Suffering fools reluctantly.

Blame it on the name

2009-11-18T08:00:00.003-08:00

According to a survey commissioned by parenting club ( no, I haven’t a clue what a parenting club is either) Bounty.com, teachers think they can tell whether a child is going to be well behaved or naughty, brainy or popular simply by looking at their names.
Around 3,000 teachers were polled with more than a third expecting pupils with names such as Connor, Chardonnay and Courtney to be more disruptive, while Alexanders, Emmas, Benjamins and Charlottes were assumed to be brainier. Faye Mingo from Bounty.com said:
"Rightly or wrongly, most of us make assumptions based on something as simple as a person's name and we base these on our previous experiences.”
Now, I hate surveys as I believe them totally pointless as the reason most of them are commissioned is because they are a successful marketing tool. Bounty.com needs to make money, so it needs to attract more subscribers. How does it get subscribers? By getting some press coverage. How does it get its name in the papers? Well, other than commit a crime or be a celebrity, it’s probably got to be:commission a survey, the results of which thrust ill-conceived, dubious and stereotype-reinforcing theories on to the masses. This survey is no exception.
If we are to believe the surveys findings, it’s not good news. Not the suggestion that children with names associated with the working class are badly behaved, but that one third of teachers make assumptions based on a child’s name.
As if it is not bad enough to be named after fermenting grapes, you enter the education system where teachers and officials are supposed to have jumped through all sorts of hoops in order to prove their commitment to equal opportunities and anti-discrimination policies and there you find a third of teachers are going to write you off as a no hoper, probably before they even meet you, based on your name.
That sentence from the Bounty.com representative above: try replacing ‘name’ with ‘height’, ‘size’, ‘religion’ or even, dare I say it, ‘colour’. I somehow doubt if Bounty.com would have got away with that but, if the survey’s results are to be believed, a third of teachers are bigots. Because discrimination is still discrimination – whatever name you want to call it.

Fall from grace

2009-11-18T08:00:00.001-08:00

Kanye West ought to watch himself following his self-administered fall from grace at the VMA awards this week, when he jumped on stage and told Taylor Swift that she didn’t deserve her best video award as he thought his mate’s missus, Beyonce, made an altogether superior example.
His outburst has fetched comments from everyone – well President Obama and Miley Cyrus to be precise, with the public (the ones who care, anyway) appalled by his arrogant, unprofessional and very rude behaviour.
Entertainment news is littered with various celebrities who go and do something the public disapprove of, sometimes criminal and downright evil, sometimes a minor irritant that gets up Joe Public’s nose but ends up creating a gargantuan wound that never fully recovers.
Kanye will probably be okay – based on the fact that he is male and those in the public eye, with one exception that I can think of, Gary Glitter, are usually forgiven. Women, on the other hand, are rarely let off, for even the mildest of misdemeanours.
Let’s take Heather Mills. She divorced a Beatle. Right – fair game then. We can make jokes about her disability, we can pillory her in the street, call her a money grubbing nutcase and give her, in her words, worse press than a paedophile or a murderer. Course we can – she had the audacity to say bad things about Paul McCartney. Anything goes.
And what about Joss Stone? A few years ago, she came out on the podium at The Brit Awards and addressed the crowd in a ridiculous American accent. That single transgression led to her very promising UK singing career disappearing down the pan.
Now let’s take the less fairer sex.
Pete Townshend was cautioned by police in 2003 after accessing a site alleged to have been advertising child porn. But never mind, eh – because he was in The Who, a really cool, iconic rock band - we’ll forget that.
Edward Kennedy left the scene of an accident, allegedly caused by his drunk driving, and failed to report it until hours later which led to the death of a young woman. But we’ll let him off. He’s a Kennedy – in America, practically royalty.
We’re a fickle lot, but ultimately responsible for the celebrities that are foisted upon us. We build them up and just as quickly and sometimes on a whim, we tear them down again. But if you are male, you stand a much better chance of staying on your feet.

Elitism

2009-11-18T07:57:00.000-08:00

You have to wonder about teachers sometimes, especially Andrew Grant, chair of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference, who tried to incite class warfare this week after suggesting that critics of fee paying schools ought to actually be grateful to parents who choose to privately educate their children because they are saving taxpayers’ money. He also commented that without public schools, there wouldn’t be enough officers to lead the British army, showing a desperate man using desperate examples in order to try to preserve the status quo for his beloved elite with their cut glass accents and obligatory Bullingdon Club memberships.
His rhetoric is typical of someone who wants to hark back to the good old days of the feudal system with serfs right at the bottom of the chain, grateful to the lord and master for providing permission to do anything from getting married to going to the loo.
I thought we’d moved on from all that. But according to Grant, us peasants should be grateful to the elite once again. Let’s all doff our flat caps together in unison, shall we? After the count of three.
We all know that private schools are basically processing centres for the country’s ruling elite and their very existence provides a nice stiff backbone for the class system and shores up Britain’s appalling levels of social mobility. 7 % of children in the UK are privately educated yet they end up getting 53% of the country’s top jobs. Thanks to them for sparing us all that responsibility and high wages.
Eton College, stomping ground of David Cameron and Boris Johnson and possibly the most socially divisive educational establishments in the country is a business that makes about £100 million a year educating over-privileged boys. Yet it is a charity – just like Children in Need or the RSPCA – meaning that it is subsidised by the tax payer. So thanks also for that – it’s good to know our hard earned cash is helping to prop up the Old Boys’ Network.
All of us want the best for our children, even us plebs that send our kids to the state comprehensive, but some of us believe the way to do that is by having a fair and equal society that provides opportunities for everyone, not one heavily swayed in the favour of those with high earning parents.

Cliches away

2009-11-18T07:56:00.000-08:00

It’s a sign that I have reached a certain age when I say that I comfortably admit that I’m a regular listener to BBC Radio Five Live. What I particularly like about the station is the phone-ins. The arguments and discussions are incredibly entertaining. I always have an opinion on the subjects covered and would dearly love to contribute but I know I would just go to pieces if I was suddenly live on air, so I email my penny’s worth instead, coward that I am.
What strikes me about those who choose to air their opinions is the consistent use of clichés. It has got to the point when I have actually started counting them, like I used to when I used to watch the X Factor (it’s been a rollercoaster, dream come true, dark horse of the competition, you could win this competition, potentially world class etc, etc).
When an issue which gets those leaning toward the right a bit riled is discussed, the number one is the wonderful ‘PC gone mad’. I just love this. It appears to be an acceptable comment on everything nowadays from efforts to curb racism to strict health and safety issues, like the banning of conkers in schools, which have absolutely nothing to do with political correctness.
The other one that makes me chuckle is ‘I hear what you’re saying.’ This is used to buy time because a caller cannot come up with a rebuttal and has effectively lost the argument. It is usually followed by ‘but’ and an affirmation that the caller is right, despite everything.
There is one cliché that virtually everyone uses and it drives me to distraction. It is: ‘At the end of the day.’ It is the most irritating phrase in the English language. It is used to introduce a point and to summarise a point….any point whatsoever. I hear it with such regularity, I feel like smashing a train up. Why can’t people come up with alternatives? Or are they simply unaware they are saying it…over and over and over again.
Maybe the only way forward is to get the government involved. Perhaps a zero tolerance on clichés is what’s needed. Because in order to win the war on clichés, we need to get tough on clichés and the causes of clichés.

Digital pirates

2009-11-09T10:08:00.000-08:00

Peter Mandelson is calling for strict reprisals to those who download music and films illegally, going so far as to cut off the perpetrators’ internet connections. Currently seven million people in this country choose to regularly download illicit files, while globally the figure is an astonishing 90%. While they are getting away with paying absolute zilch for their digital entertainment, artists and entertainers are losing out big time.

I’m not altogether sure where I stand on this debate. I used to download music illegally but I don’t any more. This is for two reasons: my husband is a musician and has convinced me that it is a totally immoral pastime, and secondly, legal downloads are cheap enough nowadays anyway. But I do believe the record industry has had it too good for too long and I’m glad they have finally had their come-uppance.

I recently went through my CD collection. The first one I ever bought was the soundtrack to the movie, Local Hero, all the way back in 1984. It was purchased in the days before barcodes so it still has its price label on - £12.99. That was 25 years ago and the equivalent of a whopping £30 nowadays – for one CD. Admittedly it might not have been as cheap to produce CDs then as it is today, but still, the record industry has been fleecing us music lovers ever since. In that time it has created many an ostentatious lifestyle for executives and best-selling artists alike. That’s why it’s difficult to feel sorry for them all now.

That said, I want to see new talent, both in the film and music industry – and I’m not talking about the creation of manufactured acts - and realise that without some investment, that talent will not emerge.

I’m not sure what the answer to this issue is but cutting off internet access isn’t going to create any income. And getting rid of sites that offer illegal downloads isn’t going to help either - like the nine-headed monster Hydra from Greek mythology, for every head you cut off, two will grow in its place.

One thing’s for certain, there is no going back. Advances in technology always mean that somebody loses out somewhere. You could ask the Luddites...if they were still around...

Staged

2009-11-09T10:07:00.001-08:00

It has been eight years since the first Harry Potter came out and as my boys are old enough to take themselves to the cinema, I no longer have to suffer the likes of Dumbledore, Snape and Malfoy.

One of the reasons that I didn’t enjoy the movies, or indeed, most British movies aimed at children and containing children, is because the kid actors make me cringe. I know it’s really unfair as they are children and being mean about them or to them isn’t really the done thing, but they are always so flipping posh and precocious, even when they are trying to be street urchins.

Virtually all child actors in this country come out of the luvvie-factory known as the stage school, costing their aspirational parents (who nearly made it to the top, you know, once), an arm and a leg. They are schooled in the multi-disciplinary show business arts of dance, music and theatre, so that any specific raw talent is spread thinly across all disciplines with any sparkle, idiosyncrasies or character wiped out, to prepare them for a life of pretending to be someone else.

And all those who don’t have their jagged ‘cockney sparra’ vowels smoothed down for received pronunciation are forever left to stew in the ever-stirring and not mutually exclusive vats of Eastenders, The Bill and once upon a time, Grange Hill.

I know there’s a lot wrong with America but the kids that end up on the screen over there tend to be ten times more convincing than their counterparts this side of the Atlantic. When I was a child watching Little House on the Prairie I thought I was looking at reality. Nowadays – we have the likes of Frankie Muniz and the rest of the young cast in Malcolm in the Middle who are all phenomenal, as are child actors Abigail Breslin and Dakota Fanning.

I would like to think better of our young thespians, really I would, and recently caught the very rude but very funny Inbetweeners, a comedy about some boys in sixth form. The boy that plays Will is fantastic. I googled him, thinking he was a stage school brat. He’s no brat and never was. He’s 25 years old.

So – to play a convincing British teenage nerd with all sorts of social hang-ups, it is necessary to hire someone of 25. No doubt if a stage school brat were hired, it would take all the self-control he could muster to stop him expressing his angst through the medium of song and dance.

Victims

2009-11-09T10:06:00.001-08:00

Murderer Denis Roberts has won his appeal against Jack Straw in his bid to have cosmetic surgery, with London’s High Court claiming that the Justice Secretary had acted unlawfully in trying to prevent the prisoner from having his port wine stain removed, courtesy of the NHS.
Roberts said the birthmark on the left side of his face had led to him being bullied at school and was linked to a violent temper. A consultant dermatologist recommended him for treatment three years ago, stating “This has always been an embarrassment to him.”
On a personal note if I was in the same room as some murderers and child abusers and happened to have a sharp implement handy, I’d probably use it. But, as a sentient human being, I agree that it is only right and civilised that prisoners should have medical treatment as and when they need it. But this case tests the patience of even the most passive, forgiving liberals.
Roberts was convicted of the murder of an elderly couple, the Hadlers, in Newhaven in 1989. He broke into their home and stabbed them to death. Mr Hadler was partially paralysed after a stroke and Mrs Hadler had senile dementia. Not content with leaving the defenceless couple to die in their own pools of blood, Roberts then sexually assaulted Mrs Hadler.
He committed this depraved and heinous crime and the thing that appears to prevent him from sleeping at night is a flipping birthmark?
Roberts and his legal team are clearly using the port wine stain to turn the murderer in to a victim. It led to him being bullied at school, which in turn gave him a violent temper, ergo he becomes a violent psychopathic murderer and it is not his fault - it is all the fault of that pesky congenital birthmark.
All of us are products of our upbringing. We may have been born into abject poverty, or suffered abuse or have inadequate alcoholic parents. This might lead to anti-social behaviour sometimes and it is not difficult to see why. But it is not an excuse. Especially not for violent behaviour. Even in the most extreme case that I can think of – Fred and Rose West’s children – reared with ritual abuse, murder and torture yet they are just trying to lead ordinary lives bringing up their children.
Roberts didn’t suffer abuse – he just had a birthmark.
He’s no victim. He crossed the line. He committed murder. The only victims here are the Hadlers and now, their surviving family. One can only imagine how this ruling will be affecting them.

Blame it on the name

2009-11-09T10:05:00.002-08:00

Around 3,000 teachers were polled with more than a third expecting pupils with names such as Connor, Chardonnay and Courtney to be more disruptive, while Alexanders, Emmas, Benjamins and Charlottes were assumed to be brainier. Faye Mingo from Bounty.com said:

"Rightly or wrongly, most of us make assumptions based on something as simple as a person's name and we base these on our previous experiences.”

Now, I hate surveys as I believe them totally pointless as the reason most of them are commissioned is because they are a successful marketing tool. Bounty.com needs to make money, so it needs to attract more subscribers. How does it get subscribers? By getting some press coverage. How does it get its name in the papers? Well, other than commit a crime or be a celebrity, it’s probably got to be:commission a survey, the results of which thrust ill-conceived, dubious and stereotype-reinforcing theories on to the masses. This survey is no exception.

If we are to believe the surveys findings, it’s not good news. Not the suggestion that children with names associated with the working class are badly behaved, but that one third of teachers make assumptions based on a child’s name.

As if it is not bad enough to be named after fermenting grapes, you enter the education system where teachers and officials are supposed to have jumped through all sorts of hoops in order to prove their commitment to equal opportunities and anti-discrimination policies and there you find a third of teachers are going to write you off as a no hoper, probably before they even meet you, based on your name.

That sentence from the Bounty.com representative above: try replacing ‘name’ with ‘height’, ‘size’, ‘religion’ or even, dare I say it, ‘colour’. I somehow doubt if Bounty.com would have got away with that but, if the survey’s results are to be believed, a third of teachers are bigots. Because discrimination is still discrimination – whatever name you want to call it.

Flying without wings.

2009-11-09T10:05:00.001-08:00

This time of year, as the evenings draw in and the mornings get colder, I always think that a holiday in the sun might be a good idea, but we never actually get round to having one because my husband is even tighter than I am and the thought of spending hard earned money on lazing about on a beach somewhere gives him the hee-bee jee-bies.

Because of his aversion to pleasure in the sun we haven’t been abroad for four years. This obviously gives me the moral high ground when it comes to the subject of flying, something I exploited fully recently when I castigated my sister, who has logged up six flights in three months, telling her, in the most sanctimonious of fashions, that flying is the single worst thing she could possibly do if she wants a decent future for her children. It fell on deaf ears.

‘One of them was a mini-break,’ she replied. ‘And you’re just jealous because you go on staycations.’ I was speechless and I don’t know whether it was because her protestations that actually made herself look worse or her knowledge of holiday company terminology, which laid bare just how often she goes on holiday.

Mini-break? What on earth is a mini-break? It sounds like a chocolate bar. I’ve heard of the holiday term ‘short break’, which I believe is normally between 2-4 days. So a mini-break must be shorter than that, which means it has to take up just one day. By that process, it would make it a daytrip, then, wouldn’t it?

And what the hell is a staycation? I have holidayed in the UK for the last four years. I have not, and will never ‘staycate’. The very word makes me feel sick. I like words and I’m not against creating new ones. I even tried to create one myself a year or so ago, but didn’t use it often enough for it to spread into common usage. But fusing two words together, one which is an American term and not used over here until staycation was invented, in order to create a new funky-sounding holiday term is an absolute no no.

It’s down there with frenemy and webisode and the person who invented it can take a staycation mini-break to Brighton and take a long walk off a short pier.

Not crochet

2009-11-09T10:04:00.000-08:00

I spent Sunday morning at Westpoint with my mother at a show called Creative Stitches and Hobbycrafts.. It was, as you can probably tell from the title, an exhibition for those keen on crafts, but no amount of dressing of that gargantuan metal container could detract from the feeling that the venue would be more suited to housing a few thousand Friesians.

It’s an annual event that once upon a time was just called ‘Creative Stitches’. About ten years ago, the event had a respectable attendance but nothing like that on Sunday where every square inch was filled with all sorts of human life, jostling in order to observe how you can turn a simple duck egg into Cinderella’s coach or how to turn ribbon into gladioli, if you could be bothered. I’ve never seen so many devoted husbands fall asleep standing up.

I went along because of my love affair with the beautiful craft that is crochet. I rightly thought as the title included the word ‘stitches’ that I might find acres and acres of lovely alpaca, merino, linen, silk and cotton yarn that I could caress and sniff. No such luck. The addition of the word ‘Hobbycrafts’ should have been a warning, because the event was largely dedicated to the relatively new but extremely popular craft of cardmaking.

Now, far be it for me to come over all superior and I realise I’m going to upset a lot of people out there in the middle of sticking a couple of sequins on piece of A5 foil printed luxury felt card but it’s not a proper craft – carefully honed and handed down through generations - is it? It just involves sticking stuff on to other stuff. In fact, the show should be called ‘Creative sticking and Hobbycrafts’.

On top of the fact that it is just an exercise in glue handling, aren’t there enough cards in the world? Really? There are stores selling cards everywhere. Cards for birthdays, for Christmas, for graduation, for Valentines, for Easter, for grandparents day, for condolence for the loss of a budgie, for flips sake. Now people are making these pointless things destined to spend a couple of weeks on your mantelpiece and then make their way to the recycling bin.

I beg of all you card makers out there. Ditch the hobby. It’s fleeting, it’s facile and it’s most definitely not crochet.

Keep it down, will you...?

2009-11-09T10:03:00.001-08:00

As I get older, the list of things that drive me to distraction continues to grow, to the point that I am, to all intents and purposes, a grumpy old woman.

I hate crowds and have to take a deep breath when in town because I am acutely aware that I am going to encounter an obstacle course in the form of hundreds of people walking straight at me, stubbornly refusing to alter their trajectory as if their path has been ordained by God. Now, as much as this irritates me, it does not come close to my number one aggravation – levels of noise in shops, pubs and restaurants, exacerbated by the fact I am partially deaf.

There is a shop called Fop that sells CDs, games and DVDs. It opened a few months ago promising to beat all high street retailers on price. I gave it a visit but left very quickly empty handed because they were playing hard core death metal so loudly, I could feel my ears starting to bleed. Loud music is one thing. Loud death metal is another. Surely, if they want to sell goods, they should make the shopping experience a pleasant one – not drive you out with your hands over your ears.

Even worse than shops that play loud music is crowd noise in pubs and restaurants. There is one boozer my husband likes to visit – it’s a real spit and sawdust place serving real ale at room temperature straight from the barrel. It’s my idea of pub heaven. But I can’t go in because the noise from the crowd stops me from hearing any conversation, which sort of defeats the social aspect of going out for a drink, really. The reason it is so loud is because there are no curtains and carpets which means sound is being bounced from one wall to another with none of the din being absorbed leading to unacceptable decibels that make your ears ring.

Far be it for me to come over all precious, as health and safety initiatives irritate me almost as much as noise pollution, but landlords would not dare let anyone light up a fag in their establishment but, for some reason, it is perfectly acceptable to inflict hearing damage on their customers.

Passive smoking is one thing, but there is nothing passive about having 70 decibels of bellowing, babbling and squawking forced on you.

I hate Guy Fawkes

2009-11-09T10:01:00.001-08:00

Lock up your cats! Chain up your dogs! November the 5^th is here again and still, I wonder what the hell we are doing celebrating a failed attempt at blowing up the Houses of Parliament. It’s been four hundred years for goodness sake! Isn’t it about time to let it go?

I speak as someone who resents being forced out of the house just as I am about to curl up and get cosy in front of the telly so perhaps I am a bit biased. I normally twitch and blink when the dog barks so it really is a bit much to expect me to get dressed up in waterproofs and wellies to go and stand in the rain, in the dark, and listen to a prolonged series of explosions. While everyone else ‘ooh’s and ‘aahs’, it is all I can do to suppress a panic attack followed by a loud, blood-curdling scream. Not only is Bonfire Night scary and uncomfortable, I also find it rather crass.

Guy Fawkes was a terrorist. It was his intention to blow up the Houses Of Parliament, along with all of the people inside because he felt that those who followed his faith were getting a raw deal. Is it just me, or does that resonate ever so slightly with what happened in London back in the summer? Are we likely to commemorate July 21^st, as the day that terrorists failed to blow up the underground? Somehow, I really don’t think so.

Obviously, Guy Fawkes failed in his attempt at reducing the Houses of Parliament to a mound of smouldering rubble. But, like any other demented, extremist intent on causing widespread destruction, I am sure that Guy Fawkes would be rather pleased to know that some four hundred years after trying to kill the government, he has been immortalised and his name will be remembered forever more.

Some will say it is tradition. In some parts of the world, burning witches and female circumcision is traditional. Just because something has been done for a very long time does not make it right.

It’s time we commemorated the birthday of somebody of worth – a Great British hero - like Aneurin Bevan, Emmeline Pankhurst or Alexander Fleming. In short, people who changed all our lives for the better.

And let’s make sure we commemorate it without fireworks and in the summer!

Debunking detoxing

2009-11-09T10:00:00.001-08:00

I have always viewed anyone that partook in such a stupid, pointless and extremely restrictive fad as being either gullible, into self-denial or in need of a biology lesson. I once had a friend who had spent about £30 on some naturally extracted, seaweed-infused, gingko based, batwing flavoured, blind-worm’s sting essence, believing that it would flush out all her free radicals and toxins, leaving her innards fresh and pure. I told her that she should have saved her money – what on earth did she think her liver and kidneys were for?

I am hoping that the British Dietic Association will go one further and call all the self-appointed experts and dubious opportunists who are making millions out of this quackery to account. Yes – I’m talking about you Carol Vorderman. Is there any field that that woman doesn’t claim to be an expert in? Even Su Doku isn’t safe from her bid for world domination I can’t even look at a 9x9 grid any more without seeing her smug, over-painted face!

As much as I’d like, I can’t just lay the blame at Carol Vorderman’s door, however. I just logged on to Amazon and there appears to be nearly 30,000 diet-related books listed. Everyone’s at it – from celebrities to doctors and back to celebrities again. Everyone’s making a mint out of people’s desire to be slim.

The solution to losing weight is so, so, simple – it can be written on a postage stamp. Literally. Eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly: Just seven words that, if followed, will show positive results. Nobody needs to go out and buy a diet book or talk about glycaemic indices ever again! Nobody has to drink wheatgrass juice and no-one has to buy Slim-fast bars ever, ever again.

What a blessed relief!

While the answer to a long-term healthy weight is easy, I seriously struggle when it comes to finding out why we still continue to be conned to the tune of billions by celebrity-endorsed diets and food fads.

This isn't just bollocks..

2009-11-09T09:56:00.000-08:00

It’s been seven years since those Marks and Spencer’s food adverts first appeared on the telly. You know the ones:

‘This isn’t just lentil soup; this is spicy lentil and Mediterranean tomato soup. This isn’t just fruit salad. This is hand-prepared blueberry and pomegranate super-fruit salad.’ And so on.

Year upon year they have driven me to distraction, like some subliminal video designed to make the viewer suffer from some sort of paranoid psychosis. I know the Christmas ones are almost upon us now and I have been trying to avoid the advertising channels because of it. If I accidentally catch one I’ll probably smash the telly up.

I know they aren’t supposed to appeal to skinflints like me who would no sooner do their weekly shop in Marks and Sparks than pay over £3 for a bottle of wine. I am in the wrong demographic, as it were. The correct one being, that which contains the MMTS brigade – More Money Than Sense.

My mum has a friend who does all her food shopping at Marks and Spencer’s, or Marks Expensive, as I call it. The reason is that she not only has MMTS, she also can’t cook. Apparently, it is a haven for people like her because most of the shelves are packed with ready meals: convenience food for the chattering classes.

The advertising agency responsible for Marks’ over-the-top ads have failed to grasp that they have outgrown their use, because spoofs are popping up all over the place. I myself have used unnecessarily verbose terminology in order to lull my family into thinking they are getting something far more exciting than I am actually going to dish up

‘This isn’t just cottage pie,’ I say. ‘This is hand-prepared, Aberdeen Angus minced beef slowly cooked in a finger-crumbled Oxo jus, lovingly topped with hand-peeled Wilja potato and ‘I can’t believe it’s not butter’ mash.’ And I say it in a deep, husky voice but they just look at me like I need locking up and repulsed at the same time.

Similar descriptions can be found in posh restaurants. The confusing, gaudy menus where ‘blades of beouf nestle on a bed of fondant potatoes dressed with a balsamic reduction’ just make me want to run out screaming: ‘I just want egg and chips!!’

I wonder if the pretentious, rambling descriptions are going to appear on adverts for other M& S goods – underwear, for example. Imagine not just buying pants, but organic, freshly picked hand-spun cotton, Matisse-blue hyacinth petal embellished, comfort briefs.

Let’s hope not, I couldn’t take it. It’s not just flowery, pretentious, overblown balderdash. It’s Marks and Spencer’s flowery, pretentious, overblown balderdash.

Second homes

2007-05-30T12:51:00.001-07:00

Speaking as a Devonian who has never got so much as a toenail on the property ladder, I am finding the continually rising house prices in the county beyond a joke. With the exception of one grandparent who was born over the border in Dorset, the last four generations (at least) of my family were born in Devon. Whilst that doesn’t give me a God-given right to be a Devon homeowner, it does make me a bit cross.
Unless I lie about our earnings, which is what everyone else is doing, it appears, the most we can raise is a mortgage of £90,000. In the village where I live, that might buy a share in a dilapidated stone shed.
Yesterday, I read that Devon’s property prices have practically doubled since 1999. I reckon this is partly due to pointless surveys commissioned by estate agents that suggest Devon is the best county to live in. We residents already know this, of course, but I really wish the fact wasn’t advertised in London, where stressed out city dwellers can be tempted to swap their annual bonuses for a nice little thatched retreat in a quaint village which they can visit once in a while in order to patronise the locals over a couple of pints of Speckled Hen.
In the South Hams where second homes make up 11% of all housing, councils are discussing whether to raise the discounted council tax on second homes from 50% to 90%. Big deal. If you can afford to run a house that you don’t actually live in, I hardly think you’re going to be dissuaded by a 40% rise in council tax.
An organisation in North Devon, the Appledore Pirates, is considering whether to draw attention to the problem by sticking black bin liners in the letterboxes belonging to second homes. This might sound a bit hostile, but if councils fail to provide adequate affordable housing, you can understand why the local residents get angry at what could be seen as social cleansing by economic means.
If things carry on as they are, rural Devon will become a massive theme park devoid of life. No farms, no shops, no schools, no pubs, no animals, and nobody to deliver advice on growing spuds. At that point, of course, second home owners will decide on selling up because the area will have lost it’s character.

Horses

2007-05-30T12:50:00.001-07:00

The other day I was with a child who was openly discussing her fear of creepy-crawlies. Toward the end of the conversation she told me there was a word for her condition and proudly said she was arachnophobic. I responded with sympathy and told her I happened to be a hippophobe. I found I needed to go into some detail about my irrational fear because she politely asked why I was scared of hippies.
Thinking she was going to go round giving the impression that I locked myself in the nearest cupboard at the merest whiff of patchouli oil, I explained that being a hippophobe meant I was scared of horses, and, if she thinks that’s weird, I used to have a friend who was terrified of polystyrene. She looked at me as if she had encountered madness personified.
I told her that while she saw My Little Pony cantering merrily in a flowery meadow, I happened to see a beast with the power of around twenty-five bull mastiffs, the speed and unpredictability of a runaway Ferrari, and the kick of several million vodkas. And it’s no coincidence that equine creatures happen to be the transport for the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Unable to explain the polystyrene thing in any way, shape or form and aware I might give her nightmares, I decided to terminate the conversation quickly.
Spiders and creepy-crawlies in general, don’t really bother me. I mean, there’s not a lot of point being scared of something small enough to incarcerate in a wine glass is there? I know they have a lot of legs and aren’t very cute, but the spiders in this country can’t really do you much in the way of damage can they?
Therapists dealing with phobias tend to adopt the ‘Face the fear and do it anyway’ approach. Good practice, I should imagine, with many irrational fears. After all – spiders lurk about in every house and the likelihood of finding one in your bed every now and then is quite high.
I tend to use the avoidance technique, though, for two reasons. One: in order to exist and function, I do not need to become familiar with horses. Two: unless you happen to be a member of the mafia, it is highly unlikely you will ever, ever encounter a horse in your bed.

Dog

2007-05-30T12:48:00.001-07:00

My dog has recently started acting rather strangely. He is a bearded collie named Doolin, and to those who are not familiar with the breed, he is basically a large lolloping, slobbering ball of black and white fluff, the sort that would make a fantastic fireside rug if such a thing was socially acceptable.
The personality change started with a look of disdain and boredom. He then became increasingly grumpier and has been having more bad hair days than not. Normally he keeps himself looking quite dapper and I was a bit concerned that he might be 'letting himself go'. Also - you'll think I'm mad - I am sure that he has been trying to communicate with me.
We decided on lavishing him with extra fuss and attention but dispensed with the idea of giving him a mirror as that might possibly result in an outbreak of wanton vanity. The extra cuddles and chats seemed to have little effect so I had a bit of a rethink.
He is 5 1/2 years old. So, in dog years, that means he must be pushing forty. It suddenly became clear. He's been having a mid-life crisis! It happens to men, so why can't it happen to dogs?
In the case of the human male, the mid-life crisis usually manifests itself in a period of simultaneous self-loathing and re-evaluation. They think about what they have achieved in their time on this earth and often seek new pastures. This can be a career change, a new wardrobe or an extra-marital affair. All desperate signs of the last shreds of youth disappearing before their very eyes.
With this information in front of me, I realised it made perfect sense. It explains the mood swings. Doolin obviously feels that he has a dog's life and is yearning for a change in direction. The bad hair thing, I think, is actually a sign of rebellion. He is rejecting an enforced stereotype by refusing to grow old gracefully - a bit like Peter Stringfellow. Like Mr Stringfellow, Doolin also displays embarrassing behaviour traits when he's in female company.
Despite all this, I think his long-term prognosis is quite favourable. Because, unlike the human male, at least Doolin is trying to communicate.

Designer lettuce

2007-05-30T12:47:00.002-07:00

Last weekend I read an article in one of the broadsheet colour supplements about lettuce. Not your common or garden iceberg, you understand, but the designer type that comes as a bagged mixture of several ready-washed varieties, ranging from your peppery Rocket or Red Mustard, through to the flamboyant but tasteless Lollo Rosso. It turns out that not only are these packets of leaves a massive rip-off, they are also not particularly good for you.
These salad vegetables, which on the surface look quite nutritious and wholesome, are immersed in a chlorine wash that is equivalent to twenty times the level in swimming pools. They are then packed using a process known as Modified Atmosphere Packaging, which alters the normal levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide within the sealed package, thereby extending the product’s shelf life for, in some cases, up to a month. Imagine what all this chemical warfare does to your salad.
I’ve often wondered what type of person bought these elaborate and pretentious salad vegetables. Well, surprisingly two thirds of the UK population regularly do! When I walk past the salad counter in a supermarket, I look at these flirtatious bags of leaves with contempt, viewing them as the vegetable equivalent of high-maintenance women. All style, no substance, no taste and, according to the newspaper report, subjected to regular chemical peel treatments.
I see shoppers tempted by the apparent freshness, colours and convenience and I desperately want to tell them that for around £1, they can buy a packet of seeds that will keep them and several close friends in designer lettuce all summer. A tiny bit of land – heck even a window box - will suffice for cultivating a fantastic crop of salad leaves that can be picked and eaten within minutes, ensuring the optimum in freshness and nutrition. These leaves can be cut and, lo and behold, they will come up again – an again! All for minimum effort and expenditure.
Maybe I should start a lettuce growing campaign. A growing army of amateur gardeners could join me in fighting back against the economic power of the supermarkets. Soon, the designer lettuce counter could disappear along with powdered egg and Vesta curries. Power could be restored to the consumer and we could, literally, reap what we sow!
Just a dream…just a dream…

Debunking detoxing

2007-05-30T12:47:00.001-07:00

At last! The British Dietic Association has rubbished the very popular and fashionable concept of de-toxing. They claim that de-toxing is nothing more than a marketing myth and a complete waste of time and money, and that a simple glass of tap water will have the same effect.
I have always viewed anyone that partook in such a stupid, pointless and extremely restrictive fad as being either gullible, into self-denial or in need of a biology lesson. I once had a friend who had spent about £30 on some naturally extracted, seaweed-infused, gingko based, batwing flavoured, blind-worm’s sting essence, believing that it would flush out all her free radicals and toxins, leaving her innards fresh and pure. I told her that she should have saved her money – what on earth did she think her liver and kidneys were for?
I am hoping that the British Dietic Association will go one further and call all the self-appointed experts and dubious opportunists who are making millions out of this quackery to account. Yes – I’m talking about you Carol Vorderman. Is there any field that that woman doesn’t claim to be an expert in? Even Su Doku isn’t safe from her bid for world domination I can’t even look at a 9x9 grid any more without seeing her smug, over-painted face!
As much as I’d like, I can’t just lay the blame at Carol Vorderman’s door, however. I just logged on to Amazon and there appears to be nearly 30,000 diet-related books listed. Everyone’s at it – from celebrities to doctors and back to celebrities again. Everyone’s making a mint out of people’s desire to be slim.
The solution to losing weight is so, so, simple – it can be written on a postage stamp. Literally. Eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly: Just seven words that, if followed, will show positive results. Nobody needs to go out and buy a diet book or talk about glycaemic indices ever again! Nobody has to drink wheatgrass juice and no-one has to buy Slim-fast bars ever, ever again.
What a blessed relief!
While the answer to a long-term healthy weight is easy, I seriously struggle when it comes to finding out why we still continue to be conned to the tune of billions by celebrity-endorsed diets and food fads.

Bunny boiling

2007-05-30T12:45:00.003-07:00

I’ve just come back from a visit to my mate, Henry, and his wife, Beryl. Over a cup of coffee and a discussion about drugs in world athletics, they offered me a brace of rabbits which I gratefully accepted, along with several gargantuan beetroot, a couple of red onions and around two pounds of spuds.
Well chuffed with my gifts, I returned home and plonked the home grown harvest on the table and had a good look. Not only did I feel lucky to have such generous friends, I felt privileged to be able to have immediate access to real food.
All around the UK, there is a profound worry about what we put in our mouth and where it comes from. Consumers are concerned about levels of chemicals and flavourings and the implications on their family’s health yet sales of convenience foods still rise, kitchen skills are more or less extinct and the idea of being presented with a recently-killed animal and vegetables that still have soil clinging to their roots would have most domestic food preparers running out of their Poggenpohl kitchens screaming.
When I used to keep chickens, it always amazed me how excited city-dwelling friends would get about the fact that these feathered creatures actually laid proper eggs, and conversely, how appalled they were when it was time to cull one because I fancied a bit of home-reared roast chicken. Brought up on supermarket, cling-wrapped and skinned fillets of poultry, they had become so disassociated with the fact that what they were buying had in fact, once been an animal – they found the very idea of killing an animal for meat absolutely barbaric.
People don’t really eat rabbit much nowadays. The reason, I suspect, is because given the size and anatomy of the creature, supermarkets would have to display the whole carcass because filleting it would be an absolute waste of time, money and energy. And can you imagine what squeamish Joe Consumer would do if faced with the skinned carcass of a rabbit in the meat counter at Sainsbury’s? They’d think about Disney’s Thumper and cry depravity.
Health studies show that the closer the food is to its natural state, the better it is for you. Not only that – come the Armageddon – it’ll be the self-sufficient bunny-boilers who will inherit the earth.

Brace yourself

2007-05-30T12:45:00.001-07:00

Recently, my son paid a visit to an orthodontist, after a referral from our dentist. I was reluctant to take him initially as, apart from two teeth at the side of his mouth that are a bit cramped, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the arrangement of his dentures.
Despite my reservations, I took him along to the ‘brace man’, mainly because I trusted my dentist’s judgement – after all, teeth are what he is supposed to do best.
After a very short examination, the orthodontist recommended that my son did indeed need a brace. Not just any old brace. In order to correct the miniscule dental problem of two teeth that are a tad too close for comfort, my poor boy was expected to wear some weird contraption on his head for twelve hours a day.
As the orthodontist showed us a picture of this device, I winced and couldn’t help thinking about the Spanish Inquisition. My son looked at me pleadingly.
We left abruptly, having told the orthodontist that we’d think about it. As soon as we got out the door, my son said to me,
“ Do I have to wear that thing, really?”
I reassured him that unless he had any ambitions to be either a model or a member of a boy band, he would never have to even think about that instrument of torture again.
As I drove home, I felt content that I had spared taxpayers a big wedge of cash and my son months and months of discomfort and humiliation.
Every year, nearly 100,000 children have corrective dental treatment at a cost, on average, of around £800. Is it just me, but at a time when NHS dentists are as rare as rocking horse droppings, doesn’t this seem like a big case of getting priorities a bit confused?
Eighty million pounds are spent every year on appeasing parents who demand that their offspring have perfect teeth, yet people have to tolerate prolonged dental pain that can result in chronic pervading infection because they cannot afford treatment.
I’m aware that some children need and deserve corrective dental treatment. We all remember poor old Johnny Buck Teeth at the back of the class. But if my son was recommended such extreme and unnecessary treatment, millions of pounds are being wasted on treatment that is, to all intents and purposes, purely cosmetic.

Bored

2007-05-30T12:43:00.000-07:00

This half term has been a nightmare. All week, I have been busy catching up with all the urgent and overdue business that I have chosen to ignore since I got back from my holiday. Meanwhile, the kids have been moaning about how bored they are and it has driven me to distraction.
I blame a variety of sources for their discontent – the weather, for one, because with the exception of a couple of days, it has been quite abominable. But I have to say I lay most of the blame firmly at the feet of my kids – for their inability to keep themselves occupied and their lack of appreciation of how far we have come in the last 25 years in terms of in-home entertainment.
Every time they have complained that there is nothing to do, I point at the 28” screen in the corner of the living room and calmly explain that boredom was what the telly was invented for. If there’s nothing but makeover shows and daytime soaps on the box, I then point to the array of videos and DVDs. If they decide that they are not in the mood for Batman, Titanic or Gladiator, I remind them that they have a Playstation. If they tell me that they have completed all their games, I suggest they go on the internet, after all, with goodness knows how many billion web pages, there has to be something there that interests them! If, at that point, they shrug their bored little shoulders, I drop to my knees, proceed to pull my hair out and yell,
“IF YOU THINK YOU HAVE NOTHING TO DO - IMAGINE WHAT IT WAS LIKE WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE?!’
The World Wide Web was just a virtual glint in Tim Berners Lee’s eye. Computers were huge bulky machines used by white-coated boffins on the telly. Computer games were limited to Space Invaders or Pac-Man and could only be played in amusement arcades. There were no videos, let alone DVDs and television was just BBC1 and ITV with a small amount of programming on BBC2, in between the test card!
Bored? They don’t know the meaning of the word!

Afternoon delight

2007-05-30T12:42:00.001-07:00

I often take a nap in the afternoon. Should I be ashamed?
When my husband pops home during work hours to pick something up and finds me installed in my lovely comfy bed in the middle of the afternoon, indulging in forty or so winks, he is horrified. His reaction would lead most people to believe that he had discovered me in bed with another man!
I have told him, many times, that napping is a form of therapy. I nap so that I can do all the things that I need to do for the rest of the day without flaking out. I have mentioned that sleep experts in the US have scientifically proven that a power nap boosts alertness, memory, learning and mood. There is even a company in New York that provides sleep pods for stressed out executives to go and have a power nap. Customers are queuing up for a twenty- minute lie down, after which they return to their desks alert, revived and invigorated.
Despite my protestations, he thinks I’m lazy.
Sometimes, I wonder if he should have joined some strict, sado-masochistic cult whose members rise before the crack of dawn, work like a ferret-on-the-edge-of-a-nervous-breakdown for anything between eight and fifteen hours a day, go home and eat gruel then give themselves twenty lashes before lying down on a concrete slab for the night.
I suppose I can blame the filtering down of the protestant work ethic for his low opinion of me. Once upon a time people believed that hard work received a place in heaven. As he doesn’t believe in God, I’m wondering where he’s expecting to go.
I have told him countless times to chill out. He might feel guilty about my snoozing, but I don’t. I come from a long line of afternoon nappers. As long as I can remember, the words ‘I’m just going for a nap’ have been heard as frequently as ‘Coronation Street is just about to start’. Everything that was supposed to be done, was done – and usually with a cheery disposition.
Unfortunately, most employees in this country would tend to agree with my husband, believing that every hour spent at the desk is just as productive as the last.
We ought to take a leaf out of our Mediterranean cousins’ book and have daily siestas. When global warming results in sweltering English summers, we’ll have little choice.

A lady's drink

2007-05-30T12:40:00.000-07:00

The British Beer and Pub Association are hoping that women in the UK are going to start turning their noses up at the usually favoured Chardonnays and Merlots, and opt for a nice glass of beer instead. One of the ways in which they plan to lure the female market to the barrels is by serving real ale in third-pint glasses. Maybe it’s the women I mix with but, my goodness, how we all laughed in our pint glasses when we heard this little piece of news.
Speaking as a long-term beer lover, a one-time judge at a beer festival (probably the only one there without a beard), and a woman to boot, I think I am in a suitable position to comment on this sexist and elitist strategy.
For as long as I’ve been old enough to frequent pubs, I have known my Speckled Hen from my Sutton Comfort, and my Broadside from my Bishop’s Tipple. Over the years I have come to love real ale in all its cheering, scrumptious, glorious forms and one thing I know is that it does not require rebranding in order to appease a few women who choose their drinks solely on the basis of the shape and volume of the glass that it is served in.
If I went into a pub and the barman offered me a beer in a third pint glass, I’d assume that he wanted to get to know me better. If every time I went to the bar I was given such a miniscule serving, I would spend as much time ordering it as drinking it.
What the breweries mean, of course, is that - in the words of Little Britain’s rubbish transvestite Emily Howard - they want to create a ‘laydees’ drink for ladies. They want to turn my lovely, dependable, reassuring beer into a sophisticated lifestyle drink, instead of leaving it where it belongs – in the annals of working-class culture.
For centuries, a good old pint has been associated with sing-songs, smoky pubs, raucous laughter and lively banter. Call me a beer snob, if you like, but real ale is for real people and those who feel they can only order it if it is served up in a fancy glass, quite frankly, don’t deserve it.