Rudeness

Dot writes: sorry to go all Lynne Truss, but I do have tiny private paroxyms of rage from time to time at the awful inconsiderate rudeness of people. The targets reflect the triviality of my life, I’m afraid. (I know mothering is one of the most important jobs anyone can do but…) One of my [...]

The Game, by Diana Wynne Jones

**Alert: spoilers ahead!**
Dot writes: anyone who knows me will be aware that I’m a raving Diana Wynne Jones fan. (Appropriately, her husband, J. A. Burrow, is one of my favourite scholars of medieval literature.) I was therefore delighted yesterday when a parcel of books arrived including her latest, a novella called The Game. I gobbled [...]

You can’t believe what you read in the papers

Dot writes: you really, really can’t, or at least you should look jolly carefully at who wrote any given news story and who they’re quoting and what the unspoken assumptions are. I’ve just read Flat Earth News, by Nick Davies (published 2008 – how up to the minute we are chez Ken and Dot!) and [...]

Happy news

Dot writes: our friends Jeremy and Becky had their baby yesterday on a snowy Easter Sunday in York. Hooray!

Pictures of Hugh

Dot writes: just what the world has been waiting for – more pictures of our lovely baby!
This shot of Hugh playing with his buggy bar was actually taken a few weeks ago, just after the photos in this post.
Yum!
David (Claudie’s husband) took some beautiful shots of Hugh when they came round to dinner on 2nd [...]

Connemara trip

Ken writes: Chris has put up some photos from my recent trip to Connemara here

Milestone: Hugh’s first official illness

Dot writes: Monday was St Patrick’s Day and we had planned to go to the St Patrick’s Day parade with our friends Chris and Juliet, getting there nice and early so as to have a decent view. However, at about 9.30 we noticed that Prawn had developed a collection of slightly raised red blotches on [...]

Newspaper nonsense and probable babies

Dot writes: I’ve just bought and started a book by Jeffrey S. Rosenthal, Struck by Lightning: The Curious World of Probabilities. I was drawn to the topic for a general reason and a specific reason. The general reason is that I think probabilities are bandied about recklessly in the press by people who don’t understand [...]

John Gray on the atheists

The Guardian has a provocative piece by John Gray attacking the new breed of proselytising atheist.
He claims that the issues taken up by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, Philip Pullman and co, are often very traditionally religious, as is their optimistic progressivism. He also claims they prosecute their atheism in a way entirely [...]

Cabin fever

Ken writes:
Help! A young family is marooned in suburban Dublin with a fractious baby no car and penned in by non-stop rain. The baby is bored with everything in the flat and wants parental stimulation. The parents would like some time together or else a nice walk topped off with a pint in front of [...]