Mainly Mantel

4 March 2013

I’m nervous about sharing this blog with people. I loved blogging whilst I was on holiday but our usual lives are not jam packed with incident and  I honestly don’t know if I’ll have enough material to keep  going.  Usually we use the morning for house, garden or computer tasks, then the dog and I go for a long walk in the afternoon.  I make dinner when I come back and, by the time we’ve eaten that, it’s radio, television or reading before bed.   Interspersed with all that we do meet up with friends or go out for lunch or have a day in Perigueux, our nearest town.  We seldom go out at night – it’s dark!

Yesterday Dolly and I walked through Guimalet woods and along a lane or two and up to our friends Pamela and Edwin.  This is probably 3 kilometres each way so it’s good to have the good company and the break in the middle.  There were some little notices pinned to boards en route announcing the funeral of a local man.  I’ve seen these before and they are actually official notices put up by the Mairie making sure that everyone is aware of the death and burial or “inhumation”.  Odd that we don’t use this word in English – we do use “exhumation” for digging them up again.  Stag nights and hen nights in France are known as “Inhumation de la vie”.   We had to have this explained to us after we were startled by a much too literal translation into English in a restaurant window in La Rochelle a couple of years ago.

I sat drinking tea with Pamela and Edwin in their garden whilst Dolly explored.  I was going to post a picture of this but Pamela blinked into the sun and looks so dreadful I don't think she would ever forgive me. 

We talked, amongst other things, about the recent Hilary Mantel scandal.  Hilary Mantel, one Britain’s best living writers, has written a very intelligent article on the misinterpretations of royalty and royal women in particular.  I have read this since coming back from holiday and, though it is perfectly plain that Mantel is talking about how the media represents royalty and Kate Middleton in particular, she has unfortunately used expressions like “I saw Kate becoming a jointed doll on which certain rags are hung … she (KM)  was a shop window mannequin, with no personality of her own”.   The Daily Mail, whose comments about Middleton usually relate to what she is wearing, have had a wonderful time berating Mantel for her “spiteful” comments.  

Quite a lot of the sillier British public who comment on news stories have joined in with remarks like, “Who is this Hilary Mantel, anyway”.  It’s worrying that David Cameron has also joined in, to condemn HM’s “misguided” remarks.  What chance for the British with a Prime Minister as daft as that?

It’s worth realising that people will still be reading Mantel in two hundred years’ time when most people have forgotten who Kate Middleton ever was.  The consorts of kings and princes aren’t remembered.   Most of us know of Jane Austen, but less could tell you who was married to George the Third, who was reigning whilst Austen was at work.

Royal news on the radio at home is that the Queen has such severe gastro-enteritis she has been taken into hospital.  They didn’t comment on what she was wearing at the time.  Big knickers, I hope.