From a review of “Gonta” by Alex Hijmans in the Irish Times – “This first collection of short stories in Irish by the multilingual Dutchman Alex Hijmans is set in Salvador, in Brazil, where he lives.”
Ireland
Mr. and Mrs. Didactic Take Their Children to Town
On Sunday morning, we went to see “Ernest et Célestine”:
It was lovely. However, the IFI, in it’s wisdom not only had subtitles but had the sound slightly lowered and someone reading out the subtitles in English. I found this approach deeply unsatisfactory. Looking around the cinema, it seemed to me that the vast majority of the young patrons were either francophone or able to read. While it was undoubtedly a good approach for the small minority who were unable to read or speak French, it ruined it for everyone else. It’s actually surprisingly hard to concentrate on a film when it is in French with English subtitles which are read aloud.
In the row behind us there was a woman with her 11 grandchildren. With great fanfare each of them received sweets of some kind. One grandchild was sent to the Spar to get extra bottles of water to carry them through the 90 minutes of the film. Our lot, seeing the largesse being distributed at great length in the row behind asked whether they were going to get anything. “No, it’s 11 in the morning,” I said tartly. To be fair to them, they accepted this despite the ongoing distribution of bounty in the row behind for the duration of the film. Bah, humbug, I know.
After lunch in Milano’s – the excitement – we went off to see the launch of Bliain na Gaeilge. This was something of a damp squib. A cold nasty rain was raining and the Irish dancers and traditional musicians were huddled under a small awning. A number of young people were speaking Irish enthusiastically and the children spoke Irish for long enough to get the following: their faces painted and a balloon, notebook, pen and highlighter each. They were touchingly delighted by their haul of free goodies. We decided not to wait to see the Lord Mayor and battled driving wind and cold rain back to the car. Honestly, the children love it really.
We’re All Going to the Zoo Tomorrow
When I was young, my mother bought a season ticket to Fota. Every Sunday, she would say, “Will we go to Fota?” And every Sunday, we would groan, “Do we have to?” To be fair, I think the wildlife park may not have opened at that point and we were being asked to visit the arboretum and gardens rather than exotic wildlife every Saturday, so you can see why it might be unappealing.
A part of me knew that buying a season ticket to Dublin Zoo would see me repeat my mother’s experience and so it is. Now the prospect of a trip to the zoo is greeted with sounds of horrified protest. We’ve only been twice since I got the ticket but something about being able to get in free fills parents with enthusiasm and fills children with an equal and opposite measure of disgust. They don’t actually mind it once they get there, it’s the prospect of going there that fills them with dread. Look, have a picture from the zoo, why don’t you?
Are we all glad that NaBloPoMo is almost over?
Weekend Round-Up
The weekend was filled with excitement. Mr. Waffle’s sister came home from London with her fiancé [the man my children are calling Pruncle – short for pre-uncle obviously] and we all got to congratulate them and admire the ring. Although many details in relation to the wedding remain unsettled, the role of the flower girls has been discussed at considerable length and is the source of great joy to herself. Upon my asking Pruncle whether they intended to have lots of cousins at the wedding, he said “Well, I have no cousins, my parents are both only children.” He then cast a slightly nervous glance around the teeming masses of people in the room and said, “All this is quite new to me.” And then he had to play football in the garden for ages which was both virtuous and, I suspect exhausting. When driving home, I commented to the children how odd it was that both of Pruncle’s parents were only children. Michael was particularly fascinated by this and it was only when he asked why Pruncle’s parents weren’t grown-ups that I realised why.
On Sunday, Daniel really got the hang of cycling and is able to start by himself often – though not always.
The Princess is now an old hand at her prayers of the faithful at mass and she loves it. At the start of mass, five children were brought up for a first annointing – a new ceremony (well post the baptism of my children anyhow) which extends the baptism process over two Sundays. “This will take forever,” I muttered bitterly. Michael, of all people, said, “Mummy, don’t be mean, it’s nice to see new children being welcomed into the church.” I felt suitably chastised. After mass there was tea and a biscuit in the sacristy for those who were so inclined and the Princess and I may have been inveigled into joining the church choir.
In the afternoon, in response to Michael’s repeated requests, we went to a games shop in town. There you can buy horrifically expensive very tiny models which you need to paint and assemble yourself and use them to play games so complex that the rules can’t be explained in a normal lifetime. There were two ten year olds there who had to come into the shop to play because they couldn’t understand the rules after 2 years of playing with the models. I really can’t see the attraction myself but the boys were transfixed. I see shoals ahead.
We wrenched them away from the Games Shop and took them to the Dublin Book Festival. My expectations for this were pitched low. We had tried to book tickets for a number of the children’s events and failed. I suspected that we might arrive to find that access was only by ticket holders to a session for adults chaired by Ireland’s cultural commentator in chief, Fintan O’Toole. I was quite prepared to sell the whole thing to the children as a walk up and down the quays.
However, the venue was open and it was lovely and really interesting to look around. Upstairs, there were books for children to read and beanbags to sit and read them on.
There was a treasure hunt and each child who did it [and to my certain knowledge one who didn’t] got a bag containing bookmarks, two sweets and a small book. While the Princess was reading her book she looked up to see a woman staring at her. When she caught the Princess’s eye, the woman said, “I wrote that.”
They had this man called Niall de Burca do a storytelling session. He was phenomenal and the boys absolutely loved him. I have never seen them so engaged and entertained by a live performer. I know he’s an artist but I really wanted to ask him, “Do you do birthday parties?” I have never seen a group of children so entranced and he was at it for ages.
All in all, what with one thing and another, it was a busy weekend.
Worst First Thinking
On the Free Range Kids blog they have a category described as “worst first thinking”. Essentially, it’s the idea that when looking at a whole range of possible outcomes, the first that is considered is the worst even if it is the most unlikely.
I was put in mind of this when Mr. Waffle went to photograph traffic chaos at the local school at 9 in the morning. The residents’ association is appealing to the council for a better traffic management plan [don’t mock, someday you too will be in your 40s and a stalwart of the local residents’ association]. He was approached by a man wearing a fluorescent jacket of power wanting to know why he was taking photographs of the children. When Mr. Waffle was able to re-assure him that he was taking photos of the traffic [and, obviously enough, had photographic evidence to prove it], the man was very pleasant and obliging, explaining the measures which the school had taken to address the issues. But it did strike me that there was a certain amount of paranoia in evidence. The principal in my children’s own school though in many ways terrific also has a slight streak of paranoia about this. The school yard is visible from the windows of a nearby hotel and the children are told not to go too near the hotel side of the yard lest they be photographed by the hotel guests. This seems an extremely unlikely contingency to me.
In a sort of related issue, a colleague of mine lives in one of Dublin’s more affluent suburbs and there have been a number of burglaries in her estate. Most recently a widow who lives across the road met the burglar who was doing the house next door and he threatened her with a gun. I appreciate that this is terrifying but I am not sure that the solution, as suggested by my colleague is a good one. She is encouraging the widow not to answer the door without checking who it is first, ideally by intercom. The neighbours are also going to look at putting gates on the estate. The guards have advised that gated estates get burgled less. I suppose this may be true but I am not sure that it is so good for social cohesion to bar admittance in this way.
That’s enough about the end of society for one evening.
Complementary
I see that the city fathers are planning a website on the Liffey Bridges. Not before time.
East from O’Connell Bridge, November 6, 2012
West from O’Connell Bridge, November 6, 2012