The Missing Piece

I’ve been compelled to write about my experience of depression. Here it is below.

At the age of sixteen this thing crept up on me and it felt like someone had come along with an axe and chopped my feet away from beneath me. Then, with that same weapon, they had hacked a triangle out of my outline. That was exactly what it felt like; both that the whole world had shifted on its axis and that something vital was missing. And yet, nothing had happened - there was no *external reason for feeling like this, but I was simply floored by depression. This depression wasn’t just immense sadness, it also comprised almost constant panic, I feared that I was going mad. Nothing felt safe, the sky was going to fall in any minute, the ground was dissolving and I couldn’t get a toehold, I was slipping away with all the cascading debris.

What this actually meant was I could be sitting at a table, talking to somebody but would then tune out and see myself, as if from above, looking down at this figure - who was she? (This, apparently is dissociation - I didn’t know the word then). I had a terrible world view: everything was shit; we were all doomed, there was no kindness anywhere.  (It didn’t help that we were covering the rise of Hitler in ‘A’ level history, at the time!). A sympathetic teacher put it succinctly - ‘You are seeing the world through shit-tinted glasses’. Yes, Mr. T, you will probably never read this but yes I was!

What made it worse was that I didn’t feel that I had a right to these feelings.! What right had I to feel depressed when I had a roof over my head, enough to eat, good friends, was lucky enough to be able to pursue my education? I wasn’t a displaced victim of war, I wasn’t being raped by soldiers, I lived in a country with a welfare state.  The knowledge of this compounded my depression - how much worse to feel that I was being self-indulgent, narcissistic, solipsistic (I feel all of those things in writing this post, actually!) The point was though, it wasn't a deliberate thing, I didn’t want to feel like this, I didn’t choose it - I couldn’t ‘pull myself together’, I was unravelling.

I searched for the missing piece constantly; I looked through old photos to see if I could find it there. I had my iron levels tested - perhaps there was a physical reason for this malaise? I had just turned vegetarian, maybe I just needed iron tablets.

Suicide seemed seductive - an end to the pain, if it got that bad then perhaps I could just check out? I sat in a travel agent with some family and friends and booked a holiday for seven months into the future; wondering if I’d still be around in seven months.

The only thing that helped at the time was that I had a group of amazing friends and we went out all the time. I know that this doesn’t fit with the traditional picture of the depressed teenager, sitting alone in their room all the time, but it was how I coped. I had to keep constantly busy, always doing something, always occupied; anything that would take me away from myself. And the great thing about these friends was; I didn’t have to pretend to be ‘normal’ with them and I didn’t have to pretend to be happy. It’s not that we didn’t have any laughs - we did! We went to gigs, we went to pubs, we went to seedy little house parties (I haven’t just stolen the plot of ‘The Perks of being a Wallflower’, this was what our lives were like too - only in much smaller houses!). We reeked of joss sticks and patchouli oil, we listened to great music and talked about how shit our home town was (again, seems like it was stolen from a film). I wonder now whether these friends saved my life. If nothing else, they certainly alleviated the feeling of acute isolation. But I still needed to talk to someone about the depression - I was still desperate to locate that missing piece; it’s absence was felt every time I was on my own. I went to the doctor, hoping that she would refer me for some counselling, I came away with a prescription for diazepam and anti-depressants. I didn’t realise that diazepam was the trade name for valium but I did know that it was addictive so I ended up flushing the tablets down the toilet. For someone who often dealt (deals) with things by eating too much, getting pissed and/or stoned, this was quite a wise move. I’d like to give my sixteen year old self - look at her there with her thick eyebrows, sullen expression and love-beads, a pat on the back for this. I was self-destructive, but this was an act of self-preservation. This is no judgement on anyone who has even taken valium and certainly not (a judgement) on someone who takes anti-depressants, but they weren’t the right thing for me. The right thing for me was therapy, I wanted to talk to someone, and I finally sought it out (and could afford it) eleven years later, aged 27.

*I said that there was no external reason/cause for my depression, I discovered that there actually was, but I’m not going to talk about it here.

What I am going to talk about is what therapy has done for me. If you are the sort of person who wants to see visible, tangible results then I will give you a concrete list of the benefits.

So, there I was, 27 years of age, not actually depressed anymore but in a state of arrested development:

1. I had a long term boyfriend but was still living at home with my Mum - lovely as she is, this was not a great situation for either of us. After less than a year of therapy, I finally moved out. (and lived happily ever after in a thatched cottage by the sea….ha, ha, ha.)
2. My first job after leaving university was a part-time position in a clothes shop! I constantly undersold myself, thought that I was crap at everything and took jobs that I was overqualified for. I let other people undervalue me too - the manager at the shop used to tell me that i was lazy-minded!

O.K. so these days I am overqualified for the job that I am doing but the difference is that now I recognise this and it is actually a deliberate choice. (believe it or not, dear reader, I wanted to free up more time and headspace to write - and look at how well that turned out…)

3) When people said negative things to me, I believed them wholeheartedly.

Now, most of us get shit thrown at us in our lives and are perhaps told that we are: fat, ugly, weird, lazy-minded, useless, stupid!  The difference is that if you are coming from the point of extreme low self-esteem, perhaps even self-loathing, you are less able to shrug it off, see it for it is (THEIR problem and NOT yours; they are probably projecting their own issues onto you and lack the self-awareness to see it). If you don’t have a core feeling of self-belief or even a zen like absence of ego then you tend to internalise all the negativity. If you have good self-esteem then you can mostly just ignore it and move one.

Post therapy - I’m working on it!

4) I thought of marriage as a kind of a death!

Now my life is like living in a puffy, marshmallow cloud of a Mills n Boon novel… ;)

5) I never wanted to have kids because I thought that I would make the worst mother in the world.

Hmmm - still struggle with this a bit and feel like the worst mother but sometimes look at the children, acknowledge that perhaps it’s not all down to their brilliant Dad and maybe am not doing such a bad job after all. The point is that, as someone who is still going to counselling, at least I have someone (non-judgemental, qualified, unrelated) to talk to about it.

The sort of therapy that I go in for is long term, psychodynamic. My counsellor is a Freudian practitioner. I found her by writing to the British Association of Counselling: http://www.bacp.co.uk/

Therapy/counselling is expensive but most practitioners work on a sliding scale; where they take your salary into account and charge you accordingly. You might be able to get a referral from a sympathetic G.P. for some free counselling. This will mainly be for short term counselling, possibly for C.B.T. (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy - works for some, not all).

You also have to be receptive to it, to work at it and be prepared to feel like an open wound sometimes - buy a pair of sunglasses.

Of course there are the Samaritans:

http://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help-you?gclid=CjwKEAiAo7C2BRDgqODGq5r38DsSJAAv7dTPOajMafInRaHvlWBTXoUCalAlRQdFiwXMq7sFxosrYhoCCnHw_wcB

There is NO SHAME in seeking out counselling - if you had a sports injury, you wouldn’t see anything amiss in seeing a physiotherapist so why not see a therapist if you are feeling consistently unhappy.

Why am I writing this now? Dunno really, maybe I am feeling a bit down - I still do feel like that from time to time but it’s never as bad or as long lasting as that first time (which lasted for about a year and gradually lifted). Perhaps I just needed to see how far I had come. Publishing this does feel like an exposure but, as I writer, I think that you owe it to yourself and to your imaginary reader to be honest.

This post is kind of a paen to therapy but please don’t think that I look askance at anyone for coping by using medication - whatever works best for you! I’ve become a bit of an armchair psychologist over the years and have read that if you are an introvert (like me) then you are more likely to suffer from depression (if you suffer with anything psychological) and be more comfortable with examining your feelings. If you are an extrovert, then you may be more likely to suffer from panic attacks, be less comfortable with discussing feelings and seek an external solution.

In no particular order, here are some good books, T.V and films on the subject:

Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married by Marian Keyes - yes, a chick-lit book but with the most accurate description/depiction of depression (my experience of it, anyway!) that I have ever read.

My Mad, Fat Diary - book and T.V series, both are ace. A young woman who has spent some time in a psychiatric ward; dealing with body issues, mental illness and family strife.

Inside Out  - yes, I do mean the Disney Pixar film! How do Pixar do it? They deal with heavyweight themes with more sensitivity and alacrity than most adult films.

How to be Happy: Lessons from Making Slough Happy By Liz Hoggard. It only really scratches the surface but it’s a start.

Families and how to survive them - by John Cleese and Robin Skynner

Anyway, I don’t know about you but I’m exhausted now! Well done if you persevered with this until the bitter end. Go away and reward yourself with a hot drink, give yourself a hug and be reassured that you are not alone.

The Weighty Issue: Part Two. Goal Weight nearly reached

I hesitated before posting this. It all seems a bit narcissistic (but then again, this is a Blog, what do you expect?) But it’s all a bit

“Look at me, look at me! - I’ve lost weight!!”

(But, honestly; have you seen me? I have lost weight! ;)).

I’m not skinny now and I don’t have this toned, buff body but I am now comfortably within the ‘healthy’ range of the BMI charts, which was my goal. If you want facts and figures then I’ve lost nearly two stone since January.

Why am I writing about it? Is it that important in the great scheme of things? Probably not, particularly as I detest body fascism (or fascism of any kind, for that matter). I really don’t like the way in which your worth, especially if you are female, is tied up with how much space you take up or how much flesh oozes over the top of your jeans. But weight isn’t just about aesthetics, is it, it is also about health. According to NICE In 2007, the direct cost of obesity to the NHS was £2.3 billion and the direct cost of being overweight, but not obese, was £1.9 billion (Foresight tackling obesities: Future choices).

A more recent estimate of the direct cost to the NHS in 2006/07 of people being overweight and obese was £5.1 billion.

So I thought I would share how I reduced my weight, and a couple of the positive side effects of being more active, just in case anyone else was interested in doing the same thing.

People are a bit brutal about the whole weight thing aren’t they? They say; it’s just calories in vs calories out, as if any of us who are overweight are just plain stupid. Move a bit more, eat a bit less, they say, but again, it is getting the motivation to do this and doing it in such a way that doesn’t feel as if you are going to be living the rest of life as some kind of ascetic; wearing hair shirts, drinking tepid water and eating nothing but raw kale. In the past I have just given up on the whole attempting to reduce my weight thing, citing the ‘you only live once and I want to enjoy my life’ ethos as an excuse for abandoning the diet. (A quick word about the word diet here, I hate it and avoid it at all costs. I do believe that traditional ‘dieting’ makes you fat and as soon as you tell yourself that you are on a diet, you will unconsciously try to sabotage yourself as an act of rebellion...Or, is that just me?)

You may think that I’m being disingenuous here and that there is no way to lose weight without being on a ‘diet’. And, yes, I have lost weight partly through eating less, but I don’t consider what I did and am still doing to be a diet, not in the traditional sense. I ate/still eat the same food, just less of it. I do try and stick to a daily calorie limit and I do eat relatively healthily but I also have the odd bit of chocolate and glass or two of wine (two of my favourite things in the world), just probably less than I used to. And if I eat toast, I’ll have one slice instead of two (but I do have butter on it - meticulously weighed out). So that whole - ‘eat a bit less, move a bit more thing’ can be ever so slightly expanded upon in my case in that:

1. I did and still do lots and lots of walking
2. I did and still do Calorie counting

Firstly, the walking:

Walking is brilliant: it’s free, you don’t get (terribly) sweaty and you don’t need any fancy equipment. It’s good if you can monitor how much you are doing. I got myself a Fitbit tracker* and aim to do 10,000 steps a day. I usually meet my goal; even if it means stomping around our tiny living room for half an hour, avoiding perilously placed toys and children’s hands as I go. Whether you are hiking around the lakes, walking along a dual carriageway or moving from living room to kitchen and back again in an endless loop (like a caged polar bear) you are still moving and it still counts (despite the fact that my husband says it’s cheating). You know those patronising magazine articles, where they tell you that perhaps you should try and make small changes and get off a bus stop earlier to build more exercise in your life, I think that it would be more realistic if they told you to get off four stops earlier, or skip a bus journey all together.

*other fitness trackers are available.

The calorie counting:

I used and still use an online calorie counting ap (I’m sure you know the one I mean but I won’t do their advertising for them). The great thing about the fitness tracker is that it syncs in with the calorie diary thingy and tells you how many calories you’ve earned through exercise. So you know exactly how many calories you can eat. This panders to the anally retentive part of me that loves to be in control and know exactly what I’m dealing with, it’s far more accurate than thinking - oh yeah, I walked to the shops, how long did it take? Was it fast or slow pace? And trying to add it manually to the food diary. You might think that this calorie counting spoils your enjoyment of food but I have found that, for the most part, it is helpful to know that you can happily dig into that jacket potato with gay abandon and know that you still have enough calories left for your dinner later on in the day. I’m not saying that I never feel hungry but then being hungry isn’t so scary and helps enhance your enjoyment of your next meal. (I’m fully aware that I sound rather sanctimonious here, so sorry, but our society is geared towards us eating and consuming constantly and never experiencing hunger which is very unhealthy!)

So anyway, this combination worked for me; try it, don’t try it, it’s up to you. We all know that exercise is good for us. My other half wears the fitness tracker too and his blood pressure has gone down since he’s been using it. I find that I sleep better and find it easier to destress. So, just as weight is not just about appearance, exercise isn’t just about losing weight. (Again, apologies for the sanctimony, bit hard to write about weight loss without it.)

Now that I’ve lost weight, can I now bear seeing photographs of me and do I now feel happier and more confident in my own skin? No! Now my insecurities have found myriad other channels, but that’s another issue, right, just focus on the partner’s lowered blood pressure and my better sleep!

NOTE: I am very well aware though that this weight loss is only significant if I can maintain it, so come back and see me this time next year, where, hopefully I won’t be looking like the librarian from the Blade films.‘bye…

Amy

I saw Amy - Asif Kapadia’s documentary about Amy Winehouse, last week and I can’t stop thinking about it. Her songs have also been playing in a constant loop in my head ever since

The film is a fascinating portrait of a young woman with an enormous musical gift who gradually spiralled into self destruction.  It was horrifying to watch the transition of this outrageously talented, bright-eyed person into a tiny, haunted little husk.

When they announced the death of Winehouse in 2011, I remember remarking, rather callously, along with most people, that it wasn’t a great surprise. By then she had become a notorious, cartoonish figure of excess. Her relationship with Blake Fielder-Civil was highly publicised; as was his imprisonment for drug possession. Footage of her, seemingly doped out of her head on drugs and drink was everywhere and she had become a figure of ridicule and censure. We all thought we knew her; knew all about her and the public exposure had reached saturation point.

What the film did, for me, though was to redraw the lines and show the human being behind the headlines, trite as that sounds. The film humanised Amy Winehouse.

The documentary has been both vilified and lauded by the critics, some saying that it is as bad as all the paparazzi coverage, rolled into one, others declaring it a masterpiece. Mitch Winehouse, Amy’s father, has disowned the film.

I didn’t feel that the film was voyeuristic. Rather; it actually reminded us of just how talented Amy was; what a unique singing voice she had and how intelligent she was (this last point definitely didn’t come across in later interviews - due in part to the fact that she was so self-effacing, quite aside from any chemical intervention).

There is no voice-over in the film, the filmmaker, Asif Kapadia, has already displayed his unique documentary making style in the award-winning film, Senna. It is largely made up of home video footage, off-screen interviews with friends and family and snippets of chat show appearances and live performances. It begins with a home video of fourteen-year old Amy at a friend’s birthday; all of them licking lollipops, fresh faced and mischievous. All is standard teenage fare, until they sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to their friend and Amy swiftly overshadows the others with her enormously rich, deep voice. Cue her friend going cross-eyed with a comedy ‘Oh god, look at her; showing off again!’ expression.

And, boom! This is the first glimpse of Amy, the ‘normal’ human being with an abnormal talent.

Early on someone asks her how she feels about the prospect of being famous, you get a chill down your spine as she replies;

“Oh God, I’d hate it; I think I’d go crazy!”

Young Amy explains how all the music when she was growing up was bland and derivative, all about people singing songs that someone else had written for them, so that’s when she started listening to the jazz greats. Bizarrely, I had forgotten, in amongst all the tabloid circus, that Amy played the guitar and wrote her own songs.

Amy Winehouse had such a distinctive sound and look that it would be all too easy to assume that she’d be styled by some Svengali figure in the background but here you are reminded of someone who made their own clothes and created their own, distinctive ‘look’. She seemed so strong and definite - so sure of what music she wanted to make, so how did she get annihilated? For me, this is the great paradox about Amy Winehouse; how could someone so intelligent and unique, spiral into a state of oblivion? Just fade away? I don’t know how much I personally pay into the trope of the tortured artist - too talented, too unique to live in this world. Here was somebody who seemed to be totally uncompromising, in her music and appearance, but who was dwindling away to nothing, literally, with her bulimia she was shrinking before our eyes. At the beginning of the documentary she looks relatively healthy (although, from what her mother says, her eating disorder had already kicked in by then) and by the end she is this tiny little husk of a woman. What her mother is heard saying in the documentary is; “Amy came to me and said - ‘Mum; I’ve discovered this great diet - I just eat whatever I want, then I make myself sick afterwards.”! Towards the end of the documentary, Amy’s doctor tells us that the Bulimia had weakened Any’s heart and it was this, in addition to alcohol poisoning, that had killed her. Many still assume that Amy Winehouse died of a drug overdose. Early on in the film, Amy’s mother says that Amy used to say to her; “Mum - you’re too soft, you should be more strict with us.” And you very much get the feeling that this is someone who has grown up without any boundaries in her life. Her mother said she assumed that the bulimia was a phase that would pass and, to be fair to her, I’m sure their are plenty of parents who intervene more in their children’s lives, who are unable to cure them of their eating disorders, but it did feel like one more thing that had gone on unchecked.

When Blake Fielder-Civil came into the frame, I felt the same, self-righteous flames of indignation I had felt, years ago, when learning about Sid and Nancy and Kurt and Courtney. The nasty villain comes onto the scene, introduces the talented genius to drugs and ruins their lives. Amy seemed to have been completely obsessed with the man and he comes across as a free-loading arse. But, if it hadn’t been him (who had introduced her to crack-cocaine and heroin) would it have just been someone else? Was she a person with a sense of emptiness who was always seeking something to fill the void? Someone who would have sought out and been attracted to other ‘tortured souls’?

It is understandable that Amy’s father has disowned the film; he certainly comes across as the villain of the piece - the man who stopped her going into rehab when her friends and former manager, Nick Shymansky, were desperate for her to go. An interviewee tells us that Mitch Winehouse said that she couldn’t go into rehab at that time as she had to go on tour. Those same self-righteous flames flare up again at this point.

A friend of mine met and spent some time with Amy Winehouse and said that she came across as a child who needed someone to say ‘no’ to her. Indeed, her song rehab; the song that propelled her into superstardom, provided her own gloomy epitaph.

At least the films reminds us that Amy was so much more than the drugs and the promiscuity and the husband in prison; it shows us the young woman with the huge, bright intelligent eyes; playful and charismatic; playing her guitar and listening to jazz. The woman with the incredible voice.

Taking the Heat

Here we are in Summer! Not just any old Summer but a proper, sun-filled Summer where there is gleeful talk of heat waves (or ominous warnings; depending which news reports you listen to) and you can’t move for painted toenails and hairy knees (not usually on the same person).  So, I thought that I’d add to the general slew of comparison lists by adding my own.  A list of PROs and CONs.

When I was a child, the Summer holidays seemed to billow out before me like a vast, circus marquee; bulging with the promise of possible delights and adventure (perhaps I read too much Enid Blyton). Nowadays, at the first hint of yellow, my first instinct is panic; mainly consisting of ‘What the f**k am I going to wear?’ ‘How on earth am I going to keep myself and the kids cool?’ ‘Will I ever find a deodorant that I have full confidence in?’

First World concerns, and this is very much a First World concerns kinda list, so apologies in advance.

If you are the sort of person who sees only the positive in Summer - a flip-flop wearing sun-worshipper, then stop reading now. If, for you, (like me) Summer carries any kind of ambiguity, then read on.

PROS	CONS
Ice-cream The biggest and the best Pro - do I even need to qualify it? The appeal of ice-cream doesn’t pall with age; if anything, it increases. What day is not made infinitely better by the addition of one of these cold little lovelies?	BBQs Yeah - I’m a miserable killjoy for saying this, right? But honestly - burnt meat, eaten in scorching heat. Or, in my case, some begrudgingly purchased veggie burgers - lodged betwixt a flabby white roll; a roll so bland that you might as well be eating a balled up, worn sports sock. Socks lead me neatly on to my next PRO:
2) Fewer socks, clogging up the washing machine due to heightened sandal/flip-flop wearing.	Blisters - caused by said sandals until you develop a hard layer of Hobbit skin on your feet.
3) After work drinks! These usually start earlier if you have an understanding boss.	*Every f**ker in the beer garden unrepentantly blows their smoke all over you. ‘This is OUR domain!’ Their defiant stares say. *As an ex smoker, I reserve the right to be a sanctimonious clot.
4) Open carriage rides?? Actually, I’m messing with you here - I’ve never done this but I like the IDEA of it. 5) ICE Every drink is improved by the addition of ice, and I mean EVERY: Pimms, wine, cider, mixers, soft drinks, milkshakes, water, beer (yeah, I said beer!), coffee. The list goes on and on. And ice makes a beautiful, clinking, shattery sound as it melts. So, lets end this (very short) list on a positive - Cheers!	Public transport: The smell of B.O which is pumped out of the air vents by TFL does nothing to enhance the experience, I’d like to propose a more refreshing smell; something citrusy perhaps.

Comedy, politics and Immigration

I watched one of those list programmes the other night; Britain's Funniest Comedy Characters. The show was a repeat and I’d definitely seen it before, but something that was said struck a chord. They were talking about the character of ALF GARNETT from Till Death do us Part. The actor who played Garnett, Warren Mitchell, said that the show’s writer, Johnny Speight, based the character of Garnett on his own grandfather: an apparently impoverished, working class man who revered the Royal family and persisted in voting Tory all his life. Warren Mitchell related an incident that showed that many people simply didn’t get the joke (of Till Death do us Part) but saw Garnett as the mouthpiece for their own racist views (much as people seem to do with Al Murray’s Pub Landlord character these days). Someone went up to Mitchell at a football match and said “I love it when you have a go at the c**ns”. To which Mitchell replied; “we’re not, we’re having a go at idiots like you!”

This brought home to me two things; one, the old conundrum of why working class people continue to vote against their own interests. Secondly it illuminated the problem with satirical comedy characters; sometimes people identify with them, rather than laugh at them. To me, Alf Garnett’s rants against ethnic minorities reinforced the cynical morality of the politicians, exploiting racial tensions or sectarian divides, for their own ends. I was reminded of the conservatives, telling the Protestants in Ireland that ‘Home Rule would mean Rome Rule’ at the turn of the 20th century. Also the outrageous slogan of the Tories in 1960s Birmingham - ‘If you want a n***er for a neighbour, vote Labour’! And of course, all of this brings us very neatly onto UKIP. Now, I’m not claiming that society rolls along on a great big wave of love and harmony until the evil politician starts to stir things up. But I am saying that some of them will highlight and exploit any nascent discord to serve their own ends. What this seems to boil down to is diverting attention away from big business and banker’s bonuses and onto the person next door who doesn’t look the same as them or who talks funny or whose cooking smells strange. Like drama, comedy often reflects society (unless we’re talking about The Mighty Boosh)  - we laugh at the familiar. Alf Garnett would have been (and arguably still is) a very familiar character.

As a child I watched one of the many reruns of Steptoe and Son. I have a lot of respect for this programme; I enjoyed watching Harold’s tragi-comic attempts at refinery and his father’s determined acts of sabotage. The acting was impeccable and the writing pithy. One of the jokes in one particular episode, though, made me uncomfortable;

“They’re saying It’s an Indian Summer.” Harold said, mopping his brow.

“Well, there’s enough of them over here!” His father recounted. Cue big laugh from the studio audience.

This wasn’t subtlety and the audience were laughing along with Steptoe senior, rather than with the joke of his wilful misunderstanding of the meaning of ‘Indian Summer’. (I didn’t get it either, I was only twelve). All I knew was that it played into that squeezing intolerance that was part of daily life at the time. This was confirmed when one of the boys at school repeated the ‘joke’ to his friend as if was the height of hilarity. And really, it is difficult to argue with that kind of bigotry - the ‘go back to where you came from’ kind of thinking. It’s kind of galling to get a curveball of it from a comedy show, though (remember this wasn’t Till death do us Part) and hear it approved of by the multitude.

Bringing it back to politics, why did ALF GARNETT’s forerunner, Johnny Speight’s grandfather, vote for the party which (arguably) least represented his interests? A party which represented the views and interests of the people who had a lot more money than him? Why do people still do that now? When I was growing up (in a predominantly white, working class neighbourhood) why did the parents of my school friends vote Tory? Did they ever really think that they would one day earn enough money to make the (implied) threat of taxation under a Labour government hit them where it hurted? Does it all boil down to whether you own your own business (or the means of production) or is it because the Left are perceived to be the more inclusive, racially tolerant party (that some people don’t want)? Perhaps this oversimplifies the problem - probably because I’m not well informed enough when it comes to politics. Let’s bring things back to comedy.

What of the other comedy characters - who did they vote for?

Harry Enfield’s Loadsamoney - definitely Tory

DELBOY and RODNEY from Only Fools and Horses - hmmmm...Well the former saw himself as an entrepreneur so maybe he voted blue but Rodders had a bit of social conscience, didn’t he? So maybe Labour for him.

The posh folk from To the Manor Born  - Tory, obvs.

Citizen Smith - did he vote or was he an anarchist?

Alan Partridge - hmm...Maybe New Labour in the ‘Cool Britannia’ era of the ‘90s before moving on to his natural home of the Tories. Would he be UKIP now? Scary thought, but he does bear more than a passing resemblance to Mike Read...Perhaps I’ll have to contact Steve Coogan about this one and see what he says; I’m sure he’d be happy to answer such an important question.

PATSY and EDDIE from Ab Fab - see Alan Partridge re Cool Britannia. Now? Apathy?

I’m getting a bit bored with this list now; feel free to add to it or compile your own one.

But I’m talking about ancient comedies, aren’t I? From the 1970s and before. What of today’s clowns - do they hold a mirror to society or do they reflect the somewhat questionable views of their creators? And of course the tricky thing with criticising anything in comedy, which seems a bit dubious, is that you can be accused of simply not getting the joke, or, even worse, not having a sense of humour.

Little Britain has come under fire for perpetuating stereotypes; with its cast of caricatures and grotesques. I never found it offensive, personally (although of course this is highly subjective) and I certainly don’t feel that any of their characters could be used as a champion for someone else’s bigotry. Would anyone have wanted to identify with the dreadful W.I woman who vomited on anyone who didn’t conform to her very view of acceptable society? Of course, Little Britain is a sketch show rather than a sitcom.

Citizen Khan has received criticism for perpetuating stereotypes and for being like a 1970’s comedy (hopefully they mean in its broadness, rather than racial stereotypes. (I can’t really comment as I’ve only ever seen about ten minutes of it. The difference of course is that the show is written by (the younger) members of the community it represents and thus purports to be gently mocking rather than derisive.

In conclusion? Gosh, it’s taken me so long to write this and it still feels like a messy, sprawling stream of consciousness! O.K. In conclusion, I feel that it is lazy writing to play into the hands of the politicians and wheel out a loud of ill-informed stereotypes that other people can latch onto as either mouthpieces or scapegoats. (Owen Jones accuses comedy of doing this with working class stereotypes, in his book Chavs, in the case of Harry Enfield’s WAYNE and WAYNETTA SLOB and the Little Britain character, VICKY POLLARD. But that is another subject and if I get into that as well this post will be even longer than it is!)

If you have persevered with this to the end, then thank you very much!

Books for the girls (that aren't about Princesses)

International Women's day just happens to coincide with me trying to think about books for young children with strong female role models. My list is quite patchy as, to my shame, there are some seminal children's books that I've never got around to reading, but these are the first five that came to mind. Feel free to add, to disagree or wade in with your comments:

1) Lightning Lucy - Jeremy Strong

I got this book out of the school library when I was a child of around 8 or 9 and read it again and again. I remember it as being funny and having a really cool central character.

Lucy makes doorstep sandwiches, has special powers and she saves people. I loved her and wanted to be her.

2) Sophie from Howl's Moving Castle - Diana Wynne Jones

The character of Sophie is not fearless, more the reluctant hero, insecure but brave, triumphing over adversity (along with the rather vain Howl of the title). It’s also my favourite Studio Ghilbli film - definitely worth a watch. It’s quite a bizarre story really and that’s what I like about it - you can’t second guess what’s going to happen next.

3) The Paper Bag Princess - by Robert Munsch and Michael Martchenko

Thanks for telling me about this one,TH (if, by rare chance, you happen to be reading this) this features a Princess, admittedly, but she is a strong, brave and intelligent one who outwits the dragon and, *spoiler alert*, rescues the Prince. He is profoundly ungrateful and undeserving of her efforts. The last line of the book is priceless.

4) Emily Brown and the Thing by Cressida Cowell and Neal Layton

One for very young children. The eponymous heroine goes on nocturnal adventures with her friend Stanley (a toy rabbit). The 'thing' in the title of this book is a monster who keeps Emily Brown and Stanley awake with his constant crying. I like this one because Emily Brown has short hair, is fairly grumpy and outspoken and seems very brave.

5) George from the Famous Five series by Enid Blyton.

I was wary of including this one for obvious reasons (the dubious racial and class stereotypes that abound in her books for a start). But George is feisty, fearless and a counterpoint to the milksop, Ann. Ann likes making house and George wishes she was a boy. Rather outrageous polar opposites but if I was going to identify with anyone , as a child, it would be bad-tempered, sulky tomboy George, rather than bland, pathetic Ann. When I read a hatchet job biography of Blyton, I discovered that she identified with George too.

Of course there are many, many ones of missed and this is an entirely arbitrary list but it’s one that is a work in progress really because I want to find lots more inspirational girls for my girls to read about.

Note - I didn’t include Jo from Little Women because I find the whole tone of that book rather sanctimonious.