Sat 8th October 2011

I come back to find that two of my daughters have made a cake out of a packet sponge mix. I am very pleased, and tell them so, before going into the kitchen to start on the chick pea curry. On the radio, Mohsin Hamid is talking interestingly about The Reluctant Fundamentalist and the dangers of using any simplifying model, be it economic orthodoxies or "purified" Islam, to determine behaviour. I pour myself some corner shop plonk.

There is a warm current of domestic harmony running through everything.

I start dishing up. They are watching a wildlife programme on TV, and I think of how children's experience of nature is to watch exotic animals on TV rather than poking around in thickets of nettles and cutting their legs on jutting bits of rusted tin can.

"Jenny! Turn that computer off and come and get your tea!" I shout to the other room. "And turn that telly off," I say to the others. "Tea's ready".

"Why must we turn the telly off?" says Melanie, with a tinge of challenge. I'm surprised. "Because it doesn't accord eating an important enough place in the social life of the family," I somewhat wordily reply.

"Mummy lets us watch it while we're having tea."

"Really?" I change my register. "Do you all want naan bread?" I try to think of the hundreds of times when we have all eaten tea together. I can't remember the TV being on, or off.

"Does Mummy really let you watch TV while eating?"

"Yes," they say, convincingly.

I serve it up and put it on the table. I take mine into another room, annoyed and disappointed that my cooking, and our conversation, is relegated behind a television programme, making a mental note to check this protocol with Kirsty.

I come back in. TV's still on, and now, it's fucking owl rescue. "Shall we have some of this sponge cake?" They jump up and come into the kitchen to cover it with jam and whip the cream up. I seize my chance to snake back past them into the living room to turn the TV off.

We eat it in peace and talk about the way that Christmas is merely an arrogation of Solstice by a load of Johnny-Come-Lately Christians.

Calm returns and I pour myself another glass of wine.

I email NoIdeaWhatHerNameIs about Tuesday. "...And, at some point, do I get to know your name?"

2 comments

Comment from: The Unbearable Banishment [Visitor]

You outwitted them with food. Well played. Set to you.

Sat 8th October 2011 @ 21:23

Comment from: [Member]

Thank you. I wish it hadn’t taken the prospect of slathering a sponge packet mix with hydrogenated fats and sugar to do it, but never mind, the blasted TV got turned off.

Sat 8th October 2011 @ 22:42

Form is loading...

Comment feed for this post

looby, n.; pl. loobies. A lout; an awkward, stupid, clownish person

M / 60 / Bristol, "the most beautiful, interesting and distinguished city in England" -- John Betjeman [1961, source eludes me].

"Looby is a left-wing intellectual who is obsessed with a) women's clothes and b) tits." -- Joy of Bex.

WLTM literate woman, 40-65. Must have nice tits, a PhD, and an mdma factory in the shed, although the first on its own will do in the short term.

There are plenty of bastards who drink moderately. Of course, I don't consider them to be people. They are not our comrades.
Sergei Korovin, quoted in Pavel Krusanov, The Blue Book of the Alcoholic

I am here to change my life. I am here to force myself to change my life.
Chinese man I met during Freshers Week at Lancaster University, 2008

The more democratised art becomes, the more we recognise in it our own mediocrity.
James Meek

Tell me, why is it that even when we are enjoying music, for instance, or a beautiful evening, or a conversation in agreeable company, it all seems no more than a hint of some infinite felicity existing apart somewhere, rather than actual happiness – such, I mean, as we ourselves can really possess?
Turgenev, Fathers and Sons

I hate the iPod; I hate the idea that music is such a personal thing that you can just stick some earplugs in your ears and have an experience with music. Music is a social phenomenon.
Jeremy Wagner

La vie poetique has its pleasures, and readings--ideally a long way from home--are one of them. I can pretend to be George Szirtes.
George Szirtes

Using words well is a social virtue. Use 'fortuitous' once more to mean 'fortunate' and you move an English word another step towards the dustbin. If your mistake took hold, no-one who valued clarity would be able to use the word again.
John Whale

One good thing about being a Marxist is that you don't have to pretend to like work.
Terry Eagleton, What Is A Novel?, Lancaster University, 1 Feb 2010

The working man is a fucking loser.
Mick, The Golden Lion, Lancaster, 21 Mar 2011

Contact | Help | Blog skin by Asevo | Web Site Engine

I do not like television

2 comments

looby, n.; pl. loobies. A lout; an awkward, stupid, clownish person

Rummage in my drawers

The Comfort of Strangers

"Just sit still and listen" - woman to teenage girl at Elliott Carter weekend, London 2006

XML Feeds