Signs of Spring?

Here is a picture I took a week or so back:



You can't really make it out from photo, but it was taken along the side of Queen's Road just outside St John's college. I ran by the same spot again today and in fact it's even more lovely-- the crocuses are in full bloom now.

On the other hand, supposedly we may get snow tomorrow (???), so keep your fingers crossed.

More Books

The recent selections we've had in my book club have been quite good. Latest:

"My Cleaner" by Maggie Gee
"Mister Pip" by Lloyd Jones
"The Road Home" by Rose Tremaine

It also looks as though the club is going through a sort of schism-- part of the gang want to move the meeting back to the small branch library where it began, and the remaining members want to keep the meeting place where it is. I'll just have to wait and see how it turns out (I don't have any strong opinions-- both locations are within biking distance of our house).

I am hoping that we will read some good non-fiction stuff at some point in the next few months, since my "diet" of non-fiction has been rather thin lately. I am reading "Dreams of My Father" by Barack Obama on the side, but I'd still like to find something else. My last really good non-fiction selection was Dan Koeppel's "Banana: The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World" -- don't pass it up if you happen to see a copy.

Brussels

This past half-term break our family went on a trip to Brussels. It was an entertaining jaunt-- just a couple of days, but we had a nice time.

Amy bought us tickets for the Eurostar train, which turned out to be a very pleasant way to travel indeed (beats flying hands down). The tickets were for a mid-day train, so we had a leisurely breakfast and were able to get packed without hurrying. At around 10:15, however, Amy checked the web site for the local rail company (the one that runs the Cambridge to London line) and found all sorts of scary-looking delay notices, so we kicked into high gear and got to the train station early. It was just as well we did, since there was a huge line almost running out the door, and by the time we got through it and out onto the platform the train was almost about the leave. Amazingly, we all managed to get seats relatively close to one another, in spite of the crush, and we arrived with plenty of time to get organized. The Eurostar leaves from St Pancras station, which is newly refurbished, modern, gleaming, and generally nice all around. The ride was uneventful; Lydia worked on her latest sewing project with help from Amy while Ethan and I spent the time reading. Once in Brussels, we took the subway and then walked the last half mile or so to the apartment complex where we were staying. Dinner at a strange little neighborhood Indian restaurant (we were not in the mood to spend a lot of time hunting for haute cuisine).



Brussels doesn't really feel like your typical European city (whatever that is). There is a fair amount of new construction, and in fact virtually all the buildings in the area where we stayed were new-ish. It is clear that when it comes to building things for the EU/EC, the folks in Brussels have no compunctions whatsoever about getting out their bulldozers and "starting fresh". On the other hand, the very inner part of the city is quite lovely and clearly very old, so it just depends on where you are.



For the first day, after a short breakfast of fruit and toaster waffles (purchased from the local grocery store-- good but very sweet), we hopped on the subway and headed into the main part of town. Amy booked us a city tour that featured a very short walking segment (100 yards or so) followed by an longer stretch riding around in a bus looking at the various parts of the city. The tour started in the very inner part of the city, right near the so-called Grand Place, then headed for a large loop to the north, came back around, and did another loop over to the east part of the city. We had a combination of taped narrative via headphones and comments from our tour guide; the auto controls were almost byzantine in their complexity (must have been at least a dozen different languages you could choose from).

We had a quick lunch at at a local buffet-style cafe (the name escapes me, but it was very modern-looking), then we hiked north up to the Cartoon Museum. The museum was fun, although terribly disorganized. There was an initial section with exhibits on how cartoons are typically made (somewhat out of date, given that lots of people now use Adobe Photoshop or something similar), then a stairway into a large hall in which everything seemed to be mixed up at random. It was still fun, though, especially the parts dealing with Herge and Tintin.

After the museum we headed back home; all four of us had a nice swimming session at the pool attached to the complex where we were staying. Dinner: we went back into town to eat at Chez Leon, a "moules & frites" restaurant. Extremely touristy, but the food and the service were quite good.

Lots of graffiti in this town for some reason. Or maybe there's the same amount as in other cities, but for some reason we're just noticing it here more-- not sure. Here there is graffiti right in the center of town, actually written on the side of one of the art museums:



Here's some graffiti closer to the place we were staying (just down the block). The kids noticed this one right away and commented on it:



The next day we went in to see the antiques market, which I think was quite interesting for Amy, mildly interesting for me, and not especially interesting for the kids, so we didn't stay very long. We had lunch at another cafe and did a little shopping for chocolate. Brussels actually has a museum devoted to chocolate, but Amy read a whole series of unfavorable reviews on her web sites, so we decided that we would just use the money to buy actual chocolate instead. We started off at Neuhaus, which is quite good but ridiculously expensive (all their stuff is hand-made). Then we tried Leonidas (also very good, not quite as pricey), and finally we went (at my insistence) and loaded up at one of the local grocery stores (the slightly cheaper stuff).



In the afternoon we went to visit the Museum of Musical Instruments-- that was a real pleasure. Housed in a fairly elegant turn-of-the-century building, the museum itself is spread out over about four different floors; you start in the basement and work your way up. At the door they give you an audio device that looks like a large pair of headphones. As you are wandering around the place they have small circles painted on the floor; if you stand near enough to the circle, then your headphones pick up a radio transmission. The program for each circle consists of a series of short pieces played on the actual instruments you are looking at in the display cases. This means you get to listen to Albanian bagpipe tunes while you look at the Albanian bagpipes, etc. Wonderful!



They have a separate card that you can pick up at the entrance to each hall that gives more details on the music (title, composer, country of origin, etc). The music was great-- they had clearly gone to great lengths to find interesting and beautiful pieces to listen to. In terms of the collection, they had a fairly heavy emphasis on Renaissance and Baroque stuff, but with plenty of more "primitive" instruments thrown in (pipes, lutes, drums, etc). This one was one of Ethan's favorites: the "micro violin". Unfortunately they didn't have any recordings of this weird miniature beasty:



Favorite weird instrument names: Sackbut (a sort of trombone) and Crumhorn (strangely curving recorder of sorts). We stayed for quite a while; I think we might have lasted even longer if the kids hadn't started to get bored (Lydia had to drag us out the door). The top floor of the museum has a very nice-looking restaurant (with outdoor seating-- it would be a good spot for a summertime visit). After that: more swimming, followed by a pleasant meal at a local Italian restaurant.

The trip back the next day was fine. Oddly enough, we had more minor train troubles, first with the subway and then with the Eurostar. The subways in Brussels apparently don't run very often on the weekends; we had to wait a while, and then when the train finally showed up it was absolutely packed. I made a bunch of people very unhappy by cramming myself into the compartment with a suitcase, but it couldn't be helped. At the Eurostar station there was more muddle-- the times had been changed slightly and we had to check in again, then go through a fairly lengthy security line. When we did finally get to our seats we were almost immediately accosted by another group of ladies who had apparently been given exactly the same seats. Luckily we had managed to get there first (possession being nine tenths of the law, etc), so we were able to hold onto the seats without too much additional negotiation.

We played hearts and fantan on the way back, then Ethan and I amused ourselves by trying to come up with good titles for blog posts. He hit on the title "Chocolate and Graffiti, which I thought was the best of the lot. I did my best to convince him to let me use it for my blog, but he was having none of that (he wanted it for his blog). We went through several other alternatives, including "Machiavellian Ministers Munch Moules while Mysterious Machines Mix Millions of Mocha Merengues", but I eventually decided to go with the more boring title.

Warm spell

I hopped on my bike today to ride over to Mill Rd to visit my favorite Asian grocery store, and amazingly, I didn't need to wear either hat or gloves. Nice mild temperatures-- things have definitely warmed up. Can spring be on the way??? I hope so (and having written this, I hope we don't get a snow storm tomorrow). The shopping trip was a bust, unfortunately-- the store was completely out of tofu. I'll have to postpone my "mapo tofu" dinner until next week.

Amy is biking in to work this week, since I need the car to drive the kids up to the Chesterton Sports Center for their half term entertainment. She has been borrowing my bike for her commute, since it is in slightly better shape than hers (I took hers for my trip to the market). Both our bikes are a little elderly at this point, but hers seems to "complain" the most -- it has a whole repertoire of weird creaking and clicking noises. Time to buy her a new one... although maybe not until we get back to the USA.

Apres la Neige, le Deluge

After the snow fest last week, we had heavy rain, which resulted in a bit of flooding around the areas closest to the river Cam. The Cam is surprisingly meek and mild-mannered as rivers go-- the actual river bed is not very large at all. I get the sense that it just doesn't ever rain very heavily here, since it's clear that the river doesn't have the capacity to carry much flood water without jumping its banks.



Here is another shot of the river from the bike bridge.

Snow!

We got about 2-3 inches of snow tonight, much to the kids delight. The newspaper and radio are filled with dire transportation-related warnings, of course; there was one article saying that people should "not attempt to drive anywhere on the highways without bringing food, water, and extra clothing" (heh). Here is a familiar scene; you can easily imagine that this is New England if you squint:



Here's another photo, this one of Lydia. I took this halfway through our bike ride to school, just after we crossed the footbridge over the river Cam. You can't see it, but I know for a fact that there is a big grin on Lydia's face underneath her wraps. Saint Faiths was open in spite of the snow (somewhat surprising in fact, given that many of the staff and the kids have to travel a fair ways to get there each day).

Political Scandals

There have been two news items in the papers this year in the UK that I have found particularly interesting to follow.

The first has been the Damian Green affair, a scandal in which a Tory (opposition) MP was arrested this fall as part of an investigation into "leaks" (details of various government plans and programs given to the media). Green had his office in Westminster searched and was arrested, along with suffering various other indignities. Virtually everyone (with the exception of a few members of the Gordon Brown administration who had been the target of the leaks) agreed that the arrest was politically motivated and should never have happened; it was clear that Green had been acting in the best interests of the country by disclosing issues/problems with the way the government was being run. On the other hand, there was not, in fact, any law preventing the arrest: the police were completely above board.

The second item is the so-called "cash for amendments" scandal in which a newspaper (Sunday Times) arranged for a collection of "fake" businessmen to meet with various members of the House of Lords; during these meetings the peers (House of Lords members) offered to delay or amend bills/legislation, in return for substantial yearly retainers (anywhere from 25 to 100 thousand pounds). There was again universal agreement that if the newspaper accounts were correct, the peers in question should be removed for corruption. As it turns out, however, there isn't actually any law that provides for getting rid of a peer who has done something dastardly-- members of the House of Lords can be scolded & reprimanded, but not removed.

Seeing this aspect of the UK political system in action does tend to make you reflect on the one back home, and how such things would be handled in the US. On the one hand, the US Constitution (as I understand it) does insures that legislators can't be arrested while Congress is in session and they are actively engaged in their jobs. Once a legislator gets in her car to go home, however: fair game for arrest. With respect to tossing out "bad apples": clearly the Constitution has explicit procedures for impeachment, no problems there. In the UK it seems that there are more gray areas. This isn't to say that the system doesn't work, of course. The "row" following the Green arrest was substantial, and it seems certain (at least to me) that he won't be prosecuted. For the House of Lords scandal, it also seems extremely unlikely that the peers in question will be allowed to continue on-- people will figure out some way to get rid of them or force them to resign. So the system functions properly, just without the same degree of explicit legal backing.