We get Le Soir at the weekend. This weekend the colour supplement had an article about how cool Dublin is. It was slightly bizarre to see what the Belgians make of Dublin. On the whole, it wasn’t what you would call entirely accurate. Bono was described as a sort of patron saint of the city which, I suspect, locals would find particularly irritating. Certainly, I did, but then, I’m from Cork, so I can’t speak for them. Most of the article was about Temple Bar and how hip it is. Well, yes, in a sort of full of pubs and stag parties kind of way. Mostly locals wouldn’t be seen dead there. However, some merited praise of the Powerscourt Centre as a shopping location of interest. Didn’t mention at all some of the best things about Dublin like the boardwalk on the Liffey or, star sight (though a trifle inaccessible) the Casino Marino. Latter not very hip I suppose, but strolling on the former, definitely is. Lots of quotes from author Marian Keyes who was Mr. Waffle’s next door neighbour when he was growing up, so felt very well-connected ourselves.
First Birthday
The princess has turned one today. Incredible. I have spent the last couple of days saying “Remember this time last year?” I really can’t believe that she’s one.
Like the Queen she is going to have an official birthday and a real one. Today will be just a private family celebration. In a couple of weeks there will perhaps be a brunch where she will crawl among her minions and shake hands with people offering her posies.
Comments
belgianwaffle
on 12 April 2004 at 21:39
Hey there – thank you. You will never guess what but, yes, last night she slept from midnight to seven (there were a couple of whimpers but nothing to get me up). This is the longest I have stayed in bed since this time last year. Am ecstatic. 
Locotes
on 12 April 2004 at 22:22
Well Happy Birthday to herself. Maybe the extra sleep was in preparation for all the partying and general frivolity she’s planning on having. I presume those pictures of her on the phone were invitations to the aforementioned minons – with detailed instructions on how big the gifts must be before entry is allowed and the birthday rusks can be consumed.
belgianwaffle
on 16 April 2004 at 08:55
You are so right Locotes. There may, however, be brownies for the royal birthday. Rusks, ha!
“The noise, my dear, and the people”
We live in a very noisy place. Obviously, we didn’t think this when we moved in. Our street seemed a quiet backwater. It’s not. It’s a short cut for every car in Belgium. We are on a corner near a junction. Junctions are exciting places in Belgium. They take their right-of-way rules very seriously. As Mr. Waffle puts it, “being Belgian means you never have to look left”. This, inevitably, leads to a huge number of tips and near misses and our junction, which features a blind corner, is a great place to have them. And then there is the lorry which comes and delivers oil to the building across the road at 6 in the morning. Loudly. And our bins are collected on Wednesday morning and (cruel) Saturday morning.
During the Summer, somewhere near us, there is a disco venue for the young people. When they emerge drunken, dehydrated and deafened, they need a place to meet. They select the doorstep of our building. It’s on a corner and it’s distinctive. We are looking forward to hearing the following dialogue on Friday and Saturday nights from May onwards (all conducted at top volume, obviously, because they’ve just emerged from a loud, loud club):
Where’s the car again?
I dunno, did anyone see Vero?
I think I’ll just lie here on the road.
Wow, look at the stars.
Where’s Vero?
Will we see if we can walk on top of the cars?
Did I mention that we live in an old building and so, apparently, it’s not possible to fit double glazing. All the better to hear the excitement outside…
Meanwhile our neighbours also contribute their mite. The annoying German lady listens to the telly in her bedroom (directly above ours) at top volume. We are sick of German detective shows. The other night, there was a big bang, as though the telly had been chucked on the floor) and the noise stopped. Maybe she is sick of German detective shows too. The Belgians on the ground floor play electric guitar from 10.00 pm on. I feel that it may be either spouse but Mr. Waffle feels it must be him because only a man would still be trying to master Dire Straits numbers 20 years after they were originally released. A compelling argument, I concede. And this morning at 9.30, the woman downstairs began using her drill. I suppose, to be fair, trapped between Dire Straits and screaming baby, she felt she had to make some kind of protest.
Also, for one week only, our street is being dug up to put in new lighting. Excellent, a pneumatic drill.
Is it any wonder our baby doesn’t sleep at night?
Comments
Thierrry
(Homepage)
on 11 April 2004 at 03:27
Tu peux tenter de faire comprendre ? tes voisins qu’ils ne vivent pas seuls dans l’immeuble et que le tapage “diurne” est aussi prohib? que le “nocturne.
Nous avons une vieille m?m? sourde comme un pot au-dessus de chez nous et ce fut la guerre pendant plusieurs mois avec elle.
Maintenant, ?? va mieux et nous avons conclu un accord avec elle: quand sa t?l? va trop fort, nous lui t?l?phonons et laissons sonner quelques secondes pour qu’elle baisse le son.
Le syst?me fonctionne assez bien !
Bon courage !
Locotes
on 12 April 2004 at 02:18
So where was Vero??As for the noise…ouch. I don’t envy you. Being out in the country direction has it’s disadvantages (such as lacklustre public transport), but I always appreciate the total silence at night. Bliss. But I really shouldn’t be rubbing it in….sorry.
😉
belgianwaffle
on 12 April 2004 at 11:06
Vesper, don’t know about very interesting…you are kind.
Thierry, merci pour le conseil, may take courage in my hands and tackle neighbours downstairs, but German lady is just too scary. Impressed with your v. practical arrangement with your elderly neighbour.
Locotes, she was obviously straggling out of the nightclub waking up the people round the corner. Guess what though – Princess slept from midnight to 7 this morning. Am delighted.
Headlong
A bitter disappointment, I can tell you. By Michael Frayn. Nominated for all kinds of things. About art history and Belgium, both of which rank high among my areas of interest. But no, not entertaining. Narrator is dull and unconvincing and extremely annoying. Having much better fun with “Jude the Obscure” on tape. Odd, but true.
And the LRB has arrived again. This week’s small ad winner is for the boys:
“You may be a sharp dresser, you may be a fantastic dancer, you may be a lively conversationalist. Or you may be a vo-coded stalking eighties moron. Whichever way, I’ll take you. Woman, 37, seeks…well, just seeks. Box no. 07/03”.
Finally, went to the Khnopff exhibition. Frankly, not for me. I don’t even like Klimt much and he’s a lot better (a symbolist too, apparently). Khnopff’s big inspiration was his sister Marguerite. Marguerite had a big chin. All of Khnopff’s paintings feature women with big chins. A little creepy, if you ask me. “Desperate Dan in a dress” is the view of the Glam Potter.
Comments
belgianwaffle
on 10 April 2004 at 12:16
Really? Is spies wonderful? Am a little nervous at this point. Nevertheless may give it a go, if I am feeling v. brave. Tell me, what’s your relationship with ChaOtic? Yours in mild confusion..
With it
Present from sister-in-law the publishing exec. It’s a book on tape – abridged version of Daphne du Maurier classic and most enjoyable. Sat in the car listening to it after I’d parked. The ultimate accolade. May rush out and buy “Hungry Hill” which is supposed to be excellent and has the added (enormous) advantage that it is set in Cork.
It also makes a refreshing change from the World Service (as the Glam Potter points out, it’s really designed for people whose first language is not English and in consequence they always speak very slowly and enunciate very clearly and, if your first language actually is English, they will, eventually, drive you – slowly and clearly – insane), Radio Contact and Bel RTL (can’t really be bothered finding a link, I know you’re not going to look) which are my usual staples in the car. Though, an unexpected advantage of the Radio Contact service was that I was recently able to wow Mr. Waffle with my knowledge of what the young people are listening to. We were looking at a list of mobile ringtones you could download (just out of interest, you know, we don’t get out much any more etc.) and he had never heard any of the offerings whereas I was able to hum most of them. If God is a DJ, tum ti tum..
Hairy
You may have noticed that the Princess is bald. Go on, have a look at the photos. This comes from me. I was bald for ages. I was on the phone to my mother the other day and I asked her when I got hair and she said pensively “well, you certainly had hair by the time you were four”. Not really as comforting as it might be.
And my hair grows very slowly. I had my first haircut when I was 12 and it only just reached my shoulders. This is true. No really. Even now, I only get my hair cut three times a year. This is partly because my hair grows slowly and partly because each visit to the hairdresser’s is fraught with trauma. The following are my fears in order of priority:
My hair will look dreadful when I emerge blinking in the sunlight (almost always realised)
Someone will see me sitting in the window of the hairdressers wearing a stupid overall and with my wet hair pulled back from my face looking like death warmed up (funnily enough, never realised, not even when I was living in Cork and stepping out the door normally entailed running into a dozen of my mother’s closest friends).
I will have to chat to the hairdresser (almost always realised – not you might think, an enormous problem for a talker like me, but for reasons I cannot really explain, I always end up lying to them: when I was working, I felt that they wouldn’t be interested in my job (or worse, be too interested and want something explained or sorted) so I pretended to be between jobs and now that I’m unemployed, I feel that they might think that I’m the wife of a rich businessman living it high on the hog with no obligations so I sort of invent occupations for myself; I then spend the time in the chair in an advanced state of tension trying both to keep my story consistent and to see what the back of my head looks like).
How will I hand over my tip (I mean to give it to this person for whom I have gone to the trouble of fabricating a whole false existence and with whose wedding plans I am now very familiar seems insulting, like tipping a friend of a friend; however not to tip is, I know, an even greater insult so I hand over my tip at the cash desk and mutter “that’s for x who cut my hair” and feel nervously that I’m doing the wrong thing).
It will cost a small fortune (almost always realised except for the time I got my head shaved. That only cost a fiver but the effect was not happy. I remember going to the pub that night with my then boyfriend: I had no hair and a rotten cold so I looked marvellous – bald and snuffly. I said “I look terrible”. “No, no” he said reassuringly “you look really cool – with the hair and the sniff, you could be a drug dealer”. Fantastic, that relationship was clearly doomed. It was also sporting that haircut that I went out with three friends of mine who were sisters. We bumped into a friend of their’s who said “finally, I get to meet your little brother”. “Um, no actually I’m a GIRL, unrelated and finished school” I said bitterly).
So today, I went to get my hair cut. I haven’t had it cut since December so, sadly, I realised it was time. I went to this place my friend F recommended. She said that this place was good if you want to look like a bourgeois Belgian “you know, shortish, blondish”. In my heart of hearts, I really do want to look like a bourgeois Belgian so I took myself off to Olivier Dachkin on the Rue de Tongres which apparently is the original branch of the chain where the great Olivier himself snips from time to time.
When I arrived, this very nice male hairdresser came up and discussed what style I might go for, it was all going suspiciously well. “And of course” said he “you will need highlights”. “Um no, I wasn’t really thinking of highlights” “But you must, it will look wonderful”. He was kind of convincing, I was weak, I said ok and sat for half an hour with tin foil on my hair. The girl who did them said “it’s very original that you’ve gone for these wide streaks”. My heart sank, “original”, does that sound bourgeois Belgian to you?
Downstairs, I saw that my nice male hairdresser appeared to be working exclusively on little old ladies, I further noticed that unlike all the other hairdressers, he was not wearing a red shirt with Olivier Dachkin on it and he was bossing people around. Could it be that he was the great Olivier himself? Well whoever he was he abandoned me and consigned me to a woman who gave me an alright haircut, I confess, but I wasn’t really in the mood to appreciate the quality of the cut because I was transfixed by the zebra stripes on my head. The man who may or may not be the great Olivier came over and ruffled my hair and said “isn’t it fabulous?” I smiled cravenly.
Tonight I asked Mr. Waffle what he thought. “Very nice” he said without hesitation. “What makes you say that?” I asked. “Fear”. I see. Oh well, it’s all over until August, though I suspect that those highlights will grow out in a very exciting fashion.
