Posts by Jolisa
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Plus, Amy: I think you're totally onto something. Before Mr Honda's el cheapo second car, it was Shanks' pony or on yer bike, for getting to and from school or the shops, for your average one-car family.
Number of two-car households would be an interesting statistic to map against bike use. Also, average distance from home to work. A ten minute ride is one thing, but half an hour would start to look too much like hard work, if you had a car to jump into instead.
Has the absolute number of bikes gone down, by the way? Or just the usage thereof? We had one bike per person, growing up, until my brother started being able to buy his own bikes, at which point we had one bike per person except for Greg who had a whole bunch.
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More bike science over here. Warning: it's the Daily Mail. But it's worth it, for the accompanying photo. It would be a crime to put a helmet on that gorgeous hair.
And the one in the dress has pretty hair too.
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Doh, I missed a whole page while I was dithering in the comment box.
I thought the Italians totally owned the ball, even if they couldn't quite get it in the goal. Our guys practically gift-wrapped the ball and gave it away every time it came near them. Thank god for the goalkeeper. And yeah, the Italian goal was a shoo-in (my four year old could have got that goal) but ours was a miraculous accident. I think we're even.
Also, even if the Italian player dived to make it blatantly obvious, it was still a foul. Also, also, the NZ goal was kind of dodgy too. Also, also, also, wasn't the result fair enough? It's still an amazing result for NZ, and one we will celebrate for years to come.
What Deborah said.
Best of all, we're doing better than the Aussies.
Especially this bit. Heh.
But really, all of what Deborah said, including the bit about translation (an invisible and thankless task at the best of times, and for which I thank you, Giovanni).
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Aw, guys. Trash-talking is all fun and games till someone gets hurt. If my 8 year old and his Italian friend can watch the game and re-enact it afterwards without everything ending in tears, surely we can. No more mean talking.
And Giovanni, please don't go - you'll just reinforce the terrible stereotypes. ("Ow, mamma, a New Zealander breathed on me, ow, ow").
I'm working on explaining to my boys that every time "your" team wins, your vicarious and surely temporary joy is balanced by someone else's vicarious and surely temporary disappointment, somewhere else on the planet, possibly in the chair right next to you. It's yin/yang. Without the ebb of flow of the tides of fortune, the universe would be a monotonous moonscape of monotony. Like a vuvuzela orchestra.
Plus, with a spot each of Italian and Danish ancestry, we have at least three dogs in this fight, not counting England and the US as well. We cannot lose! Right?
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No, it's me. The scenes with Margaret Thatcher in I can only watch from behind the couch.
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Well, thanks to the wonderful literary archaeology of Persephone Books (http://www.persephonebooks.co.uk/ ), there's a wonderful body of book by women who lived through both World Wars
Fantastic books, and yet another example of how women's cultural production (or cultural production about women) has been undervalued. All of these books are worth reading, and some are absolute classics - it's hard to understand how they were allowed to go out of print. Thank goodness for the tireless literary archaeology of gentle feminist Nicola Beauman!
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Tory Story for the 87th time
I'm not sure I'd let my children watch that even once. It sounds terrifying.
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I think I read somewhere she never has two male characters talking in a scene where there isn't a lady present, because she didn't have any experience on how they behave in such circumstances.
It is oft-repeated, and I think 95% true. A friend in grad school was adamant that there are a couple of blokes-only scenes, but I'm buggered if I can remember which they were. Nothing for it but to read all the books again, I guess, in order. Off to the briar patch with me...
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The UK figures (Office of Population Censuses and Surveys) rate tennis as four times more dangerous than cycling,
I knew it. A lifetime of tennis-aversion vindicated.
I should clarify about the annoying helmetless lady-and-baby. The thing I didn't convey was that I was reflexively horrified for cultural reasons - i.e., I have been thoroughly acculturated into thinking "wearing a helmet = safe on a bike." So my first thought was "Police! Arrest that terrible mother!"* My second more pragmatic and logical thought was "Aieeeee what happens if they hit a pothole, of which there are a couple of spectacular specimens at the next corner..."
But when I used to see my Belgian friend regularly pedalling along the footpath with her baby in a backpack, both of them helmetless, with the wind ruffling their excellent flaxen hair, it struck me as 100% charming and natural -- because I knew she was just practising her culture. Also, because her bike was closer to the ground, and she was on the footpath. Also, because she'd already successfully raised a pair of biking boys and was clearly brilliant at risk management.
I do blow back and forth on this... I completely buy your science, David. I just don't fancy testing it on New Haven roads, or letting my kids test it; and in fact, they cycle more than the average New Havener already, so we're doing our bit for critical mass.
OTOH, I could do without looking like an egg while cycling, especially when cycling home from getting an awesome haircut. And I think it is completely bonkers that my 4 year old's daycare requires them to bring their own helmet for wearing while riding tricycles... (T reports that only one kid has ever fallen off and cried; the others fall off but don't cry. I suspect most falling-off happens while cornering, due to top-heaviness).
*(Like that time the Danish couple were arrested for leaving their baby sleeping in its stroller outside a cafe in Manhattan.)
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*Cul-de-sacs increase the distance to walk or bike between any two points and general favour the use of cars as transport.
Bring back the alleyway!