Bless you, Amy Winehouse

I don't care what anyone says, Amy Winehouse off her face is better than nearly any other singer alive playing with a full deck.

I just watched a video of her performance at the MOMO awards last week. Yes, she was wasted; yes, she looked like a juvenile rabbit trapped in the headlights; no, you couldn't really make out a word she was singing, but boy, has the girl got a set of lungs and the phrasing of an angel.

We need a great British soul/jazz singer like her. She's a rarity.

At the risk of sounding like a tabloid or Perez Hilton, I hope she gets the appropriate help soon.

Happy Birthday to me!

Yes, another birthday passes by. I should mind more than I do, if what I read in the papers is to be believed. There's a whole industry of 'lifestyle journalism' which would have you believe that every woman worthy of the name starts hitting the gym when they hit forty, as well as upping the expenditure on face and body treatments. The consensus is that ageing is a problem; something to be worried about. Well, I am here to tell you that it ain't necessarily so.

I am getting older. There you are. It's that simple. No amount of pounding the treadmill and hundred quid face cream or weekly facials is going to change that. As I get older my body gets less gorgeous, my face gets more interesting, and my mind improves. It's FACT. And you know what? In acceptance is liberty. Now I am more admired for my wit and my intelligence than for my looks, although my husband still thinks I'm a hot chick (well, hen), and his opinion is the only one I care about on that front. I've always liked that people get more interested in me as they talk to me and not less. I like targeting someone who hasn't noticed me at a party, buttonholing them and trying to fascinate. Doesn't always work, but gives me a hell of a kick when it does.

Things I like about getting older:

1. I'm not dead. As Woody Allen once said, "Getting older isn't so bad when you consider the alternative."
2. I don't have to pretend to like things because they're cool. When I told a class of kids that I love grammar, one looked sympathetic and said "Do you have a sad life?" I told him I didn't think so , but he might consider my life sad. How much do I care about the opinion of a 15 year-old? How much should a grown-up care?
3. I don't have to do ANYTHING because other people will sneer at me if I don't. I don't go on fairground rides, because I don't like them. I can admit that I never liked going to clubs. I hate sport; doing and watching.
4. I don't look up to stupid people. Kate Moss, Paris Hilton, Elizabeth Hurley (especially her - stupid cow), P Diddy and their ilk. Dumb, dumb, dumb and dumb. Not even pretty because they look so stupid.
5. I don't look up to, or envy, rich people. Don't get the whole Times Rich List thing. Who cares and why? Maybe I'm happier than most.
6. I don't aspire to be anything except a better me. I don't think anyone is my better and I don't think I am anyone's better.
7. I can like Billy Joel.
8. I have interesting friends.
9. I have a historical perspective on the news and can discriminate between informed reporting and uninformed reporting.
10. I don't get alarmed by food or health scares because I know the reverse will be proven within 5 years.

Life's sweet, even if my waistline's thickening.

SBO

There was a discussion on the radio this morning about the pay gap which exists between men and women.

At one point the interviewer asked the two panellists with some puzzlement something like the following: "Why is it that men whose partners become pregnant are not treated with the same suspicion at work that pregnant women are?"

To their credit they didn't laugh in her face.

Could it possibly be because men don't have babies? Sometimes the perception that the world should be a certain way overrides the common sense and blinds people to the fact that, actually, it isn't.

Memo to self: Don't listen to bollocks about the injustice meted out to women. It just makes you cross.

Oh, SBO, for those of you who don't know, stands for Stating the Bleeding Obvious.

September

Any home with school age children considers September at least an important an annual new beginning as January. For us it's even more so, especially this year when Daughter has just started secondary school a year early in Year 6, Son is now cock of the family walk alone in his old school, and Mum starts a new year with double the timetable in a third school. I haven't been near the computer to check email, let along blog.

Two thirds into the month I can breathe, glug my Lemsip and take stock.

She is loving her new school; Japanese lessons, swimming lessons, Science in a proper lab, lunches on the field and being able to pop along and gawp at the glamorous sixth formers; it's all fantastic for her. Never mind that she's sitting down to three homeworks assignments every evening and her school day is 50 miuntes longer than it was. She's loving it.

He's doing really well, relieved of the burden of a high achieving sister in the class above carrying all before in every arena of school life. He's bringing home 'I'm a superstar' stickers and doing all his homework.

And me? I'm shattered. I'm not the world's most organised person. I'm forgetful about quotidian detail while being able to remember the most esoteric details about all sorts of interesting stuff. So three schools' agendas to remember is driving me nuts. Too many balls in the air - they keep crashing down on my head. But having said that I LOVE my new teaching timetable; the kids, the material, the atmosphere. I love being more a part of my work environment and I'm thriving. I've started a film-making club with a member of the Drama department and it's all hugely exciting.

I read at the beginning of term that young children entering into reception classes show very high levels of stress. If that has been proven, then presumably they were subjected to tests. Might the tests cause the stress? And if they are stressed, might that not be attributable to the parents' attitude to the children's starting school? Children I know are wound up with excitement by the time they enter the schoolroom for the first time. The enjoy it because they are told they will enjoy it. I suppose if you tell your child that there is something to worry about, they will worry about it. Mind you, is not anxiety closely related to excitement? I'm sure chemically it must be. There seems no end to the range of ways that parents are made to feel guilty about their children. Memo to self - don't read these things.