And talking of great bums…
Mena Suvari showing off a bod to die for on the beach with her new squeeze. You go girl!!
All my illusions shattered
So according to my favourite gossip site Holy Moly The Stig’s not even real. Can you believe that? Their ‘mole’ states:
My father-in-law works for a British Formula One constructors company; they often go to Dunsfold/Top Gear studio to deliver cars etc. It’s a well-know fact that the Stig isn’t the same person at all; rather the test driver from whichever car manufacturer is ‘doing the lap’. Apparently, there’s no way that one person would ever be allowed to test the ‘sacred’ cars – even if they were a good driver.
They even state that Lewis Hamilton’s been The Stig on the occasional programme. Damn. And there’s me thinking he was a real person.
Oh, and Holy Moly quote of the week (which made me swallow a big mouthful of hot tea VERY quickly). On the news that Christina Ricci told Elle Magazine that she’d like a bigger bum:
Christina Ricci wants a big arse. I hear Paul Danan is single.
In which #1 goes out into the big wide world
For the last…ooh…ten weeks, #1 has been eagerly anticipating his school trip. It was extra special as places were awarded on merit (trumpet blowing? Moi?) and as soon as he knew he’d got a place he began asking, frequently daily hourly how long to go until the big day.
Saturday, then, one day to go, sees him insisting on doing his own packing and eagerly charging up every conceivable electrical gadget (‘it’s a long trip, Mum’). His normally tidy bedroom is in turmoil with a delighted Bertie perched on top of all the mayhem (he’s had several hundred hugs and kisses goodbye already and is hoping for a few more). I wonder vaguely if he needs any washing done. ‘Ah, yes’, comes the answer, along with a worryingly small basket of laundry.
Sunday morning, half an hour before we need to leave, and he’s all packed: he’s borrowed a mobile phone, got his DVD player, #2′s iPod (secured with confectionery bribery), Nintendo DS, Sony PSP, vast piles of games, random DVDs (half of which he had to put back – ‘er, sweetheart, I really don’t think you should watch American Pie – at least for another few years yet’) and he’s standing eagerly by the front door. The conversation goes something like this:
Me: ‘Have you packed any underwear?’
#1: Blank look.
Me: ‘Pyjamas?’
#1: Blank look continues.
Me: ‘Toothbrush? Toothpaste? Shampoo? Shower gel?’
We head back upstairs, five minutes before we need to leave, me fuming and him looking vaguely bewildered, wondering what all the fuss is about. It turns out he’s got two pairs of boxers clean. ‘But I asked you to give me your laundry!’ I fume. ‘I did!’, he squeaks, ‘I picked it all up off my bedroom floor’. ‘And did you actually get any laundry out of the laundry bin?’ ‘Er…no’. My face is starting to turn hot and red and – inevitably – I boil over into a motherly bout of hollering: ‘So let’s get this straight – you’ve stuffed your bag full of gadgetry but are presumably planning to spend a week in France stinking like a skunk with two changes of underwear and extremely furry teeth?’
We spend the journey to school in silence – me gently simmering and #1 in the back still frantically trying to force his hastily assembled wash bag into his overstuffed holdall. We arrive at school and he rushes off to compare electronic equipment with his mates, then comes back when he remembers he forgot his wallet containing his carefully saved pocket money and proceeds to clear out my purse instead.
Finally, the coach leaves - look out, France, here they come - shiny, happy faces beaming from the window. And, waving, I realise the car’s on vapour, he’s not taken his seasickness tablets, and I’ve forgotten my credit cards and have just given him all my cash. I’m hit by a rush of emotion: my firstborn baby – my scatterbrained, disorganised, affectionate, know-it-all, dithering, infuriating, mad professor of a child – is all growed up and off on his first big adventure. God help us.
Bye bye Bertie
No, not my lovely Bert, but straightforward, honest aul’ Bertie Ahern, who is, apparently ‘confident that he will be exonerated of wrongdoing’.
I don’t see the problem meself. I’m always hiding great wodges of cash, too.
Dark days indeed
So I don’t know if you ever read Dogs Today magazine. The greyhound world has been fair thrown into turmoil by an article written by their vet following a horrific incident where an elderly couple’s little dog was killed by a pair of greyhounds. The vet, Emma Milne, treated the dog and was obviously incredibly upset by the incident. In the article, however, she goes on to question whether we should rehome greyhounds at all. To make matters worse, in an open letter on her website, she went on to say that she feels greyhound racing should be banned, calling it ‘an industry using animals for human entertainment’ and questioning ‘an industry that sets out to make a breed that is designed to chase and kill’.
Well, being a wordy sort of gal, obviously I fired off a letter to the Editor, Beverley Cuddy. I said firstly that I was sorry that Emma had received hate mail from greyhound lovers. That’s just base and inexcusable and doesn’t do anybody any favours, however that I had to doubt the wisdom of singling out a breed when, obviously, any breed will chase and kill another animal – I’m afraid that’s not exclusive greyhound territory. I also said that I’ve fostered ’non-chasing’ greyhounds such as Louis (Lethal Party) who went on to be rehomed with cats and small dogs. The responsibility for this, and any other incident of one dog killing another, lies solely with the idiotic owners who do not keep their dogs on leashes and firmly under control.
I told Beverley that we, as greyhound lovers, fight an ongoing battle (especially here in Ireland) with people who do not view greyhounds as pets, but more as ‘livestock’ and that whether it was intentional or not, Emma has added to this problem with her ill-advised comments. Adding in her response that ‘greyhound racing should be banned’ is also ill-informed and inflammatory. Although I’m no expert, I would worry that without legitimate racing, as with any sport, many people would lose their livelihoods, and the dogs, which genuinely enjoy the racing (nothing better than seeing a perky greyhound with tail going like the clappers after it’s run a race!), would end up being bred and raced ‘underground’ and unregulated with catastrophic results.
I know many greyhound owners and trainers, such as the lovely M and his family, and they’re good people who love their dogs. Sadly it’s the odd bad penny that gets all the press. I went on say that greyhounds often get a very rough deal and that I hoped that Dogs Today would continue to give a balanced view of the greyhound as a pet, and even offered to give an insight into greyhound ownership.
Happily, I got a very nice email from Beverley this morning directing me to her blog where she had written in depth about the article. I’ll let you read it but I’ll just quote the following:
We should have picked the piece up as a knee-jerk reaction to a horrible series of events.
It was like allowing the mother of an abducted child to write an article on paedophiles. Emma was far too close to the story and needed to have had time to cool off – or for us to interject some balance.
I have to say, I’m well impressed. Sometimes you just expect people to close ranks around their own, but Beverley was brave enough to say ‘no, hang on, this isn’t right’ and I’m sure she’ll appease a lot of people. In the mean time, Dogs Today, with the article in it, is circulating for the entire month. And I just wonder what damage it will do to the hard work put in every day by greyhound rehomers like Jen, and every retired greyhound waiting patiently for a loving home.
A postbox full of loveliness
Ooh, I love post. One advantage to living here is the extra excitement that builds on the walk down the drive to the postbox. Nobody in Ireland seems to have a letterbox in their front door. They all have a lovely little tin box thing on the front gate that you have to open with a key. A key! Hubby hates post because he gets all the bills and crap, so I get the special job of walking down and emptying the post box. Sometimes it’s even a parcel. I reallylove a parcel. I must be the only 38 year old woman who still gets excited opening her pressies on her birthday (and I got some right corkers this year). I am also lucky to have incredibly thoughtful parents. Me Ma sends little cards and letters (often with a very welcome €10 for the boys) and The Disreputable One will often send jokes and stuff to the boys, and cut clippings out of the newspaper about things that he thinks will interest me. A recent photocopy of an article about censorship in Ireland being a good example: did you know that as late as 1967 (when the Censorship ofPublications Act was finally reformed) Ireland had probably the toughest censorship laws in the ’free’ world? And did you also know that the list of authors whose books were banned by the Irish Censorship of Publications Board included Hemingway, Steinbeck, Shaw and even Raymond Chandler (my goodness, how did the people of Ireland live without Philip Marlowe?)? Anyhoo, digressing. The point is that my Disreputable Dad knew instantly that I’d like it, and was kind enough to stick it in the post. Ripping it open and reading it as I wound my way back up the drive absolutely made my morning – like a little chat with the aul’ boy even though he’s not here.
One downside of this love of parcels is a serious Ebay addiction that knows no bounds. This, though, combined with the memory of a goldfish, means that I’m permanently pleasantly surprised by my purchases. I’ve been trying to cut back, as you know, but this morning even our seriously overworked Postie had to admit defeat and leave one of those little yokes in the box that means you have to pop to the Post Office and pick up your bulky items (I love those too).
Four parcels offered up such wonders as ‘The Water Boy’ DVD (LOVE that film: ‘Youuu can doooo it!’), a DVD of the original ‘Italian Job’ which I really want the boys to see (‘you were aownly suppaowsed to blaow the blardy doors off!’), a copy of Helena Frith Powell’s ‘Two Lipsticks and a Lover’ which I’ve wanted for ages (I just really need to learn the secrets of Parisian women), and the pièce de résistance: a signed copy of Nigel Slater’s ‘Eating for England’. I just love a deliciously new pile of books by the side of my bed. And you can almost guarantee that by the time the pile’s back down to two or three, the ‘To Do’ list in my phone will have another huge list of books and films that I’ve read about, or been recommended, or just remembered that I liked, and after a couple of glasses of Merlot and a lubly Ebay session, the little tin box at the end of the drive will be full again. Bliss.
