Must Mention:
15 June 2010
Matins
¶ Swedish Paternity Leave. It’s expensive for taxpayers, and inconvenient for employers, but it’s transforming ideas of masculinity. (NYT)
¶ “Belgium will not fall apart because of separatist success” — so says John Palmer in the Guardian. (Real Clear World)
While We’re Away
¶ It was easier to be wild in the old days. Bright young thing Teresa “Baby” Jungman, proposed to by Evelyn Waugh but turned down because he was already married, died at 102, an observant Catholic from beginning to end. (via The Awl, sort of)
¶ Twentieth-Century Best-Seller lists, one for each decade. (Washington Post; via The Morning News) Top-Ten CEOs in prison. Steve Tobak asks “why they did it.” (The Corner Office)
¶ Heading north means climbing uphill — according to our mental defaults. (Admit it: learning that the Nile flows north was a real shocker.) (Wired Science)
Have a Look
¶ Building a re-polarizing bridge from Hong Kong to China. (kottke.org)
¶ Neat French mock signage: “Interventions urbaines et françaises.” (TrendyGirl; via The Rumpus)
Thank you for posting the link to Teresa Cuthbertson’s obit in the Telegraph. I clicked on it because of the Evelyn Waugh connection, and it was only when I got to the bottom that I realized she was Desmond Guinness’ mother-in-law! Desmond has collected the famous portraits of his mother and five aunts (the six Mitford Sisters) by William Acton and they hang in the library at Leixlip. There is also one by William Acton of Teresa, but I never thought to ask him about the connection. The joke about Desmond is that he gave up the Princess (his first wife) for a Penny (his second wife). Not such a dull penny after all. Of late, Desmond has been able to travel abroad leaving his wife to care for her mother. I fear his movements will now be more restricted.