29 Aug 2009
More about Hitler
The good news is that I got a real reply from a real person about the listing of Mein Kampf:
Hello Carol, Thank you for writing to us about removal of your 'mein
kampf' listing (item no.230370199110). I am happy to assist you further.
I've reviewed your listing again and can confirm that it was removed by
the eBay.de Trust & Safety team (Germany). Our rules on eBay.de are very
strict in relation to items from this period, and it is illegal to sell
many of these types of items in various parts of Europe. While I totally
agree that history is there for us to learn from and not to be buried
and overlooked - please note that when you offer to post these types of
items worldwide, they are available to Germany, and our eBay.de Trust &
Safety team will remove them accordingly. Carol, you may re-list this
item on eBay.co.uk if you remove the Europe and Worldwide postage
options. You may post to the rest of the world, such as North and South
America or Australia and Asia. This is the reason you will see other
similar items to yours still available on site.
So that's it really. Pity they (ebay.de) didn't just think of asking me to change my listing specifications but I'm happy to have had a response. I shall reactivate my account.
Hello Carol, Thank you for writing to us about removal of your 'mein
kampf' listing (item no.230370199110). I am happy to assist you further.
I've reviewed your listing again and can confirm that it was removed by
the eBay.de Trust & Safety team (Germany). Our rules on eBay.de are very
strict in relation to items from this period, and it is illegal to sell
many of these types of items in various parts of Europe. While I totally
agree that history is there for us to learn from and not to be buried
and overlooked - please note that when you offer to post these types of
items worldwide, they are available to Germany, and our eBay.de Trust &
Safety team will remove them accordingly. Carol, you may re-list this
item on eBay.co.uk if you remove the Europe and Worldwide postage
options. You may post to the rest of the world, such as North and South
America or Australia and Asia. This is the reason you will see other
similar items to yours still available on site.
So that's it really. Pity they (ebay.de) didn't just think of asking me to change my listing specifications but I'm happy to have had a response. I shall reactivate my account.
Wallander
Much taken by Wallander on TV I tried one of the books - 'Sidetracked.' With my translator friend in mind I wondered how it would read and if I would be getting a true impresssion of Mankell's style. The novelist and the public are both dependant on the skill of these people.
Whatever the original sounds like I was totally gripped by the translation. Its oddly disjointed style reminds me strongly of the atmosphere of the Swedish series now showing on BBC 3 with subtitles, so I suppose it to be a good representation.
It's a happy day when I find an author I haven't read before - lots of titles to keep me entertained through the winter.
The last Steig Larsson is out soon too. Let's hear it for the Swedes!
Whatever the original sounds like I was totally gripped by the translation. Its oddly disjointed style reminds me strongly of the atmosphere of the Swedish series now showing on BBC 3 with subtitles, so I suppose it to be a good representation.
It's a happy day when I find an author I haven't read before - lots of titles to keep me entertained through the winter.
The last Steig Larsson is out soon too. Let's hear it for the Swedes!
28 Aug 2009
Back to school.
Rather like Goldilocks my grandson has been to 3 different schools in as many years and I hope he’s settled now. The first was too small; not enough choice of friends and a new-to-it-all head teacher who was of the chocolate fireguard variety. She looked the part in pant suit and long, swinging Jennifer Anniston hair, using words like ‘bling’ and hip, street-wise descriptive nouns. When there was trouble she was excellent with the platitudes. Several children had to be taken away because a couple of bullies were not dealt with as they should be, and one rumbustious boy was dubbed a bully who shouldn’t have been. She just didn’t have the experience to deal with the parents, never mind the children.
The second school was too big. Segregated playgrounds didn’t stop the older pupils bullying the younger ones, and class sizes meant teachers were too harassed to see what was going on in front of their noses.
It wsn’t the bullying in either school that upset Sandy personally but he was aware of it happening and troubled by the bullying of others. His problems were the disturbance at home and therefore in his head. His world had fallen apart and he had no way of coping. That sort of emotional turbulence separates people from their peers at any age. There was no support forthcoming for him at either school; the teachers were too pre-occupied with meeting standards. Academic achievement was all they had focus for.
The other reason he couldn’t settle was simply that amongst his peers he didn’t fit the mould. I’m not sure why that happens, could hazard guesses but that’s all they would be - guesses.
The third school, a public school, has small classes and the ability to be flexible. It has its demands - Ofsted calls in there too of course - but there is more sport, art and music and other qualities are valued beyond the academic. Qualities of sportmanship in the oldfashioned sense of the word, comradeship, leadership and community. Tradition. The end-of-term service reminded me of my Grammar School when those leaving the family to go to the next level were appreciated and reassured that the good wishes of the friendly faces they were leaving would go with them. That sort of service doesn’t seem to happen in the state schools any more.
None of this should have to be the domain of the wealthy. The values have just got forgotten in the pressure of trying to meet government standards.
Something I’ve learned since Sandy’s experience has been there is that Public School children are not any more privileged than State School children. Often they have had a much worse time at home and feel far less rooted, their Forces parents continually moved from one base to another for instance. One of Sandy’s class-mates didn’t see his mother for 4 months because she was in Afghanistan. There are other reasons too. An ex-headmaster of this school gave a talk at the local Rotary Club recently and spoke of a boy who had been a primary carer for his mother whilst she struggled with cancer then when she died had been sent to the school by relatives. There were also heart-breaking cases of children whose parents didn’t want them at home and left them with ‘guardians’ through the holidays. The less wealthy classes just treat the poor kids with dislike and resentment so they stay out of the way.
I don’t think Sandy feels especialy privileged and I don’t detect any boastfulness amongst his friends. They struggle with the same things as any other child I suppose.
What their parents have had is an element of choice so that when the choice has been made for the good of the child they are one hundred percent behind the both the child and the school. That’s the difference and therein lies the problem with education in Britain - the lack of choice. How much does anyone value what is forced upon them? With small schools being closed and those that do exist getting inexperienced teachers because they are thought to be a soft option, what opportunity does any parent have to make a choice that either suits their life-style or that they have any confidence in?
In Denmark I believe it is easily possible to open a school and as long as the standards are reasonable to receive state funding for that school, which means there can be more Waldorf Schools, non-directive schools, schools with a bias toward one or another craft or art, ‘out-door’ farm schools - the list of possibilities is long.
We live in ‘blame’ culture these days. Blaming the school is a favourite. A certain type of parent happily abdicates responsibility for their child’s behaviour and hand it over to ‘the school.’ If schooling were to cease to be obligatory but a privilege how soon would that attitude change? No chance of that happening of course, so schooling continues to be a state-funded child-minding facility which is obliged to force learning upon its charges. Not good.
The ideals of teaching - of leading out the best from the child - have been lost too.
When I went to what was laughingly called a teachers training college the course was direly awful and unhelpful but the one good thing I took from the course was that the aim of a teacher should be to make learning enjoyable - to educate the children in ways which would make them want to learn more and give them the skills to do that for themselves. Somewhere that has been lost and the Victorian methods of pouring concrete into the poor bairns has been re-adopted.
Brief trip down memory lane here: The result of that college course was that those who were born to make good teachers left and made good teachers; those who were doomed to be bad ones struggled for a bit then left the career for ever. The only practical advice I remember being given was to hold onto the blackboard when feeling nervous in front of a new class.
Actually I found it helped to wear glasses which I didn’t need but which gave me much needed sense of separation from the little blighters. I didn’t do too badly in the secondary schools in Yorkshire where I began my brief teaching career, all things considered - one significant ‘thing’ being the cultural divide between north and south and the slap-round-the-earhole habits that the older teachers still used. Oddly I got on better with the real naughties, not so well with those earnest types who wanted to learn. The problem was we had fun but I didn’t teach them anything useful. I wouldn’t get past Ofsted today!
Anyway, to continue my soliloquy: Look at the results of force-feeding the children like Strasbourg geese. More and more leave school with degrees and there are less and less jobs waiting for them. They don’t leave with useful skills but with ‘Media Studies’ and an artificial sense of their own creative potential. They expect the world to give them a living for meagre talent. Then they find it isn’t going to happen. Shock.
Expectations - that’s what has risen. Even amongst those who don’t go to Uni but take the DSS option or have a baby at 16, expect that a huge screen TV, state-of-the-art (what the hell does that mean anyway?) mobile, Bluetooth, ipod and so on, should be, must be, theirs. A car and all the household machines if they have a house, and a wardrobe crammed to overflowing with designer clothes. These are what define a person in the 21st century.
How to get it? Well reality TV is one way and the evidence is that the ruder the contestants are the more publicity they get. Footballers get obscene amounts of money - and look how loutish their behaviour is. Jade rose to fame with loutish behaviour. There’s money and fame in it so loutish behaviour must be the way to go.
Values have become seriously twisted.
The second school was too big. Segregated playgrounds didn’t stop the older pupils bullying the younger ones, and class sizes meant teachers were too harassed to see what was going on in front of their noses.
It wsn’t the bullying in either school that upset Sandy personally but he was aware of it happening and troubled by the bullying of others. His problems were the disturbance at home and therefore in his head. His world had fallen apart and he had no way of coping. That sort of emotional turbulence separates people from their peers at any age. There was no support forthcoming for him at either school; the teachers were too pre-occupied with meeting standards. Academic achievement was all they had focus for.
The other reason he couldn’t settle was simply that amongst his peers he didn’t fit the mould. I’m not sure why that happens, could hazard guesses but that’s all they would be - guesses.
The third school, a public school, has small classes and the ability to be flexible. It has its demands - Ofsted calls in there too of course - but there is more sport, art and music and other qualities are valued beyond the academic. Qualities of sportmanship in the oldfashioned sense of the word, comradeship, leadership and community. Tradition. The end-of-term service reminded me of my Grammar School when those leaving the family to go to the next level were appreciated and reassured that the good wishes of the friendly faces they were leaving would go with them. That sort of service doesn’t seem to happen in the state schools any more.
None of this should have to be the domain of the wealthy. The values have just got forgotten in the pressure of trying to meet government standards.
Something I’ve learned since Sandy’s experience has been there is that Public School children are not any more privileged than State School children. Often they have had a much worse time at home and feel far less rooted, their Forces parents continually moved from one base to another for instance. One of Sandy’s class-mates didn’t see his mother for 4 months because she was in Afghanistan. There are other reasons too. An ex-headmaster of this school gave a talk at the local Rotary Club recently and spoke of a boy who had been a primary carer for his mother whilst she struggled with cancer then when she died had been sent to the school by relatives. There were also heart-breaking cases of children whose parents didn’t want them at home and left them with ‘guardians’ through the holidays. The less wealthy classes just treat the poor kids with dislike and resentment so they stay out of the way.
I don’t think Sandy feels especialy privileged and I don’t detect any boastfulness amongst his friends. They struggle with the same things as any other child I suppose.
What their parents have had is an element of choice so that when the choice has been made for the good of the child they are one hundred percent behind the both the child and the school. That’s the difference and therein lies the problem with education in Britain - the lack of choice. How much does anyone value what is forced upon them? With small schools being closed and those that do exist getting inexperienced teachers because they are thought to be a soft option, what opportunity does any parent have to make a choice that either suits their life-style or that they have any confidence in?
In Denmark I believe it is easily possible to open a school and as long as the standards are reasonable to receive state funding for that school, which means there can be more Waldorf Schools, non-directive schools, schools with a bias toward one or another craft or art, ‘out-door’ farm schools - the list of possibilities is long.
We live in ‘blame’ culture these days. Blaming the school is a favourite. A certain type of parent happily abdicates responsibility for their child’s behaviour and hand it over to ‘the school.’ If schooling were to cease to be obligatory but a privilege how soon would that attitude change? No chance of that happening of course, so schooling continues to be a state-funded child-minding facility which is obliged to force learning upon its charges. Not good.
The ideals of teaching - of leading out the best from the child - have been lost too.
When I went to what was laughingly called a teachers training college the course was direly awful and unhelpful but the one good thing I took from the course was that the aim of a teacher should be to make learning enjoyable - to educate the children in ways which would make them want to learn more and give them the skills to do that for themselves. Somewhere that has been lost and the Victorian methods of pouring concrete into the poor bairns has been re-adopted.
Brief trip down memory lane here: The result of that college course was that those who were born to make good teachers left and made good teachers; those who were doomed to be bad ones struggled for a bit then left the career for ever. The only practical advice I remember being given was to hold onto the blackboard when feeling nervous in front of a new class.
Actually I found it helped to wear glasses which I didn’t need but which gave me much needed sense of separation from the little blighters. I didn’t do too badly in the secondary schools in Yorkshire where I began my brief teaching career, all things considered - one significant ‘thing’ being the cultural divide between north and south and the slap-round-the-earhole habits that the older teachers still used. Oddly I got on better with the real naughties, not so well with those earnest types who wanted to learn. The problem was we had fun but I didn’t teach them anything useful. I wouldn’t get past Ofsted today!
Anyway, to continue my soliloquy: Look at the results of force-feeding the children like Strasbourg geese. More and more leave school with degrees and there are less and less jobs waiting for them. They don’t leave with useful skills but with ‘Media Studies’ and an artificial sense of their own creative potential. They expect the world to give them a living for meagre talent. Then they find it isn’t going to happen. Shock.
Expectations - that’s what has risen. Even amongst those who don’t go to Uni but take the DSS option or have a baby at 16, expect that a huge screen TV, state-of-the-art (what the hell does that mean anyway?) mobile, Bluetooth, ipod and so on, should be, must be, theirs. A car and all the household machines if they have a house, and a wardrobe crammed to overflowing with designer clothes. These are what define a person in the 21st century.
How to get it? Well reality TV is one way and the evidence is that the ruder the contestants are the more publicity they get. Footballers get obscene amounts of money - and look how loutish their behaviour is. Jade rose to fame with loutish behaviour. There’s money and fame in it so loutish behaviour must be the way to go.
Values have become seriously twisted.
27 Aug 2009
Is there another word for it?
A friend who also still works for a living though beyond the normal retirement age, called into the shop today in some distress. She qualified a year or two ago as a Dutch-English translator, a process that took training, a deep knowledge of the two languages, sensitivity, aptitude, and commitment. It's often thankless. The most recent author to use her was loud with praises for my friends' work - until the deadline when she suddenly sent back all the work of two long intensive weeks with a load of alterations which she felt more appropriate to her own style. My poor friend can hardly recognise her work in the midst of the Americanisms and clumsy re-phrasing and is faced with refusing to allow her work to be used because of the professional repercussions and her future standing as a translator, which will mean an unpleasant confrontation over payment for the time she has spent, or a long stressful weekend of negotiations over every altered descriptive word, simile and metaphor before starting back on her normal work again on Monday. She already looks exhausted. Nightmare.
Better translate only works by dead authors in future.
I had a nice affair back in the 70's with an English - Greek translator who ived in a squat, smoked pot and earned a bit to pay for it now and then as a supply teacher. He took my fancy when he came to the school where I worked (also as a supply teacher) wearing a tweed jacket (bought from a charity shop that morning as I later discovered) over canary yellow jeans with a bite out of the bum. He'd made himself a niche translating the work of a living greek poet of some repute. I thought it sounded rather a romantic thing to do but he claimed he was only a dogsbody and it was soul-destroying.
How one thought leads to another. He's one of the people I'd love to be able to trace through Friends Reunited or Facebook but so far never have. Maybe he's dead. Oh dear.
Better translate only works by dead authors in future.
I had a nice affair back in the 70's with an English - Greek translator who ived in a squat, smoked pot and earned a bit to pay for it now and then as a supply teacher. He took my fancy when he came to the school where I worked (also as a supply teacher) wearing a tweed jacket (bought from a charity shop that morning as I later discovered) over canary yellow jeans with a bite out of the bum. He'd made himself a niche translating the work of a living greek poet of some repute. I thought it sounded rather a romantic thing to do but he claimed he was only a dogsbody and it was soul-destroying.
How one thought leads to another. He's one of the people I'd love to be able to trace through Friends Reunited or Facebook but so far never have. Maybe he's dead. Oh dear.
Lots of thoughts milling around here but no magnetic north to pull them into shape.
Reading Chillside and enjoying her commitment to an ever burgeoning and talented career contrasts strongly with awareness of my own lack of focus. Excuses come easy - time is taken up with the shop and the grandson, but there is still time. I just prefer to fill it staring at CSI New York, The Guardian and The Mentalist, fantasy entertainment in other words. I always did prefer stuff that took me away from the present and even off the planet whenever possible. My favourite books at junior school was about two schoolboys who accidentally shot into space on a very unlikely rocket.
Faced with the possibility of going up in a real rocket and you wouldn't see me for dust.
Perhaps I would also blossom if incarcerated in a Lunatic Asylum. Although these days they'd pump me full of drugs so I'd be even more of a vegetable.
Amazing to think that this blog has been visited at least 1000 times; less amazing when remembering statistics about people who have finally had a blog made into a book. Theirs were visited tens of thousands of times. They had focus.
The naughty book banned by ebay has been sold. I've sent a letter of protest to ebay since there are other copies of almost the same publications still up and running on ebay uk and at least 24 listed on ebay us. Seems it is still banned in Germany so maybe my mistake was to open it up to all of Europe. Daft. Can't bury history.
Reading Chillside and enjoying her commitment to an ever burgeoning and talented career contrasts strongly with awareness of my own lack of focus. Excuses come easy - time is taken up with the shop and the grandson, but there is still time. I just prefer to fill it staring at CSI New York, The Guardian and The Mentalist, fantasy entertainment in other words. I always did prefer stuff that took me away from the present and even off the planet whenever possible. My favourite books at junior school was about two schoolboys who accidentally shot into space on a very unlikely rocket.
Faced with the possibility of going up in a real rocket and you wouldn't see me for dust.
Perhaps I would also blossom if incarcerated in a Lunatic Asylum. Although these days they'd pump me full of drugs so I'd be even more of a vegetable.
Amazing to think that this blog has been visited at least 1000 times; less amazing when remembering statistics about people who have finally had a blog made into a book. Theirs were visited tens of thousands of times. They had focus.
The naughty book banned by ebay has been sold. I've sent a letter of protest to ebay since there are other copies of almost the same publications still up and running on ebay uk and at least 24 listed on ebay us. Seems it is still banned in Germany so maybe my mistake was to open it up to all of Europe. Daft. Can't bury history.
26 Aug 2009
Book police.
Wow. The world of 'Fahrenheit 451' looks a lot more of a possibility to me today. My ebay listing of 'Mein Kampf' was allowed to run three days then summarily withdrawn. I received the following mail:
Dear
We appreciate that you chose eBay to list your auction-style listing(s). However, we have removed your (s) because it breaches our Hateful or Discriminatory policy.
230370199110 - Mein Kampf: Adolph Hitler. Text in German
Why did we remove your listing?
In accordance with our User Agreement, items prohibited by law or by eBay policy are not allowed on eBay.
You're not allowed to list items that promote or glorify hatred, violence or racial intolerance, or items that promote organisations with such views on eBay.
I'm at a loss for words. Not so the Aussie who had put a bid on it: "So they won't let us study our history now?"
That particular work is freely available on many sites and has recently been re-printed. It's a socio-political source book and any attempt to bury it is IMO an attempt to re-write history from which we can learn - if it's presented in full and with with honesty. If I were selling fundamentalist religious tracts I might understand them prohibiting the sale but I'm a secondhand bookseller trying to earn a living. The other books I had listed at the same time were: 'Tanglewood Tales' by Nathaniel Hawthorne and illustrated by Edmund Dulac and a book on fencing (the type you dress up for not the erection of wooden posts..) A glimpse at my selling history would have reassured them I'm not the sort to start a revolution.
I've closed my ebay account. Much they'll care. Big machine, little brain.
If you hear of an auto-da-fé in Forres High Street you'll understand who is at the stake and what the fuel is.
Dear
We appreciate that you chose eBay to list your auction-style listing(s). However, we have removed your (s) because it breaches our Hateful or Discriminatory policy.
230370199110 - Mein Kampf: Adolph Hitler. Text in German
Why did we remove your listing?
In accordance with our User Agreement, items prohibited by law or by eBay policy are not allowed on eBay.
You're not allowed to list items that promote or glorify hatred, violence or racial intolerance, or items that promote organisations with such views on eBay.
I'm at a loss for words. Not so the Aussie who had put a bid on it: "So they won't let us study our history now?"
That particular work is freely available on many sites and has recently been re-printed. It's a socio-political source book and any attempt to bury it is IMO an attempt to re-write history from which we can learn - if it's presented in full and with with honesty. If I were selling fundamentalist religious tracts I might understand them prohibiting the sale but I'm a secondhand bookseller trying to earn a living. The other books I had listed at the same time were: 'Tanglewood Tales' by Nathaniel Hawthorne and illustrated by Edmund Dulac and a book on fencing (the type you dress up for not the erection of wooden posts..) A glimpse at my selling history would have reassured them I'm not the sort to start a revolution.
I've closed my ebay account. Much they'll care. Big machine, little brain.
If you hear of an auto-da-fé in Forres High Street you'll understand who is at the stake and what the fuel is.
24 Aug 2009
Treadmill
Last week was a treadmill of a week and this promises to be the same, starting at 8am this morning with the car entering for its yearly service and MOT, a frantic exchange with the Health Centre to get an emergency prescription for asthma medication and a wheezy walk down to fill in the necessary forms. I want to go back to bed.
The sun is shining and the world looks good but I'm seeing it through tarnished lenses I'm afraid. Bright spots were finding a couple of books at a car boot worth £70 a piece and getting them for £7 with other lesser titles; reading three good books - good in different ways - and suddenly noticing the difference in Sanders who has calmed down during the hols, is breathing better and is much happier. A dose of maths homework threatened to shake the tranquility but I'm hoping an hour or two with the Cuisenaire rods later in the week will help form a few basic concepts.
The good books were'Midnight Fugue' by Reg Hill. 'Aftershock' Quintin Jardine. 'Blacklist' by Sara Paretsky. Of these Reginald Hill wins my overall prize. Jardine is awful at dialogue, painful clunky exchanges which really grit my teeth, but his plot is fast and interesting. Paretsky's undeniably a good writer but takes herself a bit seriously IMO; there's no humour to speak of and that particular plot was a trifle tedious to follow.
I also saw 'Rashoman' by Kurosawa Akira yesterday. I'm happy to have seen it and ticked it off (it won a Golden Lion and an Academy Award) but to be honest I'm not a fan of the early Japanese film-makers in the way my ex is. This reminded me of Sahekespeare at times (Kurosawa did direct the making of a couple of Shakespeare plays as film apparently) but it also reminded me also of Chaucer in its simplistic view of human nature, and a bit of Beckett for long-drawn out boring bits. Maybe I'm just not sensitive enough and need rapid entertainment - in other words I have the 21st century disease.
The sun is shining and the world looks good but I'm seeing it through tarnished lenses I'm afraid. Bright spots were finding a couple of books at a car boot worth £70 a piece and getting them for £7 with other lesser titles; reading three good books - good in different ways - and suddenly noticing the difference in Sanders who has calmed down during the hols, is breathing better and is much happier. A dose of maths homework threatened to shake the tranquility but I'm hoping an hour or two with the Cuisenaire rods later in the week will help form a few basic concepts.
The good books were'Midnight Fugue' by Reg Hill. 'Aftershock' Quintin Jardine. 'Blacklist' by Sara Paretsky. Of these Reginald Hill wins my overall prize. Jardine is awful at dialogue, painful clunky exchanges which really grit my teeth, but his plot is fast and interesting. Paretsky's undeniably a good writer but takes herself a bit seriously IMO; there's no humour to speak of and that particular plot was a trifle tedious to follow.
I also saw 'Rashoman' by Kurosawa Akira yesterday. I'm happy to have seen it and ticked it off (it won a Golden Lion and an Academy Award) but to be honest I'm not a fan of the early Japanese film-makers in the way my ex is. This reminded me of Sahekespeare at times (Kurosawa did direct the making of a couple of Shakespeare plays as film apparently) but it also reminded me also of Chaucer in its simplistic view of human nature, and a bit of Beckett for long-drawn out boring bits. Maybe I'm just not sensitive enough and need rapid entertainment - in other words I have the 21st century disease.
18 Aug 2009
Identity crisis?
<<Professor Robert Smith? (the question mark is part of his surname and not a typographical mistake)>>
This man has been working on a model to demonstrate the likelihood of zombies taking over the world (sort of... it has a more realistic biological function if Zombies = Lethal Disease).
Anyway, I don't really care what he's spending his time doing, I want to know if I too can add a question mark after my name. I'm never sure who this person is whose name I bear. It would be nice to own up to that, then maybe someone would tell me who I really am?
Deep.
This man has been working on a model to demonstrate the likelihood of zombies taking over the world (sort of... it has a more realistic biological function if Zombies = Lethal Disease).
Anyway, I don't really care what he's spending his time doing, I want to know if I too can add a question mark after my name. I'm never sure who this person is whose name I bear. It would be nice to own up to that, then maybe someone would tell me who I really am?
Deep.
17 Aug 2009
Home again.
It was a wonderful week away but I've just caught up with Chillside and Walled Garden and am aware that the only photos I have are multiples of a dribbling baby, a choc-smeared toddler and a very cheeky looking eleven year old. No amazing sunflowers (doesn't the wind ever blow in Suffolk?) or even garden flowers (haven't done any gardenning this year and the weeds are less photogenic) and certainly no enviable scenes of French baguettes and bicyclettes.
The weather around Ballater was good enough for everyone to get out for walks round lochs one half of the day then retire to the 'Leisure Facilities' in the afternoon for swimming, sauna, tennis, table tennis or squash. Very civilised. I stayed in the Lodge mostly with heavy asthma but it did leave enough incoming oxygen to enjoy the shops briefly in the mornings. The pickings there are much better than in Forres I have to say. I bet some of the bread we ate was as good as anything going in France, though it sounds like sacrilege to make such a claim! It was Victoria Week so there were lots of activities in the squares with a Parade and Games on Thursday. We mostly ignored it all but I enjoyed the buzz. I prepared meals, loaded and unloaded the dishwasher and basked in the appreciation! I read the latest Rankin (enjoyably less dour without Rebus) and did crosswords.
My stomach is now used to two proper meals a day, lots of salad and interesting pickled fish, charcuterie and so on lunch time, hot in the evening. It's in for a big shock today.
It was good to get home to some cash in the tin brought in by the esteemed Tom who opened the shop when his own asthma and other problems permitted. Comparing notes with my bookshop-owning friends in Ballater theirs is a much better town for passing tourist trade of the well-heeled variety and what they take in one week this time of year is more I took in a whole month here even when the going was good. Better too than the Other Shop up the road which is much bigger than both of us stock-wise and in square footage. They really flog themselves to do it though so I'm not envious.
On the Friday we treated C&G to a pre-wedding anniversary night in an out-of-town hotel with dinner & wine and Chloë & I, ably assisted by Sanders, took charge of the infants. Bath & bedtime was a bit hairy but once they settled the night was easy - except that I was nervous about it not being so slept in the room with them and was joined by Sandy who doesn't like to sleep alone. Every time someone woke (usually the V.small Theo grubbing about for his bottle and/or dummy and/or object he has to hold in the left hand, I stayed awake for hours listening to them all snoring and snuffling around me. It was rather nice to be honest - All My Own Work in a sort of way!
The weather around Ballater was good enough for everyone to get out for walks round lochs one half of the day then retire to the 'Leisure Facilities' in the afternoon for swimming, sauna, tennis, table tennis or squash. Very civilised. I stayed in the Lodge mostly with heavy asthma but it did leave enough incoming oxygen to enjoy the shops briefly in the mornings. The pickings there are much better than in Forres I have to say. I bet some of the bread we ate was as good as anything going in France, though it sounds like sacrilege to make such a claim! It was Victoria Week so there were lots of activities in the squares with a Parade and Games on Thursday. We mostly ignored it all but I enjoyed the buzz. I prepared meals, loaded and unloaded the dishwasher and basked in the appreciation! I read the latest Rankin (enjoyably less dour without Rebus) and did crosswords.
My stomach is now used to two proper meals a day, lots of salad and interesting pickled fish, charcuterie and so on lunch time, hot in the evening. It's in for a big shock today.
It was good to get home to some cash in the tin brought in by the esteemed Tom who opened the shop when his own asthma and other problems permitted. Comparing notes with my bookshop-owning friends in Ballater theirs is a much better town for passing tourist trade of the well-heeled variety and what they take in one week this time of year is more I took in a whole month here even when the going was good. Better too than the Other Shop up the road which is much bigger than both of us stock-wise and in square footage. They really flog themselves to do it though so I'm not envious.
On the Friday we treated C&G to a pre-wedding anniversary night in an out-of-town hotel with dinner & wine and Chloë & I, ably assisted by Sanders, took charge of the infants. Bath & bedtime was a bit hairy but once they settled the night was easy - except that I was nervous about it not being so slept in the room with them and was joined by Sandy who doesn't like to sleep alone. Every time someone woke (usually the V.small Theo grubbing about for his bottle and/or dummy and/or object he has to hold in the left hand, I stayed awake for hours listening to them all snoring and snuffling around me. It was rather nice to be honest - All My Own Work in a sort of way!
6 Aug 2009
Gifted.
I can't believe how many books I've been given recently - free! The donor this morning had been incensed by hearing Oxfam are driving secondhand bookshops out of business. Not sure it's entirely true but I did appreciate her reaction which was to offer me a complete, unopened, set of Dickens. I'm not a fan myself but over the past year I have sold a complete Folio set and half the same set again in singles via Amazon, so plenty of people must love him.
Many more visitors about and the takings are worth having. Pity I am going away just at the height of the season but - that's life. A friend will open half days for me just to keep the pot boiling.
Otherwise it's being a strange week with lots of cooking: Moussaka; Chicken in wine; Goulash (one veggie one with meat); Spanakopita ( feta & spinach in filo pastry); Nut roast; coffee & pecan nut cake; chocolate almond cake; lemon drizzle cake; Madeira cake.... oh for heaven's sake stop me someone PLEASE!
I was cooking at 3.30 this morning because g'son had been unable to get to sleep and finally woke me at 2.30 in distress and the need for company. Once he'd got me up and attentive and sorry for him he dropped off and I was left buzzing frenetically so I cooked. I feel a bit light headed now.
What else?
Many more visitors about and the takings are worth having. Pity I am going away just at the height of the season but - that's life. A friend will open half days for me just to keep the pot boiling.
Otherwise it's being a strange week with lots of cooking: Moussaka; Chicken in wine; Goulash (one veggie one with meat); Spanakopita ( feta & spinach in filo pastry); Nut roast; coffee & pecan nut cake; chocolate almond cake; lemon drizzle cake; Madeira cake.... oh for heaven's sake stop me someone PLEASE!
I was cooking at 3.30 this morning because g'son had been unable to get to sleep and finally woke me at 2.30 in distress and the need for company. Once he'd got me up and attentive and sorry for him he dropped off and I was left buzzing frenetically so I cooked. I feel a bit light headed now.
What else?
New arrival.
She was born early Sunday morning just after her mother had been checked for any signs of birthing activity. Evidently Mum prefers privacy. By the time they checked again the whole process had been efficiently accomplished unaided, thank you very much. No name as yet.
Ol' blue eyes
I tried to get a pic of mum's amazing blue eyes but it just didn't work so far. They are the most disconcertingly bright blue I've ever seen.
1 Aug 2009
Liberation deliberation.
My excursion into feminism continues with 'Simone De Beauvoir Today' an interview with Alice Schwarzer, and 'The Dialectics of Sex' by Shulamith Firestone. Both texts that I come to virgin although they must have been read by millions of my fellow females when they appeared. One comment before I go off to a nice lunch and the new Harry Potter (With sighs of relief. Now that's a world I can enjoy!)
Firestone declares that there can be no liberation for women until children are 'liberated.' by which she means when they can be taken from the mothers to be brought up by the Collective in special homes. Well, that idea didn't catch on, thank whatever overlighting angel had a hand in it. Osho (Bahwan Shri Rajneesh) tried something like that in his Poona (Pune)ashram. He told the mothers their children must live in the Children's House separate from them. Faced with this ultimatum women left, amongst them a friend of mine with her young son.
Bruno Bettelheim in 'The Children of the Dream' sums up the attempts in the kibbutzim to 'liberate' parents from their children and the effect of this on the children themselves once they reached adulthood. Most felt damaged by it. Our parents, for better or worse, give us our identity and sense of belonging. Their focus on us, seeing us as special in their eyes, is important to our own development as individuals. Parents also give us a feeling of continuity which supports our attempts to have an influence on our environment. My daughter-in-law has to work now to supplement the family income and the youngest is just 8 months. She is forced to leave him in a sort of dumping-ground crèche (very convenient - mothers can just turn up and put the baby there for an hour or two) when she has clients for driving lessons. It's convenient, true, but she hates the thought that when he wakes up it's always going to be a different person who checks on him. It stresses her to have to do that to him and it stresses my son to have to put them both through it. It isn't what anyone wants.
Before all women could be 'liberated' from their mothering instincts I think there would have to be some radical genetic re-structuring.
I'm beginning to wonder if the problem isn't the Western idea of what constitutes 'power.' Maybe the old Eastern philosophies have something to offer. Millions of men in the west have had to do humiliatingly repetitive and soul-destroying jobs throughout their lives in order to survive. How is that better and more powerful than washing up? The difference can only be made by the interpretation the indiviual puts on the task. If they can see worth and satisfaction in it then that is all that is needed for happiness. 'Before enlightenment fetch wood, carry water. After enlightenment - fetch wood, carry water.' The world stays the same but the difference is all in the perception, the attitude to and understanding of what is happening beyond the apparently humble tasks.
That's enough of that
Firestone declares that there can be no liberation for women until children are 'liberated.' by which she means when they can be taken from the mothers to be brought up by the Collective in special homes. Well, that idea didn't catch on, thank whatever overlighting angel had a hand in it. Osho (Bahwan Shri Rajneesh) tried something like that in his Poona (Pune)ashram. He told the mothers their children must live in the Children's House separate from them. Faced with this ultimatum women left, amongst them a friend of mine with her young son.
Bruno Bettelheim in 'The Children of the Dream' sums up the attempts in the kibbutzim to 'liberate' parents from their children and the effect of this on the children themselves once they reached adulthood. Most felt damaged by it. Our parents, for better or worse, give us our identity and sense of belonging. Their focus on us, seeing us as special in their eyes, is important to our own development as individuals. Parents also give us a feeling of continuity which supports our attempts to have an influence on our environment. My daughter-in-law has to work now to supplement the family income and the youngest is just 8 months. She is forced to leave him in a sort of dumping-ground crèche (very convenient - mothers can just turn up and put the baby there for an hour or two) when she has clients for driving lessons. It's convenient, true, but she hates the thought that when he wakes up it's always going to be a different person who checks on him. It stresses her to have to do that to him and it stresses my son to have to put them both through it. It isn't what anyone wants.
Before all women could be 'liberated' from their mothering instincts I think there would have to be some radical genetic re-structuring.
I'm beginning to wonder if the problem isn't the Western idea of what constitutes 'power.' Maybe the old Eastern philosophies have something to offer. Millions of men in the west have had to do humiliatingly repetitive and soul-destroying jobs throughout their lives in order to survive. How is that better and more powerful than washing up? The difference can only be made by the interpretation the indiviual puts on the task. If they can see worth and satisfaction in it then that is all that is needed for happiness. 'Before enlightenment fetch wood, carry water. After enlightenment - fetch wood, carry water.' The world stays the same but the difference is all in the perception, the attitude to and understanding of what is happening beyond the apparently humble tasks.
That's enough of that
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