I’m off to Singapore tomorrow and it will be a good flight because kind, lovely Husband (working out there) surprised me with a business class ticket. And it’s a single seat next to a window so for once in my aviation life I won’t be stuck next to someone who has just undergone bowel surgery and wants to tell me all about it. Slit me from front to back he did. Doctor said he’d never seen anything like it in forty years. Don’t snigger – it always happens. Either that or one of those people who just can’t take the hint that you don’t want to talk. You turn away, you snore loudly, you get up and bang on the emergency exit shouting Let me out! and they still don’t take the hint.
My parents are looking after The Girl and even though The Boy insists he doesn’t need looking after – him too. They are both quite religious though so there was a tricky moment when out of the blue – always always out of the blue – does she have some sort of controversy radar – The Girl said loudly: When Jesus was deaded did he come alive after three days?
Yes of course he did said my mother with all the conviction of someone who had she ever expressed a different opinion would be excommunicated and smacked round the head by a nun.
I don’t believe it says the Girl with equal conviction. I think when Jesus was deaded he stayed dead.
I wish I’d sent her to be auditioned for Outnumbered.
Off to pack. I’m bringing my laptop so I’ll tap away in the lounge and on the plane trying to look like I’m being important but in fact blogging and reporting any celebs or weirdoes on the journey with me. What do they call that? Bloggernecking?
Tuesday, 13 April 2010
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
Hinterland
Weird things happen when you neglect your blog. Firstly, spam tumbleweed rolls by – a morass of dodgy grammar and strange requests. Like this:
The diameter can include often not the program, but too the bar of the guy above the making scale. Ozone machine health risk: applications are n't in the efforts of an torque, filing on the cyphacyphathe cell.
I mean – what??
The other thing that happens is life and blogging carries on perfectly well without you. It’s like being sick and hearing life chugging outside your window, with no regard for you lying in your bed, reeking but too ill to do anything about it. And that is a very poor link as to why I’ve been so neglectful of my blog. A bout of work followed by a kidney infection.
It happened like this. A minor bout of what I thought was cystitis, followed by a strange lethargy. Went to yoga class, came home, fell asleep for three hours. Next day, staggered out of bed and fell back into it, only to get up to be violently sick. And then the strange part. I had these psychedelic dreams, featuring Kelsey Grammer from Frasier. My head was spinning in my sleep. I rolled across great waves. Blood poisoning apparently. Husband said I would fall asleep in the middle of sentences. He got me antibiotics and checked on me every three or four hours. “I knew you weren’t dead because you changed position,” he chortled but he was worried. I ate nothing, drank nothing, could keep nothing down. One night he was checking on me and I rolled over. My face was thin and puckered from dehydration. “I had a glimpse of what you will look like when you’re seventy,” he said. Vaguely I thought of that birthday rhyme. You look like a monkey and you smell like one too. I did and I did. Amazing how quickly the carapace of respectability falls off. I was milk white with hair darkly greasy and black smudges under my eyes.
Hospital beckoned. But I stayed home because eventually I managed to get some liquids down. Husband changed my tee shirts and sheets, and placed a bath mat by the side of the toilet so when I was kneeling down hurling foam I wouldn’t get sore knees to add to my woes. What a nice man I thought as my stomach went into spasms for the umpteenth time. Then I crawled back to bed, listened to domestic noises from downstairs and amused myself by counting the veins on my wrist.
Husband brought The Girl to see me. Something odd happened to my sense of smell. Either it had sharpened or I’d turned into a werewolf. She smelled of sweet stuff and fresh air – I couldn’t bear it. I hugged her but felt a rush of nausea. It was terrible – I was revolted by the smell of my own daughter. The Boy nervously sat by my bed and rubbed my arm. He smelled of cheap aftershave. I dreaded to think what I smelled like.
Thank God for antibiotics. I took pills that looked like genetically modified bees, all stripy and huge, but they worked. I ate lots of protein, stopped drinking alcohol and began to put on the stone and a half I’d lost. Yeah I know – boo hoo. But I’m on the mend now just in time for Spring.
The diameter can include often not the program, but too the bar of the guy above the making scale. Ozone machine health risk: applications are n't in the efforts of an torque, filing on the cyphacyphathe cell.
I mean – what??
The other thing that happens is life and blogging carries on perfectly well without you. It’s like being sick and hearing life chugging outside your window, with no regard for you lying in your bed, reeking but too ill to do anything about it. And that is a very poor link as to why I’ve been so neglectful of my blog. A bout of work followed by a kidney infection.
It happened like this. A minor bout of what I thought was cystitis, followed by a strange lethargy. Went to yoga class, came home, fell asleep for three hours. Next day, staggered out of bed and fell back into it, only to get up to be violently sick. And then the strange part. I had these psychedelic dreams, featuring Kelsey Grammer from Frasier. My head was spinning in my sleep. I rolled across great waves. Blood poisoning apparently. Husband said I would fall asleep in the middle of sentences. He got me antibiotics and checked on me every three or four hours. “I knew you weren’t dead because you changed position,” he chortled but he was worried. I ate nothing, drank nothing, could keep nothing down. One night he was checking on me and I rolled over. My face was thin and puckered from dehydration. “I had a glimpse of what you will look like when you’re seventy,” he said. Vaguely I thought of that birthday rhyme. You look like a monkey and you smell like one too. I did and I did. Amazing how quickly the carapace of respectability falls off. I was milk white with hair darkly greasy and black smudges under my eyes.
Hospital beckoned. But I stayed home because eventually I managed to get some liquids down. Husband changed my tee shirts and sheets, and placed a bath mat by the side of the toilet so when I was kneeling down hurling foam I wouldn’t get sore knees to add to my woes. What a nice man I thought as my stomach went into spasms for the umpteenth time. Then I crawled back to bed, listened to domestic noises from downstairs and amused myself by counting the veins on my wrist.
Husband brought The Girl to see me. Something odd happened to my sense of smell. Either it had sharpened or I’d turned into a werewolf. She smelled of sweet stuff and fresh air – I couldn’t bear it. I hugged her but felt a rush of nausea. It was terrible – I was revolted by the smell of my own daughter. The Boy nervously sat by my bed and rubbed my arm. He smelled of cheap aftershave. I dreaded to think what I smelled like.
Thank God for antibiotics. I took pills that looked like genetically modified bees, all stripy and huge, but they worked. I ate lots of protein, stopped drinking alcohol and began to put on the stone and a half I’d lost. Yeah I know – boo hoo. But I’m on the mend now just in time for Spring.
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Marry him or be eaten by your cat!
Another week another book that tells us that unless we get married we’ll be alone apart from excess chin hair and smelly cats. They seem to pop up at the rate of about one a year – these don’t be so fussy books – despite every single mental health study from the beginning of time rating single women as happier and healthier than married ones.
First we had The Rules which told us valuable husband choosing lessons like Never Accept A Date For Saturday After Wednesday, and Don’t Put Out Until He’s Spent Loads Of Money from two loud women one of whom is now divorced. It would take a heart of stone not to snigger. Then came If I’m So Wonderful Why Am I Single? Followed rapidly by Lori Gottlieb’s new tome of doom: Marry Him Or Be Eaten by Your Cat. Well that’s not exactly the title but Lori Gottlieb’s new book Marry Him! The Case For Mr Good Enough preaches that very message. Apparently if you’re a woman in say, your late thirties and unmarried you should be musing over whether you might have settled for that bloke with a ponytail who never stopped talking about himself and expected you to remember his mother’s birthday, or Barry who asked you to stop moving about during sex because it ‘put him off his stroke’ or that nice man who was so dull you’ve forgotten his name. You fussy bitch!
Here’s the really creepy thing. Lori Gottlieb is keen to hammer home the point that it’s not about being happy – it’s about being socially acceptable. Ms Gottlieb is a single mother at 40. Nothing wrong with that but she seems to have a curiously Victorian view of herself: 'After all, wouldn't it have been wiser to settle for a higher calibre of "not Mr. Right" while my marital value was at its peak?'
Marital value? Has she just stepped out of a Jane Austen novel?
But what really pisses me off is that you never get the equivalent books for men. It’s men who do better mentally out of marriage, so why aren’t we reading more books with titles like: Nobody Else Will Put up With Your Farts And Stupid Jokes and Guess What Mr Baldy Saggy Arse – You’re Not George Clooney(Even in a bad light)
First we had The Rules which told us valuable husband choosing lessons like Never Accept A Date For Saturday After Wednesday, and Don’t Put Out Until He’s Spent Loads Of Money from two loud women one of whom is now divorced. It would take a heart of stone not to snigger. Then came If I’m So Wonderful Why Am I Single? Followed rapidly by Lori Gottlieb’s new tome of doom: Marry Him Or Be Eaten by Your Cat. Well that’s not exactly the title but Lori Gottlieb’s new book Marry Him! The Case For Mr Good Enough preaches that very message. Apparently if you’re a woman in say, your late thirties and unmarried you should be musing over whether you might have settled for that bloke with a ponytail who never stopped talking about himself and expected you to remember his mother’s birthday, or Barry who asked you to stop moving about during sex because it ‘put him off his stroke’ or that nice man who was so dull you’ve forgotten his name. You fussy bitch!
Here’s the really creepy thing. Lori Gottlieb is keen to hammer home the point that it’s not about being happy – it’s about being socially acceptable. Ms Gottlieb is a single mother at 40. Nothing wrong with that but she seems to have a curiously Victorian view of herself: 'After all, wouldn't it have been wiser to settle for a higher calibre of "not Mr. Right" while my marital value was at its peak?'
Marital value? Has she just stepped out of a Jane Austen novel?
But what really pisses me off is that you never get the equivalent books for men. It’s men who do better mentally out of marriage, so why aren’t we reading more books with titles like: Nobody Else Will Put up With Your Farts And Stupid Jokes and Guess What Mr Baldy Saggy Arse – You’re Not George Clooney(Even in a bad light)
Tuesday, 19 January 2010
Old and Beige
There was a picture of Susan Sarandon in the Observer over the weekend. She was lounging against a wall, dressed in a fantastic jersey dress, soft red curls tumbling round her face. She looked stunning. She’s sixty bloody three. Yes, yes the lighting was good, the makeup and hair perfect and there was probably a teeny bit of photoshopping afterwards but even so. Gorgeous. Thing is, she doesn’t have that awful frozen at thirty five look, she just looks like a beautiful mature woman.
It’s not much fun getting old. Er. I’ve been in writing purdah for the past couple of months, juggling work for the Open University and struggling to write an adaptation at the same time. Yeah boo hoo. I dunno about you but when I’m really busy, appearance takes a bit of a back seat. Apart from the basics of personal hygiene. So I had a GOOD LOOK in an unflattering bathroom light the other day and noticed several bad things.
1. A proliferation of grey hair. This doesn’t matter so much if you have warm skin – grey can look silvery and sexy. When you’re a redhead with pale skin you just look like a beige blob.
2. Red veins round my nose, just to add a splash of colour. Not quite a W.C Fields alco nose but definitely red veins.
3. A WITCH HAIR sprouting from my cheek. Like a long pube curling outwards – shameless. It was practically shouting: ‘Here I am!’ I can’t believe I’m admitting this but I SHAVED IT OFF. I’m shaving. I know this because the Girl wandered into the bathroom (her timing is immaculate) and said: ‘Mummy I thought only daddies shaved their faces.’ She did redeem herself later on the way to school by saying: ‘Mummy when I’m a grown up I’m going to try and stay out of jail.’ A laudable ambition.
It didn’t help that when my sister and I visited my parents over the weekend, mum gave us our overdue Christmas presents, which included among other things, a bottle of sterilising hand gel (!?) and a pair of slippers that my sister says, are the kind that ‘105 year old ladies wear’. Sis has banned me from wearing them saying that if I do, it’s a slippery slope and before I know it, I’ll be considering a cauliflower perm - so very practical, or looking at beige leisure trousers and thinking oooh they look comfy. She’s right.
Although I think that doing what you love is the best anti-ageing device. That and a fuckload of hair dye and botox. So bugger ageing gracefully – I’m off to the hairdressers
It’s not much fun getting old. Er. I’ve been in writing purdah for the past couple of months, juggling work for the Open University and struggling to write an adaptation at the same time. Yeah boo hoo. I dunno about you but when I’m really busy, appearance takes a bit of a back seat. Apart from the basics of personal hygiene. So I had a GOOD LOOK in an unflattering bathroom light the other day and noticed several bad things.
1. A proliferation of grey hair. This doesn’t matter so much if you have warm skin – grey can look silvery and sexy. When you’re a redhead with pale skin you just look like a beige blob.
2. Red veins round my nose, just to add a splash of colour. Not quite a W.C Fields alco nose but definitely red veins.
3. A WITCH HAIR sprouting from my cheek. Like a long pube curling outwards – shameless. It was practically shouting: ‘Here I am!’ I can’t believe I’m admitting this but I SHAVED IT OFF. I’m shaving. I know this because the Girl wandered into the bathroom (her timing is immaculate) and said: ‘Mummy I thought only daddies shaved their faces.’ She did redeem herself later on the way to school by saying: ‘Mummy when I’m a grown up I’m going to try and stay out of jail.’ A laudable ambition.
It didn’t help that when my sister and I visited my parents over the weekend, mum gave us our overdue Christmas presents, which included among other things, a bottle of sterilising hand gel (!?) and a pair of slippers that my sister says, are the kind that ‘105 year old ladies wear’. Sis has banned me from wearing them saying that if I do, it’s a slippery slope and before I know it, I’ll be considering a cauliflower perm - so very practical, or looking at beige leisure trousers and thinking oooh they look comfy. She’s right.
Although I think that doing what you love is the best anti-ageing device. That and a fuckload of hair dye and botox. So bugger ageing gracefully – I’m off to the hairdressers
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
Smacking for Success
Once, in New York I saw a man wearing a t-shirt which proclaimed: Hit your kids! The Bible says it's ok! I thought of it when I read that studies have shown, (doesn't your heart sink at the phrase studies have shown . . .when I worked in magazines, that was tantamount to saying evidence for the spurious opinion I'm about to spout is very very thin so I'll say something vague about experts and opinions and hopefully nobody will double check)
Anyway. According to research at the University of Michigan, smacking a child before the age of six makes them perform better at school when they're teenagers. It's not clear how much better - I mean if you're going to create a frozen, frightened child who behaves well because they're living in fear of physical pain, humiliation, and rage I would at least be expecting a teenager heading for Oxbridge grades. And it was a study of 179 teenagers. Big deal.
I don't think parents who slap their child in a fit of rage are monsters - if your child runs into the road or has a massive tantrum in the supermarket, I totally understand why you might slap. But hitting a child is not imposing boundaries or discipline, it's you losing control. I've done it. I slapped The Boy when he rushed into the main road to pick up a ball. I yanked him back, inches away from being hit by a bus and whacked his bum. I certainly wasn't thinking hmmm maybe such a slap may produce braininess in my boy - I think my thoughts were more of the argggh bus death splat arrrrghh red mist kind
It's parents who talk about 'loving discipline' that really creep me out - the ghastly ritual of it - the deliberate fear. The parents who wait to punish their child - wait till your father/mother gets home types. They're the sadists. And as for the theory that slapping children produces brighter more well adjusted teens, perhaps a tour round our UK remand homes would prove otherwise. They are full of young men who were slapped, kicked and beaten regularly.
Anyway. According to research at the University of Michigan, smacking a child before the age of six makes them perform better at school when they're teenagers. It's not clear how much better - I mean if you're going to create a frozen, frightened child who behaves well because they're living in fear of physical pain, humiliation, and rage I would at least be expecting a teenager heading for Oxbridge grades. And it was a study of 179 teenagers. Big deal.
I don't think parents who slap their child in a fit of rage are monsters - if your child runs into the road or has a massive tantrum in the supermarket, I totally understand why you might slap. But hitting a child is not imposing boundaries or discipline, it's you losing control. I've done it. I slapped The Boy when he rushed into the main road to pick up a ball. I yanked him back, inches away from being hit by a bus and whacked his bum. I certainly wasn't thinking hmmm maybe such a slap may produce braininess in my boy - I think my thoughts were more of the argggh bus death splat arrrrghh red mist kind
It's parents who talk about 'loving discipline' that really creep me out - the ghastly ritual of it - the deliberate fear. The parents who wait to punish their child - wait till your father/mother gets home types. They're the sadists. And as for the theory that slapping children produces brighter more well adjusted teens, perhaps a tour round our UK remand homes would prove otherwise. They are full of young men who were slapped, kicked and beaten regularly.
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