‘It’s an excuse to drink with male colleagues. It was this or a morris dancing troupe.’
Here’s an amusing story from The Observer about an all male reading group, the Racketeers, which has won a prize for reading books: ‘It’s your shout, then we can start discussing VS Naipaul’.
We were somewhat appalled to discover on the weekend that there is currently a 10 week delay for appointments at the US Embassy in London. On Saturday the earliest appointment we could book online was for October 18th.
So if, like us, you want to file a “Consular Report of Birth Abroad”, you’d best make the appointment two months before the birth occurs!
The situation is so desparate, according to the photographer at the Passport Photo Service, that some US citizens are travelling to Dublin for their appointment, where there is presumably less of a delay.
Inspired by British Airways’ current seat sale, we booked flights for a holiday in late September — on EasyJet.
Unfortunately for BA, which is already having a bad week (see BA increases fuel cost surcharge and Plane ‘to clear luggage backlog’), it simply came down to price. EasyJet can transport the whole family to and from Nice for the price of a single adult on BA (£69 return including taxes). Of course it won’t be the same level of service, but on a flight lasting less than two hours, who cares?
Airfares just keep getting lower and lower, while house prices just keep getting higher and higher. At this rate, it’ll soon be cheaper to live in France and commute by plane into your London office each day.
Sometimes business and the media appear to conspire against us, putting all kinds of temptations in our way with perfect timing.
Radio 4’s Book of the Week is Making Babies by Irish author Anne Enright.
It’s a humourous account of modern motherhood, and is to be published in the UK on Thursday. The Guardian published selected extracts from the book last month (see I have a buggy, I’m hard).
Would I have noticed this if there wasn’t a newborn in our home? Maybe, but I certainly wouldn’t be writing about it!
I’m learning so much now that I’m a responsible parent. Who’d have thought anyone needed these?
They’re heat sensing, soft-tipped weaning spoons.
Apparently, the red bowl of the spoon turns bright yellow if the food is too hot for young mouths (wouldn’t yellow turning red be a more intuitive signal?), and being “soft-tipped” you can accidentally stab your bundle of joy with one and it won’t hurt.
I wonder who thinks these things up?
Anyway, thanks to the wonder of the Internet you can read at least three reviews of these spoons on the Ciao! Shopping Intelligence web site. If after that you’re still interested, Boots has them on sale for £1.24. That’s 50% off! Better get them while they’re hot.
or relative become Canadian … before it’s too late!
That was the typically Canadian headline on a small insert provided with the application form for my daughter’s Canadian citizenship application this week.
It seems that anyone born between 1 January 1947 and 14 February 1977 to a Canadian parent may have a claim to Canadian citizenship; but only for another eight days. You must apply before 14 August 2004 or you’ll lose the opportunity to become Canadian.
More information can be found on the Citizenship and Immigration Canada web site, although the tone is not nearly as inviting.
The UK Passport Service now accepts passport applications online, and I began the process of applying for my new daughter’s first passport on Monday around midday. At 10 AM the next day the postman dropped the typewritten application through our letter box!
All that remains is for me to sign the form, organise the necessary photographs and countersignature, pay the fee and post it back to the Passport Service — most of the work in other words.
Of course you have to start somewhere, and saving me that initial trip to the Post Office in order to pick up the application form is a very welcome improvement. The speed with which it all happened was simply a pleasant and impressive surprise.
Two opposing headlines published today by the BBC indicate that BBC News (at least) hasn’t a clue what’s going on in the UK propery market:
If you read the details, you may realise that these two trends are not necessarily mutually exclusive; but the BBC’s tabloid headline writers simplify news to such an extent that it really makes me question the organisation’s credibility sometimes.
Yesterday I happened to come across a travel web site (Family Travel) that contained a report on “alternative” holidays — cycling, walking, boating, yoga, life coaching, retreats. It contained the following useful observation:
Those who are seeking to expand their consciousness are not always the best equipped to organise anything practical.
With apologies to Ira Gershwin…
You say Al-KAY-da
And I say Al-KEYE-da
You say Osama
And I say Obama
Al-KAY-da, Al-KEYE-da
Osama, Obama
Let’s call the whole thing off.
The “whole thing” could be defined in numerous ways I suppose, but I prefer to think of it as a reference to the conflict in Iraq.
“Obama” is, of course, Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate for the US Senate from Illinois who spoke so eloquently at the Democratic convention last week. Even the Financial Times published an article about him this weekend under the headline A Democrat star is born.
You can find out more about this new star in an article published in The New Yorker in May (see The Candidate by William Finnegan) and it seems I wasn’t the only one to notice a certain similiarity in his last name:
[Democratic Congresswoman] Jan Schakowsky told me about a recent visit she had made to the White House with a congressional delegation. On her way out, she said, President Bush noticed her “obama” button. “He jumped back, almost literally,” she said. “And I knew what he was thinking. So I reassured him it was Obama, with a ‘b.’ And I explained who he was. The President said, ‘Well, I don’t know him.’ So I just said, ‘You will.’”
Looks like Schakowsky was right.
By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. more information
The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this.