Category: Media Buzz

How low can you go?

Can we make childhood into more of a rat race than it already is? Yes we can! How? By enrolling babies and toddlers in formal sports training.

The brand names say it all, from Athletic Baby to Baby Goes Pro.

You couldn’t make it up…

The Managed Child

Just published a shortcolumnin the New Humanist that examines the modern tendency to micromanage children.

What about Santa?

I wrote a column in yesterday’s Washington Post about the Great Santa Debate and how it shines a light on the anxieties of modern parenting.

A nice surprise…

Just heard that Under Pressure has been shortlisted for theWriters’ Trust Award for Non-Fiction,one of the biggest literary prizes in Canada. To me, the best part is that the shortlist is not in the Parenting or Education or any other niche category – it’s for all non-fiction published in 2008.

By the way, I will be back blogging again soon….

Blast from the past

The first leg of my North American book tour for Under Pressure is over. My last interview here in San Francisco had a nice symmetry to it.Back in 1990, when I was in the final year of my undergraduate degree at Edinburgh University in Scotland, ABC’s Good Morning America came to town to do a few shows. I got taken on as a runner and ended up working with one of the presenters, Spencer Christian. We got along well and I’ve always remembered him fondly. So what a happy surprise to find Spencer waiting to interview me onView From the Bay.We even had a laugh about it on air. Sometimes TV can be a lot of fun…

Slow Big Brother

Argentina is one of the countries where In Praise of Slow has made a big splash. In the last few months I’ve twice been to Buenos Aires (my home in the early 1990s) to do television, radio and other interviews. In fact, I even sang a little ditty from the old days on national TV – long story . Anyway, a few moments ago my publisher sent me a photo from the latest incarnation of Big Brother Argentina. It shows two contestants. One is a bkini-clad bottle-blonde smoking a cigarette – very Buenos Aires. The other is a dashing young man with long curly hair – also very Buenos Aires. The guy is clutching a Spanish copy of In Praise of Slow. I’m not a big fan of Big Brother in any language but somehow this photo makes my day. I won’t dwell too long on why that is. But here’s a thought: Is life in a Big Brother house an example of good slow or bad slow?

The backlash begins?

The other day as we were driving through a neighbourhood not far from our home in south London I saw a young man walking along the pavement wearing a T-shirt that caught my eye. It was baggy and white, and the black lettering across the chest screamed: Slow Sucks. My wife and I had a good laugh, but I wanted to know more so I leaned out of the car and tried to engage the man in conversation at the traffic lights – not exactly normal behaviour in London. He must have thought I was a freak, or a debt collector, because he put his head down and started speed-walking in the other direction. Who was the mysterious Slow-baiter? Where did he get that T-shirt? If anyone can shed any light on this, do drop me a line…

Slow Mandarin

I don’t speak the language, but I am told there is a word in Mandarin, “kuai-huo, ” that means “cheerful” or “thrilled.” It is made up of two characters whose literal meaning is “fast living.” When In Praise came out in Taiwan last year, the publisher coined a new word for the title: “man-huo,” which means “slow living.” Apparently, “man-huo” has now entered the Taiwanese vernacular, with people using it as shorthand to describe a better way of doing pretty much everything.

Maybe I’ll try it out on the waitresses at our local dim sum restaurant in London. Sometimes they could do with putting on the brakes a little….