My husband sent me this, because he loves me:
Regular readers will recall that I mentioned last weekend that Monday night shopping was a “What’s Hot” item suggested by Irish Times’ journalists. Above is proof of this unlikely fact.
Reading etc.
Lone Wolf
The Princess and I were cycling in the Phoenix Park at the weekend when we saw a man walking with a large flag. On closer examination, it was a flag with a picture of a wolf. We stopped to ask him why he was walking through the park flying a flag of a wolf. “Is it to encourage the re-introduction of the wolf to Ireland?” I asked nervously. Apparently not. We kept on guessing. It turned out that it was art. He had walked from the West of Ireland and he was going to walk all the way across Europe (he’d covered Iceland earlier) carrying his wolf flag. I was charmed by the idea and thought that it was a nice, if slightly odd, way to spend a warm November. He had no website. He gave us a card.
On one side was a picture of a wolf. On the other was the word resistance and, in Irish and English, instructions to write to a PO Box in Israel (he sounded like he was from Northern Ireland, so I’m unclear why Israel), “and tell of a woman soldier/a woman who has taken up arms/a woman who has gone to war”. The Princess and I intend to turn our minds to this matter, but if you had any suggestions to make in the comments, that would be welcome. Come on, it’s for art; we’ll acknowledge your input.
What’s Hot; What’s Not
The Irish Times has a column in the magazine every Saturday with the above title. Generally, it seems to be a series of one liners on what junior journalists have been doing that week. So, for example, first item under “What’s Hot” today was: “Motor Tax Office: They phone you up when you’ve stupidly given the wrong Laser card number.” I’m not making this up. Item 2 was: “Amphibian King: Great fitting service for running shoes, or, our favourite, trail shoes, which are running shoes for people who don’t like running. On the Dargle Road as you come into Bray.” By no stretch of the imagination are either of these items hot. However, they both beat what remains my favourite “What’s Hot” entry from a couple of months ago: “[My local Dublin] shopping centre which had cheap vegetables when I went there on Monday night”.
Needless to say the items have a very strong Dublin bent unless the young journalist has been away for the week. You can tell this as they tend to say things like “What’s Hot?” “Some trendy spot in London.” “What’s Not?” “Long queues at Dublin airport”.
No byline, no wonder.
Do you think it’s a parody? Do you want more next week?
Finally
I am indebted to my husband for the information below:
Cork city FG councillor Laura McGonigle suggests a “Cork passport”
She says
“Corkonians’ unique attachment and devotion to their county is known country and world wide. The Certificate of Irish Heritage is a great initiative, and creates great value and a bond with our people wherever they live, but why not take this further with a Cork Heritage cert or “Cork passportâ€.
(etc etc)”
And here’s a mock-up of the design.
Reading
“Great Irish Lives” ed. Charles Lysaght [New Year’s Resolution]
This is a collection of obituaries from the London Times, starting with Grattan and Daniel O’Connell and covering many major figures thereafter. It was a present and it isn’t the kind of thing I would have bought it myself but I found it entertaining and mildly interesting. Although, you would need to know a lot about the ins and outs of 19th century politics for most of it.
“Under My Skin – Volume One of My Autobiography, to 1949” by Doris Lessing [New Year’s Resolution]
I loved chapter one – lots of ancestral history. I will love this book, I thought to myself. OK, you know where this is going. It was ok, but my fundamental problem was that I found the author very annoying and difficult to relate to which is a problem for autobiography. I found myself sympathising deeply with her much loathed mother. And she lives so much in her inner life, it can be a bit difficult to follow what is happening in her outer life. She assumes that you know a lot about her novels and her life already which, I suppose, is not unreasonable but it is a false assumption, in my case anyhow. She has lots of affairs, she leaves her husband and two small children, her second husband, possibly, becomes an East German spy. But yet, it is dull, for my money because she’s so enormously earnest.
“The Private Lives of Pippa Lee” by Rebecca Miller [New Year’s Resolution]
I finally persuaded my book club to read one of my new year’s resolution books when I had them trapped in my house recently. It covers the descent into nervous breakdown of the perfect wife – something of a theme for Americans, I often think. It’s a reasonable page turner. The characters are not very believable; maybe people like our heroine do exist but I think it is doubtful. But lots of things happen to her and they are well-described and the book is well-written also. Entertaining.
“The Left Hand of Darkness” by Ursula Le Guin
We went into the library in Marino, round the corner from Bram Stoker’s house and they had an enormous gothic section. I was suitably impressed. They had a number of Ann Radcliffe books but when I asked for “The Mysteries of Udolpho” they said it had just been taken out. I took this instead. And a little quiz to check if anyone is reading along. Ann Radcliffe and Ursula Le Guin are linked in my mind by having been read by a fictional character in a book I read over the summer. If you identify it, you may be my husband.
Anyhow, this seemed appealing. Look, gender and science fiction, my key interests in one handy package. It starts off fine. Slightly underwhelming but fine. And that’s how it continues. The big item of interest is that she tries to imagine a world without gender. It’s not that interesting; and I’m a feminist.
“A Life of Contrasts” by Diana Mosley
I was reading this in tandem with Doris Lessing’s book and I have to say that I found it by far the more enjoyable read. I couldn’t help feeling that Doris Lessing was a much worthier person but far less entertaining than Diana Mosley.
This is, of course, more Mitfordia as Diana was born Mitford and became, briefly, Guinness and then Mosley. I know most of the stories and the cast of characters already. And Diana was probably the most interesting sister of them all. She defends Mosley at every turn and despite myself, I find some of the questions she raises interesting. She seems a charming and lovely person despite her beliefs – sorry, but there it is. She glosses over, as I suppose might be expected, the less pleasant aspects of her husband’s activities and she must have been the only, somewhat sane, (her comments on the deaths of the Goebbels children make me wonder whether she was entirely so) person defending Hitler in 1977. Definitely worth a read. But, if you are going to tackle only one Mitford book this year, make it the six sisters one.
NaBloPoMo
It’s November. I will be posting every day.
Aren’t you delighted? No theme suggests itself. Posts will be random musings. There’s excitement.