A Sunday Reflection
Abigail Disney on her dad & private jets:
Her father, Roy E. Disney, started flying private in the mid-1980s after helping bring in Michael Eisner. Post-stock boom, they upgraded to a lavish customized Boeing 737 (living room, dining, study, shower, queen bed). Abigail said it’s when her dad “really lost his way.”
She quit flying private ~20 years ago after flying on the 737 cross country as the sole passenger, she then decided that the carbon footprint, crew, and excess made her feel sick.
So she flew private for twenty odd years after Dad lost his way, but hey, it’s his fault.
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There has been a lot of criticism of the new Scottish National Party MP who sounded remarkably more Scottish as she was sworn in than she did doing a recent interview on Gaza.
She was born in Greece but raised in Scotland by her Scottish father after her parents divorce, her mother is English, and studied in England and is a London based lawyer and political adviser.
“Honestly, I’m flattered at how interested people seem to be about this. You know, my mum’s English, my dad’s Scottish. I grew up in Angus, outside of Kirriemuir. But I lived in London for a few years and picked up a bit of an accent.
“And, you, know, that comes out a wee bit stronger when I’m in England and the Scottish accent comes up a wee bit stronger, when I am back home. But it’s honestly quite funny how strongly people are feeling about this.”
Hugo Rifkind, Scottish born and raised journalist at the Times, now resident in London, and presenter on Times Radio.
Still thinking about this. On the off chance anyone is interested, I never had a particularly strong Scottish accent, but I certainly sound different now to how I sounded until about the age of 20. Which is exactly how I sound still when I go back up North, or when I speak to somebody else with a similar accent. Or an Irish one, weirdly.
This can be embarrassing on the radio. When I used to do the News Quiz often with Fred Macaulay I’m sure I sounded like two different people. Also, when I started on Times Radio I’d often do the handover from either @CalumAM or @AasmahMir, which tended to mean I’d start Scottish and then get progressively less so for the next three hours.
These days, my producers all mock me for the sudden switches. I honestly can’t help it. I’m actually not great at doing either accent on purpose at a time when I’m naturally doing the other one, even when I want to.
I suppose some people think I’m faking it. If I am, though, I don’t mean to be. I’ve heard recordings of my own voice made when I can’t hear my own voice (in a noisy club, for example) and I’m notably more Scottish then, which suggests the fake accent is the bland South East one I now use most of the time.
Although I’m definitely not doing that on purpose, either, because Scottish is a much better accent to broadcast or give speeches in. Jokes land better, and so on. So if I could choose one, I’d definitely choose that.
Me, I’m a rural Aussie with a natural accent as flat as a shit-carters hat, but having worked in the law for a long time I found the accent changing a little, though certainly not consciously. It’s just that you adopt a slightly different approach.
I said this on social media during the week and got this response from an Aussie reader, which made me chuckle.
I do lay it on thick myself sometimes in HK when I don’t want people to assume I’m British and treat me poorly.
I do switch it back when needed, or it sometimes just changes without conscious thought.
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The two surviving brothers in law are having their medical issues at the moment. Honestly, we are all getting to an age when there always seems to be one or other of the siblings and partners running up a medical bill.
The eldest has some mobility issues and my sister tells me he has a persistent lean to the right as he walks
I was going to suggest a double dose of the ABC and the SMH might cure that by getting him to lean a little left, but you never know if that will be an acceptable jest.
He has had spinal problems for years, the poor bugger, as a young man he fell off a roof on a building site and spent months in hospital.
He made a good recovery, so good that my father, the future father in law, said to me he thought it was a miracle that D’s neck injuries had improved enough for him to pour quite that much beer down it.
He was not famously sympathetic our Dad, men of his era weren’t.
On the not I frequent occasions I came home from sport or just school with a plaster cast on the most I could hope for was , So what have you broken now, with a look of slight exasperation mixed with indifference.
Mum was not much better, she was old school, firmly of the view that if you got the flu or a heavy cold you got over it in seven days if you went to the doctor and it took a whole week if you didn’t.
Her objection to my broken bones was commercial, she was worried that because of my clumsiness we were subsidising the school fees ot the local doctors, and as they sent their kids to much more expensive schools than we could afford this rather rankled.
The second brother in law is being treated for a tumour and it seems the treating hospital managed to give him a bonus infection. It’s easy enough to do, and in fairness to the hospitals it’s a problem that, at this point in history, can be minimized but not eliminated.
My sister said that she knew he was not well when a whole Saturday passed without him once reading the racing form or turning on his small portable radio to check the results.
I agree, with J that is a very worrying sign as he is a most enthusiastic punter, and a pretty skillful one as well. So it was off to hospital and some time in acute care.
I think he is on the road to recovery, the last news I had, he has now found the racing channel on the hospital TV service, and son number one is on his way in with the emergency delivery of the Winning Post.
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I was talking to an American mate who is down in Melbourne for a week, and he sent me the menu for a private room lunch he was attending the next day.
The menu was perfect for twenty odd men getting up in years and keen to talk sport, just the three entrees and the three mains.
A Salumi platter, a stracciatella with salad and sourdough, and some scallops with pork belly and some leaves covered the starters and a mushroom risotto, a veal schnitzel with slaw and a diane sauce, and rib-eye with fries and red wine sauce were the choice for the mains.
It’s all very Melbourne, where they have the restraint and the discipline to leave well enough alone.
Sadly, these days such an approach is rare in Hong Kong.
Most places need to be reminded that the Coco Chanel rule,
Before leaving the house, look in the mirror and remove one accessory to avoid overcomplicating your outfit,
should apply to food as well, and be followed diligently. Adding a bit of foie gras may bump up the price but hardly ever adds much to a dish. It’s a treat to be enjoyed for itself, this applies to truffles as well.
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The guys were going to an excellent pub restaurant in South Melbourne, Lamaros, that dates from well after my departure from Melbourne, but I did recognise the name of the proprietor.
At least I remembered his father who had a restaurant over in Carlton in the 1980s and 90s.
The dad had been a mate of a mate, and he could always find us a table, even when they seemed to be full, and my American mate and I were reminiscing about the days of privileged access that we had separately enjoyed as young professionals.
He had been from a young age a senior finance guy and then CFO of a large US company that sponsored sports teams etc, and I had worked for a man who had been appointed to chair various bodies including the local betting monopoly.
The result, we both had enjoyed the privileges of being insiders, of having the gilded pass, of being sure that an invitation would arrive when they were scarce, that the guy on the gate would open it for you and let you into the restricted area, and that there was nearly always a table for you if you really needed one.
It was a nice experience and I’m glad I had it, I certainly took full advantage of it while it lasted, but I don’t miss it at all.
My mate pointed out that may be because now my life has shrunk to the Grocery Store, the Church, the Coffee Shop, and my Local Pub.
A fair point, though I would amend it to say two grocery stores, three coffee places, a couple of pubs and a hospital, all of which I attend often enough to be greeted by name on arrival.
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I have been fascinated by the debate over European and British attitudes to the use of air-conditioning. This has raged as Europe is suffering through a heat wave. Not the first heat wave and won’t be the last.
I saw this account from an American lawyer who has worked for a long time in the EU.
So here’s a story about the Düsseldorf University Hospital where heart patients are sweltering in 38°/100.4° temperatures right now because this 15-year-old building lacks central A/C.
I taught at the law faculty of this university for 15 years. When the law faculty built a new expansion in 2005, I asked whether it would be air-conditioned. They said: “No, because then every building on campus would ask for it”. I thought to myself, “Well, that’s Europe for you. Crabs in a bucket.”
Then the university announced plans for this new building, the one you see in the picture, which would be the main university hospital. That was in 2013 or thereabouts. Shortly thereafter, they published the plans and sketches online. No A/C infrastructure visible.
At some sort of faculty function, I asked the dean or assistant dean of the medical faculty whether they were going to install central air-conditioning on this building. “It’s no problem if
lawyers are brain-fuddled because of the heat -- in fact it might be a bonus! -- but surgeons? Patients?”
The dean answered: “Well, we asked, but the construction board and city officials said no, because if this new building gets air-conditioning, then all the older buildings on the university campus will demand it.”
“Even though this is a fucking hospital?” I asked with typical American coarseness.
“Yes, even though it’s a hospital,” responded the dean, staring with chagrin into his beer.
By the way, the crabs in a bucket line refers to the observation that a single crab will be able to climb out of a bucket, but put a bunch in there and if one tries to climb out the others will grab the lead crab in an attempt to get out themselves, and as a result they will drag the escapee back, repeat and repeat, and so no-one escapes.
And from the Politico website,
The European Commission’s headquarters was forced to shut down its air-conditioning system on Friday due to the heat wave.
Staff working at the Berlaymont building received a text at midday, reading: “BERL — URGENT — Due to extreme weather conditions, forced shut down of air cooling system from floor 1 to 7 for the rest of the day.”
The 13-story building is home to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, her 26 commissioners and about 3,000 staff. Von der Leyen works on the 13th floor, and most of her commissioners’ offices are housed on floors eight or above.
I think if I were a serf on floors 1-7 I would take that as a signal to find a nice bar somewhere and expense it to the EU.
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As to the benefits of air-conditioning, well they vary according to the local climate, but for the tropics I will defer to Lee Kuan Yew, who was right about most things and had some bizarre ideas about some others. One his good calls.
“Air conditioning was a most important invention for us, perhaps one of the signal inventions of history. It changed the nature of civilization by making development possible in the tropics. Without air conditioning you can work only in the cool early-morning hours or at dusk. The first thing I did upon becoming prime minister was to install air conditioners in buildings where the civil service worked. This was key to public efficiency.”
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New York writer Kyle Smith,
Some prog replied “You’re racist” to some tweet or other that had nothing to do with race and I thought, “It must be so hard for them to let go of an era when incantation of a magical word could win an argument and possibly nuke a career.”
It was kind of sad and kind of sweet. Like seeing Tom Jones trot out “It’s Not Unusual” in Vegas one more time.
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Stay well