I was reading my Birthing Partner book the other night, specifically what you should say to your beloved while she is labouring away. Apparantly some women don't feel nauseous enough during labour, and require their other half to say some vomit inducing little beauties like We're in this together or Remember, you are the middle of a miracle and, if you can still speak through a broken jaw, sneak in a We're on this journey together.
And after that they tell you: This is not the ideal situation to make jokes.
Well it's pretty frikkin' hilarous, isn't it? By the sounds of things we'll have half of San Isidro gathered in the room to watch the show. We (blokes) don't make jokes because they might be funny, we make jokes because we don't like awkward situations, and a witty riposte is an opportunity to take back a smidgin of control.
Hard to think of a situation where we can ever be in less control. The spotty fetal junior nurse student boy with stubbletash is a bloody expert compared to us. Not make jokes? How dare you? That's all we got.
So, the problem with a lot of these Go Girlfriend books is not just that they're sickingly sincere. The true problem is that they fail to prepare the right person. They try to prepare the guy for what he's going to see and what he'll need to say; and they prepare the girl for both. But this isn't the problem; women know exactly what's going on. They have that weird ability to think ahead.
Exactly. Frankly, there is a dangerous lack of literature preparing the WOMEN for the stupid stuff the MEN are going to say.
As men, it is absolutely inevitable that we're going to say the worst possible thing, and, not happy with that, we're going to say it at the most inopportune moment.
So, let's be honest here, I thought. So I wrote an email to the author of The Girlfriend's Guide, suggesting that women prepare themselves to hear, or observe, some if not all of the following things during labour, in the Books' language:
Girlfriends, during the agonies of labour it helps for you to be prepared for some of the following. He might well feel quite left out by this point, and will doubtless have noticed that all the attention so far has been on you. Whilst he will be really excited about the imminent birth, he might well communicate this through the medium of 'constant tapping'. He is really excited for you, visible by the constant glancing at his watch; do not feel he is rushing you, he is just trying to take control over something. He is definately not thinking about whether you will be done in time for the big game or for Family Guy at ten. No, he is not going to the door and squinting to see next door's TV. He is checking for predators.
Men like to repel attractive women when their beloveds are in labour, so you will find that his conversation with the pretty nurses will be especially stilted and inane. Another sacrifice for you. He will often use strange words to express encouragement and pride, including sporting metaphors like 'Up and Out', 'Steady Away', and, if he's from the Home Counties, 'Heave!' He might show his empathy with your situation, drawing comparisons between your tiredness and his, and might visualise this for you through a nap. (See this as a welcome break from the incessant tapping).
Some men use flattery, telling you how much better you are doing than his last girlfriend. Or he might try to spur you on, by (suggesting the reverse). Either way, you know that by the end of the journey, as long as you've taken time to pay him attention, you will have his undivided adoration.
What do you reckon people? The missing chapter? I think it's gold.
Friday, 29 February 2008
Birth Partners
I am increasinly starting to think that the only thing worse than being too disinterested in your wife's pregnancy is being too interested in it. Having recently received an email from a lovely friend in London, an ex-colleague, with whom we share a due date, following the entry on Maternity Classes, it seems London has gone as far as Buenos Aires in extremes. Here, I am often the only guy who is still awake at the end of the classes (and I don't even know the words). There, guys get looked looked upon with organic scorn if they also do not yearn to feed from their breast.
The conversations have been going something like this:
London:
- So are you the father?
- I prefer the term 'birthing partner'.
- Do you... (To the birth partner with the uterus, formerly known as the 'woman') And is this your first pregancy?
- (Intercepted by birth partner without uterus) Yes, it's the first time we've been pregnant.
Buenos Aires:
- So, are you going to the birth then?
- Er, yeah.
- Yeah, but I mean actually in the room?
- Yeah.
- Wow.
- Well. Where I'm from if you're not in the room for the birth, you're not really welcome in any room again...
- And you're from...?
- Mars.
The conversations have been going something like this:
London:
- So are you the father?
- I prefer the term 'birthing partner'.
- Do you... (To the birth partner with the uterus, formerly known as the 'woman') And is this your first pregancy?
- (Intercepted by birth partner without uterus) Yes, it's the first time we've been pregnant.
Buenos Aires:
- So, are you going to the birth then?
- Er, yeah.
- Yeah, but I mean actually in the room?
- Yeah.
- Wow.
- Well. Where I'm from if you're not in the room for the birth, you're not really welcome in any room again...
- And you're from...?
- Mars.
Sunday, 24 February 2008
Argentina, one year in...
When trying to write an entry about Argentina one year in (quite a long on, but there is a joke at the end), you naturally try to divide the country into pros and cons, loves and hates, good, bad and ugly. The things that make you think about raising your kid here, and the things that make you think about selling your kid to pay for your way out of here.
But such is the paradox of the place it really is impossible to polarise the country. The best qualities of the country are absolutely the same things that make it so frustrating, or confusing or challenging. So this is an attempt to merge the two: the good within the ugly, the joy through the pain, one year on.
For those of you who saw us in July, sorry. We were rather more experiencing the hardships than the pleasures. Since then we have followed the golden rule of having at least 3 of the following 4 every day: helado ice creams, carne steak, sun and swim. These things helped.
What we love:
- Energy and exuberance: if you meet someone shy, chances are you‘re talking to a Chilean. You experience many things in this city; boredom is not one of them. At the same time, you’ve got a country of people, from about 8 to 80, running on 5 hours sleep, with all the sulkiness and short tempered irritation that comes with it.
- Pride in the country: this manifests itself in how welcome we’ve been made to feel in their country. Our Argie friends go out of their way to look after us and everybody wants to talk to us everywhere we go (we learnt early never to be in a rush to get anywhere) from offers to come to the hospital during the birth of our child to a taxi driver (who we’d been chatting to about the heat and the need for Air Con) tracking us down in a café later on with a leaflet on Air Conditioning Units. Or, it could be interpreted as just good old fashioned racism. An adoration of all people and things European (like them of course) and a disdain for all things Latin American. We have been told that this has changed significantly since the 2001 economic crash when Argies realised that they had to work with their Latin American neighbours in order to survive and it must also be caveated that this is a very class-ist view and it tends to be the upper class Argies who still think this way. It is surreal though when watching Dougs play cricket at the Hurlingham Club to be surrounded by posh Argies all speaking English like the best of the Home Counties.
- The lack of aggression in the culture: no road rage (they just beep their horns louder and drive faster); we’ve yet to see a fight in a bar or on the street, and you can cycle down the pavement and the pedestrians apologise for being in the way… And on the other hand you’ve got the barra brava, the football hooligans, the leaders of which when in prison recently were visited by the club’s players. Quality role models, no? And you wouldn’t want to wander the villas (shanty towns) at night.
- The 6 month summer (easily the best part!) and the entire city going on holiday for Jan and Feb. On the other hand, try buying something in January and you’ll find a succession of Closed for Holidays signs. Nah, forget it, that’s an out and out plus. Light bulbs and milk can wait until March.
- Chantas: the Argentine quality, much respected, that means you can talk you way in and out of nearly anything; you see this throughout society, from schools to business, where it’s just as ‘respected’ to talk your way into an exam pass as to actually achieve one. Which leads to corruption, scant respect for the law and total lack of respect for institutions (man do I sound my age). But you will never experience that BURNING RAGE on the Underground when some smug ticket puncher hits you with a £20 fine for trying to get home ‘during peak hour’ on your £9 Off Peak Travelcard that was about 20p cheaper than the other one and you didn’t even ask for it anyway...
- Our flat and pool – they are awesome. The down side? I dunno. Sometimes other people use the pool. Air Con is bad for the ozone layer? Polar Bears can just get better at swimming.
- Creativity and originality – no identikit high streets, a franchise free existence. I’ve been in a supermarket maybe twice in 6 months. Love it! Yeah it’s great to be able to buy a range of world foods in your local Tesco’s, but it’s greater being forced to go out for a meal to get them.
- Informality: “meeting starts at 9am sharp” translates to, “I imagine we’ll run into each other some time tomorrow”. You can swear in meetings without anyone batting an eyelid – where else can you say hijo de putain (son of a b….) as a reply to your boss asking you to do some extra work without it causing offence? - and it’s generally better/more respected to express an extreme opposite opinion than none at all.
- Lack of rules: there is something very liberating about being able to cycle on pavements without anyone screaming at you and buying meat off supermarket shelves that is dripping in blood rather than wrapped in 27 layers of plastic. But this flagrant disregard for rules is most appallingly evident in the driving… (see below)
- Vanity: there are few funnier things than watching someone on a train, on their own, entertain themselves by taking photo after photo of themselves on their digital camera, and reading their expressions of, usually, approval and delight, at the results. It’s the only country where you’ll walk into the gents and see guy grooming their eyebrows; inevitable downside of highest rates of plastic surgery in the world, the average weight of a porteno women must be about 5 stone and societal pressure to be beautiful and glamorous led to one less than beautiful man recently petitioning parliament for a law to protect ‘ugly’ people…..
- Porteros: basically the doormen in each building but so much more than that – the ultimate ‘fixers’ who know a man who can for every situation; take the character in the movie who can get you things, release that character from his twenty stretch, sit them outside your door. V v handy. How will we ever live without them again, not sure.
- Attitudes to kids: they love them, take them everywhere, family is the most important thing in the world to an Argentine. Even Dad’s take an interest in their children here. As a result, kids are so content and well behaved and quite happily wander around restaurants at midnight chatting to complete strangers, being utterly charming and annoying no one.
What we don’t love so much:
- The driving is frikkin appalling, 20 people are killed a day in the city and 44% of those are pedestrians, in full knowledge of this people still let their kids climb around inside moving cars, there is no concept that the lines down the middle of the road/motorway designate a novel idea called ‘lanes’, seatbelts are for losers and helmets are an accessory to be worn on your wrist while weaving your motorbike at 140km/hr in and out of traffic on the autopista. Its appalling and the ‘reasoning’ behind it is pathetic, typically ‘its our cultural right to drive fast’, ‘people know it’s dangerous but… what are you gonna do?’ No excuse, it makes India look like Sweden.
- Customer service does not so much run on the mantra that The Customer Is Always Right then The Customer Is Most Likely A Twat, starting with rudeness and degenerating from there. A friend of ours tried to get a book copied in a photocopying shop only to be told it had too many pages (?!) so they wouldn’t do it, you get hung up on by operators, Christ you get hung up on by telemarketers (though no complaints there); we have no idea how these people make any money.
- The bureaucracy: queues queues and more queues. Queues just to get a number for your place in the queue. Each task requires 572 signatures obtained in 72 different buildings (I have significantly lowered my expectations of what I can get done in a day!). Last week I (Katie) was told that I needed to obtain a doctor’s note to prove to my medical insurance company that I was pregnant. As I could hardly see the man over the top of my belly, I could only presume he was joking but upon further bemused enquiry he remained resolute so off I waddled to building number 492 of the day.
What we miss:
- don’t laugh, but at times (such as the Davis Cup tennis), good old fashioned British politeness
- and efficiency!
- British satire – TV, radio, newspapers – god bless podcasts
- the BBC: it is nice to be able to believe things sometimes
- earning pounds
- bacon sarnies
- baked beans
- cricket on TV (Katie)
- not having to look both ways (and up) when crossing a one way street
- taking a taxi without first having an argument with the driver about the necessity of digging the seatbelts out of the boot before the journey commences….
- being able to go places outside the city for the weekend without flying (apparently these places do exist but you need a car and to think that a 6 drive each way is a relaxing start and finish to a 2 day weekend)
- all of you lot (told you there was a joke at the end)
But such is the paradox of the place it really is impossible to polarise the country. The best qualities of the country are absolutely the same things that make it so frustrating, or confusing or challenging. So this is an attempt to merge the two: the good within the ugly, the joy through the pain, one year on.
For those of you who saw us in July, sorry. We were rather more experiencing the hardships than the pleasures. Since then we have followed the golden rule of having at least 3 of the following 4 every day: helado ice creams, carne steak, sun and swim. These things helped.
What we love:
- Energy and exuberance: if you meet someone shy, chances are you‘re talking to a Chilean. You experience many things in this city; boredom is not one of them. At the same time, you’ve got a country of people, from about 8 to 80, running on 5 hours sleep, with all the sulkiness and short tempered irritation that comes with it.
- Pride in the country: this manifests itself in how welcome we’ve been made to feel in their country. Our Argie friends go out of their way to look after us and everybody wants to talk to us everywhere we go (we learnt early never to be in a rush to get anywhere) from offers to come to the hospital during the birth of our child to a taxi driver (who we’d been chatting to about the heat and the need for Air Con) tracking us down in a café later on with a leaflet on Air Conditioning Units. Or, it could be interpreted as just good old fashioned racism. An adoration of all people and things European (like them of course) and a disdain for all things Latin American. We have been told that this has changed significantly since the 2001 economic crash when Argies realised that they had to work with their Latin American neighbours in order to survive and it must also be caveated that this is a very class-ist view and it tends to be the upper class Argies who still think this way. It is surreal though when watching Dougs play cricket at the Hurlingham Club to be surrounded by posh Argies all speaking English like the best of the Home Counties.
- The lack of aggression in the culture: no road rage (they just beep their horns louder and drive faster); we’ve yet to see a fight in a bar or on the street, and you can cycle down the pavement and the pedestrians apologise for being in the way… And on the other hand you’ve got the barra brava, the football hooligans, the leaders of which when in prison recently were visited by the club’s players. Quality role models, no? And you wouldn’t want to wander the villas (shanty towns) at night.
- The 6 month summer (easily the best part!) and the entire city going on holiday for Jan and Feb. On the other hand, try buying something in January and you’ll find a succession of Closed for Holidays signs. Nah, forget it, that’s an out and out plus. Light bulbs and milk can wait until March.
- Chantas: the Argentine quality, much respected, that means you can talk you way in and out of nearly anything; you see this throughout society, from schools to business, where it’s just as ‘respected’ to talk your way into an exam pass as to actually achieve one. Which leads to corruption, scant respect for the law and total lack of respect for institutions (man do I sound my age). But you will never experience that BURNING RAGE on the Underground when some smug ticket puncher hits you with a £20 fine for trying to get home ‘during peak hour’ on your £9 Off Peak Travelcard that was about 20p cheaper than the other one and you didn’t even ask for it anyway...
- Our flat and pool – they are awesome. The down side? I dunno. Sometimes other people use the pool. Air Con is bad for the ozone layer? Polar Bears can just get better at swimming.
- Creativity and originality – no identikit high streets, a franchise free existence. I’ve been in a supermarket maybe twice in 6 months. Love it! Yeah it’s great to be able to buy a range of world foods in your local Tesco’s, but it’s greater being forced to go out for a meal to get them.
- Informality: “meeting starts at 9am sharp” translates to, “I imagine we’ll run into each other some time tomorrow”. You can swear in meetings without anyone batting an eyelid – where else can you say hijo de putain (son of a b….) as a reply to your boss asking you to do some extra work without it causing offence? - and it’s generally better/more respected to express an extreme opposite opinion than none at all.
- Lack of rules: there is something very liberating about being able to cycle on pavements without anyone screaming at you and buying meat off supermarket shelves that is dripping in blood rather than wrapped in 27 layers of plastic. But this flagrant disregard for rules is most appallingly evident in the driving… (see below)
- Vanity: there are few funnier things than watching someone on a train, on their own, entertain themselves by taking photo after photo of themselves on their digital camera, and reading their expressions of, usually, approval and delight, at the results. It’s the only country where you’ll walk into the gents and see guy grooming their eyebrows; inevitable downside of highest rates of plastic surgery in the world, the average weight of a porteno women must be about 5 stone and societal pressure to be beautiful and glamorous led to one less than beautiful man recently petitioning parliament for a law to protect ‘ugly’ people…..
- Porteros: basically the doormen in each building but so much more than that – the ultimate ‘fixers’ who know a man who can for every situation; take the character in the movie who can get you things, release that character from his twenty stretch, sit them outside your door. V v handy. How will we ever live without them again, not sure.
- Attitudes to kids: they love them, take them everywhere, family is the most important thing in the world to an Argentine. Even Dad’s take an interest in their children here. As a result, kids are so content and well behaved and quite happily wander around restaurants at midnight chatting to complete strangers, being utterly charming and annoying no one.
What we don’t love so much:
- The driving is frikkin appalling, 20 people are killed a day in the city and 44% of those are pedestrians, in full knowledge of this people still let their kids climb around inside moving cars, there is no concept that the lines down the middle of the road/motorway designate a novel idea called ‘lanes’, seatbelts are for losers and helmets are an accessory to be worn on your wrist while weaving your motorbike at 140km/hr in and out of traffic on the autopista. Its appalling and the ‘reasoning’ behind it is pathetic, typically ‘its our cultural right to drive fast’, ‘people know it’s dangerous but… what are you gonna do?’ No excuse, it makes India look like Sweden.
- Customer service does not so much run on the mantra that The Customer Is Always Right then The Customer Is Most Likely A Twat, starting with rudeness and degenerating from there. A friend of ours tried to get a book copied in a photocopying shop only to be told it had too many pages (?!) so they wouldn’t do it, you get hung up on by operators, Christ you get hung up on by telemarketers (though no complaints there); we have no idea how these people make any money.
- The bureaucracy: queues queues and more queues. Queues just to get a number for your place in the queue. Each task requires 572 signatures obtained in 72 different buildings (I have significantly lowered my expectations of what I can get done in a day!). Last week I (Katie) was told that I needed to obtain a doctor’s note to prove to my medical insurance company that I was pregnant. As I could hardly see the man over the top of my belly, I could only presume he was joking but upon further bemused enquiry he remained resolute so off I waddled to building number 492 of the day.
What we miss:
- don’t laugh, but at times (such as the Davis Cup tennis), good old fashioned British politeness
- and efficiency!
- British satire – TV, radio, newspapers – god bless podcasts
- the BBC: it is nice to be able to believe things sometimes
- earning pounds
- bacon sarnies
- baked beans
- cricket on TV (Katie)
- not having to look both ways (and up) when crossing a one way street
- taking a taxi without first having an argument with the driver about the necessity of digging the seatbelts out of the boot before the journey commences….
- being able to go places outside the city for the weekend without flying (apparently these places do exist but you need a car and to think that a 6 drive each way is a relaxing start and finish to a 2 day weekend)
- all of you lot (told you there was a joke at the end)
Saturday, 23 February 2008
"Why you put me a six, meester?"
The Argentine Education system is as follows.
- Every student is given a grade by their teacher, once a trimester.
- Every student needs to average 7 by the end of the year to pass.
- If you fail, and get a 6, you return for exams in December.
- If you fail those, you return for extra exams in February.
- All of those exams are set and marked by teacher internally (eg you set the bar).
Around exam time, and grade time, I often have a disgruntled little fella (usually fella) approach me in a corridor, demanding, 'Why you put me a 6, meester?'
A lot can be read into this sentence. Firstly, it means 'Why did you give me a 6 in my trimester grades' and inplies, 'and as a consequence I will now be faced with resit exams'. But what irritates me more about this accusation is the lack of responsibility of the student. Not, why did I get a 6 (with the inference, how can I improve): not how did I fail but how did you fail me.
The 7 pass/6 fail is in many ways a reductionist system, the difference between 6 and 7 being exponentially greater than between 7 and 8, leading to culture where one might be inclined only to aim to pass. Conversely, there is little provision for students with learning disabilities other than to do it again (either the work, the exam or the year: within which lies the wonderful educational paradox of 'catching up by going slower').
Like many students, my first year at University 'didn't count' towards my overall degree (how can that make sense?) and you needed to 'achieve' 40% to pass in second year. Now, I'm the first to admit that I had the intellectual maturity of a kinder student (or even Kinder Egg) throughout 1996, but even taking that into account, you couldn't help but notice that the prevailing attitude was that anything over 40% was good time wasted. But a year of aiming for the minimum can be habit forming, and my point is not to look for an apology for 'achieving' a 2:2 from Loughborough (an apology in itself) but simply to point to the the fact that we average people tend to respond towards incentives.
Now, that lack of incentive to achieve beyond the average is the system here. Even the cliche's hold the importance of 'reaching for the sky' as being tantamount to success. Don't get me wrong, such low expectations can lead to a very laid back existence, for students and teachers. Besides, you set and mark all the papers, so any failing is in reality your choice (there is no baseline assessment). So the kids are right when they ask why did you put them a six. Which takes us back to the point about ownership.
One of my favourite education quotations is that: Education is not the filling of a bucket, it is the lighting of the flame.
So, to extend this metaphor, make it culturally appropriate, and stretch it beyond its maximum elasticity, and to describe this system which teaches its students the following values, in Chinese whispers, is as follows:
"Education in this system is the putting of a bucket on your head, and setting your self on fire."
"If you are educated you can set a bucket on flame."
"If you struggling in this education system, you might struggle to fill a bucket."
And finally:
"Education is not the putting of a six, it is the putting of a 7."
- Every student is given a grade by their teacher, once a trimester.
- Every student needs to average 7 by the end of the year to pass.
- If you fail, and get a 6, you return for exams in December.
- If you fail those, you return for extra exams in February.
- All of those exams are set and marked by teacher internally (eg you set the bar).
Around exam time, and grade time, I often have a disgruntled little fella (usually fella) approach me in a corridor, demanding, 'Why you put me a 6, meester?'
A lot can be read into this sentence. Firstly, it means 'Why did you give me a 6 in my trimester grades' and inplies, 'and as a consequence I will now be faced with resit exams'. But what irritates me more about this accusation is the lack of responsibility of the student. Not, why did I get a 6 (with the inference, how can I improve): not how did I fail but how did you fail me.
The 7 pass/6 fail is in many ways a reductionist system, the difference between 6 and 7 being exponentially greater than between 7 and 8, leading to culture where one might be inclined only to aim to pass. Conversely, there is little provision for students with learning disabilities other than to do it again (either the work, the exam or the year: within which lies the wonderful educational paradox of 'catching up by going slower').
Like many students, my first year at University 'didn't count' towards my overall degree (how can that make sense?) and you needed to 'achieve' 40% to pass in second year. Now, I'm the first to admit that I had the intellectual maturity of a kinder student (or even Kinder Egg) throughout 1996, but even taking that into account, you couldn't help but notice that the prevailing attitude was that anything over 40% was good time wasted. But a year of aiming for the minimum can be habit forming, and my point is not to look for an apology for 'achieving' a 2:2 from Loughborough (an apology in itself) but simply to point to the the fact that we average people tend to respond towards incentives.
Now, that lack of incentive to achieve beyond the average is the system here. Even the cliche's hold the importance of 'reaching for the sky' as being tantamount to success. Don't get me wrong, such low expectations can lead to a very laid back existence, for students and teachers. Besides, you set and mark all the papers, so any failing is in reality your choice (there is no baseline assessment). So the kids are right when they ask why did you put them a six. Which takes us back to the point about ownership.
One of my favourite education quotations is that: Education is not the filling of a bucket, it is the lighting of the flame.
So, to extend this metaphor, make it culturally appropriate, and stretch it beyond its maximum elasticity, and to describe this system which teaches its students the following values, in Chinese whispers, is as follows:
"Education in this system is the putting of a bucket on your head, and setting your self on fire."
"If you are educated you can set a bucket on flame."
"If you struggling in this education system, you might struggle to fill a bucket."
And finally:
"Education is not the putting of a six, it is the putting of a 7."
Wednesday, 20 February 2008
Women!
Interesting: whilst reading up a bit about gender, as you do, I stumbled upon this classic from Aristotle. It's not exactly news that some of those old brains were pretty convinced there was no need for women, but next time you quote Aristotle (come on, you're always doing it), remember he said this:
A husband and father... rules over wife and children, both free [i.e. neither is a slave], but the rule differs, the rule over his children being a royal, over his wife a constitutional rule. For although there may be exceptions to the order of nature [i.e. occasionally a wife may be wiser than her husband], the male is by nature fitter for command than the female... But in most constitutional states the citizens rule and are ruled by turns, for the idea of a constitutional state implies that the natures of the citizens are equal, and do not differ at all. Nevertheless, when one rules and the other is ruled we endeavour to create a difference of outward forms and names and titles of respect... The relation of the male to the female is of this kind, but there the inequality is permanent.
A husband and father... rules over wife and children, both free [i.e. neither is a slave], but the rule differs, the rule over his children being a royal, over his wife a constitutional rule. For although there may be exceptions to the order of nature [i.e. occasionally a wife may be wiser than her husband], the male is by nature fitter for command than the female... But in most constitutional states the citizens rule and are ruled by turns, for the idea of a constitutional state implies that the natures of the citizens are equal, and do not differ at all. Nevertheless, when one rules and the other is ruled we endeavour to create a difference of outward forms and names and titles of respect... The relation of the male to the female is of this kind, but there the inequality is permanent.
Thursday, 14 February 2008
Argentina vs MCC
Hola Chicos,
This is the Argentine Team to play the MCC on Wednesday February 6 at St Georges College. The game is being played on the new grass wicket which the MCC provided funding for its construction.
The game is a 50 over match and will start at 11am, so please try to be at the ground by 9.50am to start warm-ups at 10am. The game is being played in whites and shirts will be provided by the ACA.
The team is-
| Dougal Fergusson |
| Bernardo Irigoyen |
| Hamish Barton |
| Grant Dugmore |
| Gary Savage |
| Martin Siri |
| Mark Roberts wk |
| Billy MacDermott © |
| Paul Ryan |
| Agustin Casime |
| Steven Nino |
| 12th man to be named
Please confirm with me your availability. Abrazo, Hamish |
Hamish Barton
Argentine Cricket Association
National Coach/High Performance Manager
Back to school.
Only teachers - and I mean this with respect and love for this profession and the vast majority of its practicioners, can come out with a line like this. We broke up on December 19th, and returned February 14th. The student aren't back until the February 25th, and yet I was greeted by the followinçg as I arrived back yesterday morning.
- Hi, how are you, how was your holiday? I asked.
- Oh, wonderful. But it's too short, you know? I feel like I've hardly been away.
To all those of you who work for a living, I offer the apologies of my race.
And to quote comedian Dominic Holland, asked about his opinion prior a proposed teacher strike in the UK.
"I totally support the teachers in their demands to work a 35 hour week. It fits in perfectly with their 35 week year."
- Hi, how are you, how was your holiday? I asked.
- Oh, wonderful. But it's too short, you know? I feel like I've hardly been away.
To all those of you who work for a living, I offer the apologies of my race.
And to quote comedian Dominic Holland, asked about his opinion prior a proposed teacher strike in the UK.
"I totally support the teachers in their demands to work a 35 hour week. It fits in perfectly with their 35 week year."
Tuesday, 12 February 2008
All Change
On Dec 31st we missed New Year's at midnight. At 11pm fireworks started going off everywhere, we flicked on the TV to see it read 12.01 and were thoroughly confused.
It turned out the government, on the 28th of the month, unbeknownst to us and many many others (who missed buses, flights etc), announced that the clocks would go back one hour, on Dec 31st, to save energy during the summer. The, and I use the term lightly, 'logic' was that people would not switch on their lights until later and therefore the country would save its depleted resources of energy.
Trouble is, this makes the late afternoons and evenings ridiculous hot and light, which means people switch on their air conditioning earlier and for longer than they otherwise would (when they would be, say, at work, or going to sleep).
And this has only irritated me today because I had to get up for work this morning, in midsummer, when this time last year it was a lovely light soon-to-be-sunny day, in the PITCH FREAKIN DARK. Because it was FIVE THIRTY in the morning any other year...
What is it with this country?
Footnote: reading this back, it strikes me that it is hardly possible to write a more middle class whinge than this? Suggestions:
- Northern France Was Slightly Disappointing
- How Organic Is Organic Hummus: Really
- Carbon Credits Are The New Volvos
- My Black Lab's A Vegan
- ARGOS: The New Superbug?
Suggestions, as ever, on a postcard.
It turned out the government, on the 28th of the month, unbeknownst to us and many many others (who missed buses, flights etc), announced that the clocks would go back one hour, on Dec 31st, to save energy during the summer. The, and I use the term lightly, 'logic' was that people would not switch on their lights until later and therefore the country would save its depleted resources of energy.
Trouble is, this makes the late afternoons and evenings ridiculous hot and light, which means people switch on their air conditioning earlier and for longer than they otherwise would (when they would be, say, at work, or going to sleep).
And this has only irritated me today because I had to get up for work this morning, in midsummer, when this time last year it was a lovely light soon-to-be-sunny day, in the PITCH FREAKIN DARK. Because it was FIVE THIRTY in the morning any other year...
What is it with this country?
Footnote: reading this back, it strikes me that it is hardly possible to write a more middle class whinge than this? Suggestions:
- Northern France Was Slightly Disappointing
- How Organic Is Organic Hummus: Really
- Carbon Credits Are The New Volvos
- My Black Lab's A Vegan
- ARGOS: The New Superbug?
Suggestions, as ever, on a postcard.
A Touch Of Kevin
Aspirations: that’s what it’s all about in advertising, isn’t it? Well, it seems that the surveys and market research came back with the conclusive answer: what do these people with the innate stylistic tastes of the French, the confidence and looks of the Italians and the romantic language of the Spanish need? What is missing in their otherwise sartorially splendid armory?
We've got it boss, comes the confident reply from The Marketing Boys. They need A Touch Of Kevin.
Maternity Class A
Maternity Classed
After 5 hours of Spanish lessons, my brain was fairly full of new words and when to use the Present Perfect, the Imperfect and the Pluperfect (those are verb tenses, in case any British people between the ages of 25 to 35 are reading), so I’m not sure if I got everything that was explained to us during our first Maternity Class, but here goes.
The women were there from 6.30pm – 7.30pm, and then the boys could join in. I say join in, but I was pretty efficiently bundled out during the explanation that it was ‘Women Only’ for the first hour. No uterus, no need to stay. I wasn’t going to argue.
But it was nice to be going to classes, thereby finally doing a second useful thing nearly after 8 months of spectating...
Outside, we, the men, the waiting warriors, were truly pathetic. A gathering of sheepish looking dudes, actively pretending to be checking their phones, going through the dance of… Hmm, does that message truly need to remain in the inbox, let’s think about this… no one wanting to be the first to buzz in and infiltrate The Woman Zone.
What is it that terrifies us about pregnant women? (The film Alien?)
Anyway, once in, a series of mats had been arranged around the edges of the floor and we paired off. Well, we would have. Katie had disappeared and was chatting to the midwife in another room, so I sort of hung out in the middle, which would have made sense to the other women there, who had actually seen Katie. The other guys weren’t o sure, and started to circle the wagons questioning the presence of this foreigner with a fetish who’d come to pry on their vulnerable, immoveable embarazadas.
Fortunately, Katie returned and during the talk by the paediatrician I understood the following things during the next eighty minutes:
• It doesn’t really matter what type of dummy or pacifier you use. They are mostly the same.
I gotta admit I really didn’t catch anything else.
So we’re totally ready for the arrival in early March, and leave the teething to me.
Footnote: upon Katie reading this, it turns out that I didn’t even have the pacifier bit was accurate. (And for the record, you need a little dummy for a little baby. You’d think I might have got that…)
After 5 hours of Spanish lessons, my brain was fairly full of new words and when to use the Present Perfect, the Imperfect and the Pluperfect (those are verb tenses, in case any British people between the ages of 25 to 35 are reading), so I’m not sure if I got everything that was explained to us during our first Maternity Class, but here goes.
The women were there from 6.30pm – 7.30pm, and then the boys could join in. I say join in, but I was pretty efficiently bundled out during the explanation that it was ‘Women Only’ for the first hour. No uterus, no need to stay. I wasn’t going to argue.
But it was nice to be going to classes, thereby finally doing a second useful thing nearly after 8 months of spectating...
Outside, we, the men, the waiting warriors, were truly pathetic. A gathering of sheepish looking dudes, actively pretending to be checking their phones, going through the dance of… Hmm, does that message truly need to remain in the inbox, let’s think about this… no one wanting to be the first to buzz in and infiltrate The Woman Zone.
What is it that terrifies us about pregnant women? (The film Alien?)
Anyway, once in, a series of mats had been arranged around the edges of the floor and we paired off. Well, we would have. Katie had disappeared and was chatting to the midwife in another room, so I sort of hung out in the middle, which would have made sense to the other women there, who had actually seen Katie. The other guys weren’t o sure, and started to circle the wagons questioning the presence of this foreigner with a fetish who’d come to pry on their vulnerable, immoveable embarazadas.
Fortunately, Katie returned and during the talk by the paediatrician I understood the following things during the next eighty minutes:
• It doesn’t really matter what type of dummy or pacifier you use. They are mostly the same.
I gotta admit I really didn’t catch anything else.
So we’re totally ready for the arrival in early March, and leave the teething to me.
Footnote: upon Katie reading this, it turns out that I didn’t even have the pacifier bit was accurate. (And for the record, you need a little dummy for a little baby. You’d think I might have got that…)
Friday, 8 February 2008
How do you say...
Lessons with Glenn (see 'Glenn') are now punctuated with him asking the teacher various gangland phrases and useful vocab that he'll be needing in a little over 11 days time.
Amazingly, German didn't fall off his chair when Glenn asked him:
- Como se dice 'How do you say'?
To avoid confusion, I should state that 'como se dice' is how you say 'how do you say'...
So German replied, looking slightly puzzled - Er. Como se dice.
- No, I know, but I need to know how to say 'How do you say'...
- Como se dice
- Yeah but... Oh.
A few minutes later we were interrupted, admittedly while we are doing some lame stuff like, 'Moving House', to practice reflexive verbs...) with the following beauty, as Glenn looked up from his Dr Dre notebook that he was using for vocab:
- Oh, sorry guys. Um, German, como se dice 'knife fight'.
Alright, I made up the bit about the Dr Dre notebook. But I thought I'd suggest some other como se dice's for our Glenn, in a week's time when his Spanish is up to scratch. Springing to mind came:
- Como se dice I'm gonna get myself killed real soon.
- Como se dice I made my move to Buenos Aires based on various Hollywood movie representations of gangland violence like 'Dangerous Minds'.
- Como se dice Some people are now saying Courtroom Reporter is different to Specialist Social Worker
- Como se dice I have less than 2 weeks to live?
- Como se dice Do you like my tat?
Nah, don't worry, I'm sure Glenn will be fine. Any trouble comes along, as he said, he can always rap himself out of danger.
Amazingly, German didn't fall off his chair when Glenn asked him:
- Como se dice 'How do you say'?
To avoid confusion, I should state that 'como se dice' is how you say 'how do you say'...
So German replied, looking slightly puzzled - Er. Como se dice.
- No, I know, but I need to know how to say 'How do you say'...
- Como se dice
- Yeah but... Oh.
A few minutes later we were interrupted, admittedly while we are doing some lame stuff like, 'Moving House', to practice reflexive verbs...) with the following beauty, as Glenn looked up from his Dr Dre notebook that he was using for vocab:
- Oh, sorry guys. Um, German, como se dice 'knife fight'.
Alright, I made up the bit about the Dr Dre notebook. But I thought I'd suggest some other como se dice's for our Glenn, in a week's time when his Spanish is up to scratch. Springing to mind came:
- Como se dice I'm gonna get myself killed real soon.
- Como se dice I made my move to Buenos Aires based on various Hollywood movie representations of gangland violence like 'Dangerous Minds'.
- Como se dice Some people are now saying Courtroom Reporter is different to Specialist Social Worker
- Como se dice I have less than 2 weeks to live?
- Como se dice Do you like my tat?
Nah, don't worry, I'm sure Glenn will be fine. Any trouble comes along, as he said, he can always rap himself out of danger.
Monday, 4 February 2008
Glenn
Every now and then you meet one. And when you do, it's important to remember as close to every word they say, because the true ridiculous of them is not borne out until you've reflected on it for a while. These are the people who live in a fantasy world, but talk about their life with such prosaic confidence that if you're not careful, you'll get drawn in to thinking, 'Well, good on them, at least their doing it.' Well, to be honest, this one wasn't too hard to spot. This was how I met Glenn.
Spanish lessons again. A long time seems to have passed since Cheese Wire's (June entry 07) painful lessons on damp, cold Thursday evenings, watching the clock tick down oh so slowly. Things are much better at the lovely Academia Buenos Aires, where the coffee is strong, croissants await you even if you haven't done your homework and nothing ever starts on time.
Monday morning, opening lesson, and German, our teacher, asked us to say where we were from, our age, what we were doing in BsAs, how long we were here for.... the usual ice breakers. Clockwise from the teach was: Aneesha, the States, 27, learning Spanish for two weeks then travelling. Textbook answer, no? Then Tina, Germany, 29, learning Spanish before becoming a lawyer in Germany. Then me, then Alex, 25, the States, working for an NGO with people affected by AIDS... then Glenn.
From first appearances I would have Glenn pencilled in as a charity worker of some sort, definitely had the Christian group leader look about him. Sensible clothes, neat side parting, the naive confidence to wear a t-shirt without an ironic slogan on it such as 'My Ironic Is In The Wash'.
Now, everyone had spoken in Spanish until now. Yup, even me, I'm clever now. Glenn only used one word of Spanish, pandilla, which means gang. I think it's best to quote Glenn in full:
- Yeah, well, I'm Glenn, I'm 24, and I'm from Canada (I suspect this was a lie to curry favour for 'not being American'), and I'm just doing a couple of weeks Spanish. I need Spanish for my job, but not really conventional Spanish.
- Why is your job going to be Glenn?
- I'm gonna be working with the pandillas of the South.
(He didn't actually punch his heart with his fist and then hold his arm out in a salute to the brothers, but I reckon it was well within his repertoire).
- You know, they change their slang every, like, dos o tres weeks so you gotta learn it from there.
I think it's accurate to report a stunned silence here of several seconds. Eventually somone asked:
- And what exactly are you going to be doing?
- Getting them off the street, helping them cope while they re-integrate themselves into society, that kinda thing.
- And... do you have experience of that kinda thing in the past?
- Yeah, some. In Toronto.
- Oh yeah, what did you do there?
- I was a courtroom reporter.
The following half an hour was alternately hilarious and painful as it became clear that Glenn was firstly in the wrong group (I refer to both Spanish and homo sapiens). The guy really spoke no Spanish. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm sure slang is important when communicating with the pandillas, but surely a context helps. And aren't the colloquials are the last thing you learn? And how am I getting stuck on the details?
As he rambled on, in English with an occasional Spanish word, I couldn't help but want to kill him, but reflected that the pandillas would more than likely do that for me soon enough.
At the end of the first day, I heard him speaking to Alex, the American girl.
- Hey Alex, you're living in Palermo, right? Do you know anywhere good there where I can get a tattoo?
- You're getting a tattoo?
- Yeah, thinking about it. Something to show my commitment, you know...?
Awesome! More to follow, surely, on this absolute biscuit.
Friday, 1 February 2008
Sledging, Argie style
One of the best things about the cricket here is the atmosphere of the games. Sledging barely exists, and, whilst I admit I love a few verbals, although not as much as the Aussies, cricket remains a dignified and gentlemanly game in these parts.
With this in mind, I found myself in conversation with a great man of Argentine cricket on Sunday, who regrattably shall remain nameless. In Scotland he would simply be Big Man. With the look of a battle hardened marine and skin as tough as the steaks he'd been weened on, he'd represented the Argentina Mens' hockey team, and competed in the decathlon at junior level, and is all in all a bear of a human being. A Big Man.
We were discussing the dark arts of sledging, which he, somewhat surprisingly, said he had no time for, saying it was a cowardly practice. He cited the recent ICC Division II tournament where Argentina took on the UAE, Namibia and other mighty cricketing nations. Playing against Namibia, the Namibia opening bowler took a dislike to the Big Man's batting partner, Alejandro, calling him a nasty name.
- What did you say? I asked
- Nothing much, shrugged Big Man, I just told him to be quiet.
Next to us, a team mate who'd played in that game overheard, and started chuckling.
- That's not exactly what you said, to be fair,, he quipped.
- What did you say?, I prompted.
- Well, the giant continued, he was talking to Alejandro, who by the way is the nicest guy in the world. You don't say anything to Alejandro - I would dive in front of a car for this guy, he is the nicest guy. Anyway, this bowler was saying things to Alejandro, so I told him to stop talking.
- Yeah. What did you say...
- Well, I waited for the end of the over, walked over to him as he was walking down to his position and said, Come here. (Obviously when he was now very close). You. You don't talk to that guy, ok. You say another f**king word to him I will kill you with my bare hands. I've done it before. Seriously, I will kill you with my hands. Now. No more talking.
Apparently the bowler was no more talking at all.
Like I said, he concluded. I don't really like all this sledging.
With this in mind, I found myself in conversation with a great man of Argentine cricket on Sunday, who regrattably shall remain nameless. In Scotland he would simply be Big Man. With the look of a battle hardened marine and skin as tough as the steaks he'd been weened on, he'd represented the Argentina Mens' hockey team, and competed in the decathlon at junior level, and is all in all a bear of a human being. A Big Man.
We were discussing the dark arts of sledging, which he, somewhat surprisingly, said he had no time for, saying it was a cowardly practice. He cited the recent ICC Division II tournament where Argentina took on the UAE, Namibia and other mighty cricketing nations. Playing against Namibia, the Namibia opening bowler took a dislike to the Big Man's batting partner, Alejandro, calling him a nasty name.
- What did you say? I asked
- Nothing much, shrugged Big Man, I just told him to be quiet.
Next to us, a team mate who'd played in that game overheard, and started chuckling.
- That's not exactly what you said, to be fair,, he quipped.
- What did you say?, I prompted.
- Well, the giant continued, he was talking to Alejandro, who by the way is the nicest guy in the world. You don't say anything to Alejandro - I would dive in front of a car for this guy, he is the nicest guy. Anyway, this bowler was saying things to Alejandro, so I told him to stop talking.
- Yeah. What did you say...
- Well, I waited for the end of the over, walked over to him as he was walking down to his position and said, Come here. (Obviously when he was now very close). You. You don't talk to that guy, ok. You say another f**king word to him I will kill you with my bare hands. I've done it before. Seriously, I will kill you with my hands. Now. No more talking.
Apparently the bowler was no more talking at all.
Like I said, he concluded. I don't really like all this sledging.
Where Have All The Boys Gone?
Fact, boys are dying out. At first I though it was simply because we were having a girl, and so you start to notice little people everywhere, especially little girls. But whilst travelling in Chile I became increasingly conscious that there did not appear to be a boy younger than the age of two anywhere in the country.
After some basic research it turned out that they actually weren’t trying to ‘even things up with China’ as I had supposed and I realised I had stumbled upon something really quite huge.
To escape any danger of objectivity or bias, I turned to my old friend, science. Using the technique of Content Analysis, as used by Einstein, I applied this to the streets of Santiago over two separate and otherwise unrelated days. The results are shocking, from a Scientific point of view:
Day 1: Boys under two: 5 Girls under two: 17
Day 2: Boys under two: 6 Girls under two: 13
We’ve all been so busy worrying about Climate Change – a subject one invariably reads about on a long haul flight – that we’ve somehow missed this one. Where have all the boys gone? What is nature trying to tell us? Jeremy Clarkson wrote hilariously about the screw top wine bottle being the fall of the last bastion of masculinity. Maybe that was the catalyst.
However, whilst thinking what total load of balls (or actually, a lack of…) this was, and I was making up silly statistics to justify writing a humble blog entry, I could hardly contain my surprise to read an article about this subject in The Sunday Times. Apparently I was not the first to spot this global sensation. The only difference being that I think the science and research I used was more accurate.
Homo Erectus Extinctus was the title to her article. Always good to start with a nob gag, I think. Anyway, Lois Roper wrote for The Sunday Times (and that’s a proper rag, so she’s a proper writer) a number of statements based on the most tenuous of links. She attacks the ' useless Y chromosome', which is a bit harsh on us fellas, me thinks, but one quote is particularly illustrative.
Roper states that 'in Marie's ante natal clinic, 4 of the 10 couples there are part of lesbian couples.'
Marie's is a gay woman and runs the clinic with her gay partner, in Hebden Bridge, the gayest town in Britain, according to the article (although not her choice of adjective), where '1 in 5 of the population is a gay woman', and the centre for gay adoption in the gayest place in the UK. Hmm.
Applying Roper's research methods, I found some interesting stuff. I surveyed some women at the recent Bebel Gilberto in BsAs, and 11 of the 12 I spoke to wanted to be, and were, lesbians. An incredible 92%. So that settles it.
Then again, it's not the easiest topic to find out about. When I googled ‘how many women want to be lesbians’, my laptop exploded.
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