Roll on the spring so that we might get some half decent weather and get rid of all the many viruses and lurgies which are going about at the moment. For entertainment we have been juggling the common cold virus, its started when Jack brought it back from school and generously shared it with me. Then his cleared up within three days, but mine took five or six days. Now it’s back with Jack with a vengence (or maybe it’s something entirely different) and it doesn’t want to leave him so he’s on antibiotics. He started taking them today but I also made chicken soup today, so surely he’ll be better soon.
Unfortunately it was half term in Fife last week so the holidays were wasted as we didn’t get further than Boot’s the Chemist, such is life, at least we hadn’t booked up to go away anywhere. But it seems like ages since we went anywhere different, in fact it’s nearly three weeks since we went to South Queensferry for a walk, and that’s hardly exciting. On the upside – our broadband connection has been sorted out, the chap who came around to replace lines obviously didn’t connect ours properly. As ever it was a case of – if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
I’ve been following all the news about horse meat in supposedly beef burgers and beef lasagnes and the like. Quite happily of course because we don’t eat beef, but even if we did eat beef I doubt if I would have been eating the things which have been found to contain horse. It’s interesting that we don’t even have a word in English for horse meat! I don’t really know why it has come as such a big shock to people because we’ve all been commenting for years – things like – God knows what is in those pies! Why it took them weeks to get around to testing hospital food and school dinners is beyond me as it’s obvious that institutions scrabble around to get the cheapest food which they can. It’s heartening that the British sense of humour came to the rescue again though, and it’s amazing how many horse references you can fit into everyday life. You can view some images here. You can see some jokes here.
Going off at a tangent – What did you think of Hilary Mantel’s comments about Katherine Wales aka the Duchess of Cambridge? She claims they’ve been taken out of context but I can’t imagine why she felt the need to make comments like that at all. She sounds like a bitchy 13 year old talking about a fellow student, rather than a successful author. Why would anyone want to be so mean? I feel like telling her to play nicely now! Apart from anything else there’s a lot of nasty things which could be said about Mantel, but I’m far too polite to say anything.
You can hear some of her speech below.
Mantel seems to be firmly in the Diana was a saint camp. Oh dearie me!
Oh my she is witchy isn’t she! Jealous that’s all. Why would she compare Diana’s SON’s wife to Diana anyway. Sick. I think Kate is lovely and has a beautiful smile and I envy her hair!! Glad the broadband is sorted!
Peggy Ann,
I think she must live with her historical characters so much that she forgot she was speaking about a liviong person. Very weird! I think Kate has been really good for the royals, especially when you think what some other people who have married into them have been like!
What I’ve enjoyed about ‘Kate’ is her naturalness…her public persona seems quite genuine, from what exposure she’s had here (which is considerable – for a people who fled king and crown, we Americans are inordinately taken by it still…)
There’s bound to be sour grapes though. Some folks seem to feel there’s just not enough mean in the world.
Sorry you’ve been hosting the winter bugs. I’ve been dodging right and left myself, spending far too much time in flying petri dishes this time of the year.
Pearl,
She is very normal I think, but then so is William – well as normal as they could be under the circumstances. There are a lot of ‘upper class’ English folks who think that the Windsors aren’t really very royal as the Queen’s mother was just from a Scottish aristocratic family, in another century they would have been having a go for the throne for themselves!
I saw that you’ve been flying around, that’s almost as bad as classes full of kids for picking up germs!
I was astonished at Hilary Mantel’s remarks, not that I’m an avid fan of the Royal Family, but it did seem as though she’d forgotten that Kate is after all, a person.
But,this whole episode illustrates why I don’t read the papers very often. I couldn’t think why Hilary Mantel spoke such words, and wanted to know more before I made any comment. So I read her speech in its entirety – the Telegraph video clip has picked out sentences that don’t run together in her full speech – see http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n04/hilary-mantel/royal-bodies.
It stills seems foolish of her to say such things and I think this article in the Guardian says it much better than I can – see here http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/19/hilary-mantel-duchess-cambridge-scandal, which refers to ‘lazy journalism’ and ‘raging hypocrisy’.
Margaret,
Yes I knew it had been taken out of context – as anything like that would be, but I don’t think that makes it any better. Gosh, Mantel obviously likes the sound of her own voice. Near the end she says this – We are ready at any moment to rip away the veil of respect, and treat royal persons in an inhuman way, making them not more than us but less than us, not really human at all. – I object to that ‘we’. Apart from anything else the Katherine Middleton she described didn’t exist, she was/is far from being a Diana clothes-horse type,and she has a degree from St Andrews as well as plenty of personality. She met her husband as many couples do – at uni. Whereas Charles and Diana had only met each other a handful of times before he proposed to her. Even to a 19 year old it should have been obvious that she was just for breeding purposes but I don’t think the same can be said about the Wales marriage asa they had a relationship for 10 years before the wedding. Mantel must have known which bits of a long speech would be jumped on by journalists. She might know her history but she doesn’t understand people. I’m not a royalist at all, but life would be much better if we could all treat people as we would wish to be treated.
I don’t think taking things out of context is the right thing to do in any circumstances – that’s why I’m always dubious about what is reported in the press. Neither do I think that what Hilary Mantel said was right. As I said I was astonished and think she was foolish.
Hope you are both back on top of the world soon, Katrina.
Shame about the Mantel piece. There was no need for her to say anything nasty about Kate, Out of context or not! She’s a lovely vivacious young woman who seems to have settled well into her role. Good on her!
Evee,
It’s especially nasty when Kate is pregnant and won’t be feeling great at the moment, even if she has stopped throwing up!
Rather odd remarks, whether out of context or not. I enjoyed Alison Weir’s response in The Telegraph today about it. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/kate-middleton/9880185/Duchess-of-Cambridge-the-perfect-royal-consort.html
She is just what the Royal Family need Kate not Hilary Mantel that it is.
Chesty cough bug has appeared down here……
Jo,
Thanks for that link, I hadn’t seen it and I agree with everything she says.
I hope you don’t get that bug as it seems to be difficult to get rid of.
Yes, thanks for the link,Jo. I liked it too. I’m wondering now what Hilary Mantel is thinking – whether she regrets her speech or not?
Margaret,
Yes, I agree, she was foolish and seems to be incredibly naive. I suspect she regrets the way her speech has been reported but doesn’t regret what she said. I wonder if she’ll say anything else, I suspect the best thing would be to just stick to writing fiction for the moment.