A Christmas Story

Crackers

Lee wrote ‘Happy Christmas’ in the condensation on the window.  She forgot to write it backwards so it would read properly to people outside and Arun did a mongi face at her.

“Do you celebrate Christmas?” Mrs Jakes had asked in that high-pitched, slightly girlish voice of hers, head to one side, eyes leaching understanding.

“Yeah.” Lee had said, and Mrs Jakes gave her a card for her Mum and Dad. It was one of those cheap ones that didn’t stand up properly. She wondered what her teacher would have done with the card if she’d said that they didn’t celebrate Christmas, but when her mum opened the card they saw that it wasn’t actually addressed to anyone, simply signed;

‘Best wishes, Caroline Jakes’.

The teacher had seemed very grateful for the present that Lee gave her.

“I shall put it under my tree.” She'd said.

Dad had wanted to get her a bottle of gin but mum said it wasn’t appropriate as they didn’t know whether she drank or not, so they’d given her a bottle of bubble bath instead.

Dad and Arun met Uncle Ray and Auntie Priya at the station. Lee liked Auntie Priya, she was pretty, she smiled all the time and she never asked them about their homework like the other grown-ups.

Uncle Ray clapped Lee on the back, looked around and told Dad that they really should move to a bigger place but Auntie Priya just said;

“Oh, the tree looks so pretty - did you decorate it, Leora?” (Auntie Priya was the only person Lee didn’t mind using her full name).

Lee nodded proudly and stuck her tongue out at Arun - he had said that pink, green and blue tinsel didn’t go.

Because Auntie Priya was pregnant she was going to sleep in Lee’s bed and Uncle Ray would sleep on his own on the sofa-bed in the lounge. Lee was to sleep on a lilo on the floor next to Priya and she was excited about that.

“We can be like sisters.” She said.

“Yes, I always wanted a sister.” Priya, smiled.

In the morning she did Lee’s hair in a French plait.

“Shame you have to spoil the effect by wearing your exercise kit.” Dad said, looking at Lee’s A-Team tracksuit.

“It’s not an exercise kit; it’s a tracksuit!” Lee said, scathingly.

“Don’t be rude, Lee.” Her mum said warningly while Auntie Priya busied herself with the kettle.

Uncle Ray was watching Star Wars with Arun.

“I love this film!” Uncle Ray shouted. Lee wondered why he always had to shout.

“Peter Yates is getting a computer for Christmas.” Arun said, to no one in particular.

“Good for Peter Yates.” Mum said, pouring the tea.

“And he got a BMX for his birthday.”

“His mum must have robbed a bank.”

“Hardly!” Arun snorted. “She goes to Church.”

“Are you going to Church tonight, Cee-Cee? Midnight Mass?” Priya asked Mum.

“Oh no, I gave all that up-” She looked towards Dad who had taken the back off their old radio and had the bits all over the kitchen table. “I gave that up ages ago.”

“And what do you want for Christmas, Leora?” Priya asked.

“I’ve asked for a ‘Mr. Frosty’ and a ‘Magna-Doodle’.” Lee said, meaningfully.

Mum raised her eyebrows.

The Grown-ups went to visit their Uncle Raj and Lee went downstairs to play with Louise.

Louise’s Mum, Pat was pouring candied peel into a bowl while Lee watched in fascination.

“I suppose your mum makes the pudding weeks in advance, like you’re meant to, does she?”

Pat asked Lee.

“No, she buys it from the Co-op.” Lee replied and Pat smiled.

Lee went into Louise’s room and they played with her ‘Speak and Spell’ but the batteries were running low and the voice sounded even weirder than normal.

Louise lay back on her bed.

“Do you remember when you were little and your dad used to dress up as Father Christmas?”

“My dad never did that.” Lee said. “He always told us that Father Christmas wasn’t real.”

“He didn’t!”

“Yeah. Maybe he didn’t want us to believe in anything…”

“Are you really going to have curry for Christmas dinner?”

“No! I never said that.”

“Your mum told my mum.”

“Oh, well, I don’t know...”

“I wish we could have curry, I hate Turkey; it’s so boring!”

“Yes, I think we are having curry, actually.”

“Can I come round and have some?”

“Yeah, O.K.”

“Really? Your mum won’t mind?”

“Erm, no. She won’t mind.”

“Can Debs come too? She loves curry.  She likes your mum’s curry, anyway, she doesn’t like it from the Taj; she doesn’t like all those seedy bits they put in the rice.”

“O.K.” Lee was starting to worry now.

“She’s allergic to nuts so your mum will have to make sure that there’s no nuts in anything and that no nuts have touched anything; otherwise her neck swells up like a balloon.”

“Oh. O.K.” Lee said, thinking about the oval dish filled with Brazil nuts that her Dad loved.

On her way back upstairs, Lee stressed about the next day. Her parents always offered her friends food whenever they came round but how would they feel about Debs and Louise joining them for Christmas dinner? They didn’t even have enough chairs for everyone; not with Uncle Ray and Auntie Priya there.

When she got back to her flat there was a line of fizzy, yellow drinks on the sideboard.

“Your father has been making snowballs!” Uncle Ray boomed.

“Can I have one?” She picked up a drink.

“Yes, why not?” Ray said.

“They have got alcohol on them.” Mum said, doubtfully.

“Only a little bit; let the kid have a taste, it is Christmas!”

Lee had already put it to her lips.

“It tastes like ice-cream, it’s yummy.” She said, gulping down half the drink.

“What is Advocaat, anyway?” Auntie Priya asked, holding up a neon yellow bottle. Her cheeks were flushed.

“Ad-voh-car; it’s like eggnog, it’s made from eggs and brandy.” Mum said.

“Brandy! I’d better not have any more.” Priya said, patting her tummy.

“I’ve got some ‘Five Alive’ in the fridge; it’s alright if you mix it with soda.” Mum went to get some fruit juice for Priya and one for Lee and Arun too. Arun gulped down his ‘Snowball’ before Mum could take it away but Lee didn’t catch on in time and Mum wrestled her glass away from her.

They were curled up on the sofa watching The Sound of Music, with the big blanket over their legs when the doorbell rang.  Mum, thinking it was carol singers, got her purse from the table.

“Lee - it’s Louise.” Mum called.

Lee felt like she’d been hit - she’d forgotten to tell her Mum about the extra ‘guests’.

Louise looked rueful.

“I can’t come to your house for Christmas dinner.” She said. “Mum says me and Debs have to eat with the family.”

“Oh...Shame!” Said Lee, hoping that her mother was too engrossed in the film to hear what Louise was saying.

“Tell your mum and dad to pop up for a sherry tomorrow.” Mum called out from the sofa.

“O.K. Auntie Cee-Cee.” Louise called.

“I’ll save you a bit of biryani too, if you like.” Mum said, passing Lee a long look.

“Oh, thanks!”

Louise went away happy and Lee went back to Julie Andrews, light of heart.

Darts

Delirious with flu the other night, I watched and enjoyed a programme about the history of televised Darts (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it).

I remember watching the competitions in the ‘80s at a time when the T.V schedules were packed with snooker, boxing and Darts and when (in our house at least) it was against the law to turn your T.V off. Well, not until the little white dot/striped lines/high-pitched whine of shut-down, appeared anyway.

I remember quite enjoying watching Darts, as a sport I found it far more interesting than football or cricket, and the documentary reminded me of how tense the finals could be. It also reminded me of how much people sneered at it (they showed that infamous ‘Not the Nine O’Clock News’ sketch where the ‘sport’ involved the number of times you raised the pint glass to your mouth). I feel that I should champion Darts because it’s very much a working class sport, with its origins in local pubs, and also because it was a sport in which women excelled.

It really bugs me that people take issue with Darts being defined as a sport. If you break down any sport, or any activity, for that matter, it seems rather simple and pointless. I don’t really ‘get’ football but I dislike the nihilistic definition of it as just a load of men kicking an inflated bladder around a field. You could say that of any activity - embroidery is just someone sticking a sharp object into some fabric to decorate it with coloured thread. Cooking is just putting some chemical components together to make something else...And so on. Do we want to be watching ‘open heart surgery’ live or something equally ‘valid’? If people find it entertaining, then it qualifies as entertainment. I know this could bring forth a barrage of comment and criticism of the dire state of T.V and the depths that people stoop to in the name of entertainment. But the point is, is that it’s all subjective, innit? We all like different things. It turns out that I could still quite happily watch a Darts match but football, car racing, and pretty much any other televised sport you could mention, make me want to curl up into a ball and hum gently with my hands over my ears (there is something about the noise of a football match or that buzz saw whine of a F1 race!)

It seems that Darts, like most sports, is a game of nerve as well as precision. Champion player, Eric Bristow (The Crafty Cockney), began to suffer from ‘Dartitis’ a condition which meant that he found it very difficult to actually let go of the dart. He saw psychiatrists and specialists but no one could help him. His then partner, fellow darts champion, Maureen Flowers (Goldfinger), suggested that he practice with someone else, he spent spent hours practicing with and coaching an up-and-coming player and the results were quite interesting.

If you fancy watching the programme there should be a link here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0287mq6

Of course, it may only be interesting to those of us doped up on Lemsip!

“It’s your job to pick things up off the floor…”

These are the words that my (almost) four-year old daughter greeted me with when I tried to encourage her to pick up the food that she had dropped on the floor;

“Mummy; it’s your job to pick things up off the floor.”

“It most certainly is not!” I protested, ponderous and plummy in my outrage.

But I must admit that I’ve been reading the book Longbourn - the reimagining of Pride and Prejudice from the servants’ point of view (a brilliant book, would highly recommend it) and have been heavily identifying with the servants. O.K. so I don’t have to render pig fat into soap or stand on the back of a moving carriage while my ‘masters’ are cosily ensconced within, but I do have to get up ridiculously early and be at the beck and call of a couple of capricious despots. Although I don’t actually get a cuff round the ear for any perceived transgression, I do suffer from many little sharp elbows in the ribs, (accidental) head butts and pokes in the eye. I am handed messy things to clean up and I an almost invisible provider of food and have to satisfy someone else’s needs before I even think about seeing to my own. In fact, as soon as I dare to sit down and try to eat or drink anything, the tyrants are already demanding more.

I don’t want this to turn into one of those whinging, when is it ‘wine-o’clock’? I am so hard-done -by posts, not really, I do realise how lucky I am to have my family, I just thought it was interesting that my daughter genuinely thought that my job was to skivvy! And I am splitting hairs here because it is me who cleans up after them but I just don’t like to hear it in black and white! ‘Your job to pick things up off the floor’ - and me a feminist and all! Perhaps she was just trying it on - she is demonically clever, maybe she was winding me up and I’m too easy to get a rise out of. She also asked me what her job was.

“Your job is to play and to learn.” I told her, wishing that we could switch jobs for a minute. “And also (futile attempt to turn things my way) to pick up the things that you’ve dropped, when I ask you to!”

Optimum Health course - part 2

Optimum Health course - part 2

So the optimum health workshop wasn’t so much about health this time and more about helping you realise your dreams. I know that sounds a bit wanky and there’s no way I can make it not. But the workshop was about planning for the future and setting tangible, measurable goals for yourself.

My god it was exhausting; not least because we were talking about what we really wanted to achieve in our lives and what we wanted to change and in the course of discussing these things we opened up about our aspirations and I found this quite exposing. To expand, I felt like a worm under a microscope at times. What did I want? What was stopping me? Had I done everything I possibly could to help me realise these dreams? (Turns out not) Why did I want it? We had to take turns in being the life coach and the client and it very much felt like therapy at points and as such, was immensely draining.

And now I’m thinking - I wish people didn’t know that I wanted to be a writer, I wish I’d just kept it to myself and quietly scribbled away…

One of the things that stops people taking risks and putting themselves out there is fear of rejection, the other is fear of failure, but I like our tutor/life coach’s analogy of watching his children learning to walk, knowing what they wanted to achieve, emulating their role models (parents and siblings) and falling over a good few times before they reached their goal.

And the moral of this story is:

You have to get on board with the fact that you will fall and you have to get back up and try again (and again).

Supersized portions Vs Superskinny Images

I saw the actor, Alex Kingston, on the Nigel Slater programme ‘Taste of my Life’, the other day. This is where food writer and chef, Slater, cooks for a celeb and talks to them about their favourite foods and childhood memories of food.  Alex Kingston had lived in the United States for a number of years and starred in the American T.V drama, E.R. She talked about going for a part in the series Desperate Housewives; she auditioned for the part that eventually went to Felicity Huffman. She, Kingston, then went on to say that she wouldn’t have fitted in on the programme as the actresses were all so thin. I paid closer attention to this - but Alex Kingston IS thin! I thought. Actress thin. How could she think that she wasn’t thin enough to appear in an American T.V programme (she’d already done E.R after all). But when you look at the poster for Desperate Housewives, you can see what she means; the actors are all tiny. The thing is that you kind of forget how skinny they are after a while because they are all very slender, they look the same; they look regular, no one stands out. Alex Kingston didn’t want to stand out. Funnily enough, I read something recently where they said that a lot of people don’t realise that they are overweight because so many people are overweight these days that when you stand next to another heavy person, you just look and feel normal. It’s all about comparisons. And some commentators are against using plus-sized models and even mannequins because they say that it is normalising of even encouraging obesity. But the thing about so-called ‘plus’ sized models is they probably aren’t obese - they are actually a healthy, ‘normal’ size.

It struck me that America, the most obese nation in the world, is responsible for drenching our culture with images of ultra-thinness. Why do we have this paradox? Why does American media, American culture present us with such an unrealistic, difficult-to-attain body ideal when America is the fattest nation in the world? Why is there such a yawning gap between the reality and the ideal?

Is this lean physique is a status symbol?  The Old Masters gave us images of plump, fleshy women as the ideal of beauty in an age when it was only rich women (and men) who could afford to be plump, and now, when obesity is predominantly a problem among the poorer sector of society (in the West, at least) beauty is represented as a starved-looking body. Who was the rich idiot who said; “You can never be too rich or too thin.”? (Was she a permanently hungry, chain-smoking, old crone with a face like a slapped arse?) I wonder why richness and thinness go hand in hand these days? Is it to separate them from the rest of us poor, flabby, plebs?

Now, I’m not saying that it is healthier to be fat, but I just find it bizarre that the Nation that has brought us the culture of Supersized fast food is also telling us (insidiously) through their visual culture, that we should be super thin.

I just did a Google search to find out the percentage of Americans who were obese. The first thing I came across was this NBC News article from this year, 2014:

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/diet-fitness/whole-world-getting-fatter-new-survey-finds-n115811

The first line reads;

“The whole world is steadily becoming more obese, a new study shows, but not surprisingly, the U.S. is No. 1.”

The U.K have got no reason to be smug about this as we are closely following on America’s coattails - in this as in everything else (see what I did there?) but at least a sizeable chunk of our U.K television reflects people as they actually are. When thinking about British television programmes with female, ensemble casts, the first thing that springs to mind is the BBC1 programme In the Club.  The actors were certainly attractive but they did not have the highly polished gleam of ‘perfection’ that you get in something like Desperate Housewives. I suppose you could argue that because Desperate Housewives was about middle class women, then they, the women, would be uber skinny, perhaps just as middle class women in America are (you only have to look at one of those raft of ‘Real Housewives of ...’ to see that. But why did the cast of Friends have to look like models? Ok, they lived in Manhattan and everyone on New York is thin, so let’s think, the most recent American comedy I’ve watched is The Mindy Project, written by and starring Mindy Kaling. I really like this show - the main character is likably fallible but she has a good job. It’s quite quirky and it has heart but isn’t overly sentimental (most of the time). The main character isn’t skeletal, neither is she huge but her weight is constantly referred to by everyone around her; she is constantly referred to as ‘chunky’ or ‘hefty’, much to the character’s disgust. It’s great to see more ‘normal’-sized women on American T.V but perhaps it would be more groundbreaking if her weight wasn’t mentioned at all.

I really don’t know the answer to this but I’m sure that far sharper minds than mine have pondered it. But why are we being force fed these bizarre, unnatural images of woman kind with a side order of jumbo fries?

The Best Laid Plans...

My plan to do a 45 minute walk to work today didn't happen, because I didn't go to work. When I tried to speak to my daughter this morning to ask her whether she needed the toilet or not (she needs constant reminding) a bullfrog croak came out. Have been coughing up nasty, meteor-sized, green rocks ever since and feeling generally crappy. The kids have gone to the grandparents (as they would have done if I'd gone to work) so I don't have to worry about trying to add authority when I whisper-hiss at the older child to stop tormenting the younger.

So, no exercise for me today and this is a real shame as it's a beautifully, sunny October day. I really should use the time to do something productive like teach myself how to touch type or work on my magnum opus. Or perhaps I'll try some of that desktop yoga that the trainer showed us how to do at the workshop last week. Hmm...I wonder if you can put desktop yoga into myfitnesspal and see how many calories you burn off doing all those shoulder rolls and foot lifts...

Putting it into Practice

Good intentions - the road to Hell is filled with them, apparently. (Bringing to mind images of missionaries, zealots and the like.) But in this day and age, good intentions are what you have on New Year’s Day; when the horrific hangover that is sitting on your shoulders like a bucket full of sewage is alleviated somewhat by the thought of detoxes, diets and 6 a.m runs, hair streaming behind you as you power through the puddles. I’m not waiting for the New Year for my optimistic, healthy make-over, I’m trying to do it now.

Following on from the Optimum Health workshop I went to the other day, I’ve been trying out a slight lifestyle overhaul....

So, er, all sounds a bit wanky, doesn’t it? If I read those words above, I probably wouldn’t want to carry on reading. As it is, I can barely bring myself to carry on writing. Perhaps it would be easier to read/write if I listed my good intentions:

1. Eat less and stop when I am full.

Seems simple enough, doesn’t it? I have to admit though that I made this really nice Thai curry the other day. As an aside, I saw someone (on Ready, Steady Cook, if you must know) saying that people like spicy food because it causes pain on your taste buds and that pain brings on a rush of pain-relieving endorphins. Cue happy feelings. Whatever, my Thai curry was delicious and I’m afraid I went back for a bit more. I ignored the receptors in my stomach that were telling me I was full, I tried to run past them, and I ate a little too much. Must. Try. Harder.

2. Exercise more and incorporate it into daily routine.

Trying to walk as much as possible - easier for me as I can’t drive. Long walk yesterday, shorter one today. Planning on walking part of the way to work tomorrow, instead of getting my second bus, thus getting a 45 minute walk in. This all depends on me leaving early enough to allow myself enough time. Notoriously tardy...But no, I will do it! I will, I tells ya, because if I do, it means I can eat more…

3. Write every day. Witness - ma blog. I did write a possible post yesterday, honest, but it was all a bit too personal and revelatory and I don’t think we’re at that stage in our relationship yet. Maybe when I get to know you a bit better. But anyway, so far so good-ish. Baby steps and all that.

Optimum Health and Well-being

So I attended this work-based, workshop yesterday - Optimum Health and Well-being. I had put my name forward for it because it sounded like a really positive thing to do; including a health assessment and a yoga session.

We don’t get many freebies in the public sector; for instance, we don’t get thanked for working hard on major projects by having a free flying lesson and helicopter ride (my other half got this in a previous job), we have to stump up for our own Christmas meal - we don’t get so much as a glass of sherry from the management. We don’t get pay bonuses or rewards and we are not, for the most part, very well paid. So, when a course comes along that seems far more about personal development and happiness, rather than work performance (though some could argue they amount to the same thing) then I for one jump at the chance at it.

I wasn’t disappointed. The workshop contained many helpful pointers regarding diet and exercise and not only that, it challenged the way you thought about those things and what obstacles you put in the way of achieving optimum health. Things like traditional attitudes towards eating were questioned (for instance the culturally passed down habit of finishing everything on your plate, even if you are full up). Also put under the spotlight were the excuses we make for not fitting exercise into our daily routine. It was outlined very early on in the day how vital good health is to us all but how much we live in the short term, rather than focus on long term repercussions. How the health system only intervenes when something has gone wrong and how we need to concentrate on preventative rather than curative measures. (I hope I haven’t breached any copyright by saying this - there was a copyright notice on the handouts) The thing is, this is all stuff we already know - common sense, but we don’t often have time to stop and think about it properly.

I loved the fact that the workshop included a yoga session - so much of office life is spent huddled quietly over a desk or wearing a hole in the carpet going back and forth if you are on a public desk (in the library for example). So it was so nice to take our shoes off and stretch out and do the deep breathing exercises (and I can feel it in my legs today so he really did make us work).

The other aspect to the course was the personal development side - where did we see ourselves in three years time? Where did we want to be? How would we go about doing this? At the risk of sounding a bit sentimental and New-agey, this was great too! One of the things that came out of it, for me personally, was that I should write every day, that I should make the time for it. Whether it be writing fiction or writing this blog, I needed to be writing something. So this is the result - another blog post the day after the previous one.

If anyone actually reads this I’d like to say - if your workplace offers a similar workshop then go for it! If nothing else, at least you get a free lunch. ;)

Richard Herring's Leicester Square Theatre Podcast

It was a wet Monday evening in October, my trousers were sticking to my legs and Leicester Square was as rammed full of tourists and revellers as it always is. We were going to watch a live recording for a podcast at Leicester Square theatre. The interviewer was comedian Richard Herring, formerly one half of double act Lee and Herring, Stewart Lee and Richard Herring were writers and performers in cult Nineties T.V programmes; Fist of Fun and This Morning with Richard, not Judy.

Herring presents of series of interviews with other comedians at the theatre and over the past couple of years the podcast have a attracted quite a following. One of the most notable interviews was his one with Stephen Fry, where the latter talked of his recent suicide attempt, (it attracted glaring headlines in the papers).  We were going to see him interview Steve Coogan. There was also a second recording with up-and-coming comedian, Sara Pascoe. (The second interview was great but I'm not going to write about it here.)

I’ve been a fan of Steve Coogan for a long time; I’ve always loved his characters Paul and Pauline Calf and, of course, Alan Partridge. I feel that I’ve sort of, not grown up with him exactly, but, grown into middle age with him. I remember laughing at the Paul Calf sketch where the character derided students for paying for a bag of chips by cheque, when I was a student myself. I remember watching Alan Partridge being dismissed and humiliated by Chris Morris’s savage newsreader character in The Day, Today. The first series of ‘I’m Alan Partridge’ set in a ‘travel tavern’ is one of my all time favourite comedy series. And I felt that he pulled off something really special and quite rare in taking his character to a successful transition from small screen to big with the film, Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa. But while I’m a fan of his comedy, I’m not a slavish devotee of the man. I’m slightly uneasy with the portrayal of him in the press (probably quite misrepresentative but all too prevailing) as a bit of a womaniser. So I went into the recording with an open mind - looking forward to it but not hopping up and down with excitement.

I wasn’t disappointed. Watching the unscripted interview was a fascinating experience; particularly considering Coogan and Herring knew each other and had collaborated in the past. (Lee and Herring toured with Steve Coogan and a group of other comedians in the early Nineties) There was a strangely intimate atmosphere; as if you could call out and ask a question yourself  (while at the same time being hyper aware that you mustn’t do this). You were not participant, merely an eavesdropper. And you got the feeling that Coogan was marginally less guarded than he would been than if he had been interviewed on National T.V. by someone like Jonathan Ross or (snigger) Alan Titsmarch. It was wonderful listening to them reminisce about their early experiences, together or with other people. But what I particularly enjoyed was Coogan talking about the character he is best known for; ‘Alan Partridge’; how he could have been a bit of an albatross but in fact he’d grown rather fond of him over the years. He found himself looking in shop windows and thinking - What would ‘Alan’ think of this? Other highlights included; him talking about the Levenson inquiry; particularly a memorable line about the humourless cross examiner saying to him (Coogan);

“Piers Morgan said he interviewed you at one of those tiresomely hip, celebrity hangouts.” To which Coogan replied, deadpan; “Chosen by him [Morgan].”

Another one was When Richard Herring said - “You’re sort of like the modern day Peter Sellers.” Coogan replied. “Well; I’m not horrible to my kids...”

I can’t really do the experience justice by trying to remember (accurately) what was said and recount it baldly here; what I would say is that it is definitely worth the £16 price tag. There were a lot of laughs and some very interesting insights and it was a unique experience.

As I said, this series of podcast interviews has attracted some big names; Russell Brand, the aforementioned Stephen Fry, Miranda Hart, Jon Ronson, Jenny Eclair, to name but a few. You can listen to prior podcasts for free or pay a small fee to watch a selection of them - well worth a pound (or however much it costs to do this.)

http://www.comedy.co.uk/podcasts/richard_herring_lst_podcast/

Gender stereotypes or the princess and the spanner

Gender Stereotypes

I recently took my daughter to a ‘Princess’ themed party at the house of one of her schoolmates. Although I feel quite uncomfortable with the whole pink princess, Barbie thing, I didn’t want my daughter to miss out on anything. She’s only been at nursery for three weeks and I thought it would offer a good opportunity for her to bond with her classmates and for me to meet the other mums (her father takes her to school every morning as it’s on his way to work and, what with my work and other commitments, I only pick her up 2-3 times a week.

The ‘Princess’ dress was optional, but again, I didn’t want her to feel left out, so I duly went (to a charity shop) and bought her a ‘Snow White’ outfit to wear. I know I’m biased but she looked beautiful in it. Where is the harm in them dressing up? I thought. They are only 3-4 years old and most little kids like dressing up.

My daughter had great fun at the party; there was a bouncy castle and a trampoline in the garden. There was lots of yummy food - a good balance of cheese, fruit, humus, breadsticks and biscuits (so not all refined sugar). The birthday girl had a fairy tale castle cake - only to be expected at a Princess party.  There were party games; pass the parcel - so far, so reliving my own childhood, even to the point where there was no main prize in the middle (I thought it was only my mum who did that!), but then there was ‘pin the wand on the fairy’. Eh? The (American) woman who organised the games said; ‘didn’t you play this game when you were little?’ We played ‘pin the tail on the donkey’, I said. I overheard her telling a parent that when she did this game with boys she did it with swords instead of wands and played ‘pin the sword on the pirate’  I was stunned. WHY this strict delineation? Why wands or swords? What was wrong with the non gender specific pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, anyway?

When I was a child I played with my brother’s toys and with my own. I’ve heard people say that

kids will play with what they want to and no amount of efforts on the part of their parents to try and channel their energies in a certain direction will affect that. ‘Girls will play with dolls and boys with play with cars’. They say, or some variation of that. But really, what chance do they have when almost every toy advert shows boys playing with cars, building blocks and things like that and girls playing with dolls! Not just any old dolls but dolls bedecked in pink, pink and more freaking pink! Either doll babies or those unrealistic, anorexic girl-child dolls. What chance do they have when their parents tell them - this game is for girls, that one is for boys?

I don’t want to slate the pleasant American woman (not the mother of the birthday girl) as she obviously put a lot of work into organising the games for the party. Perhaps she was just following her own conditioning. But I’m just crying out for a bit of balance. Yes, my daughter(unlike me) loves wearing skirts and dresses, she claims that her favourite colour is pink and sometimes tells me she doesn’t want to wear trousers as she wants to ‘look like a ladee’, but she also loves kicking up leaves, hanging upside down, climbing things, taking things apart and trying to work out (often unsuccessfully) how to put them back together again. She loves running about and getting dirty and digging around in the mud. I’ve also seen my friend’s sons rush to play with my daughter’s doll’s house when they came to play at our house. (I don’t have a problem with Doll’s Houses but we didn’t buy this particular, pink one for her) I remember my young, male cousin asking us to paint his nails when he was a small boy. Both my daughters love playing with toy cars. I don’t believe that there is something in their genetic make-up which propels them towards one toy or another. So why the constant, external pressure to choose?

Why are the toys in a lot of toy shops catergorised by gender? They often have a boys or a girls section. You can refine your search in a certain well known shopping website (the one that sells everything) into boy’s or girl’s stuff. But isn’t this denying a huge portion of the population the chance to play with something they might enjoy playing with, just because it is deemed to be a ‘girl’ or a ‘boy’s’ toy.  It makes me glad that I had an older brother and I wonder if my parents would have just bought me ‘girl’s’ toys when I was growing up.

In an age where, despite the fact that they outperform boys in their exams, there are very few girls taking up a career in the STEM (Science, technology, engineering and maths) industries, the directing of girl’s energies into toys that teach them to care for things rather than to build things, seems particularly sinister.

Footnote: I guess this might all seem a bit hypocritical considering the fact that I posted a picture of my daughter in her costume on Facebook with the caption; ‘Our little Princess’. But the fact is I don’t want to ban her from dressing like a Princess or reading books or watching films about them or playing with particular toys, I just want her to be able to dress as a pirate or a monster or a superhero too!

T.V you missed (possibly)

Two brilliant programmes have emerged from the Channel 4 stable in the last few years: Fresh Meat and My Mad Fat Diary. 

Although these programmes are aimed at a younger demographic I feel that it's a shame if middle aged codgers, like myself, miss out on them because the way they're marketed. You'd be forgiven, seeing the adverts for these programmes, for assuming that they were shallow, booze and drug-filled escapades, peopled by irritating stereotypes. In the case of Fresh Meat, this certainly seems to be the impression that the advertisers want you to have. In fact this programme is sharp, witty and occasionally poignant. It features characters helping each other through bereavements, meltdowns and dysfunctional parenting. (It also features quite a lot of drinking and drug taking but it is set at a University).

My Mad Fat Diary is a masterpiece; brilliant '90s music, credible, flawed characters and an insightful portrayal of a girl battling mental illness. Based on the real diary of Rae Earl; entitled My Mad Fat Teenage Diary, this is a masterful adaptation. They've moved the action from the late '80s to the mid '90s and this works really well. To be honest though it wouldn't matter when it was set because the themes are universal. Unfortunately teenagers, and their 'adult' counterparts, are always going to suffer from depression, insecurity, bullying and issues with weight. This programmes tackles those issues really well. It doesn't shy away from the dark themes of self-harm, homophobia, pressure to conform to a supposed ideal but it balances them carefully with humour and hope.
To be frank I watched this programme thinking "Oh my god - I am her!" Or was, to be more exact. I wish that there had been a programme like this around when I was a teenager. The second series was even darker than the first and had me gasping with fear - 'No, don't do it!' or gulping with emotion. Try and watch the bit where Archie comes out or where Rae's therapist teaches her how to like herself, without doing the latter.

A prevailing theme throughout both these shows is the importance and power of friendship. To get a bit deep about it (as if this blog isn't pretentious enough) One of the things many people battle with in modern society is alienation or disconnectedness and to watch something that gives you a sense of connection, even if that is an illusion, can't be a bad thing.

Give yourself a treat, while the weather is not so good, and cuddle up under a duvet and watch these shows on catch-up. Oh, and there are some great performances too - Jack Whitehall and Zawe Ashton in Fresh Meat, Sharon Rooney, Claire Rushbrook and Ian Hart in My Mad Fat Diary to name but a few.

But seriously

But seriously...

A while ago I posted the following comment on Facebook:

Remember how embarrassed we all were when those adverts for 'masculine hygiene' wash came out, promoting a wash for a man's intimate area? The product was called 'Penisil', remember that? No, of course you don't because such a thing doesn't exist! But the fact that such a product does exist and is promoted for women shows the inherent misogyny in our society.

It got a few 'likes' and a couple of comments. My sentence structure looks a bit off; the last line probably should read 'the misogyny, inherent in out society'. It was a jokey comment but I was making a serious point; about the insidious misogyny which pervades our culture and seems designed to keep women...where? In our place? On our toes? Wrong footed from the off. Of course it's not that simple. Of course advertising, or if we care to get political about it, capitalism, exists to create false needs for things you didn't even realise you needed, things you didn't realise were a problem in the first place. It exists to sell, sell, sell.  It's in industry's interests to make you think that you stink - otherwise you'd never buy deodorant. But if you are a woman, it seems that mere soap and water and deodorant aren't enough. You need a special wash, especially for your 'intimate area'.  Basically, you are possession of the most toxic, dangerous and foul thing known to the human race - the vagina! The euphemisms or pseudonyms for this part of your body constitute the worst swear word in the English language, the worst insult you can throw at a man! (At a man, no less, if thrown at a woman, then your whole identity is encompassed, swallowed up, almost, by this one body part.) You have to buy these extra products to ensure that you don't stink up the playground, the workplace or the bedroom. And if a similar product exists for a man (someone I know suggested the name 'Ballsisil') then I've never seen the advertising for it.

I'm not sure if this sounds like the paranoid ramblings of a humourless, jack-boot wearing feminist or not. (I proudly admit to be a boot wearing feminist, not sure exactly what jack-boots actually are...) But I have a huge bug-bear about this issue. What issue? What can I call it? The demonisation of the vagina? The power of the mighty 'V'? At least the C-word is recognisably offensive, blunt, coarse, harsh. What I find more disturbing is the fact that the term 'douche' has become an acceptable, almost cosy and innocuous seeming slur. It's come over from across the pond of course, as so many things do. But many British people use it all the time now. And what is a douche? Well the proper interpretation would be that it is the French word for 'shower' but when employed by English speaking folk it is taken as short hand for douche-bag; a 'feminine hygiene' product for cleaning the vagina. All kinds of wrong. (Have just looked it up to check my facts and apparently this process is not recommended as it has been linked to cervical cancer, pelvic inflammatory disease, endometritis, and increased risk of sexually transmitted infections - not sure about the veracity of these claims but it doesn't really sound like a good thing all round!) Crucially, this is a product that, again, convinces you of your dirtiness (although it probably started out as an unsuccessful contraceptive device). It is now a buzzword to indicate that someone is an odious, obnoxious piece of human waste material - not just any old human waste material, female waste material! The worst kind.