told us that though enjoyable, it was an excellent introduction to bureaucracy as children wanting to participate in the fun had to colour their badge, laminate it and then tick a form before they could fish for treasure.
Him: You know it has to be in by Tuesday?

Me: Yes, absolutely, but it’s F’s birthday party this afternoon.

Him: You know it has to be in by Tuesday?

Me: Yes, absolutely, but we have a babysitter coming. Let’s go to the cinema. Spiderman 3 or La Vie des Autres? A high budget Hollywood blockbuster, predictable fare yet strangely enjoyable or a film about the Stasi in East Germany in 1984, in German (obviously) with French and Dutch subtitles by the outrageously named Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck?

So, we went to see The lives of Others and it was absolutely brilliant and I see it has won all sorts of awards so you’ve probably all seen it already but, just in case not, well worth seeing. Truly, despite the obvious handicaps of subject matter.

Him: You know it has to be in by Tuesday?

Me: Yes, absolutely but I’m going to the toy museum this morning.

Him: You know it has to be in by Tuesday?

Me: Yes, absolutely but the barbecue this afternoon?

Him: You know it has to be in by Tuesday?

Me: Yes, absolutely but I’m exhausted after the weekend’s activities.  And there’s the laundry.  No, no, I’ll do it. I  WANT to do it.
Him: You’re going to end up doing it tomorrow night after your work dinner, aren’t you?

Me: Yes.

A touch of OCD


Posted in: Princess, Reading etc., Twins

When my family moved house when I was 11, I put all my parents’ books on the wall of shelves in the spare room in alphabetical order. It is for this reason that, more than a quarter of a century later, the Rex Stouts and Georgette Heyers are always to hand when needed.

When we moved to Brussels before the Princess was born, I put all of our books in alphabetical order on shelves as well. I wage a continuing battle with our cleaner (who believes they should be ordered according to height) and our youngest children (who believe they should be kept on the floor in a pile).

The bottom left hand shelf of our bookshelf is devoted to children’s books. Every day the boys pull them all out and every evening I put them all back. Not in alphabetical order; that would be stupid. I order them by publisher, like in Hatchards. As every night I gather together the Ladybirds, the Puffins, and the others, I begin to get a feeling for what kind of book the publishers go for. So here based on my experience are what the publishers publish.

The ladybirds: I had lots of these when I was little. The little ladybird logo is, for me, as much a reminder of my childhood as Clark’s shoes. We have a couple of classics from the 70s and 80s that I picked up second hand which seem very dull but Daniel really goes for the baby’s first picture book (“ba, bah!” – ball, clearly, you fools) and the Princess has a fondness for a book showing what children do at school and a nursery rhyme book. The more modern ladybirds we have are all lift the flap books. You have to be a very tough flap to withstand my children and most evenings I sellotape back on elements of “Night, night baby” and “Peekaboo baby”. I would characterise the offerings as solid but unimaginative.

Then we come to Usborne books. The books for younger children seem to be something of a one trick pony. They have “That’s not my dinosaur” and its sister publications including “That’s not my pirate”, “That’s not my tractor” and so on. They know a good thing when they see one, there is a long list of these titles. Aside from that, we have a reasonably attractive book of nursery rhymes and three fabulous fairy tale books for the Princess. These are lovely books to look at and reasonably entertaining for grown-ups to read which becomes important from the 150th bedtime repetition . We have “The Princess and the Pea”, “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” and “Rapunzel“. My personal favourite is “Rapunzel” but they are all very cleverly done.

Moving on from left to right we come to the Dr. Seuss family. The cat in the hat logo appears on a number of books that are not penned by the good doctor himself but they are all strong on rhyme and adored by my children. We have “The Cat in the Hat comes back”, “Hop on Pop” and “Go Dog Go” from when I was little. “Go Dog Go” and “Hop on Pop” are approaching complete disintegration. Daniel and Michael can pick both of them from the bookshelf and bring them to me when I ask them. Daniel can even make hopeful sounds approximating to both titles. We have, as they say, “too many to mention” from the Seuss stable. We like some better than others. “Snow” and “I”m not going to get up today” work quite well for the Princess but, personally, if I never had to read “Red Fish, Blue Fish” again, it would be no loss. Daniel is a big fan of “The Foot Book” which is, at least, short. We all love “The Cat in the Hat”.

The Puffins were, I always felt, the intellectuals of the children’s book world. They may have shed this image slightly with the publication of “Princess Smarty Pants” and “Tiny Rabbit” both of which the Princess is keen on but I find tedious. We also have a great version of “The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse” that I had when I was little. It is lovely to reread it now because I knew it by heart then but phrases like “The cheese was the finest Parmesan and they wetted their whiskers with exquisite champagne” didn’t mean a lot to me and it’s like putting the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle in place. The older members of the family are fond of “Sam Jam Balu” although the Princess has gone off it a bit recently which is a pity as her parents are still very keen. I have just discovered Janet and Allan Ahlberg. I like the classic “Each Peach Pear Plum” which was, until recently, unknown to me but I am enjoying even more “The Baby’s Catalogue” which is the cleverest picture book I have ever seen. All the children love it and I find it very entertaining also. I seem to find something new on every reading which is saying a lot about a book that has mostly one word per page.

Onwards. Walker Books have a stupid slogan along the lines of “for high quality look for the book with the bear”. Nevertheless, I have to concede that Walker Books are all pretty popular with the Princess. I find the “Little Bear” series almost unbearably twee myself but the Princess is a big fan. Lines like “Big Bear said to Little Bear ‘jump into my arms Little Bear'” go down really well with the target audience but are a bit of a trial for the grown-ups. They have the “bear hunt” people and a lot of their works which are good value. They also have Shirley Hughes who has some of my favourite pictures in any children’s books (an extremely competitive field) but whose words are quite dire. Her stuff does not scan. It’s not that hard. Ask Dr. Seuss. I have, however, a special place in my heart for Shirley Hughes because she illustrated “Stories for Eight Year Olds” which may well be my favourite book of all time. Overall, to be fair, the Walker book slogan is accurate.

We then move to Red Fox books who appear to be unknown to the internet. They have Daisy of whom the Princess is very fond. Her parents can take or leave Daisy. They also have the classic “Where the Wild Things Are” They have the very useful “Mummy laid an Egg” where the author of the annoying “Princess Smarty Pants” does an excellent job on the vexed question of where babies come from. Is it possible Red Fox do re-editions of things which have already appeared and been successful elsewhere? It makes them a safe bet, I would have thought.

Little Tiger Press does not do it for us, but perhaps with only three books on our main shelves, we do not have a large enough sample to judge.

Macmillan have the Gruffalo and all of Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s immensely successful works. Lucky old them. I do like the Gruffalo, you can’t help it, really. The Princess knows chunks of it off by heart as do most children as far as I can see.

I have not touched upon the French books or the books in the Princess’s room, although I do put together the T’choupis, the Juliettes and the Camilles of which there are many, my systems seem to fall down there. And she has lots of lovely books that I have forgotten because they are not in proper order and we don’t think to read them. Though “The Wild Girl” and “The Dancing Tiger“, are both beautiful and make me cry (which is very easy to do, just try upsetting my filing) and I know this though, offhand, I can’t tell you who publishes them. Tomorrow, clearly, it behoves me to organise the Princess’s bookshelves.

Tell me, what are your favourite books for young children?

Big neighbours


Posted in: Reading etc.

If you’re a small country with a big neighbour, then you know all about them and they don’t necessarily know anything much about you. This reflection was prompted by an article on “Blair’s babes” in last Sunday’s Observer.

The English paper had a little background on women in Parliament in Britain. This is what it said about Constance Markiewicz:

“Women were first allowed to be candidates in 1918. The only one elected, Countess Constance Markievicz, was unable to take her seat because she was in prison suspected of conspiring with Germany during the First World War.”

It is true that Countess Markievicz spent a lot of her time in and out of prison. She belonged to an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family and was, famously, a very active supporter of Irish independence. She was elected as a Sinn Fein candidate in the 1918 general election and like all the other Sinn Fein candidates elected she didn’t take her seat in Westminister (it is important that this Sinn Fein party not be confused with the Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland today, I can’t face going into the detail but it just is). According to Wikipedia she joined her colleagues assembled in Dublin as the first incarnation of Dáil Éireann, so I’m guessing she wasn’t in jail as our correspondent from the Observer says. Though I am also indebted to Wikipedia for the information that she spent some time in jail in 1918 for “anti-conscription activities”; is this the same as conspiring with Germany? Well, what with the “England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity” mantra, I suppose that there was some possibility for confusion among the ranks of English journalists, even today. But is this annoying? Oh yes, it is.

I imagine all those Canadians with maple leaves sewn on to their back packs have the same problem. And, of course, the Belgians with the French. I was out with some Belgian friends the other day and they said that a survey has shown that most Belgians could name three candidates for the forthcoming French presidential elections but none for the Belgian elections this June.

On the plus side, it is fun to see all the very nice middle class English people we know here squirm with post-colonial guilt when we refer to the crimes of their ancestors. I don’t know what the Canadians and Belgians have by way of compensation; public health care and chocolate respectively?

In other news, the computer has been broken for a couple of days and the Princess had her birthday party today.  I was bereft and am flattened.  Details to follow. Hold your breath.

Thinking Blogger


Posted in: Reading etc.

A couple of weeks ago, Kristen nominated me for a thinking blogger award. Since then, I suspect, the kind and generous Kristen has been thinking something along the lines of the following: “the ingrate, she didn’t even acknowledge it in her blog”. But I’ve been thinking about who (or should that be whom, you know, I think it should) I should nominate. Before we get to the votes of the Belgo-Irish jury, here are the rules:

Thinkingbloggerpf8
The rules for accepting this award are:

1) If you get tagged, write a post with links to five (5) blogs that make you think (or you know, not, if you’d prefer).

2) Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact location of the MeMe.

3) Optional: Proudly display the Thinking Blogger Award with a link to the post that you wrote.

And we’re off:

1. Gin and teutonic. I have been reading this blog for a long time in various incarnations. It is funny. It is clever. It is the original thinking expat blog.

2. Diary of a Playgroup Dropout. Beth is lovely. The whole internet thinks so, so I’m probably not introducing you to anybody new here. To me she epitomises all the good things about the US. All that get up and go and clever and polite too. Like all of us, I suspect, Beth is concerned about children who are less well off. Unlike most of the rest of us, she has decided to try to do something about it. Her blog has a section devoted to trying to help less well off children. It is here. It’s not about money, though, if you are time poor and cash rich, it can be. It’s about doing something for unfortunate children and that can be making cards for children sick in hospital or whatever the richness of the internet suggests to her as the monthly challenge. Brilliant.

3. Geepeemama. I have a lot in common with the geepeemama except that she thinks about things more. Well, this is a thinking blogger award.

4. Brother Lawrence The man who proves that monks are human too, though, frankly, the jury may be out on some of the others. Did you know that he is a real monk?

5. Only five? Well how about the sarcastic journalist then? There’s something about the way she writes which combines humour and an occasional dose of misery which reminds me how we are all compromised by our choices. This makes her sound very grim but she isn’t at all, she’s hilarious and, um, thoughtful.

Grandma Lucille’s Monster Cookies or maybe closer to Berlin than Boston, after all


Posted in: Reading etc.

Beth published this recipe a while ago and since then I have printed it down and thought about it a surprising amount. The name seemed so authentic and the recipe seemed so American, I felt that they must be the original cookies that Americans dream of, that they were, if you will the “cookies d’antan” (free pretention available here) and I wanted them. The biscuit aisle in the supermarket held no allure for me, I wanted Grandma Lucille’s monster cookies.

I emailed Beth. What is Karo? Corn syrup came the speedy reply. I was no wiser. What is corn syrup? Amazingly, Mr. Waffle found a bottle of Karo in the weird foreign products aisle of the supermarket nestling between cans of Spanish squid and British marmite. Incidentally, the recipe calls for a teaspoonful, so if anyone has suggestions of what to do with a pint of Karo, less a teaspoon, I would be grateful.

Most of the remaining measurements were in cups. I don’t know how much a cup is. I have generally used English recipe books before and, aside from Nigella Lawson, the quantities are always tiny. Nigel Slater is the kind of cook who would confidently suggest that a baked potato topped with cheese would make a nourishing meal for a starving family of four. I say this, so that you can understand where I am coming from.

So I got together my ingredients. A cup is 250 mls, it transpires. Dear God, that is a lot. There was more peanut butter in this recipe than was in the jar we bought in the supermarket. As I started measuring out my quick cooking oatmeal (4 and a half cups and, my sister told me that I had to use regular porridge and ready brek would not do) I realised that, if I continued at this rate our entire stock of porridge would be used up and our children would have to go hungry for the week. So I settled at three cups. A stick of margarine. How much is a bloody stick? Further call to sister in Chicago. 110 grams, in case you ever need to know.

My feeble European mixer (free with supermarket points) whined alarmingly as I tried to beat my thick paste thoroughly. As it began to squeal in pain, I decided enough was enough. I looked at my baking tray and I looked at the enormous mass of cookie dough. I put some out on the tray. I got another tray and another. I filled my whole oven with cookies. 15 minutes later I had 3 large cookie cakes; they spread and two tablespoons of baking powder is a lot. I wish my sister had told me before I started that the standard batch in American cookies is 4 dozen. 48 cookies, people. However, I confirm that despite a lack of peanut butter, mixing and porridge they are indeed the ‘cookies d’antan’. Should you wish to create your own cookies, may I direct you here.