misc.
We are them.
My American friends ask whether I’ve started to feel English after twenty-two years of living in London. Not a bit, I tell them. I love London, I love living in England, I’m proud to own a British passport, but I couldn’t feel English even if I wanted to — it’s not allowed, any more than pretending [...]
Baby Talk
I don’t remember if I owned a mobile phone in 1997 when my daughter was born. If I did, it was too early in the communication revolution for it to have become an extension of my hand. Which meant that when my baby and I spent time together, I talked to her. Or sang her [...]
A few words on the subject of playsuits.
Are you surprised, dear Blogees, by my choice of topics today? Never really imagined me as the kind of gal who even had an opinion on playsuits or could even say the word without collapsing in either a.) hysteria or b.) feminist rage? Well, perhaps you have forgotten that I have a fourteen-year-old daughter. A fourteen-year-old [...]
Countdown.
I thought it would never come. For those of you without a darling fledgling book at home, it might help to think of it a bit like graduation day for your child. You’ve nurtured the dear one, fed it, seen it off on its first overnight, its week abroad, told it not to take too [...]
WAFOT (wacky acronyms for our time)
Dear Mumsnet, I have just discovered the list of commonly used acronyms on your website. Well who knew? NAK (Nursing at Keyboard)? Wow. I once spilled a whole cup of coffee on my laptop and this sounds potentially worse. VBAC (vaginal birth after c-section)? Is there a lot of call for that one in everyday parlance? [...]
My Postillion Has Been Struck By Lightning.
You may (or may not) remember that the phrase, ‘My postillion has been struck by lightning’ first appeared in a late 19th century Hungarian phrase book, causing a contemporary social observer to note that ‘this must be the sort of thing that only happens in Hungary; and, when it happens, this is the sort of [...]
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