The Iranians have introduced one. Maybe the USA will reciprocate. Or am I being harsh and they have already done so?
As Goethe said:
Mistrust all in whom the desire to punish is imperative.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Monday, April 25, 2005
Very tired - All Tomorrow's Parties' Photos
Home from ATP. Very Tired. More instalments tomorrow.
The photos are under the title. I hope.
The photos are under the title. I hope.
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Monday, April 18, 2005
Dancing girls of Mumbai driven underground
Raul Bedi has a fantastic piece in today's Irish Times about the dancing girls of Mumbai. Bedi is a great freelance journalist who has a good eye for the type of 'slice of India' subjects that appeal to Europeans.
The Congress Party, which is currently pretending to run Mumbai (Mumbai is actually run by a coalition of Bollywood executives, Tata company executives, the police and the four or five mega-gangs who do the wetwork for everyone else), has decided to shut down the illegal dancing club scene because it is immoral.
It's actually hilarious. Queenie went to a couple of dancing clubs when she was in Mumbai (purely for the purposes of getting a decent gin and tonic you understand) and they are very tame when compared with European lap dancing clubs.
Apart from overpriced gin and tonics, it's mostly just a lot of very silly gyrating to Bollywood film music and if you're really lucky, a wet sari night. A wet sari scene is the Bollywood equivalent of a really sizzling sex scene in a movie and all the best movies have at least one.
The girls wear saris that are very skimpy by sari standards, but which would look like Sunday Mass clothes if worn on a Saturday night in a typical Irish town. And there's no touching or placing of twenties in g-strings. The men throw the money at the women. The Indian men Queenie saw in the clubs were very nice, but they didn't seem to be able to hold their drink very well and they would get very excited at particular routines and throw LOTS of money at the girls.
However, by Indian standards it is pretty erotic. Indian women are so modest that one day, when Queenie wore a sleeveless tee-shirt in Coloba, which is the tourist area of the city, she got manhandled a lot on the street by guys who were getting very excited at the sight of a shoulder!
Poor girls - they make quite good money dancing for bored Tata executives and bankers night after night. And it sure beats the Mumbai alternatives - sorting through people's rubbish to find recyclables, selling Ganeshi in front of the Raj Hotel, washing clothes or working in Choi (thieves) Market. Or worse, begging or prostitution.
Why is it always women that suffer when the people in charge take a moral stand on things?
The Congress Party, which is currently pretending to run Mumbai (Mumbai is actually run by a coalition of Bollywood executives, Tata company executives, the police and the four or five mega-gangs who do the wetwork for everyone else), has decided to shut down the illegal dancing club scene because it is immoral.
It's actually hilarious. Queenie went to a couple of dancing clubs when she was in Mumbai (purely for the purposes of getting a decent gin and tonic you understand) and they are very tame when compared with European lap dancing clubs.
Apart from overpriced gin and tonics, it's mostly just a lot of very silly gyrating to Bollywood film music and if you're really lucky, a wet sari night. A wet sari scene is the Bollywood equivalent of a really sizzling sex scene in a movie and all the best movies have at least one.
The girls wear saris that are very skimpy by sari standards, but which would look like Sunday Mass clothes if worn on a Saturday night in a typical Irish town. And there's no touching or placing of twenties in g-strings. The men throw the money at the women. The Indian men Queenie saw in the clubs were very nice, but they didn't seem to be able to hold their drink very well and they would get very excited at particular routines and throw LOTS of money at the girls.
However, by Indian standards it is pretty erotic. Indian women are so modest that one day, when Queenie wore a sleeveless tee-shirt in Coloba, which is the tourist area of the city, she got manhandled a lot on the street by guys who were getting very excited at the sight of a shoulder!
Poor girls - they make quite good money dancing for bored Tata executives and bankers night after night. And it sure beats the Mumbai alternatives - sorting through people's rubbish to find recyclables, selling Ganeshi in front of the Raj Hotel, washing clothes or working in Choi (thieves) Market. Or worse, begging or prostitution.
Why is it always women that suffer when the people in charge take a moral stand on things?
Saturday, April 16, 2005
Today's Question
Why is it always women who are featured in reality tv shows that deal with changing appearances and cosmetic surgery?
Simple pleasures in a complex world
Queenie took a little drive down the country a couple of weekends recently, home to Springtown© to see the folks and catch up on old friends and generally enjoy the beautiful spring weather that never sits quite right in Dublin.
Now Queenie might be indulging in a bit of nostalgia now that she’s getting ready to leave Ireland, but she loves that drive. Once you get past the Mad Cow Roundabout, and those annoying traffic lights dotted along the motorway in Kildare, placed there just so Kildare people can nip across to the shop, there’s a long, smooth stretch of motorway along which the car just hums. If you have the right music, Orbital, and the right company, Polly, it’s a very pleasant hour or so, skimming along at eighty.
Off the motorway then, through Emo and Mountmellick, and up and over the Slieve Blooms. A most under-rated mountain range. Well, they’re not mountains really, just big hills. They rise gently out of that gorgeous green valley that nestles in the middle of Ireland. The little mountain road twists and bends, with no road markings along substantial stretches, so it calls for concentrated driving.
A line of little villages string along it like beads on a rosary – Cadamstown, Kinnity, Clonaslee. All home to schoolfriends, old boyfriends, teachers, farmers, and hurling heroes Queenie grew up with, all sitting in the memory vaults very comfortably. When she gets to the edge of the mountains and drives down the last ten miles into the valley, Queenie’s heart always lifts a little in anticipation of going home.
Up the last little hill and past the graveyard, with a nod to all the wonderful people she knew who are sadly gone now; sleeping peacefully under the tall pines. Then it’s round the dinky little roundabout and swing the car into Springtown.
Queenie is a very lucky girl she grew up there. It’s visually very pretty – gracious Georgian boulevards, homely Victorian town centre, the stunning castle and its demesne, the beautiful riverbank walks, the Pugin convent, the old mills. Despite the bungalow blitz of the last few years – how many town houses does a small town need - it’s still a little architectural gem.
It’s a very vibrant town, with a young population and lots of Queenie’s school friends have stayed in Springtown to rear their own families. But they still know how to party – oh yes. So Queenie always looks forward to her weekend break, her liver not so much.
Down past the old workhouse, check Nadia’s house to see if her car’s there – yes, fantastic! Over the bridge, down the mall past Lena’s house, round another dinky roundabout and through the square. Then up the hill and turn left at the church and there it is, the blue door; the steps she swept a million times every autumn, and park in Queenie’s dad’s spot, just to annoy him.
Part of the pleasure is spending time pottering in the old walled garden of her home with her parents. Nothing too strenuous, just rearranging the compost heap, or deadheading a tree, or cutting the grass. Mostly it’s about shooting the breeze with the folks. And listening to the birds sing their little hearts out. And watching the cat dragging its belly along – the Jabba the Hutt of the feline world.
The Queen Mother pruned a bush recently and left a branch sitting on the lawn next to the bird feeder. Jabba has spent her time since hiding under this branch to stake out the feeder. To Queenie’s horror, she has been pretty successful despite the branch being completely leafless, thus offering no excuse to the birds. Despite the carnage, and the half an hour spent trying to coax the poor birds out of Jabba's unco-operative jaws, there is something very peaceful and fulfilling about watching animals going about their daily business.
Then inside for a bit of dinner, shower and put the slap on, and down to Smoothies for a couple of pints with Nadia and Sam. One of life’s true pleasures. Queenie will think about all of this when she’s homesick in Canada.
© Mundy
Now Queenie might be indulging in a bit of nostalgia now that she’s getting ready to leave Ireland, but she loves that drive. Once you get past the Mad Cow Roundabout, and those annoying traffic lights dotted along the motorway in Kildare, placed there just so Kildare people can nip across to the shop, there’s a long, smooth stretch of motorway along which the car just hums. If you have the right music, Orbital, and the right company, Polly, it’s a very pleasant hour or so, skimming along at eighty.
Off the motorway then, through Emo and Mountmellick, and up and over the Slieve Blooms. A most under-rated mountain range. Well, they’re not mountains really, just big hills. They rise gently out of that gorgeous green valley that nestles in the middle of Ireland. The little mountain road twists and bends, with no road markings along substantial stretches, so it calls for concentrated driving.
A line of little villages string along it like beads on a rosary – Cadamstown, Kinnity, Clonaslee. All home to schoolfriends, old boyfriends, teachers, farmers, and hurling heroes Queenie grew up with, all sitting in the memory vaults very comfortably. When she gets to the edge of the mountains and drives down the last ten miles into the valley, Queenie’s heart always lifts a little in anticipation of going home.
Up the last little hill and past the graveyard, with a nod to all the wonderful people she knew who are sadly gone now; sleeping peacefully under the tall pines. Then it’s round the dinky little roundabout and swing the car into Springtown.
Queenie is a very lucky girl she grew up there. It’s visually very pretty – gracious Georgian boulevards, homely Victorian town centre, the stunning castle and its demesne, the beautiful riverbank walks, the Pugin convent, the old mills. Despite the bungalow blitz of the last few years – how many town houses does a small town need - it’s still a little architectural gem.
It’s a very vibrant town, with a young population and lots of Queenie’s school friends have stayed in Springtown to rear their own families. But they still know how to party – oh yes. So Queenie always looks forward to her weekend break, her liver not so much.
Down past the old workhouse, check Nadia’s house to see if her car’s there – yes, fantastic! Over the bridge, down the mall past Lena’s house, round another dinky roundabout and through the square. Then up the hill and turn left at the church and there it is, the blue door; the steps she swept a million times every autumn, and park in Queenie’s dad’s spot, just to annoy him.
Part of the pleasure is spending time pottering in the old walled garden of her home with her parents. Nothing too strenuous, just rearranging the compost heap, or deadheading a tree, or cutting the grass. Mostly it’s about shooting the breeze with the folks. And listening to the birds sing their little hearts out. And watching the cat dragging its belly along – the Jabba the Hutt of the feline world.
The Queen Mother pruned a bush recently and left a branch sitting on the lawn next to the bird feeder. Jabba has spent her time since hiding under this branch to stake out the feeder. To Queenie’s horror, she has been pretty successful despite the branch being completely leafless, thus offering no excuse to the birds. Despite the carnage, and the half an hour spent trying to coax the poor birds out of Jabba's unco-operative jaws, there is something very peaceful and fulfilling about watching animals going about their daily business.
Then inside for a bit of dinner, shower and put the slap on, and down to Smoothies for a couple of pints with Nadia and Sam. One of life’s true pleasures. Queenie will think about all of this when she’s homesick in Canada.
© Mundy
Adoro las ciudades que son viejas
ciudades de provincia
y los puentes de piedra y los de hierro
y los puentes en ruinas,
viejos puentes de piedra solitarios
invadidos de ortigas.
Pero también me cansan esas viejas
ciudades de provincia
y todo lo que un puente sobre un río
oscuro simboliza.
I adore cities that are old women
Provincial cities
and stones bridges and those of ironand bridges in ruins,
old solitary bridges of stone
invaded by nettles.
But these old women also tire me
Provincial cities
and everything that a bridge on a dark river
symbolizes.
Andrés Trapiello
Thursday, April 14, 2005
Today's Question
Why are Al-Qaaeda plots generally unearthed in Britain and the USA during election campaigns?
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Today's Question
If it's true that we are here to help others, what are the others doing here?
or
Why can I not smoke cigarettes in the pub, but skangers can smoke spliff on the 83 bus at eight o'clock in the morning?
or
Why can I not smoke cigarettes in the pub, but skangers can smoke spliff on the 83 bus at eight o'clock in the morning?
Andrea Dworkin dies
Andrea Dworkin died last night. The list of prominent American writers that have popped their clogs in recent months is quite startling really - Arthur Miller, Saul Bellow, Hunter S. Thompson, Susan Sontag, and now the feminist's feminist.
If I was mad I'd think it was some kind of Republican plot! Dammit, I'll just do a Dworkin on it and say it's so and expect everyone to believe me. Anyway, here are some of her more famous quotes:
Men have defined the parameters of every subject. All feminist arguments, however radical in intent or consequence, are with or against assertions or premises implicit in the male system, which is made credible or authentic by the power of men to name.
Men know everything - all of them - all the time - no matter how stupid or inexperienced or arrogant or ignorant they are.
The fact that we are all trained to be mothers from infancy on means that we are all trained to devote our lives to men, whether they are our sons or not; that we are all trained to force other women to exemplify the lack of qualities which characterizes the cultural construct of femininity.
and my personal favourite:
Wild intelligence abhors any narrow world; and the world of women must stay narrow, or the woman is an outlaw. No woman could be Nietzsche or Rimbaud without ending up in a whorehouse or lobotomized.
Sleep well, girl, and don't forget to tell Yahweh what you think of him and his patriarchal rubbish!!
And here's an hilarious article by Jenny Diski in the LRB that uses Andrea Dworkin to cut a man down to size - the phrase dripping with sarcasm was born to describe this article. Shove up in the bed Maureen Dowd, Jenny Diski is my new favourite, cutting female journalist.
If I was mad I'd think it was some kind of Republican plot! Dammit, I'll just do a Dworkin on it and say it's so and expect everyone to believe me. Anyway, here are some of her more famous quotes:
Men have defined the parameters of every subject. All feminist arguments, however radical in intent or consequence, are with or against assertions or premises implicit in the male system, which is made credible or authentic by the power of men to name.
Men know everything - all of them - all the time - no matter how stupid or inexperienced or arrogant or ignorant they are.
The fact that we are all trained to be mothers from infancy on means that we are all trained to devote our lives to men, whether they are our sons or not; that we are all trained to force other women to exemplify the lack of qualities which characterizes the cultural construct of femininity.
and my personal favourite:
Wild intelligence abhors any narrow world; and the world of women must stay narrow, or the woman is an outlaw. No woman could be Nietzsche or Rimbaud without ending up in a whorehouse or lobotomized.
Sleep well, girl, and don't forget to tell Yahweh what you think of him and his patriarchal rubbish!!
And here's an hilarious article by Jenny Diski in the LRB that uses Andrea Dworkin to cut a man down to size - the phrase dripping with sarcasm was born to describe this article. Shove up in the bed Maureen Dowd, Jenny Diski is my new favourite, cutting female journalist.
Monday, April 11, 2005
Queenie + Percy's Top 10 Heroes of all time - Number 8
Neil Astley, MD of Bloodaxe Books and recent attacker of elitist, male poetry critics, or Poetry High Command as he called them.
Phew! Queenie + Percy were beginning to think the world was running out of heroes, then our attention was drawn to this speech, made at a poetry festival called StAnza, which takes place in Scotland, we think, in which Mr. Astley has a right go at elitism in poetry.
Very shocking, but bleedin' obvious when you think about it.
Well done Neil! You come in at No. 8 for having balls of steel.
Phew! Queenie + Percy were beginning to think the world was running out of heroes, then our attention was drawn to this speech, made at a poetry festival called StAnza, which takes place in Scotland, we think, in which Mr. Astley has a right go at elitism in poetry.
Queenie hates snooty poetry reviewers, particularly the ones in the Irish Times Saturday review section. Particularly that twat she had to share poetry tutorials with in university. Who ruined TS Eliot for her for a good long while. Himself and the boiled goldfish. Queenie thinks she might print this speech out and send it to him, oh yesssssss.
April is the cruellest month, after all!
In general, having a right go at elitism in any artistic endeavour is a very brave and heroic thing to do, as Queenie will testify. In 1996, Queenie single-handedly destroyed her potential career in the arts by making a speech in which she had a right go at the people listening to her, namely Artistic High Command in Ireland. The wrath heaped on her head afterwards was so overwhelming that, in retrospect, she reckons she must have hit a nerve. However, it would have been better if it had been intentional, rather than the idiotic ramblings of an innocent on her first trip to the podium.
Here is are some excerpts from Mr. Astley's speech, the link to it is under the title of the blog entry.
If someone is drawn to reading poetry because of personal anxieties, or depression, or alienation, or bereavement what's wrong with that? Anyone can surely read poetry for emotional reasons as well as for intellectual stimulation, or they may want to broaden their minds or to experience the joys of an ancient cultural art form for its own sake. Once poems are written and published, they belong to the readers, not to Poetry High Command, and they can read them any way they like.
Potts (nasty elitist Guardian critic - Queenie) confuses aesthetics with ethics, his own reading being somehow morally superior to that of anyone who has not had his privileged education. Thus anyone who enjoys reading poetry without his level of intellectual discrimination is a 'casual reader' who lacks 'cultivated taste'.
Even a love poems anthology is suspect in Potts's analysis: people in love aren't reading Shakespeare's sonnets for the right reason. He conveniently forgets why and how poetry is written. The original impulse of a poem involves an emotional response, whether to love or bereavement, anxiety or alienation... or whatever human experience is evoked.
And here's a bit where he talks about one of our favourite poets, Michael Longley:
Another example of the tone deaf approach came in a high-handed mauling given to Michael Longley on Peter McDonald's Tower Poetry website (August 2004): 'Snow Water,' the anonymous Oxford reviewer declared, 'is all significance, sentimentality and self-concern... Longley is enjoying himself too much here although there is a comedy in place names - as Edwin Morgan, an altogether lesser poet, recognised long ago - which tells against the poem.' One poem is even written off as 'camp', but 'not all the poems in Snow Water are failures, and Longley half-knows he is being silly.'
The cheek of them! Here's another excerpt:
I hadn't realised quite how narrow the Guardian's coverage had been until I went through a pile of over 70 Reviews collected over a two-year period from 2003 up to last weekend. Even I found the statistics shocking. ... I counted full-length reviews of 66 other new poetry books, but only 10 of those were by women writers.
Those 66 books were reviewed by 38 different critics, but only four of those were women, and they reviewed only five books between them, including an anthology of modern Scottish women poets and two Russian titles covered by a specialist. Not a single one of the poetry books reviewed was by a non-white poet.
Very shocking, but bleedin' obvious when you think about it.
Well done Neil! You come in at No. 8 for having balls of steel.
Eleven Irish Lions
Sir Clive did the right thing today and called up eleven Irish players to the Lions Tour of New Zealand, including Queenie's personal favourite - Ireland's only acceptable mullet head, Shane Byrne.
Monday, April 04, 2005
Today's Question
Hands up everyone who knows why Queenie and Percy love the new O2 advertising campaign?
Sunday, April 03, 2005
The end of an era - death of John Paul
Fintan O'Toole is speaking at the wake that has been taking place on Irish radio since yesterday evening. Hopefully he will make a few realistic comments that will cut through the fug of typical Irish "don't speak ill of the dead" cant and the morose hagiography that is polluting the airwaves at the moment.
Yes, he's mentioned Hans Kung already! Good man, Fintan.
Queenie has nothing but hard feelings towards this pope. He came to power when Queenie was only eight years old. With his ascension to Peter's throne, all the potential emanating from Vatican II was immediately buried. His papacy was a twentieth century Counter-Reformation that resulted in profound confusion and alienation in Western world Catholics, and a grotesque failure to meet the needs of the newer churches in Latin America and particularly Africa. Being Irish, Queenie was a special figure in JPII's eyes. Ireland was one of the keepers of the flames of the faith (along with his beloved Poland) and in 1979, soon after he came to power, the Pope came to Ireland for a few days.
Queenie remembers it well. It was the first time her 'difference' struck her - Queenie is a dolly mixture, a child of a mixed Catholic-Protestant marriage. As every other family in the town made sandwiches, hung out flags, packed the car, and set off to go to Mass in the middle of the night, Queenie's parents went to a conference for the weekend. Didn't put out a flag. Didn't bring her to a Mass. Didn't make a big deal of it, btw, Mr. and Mrs. Queenie are firmly in the 'turn the other cheek' camp of religion. Just neatly sidestepped the issue, with no fuss, or bible-thumping.
It was the first time in Queenie's life that she stood outside a national hysteria and watched it unfurl. An incredibly informative and educational experience for a nine year old. Queenie remembers being incredibly proud of her parents and not feeling a bit left out or alienated. (She was also hoping that the endless trips to Mass and other services would end, but unfortunately, it took another few years for that to happen).
Later, and Queenie is using the tool of hindsight now, changes began to creep in.
The folk masses that were part of Queenie's youth, a joyful, if slightly tuneless expression of community and faith, began to disappear. Nowadays, people can only use 'approved music' in ceremonies to mark key moments of their lives. This type of orthodoxy makes Church of Ireland services seem like a picnic by the riverbank by comparison. A particularly tuneless picnic!! At the same time, the rate of ecumenical activities in Queenie's unusually mixed Irish town started to drop, or to become somewhat token gesturish.
In the mid-eighties, Queenie was made attend a week long Redemptorist retreat held in the town (surely it should have been a thing of the past) where the blustering priest seemed to be as obsessed with sex as she was at the time. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn't it - sure they were all at it.....................!
When Queenie's political antennae began to twitch in her late teens, she took a particular interest in Latin America. Particularly the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero at the altar in the early eighties. Queenie feels the Vatican should have protected him more. Particularly when he flew to Rome to beg for assistance, and was refused an audience for days on end. But liberation theology smacked of communism to the Pole, so he sacrificed a charismatic and brilliant leader for political ends.
If there is any justice in the world, then the head of the Church in Honduras will be the next pope.
Hostility to gay people, to contraception, to family planning even, and to revised moral values increased at the same time as AIDS began to become an issue. Queenie will never really understand how the Vatican could scupper the UN Population Conference held in Africa a few years ago, and then use the same anti-family planning arguments to prevent African Catholic women from practicing safe sex.
And then the shit hit the fan. Across the world, in the USA and in Europe, and in Ireland. By God, we were up there with the best of them. Kiddy fiddlers. The lot of them. And this Pole, who even though he was an autocrat and and a conservative, had fought totalitarianism and Communism and modernity and consumerism and all the beasts of the modern age, was shown up for the hypocritic leader of a shower of hypocrites that he really was.
And he did not destroy Communism. Consumerism destroyed communism.
Yes, he's mentioned Hans Kung already! Good man, Fintan.
Queenie has nothing but hard feelings towards this pope. He came to power when Queenie was only eight years old. With his ascension to Peter's throne, all the potential emanating from Vatican II was immediately buried. His papacy was a twentieth century Counter-Reformation that resulted in profound confusion and alienation in Western world Catholics, and a grotesque failure to meet the needs of the newer churches in Latin America and particularly Africa. Being Irish, Queenie was a special figure in JPII's eyes. Ireland was one of the keepers of the flames of the faith (along with his beloved Poland) and in 1979, soon after he came to power, the Pope came to Ireland for a few days.
Queenie remembers it well. It was the first time her 'difference' struck her - Queenie is a dolly mixture, a child of a mixed Catholic-Protestant marriage. As every other family in the town made sandwiches, hung out flags, packed the car, and set off to go to Mass in the middle of the night, Queenie's parents went to a conference for the weekend. Didn't put out a flag. Didn't bring her to a Mass. Didn't make a big deal of it, btw, Mr. and Mrs. Queenie are firmly in the 'turn the other cheek' camp of religion. Just neatly sidestepped the issue, with no fuss, or bible-thumping.
It was the first time in Queenie's life that she stood outside a national hysteria and watched it unfurl. An incredibly informative and educational experience for a nine year old. Queenie remembers being incredibly proud of her parents and not feeling a bit left out or alienated. (She was also hoping that the endless trips to Mass and other services would end, but unfortunately, it took another few years for that to happen).
Later, and Queenie is using the tool of hindsight now, changes began to creep in.
The folk masses that were part of Queenie's youth, a joyful, if slightly tuneless expression of community and faith, began to disappear. Nowadays, people can only use 'approved music' in ceremonies to mark key moments of their lives. This type of orthodoxy makes Church of Ireland services seem like a picnic by the riverbank by comparison. A particularly tuneless picnic!! At the same time, the rate of ecumenical activities in Queenie's unusually mixed Irish town started to drop, or to become somewhat token gesturish.
In the mid-eighties, Queenie was made attend a week long Redemptorist retreat held in the town (surely it should have been a thing of the past) where the blustering priest seemed to be as obsessed with sex as she was at the time. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn't it - sure they were all at it.....................!
When Queenie's political antennae began to twitch in her late teens, she took a particular interest in Latin America. Particularly the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero at the altar in the early eighties. Queenie feels the Vatican should have protected him more. Particularly when he flew to Rome to beg for assistance, and was refused an audience for days on end. But liberation theology smacked of communism to the Pole, so he sacrificed a charismatic and brilliant leader for political ends.
If there is any justice in the world, then the head of the Church in Honduras will be the next pope.
Hostility to gay people, to contraception, to family planning even, and to revised moral values increased at the same time as AIDS began to become an issue. Queenie will never really understand how the Vatican could scupper the UN Population Conference held in Africa a few years ago, and then use the same anti-family planning arguments to prevent African Catholic women from practicing safe sex.
And then the shit hit the fan. Across the world, in the USA and in Europe, and in Ireland. By God, we were up there with the best of them. Kiddy fiddlers. The lot of them. And this Pole, who even though he was an autocrat and and a conservative, had fought totalitarianism and Communism and modernity and consumerism and all the beasts of the modern age, was shown up for the hypocritic leader of a shower of hypocrites that he really was.
And he did not destroy Communism. Consumerism destroyed communism.
Saturday, April 02, 2005
The Incredibly Special Notebook
Queenie was thinking about notebooks today. And listening to her The Girl's got Soul playlist on iTunes. She was in the Writers’ Centre shop at lunchtime yesterday, it being through the archway from the Writers’ Centre café, where she was having lunch with Colombo, anyway, to cut an incredibly long sentence short, Queenie found herself irresistibly drawn to the notebook section. Because she has a notebook thing.
Ten things Queenie has a thing about
- Ants
- Notebooks
- Drinking tomato cup-a-soup to sober up – it works
- Lists, which probably drives the thing she has about notebooks, they being the perfect receptacle for lists that you need to carry about in your ladybag, as opposed to your head.
- Organising things so she can find them. Ref: 2 and 4. Also hours spent genrefying the unclassifiable bits of iTunes, spending three hours filing her paid bills last night instead of writing her zine, thereby missing the deadline.
- Giving up smoking. It’s just too damned cool. Queenie knows, she knows, it’s not. It’s just, if she gives up then she’ll be a grown up. And Mickey Martin will have won.
- Her body hair. Queenie swears she has the hairiest arms of any woman she knows. Unless they are all waxing and lying about it. Which is very plausible. Why did Queenie buy a Maria Tecce album? Was she drunk? She sounds like that singer on the patio of the hotel she had to go to for cocktails after dinner in Spain with her parents when she was fourteen and all she could hear was the call of the local boys above her husky lispings but Queenie couldn’t go answer the call, because nice country girls don’t do that.
- Queenie is bored with this list already. Jesus, Queenie has a Joss Stone album. For f’ssake girl, have you no shame? Oh that’s right, she bought it for her friend Polly, then reckoned she might turn her nose up at it, so she had to buy her a proper present and keep it.
- Missing deadlines. Like the Franks one Queenie just missed. Not good. Very upset, she is.
- Nice shelving. Queenie likes a bit of pale beech shelving. With objects placed artfully on them. Or her books. Organised by publisher. Well, some of them
Incredibly special
Queenie has just realised she has an incredibly anally retentive personality. Kinder people would call it an organised mind. And an ant thing. Maybe she was an ant in a previous life. She has never watched the film, but she did watch The Incredibles yesterday. It’s fab.
Queenie particularly like the whole take on ‘everyone can’t be special, because then noone is’. It’s an evil little thought that’s been lurking in the back of her head for a while now. Marvin Gaye is singing Girl you sure love to ball at Queenie now. Which is a bit rude, doncha think. A concept (specialness, not balling) that inexorably leads to reality tv shows involving talentless underdressed teenages who think they can sing because their mothers told them they were special when they were young and had cute, fessy, little blonde curls, instead of the muck brown mullet they’re now sporting.
Where was Queenie, the rambling thing is starting again. This is because Queenie's brain is overloaded. The notebook will sort that out. And her thoughts will follow a linear trajectory again, not the random hopping route they are taking these days. Oh yeah, notebooks.
Anyways, she bought a nice new one, as she had been looking for one since her moleskin filled up with lists. It has shoes on the front. Which of course, would have been no. 11 on the list of things Queenie has a thing about, if the list had gone up to no. 11.
Queenie’s random top random pairs of shoes of all time
- The incredibly pointy flat black suede shoes with luminous yellow buckles she bought in Zerep in 1985.
- The incredibly pointy, stiletto, shin high, black leather boots she bought in Roches two months ago.
- The brown wedge moccasins she paid over 300 euro for one time and didn’t eat for a month. That then stretched, so they’re a bit big for her now. Or maybe Queenie shrunk due to not eating for a month. Whatever
- The silver shantung silk covered wedding dress shoes she got in Pia Bangs for twenty quid about ten years ago that are still perfect because they are waterproof! So if anyone wants to marry Queenie, she has the shoes.
How does the iTunes ‘droid mind know intuitively the two albums she put on the playlist to pad it out, find them and constantly refer back to them on shuffle? Tis the Prince of Darkness!!
- Queenie’s Basher Boots walking boots. They rock.
- The next pair of shoes. It’s getting to that time of year. Oh yeah! She's considering those nice cheap wedges she can get in Top Shop nowadays, of course, then she'll be taller than Percy again. Why do blokes not like it when you are taller than them? It doesn't mean you can run away any faster, the exact opposite actually.
Beautiful Special
Queenie is rediscovering The Beautiful South. They used to annoy her. But now…….. dunno, they’re one of those bands Queenie tends to follow the herd on. Unfortunately, she follows a herd of almost extinct herbivorous, nocturnal, shy, foliage-dappled gazelle-type thingys, who communicate only by email and ‘zine, because they can’t organise a piss up in St. James’ Gate, according to some people, so she can’t ask them right now. Well she could, but they’re all still in bed no doubt and not reading their mail.
Here’s a thought. What must it be like for kids doing the Leaving now? When Queenie was doing the Leaving, her mother used to monitor the phone usage so she would study. Nowadays, they can mail, or mobile call, or text, do they get any study done at all?
ANYWAY, NOTEBOOKS!
Queenie wrote a list of all the things she has to do before she goes to Canada in it to try and calm down a bit. There were 27 things on the list. They are: ah no, she’s not going to do that to you all – that’s what inmyday is for.
But one of the things she had to do was book her going away party. So she went over to the Club after work this evening to talk to the Keeper of the Book of Bookings. Other staff members can pencil things into the Book. But only the Keeper can use the biro. Once he’s done the once-over.
Queenie was a bit nervous, because she forgot to pay for a pint one time and the Keeper tracked her down after about three months and made her pay him in front of about a squillion people. And she wanted the big room. Which is for charities and weddings and special people only. But not only was it available, but the Keeper got the biro straight away, and gave Queenie a discount, and LET QUEENIE WRITE IT IN THE BOOK HERSELF!!!!!
Queenie must be special. Incredibly special.
8pm on 20th May, you’re all invited, don’t be late because
you had to go home for food – there will be food there.
Brian Cowen - the Columbian connection
Queenie's favourite relation, Uncle Fredd is visiting Peru and Colombia at the moment, and has been sending hilarious dispatches, from one of which Queenie just had to share this extract with you all.
I was in Colombia for 3 weeks in 1977 and stayed in a convent which rejoiced in the name Convento Biffo ! How they knew I was from Tullamore and got the name painted up before I arrived I'll never know . I wonder if our beloved minister knows that in the city of Cartageña there is a community of nuns who worship him.
It was one of the most beautiful places I've ever been in, wonderful Spanish Colonial architecture and the old city walls completely intact. On a roundabout there was a sculpture of a giant pair of worn boots in memory of a local poet who wrote that returning to Cartageña was as comfortable as putting on an old pair of well-worn shoes.
I was taken out in his HobieCat sailing boat by one of the local CIA spooks (who had been moved there from Dar-es Salaam) and we reached an island beyond the horizon which was straight out of West Africa , where we had fried fish and lots of beer on the beach.
It will be interesting to see the reaction to an Irish passport in southern Colombia . No doubt it will be thoroughly perused . I'm sure the 3 boyos are well clear of there . One of them is married to a Venezuelan , I think , so they may have found a safe house there.
See, see, Queenie has been saying that for months!! People kept sidling up to her and saying this in Spanish to her (she thinks, her Spanish is not great), when she was in Chavezstan.
Keep on rockin' Freddie, stay away from the pisco sours, and see you soon!!
Queenie
I was in Colombia for 3 weeks in 1977 and stayed in a convent which rejoiced in the name Convento Biffo ! How they knew I was from Tullamore and got the name painted up before I arrived I'll never know . I wonder if our beloved minister knows that in the city of Cartageña there is a community of nuns who worship him.
It was one of the most beautiful places I've ever been in, wonderful Spanish Colonial architecture and the old city walls completely intact. On a roundabout there was a sculpture of a giant pair of worn boots in memory of a local poet who wrote that returning to Cartageña was as comfortable as putting on an old pair of well-worn shoes.
I was taken out in his HobieCat sailing boat by one of the local CIA spooks (who had been moved there from Dar-es Salaam) and we reached an island beyond the horizon which was straight out of West Africa , where we had fried fish and lots of beer on the beach.
It will be interesting to see the reaction to an Irish passport in southern Colombia . No doubt it will be thoroughly perused . I'm sure the 3 boyos are well clear of there . One of them is married to a Venezuelan , I think , so they may have found a safe house there.
See, see, Queenie has been saying that for months!! People kept sidling up to her and saying this in Spanish to her (she thinks, her Spanish is not great), when she was in Chavezstan.
Keep on rockin' Freddie, stay away from the pisco sours, and see you soon!!
Queenie
Friday, April 01, 2005
Today's Question
How did we all get it so wrong about Wolfie? He just wants to be a good global civil servant.
Don't we all, with those expenses.
Don't we all, with those expenses.
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