from the Sundays: should you take your kids to a music festival?
By alice on May 11, 2008
Well, how insane are you feeling?
You can’t really enjoy anything with kids unless the kids are enjoying it first, and this article is quite right about the sort of activity tent the very young find enjoyable at an outdoor music festival- specialist kidstuff:
On entering, you were given a passport — “because it was a parallel world”, Curtis explains — that you could have stamped only once you’d completed certain tasks. One involved learning lines of poetry; another entailed going to find Gretel (aka Curtis, who spent the whole festival acting in character) and asking her to tell the story of how she escaped from the witch.
In other words, there is approximately no overlap at all between what a sane child and a sane adult would want to do at one of these events, which means that taking young kids is going to be extremely hard work indeed. I don’t think that’s immoral, but it is extraordinary how many parents are perpetually amazed when their unrealistic expectations fall flat. Kids don’t like techno music, drugs or walking across twenty miles of mud to the nearest portaloo!
(Actually, mine enjoyed the one festival they went to, with their dad. The organic hand-made recyclably-packaged french fry stall helped a lot.)
Tags: noneupdate
By alice on May 11, 2008
But in a few months, the Clintons have turned a 30-point lead among African-Americans into a deficit of more than 80 points. No constituency has swung as much over the past few months. And the black turnout last Tuesday was massive.
This (UK) Sunday Times article analyses things very well.
I’m always heartened when politicians’ attempts to patronise the people go pear-shaped. As I’ve said before, it isn’t politicians who lead the way to the future, it’s the people. Our race as a whole, in other words (we only have one, it’s called the human race).
update of update: only just noticed the piece is by Andrew Sullivan. Long time since I read anything of his.
Tags: nonerespecting the people
By alice on May 9, 2008
Is it really true that Americans are so racist that they will actually change their vote rather than voting for a black man? Personally, I don’t think so. Especially not when the black man is a political superstar like Obama.
It seems to me that Hillary is scraping the bottom of the barrel with this argument. Also, it reminds me of the Austrian cellar abuser man, who thinks his publicity has been unfair because he was rescuing his daughter from a life of alcohol and bad behaviour. Is it OK to remove other people’s choices on the grounds that they don’t know what is good for them and might act stupidly?
(Which is not at all to equate her with him, which would be obscene and wrong. Whereas drawing a specific point of comparison is not. I could compare myself with Hannibal Lecter: we both like Chianti. Whatever.)
Tags: noneDo older people write longer slower blog posts?
By alice on May 9, 2008
That’s definitely been my trajectory. But is it good? Is it inescapable? No need to give me endless examples of people who still blog 20 times a day well into their 70s, every rule has an exception.
Here’s why I don’t blog as often as in the olden days at the turn of the century:
1. small ideas seem a lot less pointful than they used to- why would anyone care? (nb. this is not a deeply considered and held view, just a recurring pop-up after one and a half lines of draft post).
2. just not being as much on top of what’s going on out there as I used to (think I was)
3. interests moving from what’s out there more towards small and unexciting things like the fact that my basil plant is actually still alive
4. not wanting to become one of those totally self-absorbed older people who witters endlessly about themselves, why they are right about everything, and stuff that nobody cares about, just because they can get away with it now
5. oops.
Young at Heart
By alice on May 8, 2008
If you haven’t seen this documentary film about a remarkable seniors’ singing group, then you absolutely must go. How often do I say that about a film? Exactly.
It’s hard to choose a clip, so here are three. Pick one, then save the other two for when you see the film! They have more impact in context. And the most hilarious and most powerful bits aren’t on youtube.
Sedated- very subversive
Staying Alive- subversive but hilarious
Fix You- moving
We took my uncle, who is visiting this week, but I have to get the DVD eventually and show this to my kids as well. In fact, anyone who does not like Young at Heart can no longer be my friend. Thank you.
Tags: nonebooze on the tube
By alice on May 7, 2008
Where I live, which is Austin, Texas as you probably know already, alcohol is banned on public transport, and from some street areas, and public intoxication is against the law, so if you are carrying a can of beer around then you need to behave very sensibly if a policeman approaches to ask you how you are. The result in my view is, people behave themselves reasonably well. There certainly are poor, dispossessed and inebriated people wandering the streets and the buses, but they are an obvious minority, and quite often being picked up in a police car. Which is very different than how things have been in Britain for quite some time. (It’s four years since I moved out, and public drunkenness and unpleasant behaviour was already common then, so I am arguing from personal experience here.)
All of which means I am ecstatic about Boris’ plan to ban alcohol on the underground.
I also agree totally with Alcohol Concern, who said, Public drinking and the behaviour sometimes associated with it can, and does, deeply affect people’s ability to enjoy public spaces. Taking a firm approach to public drinking in this way sends a strong message that public drunkenness is socially unacceptable.
This does not mean that people prone to alcoholic excess will suddenly stop getting out of their heads for fear of arousing the disapproval of society. But the opposite idea that banning things always means people will just take the same behaviour elsewhere, which some liberals (both classical and nouveau) express, is also wrong, because it ignores the law of human inertia (people generally do whatever is easiest, which means they sometimes stop doing things altogether when they become inconvenient- such as forgetting about that extra beer or six). Messages are not always direct and literal. Sometimes they are about making something new happen so that people can see whether it works better or not. Agreeing equals “getting the message”. And if they disagree with this policy, no doubt Londoners will be voting for Ken #2 next time round on a “bring back booze on the tube” mandate.
I suppose this post is a bit political, which I usually don’t like to be. Ho hum.
Tags: noneI love Texas #102
By alice on May 6, 2008
Pedernales Falls, in Pedernales Falls state park, this Sunday. Those tiny dots are humans. Impressive, yes?
Tags: nonetime management and the future
By alice on May 6, 2008
I’ve been working on my business website most of the day. It is amazing how long things take on computers compared to what they were promising in the 70s and 80s when I was growing up, when all you were going to have to do was tell them what you wanted and they would do it all for you in an instant. Nobody said then “It will take ten hours to find a colour you like by searching through twenty billion colours,” or “moving something from the left to the right will involve 299 tiny wrong moves before the 300th one is finally correct”.
Also, I have given up working according to the rules of this guy. They take far too long. If I had brought up my kids by doing things the way he suggests, they would still be wearing babygros and living on mashed bananas and milk. Of course, it is impossible to prove for sure until I become an international company director, which may never happen due to general lack of company directing motivation. So you will just have to take my word for it: manila folders are no substitute for only doing what you care about plus trusting yourself to remember what that is. In other words, don’t empty your head by writing it all down, just empty your head then wait for what matters to come back to you. Because it will.
You probably think that’s completely bonkers, right?
Tags: nonememe
By alice on May 5, 2008
Shefaly tagged me.
1. Last movie you saw in a theater?
Alvin and the Chipmunks. Don’t ask.
2. What book are you reading?
The Karamazov Brothers.
3. Favorite board game?
I find it really hard to get into board games. My daughter is very non-game oriented too, so hopefully this is just a genetic trait. We would both rather make something.
4. Favorite magazine?
The Spectator and British Vogue. Although, US Vogue is catching up in my esteem.
5. Favorite smells?
My husband. Usually.
6. Favorite sounds?
Silence. I kind of wish it was something more culturally impressive, like the latest Birtwhistle opera, but the older I get, the more I experience music as too much messing with my head. Every few weeks I have a big music listening session almost like an acid trip, and then that’s it for a good long while. Read the rest of this entry »
leftovers- kids and healthy eating
By alice on May 2, 2008
These are my daughter’s Easter leftovers. She would rather make herself a nice pasta salad than gorge on candy any day. As you can see, the bag on the left is at least open and probably got tested…
I could easily have guessed that this lack of interest would be the result when buying the stuff a few weeks ago, but they were so pretty, I was seduced. For her. Not that into chocolate eggs myself. They just look so nice!
So there they are, still looking nice!
Sometimes I wish I could fly back in time and show such evidence of my kids’ excellent self-care habits to various long-gone doubters and sceptics of my untoward extremist early parenting policies. Many of those policies are now quite the norm; baby slings, for instance. I nearly got thrown off a London bus once for wearing a babysling. Looked too much like a Romanian beggar, apparently. Now, you rarely see a buggy. It’s slings all the way, and not surprisingly as they are quicker, easier and make more much happier babies- which is your top priority when trying to buy groceries, surely.
As far as establishing good eating habits in kids, my approach was based on a strong belief that bans always make things unnaturally attractive, whereas offering plenty of wholesome home-cooked deliciousness guarantees that real food will win hands down in an honest competition overall. However, my other firm belief is that great parenting is a lot of genuinely hard work. So if you do want to live on ready meals, better ban candy, because candy tastes nicer than anything that’s been sitting in a freezer for a 6 months.
So yeah, I told you so… whoever you were at the time… but more importantly: mental note not to be tricked into going along with anymore candy festivals (which over here is all of them). And also: go Daughter!
Here’s a recipe we tried lately that everyone really did love: Nigel Slater’s soda bread. You will never make an easier loaf of bread in your life- no kneading, no rising. It’s incredible. And delicious. (nagging feeling I posted that already- if so, apologies. Getting older.)
Tags: none
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