A year ago today my father died. He'd been in hospital for three weeks while doctors tried to find out what was wrong with him and why he was declining day on day. He contracted a bug and was too ill to withstand its effects on his weakened body. When we were told that his organs were failing we asked him if he wanted to be revived if things came to crisis. He said no. Today last year I was woken at 4.10 to be told that he'd gone.
In the year since we have all been much affected by his leaving. It was only in February that an inquest was held into his death, and despite all we were told about his state and his treatment, the verdict of the coroner was that he died of natural causes. Natural causes, my arse. However, anger serves no purpose now. We will never know what it was that so attacked his body that he declined from a healthy happy 75 year old in June 2004 to the man whose body, wracked with all sorts of ailments, succumbed to who knows what in April 2005. We don't have an underlying cause and we don't have an immediate cause. The implication is that he just faded away. It's a very, very hard thing to take.
However, we also have the memory of a wonderful man who grabbed life by the lapels and forced it to take notice of him. A man who never sat back and let himself be led through life but continually questioned what, who and where he was, he embraced new challenges and learned throughout his life. As a boy he was enquiring, achieving and adventurous. As a teenager he toured war-torn Europe on a bike in the years immediately after the war with his friend Ken, a man we still know and adore. On one occasion they were awoken by an irate French farmer on whose land they had overnighted, and accused at gunpoint of being Nazi sympathisers. In his adulthood Dad was a forester, a potter, a paratrooper, a British Council officer, a smallholder, a calf-rearer, a military historian, an art historian, an author and a bloody fantastic husband and father. He was intellectual and profoundly musical (partly a bequest from his parents, a cellist and an internationally renowned violinist). He could be reduced to tears by a beautiful piece of music or by a story I'd recount about what my child had done.
At his funeral, which typically he had drawn up plans for, he was remembered with fondness and with laughter. My brother read a short story to the assembly (standing room only) by PG Wodehouse, one of his favourite authors. Among others, I spoke too. It is impossible to bring to life someone who means so much to you in a few words, so I concentrated on he tenderness of the man, a quality not many would have observed. And this is what I said.
"To me, Daddy was a Renaissance man. He was very disciplined and very driven. There was always another mountain to be climbed, another challenge to be met, current affairs to be analysed and discussed over the dinner table. But he was also an active, hands-on father, ready when I was little to build a stable for my toy horse, or to construct an enclosure-cum-bed thing for the eight puppies who arrived to Cindy, our beagle. (BARKERS, the name emblazoned upon it, meant dog kennel to him long before it meant the family of the artist.) Daddy was always engaged on some project, be it a trout farm idea, the smallholding, WW1 shells, Maxims, Barkers. He tried so, SO hard to encourage me at sport, and was immensely frustrated that I’d inherited Mummy’s sporting genes. Luckily Justin was there triumphing in everything all over the place. Daddy was also very wise. I only recognised recently how often I start a sentence “My father always says…” Among Daddy’s aphorisms: “Don’t trust any group who salute over their heads”, “Don’t thump things when you’re angry – that’s what swearing was invented for”, “You should always rise from the table feeling you could eat a little more” are ones that spring immediately to mind. He was, as you will all know, the consummate gentleman and scholar - disciplined, wise and tender.
It’s his tenderness I want to talk about, because it was that which struck me most as his adult child, and that which, I suspect, was less obvious to others. I was grown up before I realised that Daddy was a man always on the edge of being engulfed by his own feelings. He would tell me that sentiment was a good thing; sentimentality a bad one - another aphorism. On the whole his emotions were controlled, but only just. When I recounted some anecdote about what the children had done, or some inspiring story I’d heard or read, Daddy’s eyes would struggle with the weight of feeling behind them and there would be a fair amount of throat-clearing.
When Martin and I were getting married and the wedding day was approaching, I wondered what Daddy was going to do about a speech. How was he going to talk about me without weeping in front of our friends and family, which he’d HATE? Simple. He didn’t talk about me. He told Martin that I was difficult, which has proved to be true, and then recounted a bit of McCallum history - the legend of the 60 fools, about 30 each of two wings of the McCallum clan who met in a clearing, took mutual umbrage about something and killed each other. Much safer territory. Knowing Daddy couldn’t talk about me made me feel very tender towards him.
But my strongest memory of Daddy is a letter he wrote when I was at boarding school in England and he and Mum were in Singapore. It was usually Mum who wrote the weekly letter that I awaited eagerly. On this occasion I had complained that I was going through a tough time with someone. Mummy must have been away somewhere, because the letter that came back was in Daddy’s handwriting. He wrote, “Dear Frances, I have always found this a good recipe for life.” And he quoted the whole of Polonius’ speech to Laertes from Hamlet, underlining the passage which reads “This above all, to thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.” And when he’d put the inverted commas at the end he simply wrote, “love, Daddy.”
I will miss him."
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Saturday, April 22, 2006
Local. Spit. Politics.
A few years ago, my local city council held a referendum to determine whether the citizens would prefer to (a) spend more to improve the dreadfully low standards of state educational provision in the city or (b) have lower council tax.
I voted for option (a), partly because I'm a parent, partly because I'm a teacher, and partly because I am able to see further forward than the end of my own rather snub little nose. I bet my husband that most people woud be the same and that the city would end up with the schools it deserved.
Well, it did, but not in the positive way that I anticipated. I lost the bet. There was a landslide decision in favour of the miserly option and, lo and behold, a couple of years later, our city's schools have slipped down, and we now glory in the lowest school results in the whole country. Most people, obviously can't see beyond the limits of their wallets, and would rather have a few more takeaways a month than decent education for their children. Quite extraordinary.
I mention this for two reasons; firstly, because we're looking at schools for our little girl, and secondly because there's a local election looming, and to be honest, I'd quite like to look out the Einstein who came up with that weasly little stratagem and lobby against them. It's the single most damaging thing that I've heard of a council doing. It points me towards a belief that the best you can hope of of your councillors is that they don't do too much harm. I'm not sure that in matters of strategy, they do any good. So let's just hope that they don't mess up the bins, council housing, education, the roads and whatever else. Any interaction I've had with the council has involved my speaking to very pleasant people who have to work within really stupid rules.
Why the hell do we have party politics involved in local elections and local government? What's that all about? What the Hell difference does it make to me if my councillor is in the Labour group, the Lib Dem group or the Conservative group? As things stand this council seem to spend their time lobbing their toys out of their cots at each other. The Labour Group don't like the Conservative group and won't go along with anything they suggest, the Conservatives don't like the Lib Dems... It's a nonsense and absolutely the right way to ensure that nothing sensible is ever done. As for local democracy, having all your councillors standing under a party banner means that many of the electorate, myself included, simply choose their candidate on the basis of national party preferences. So this year up and down the country Tony Blair will probably be perceived to have taken a political bloody nose as dissatisfaction with national policies spilss over into the local elections, which should be about much more immediate issues.
Personally I think we should elect independent councils made up of men and women who care passionately about local issues, headed up by a mayor who has real standing in the community, along the lines of the French model. The there wouldn't be any 'groups' who fight over theoretical differences and forget that the wrong-headed decisions which come out of their wrangling can adversely affect the entire future of a generation of children.
I voted for option (a), partly because I'm a parent, partly because I'm a teacher, and partly because I am able to see further forward than the end of my own rather snub little nose. I bet my husband that most people woud be the same and that the city would end up with the schools it deserved.
Well, it did, but not in the positive way that I anticipated. I lost the bet. There was a landslide decision in favour of the miserly option and, lo and behold, a couple of years later, our city's schools have slipped down, and we now glory in the lowest school results in the whole country. Most people, obviously can't see beyond the limits of their wallets, and would rather have a few more takeaways a month than decent education for their children. Quite extraordinary.
I mention this for two reasons; firstly, because we're looking at schools for our little girl, and secondly because there's a local election looming, and to be honest, I'd quite like to look out the Einstein who came up with that weasly little stratagem and lobby against them. It's the single most damaging thing that I've heard of a council doing. It points me towards a belief that the best you can hope of of your councillors is that they don't do too much harm. I'm not sure that in matters of strategy, they do any good. So let's just hope that they don't mess up the bins, council housing, education, the roads and whatever else. Any interaction I've had with the council has involved my speaking to very pleasant people who have to work within really stupid rules.
Why the hell do we have party politics involved in local elections and local government? What's that all about? What the Hell difference does it make to me if my councillor is in the Labour group, the Lib Dem group or the Conservative group? As things stand this council seem to spend their time lobbing their toys out of their cots at each other. The Labour Group don't like the Conservative group and won't go along with anything they suggest, the Conservatives don't like the Lib Dems... It's a nonsense and absolutely the right way to ensure that nothing sensible is ever done. As for local democracy, having all your councillors standing under a party banner means that many of the electorate, myself included, simply choose their candidate on the basis of national party preferences. So this year up and down the country Tony Blair will probably be perceived to have taken a political bloody nose as dissatisfaction with national policies spilss over into the local elections, which should be about much more immediate issues.
Personally I think we should elect independent councils made up of men and women who care passionately about local issues, headed up by a mayor who has real standing in the community, along the lines of the French model. The there wouldn't be any 'groups' who fight over theoretical differences and forget that the wrong-headed decisions which come out of their wrangling can adversely affect the entire future of a generation of children.
Thursday, April 20, 2006
It's good to know stuff.
Did you know that there is no direct translation of the word 'geek' in French, German or Spanish? At least to my knowledge. I know that in French you can describe "quelqu'un qui n'est pas branche" (e acute - where are those special characters...?) which hits the uncool bit of the word, but misses the element of anti-intellectualism implied in 'geek'. In German the word 'nerd', which has very smilar connotations, is translated as 'Fachidiot' which is interesting. 'Fach' is a subject, the rest is obvious.
(As an aside, I found this page which attributes all these 'stoopid' insults to German. Hmm. Not sure I go along with any of them - seems like several steps too far. For a start I don't recognise any of the original so-called German insults... http://ursine.ca/Talk:Nerd )
However, I'm not raising this as a linguistic complaint about a gap in other lexicons, but an illustration of a particular attitude prevalent in British society which has, in my opinion, MASSIVE knock-on negative effects on our national life. In most arenas of British life it is not now cool to be intelligent, academic, studious, hardworking, to deviate too much from the media-generated, cheeky-chappie, 'fun' identikit persona, or actually to know stuff. To engage in meaningful conversation about politics, religion, historical perspective, cause and effect or anything else is at best embarrassing, and at worst antagonistic. I think the Brits have always had this tendency. Witness the phrase "too clever by half" - I wonder how many other languages have an equivalent put-down.
Even faced with a national crisis such as all the aspects of the fall-out of 911; the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, the London bombings, the fulminating of the fundamentalist Mullahs, the fulminating of the fundamentalist American President; political and social analysis isn't coloured with any kind of subtlety. Sledgehammer comments lobbed from all sides, but God forbid that we actually sit down and discuss it rationally, to see shades of grey in the black and white. Cherie Blair tried that when she observed how desperate people must be to blow themselves up, and the media howled and shot her down in flames.
And of course that means that we get what we deserve, and most of our public figures are not as intelligent as they should be, considering they are 'leading' our country. They're not though. Given that the media have the power they have, they dsound out ideas in the media, rather than using the power of their astonishingly potent brains to work out through careful analysis of facts and conditions what is the RIGHT thing to do given the short, medium and long term.
[This rant is not over, but I have to break because, troublesomely, I have to go to work...]
(As an aside, I found this page which attributes all these 'stoopid' insults to German. Hmm. Not sure I go along with any of them - seems like several steps too far. For a start I don't recognise any of the original so-called German insults... http://ursine.ca/Talk:Nerd )
However, I'm not raising this as a linguistic complaint about a gap in other lexicons, but an illustration of a particular attitude prevalent in British society which has, in my opinion, MASSIVE knock-on negative effects on our national life. In most arenas of British life it is not now cool to be intelligent, academic, studious, hardworking, to deviate too much from the media-generated, cheeky-chappie, 'fun' identikit persona, or actually to know stuff. To engage in meaningful conversation about politics, religion, historical perspective, cause and effect or anything else is at best embarrassing, and at worst antagonistic. I think the Brits have always had this tendency. Witness the phrase "too clever by half" - I wonder how many other languages have an equivalent put-down.
Even faced with a national crisis such as all the aspects of the fall-out of 911; the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, the London bombings, the fulminating of the fundamentalist Mullahs, the fulminating of the fundamentalist American President; political and social analysis isn't coloured with any kind of subtlety. Sledgehammer comments lobbed from all sides, but God forbid that we actually sit down and discuss it rationally, to see shades of grey in the black and white. Cherie Blair tried that when she observed how desperate people must be to blow themselves up, and the media howled and shot her down in flames.
And of course that means that we get what we deserve, and most of our public figures are not as intelligent as they should be, considering they are 'leading' our country. They're not though. Given that the media have the power they have, they dsound out ideas in the media, rather than using the power of their astonishingly potent brains to work out through careful analysis of facts and conditions what is the RIGHT thing to do given the short, medium and long term.
[This rant is not over, but I have to break because, troublesomely, I have to go to work...]
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Back to School
Why has my description and profile disappeared down to the bottom of the page? Anyone who knows, and finds themselves browsing here, give a technically useless woman a clue, would you?? [Edit: I think I've fixed it.]
Yesterday was a strange day. After my big news on Monday, and chatting to director and producer, the kids went back to school and I was immersed in domestic trivia - shopping, cleaning, laundry and all the least interesting stuff that I have to do, and which, therfore, I will do ANYTHING to put off. I had one brief chat about the film, but that was it. I was definitely Mum for the day.
One thing happened which has stuck in my head and won't leave me. Just by chance in the paper one of those tiny one-paragraph reports popped out of me, concerning a young man who had disappeared on his way home from a club a couple of weeks ago. The police searching for him had discovered a body. It was today announced that the body had been formally identified, the cause of death was drowning and the death was not being treated as suspicious. Another everyday tragedy. Whenever I read these little reports i am struck by what a tidal wave of human sadness lurks behind it. How many questions are begged by the spare facts reported?
Why it popped out of me is that I used to teach this man. And while he wasn't someone who made a great impact on me in the way that some of my students did, he must have had some effect because snapshots of him keep popping into my head - sitting in the corner of the class, no idea how to tackle the class's French exercise, at parents' evening, smiling with his family, being ignored by the other kids. It's the first time I've ever had the tiniest link to a 'missing person' report, and I'm surprised how touched I am. My heart goes out to his family - the hairs on my back stand on end to think how appalling an ordeal all this days must be for them.
Yesterday was a strange day. After my big news on Monday, and chatting to director and producer, the kids went back to school and I was immersed in domestic trivia - shopping, cleaning, laundry and all the least interesting stuff that I have to do, and which, therfore, I will do ANYTHING to put off. I had one brief chat about the film, but that was it. I was definitely Mum for the day.
One thing happened which has stuck in my head and won't leave me. Just by chance in the paper one of those tiny one-paragraph reports popped out of me, concerning a young man who had disappeared on his way home from a club a couple of weeks ago. The police searching for him had discovered a body. It was today announced that the body had been formally identified, the cause of death was drowning and the death was not being treated as suspicious. Another everyday tragedy. Whenever I read these little reports i am struck by what a tidal wave of human sadness lurks behind it. How many questions are begged by the spare facts reported?
Why it popped out of me is that I used to teach this man. And while he wasn't someone who made a great impact on me in the way that some of my students did, he must have had some effect because snapshots of him keep popping into my head - sitting in the corner of the class, no idea how to tackle the class's French exercise, at parents' evening, smiling with his family, being ignored by the other kids. It's the first time I've ever had the tiniest link to a 'missing person' report, and I'm surprised how touched I am. My heart goes out to his family - the hairs on my back stand on end to think how appalling an ordeal all this days must be for them.
Monday, April 17, 2006
Someone's knocking at the door...
Now, being me, I have a huge problem with the fact that things are looking good in my life. Today I've just had really nice phone conversations not only to the director who's interested in directing my film, but also a producer who seems interested in producing it. Now of course I'm foreseeing all sorts of problems - not least among which is the whole time issue. If you've read erlier posts you'll know that I'm quite a busy person, but this is a huge thing and I'll just have to push other things out if anything comes of it.
Not going to say much more now. Tempting fate and all that... I'm just off to sublimate my excitement in a bit of light digging in the garden. Then tomorrow I'll be making contact with some agents.
Not going to say much more now. Tempting fate and all that... I'm just off to sublimate my excitement in a bit of light digging in the garden. Then tomorrow I'll be making contact with some agents.
Sunday, April 16, 2006
London - the loneliest place on earth?
Joyce Vincent, a 40 year-old woman was discovered dead in a tiny flat in North London this week. Nothing so odd about that, except that her flat was full of unopened post, some of which was postmarked November 2003. She had lain dead for over three years and those friends and relatives who sent her the Christmas cards she would never open never bothered to pick up the phone or pop around to see whether she was all right.
The details of this sad little story are here: www.news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4906992.stm
I think, like many people of around Joyce's age, I haven't been able to shake her out of my mind since I read about her on Wednesday.
Who were these friends who were keen enough to send her cards, but then for over two years made no further contact with her? Perhaps there were repeat cards, perhaps printed out with no "Dear Joyce" at the top, but only a scribbled "love from..." at the bottom, the sender near the end (V being where it is in the alphabet...) of a long computer-generated list of recipients. Or maybe when they didn't receive her card, they took umbrage and she was summarily deleted from the list.
There were presents in her flat, unopened. Maybe from her to others or from others to her, but no-one followed up on them. Whatever else this says, it shows that Joyce had not withdrawn herself from the world totally. Or at any rate, not by choice.
When other residents of the block she lived in were told of what had happened, they expressed sadness but no surprise, making mention of the fact that 'people here keep themselves to themselves'. The TV and heating had been on the whole time. The drone of a single channel for over two years hadn't been noticed. And as for the heating, well, there had been mutterings about unpleasant smells, but no one had been sufficiently disturbned to investigate.
In the end the only people who had enough interest to open the door and discover Joyce's skeletal remains were the housing association landlords who wanted to repossess the flat because of the thousands of pounds of rent arrears. Which just emphasises what is demonstrably true in single urban life, that money is, in the end, all that matters.
We're used to stories of old people dying in solitude, neglected by their relatives, and we tut and say 'isn't it dreadful', but, unfortunately, you can understand it happening. And so a lot of people actively look out for old people in their area. My very elderly neighbours have just moved into a home, but prior to that I would pop around in cold weather, or if I hadn't seen them for a few days. I knew that they were cared for - their son used to organise their weekly grocery delivery from 200 miles away and the driver was an informal carer, checking on them weekly, carrying their bags in and having a quick look around to make sure everything was as it should be. Once a week they would be driven to church. They were part of the community. But you know what? I'd never think to check on my single, working-age neighbours. And it is they who are NOT part of the community round here. The community which is woven of the schools and the churches and the other common bonds shared by families and congregations. We all assume that the singletons have a busy social life and no one wants to intrude.
But symptomatic of the modern malaise is that now we send cards to people once a year and claim a relationship with them. We can, after a hard day's work, collapse in front of the TV or the computer screen and put the answerphone on and retreat from society. I have 'friends' I haven't seen or spoken to in two years or more. I'm sure I'm not alone. Today I'm going to call them up.
The details of this sad little story are here: www.news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4906992.stm
I think, like many people of around Joyce's age, I haven't been able to shake her out of my mind since I read about her on Wednesday.
Who were these friends who were keen enough to send her cards, but then for over two years made no further contact with her? Perhaps there were repeat cards, perhaps printed out with no "Dear Joyce" at the top, but only a scribbled "love from..." at the bottom, the sender near the end (V being where it is in the alphabet...) of a long computer-generated list of recipients. Or maybe when they didn't receive her card, they took umbrage and she was summarily deleted from the list.
There were presents in her flat, unopened. Maybe from her to others or from others to her, but no-one followed up on them. Whatever else this says, it shows that Joyce had not withdrawn herself from the world totally. Or at any rate, not by choice.
When other residents of the block she lived in were told of what had happened, they expressed sadness but no surprise, making mention of the fact that 'people here keep themselves to themselves'. The TV and heating had been on the whole time. The drone of a single channel for over two years hadn't been noticed. And as for the heating, well, there had been mutterings about unpleasant smells, but no one had been sufficiently disturbned to investigate.
In the end the only people who had enough interest to open the door and discover Joyce's skeletal remains were the housing association landlords who wanted to repossess the flat because of the thousands of pounds of rent arrears. Which just emphasises what is demonstrably true in single urban life, that money is, in the end, all that matters.
We're used to stories of old people dying in solitude, neglected by their relatives, and we tut and say 'isn't it dreadful', but, unfortunately, you can understand it happening. And so a lot of people actively look out for old people in their area. My very elderly neighbours have just moved into a home, but prior to that I would pop around in cold weather, or if I hadn't seen them for a few days. I knew that they were cared for - their son used to organise their weekly grocery delivery from 200 miles away and the driver was an informal carer, checking on them weekly, carrying their bags in and having a quick look around to make sure everything was as it should be. Once a week they would be driven to church. They were part of the community. But you know what? I'd never think to check on my single, working-age neighbours. And it is they who are NOT part of the community round here. The community which is woven of the schools and the churches and the other common bonds shared by families and congregations. We all assume that the singletons have a busy social life and no one wants to intrude.
But symptomatic of the modern malaise is that now we send cards to people once a year and claim a relationship with them. We can, after a hard day's work, collapse in front of the TV or the computer screen and put the answerphone on and retreat from society. I have 'friends' I haven't seen or spoken to in two years or more. I'm sure I'm not alone. Today I'm going to call them up.
Friday, April 14, 2006
When is an egg not an egg?
When it's salmonella imprisoned in membrane and shell. It's just about safe in there until it's cooked thoroughly to kill off all the harmful bacteria threatening the health of the nation. Or powdered to limit its dangerous power so that it can be used securely, antiseptically, in the preparation of nutrition. But break that pale, pure, fragile oval capsule and release the contents into a bowl with other ingredients and the results are, well, potentially fatal.
Well, according to the food inspectors, they are.
What an egg apparently it is not is the wherewithal to create a gorgeous, glistening , golden mayonnaise to dip your thick, salty chip into, or slather onto roughly sliced ham in your doorstep sandwich. What it is not is the basis for a rich and dark chocolate mousse, so intense in flavour that you must be silent as you savour it, except for the occasional orgasmic grunt or moan. It is probable that by serving my children and my overnight, hungover guests my speciality scrambled eggs I am seriously endangering their health, because I like egg to taste like egg. My scrambled egg is wet, soft, luscious, a liquid mess of egg and butter that slips down the throat, bursting with sensation, waking those jaded taste-buds and letting you know that you're still alive despite the evidence to the contrary of the dull rhythmic thumping in your brain.
I am outraged. I am outraged that there is a small paramilitary organisation of men and women with clipboards telling me that the humble egg is dangerous, while putting their feet up in the evening and watching with equanimity the endless advertisements for 'food products' which have about as close a relationship to real food as I have to Piltdown Man's put-upon wife. I am outraged that the food inspectors deem it perfectly acceptable that so many children exist on a diet of 'food products' whose main ingredient is 'recovered meat', or to be less colloquial about it, residue scraped off the mechanical equipment used to separate the decent meat from the carcase of an animal, or 'reshaped fillets of fish' which is the piscine equivalent married to entirely artifical chemical flavour equivalents. I am outraged that there are 'enriched citrus beverages' out there which contain 2% or less of actual fruit juice, the remainder of the 'beverage' being made up of "Water, High Fructose, Corn Syrup, Citric Acid, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Beta-Carotene, Thiamin Hydrochloride (Vitamin B1), Natural Flavors, Food Starch-Modified, Canola Oil, Cellulose Gum, Xanthan Gum, Sodium Hexametaphosphate, Sodium Benzoate To Protect Flavor, Yellow #5, Yellow #6 ". I am outraged that salmon farmers feed their fish with so much vegetable oil that the fish can slip out of your hands as you prepare it, and that your fillet of seared salmon can, far from being healthy, be fattier than a high street quarter-pounder. I am outraged that ridiculous health claims can be made about fat levels, so that I can buy a bag of lurid pink marshmallows which bears the strident shout "0% fat!" without mentioning that it's practically all sugar.
Apparently in 2000 there were some 68000 cases of salmonella. It's a nasty disease, it's 4-7 days of food poisoning and then the patient gets better. According to my research there are many ways of contracting salmonella, one of which is through uncooked eggs or under-cooked meat, but also poor hygiene and ...inadequate thawing of frozen food. So why aren't the food inspectors howling for the banning of chicken nuggets and scampi? What did the egg ever do to them.
Set against these poor 68,000 inflicted (and I'm not being sarcastic - I had food-poisoning after oysters and I know how miserable it is...) the 22% of the UK population, that's 13,250,000 of us, who are obese after susisting on a diet largely consisting of fat and sugar, and the harm which can be done by the battery of chemicals and additives careless bodies expose themsleves to. I refer you to this page http://www.freedomyou.com/nutrition_book/enriched_fortified_synthetic_food.htm . It makes for grim reading.
And yet the government sponsored crusade is against the egg.
Poor egg. How did it come to this? And don't get me started on chicken...
Well, according to the food inspectors, they are.
What an egg apparently it is not is the wherewithal to create a gorgeous, glistening , golden mayonnaise to dip your thick, salty chip into, or slather onto roughly sliced ham in your doorstep sandwich. What it is not is the basis for a rich and dark chocolate mousse, so intense in flavour that you must be silent as you savour it, except for the occasional orgasmic grunt or moan. It is probable that by serving my children and my overnight, hungover guests my speciality scrambled eggs I am seriously endangering their health, because I like egg to taste like egg. My scrambled egg is wet, soft, luscious, a liquid mess of egg and butter that slips down the throat, bursting with sensation, waking those jaded taste-buds and letting you know that you're still alive despite the evidence to the contrary of the dull rhythmic thumping in your brain.
I am outraged. I am outraged that there is a small paramilitary organisation of men and women with clipboards telling me that the humble egg is dangerous, while putting their feet up in the evening and watching with equanimity the endless advertisements for 'food products' which have about as close a relationship to real food as I have to Piltdown Man's put-upon wife. I am outraged that the food inspectors deem it perfectly acceptable that so many children exist on a diet of 'food products' whose main ingredient is 'recovered meat', or to be less colloquial about it, residue scraped off the mechanical equipment used to separate the decent meat from the carcase of an animal, or 'reshaped fillets of fish' which is the piscine equivalent married to entirely artifical chemical flavour equivalents. I am outraged that there are 'enriched citrus beverages' out there which contain 2% or less of actual fruit juice, the remainder of the 'beverage' being made up of "Water, High Fructose, Corn Syrup, Citric Acid, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Beta-Carotene, Thiamin Hydrochloride (Vitamin B1), Natural Flavors, Food Starch-Modified, Canola Oil, Cellulose Gum, Xanthan Gum, Sodium Hexametaphosphate, Sodium Benzoate To Protect Flavor, Yellow #5, Yellow #6 ". I am outraged that salmon farmers feed their fish with so much vegetable oil that the fish can slip out of your hands as you prepare it, and that your fillet of seared salmon can, far from being healthy, be fattier than a high street quarter-pounder. I am outraged that ridiculous health claims can be made about fat levels, so that I can buy a bag of lurid pink marshmallows which bears the strident shout "0% fat!" without mentioning that it's practically all sugar.
Apparently in 2000 there were some 68000 cases of salmonella. It's a nasty disease, it's 4-7 days of food poisoning and then the patient gets better. According to my research there are many ways of contracting salmonella, one of which is through uncooked eggs or under-cooked meat, but also poor hygiene and ...inadequate thawing of frozen food. So why aren't the food inspectors howling for the banning of chicken nuggets and scampi? What did the egg ever do to them.
Set against these poor 68,000 inflicted (and I'm not being sarcastic - I had food-poisoning after oysters and I know how miserable it is...) the 22% of the UK population, that's 13,250,000 of us, who are obese after susisting on a diet largely consisting of fat and sugar, and the harm which can be done by the battery of chemicals and additives careless bodies expose themsleves to. I refer you to this page http://www.freedomyou.com/nutrition_book/enriched_fortified_synthetic_food.htm . It makes for grim reading.
And yet the government sponsored crusade is against the egg.
Poor egg. How did it come to this? And don't get me started on chicken...
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Back from the English Riviera.
Darling! Got whisked away to a very stylish hotel owned by some lovely old friends of ours. A total surprise. Kids to grandparents, dogs to kennels. Bish Bosh. As could be expected we ate fantastically well and drank WAY too much excellent wine. Only just got back and I'm off to my book club, so I haven't much time to write. But tomorrow I'm going to do my first blog rant! Bet you can't wait.
Got back to find that one of my stories has been accepted for publication, which is nice. I'll direct you to that later.
In the meantime, here's Jesus Saves, which got rejected on Tuesday.
He wears a long brown leather coat and a woolly deerstalker the same colour as his face, a dull mosaic of icy blues and greys, with red flecks. On his feet are trainers first worn by someone, perhaps by him, perhaps not, about twenty years ago. He looks old, in the way that all those men look old, bowed down by hardship and drink, seeing the world through a fog of misunderstanding. His lower lip never quite meets his upper lip, and it glistens with wetness. Columns of steam come out of his nose when he breathes, as he does, laboriously.
He walks up and down the High Street, up one side, down the other. He never seems to go into shops. He just walks, a barely smouldering roll-up held between yellowed finger and thumb, or anchored between yellowing, glistening lips, a plastic bag hanging from his wrist.
He doesn’t express emotion; he just varies his pace. He seems to wonder at the presence of others as others wonder at strange exotic animals in the zoo. A family passes by, a mother pushing a buggy and her two exuberant children, maybe four and six years old, skipping ahead, letting out little shrieks of joy. He stops, slack-jawed and watches as they hurry on, barely aware of his stare. And then he lifts up the hand with the bag slung over it, and wipes the dewdrop from his red and swollen nose. When they have gone, he starts up again.
Then one day, as he’s about to cross a side-road at the bottom of the High Street, a car approaches the junction. It is filled with ruddy-cheeked, hearty young people. They are laughing. As it stops, he looks at the side of the car. “JESUS SAVES!” it proclaims, in big white letters, “REJOICE!”
His expression doesn’t change, but automatically, as if programmed, as the car pulls away, he puts his roll-up in his mouth and sticks up his middle finger in an obscene gesture at the disappearing Christians.
One of them notices his finger as the car pulls away. Her smile fades as, temporarily, she looks as if she wonders why.
Got back to find that one of my stories has been accepted for publication, which is nice. I'll direct you to that later.
In the meantime, here's Jesus Saves, which got rejected on Tuesday.
He wears a long brown leather coat and a woolly deerstalker the same colour as his face, a dull mosaic of icy blues and greys, with red flecks. On his feet are trainers first worn by someone, perhaps by him, perhaps not, about twenty years ago. He looks old, in the way that all those men look old, bowed down by hardship and drink, seeing the world through a fog of misunderstanding. His lower lip never quite meets his upper lip, and it glistens with wetness. Columns of steam come out of his nose when he breathes, as he does, laboriously.
He walks up and down the High Street, up one side, down the other. He never seems to go into shops. He just walks, a barely smouldering roll-up held between yellowed finger and thumb, or anchored between yellowing, glistening lips, a plastic bag hanging from his wrist.
He doesn’t express emotion; he just varies his pace. He seems to wonder at the presence of others as others wonder at strange exotic animals in the zoo. A family passes by, a mother pushing a buggy and her two exuberant children, maybe four and six years old, skipping ahead, letting out little shrieks of joy. He stops, slack-jawed and watches as they hurry on, barely aware of his stare. And then he lifts up the hand with the bag slung over it, and wipes the dewdrop from his red and swollen nose. When they have gone, he starts up again.
Then one day, as he’s about to cross a side-road at the bottom of the High Street, a car approaches the junction. It is filled with ruddy-cheeked, hearty young people. They are laughing. As it stops, he looks at the side of the car. “JESUS SAVES!” it proclaims, in big white letters, “REJOICE!”
His expression doesn’t change, but automatically, as if programmed, as the car pulls away, he puts his roll-up in his mouth and sticks up his middle finger in an obscene gesture at the disappearing Christians.
One of them notices his finger as the car pulls away. Her smile fades as, temporarily, she looks as if she wonders why.
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Lemon and coconut and E135 surprise. Yum.
I've just come across a hilarious blog of recipes which all involve packets of cake mixes or tubes of frosting or whatever.
Completely bloody unnecessary. The amazing thing about cooking is how you can take a few simple ingredients, and magic them into something wonderful!
So, given that I'm a fairly good cook, I thought I'd record what I 've been cooking every now and then, and have a go at writing recipes. They'll all be approximate, because I don't generally use recipes. Or scales. And I guarantee you not to include a single artificial additive.
For lunch yesterday I had chicken liver pate (left over from a party at the weekend) and a chicory vinaigrette. For supper we had a veg curry. I offer the pate as an unhealthy but tasty treat and the curry as absolution.
Chicken liver pate (How do you do special characters on here?? That should be p - a with a hat on - t - e acute accent )
250g (ie a small tub) chicken livers
about 50g butter
one medium onion
2 fat cloves of garlic
dried (or fresh) thyme
salt and pepper
brandy
more butter
1. Chop the onion and garlic finely.
2. Cut chicken livers into small pieces. I use kitchen scissors.
3. Melt the butter in a pan and fry the onion and garlic gently until translucent and smelling gorgeous. If you're using dried thyme, add a teaspoonful here.
4. Add chicken livers and cook gently until no pink shows, which will probably take about 3-4 minutes. If you're using fresh thyme, add a handful here.
5. Add a couple of slugs of brandy and cook on a high heat until the alcohol has cooked off and the mixture has calmed down.
6. Inhale the aroma deeply. My God, you're clever!
7. Add salt and pepper to taste.
8. Pour the contents of the pan into a food processor and zizz until smooth.
9. Pour into a serving dish and level the surface.
10. If you feel like it, which I usually don't, seal the pate with clarified butter. Melt about 50g more butter in a small saucepan. As it melts, skim the white surface gunk off until you're left with a clear yellow liquid. Tip this over the pate.
11. Refrigerate.
(This is fun! I've never written down one of my recipes before!)
Vegetable curry
(serves three to four with rice, or two without)
Vegetables shouldn't taste this good!
sunflower or vegetable oil
a large onion, roughly chopped
2 fat cloves of garlic, finely chopped
4 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 cauliflower, cut into small florets
half a cabbage, shredded
5 potatoes chopped large(omit this if you're having a rice accompaniment)
about a cup of frozen peas
2 tsp garam masala
1 tbsp ground coriander
2 tsp ground chilli powder
1 tsp salt (or more to taste. I like my food salty.)
half a block of creamed coconut
(these are the ingredients which came in my organic veg box, but you can use any selection you have to hand. Just remember that the larger the pieces, the longer they take to cook.)
1. Slosh some oil into a large saucepan.
2. Saute the onion and garlic until soft and translucent.
3. Add spices and salt. Stir the mixture and cook for two minutes.
4. Add the other vegetables (except the peas) and stir and toss until all the vegetables are coated with the spice mixture.
5. Add about three quarters of a pint of boiling water and bring to the boil. Simmer covered for about five minutes and uncovered for another five. If it gets too dry at any stage, add more water.
6. Thaw the peas in a colander under the hot tap. Add them to the mixture.
7. Crumble the coconut and add to the curry. Stir it in. Don't worry if there are lumps of coconut floating in it - they'll dissolve.
8. Continue to simmer until the mixture has achieved the consistency you like. Personally I like my veg not tooo soft with a thick sauce.
9. If you've got any, you can add some shopped fresh coriander before serving.At least, I think that's what I did...
God, talk about displacement activity. Now I really MUST do some work!
Completely bloody unnecessary. The amazing thing about cooking is how you can take a few simple ingredients, and magic them into something wonderful!
So, given that I'm a fairly good cook, I thought I'd record what I 've been cooking every now and then, and have a go at writing recipes. They'll all be approximate, because I don't generally use recipes. Or scales. And I guarantee you not to include a single artificial additive.
For lunch yesterday I had chicken liver pate (left over from a party at the weekend) and a chicory vinaigrette. For supper we had a veg curry. I offer the pate as an unhealthy but tasty treat and the curry as absolution.
Chicken liver pate (How do you do special characters on here?? That should be p - a with a hat on - t - e acute accent )
250g (ie a small tub) chicken livers
about 50g butter
one medium onion
2 fat cloves of garlic
dried (or fresh) thyme
salt and pepper
brandy
more butter
1. Chop the onion and garlic finely.
2. Cut chicken livers into small pieces. I use kitchen scissors.
3. Melt the butter in a pan and fry the onion and garlic gently until translucent and smelling gorgeous. If you're using dried thyme, add a teaspoonful here.
4. Add chicken livers and cook gently until no pink shows, which will probably take about 3-4 minutes. If you're using fresh thyme, add a handful here.
5. Add a couple of slugs of brandy and cook on a high heat until the alcohol has cooked off and the mixture has calmed down.
6. Inhale the aroma deeply. My God, you're clever!
7. Add salt and pepper to taste.
8. Pour the contents of the pan into a food processor and zizz until smooth.
9. Pour into a serving dish and level the surface.
10. If you feel like it, which I usually don't, seal the pate with clarified butter. Melt about 50g more butter in a small saucepan. As it melts, skim the white surface gunk off until you're left with a clear yellow liquid. Tip this over the pate.
11. Refrigerate.
(This is fun! I've never written down one of my recipes before!)
Vegetable curry
(serves three to four with rice, or two without)
Vegetables shouldn't taste this good!
sunflower or vegetable oil
a large onion, roughly chopped
2 fat cloves of garlic, finely chopped
4 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 cauliflower, cut into small florets
half a cabbage, shredded
5 potatoes chopped large(omit this if you're having a rice accompaniment)
about a cup of frozen peas
2 tsp garam masala
1 tbsp ground coriander
2 tsp ground chilli powder
1 tsp salt (or more to taste. I like my food salty.)
half a block of creamed coconut
(these are the ingredients which came in my organic veg box, but you can use any selection you have to hand. Just remember that the larger the pieces, the longer they take to cook.)
1. Slosh some oil into a large saucepan.
2. Saute the onion and garlic until soft and translucent.
3. Add spices and salt. Stir the mixture and cook for two minutes.
4. Add the other vegetables (except the peas) and stir and toss until all the vegetables are coated with the spice mixture.
5. Add about three quarters of a pint of boiling water and bring to the boil. Simmer covered for about five minutes and uncovered for another five. If it gets too dry at any stage, add more water.
6. Thaw the peas in a colander under the hot tap. Add them to the mixture.
7. Crumble the coconut and add to the curry. Stir it in. Don't worry if there are lumps of coconut floating in it - they'll dissolve.
8. Continue to simmer until the mixture has achieved the consistency you like. Personally I like my veg not tooo soft with a thick sauce.
9. If you've got any, you can add some shopped fresh coriander before serving.At least, I think that's what I did...
God, talk about displacement activity. Now I really MUST do some work!
While the mice are away the cats can put their feet up.
I took the kids to spend some time with their grandparents. When I came back I settled down to create a blog. Actually I didn't. I settled down to do some work, thought I'd waste a few minutes on the internet first and ended up creating a blog. And doing no work. Which is fine. Just.
Martin read it when he got home. I'd confessed to wasting all that time so he wasn't really allowed not to read it. He thinks its a fantastic idea: self-administered therapy online. And FREE!! Shows what a miserable cow I am to live with, forever going all soggy and crying.
So, onto the extraordinary. Because the children were away, Martin and I WENT OUT! Picked him up from work after walking the dogs and we went to the pub. Then we cocked it all up by not going to the cinema as we'd planned, coming home, cooking a vegetable curry together and drinking lots of wine and not watching Donnie Darko, as we planned in the pub, but having a real heart-to-heart in front of the telly.
May not sound remarkable, Frances, but trust me on this one.
I got two rejections from online ezines yesterday. So I'm going to make up for it by publishing them here. Today, for your delectation and delight, Frances, and Martin, my love, I give you CUT HERE, and tomorrow you'll get JESUS SAVES.
Enjoy!
Cut Here
At twenty I was the talk of Shepton Mallet.
The moment when I looked in the mirror and cut off my flicks and most of the hair which flowed, virginal, down my back was the moment I said goodbye to mum’s daughter. I rubbed soap between my hands and groomed the remaining locks upwards into a stiff ridge that jutted out like a unicorn’s horn from my forehead and ran down to the nape of my neck. I fancied that it looked as if someone had sunk a circular saw into my head. Mum cried like a baby.
When I walked into the Pig and Whistle in my bondage gear and my new barnet, dog collar shiny around my neck, I turned heads. I had the look. I was the business. After a couple of snakebites and a quick grope out by the bins with Alan Fawcett, I walked out of the pub lead singer of the Vomit Kings.
Heady times. We did the rounds of Shepton Mallet. We went all over the county. We had to because no one ever invited us back after our diehard fans had gobbed all over the regular clientele nursing their pints-of-best and rum-and-blacks. The police were called out when Geoff, our roadie, who’d had one too many, swung a punch at the landlord of the White Hart in Temple Cloud. It was real rock and roll. Guys I’d been gobbing on from the stage used to come and buy me drinks afterwards. We’d have red-hot sex in Alan’s Bedford van, all pumped up with aggression and sweat. Well, I say we had red-hot sex. Quite often it was all a bit of a blur.
Mum and Dad hated it. Dad at least had the sense to go to bed. Mum would wait up in her crimplene floral dressing gown to watch me stagger in at two or three in the morning and then purse her lips and make comments over the Ready-Brek in the mornings. She was so bloody boring! Every Saturday and Sunday morning the same thing.
“It’s just not nice Alison. Why do you have to make yourself look ugly Alison? You have such a lovely face, such lovely hair! Why do you want to look so nasty? Boys don’t like a girl to look like that – they want you to look nice. It’s a shame Alison, it really is.”
I’d tell her to eff off and then Dad would get the hump and send me to my room and I’d crank the music up as high as it would go and listen to Sham 69 and the Dead Kennedys, ignore Dad hammering at the door and wonder when we’d crack it and I’d be able to leave home.
I was so into the whole band thing that it never occurred to me that we wouldn’t make it. Not even the time when Geoff forgot the amps. Nor the time when Rod was so out of it on glue he threw up over the drum kit. Not even the time when we were all pissed and couldn’t perform and our dwindling fan base turned on us and showered us with Strongbow cans.
All the traipsing around Frome and Chard and Buckland was all training, apprenticeship. And I was so used to ignoring Mum and Dad’s twitters that when they told me the tattoo was a bad idea, I didn’t even hear it. I swear it was a week before I first heard Spandau sodding Ballet that I took myself off to the tattoo parlour and tipped up my neck and Dave Higgins set to work.
The band didn’t last. And after it finished, when I’d realised that going to the pub every night and sleeping all day wasn’t the best way to get away from Mum and Dad and into my own flat I started looking for work. Then for the first time I wondered if I might have made a bad decision. I sent out loads of applications and got loads of interviews. But then I’d show up and watch the enthusiasm fade from the face of the interviewer as they looked at their watches and wondered how quickly they could go though the formalities before saying that I wasn’t quite what they were looking for.
Guys weren’t wild about me either. When punk morphed into sad, limp, fluffy, new romanticism I was left behind. I didn’t have quite the right look anymore.
I’ve had jobs of course, and I’ve had guys, but I’ve never been what you’d call wholly satisfied.
So here I am at forty five, the sad relic of a bygone age. As time’s gone by I’ve felt more and more antique. Punk was a great time, but it couldn’t have lasted. I was too young to know that those things don’t last. I thought it was the revolution, not a blip in history. I don’t regret a moment of the Vomit Kings though. I only regret those forty minutes odd with Dave Higgins in the parlour on Oak Street.
And I’m reminded of it every time I look up and say “Do you want chips with that, love?” and the customer can’t help but stare at the dotted line tattooed up the centre of my face with the words ‘CUT HERE’ in crude black on my forehead.
Martin read it when he got home. I'd confessed to wasting all that time so he wasn't really allowed not to read it. He thinks its a fantastic idea: self-administered therapy online. And FREE!! Shows what a miserable cow I am to live with, forever going all soggy and crying.
So, onto the extraordinary. Because the children were away, Martin and I WENT OUT! Picked him up from work after walking the dogs and we went to the pub. Then we cocked it all up by not going to the cinema as we'd planned, coming home, cooking a vegetable curry together and drinking lots of wine and not watching Donnie Darko, as we planned in the pub, but having a real heart-to-heart in front of the telly.
May not sound remarkable, Frances, but trust me on this one.
I got two rejections from online ezines yesterday. So I'm going to make up for it by publishing them here. Today, for your delectation and delight, Frances, and Martin, my love, I give you CUT HERE, and tomorrow you'll get JESUS SAVES.
Enjoy!
Cut Here
At twenty I was the talk of Shepton Mallet.
The moment when I looked in the mirror and cut off my flicks and most of the hair which flowed, virginal, down my back was the moment I said goodbye to mum’s daughter. I rubbed soap between my hands and groomed the remaining locks upwards into a stiff ridge that jutted out like a unicorn’s horn from my forehead and ran down to the nape of my neck. I fancied that it looked as if someone had sunk a circular saw into my head. Mum cried like a baby.
When I walked into the Pig and Whistle in my bondage gear and my new barnet, dog collar shiny around my neck, I turned heads. I had the look. I was the business. After a couple of snakebites and a quick grope out by the bins with Alan Fawcett, I walked out of the pub lead singer of the Vomit Kings.
Heady times. We did the rounds of Shepton Mallet. We went all over the county. We had to because no one ever invited us back after our diehard fans had gobbed all over the regular clientele nursing their pints-of-best and rum-and-blacks. The police were called out when Geoff, our roadie, who’d had one too many, swung a punch at the landlord of the White Hart in Temple Cloud. It was real rock and roll. Guys I’d been gobbing on from the stage used to come and buy me drinks afterwards. We’d have red-hot sex in Alan’s Bedford van, all pumped up with aggression and sweat. Well, I say we had red-hot sex. Quite often it was all a bit of a blur.
Mum and Dad hated it. Dad at least had the sense to go to bed. Mum would wait up in her crimplene floral dressing gown to watch me stagger in at two or three in the morning and then purse her lips and make comments over the Ready-Brek in the mornings. She was so bloody boring! Every Saturday and Sunday morning the same thing.
“It’s just not nice Alison. Why do you have to make yourself look ugly Alison? You have such a lovely face, such lovely hair! Why do you want to look so nasty? Boys don’t like a girl to look like that – they want you to look nice. It’s a shame Alison, it really is.”
I’d tell her to eff off and then Dad would get the hump and send me to my room and I’d crank the music up as high as it would go and listen to Sham 69 and the Dead Kennedys, ignore Dad hammering at the door and wonder when we’d crack it and I’d be able to leave home.
I was so into the whole band thing that it never occurred to me that we wouldn’t make it. Not even the time when Geoff forgot the amps. Nor the time when Rod was so out of it on glue he threw up over the drum kit. Not even the time when we were all pissed and couldn’t perform and our dwindling fan base turned on us and showered us with Strongbow cans.
All the traipsing around Frome and Chard and Buckland was all training, apprenticeship. And I was so used to ignoring Mum and Dad’s twitters that when they told me the tattoo was a bad idea, I didn’t even hear it. I swear it was a week before I first heard Spandau sodding Ballet that I took myself off to the tattoo parlour and tipped up my neck and Dave Higgins set to work.
The band didn’t last. And after it finished, when I’d realised that going to the pub every night and sleeping all day wasn’t the best way to get away from Mum and Dad and into my own flat I started looking for work. Then for the first time I wondered if I might have made a bad decision. I sent out loads of applications and got loads of interviews. But then I’d show up and watch the enthusiasm fade from the face of the interviewer as they looked at their watches and wondered how quickly they could go though the formalities before saying that I wasn’t quite what they were looking for.
Guys weren’t wild about me either. When punk morphed into sad, limp, fluffy, new romanticism I was left behind. I didn’t have quite the right look anymore.
I’ve had jobs of course, and I’ve had guys, but I’ve never been what you’d call wholly satisfied.
So here I am at forty five, the sad relic of a bygone age. As time’s gone by I’ve felt more and more antique. Punk was a great time, but it couldn’t have lasted. I was too young to know that those things don’t last. I thought it was the revolution, not a blip in history. I don’t regret a moment of the Vomit Kings though. I only regret those forty minutes odd with Dave Higgins in the parlour on Oak Street.
And I’m reminded of it every time I look up and say “Do you want chips with that, love?” and the customer can’t help but stare at the dotted line tattooed up the centre of my face with the words ‘CUT HERE’ in crude black on my forehead.
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Here goes...
I have been meaning to do this for SUCH a long time. My own forum! To bleat and rant and bitch and whine! Heaven! It's like the Five-Year lockable diary I got for my ninth birthday. Except that now I've got more to say. Then it was all what I ate for lunch and how I hate/adore Miss Whoever, and what a bitch Sarah Watkins (made-up name) is, and how I really, really like Simon Naylor (real name). But like that diary, although this is not lockable, I know that I'll be writing my comments for one person. Me.
Nevertheless I am going to try and temper myself a little, limiting myself to reasonable and optimistic fare. When the blogger asked me for a description I immediately and without expecting it came up with the one which features here. I hadn't thought I'd need a description, but it seems now that I do, and I hope to be able to limit myself to... well... the extraordinary. Not that that means I'm going to be perky and up all the time. Apart from the fact that I'm not naturally a Pollyanna (ask poor long-suffering Martin), there is enough extraordinary stupidity and cruelty and sorrow out there to prompt many pages of reflection.
Let's start with the extraordinary facts about Me, by which I mean the facts which seem to trigger reactions of astonishment in other people. As I know that I'm only talking to you, Frances, and no one else will darken my blog, I can be quite frank with you. Feel free to comment, sweetie!
1. I get up at 6am nearly every morning of my life. By choice. Between 6 and 7.30 is My Time. I like mornings. I particularly like it when it's cold and dark and no one in their right mind is up. I started this habit when I was pregnant with Jake, who is now eight. I suffered terribly with insomnia and once had a full three course supper prepared when Martin came down at five thirty, sucked out of his pit by the heady, if inappropriate, aromas of garlic bread, boeuf a la bourguignonne and chocolate truffles. He suggested I find something else to do with my mornings. I started writing, enrolled on a creative writing course where my then tutor, the wonderful Dave Peake, told us that if we wanted to write seriously, we must write every day. By the time Jake was born, five months later, I had the first draft of my novel done. I don't necessarily write properly every morning. Sometimes, rather unworthily, I do SuDoku or read crap on the Internet. But I love My Time, my cup of red bush tea warming my hand, the sun slowly rising outside, the dogs breathing heavily and wondering when someone will take them out for a walk. If someone gets up during My Time I feel quite put out. I'll probably write this during My Time from now on. Does this count as writing? I wonder if I'll manage to post every day. I think I probably will. Did I mention I'm a bit obsessive?
2. I have two unbelievably fantastic children. (Yes, yes, I know. No different from any other children. What's so extraordinary about that? But that's not my point.) Imogen is nine, and her out-of-school activities include Brownies, gym, violin lessons, tag rugby, swimming and more gym. Jake's eight and he does tag rugby, drama, guitar lessons, swimming. He's about to re-start judo. (Last year he was a bit young for it and a bit... how shall we put this... indisciplined.) I take them to all their activities. I cook them a proper meal in the evening. I have two big dogs, Hungarian Vizslas, who I take for an hour's walk every day. One's neurotic and one's nuts but I love them both. I have a husband who, bless him, makes very few practical demands of me, except a good meal in the evening and the occasional life to work. I have a part-time teaching job. After nine years out of the work arena I have to do an enormous amount of preparation for my lessons. Thank God I enjoy making flashcards or devising worksheets or games or whatever else. I am also a school governor at my children's primary school and do as much as I can for them. And I write as much as I can, and try to market the product of my writing. I know this is dull, Frances, and I only mention it because you know that the fact that I take on quite a lot is one of those things that people find extraordinary. God knows why. Trying to keep more balls in the air is one of the reasons I drop more. No wonder I'm always bloody disappointed in myself.
3. I have written six screenplays, all comedies, despite the fact that in person I'm about as funny as cheese. I have also written two and a third novels, sample episodes and series formats for five sitcoms, loads of short stories and sketches. (Blimey, Frances, you must have heard or read this little resume how many times?) I have read my stories in public readings and seen my sketches/sitcom performed in public. I have not earned a bean. (Unless you count a £25 book token for winning an online flash competition.) Now when I'm having this discussion at a party, this is the point where a shadow crosses the face of the person I am speaking to, and into it are burned the words "Flogging... dead... horse." But you and I both know, Frances, that I CAN write.
3. A delightful lady wants to direct a film of one of my scripts. She's confident and she has imbued me with her confidence. But I'm not going to get too excited.
4. Whenever I have too much to drink, which is too often, I get very anxious and do a lot of ringing around to apologise. It's a matter of great amusement to my friends and huge anxiety to me. It's not as if I do anything outrageous (unless everyone's lying to me). I'm just very embarrassed about the fact of drunkenness. And yet I keep doing it. Extraordinary.
5. I believe that Philosophy should be a compulsory part of the school curriculum from Key Stage 1, as it is in so many other countires. I believe that many of the ills of society stem from people's inability, or unwillingness, to think about anything beyond their own immediate and individual needs and desires. I won't go into Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs just now, Frances, but you know where I'm coming from. You can bet it'll come up later. Sorry. Bit out of left field, that one, I realise, but it is one of those views I hold which people think are extraordinary.
That's enough to be going on with. So far, you might think, Frances, so unremarkable. Well, that's entirely up to you. That's just an introduction to who I am. According to me.
Tomorrow, I hope, I shall start my daily posts. I'd better go out and do something extraordinary with my day!
Nevertheless I am going to try and temper myself a little, limiting myself to reasonable and optimistic fare. When the blogger asked me for a description I immediately and without expecting it came up with the one which features here. I hadn't thought I'd need a description, but it seems now that I do, and I hope to be able to limit myself to... well... the extraordinary. Not that that means I'm going to be perky and up all the time. Apart from the fact that I'm not naturally a Pollyanna (ask poor long-suffering Martin), there is enough extraordinary stupidity and cruelty and sorrow out there to prompt many pages of reflection.
Let's start with the extraordinary facts about Me, by which I mean the facts which seem to trigger reactions of astonishment in other people. As I know that I'm only talking to you, Frances, and no one else will darken my blog, I can be quite frank with you. Feel free to comment, sweetie!
1. I get up at 6am nearly every morning of my life. By choice. Between 6 and 7.30 is My Time. I like mornings. I particularly like it when it's cold and dark and no one in their right mind is up. I started this habit when I was pregnant with Jake, who is now eight. I suffered terribly with insomnia and once had a full three course supper prepared when Martin came down at five thirty, sucked out of his pit by the heady, if inappropriate, aromas of garlic bread, boeuf a la bourguignonne and chocolate truffles. He suggested I find something else to do with my mornings. I started writing, enrolled on a creative writing course where my then tutor, the wonderful Dave Peake, told us that if we wanted to write seriously, we must write every day. By the time Jake was born, five months later, I had the first draft of my novel done. I don't necessarily write properly every morning. Sometimes, rather unworthily, I do SuDoku or read crap on the Internet. But I love My Time, my cup of red bush tea warming my hand, the sun slowly rising outside, the dogs breathing heavily and wondering when someone will take them out for a walk. If someone gets up during My Time I feel quite put out. I'll probably write this during My Time from now on. Does this count as writing? I wonder if I'll manage to post every day. I think I probably will. Did I mention I'm a bit obsessive?
2. I have two unbelievably fantastic children. (Yes, yes, I know. No different from any other children. What's so extraordinary about that? But that's not my point.) Imogen is nine, and her out-of-school activities include Brownies, gym, violin lessons, tag rugby, swimming and more gym. Jake's eight and he does tag rugby, drama, guitar lessons, swimming. He's about to re-start judo. (Last year he was a bit young for it and a bit... how shall we put this... indisciplined.) I take them to all their activities. I cook them a proper meal in the evening. I have two big dogs, Hungarian Vizslas, who I take for an hour's walk every day. One's neurotic and one's nuts but I love them both. I have a husband who, bless him, makes very few practical demands of me, except a good meal in the evening and the occasional life to work. I have a part-time teaching job. After nine years out of the work arena I have to do an enormous amount of preparation for my lessons. Thank God I enjoy making flashcards or devising worksheets or games or whatever else. I am also a school governor at my children's primary school and do as much as I can for them. And I write as much as I can, and try to market the product of my writing. I know this is dull, Frances, and I only mention it because you know that the fact that I take on quite a lot is one of those things that people find extraordinary. God knows why. Trying to keep more balls in the air is one of the reasons I drop more. No wonder I'm always bloody disappointed in myself.
3. I have written six screenplays, all comedies, despite the fact that in person I'm about as funny as cheese. I have also written two and a third novels, sample episodes and series formats for five sitcoms, loads of short stories and sketches. (Blimey, Frances, you must have heard or read this little resume how many times?) I have read my stories in public readings and seen my sketches/sitcom performed in public. I have not earned a bean. (Unless you count a £25 book token for winning an online flash competition.) Now when I'm having this discussion at a party, this is the point where a shadow crosses the face of the person I am speaking to, and into it are burned the words "Flogging... dead... horse." But you and I both know, Frances, that I CAN write.
3. A delightful lady wants to direct a film of one of my scripts. She's confident and she has imbued me with her confidence. But I'm not going to get too excited.
4. Whenever I have too much to drink, which is too often, I get very anxious and do a lot of ringing around to apologise. It's a matter of great amusement to my friends and huge anxiety to me. It's not as if I do anything outrageous (unless everyone's lying to me). I'm just very embarrassed about the fact of drunkenness. And yet I keep doing it. Extraordinary.
5. I believe that Philosophy should be a compulsory part of the school curriculum from Key Stage 1, as it is in so many other countires. I believe that many of the ills of society stem from people's inability, or unwillingness, to think about anything beyond their own immediate and individual needs and desires. I won't go into Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs just now, Frances, but you know where I'm coming from. You can bet it'll come up later. Sorry. Bit out of left field, that one, I realise, but it is one of those views I hold which people think are extraordinary.
That's enough to be going on with. So far, you might think, Frances, so unremarkable. Well, that's entirely up to you. That's just an introduction to who I am. According to me.
Tomorrow, I hope, I shall start my daily posts. I'd better go out and do something extraordinary with my day!
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