belgianwaffle

Three cheers for the Dutch

29 January, 2005
Posted in: Reading etc.

I got this email from the Dutch mama which I found most comforting.

“Read james’ article. What a plonker! I wonder where these guys get off.
Can anyone tell me when (in history) and where (geographically I mean) children are continuously cared for at home with their parents.

In some countries and at some time periods children have worked alongside their parents, but otherwise I don’t know of any situation where children are at home with their parents all day – maybe kids on welfare. Is that what he’s seriously recommending?

Chances are Princess doesn’t mind the creche. Chances are that she’d rather be with you, but hey. Chances are the handsome Prince would rather if he didn’t have to be toilet-trained. Chances are the handsome Prince would rather not to have to eat his dinner. Chances are I’d rather stay in bed in the mornings and eat ice cream.

You know that if she spends every moment of every day with you, even if she thinks she’d like it, it would be bad for her. And no doubt staying in bed and eating ice cream would be bad for me. (though I’d be willing to give it a good try).

Your man hasn’t a notion what he’s on about.”

Am very tempted to email the text in its entirety to the Observer.

Comments

Bobble

on 29 January 2005 at 13:14

Just love her.belgianwaffle

on 30 January 2005 at 14:28

Yes, Norah, Bobble, she is the bee’s knees. She spends her spare time doing her PhD, no really. And eating ice cream, it appears.jackdalton

on 30 January 2005 at 19:19

I’m all in favour of ice cream. Phd’s on the other hand can be a waste of time.

Poetry please

25 January, 2005
Posted in: Mr. Waffle, Reading etc.

In the home of Mr. Waffle’s ancestors at the weekend, I came across his school annual. They put out one every year and aside from the entertainment provided by the photos of people you know as grown-ups looking gawky and adolescent, there are also the articles written by bright boys with notions. How about this?

The Progress of the Literary Society 1984-88

The Literary Society, then just the more loosely bound “Second Year Poetry Club” was officially founded on the Ides of March 1984 by A and B. From then on, the writing of virtually anything was encouraged by the club’s presidents, the best of which – ranging from poems about rugby victories to the ominous spread of “shadowy mists” – were pinned extravagantly on the class notice board. […] our ideas were swiftly adopted, with subscriptions and pseudonyms pouring in, and subgroups such as the Anti Literary club and the Anti Anti Literary Club breeding exponentially. […] trends followed included brief flirtations with premeditative surrealism, quasi inertia, l’ecrit noir, pseudo-carnalism, Romantic perceptions of morality… [S]upport [for the club]…was too harnessed on the fickle winds of fancy to achieve any degree of constancy…

You think I’m making this up, don’t you? If you’re good, next week, I’ll give you a quote from “A Sarcophagic Sonnet” which is also reproduced in the text.

Comments

belgianwaffle

on 30 January 2005 at 14:28

I’ll need more enthusiasm from everyone before transcribing 14 verses.

Nic

on 31 January 2005 at 15:55

Oh, Sarcophagic Sonnet is a good one! Not quite a sonnet though now that I come to think of it (but I’m not one to come between a man and a good alliterative title) Please do reproduce it.

poggle

on 01 February 2005 at 15:54

Just a quote will do …. with a title like that, you have to waffley ….

belgianwaffle

on 05 February 2005 at 14:57

Oh all right then

Guilty

24 January, 2005
Posted in: Princess

See his article in yesterday’s Observer. It’s all dreadfully depressing. The fact that my child roars when dropped off to the creche and has spent her weekend saying “no creche” makes me fear he may be right.Mr. Waffle has comforted me by reminding me that I’m a mother and therefore whatever I do must be wrong. Funnily enough, that hasn’t proved as comforting as you might imagine.

Comments

stroppycowon 24 January 2005 at 20:43

Wait until she is older and bitterly complains when you go and pick her up from after school club at a time she deems too early. I get a barrage of quality sulking everyday !
Mr waffle is correct. A mother’s place is in the wrong especially in the eyes of journalists.

Kathy(Homepage)

on 25 January 2005 at 14:58

You know that the crying is for YOUR benefit. I’m sure she settles in quickly after you leave. She’ll be fine!

belgianwaffleon 25 January 2005 at 21:07

These comments, on the other hand, are very comforting…

Booker, what Booker?

21 January, 2005
Posted in: Reading etc.

What with one thing and another, I got a lot of reading done.

“The Five People you meet in Heaven” by Mitch Albom is a dreadful book. Avoid.

“Case Histories” by Kate Atkinson is very good but has far too many characters for the feeble minded. Hard to follow (is Shirley related to Michelle and who the hell is Caroline and what is Olivia to Sylvia etc.).

“Making Babies” by Anne Enright is not half as good as “Le BÃ©bÃ©” by Marie Darrieussecq. As you might guess, both books cover largely the same territory.

That is all.

They are always sick

21 January, 2005
Posted in: Mr. Waffle, Princess, Work

Just back from an, ehem, exotic destination where I went for work earlier this week. I had planned to blog like mad in my quiet evenings but found I couldn’t attach my laptop to the internet thingy in the wall of my hotel (no sniggering please) so my evenings were entirely blog free. I’m sure you missed me. Not as much as my poor husband though. I had no sooner set foot on the plane than herself came down with a mystery ailment which involved much unhappiness for everyone (I will spare you the details). Anyway, by the time I got home, she was entirely recovered but I don’t think he has yet and I’m pretty sure that the rug never will.

Off to Ireland for a long weekend now, so normal service will only resume next week.

Security

16 January, 2005
Posted in: Reading etc., Siblings

Those of you who have been concentrating will know that my sister lives in the US. Her important job involves her flying to Mexico next week, business class whereas mine involves me flying economy to a ludicrously less glamourous location, but this is just a bitter digression.

We were chatting yesterday and she told me that her (American) bridge partner and his (American) girlfriend went out for a drive last week and they stopped to take pictures of a beautiful sunset with the girlfriend’s Christmas present, a snazzy new digital camera. Silhouetted against the sunset, romantically (we have to take their word for this) was an oil refinery.Â As they were going to drive off, they were stopped by the police who asked for their driving licences. They opened the window and handed them over. Then they were asked for the car keys. They handed them over and the police wandered back to their car with these items. The bridge partner was a bit distressed by this as his car has electronic windows and they were open and it is cold in the North of the US in winter, I understand. But he didn’t like to protest. And as his car windows were open he was able to hear the following dialogue:

Policeman to radio: Will we take them in for questioning at this time?

Radio: Cackle, cackle

Policeman to radio: Ok, not at this time.

The policemen returned to the car, gave them back their keys and drivers’ licences and wiped their photographs. Then they said “your details have been passed on to the Department of Homeland Security and you may be called in for questioning in relation to this incident any time over the next 12 months but you are now free to go”.

I’m only glad my sister wasn’t there, she’d probably be deported by now.

And does all this not chime rather depressingly with the extract below from December’s LRB?Â“The Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben does not want his fingerprints taken and, unlike like most European critics of the evil empire, he has been willing to forego an academic visit to the United States in order to prevent it happening. What is at stake, he explains, is the Â‘new Â“normalÂ” bio-political relationship between citizens and the stateÂ’. Fingerprinting makes Â‘the most private and incommunicable aspect of subjectivity .. the bodyÂ’’s biological lifeÂ’ part of the system of state control. […] For Agamben, fingerprinting is not just a matter of civil liberties: it is symptomatic of an alarming shift in political geography. We have moved from Athens to Auschwitz: the WestÂ’s political model is now the concentration camp rather than the city state; we are no longer citizens but detainees, distinguishable from the inmates of Guantanamo not by any difference in legal status, but only by the fact that we have not yet had the misfortune to be incarcerated Â– or unexpectedly executed by a missile from an unmanned aircraftÂ [this] political developmentÂ is not, according to Agamben, peculiar to the United States under the Bush presidency. It is part of a wider change in governance in which the rule of law is routinely displaced by the state of exception, or emergency, and people are increasingly subject to extra-judicial state violence.

Comments

poggle

on 17 January 2005 at 11:54
(
Comment Modified) Mr Agamben is, depressingly, absolutely right ….
See UK ID cards: The Chief Constable for the Manchester area, who is pro, said in justification of his support for the scheme something along the lines of: ” for instance, just look at this weekend when there is a street festival – I have no idea who is in the city.”
Well, forgive me for wondering why the f**k it’s his business to know where I am at any time at all?