Yesterday was our ninth wedding anniversary. We have two anniversaries - the anniversary we started going out and our wedding anniversary. My husband bought me pink paeonies to match the kitchen table and promised me dinner out tonight. We did not make it to dinner; instead, he took me to a show and lunch.
The show was Tony Blair's last huzzah at Trimdon Labour Club. It is a long time since we went to a show. (I do not count the school nativity play). Unfortunately, my husband had forgotten you have to buy tickets. We looked for a tout. But I think the number of yellow-jacketed police put them off. We ended up standing in the crowd with the school children and the Trimdon locals who have mobile phones which can take photographs and the same foresight as my husband. We waited like Stage Door Johnnies to see the star and his wife. If you do not count several hundred journalists and camera crew, there weren't that many of us outside. It was ever so slightly pointless. My husband kept saying: "It's history." He wanted to see the only other man in the world who feels the same way as he does about Iraq. I exaggerate there are three of them.
The Labour Club is a matter of yards away from a stone built church on the village green. As Blair was saying his "goodbye and thanks for having me's", "Nan" was being carried in to church in a coffin for her own "goodbye and thanks for having me". Everywhere I go, there's a coffin lately. At least, this one was not open. The one in Ireland was open. An open coffin can be quite scary if you are not expecting it. In Trimdon, hearses, flowers and mourners sat next to armoured plated cars, satellites and more mourners. I am not sure if the grieving relatives knew what was going on as they drew up to find the world's media and half of Durham's constabulary parked up on the green.
A handful of anti-war protesters shouted their outrage; two of them in orange boiler suits with bags over their heads. I think they would have been better shouting: "Hurray, hurray" if they wanted to win hearts and souls. Instead, they had a loud claxon and shouted things like: "Come out. the building is surrounded by police." That was quite witty. They also shouted: "Shame" which is an utterly pointless thing to shout at any politician. Their banner said they were "Sedgefield against war". Maybe they were. The locals I heard talking to them said things like: "You're a bloody embarrassment, you are." If they are local, I do not think they have a big following.
It was a bit like the Oscars. The Oscars if just Billy Crystal turned up . Everyone got very excited when the BBC's political editor Nick Robinson appeared. Make that Billy Crystal and Ellen DeGeneres. Blair made a quick exit. He blew a kiss. Not to me. My husband was watching. Cherie waved at all of us. I waved back. She waved again. Not to me.
I thought about "Nan". I wondered if she would have gone along, if she was able. Whether she would have minded about Blair. If you get dead, and then you get buried. You want your funeral to be the biggest show in town, don't you? In any event, I have told my husband, next time, I am booking the tickets.
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Monday, May 07, 2007
Poster boys
I have made it back. I could go on but "death, rosaries, tea" covers it. I am lucky to be back at all. The general election is on in Ireland. I know that because I nearly joined my aunt in the grave on the drive back to Dublin airport. I was trying to read the election posters that hang off every other lamp-post and telegraph pole. Somebody, somewhere, has told Irish politicians that the best way to bring out the vote is to become a major road hazard. YouTube and video blogs are very over. It is a retro-chic thing. Tony Blair should, perhaps, have written a letter.
Every Irish candidate has a large photograph with his name in BIG letters. Names like Reilly, Geraghty, Brady to match the unmistakably Irish face above it. (I would not want to criticise another country's political culture but some of those faces could do with eating fewer full Irish breakfasts.) In the corner of the poster, the political party is mentioned in much smaller letters. "Bit of an after thought; just so as you know, I would be Labour," it says. The best ones, the ones that nearly killed me, have a little message you decide you have to read even if you are ripping along at 60 miles per hour. Something along the lines of: "Everybody matters." That is a sentiment well worth dying in a head-on collision for. Even the Green party is at it. You would think they would know better than to waste all that paper. Bertie Ahern is trying to look like he could be trusted. Which would be a good trick if he could manage it. There are rumours that the Fine Gael leader, Enda Kenny, has either had his photograph airbrushed or spent time in a spray tan booth. Odd. Does not cover it. His posters come with strangely petulant messages. They virtually "tut" as you drive by them. Under the photo, it promises: "Health services that work" OK. Alright. But it goes on: "for a change." Then there is: "Safer streets...for a change." How he can talk about safer streets with all those hypnotic posters, beats me.
Every Irish candidate has a large photograph with his name in BIG letters. Names like Reilly, Geraghty, Brady to match the unmistakably Irish face above it. (I would not want to criticise another country's political culture but some of those faces could do with eating fewer full Irish breakfasts.) In the corner of the poster, the political party is mentioned in much smaller letters. "Bit of an after thought; just so as you know, I would be Labour," it says. The best ones, the ones that nearly killed me, have a little message you decide you have to read even if you are ripping along at 60 miles per hour. Something along the lines of: "Everybody matters." That is a sentiment well worth dying in a head-on collision for. Even the Green party is at it. You would think they would know better than to waste all that paper. Bertie Ahern is trying to look like he could be trusted. Which would be a good trick if he could manage it. There are rumours that the Fine Gael leader, Enda Kenny, has either had his photograph airbrushed or spent time in a spray tan booth. Odd. Does not cover it. His posters come with strangely petulant messages. They virtually "tut" as you drive by them. Under the photo, it promises: "Health services that work" OK. Alright. But it goes on: "for a change." Then there is: "Safer streets...for a change." How he can talk about safer streets with all those hypnotic posters, beats me.
Friday, January 19, 2007
It's a free country
When I turned on my computer this morning, my hands went cold at the thought of people I didn't call Aunty, reading my blog. I never knew fear did that to you. I should have made pastry. Thankyou very much to anyone kind enough to leave a comment - even the slightly mean ones. Better out than in, as they say. Up to now, I haven't had to reply to any comments because I haven't had any readers - apart from Aunty (sorry about that hottub story by the way Aunty.) It is probably breaking blogger etiquette to reply to the comments on an actual post but until I figure it all out - just for today:
1.*My recipe (rather than one snatched from the net)for chocolate rice crispy cake.
Buy rice crispies. Tell the boys to put back the cheesey quavers, blackcurrant fruitshoot and 17 comics complete with 17 unnecessary toys sellotaped to the front cover. Ignore wails of "But I really wanted one of those." Stand in queue at local supermarket. Think up 53 retorts to the hatchet-faced shop assistant I always get, who seems to have taken a personal dislike to my children. Pay with a £20 note just to irritate her. Leave the shop. Return.
*Buy very organic and expensive chocolate. Hope not to get hatchet-faced assistant. Fail to recall any one of the 53 retorts when she looms up behind the till and snarls at the four-year-old for standing on the conveyor belt with a shopping basket on his head.
*Return home. Realise six-year-old has technically shoplifted the quavers. Turn on TV for the children. Make cup of tea. Eat large amount of chocolate and bag of cheesey quavers. Feel slightly sick.
*Break hypnotic spell of Scooby Doo to drag children into kitchen for mummy time. This, after all, is why I quit the day-job. Explain empty quavers packet away to small and accusatory inch-high private eyes.
*Melt chocolate.
*Allow four-year-old to pour in box of rice crispies.
*Realise this was a mistake.
*Clean up half a box of rice crispies from floor, kitchen surface, top of the oven and room upstairs that we never go in.
*Allow both boys to stir concoction with wooden spoon.
*Tell boys that hitting each with a wooden spoon is a bad thing to do.
*Realise there are no bun cases in the house
*Drive to supermarket for buncases. Hope not to get surly assistant. Give her £50 note. Smile sweetly.
*Return home. Scoop gungy spoonfuls of crisping chocolate gore into bun cases.
*Carry over to fridge with immense pride.
*Wash baby thoroughly.
(My recipe for pastry before anyone asks me for it is similar but less chocolatey.)
2.My reasons for agreeing to move to Northumberland (which I have apparently failed to explain adequately to anyone at all, including myself. This is probably as good enough time as any to do it.)
Love, simply. Mine for my husband and my husband's for this bleak and beautiful placeland. I do not know whether he realises quite how difficult it has been. I hope he does not really. I do not want him to think that I am being a martyr, all bloody and limbless. I agreed to come because he wanted it so desperately and I thought I should be willing to try something new. There aren't many laughs in that are there?
3. My voting intentions.
Iain Dale kindly linked to me on his fascinating pages and suggested in his comment I might like to vote Tory in thanks to him rather than Labour in tribute to Tom Watson who linked to me first. I had been thinking Tom could play Carlo Ponti to my Sophia Loren in the movie. Then I realised Ponti was dead? So maybe not.
This is an interesting one, because I think I am probably just the demographic David Cameron wants to vote for his party. Grateful though I am to Iain Dale and much as I would love to make it onto his blogroll, I have to be honest, Berwick upon Tweed is a Liberal Democrat constituency. Alan Beith, MP has 53% of the electorate and a majority of more than 8,500. He spends his entire life trying to dual the deathtrap known as the A1 so that post offices can travel up and down to Edinburgh in safety. That is when he is not trying to stop the RAF spooking the foxes and telling the barboured countryfolk they have a right to hunt cows. All in all, I do not think a Tory vote from me would count for that much. Sorry about that Iain. I am also slightly uneasy about the blogging equivalent of a casting couch but since my new-found happiness in Blogland is at stake, I am willing in principle, if enough readers are at stake, to vote for both Labour and Iain Dale's party - although that would mean voting twice. Perhaps I could move to Birmingham.Wife in the Midlands? Hmm.
1.*My recipe (rather than one snatched from the net)for chocolate rice crispy cake.
Buy rice crispies. Tell the boys to put back the cheesey quavers, blackcurrant fruitshoot and 17 comics complete with 17 unnecessary toys sellotaped to the front cover. Ignore wails of "But I really wanted one of those." Stand in queue at local supermarket. Think up 53 retorts to the hatchet-faced shop assistant I always get, who seems to have taken a personal dislike to my children. Pay with a £20 note just to irritate her. Leave the shop. Return.
*Buy very organic and expensive chocolate. Hope not to get hatchet-faced assistant. Fail to recall any one of the 53 retorts when she looms up behind the till and snarls at the four-year-old for standing on the conveyor belt with a shopping basket on his head.
*Return home. Realise six-year-old has technically shoplifted the quavers. Turn on TV for the children. Make cup of tea. Eat large amount of chocolate and bag of cheesey quavers. Feel slightly sick.
*Break hypnotic spell of Scooby Doo to drag children into kitchen for mummy time. This, after all, is why I quit the day-job. Explain empty quavers packet away to small and accusatory inch-high private eyes.
*Melt chocolate.
*Allow four-year-old to pour in box of rice crispies.
*Realise this was a mistake.
*Clean up half a box of rice crispies from floor, kitchen surface, top of the oven and room upstairs that we never go in.
*Allow both boys to stir concoction with wooden spoon.
*Tell boys that hitting each with a wooden spoon is a bad thing to do.
*Realise there are no bun cases in the house
*Drive to supermarket for buncases. Hope not to get surly assistant. Give her £50 note. Smile sweetly.
*Return home. Scoop gungy spoonfuls of crisping chocolate gore into bun cases.
*Carry over to fridge with immense pride.
*Wash baby thoroughly.
(My recipe for pastry before anyone asks me for it is similar but less chocolatey.)
2.My reasons for agreeing to move to Northumberland (which I have apparently failed to explain adequately to anyone at all, including myself. This is probably as good enough time as any to do it.)
Love, simply. Mine for my husband and my husband's for this bleak and beautiful placeland. I do not know whether he realises quite how difficult it has been. I hope he does not really. I do not want him to think that I am being a martyr, all bloody and limbless. I agreed to come because he wanted it so desperately and I thought I should be willing to try something new. There aren't many laughs in that are there?
3. My voting intentions.
Iain Dale kindly linked to me on his fascinating pages and suggested in his comment I might like to vote Tory in thanks to him rather than Labour in tribute to Tom Watson who linked to me first. I had been thinking Tom could play Carlo Ponti to my Sophia Loren in the movie. Then I realised Ponti was dead? So maybe not.
This is an interesting one, because I think I am probably just the demographic David Cameron wants to vote for his party. Grateful though I am to Iain Dale and much as I would love to make it onto his blogroll, I have to be honest, Berwick upon Tweed is a Liberal Democrat constituency. Alan Beith, MP has 53% of the electorate and a majority of more than 8,500. He spends his entire life trying to dual the deathtrap known as the A1 so that post offices can travel up and down to Edinburgh in safety. That is when he is not trying to stop the RAF spooking the foxes and telling the barboured countryfolk they have a right to hunt cows. All in all, I do not think a Tory vote from me would count for that much. Sorry about that Iain. I am also slightly uneasy about the blogging equivalent of a casting couch but since my new-found happiness in Blogland is at stake, I am willing in principle, if enough readers are at stake, to vote for both Labour and Iain Dale's party - although that would mean voting twice. Perhaps I could move to Birmingham.Wife in the Midlands? Hmm.
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