My husband has quoted me an article in the about how Americans spend all their time working in front of little glowing screens so that they can afford to go home and sit in front of little glowing screens in their time off.
Archives for July 2009
Films
Push
Oh dear, come on lads, you can do better than that. Not recommended.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
I liked this. If you like science fiction (surely my sister and I can’t be the only women who do), you will like this.
In the Loop
Very funny. West Wing meets BBC thingy. Full of clever one liners and a cast of thousands; all of them very good.
Syecdoche
I quite enjoyed this. It was a bit long but very clever. Honesty compels me to add that my husband thought that it was utter rubbish as did my friend L who commented that the experience was made worse by pretentious idiots pointing out that it was very clever.
Ice Age 3D
I took the children and the childminder along to see this. They all enjoyed it (seriously beginning to wonder whether F is really 25). I found it a bit dull myself but I had the unalloyed pleasure of taking each of the children on a toilet break during the screening. Daniel was first. He announced “I want to do a wee” and then had to be dragged away from the screen. He had a touch of diarrhoea and when I took him to the bathroom he had done a poo in his underpants. I stripped them off and cleaned him up with toilet paper and water and put on his trousers with no underpants. I then washed the underpants. I tossed out some cinema sweets from their bag and put the underpants in the sweet bag and popped it back into my handbag. There was a time when I might have jettisoned the underpants but there’s a recession on, you know. Michael was next. Due to some poor planning on my part, he had been in the pouring rain with F for some time before the film started. This necessitated a quick dash into Penny’s for new trousers and socks (€4 for the trousers, €2 for 6 pairs of socks – fear child labour – extraordinary contrast with the cinema trip which cost €40 in tickets and €15 (!) in popcorn and ill-fated sweets). He too was anxious to get to the toilet but equally anxious not to miss a minute of screen time: a love divided which led to damp trousers. I noted gloomily in the bathroom that the trousers were wet before we had got all the labels off – surely some kind of record. The Princess’s bathroom trip was only remarkable in that no sooner had she left the auditorium than she hauled out her book (Daisy) and started reading it as she walked. Today at work, I found the sweets which had been tossed into the base of my bag to make room for the pooey underpants. They were a bit fuzzy and I had a mild worry about poo contamination but, reader, I ate them.
The Hangover
I appreciate that I am not the target audience of this film about three men on a stag night in Las Vegas (what can I say, everything else was full) but I did find it anti-woman. The female parts were small but they were: uptight bride to be; harridan girlfriend and hooker. Funny in parts all the same.
Just us and 300 Belgians
Mr. Waffle decided to check whether there were any activities planned in Dublin for Belgian national day. Don’t laugh, Mr. Waffle and the children got free sweets and some rousing songs in the park on Norwegian national day and they’re not even Norwegian.
Of course, technically, we’re not Belgian either but, since all the children were born there, he thought that it would be nice to stay in touch. He rang the Embassy and the secretary (Flemish sounding) puzzled for a time over his query. Then, having discussed matters with the Ambassador, she came back and said that there would be activities with lots of fun for children also. A couple of days later this arrived in the post:
No it doesn’t say fun for children to me either but I was touched all the same and this evening we dressed ourselves up in our best clothes and pushed off to the Belgian Embassy. All of the excitement was in the back garden of the embassy which was huge and was, prudently, covered in army tents. After some initial unfortunate incidents (I saw the boys running wild on the grass and they nearly knocked over an eminent judge who didn’t look as though he enjoyed indulging young children – in marked contrast to all the other punters who were extraordinarily relaxed and kind) we headed down to the far end of the garden where there were some other families with young children. This was quite pleasant, the sun shone and, finally, after many years of effort, we met some Belgians.
There was beer and cheese but, alas, there were no chips. There were Leonidas chocolates. The children found out where they were coming from and attacked the caterers at source:
I suppose we’ll be back next year. Lucky old Belgians.
Overheard
Princess: Mummy is very nice to us today.
Michael: Yes, she is.
Princess: Normally she doesn’t give us this many meals.
Oh very good
From xkcd
The Value of Money
The Princess invited twins to her birthday party in April and each brought her a fiver inscribed “Happy Birthday love from..”. It struck me as an odd kind of present and I wasn’t sure whether it wasn’t some kind of offence to deface notes of the realm, but who am I to knock other mothers of twins. The Princess preserved her treasures carefully regularly asking about their purchasing power (she’s holding out until the economy hits bottom and she can get a house). Last night she decided unbeknowst to me that her treasures should sleep under the stars; under the brambles in the back garden to be specific. This morning she learnt a valuable lesson about minding her money. I suppose that kind of knowledge is worth a tenner.
