Mutter

Ah, Mother's Day, which began for me at 6am when I had to get up and ferry Laurence to work since he had been called in for an extra shift, starting at 6.30. He was a bit grumbly at that time on a Sunday morning. Me, not so much, I knew that I'd be back in me bed in half an hour. And I was.

Ah, Mother's Day. Ben rang me to say Happy Mother's Day, annoyed that my cards and package hadn't yet arrived, but the real Mother's Day pressie for me is that my boy arrives on Wednesday.

Ah, Mother's Day. The dark side. I couldn't believe this, it's one of those things you read about, yay even then, feel outraged by but don't think it affects you. My daughter, and thus so close it hurts, was travelling on the tube from New Cross Gate to... wherever, was laughing and chatting with her friend. The tube was fairly packed. A lanky black man with pockmarked skin suddenly starts loudly addressing first Alex then her friend Fran.
He mentioned her colouring, my daughter has quite a Mediterranean colouring and has dark chestnut hair, her eyes are blue-green like mine. Then he starts in about her clothing, and she certainly can be drama-student dressed, but on this day, not, on this day she was wearing a cardi and skirt.
'Jew,' he shouts at her, 'I can tell you're a Jew, both of you, you're white trash Jews.' he continues in this vein for several minutes, completely ignored by everyone on the train. My daughter and her friend were stunned into silence, panicked, scared.
When they recount the incident everyone has a 'you should have....' but the fact is, they were just completely shocked by this.
The following day, Alex was again at New Cross Gate station and she saw the same man. She stared at him. He avoided her eyes. She sat in the same compartment as him, having undergone the verbal abuse, she no longer feared this and assumed that he wouldn't actually attack her. He again tried to avoid her gaze by half covering his face.

'Tell the police,' I said, 'they can't do anything, but you can give a good description and the fact that he shouted racial abuse at you meant that it could have escalated.' She said that now she had gotten over the raw shock of it, that she intended to, and yet felt lame telling them about this, as though she were just telling tales in school.
'Ok,' I said, 'and think how you would feel if you actually were Jewish, and then, what's the difference whether you are or not?' She said she would call.

It was a horrible incident, but one that other young women of her age have to endure more frequently. Horrible.

According to 'The Week', the result of a survey done in 27 countries shows Canada as people's favourite country. But it seemed to me to be a case of damning with faint praise, 54% of respondents said that Canada was 'mainly positive'. Oh cool. Or....maybe just tepid.

SNL is a legendary show, no doubt about it, but for me, it rarely lives up to its own legend. There are some great performers on it, Amy Poehler and Keenan Thompson to name just two, and many more great comedic actors have come from this stable, but the material rarely makes me guffaw. Last night however there was one sketch that did make me chuckle. The question on everyone's lips, 'Is the US more ready for either a woman President or a black man?' 'Why not?' was the response, 'they were ready for a retard.' But then a more serious point, made as a joke, but nonetheless..... 'white women are in the majority in the US, so you'd think they'd elect one, everyone loves white women, white men like white women, hell black men like them even more, no, the only people who hate white women are white women.' Hmmm...many a true word spoken in jest.
Still, SNL scored brownie points with me last night. They had Snow Patrol on. What an unprepossessing bunch, and I like that. I love that their music is so good, so extraordinarily good and yet they are just four Scots lads who might live next door to you. I love that they are not showmen. Long may it last.

Alex said she had recently seen the Brecht play 'Mutter Courage'. Or perhaps she said she'd seen 'Mother Courage'. A wonderful play either way, but some things just sound right in their original language. Like Sartre's 'Les Mains Sales' - sounds so much more expressive than 'Dirty Hands', so much so that in English the play is often called 'Crime of Passion'.