Mad Men (and women)

So the fourth series of 'Mad Men' finished on BBC Four last night.  Not a catastrophic event per se, you might be thinking, but 'Mad Men' is my favourite programme and in these snow-covered times of ours surely we need all the pleasures we can get?  (and while I'm on the subject, why does it feel like the snow has made all time stop?) But seriously...

'Mad Men', for me, is really all about the women, and how confused the role of a modern woman is in the late Fifties/early Sixties; in particular in the world of the workplace which was then (and largely now) dominated by men.  It's understandable in lots of ways, even in these more enlightened times.  Women are the people who give birth and for the most part want to care for their children after they're born.  But it's also in our own attitudes that we tend not to dominate in the world of men; our natural urge to be nice and not to rock the boat; our need to be caring and to be seen as attractive (yes, I understand that this is a generalisation, but it's also a true reflection of the scenes I've seen in the many places I've worked over the years).

The need for women to be seen as attractive is arguably, together with the physical act of carrying a baby and giving birth, the only real source of almost tangible power we have over men.  And we learn this from an early age.  I've often wondered how the lives of little girls would be shaped if they weren't bombarded by seemingly harmless fairytales from birth, in which the beautiful girl always marries the prince, and the ugly people have characters to match.  (Enid Blyton's 'golliwog' characters were banned from her books because they seemingly associated blackness with being evil; no comparison has been made with, say, 'Beauty and the Beast' for its connotations of physical unattractiveness being evil too, though to me this seems just as damaging).

I hate the fact that my twenties were characterised by my envy of the beauty of various friends and family members.  That is one of the reasons I wouldn't go back to my twenties.  Too many insecurities.  These days I still get pangs of envy, but it's healthy envy now because I feel more confident in myself.  But there's the rub: I have given large presentations, trained people in skills, held difficult conversations in which I was empathetic and caring, but still, the thing that has made me feel the most powerful is the fact that I've made men walk into doors (not often, but still - I have).  And it's probably that kind of thing that I'll look back on with fondness as an old woman, even if I ever manage to get a book published.

Heston's Pudding

It was all over the paper today (well, the online version anyway) that Heston Blumenthal's 'Hidden Orange' Christmas pudding has sold out across the country and you can now only get them on eBay, where they are changing hands at a staggering (wait for it) £200.

It was a coincidence that, on this very same day, I had planned to steam the Heston pudding I'd bought a few weeks ago for my sisters and I to test and criticise (with copious amounts of Cointreau cream of course...well, you must suffer these things from time to time).  Split between the three of us, we were theoretically eating £66.66 worth of pudding each.  As lovely as Heston's puddings are hailed to be, I had to admit I was worried it wasn't going to live up to that kind of expectation.  As would anyone actually purchasing it for £200, I would imagine.  Christmas pudding is traditionally served at the end of a meal during which people have already stuffed themselves full to bursting.  Being told that your beautiful, yet rich and cloying dessert cost £200 would make you feel compelled to enjoy it no matter what, wouldn't it?  But I can imagine the host(ess) looking desolately around their kitchen after everybody's fallen asleep, plates needing to be scraped, counting the cost of every rum-soaked raisin going into the bin and thinking with a sigh "it was nice, as Christmas puddings go, but I had to steam the bloody thing for three hours and in the end it was just a Christmas pudding after all...and I didn't even get any of the orange"

And so I steamed the one in my kitchen for three hours, wondering what delights would await.  It seemed like a lot of work, but I was sure it would be worth it.  And it was...sort of.  My sisters enjoyed it, although they said it was a bit "too rich" for them (and I thought, as I always do, how much I hate it when people say that, because I hardly ever think things are too rich for me, I am a glutton, and when people say things like that it reminds me that I'm not a little delicate thing who can subsist on nothing but lettuce leaves).  But then they left, and I scraped their half-empty plates of pudding into the bin and I thought: "yes, very nice, but it was still only a Christmas pudding with an orange plonked in the middle".

But at least I hadn't paid £200 for it.

Hairy Tales

David Nobbs wrote of one of his characters in 'A Bit of A Do': "She dyed her hair to sparkle, not deceive".  I thought that was a wonderful description, and though I share its sentiments in principle I still have to go to the hairdresser's every three weeks to get my roots done.  Because if you're going to be blonde, you have to look after it properly and give it the commitment and attention it deserves.  Unless you're Debbie Harry, of course - but I am palpably not her, so it was off I went to the temple of groom.

There was a young boy in the salon, newly employed and working as a trainee, and it was to him that the arduous yet simultaneously boring task of washing off my colour fell.  To be polite, I asked him the same question he must get asked by every well-meaning hair washee on a Friday afternoon: "so what are you doing at the weekend, then?" (WHY do we insist on asking these vapid questions, and why do we expect a serious answer?  You don't actually care about the answer; they know you don't care and so the question is usually answered with a resigned shrug of the shoulders and a vague stare into the middle-distance).

Anyway, he answered that he was going to spend Saturday celebrating his girlfriend's sixteenth birthday, which made me feel as though I'd, at that precise moment, morphed into a deeply wrinkled one hundred year-old.  "Oh, I'm old enough to be your girlfriend's mother!"  I laughed; and he laughed too, slightly awkwardly, probably because he didn't know what was expected of him now - compliment me and say I don't look it?  Or say something like "yes, actually you do look quite similar to her mother, but then you see, to me all old women look the same" But he did neither; just finished rubbing my scalp (vigorously, as the men seem to do) and deposited me safely in my chair for the intricate styling that was to follow, so all was good in the end.

Except that I felt strangely vulnerable and exposed, having a man wash my hair for me, and a man who was young enough to be my son to boot.  Because it's a bit intimate when you think about it, isn't it?  Even my husband has never washed my hair for me, plus there's the added consideration that I'm a bit more exposed with hair that's just been washed, because my crowning glory; the hair that somehow makes my face look a bit more bearable, has temporarily disappeared.  This is what I was thinking about as I stared up at the pretty Christmas decorations adorning the ceiling fan having shampoo liberally applied, before dismissing it all as being a bit, well - over analytical.  So I just asked for another cup of coffee and concentrated on planning the rest of my Christmas shopping in my head, just like everybody else.

Book snobbery

I love reading, so surely it goes to follow that I would love the new Kindle (other e-readers are available), right?

Wrong, actually.  I'm being unfair here, because I've never actually tried one, but for me it just feels alien to talk about technology and books in the same breath.  I've spoken to people about their Kindles and their iPads and they love them, and I can see why - lugging a hardback around with you can be a pain in more ways than one, and when you're going on holiday it must be great to take a Kindle with your entire bookshelf loaded onto it instead of going through your bookshelves trying to decide what you think will make a good read and will still give you enough baggage room for your essentials, like clothes.

But it's the whole "going through the bookshelves" thing that I love, I'm afraid.  I have two giant bookshelves at home, both of them hopelessly cluttered with books I've read, books I'm planning to read again, books I hated but still won't get rid of (I don't get rid of ANYTHING) and books just waiting to be read.  I love finishing a book and then staring through those hopelessly cluttered shelves, searching for the next amazing read, taking a book out and examining it in detail before putting it back and moving on to the next (this process can go on a bit).  I just can't see myself deriving the same amount of pleasure by flicking through a slick, organised 'virtual' bookshelf which, when downloaded, looks exactly the same as every other book.  Where's the individuality in that?  You might say that that is in the writing itself, and you'd be right in lots of ways, but for me every book has an individual personality, starting with the size and the cover and moving on to the typeface and the setting out of each chapter.  I have often chosen a book in Waterstone's or WHSmith or a charity shop just on the strength of the cover or the way the title has been scrawled all over the front of it.  Could I do that if I had a Kindle or an iPad?  Possibly, but it would be less fun, choosing it from a screen.

I also hate the way a Kindle allows you to hide what you're reading.  I love seeing what other people are reading; on some rare but wonderful occasions it has facilitated a new purchase or even a chat with a stranger (the last of such random chats was about 'One Day', a book the world loved and I absolutely hated - I was so desperate to find a kindred spirit that I badgered everybody I saw reading it, but that's another story!)  There is also, for me, nothing more attractive than a good-looking man sitting on a train engrossed in a really good novel (I'm not talking Harry Potter or Dan Brown here, snob that I am).

I suppose I just have to hope that real books will never go out of fashion, or that if they do, there will still be dimly-lit, backstreet places you can go to get them.

(and what happens if you drop a Kindle in the bath?!)

Russian Mother Heroes (a disconnected ramble)

I've been learning to speak Russian since last October.  One reason for this is having spent some time in St. Petersburg last year, which is without a doubt the most architecturally beautiful and historically interesting city I have ever seen (if you ever get the chance - go, and sit in Palace Square for a few hours after you've visited the Hermitage).  It was disconcerting, though, to wander around the city and not be able to understand anything I was seeing; to not even understand what letters were being used.  I felt like an outsider, and though that's exactly what I was, I wanted to be able to look at something written in Russian and be able to understand it.  Just that; in much the same way as I can look at something written in French or German and have a basic idea of what it means.

I wasn't expecting perfection, which is a good thing as it turns out, because my spoken Russian is atrocious even after over a year of learning.  I'm fascinated by the language, though; listening to it and learning it is never a chore.  Once you know the alphabet and how to pronounce the individual letters (supremely hard in my case as to speak Russian properly you need to be able to roll your Rs.  I can't, and several frustrating and stupid-sounding attempts later seem to point pathetically to the fact that I never will) a lot of Russian words are surprisingly similar to the English.  It's a bit like unlocking a secret code; in one of my early lessons my teacher gave me a list of Russian words to translate.  They looked incomprehensible at first glance but going down the list I realised they were American brand names... "Pi-zz-a...Hut", "Mc-Don-alds" formed themselves as I read.  Great fun (really!)

But anyway.  Another reason I enjoy learning Russian is the little snippets of culture I get when I go to my lessons every week; traditional foods and songs and habits; jokes that don't quite make sense when they've been translated into English and vice versa.  Today we were talking about 'large families' and my teacher mentioned the fact that mothers raising five or more children received a 'Mother Hero' medal from the Soviet Government (pictured below).  The medals ranked from bronze, silver and gold

(gold being for mothers with nine children or more), and you could wear them as proof that you are a 'Mother Hero'.

I found this fascinating, not only as another cultural nugget, but as added proof of the way motherhood is continually rewarded.  I found it odd that women should be expected to aspire to having nine or more children (my best friend has three and that seems like more than enough!) and that these medals seemed to be awarded regardless of how good a mother you actually were.

Not much to note I suppose; not really, except I couldn't help wondering about those women who couldn't have children, or those who chose not to have them.  Being a mother is still seen by so many people as the ultimate goal for a woman; as something my sex was "put on this Earth for".  So much so that you can sometimes feel like you've failed as a woman, or that you aren't living your life to its full potential until you've given birth and "not known such love could exist".

It just seemed to me to be strange to hand out medals (and benefits for that matter) in reward for performing a biological function.  My own mother could qualify for a Soviet bronze medal, but she was not a good mother in the traditional, and the practical senses of the word.  I suspect there are many like her around; perfectly good people but ill-equipped for motherhood.

So perhaps mothers should get medals for the truly good things they do as parents; all the demands on their time; all the mopping up spilt drinks; all the tears they wipe away; all those hours of helping with homework and watching mindless kids' TV.  For the truly good ones I'd pay for them myself.

Friends or family?

So which one wins?  Which is better?  Friends...the 'urban family' you choose for yourself, or the group of people you were lumbered with from birth?

I guess I'm not all that 'family' oriented.  In the main I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing.  My family is fragmented; my parents split at some point in my early childhood and things pootled along from there, both parents marrying again, those marriages didn't work out...and so on and so on, with several potential stepbrothers and sisters entering and leaving along the way (most of them slamming the door behind them).  That is a whole saga unto itself - if I were brave (or masochistic) enough I'd turn it into a novel.

I am now estranged from my mother as anybody reading this (is there anybody?) who knows me will of course already know.  This was one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life, though of course it isn't supposed to be and most of the people I know who have nice relationships with their parents don't tend to believe or understand it.  I don't blame them for that, and this isn't meant to sound martyrish at all.  I guess it's just there to add a bit of context.

Family-wise I'm closer now to my sisters than I have ever been.  There's something about getting older and realising that against all odds, you have actually formed some kind of a bond with those people who were there with you from the beginning, no matter how annoying you've always found them (they are two and four years younger than me so as we were growing up I'm afraid I did find them annoying in the extreme). I also have close friends with whom the bonds grow stronger with every year as I realise how much of our lives we've witnessed.  I suppose the only downside about these marvellous bonds is that they include embarrassing memories as well as lovely ones, and you can't edit those out.  Things like embarrassing crushes or that time when you went to school wearing an Easter bonnet with a bath sponge base and everybody laughed (that happened to me - it's a long story and you had to be there).  Family members are the worst for this.  I'm convinced that were I ever to actually become a famous, distinguished novelist one of my sisters would still be able to crush me by telling everybody at the book signing that up until quite recently I had no idea what a 'birthday suit' was.

So I guess new friends are good when you want to reinvent yourself, or you just want a laugh with someone who doesn't know how old you were when you finally stopped sucking your thumb.  Or that you ever sucked your thumb in the first place.  New friends are also harder to disappoint, because the closer you are to somebody and the more they know you, the easier it is to upset them or feel as though you've let them down.  It's a trade-off; you can have all the closeness but with that will come bucketloads of annoying habits and numerous ways in which you will be able to disappoint them and they you, often without even realising it.  I can understand why some people choose not to get close to anybody, because with it comes a wealth of - well, hassle.

So anyway, back to the original question - family or friends?  Heaven forbid I should sound indecisive, but I would say both, as long as they're good ones.

Stornoway in London

Last night I went to see one of my favourite bands, Stornoway, in concert.  Stornoway are a perfect example of the 'folky geography teacher music no-one else likes' phrase I entered on my profile, but I don't care.  I love them, beige clothes and trumpets, awkwardly introspective lyrics and all.

It's always a struggle, trying to find someone to come with me to see all these mad bands I like (I love live music and would go and see bands far more often if only I knew anyone who was as enthusiastic as me about said band and/or live music in general.  Trust me, enthusiasm counts.  I've taken (read: dragged) people along with me to gigs over the years, but if they don't genuinely like the music then I start feeling as though I've dragged them there, which makes me feel a bit uncomfortable and bully-ish (and when I say "live music" I don't mean impersonal concerts like U2 playing at Wembley Stadium, I'm talking about intimate little acoustic gigs at Hammersmith or Shepherd's Bush, or even better somewhere like Dingwalls or the Troubadour).

But anyway...

I'm not sure quite where I'm going with all this rambly rubbish, except to say that I went, a friend came with me and we both enjoyed it (in particular the acoustic set when practically the whole audience sang along to 'End of the Movie', giving me goosebumps....'End of the Movie' is a song which for some reason always makes me well up a bit anyway). The only dampener on the evening originated from standing next to a large man with cheese-and-onion-Pringles breath who spent most of the time burping.  But you can't have it all, especially when you check in to the dodgy B&B you're staying in for the night and you find you're in the basement with a rickety, verging-on-unlockable door and the owner looks like a combination of Brian Blessed and The Notorious B.I.G.  But hey, it's all part of the fun!

Writers' Block

Yes, it does exist.  For me, anyway.  Not for things like this; rambling little exercises in stream-of-consciousness that hardly anybody will ever read, but for the big guns?  Definitely.

The 'big guns' in my case is my first novel, entitled 'Small Fish' (you have to read it to 'get' the title - clever, eh?)  When I started it I thought actually writing, and completing, a novel would be something to shout about.  All that effort, all that staring at a blank screen wondering how the hell you're going to fill it up; how the story should unravel and is the ending too obvious?  But in reality, completing the first draft is just the beginning, because after that you have to put your money where your mouth is.  When you're writing the first draft it's enough to say to people "I'm writing a book".  They nod sagely; they ask what it's about, which is actually a question I dread because I don't really like talking about the semantics of my own writing in case people think it's all a load of rubbish...or "Oh - is that it?"  And then they'll ask what I'm going to do with it when it's finished, as well they might, because why would you not want to DO something with all that time and effort?  It's just...I honestly never thought properly about that until now.  And it's this 'shrug of the shoulders' attitude and lapse of proper forethought that I know I must lose if I ever want to become a successful, published writer.

And I do.  I  really do - and unlike a lot of people who say they're "writing a book" I have actually written one.  Or at least, half a one.  I gave my completed first draft to five people to comment on (as advised by Stephen King in 'On Writing' - the only book I've ever read of his but if anyone knows about how to become a successful writer it's him).  The results were...interesting.  Four of my readers liked the book; one felt I had only half a book and there was a lot of revision to do.  And he was right.  I'm not saying that in a 'martyrish' sort of way; as I read his criticisms my heart sank but with the full knowledge that a lot of what he was saying was absolutely spot-on.

The trouble is, now I'm scared.  Because while I was writing this book I had something to aspire to, but it was a hazy pipe dream of the kind that one day I might be published.  But now my book is finished, and I've got some serious work to do before it's in a state I'd be willing to show anybody in the industry.  But what if I do all that work...and nobody wants it?  Actually I know what I'll do - I'll write another book.  I'm already itching to start a new one; ideas are abound.  That isn't a problem.  It's just...to really GET anywhere with these ideas I'm going to have to kick it up a notch, and I'm absolutely terrified of what will happen when I do.

It's funny isn't it...you never hear of 'plumber's block' or 'senior management consultant's block', do you?  I seem to have chosen a way of spending my time that is scarily immersive and likely to be very commercially unviable.  Why?  The truth is that I really wouldn't have it any other way.  At the risk of sounding incredibly, unbelievably pretentious, writing seems to have chosen me, not the other way round.

Thoughts for the day...

Maybe I'm missing the point, but I don't really understand all the "they're spending tax payer's money" outrage over the Royal Wedding.  It's not like we've been handed an empty Corgi basket and asked to stump up individually for the dress, is it?  Even if we were, I'd gladly empty my purse and sell all my worldly goods rather than marry into that family myself.  I'd imagine being royal is no picnic (or if it is, it's one with soggy sandwiches and clouds turning threateningly black just as you've laid out your blanket).  Even in the days when the monarchy wasn't questioned, I'd still rather have been a peasant.  Granted, the clothes weren't great and neither was the plague, but at least you had something resembling freedom, and a wedding free of nauseating comparison with your sainted dead mother-in-law's (and no-one'll put your face on a side plate either, which HAS to be a good thing...and while we're on the subject, do you know anybody who actually owns a piece of Royal Wedding china?)  So let the happy couple have my taxes to pay for their wedding if they want.  I'm not bitter.

On an entirely different note, I went to Pizza Express this evening with a friend.  Having recently read about the Pizza Express management's efforts to train all their staff in the "gentle art of seduction", i.e. flirting with the customers, I was a bit apprehensive.  I needn't have worried.  The man taking our order was rushed off his feet and took our orders with an Elvis-type sneer, before rushing off and then getting all the food wrong.  But maybe he was just playing hard to get.  I actually asked one of the waitresses if the story was true; she hadn't heard anything about it but did tell us that last week a manager and a waitress had been filmed having sex in a London branch of Pizza Express and it had made the front cover of 'The Sun'. So the management did get something along the lines of the "gentle art of seduction" after all...they must have been pleased with that.

On the slippery downward slope that is ageing

I am currently 33 years old.  "Only" 33.  My 87 year old Nan would most likely give anything to be "only 33".  But the thing is, no matter how many times older people say "you don't know how lucky you are...wait until you're 42/56/69/74/88/91/105" (delete as applicable), "only 33" is still the oldest I've ever been (though hopefully not as old as I'll ever be).

When I was 18 I had an assistant's job at a local radio station.  My boss was 33, and I thought she was ancient.  I remember feeling a bit sorry for her; surely most of her life had already happened; certainly her youth definitely had?  It hadn't, obviously, but 'youth' in your thirties is very different from 'youth' in your twenties.  Mainly because when you're in your twenties you're not actually aware of being young in the first place.  All that really matters is what's going on today.  I remember sitting in the pub with a bottle of Two Dogs (!) and a friend, both of us having just turned 21 and moaning about the lack of places to go on Saturday nights (nobody does misplaced angst quite as well as a twentysomething in the pub).

You're aware of being young in your thirties, though.  In fact you're constantly reassuring yourself and others in the same boat that "we're still young".  And you are, but it's a different sort of young.  It's young with the looming threat of self-awareness.  It's young with the knowledge that soon you definitely won't be young any more, so you'd better do something with said youth before it crumbles away into submission and you end up wandering into M&S in a trance and buying a pair of tartan slippers just because they look comfy.

It's youth with added nostalgia.  Nostalgia doesn't hit you properly until after you hit thirty; before then you can listen to a song from your childhood and half-heartedly think "that was a long time ago" with no real concept of how fast time actually moves.  Now there are songs that are verging on physically painful for me to listen to as I start to understand how fast time actually does move; how I've started to build a bank of dust-covered memories, seemingly without even realising it, that can actually reach out its wispy fingers over the best part of twenty-five years.  I've known my two best friends for twenty-three years.  That fact alone scares the willies out of me, because it really, really doesn't seem like it.

There's no use telling people in their twenties about these new-found revelations though, because they won't understand; they'll think you're moaning about nothing, and anyway to them you ARE old so what's the problem?  And you can't tell people older than you because they'll look smugly down on you for only just realising something that's been with them for many, many years and then they'll look at you with their eyes coated in a gleamy self-satisfied glaze that says "finally...welcome to my world".  Maybe that's one of the good things about the 'slippery slope'; the day that other, younger, people realise they've joined you on it.

All I can say is, I'm looking forward to the day my twenty-one year old sister turns thirty (insert smiley here).

Not driving is a blessing!

See, I always knew I was an optimist at heart.  Of course, the title should read "not being ABLE to drive CAN be a blessing".  Because at the grand old age of thirty-three, I have still not managed to pass a practical driving test (theory = no problem).  I have taken five tests, a summary of which follows:

Test 1 - age 17.  The test was booked for an afternoon in August, on which I was wearing a beautiful strappy floral dress.  Unfortunately, one of the straps decided to break off during the Emergency Stop procedure, forcing me to grab the dress in order to stop it from falling down and therefore abandoning the test.  One of the most embarrassing moments of my life (so far).

Test 2 - age 17.  So happy and enthusiastic was I that I may shortly be able to drive, that I misinterpreted the examiner scratching his head for the Emergency Stop (again!) signal and stopped at the wrong moment, causing his glasses and clipboard to fly off and hit the dashboard.  The examiner (who incidentally was the spitting image of Chris Barrie in 'The Brittas Empire') turned to me with cold eyes and as he spluttered "That was NOT the signal for the Emergency Stop" I knew that I had failed.

Test 3 - age 18.  I suffer from an intense lack of concentration, especially when nervous, and flew obliviously through two red lights.

Test 4 - age 21.  The examiner had to grab the wheel when I misinterpreted a line of parked cars for a queue of moving traffic.

Test 5 - age 26.  After a long hiatus, I proved I was still just as capable of messing up a driving test by completely failing to reverse-park after FOUR attempts.  The poor examiner was a rare nice one, but even he had his limits.

So there you go - from that little list you will correctly surmise that I, and more importantly you, are much better off with me as a pedestrian and a user of public transport than behind the wheel of a car.  And in the main, I am very happy about it.  Over the years, having to find inventive ways to get to obscure places of work (WHY did I only ever take jobs on wasteland-like industrial estates and Tilbury Docks?) made me see public transport as an adventure to be savoured.  Sharing seats with random people actually appeals to me, as I class myself as a ruthless 'people watcher'.  I don't mind the people who shout brashly into their mobiles, or who doze off in their seat and snore, or who put their make-up on hurriedly in the next seat (though I did draw the line at the woman who started plucking her eyebrows next to me on the train).

Taxi drivers are often the best source of entertainment though, as one journey in Basildon proved recently.   The driver insisted on showing me his tattoo (thankfully on his arm!) which he said was his daughter's name in Chinese (he wasn't actually Chinese himself; the reason he wanted it in Chinese was a question I didn't ask).  He went on to say that the tattooist had mis-heard him and that instead of 'Anna' the tattoo actually read 'Alan'.  He didn't find this funny in the least; in fact he was outraged and expected me to be too, which made the rest of the journey excruciating for me, though also utterly wonderful.  Where else would you get a snippet of somebody's life like that?

Not driving has made me hardier - I think nothing of walking to a friend's house, or to the town, or in fact anywhere within reasonable walking distance, which I class as just over an hour; something my car-loving friends don't understand at all.  "But how are you going to GET here?" they'll say sometimes, as though buses, trains, taxis and indeed feet, had never been invented.  No MOT, car tax, increased petrol prices and traffic jams are also a bonus.

(Told you I was an optimist...)

Musings on Reality Television

Don't worry, this isn't going to be a sanctimonious rant about how we're all going to Hell in a bumpy, sequin encrusted Simon Cowell-controlled handcart, though it's quite tempting isn't it?  Because Reality Television is a great divider of opinion; something you're expected to love unconditionally or hate with wild-eyed, foaming-at-the-mouth outrage.

(Just as an aside, isn't it interesting how people can assume they know what TV shows you like before you've actually told them?  I'm not sure quite what impression I make, but apparently I'm the sort of person who people immediately assume hates all forms of Reality Television and is an avid fan of 'Sex and the City'.  When my birthday comes round, people tend to buy me cards with pairs of shoes on the front.   It's lovely of them, but the truth is that I can't stand 'Sex and the City' and I can't remember the last time I bought a pair of shoes.  In fact I hate shoe-shopping.  The only reason I've got lots of pairs of shoes is because I'm a hoarder and I don't throw anything away, ever.  Some of those shoes I've had since I was nineteen years old.

God, I'm glad I've got that off my chest...)

For me, television is like a box of Quality Street.  You have a good old rummage, then you pick and choose what you like and leave what you don't.  And if I'm partial to a Hazelnut in Caramel while the person next to me enjoys a Coffee Cream, then why should I care?

My own opinion, for anyone who may be interested in it, is that Reality Television is enjoyable as long as there is actually some 'Reality' in it.  That, or it simply has to put a smile on my face.  'Strictly Come Dancing' does that, so I enjoy watching it.  I also enjoyed watching 'Big Brother' because no matter how tacky and controlled it was, and no matter how fame-hungry and aware the contestants were, after about Week Three you'd see real, unvarnished personalities start to emerge against all the odds.  I found that fascinating, though most people I spoke to didn't share my opinion.  In fact, one of my bosses on finding out I was watching and enjoying 'Big Brother', told me his opinion of my intelligence had "drastically lowered" (bless him).

Which brings me on to the snobbery some people amusingly display when they discuss Reality Television, usually with disgust and a "I'd never watch that rubbish" or "it's for people with no intelligence" or "it's corrupting the kids".  As much as I don't enjoy watching the 'X Factor' I wouldn't condemn anybody who does to an empty lifetime of illiterate chavviness.  It's just an entertainment programme a lot of people enjoy watching on Saturday nights, that's all.  Television can entertain as well as inform, just as books can, or magazines, or people.  And to me, you can dip in, take your pick and enjoy both of those aspects in equal measure.

I've said I don't like watching the 'X Factor', not because I think it's the spawn of the devil, more that I just find it boring.  The same format every year; the same sob stories, the same dead-eyed performances of the same songs, the same lack of genuine human emotion and raw talent.  But I think that's more to do with my advancing age than anything else (that and the fact that nothing the 'X Factor' can produce will ever top the Great Will Young vs. Gareth Gates showdown of 2001's 'Pop Idol'.  But I was younger, and more naive, in those days).  And no matter how ambivalent I am to that, and to 'I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!' (a programme I have never liked), it's just my opinion, worth the same as anybody else's.  No more, no less.

I can't help finding the sort of people who condemn the trashier side of television, or life for that matter, a bit humourless.  Surely we all need a bit of trash in our lives; some shiny things we like but don't take too seriously?  'Strictly Come Dancing' does that for me, but there I'm probably analysing a bit too much.

What do you want for Christmas? Answer me!

I HATE that question.  Always have done, even when I was a kid.  My sisters and I were asked to make a list every year, and though there were always things I wanted, there was something incredibly self-indulgent about writing it all down and expecting somebody to go out and get them for me.  It just felt a bit...greedy.

Yet even though I hated being asked THAT question, once the clocks have been turned back and the first Christmas ads start sneaking onto our screens I find myself asking it, as though something in my brain has been switched on to autopilot at the first whiff of Christmas.  I'm beginning to understand why adults are so enthusiastic about their kids making lists; what do you get a twelve year-old, or a three year-old, or a sixteen year-old, especially when these kids already have everything?  If you don't have kids yourself and therefore have no idea if they're still watching 'Postman Pat' or if he's been upgraded to 'Courier Colin' these days, the Christmas List is worth its weight in gold.

It's just that...lists, and people parroting about the latest celebrity hardback takes the gloss off Christmas for me.  I like surprising people, and I like to be surprised with something thoughtful and well-chosen; something picked because that person knows me, knows who I am and what I like.  I especially love it when somebody chooses a book for me, something I might not have picked out myself in the shop but when I read it, it becomes an instant classic.  A friend once bought me a bookmark for Christmas.  It was the best present I ever got, mainly because she didn't ask me what I wanted, she just went out and got me something she thought I would like.

So why, if I like surprises so much, do I still ask people what they want for Christmas?  I think it might be about acceptance; you can get them something within the realms of their expectations and 'check' if it's alright.  Even if we like it, we shy away from surprising people; how many times are you handed a present with the giver coughing nervously "the receipt's in the bag if you want to take it back?"  (I am guilty of doing this myself).

Some people ask what you want in the form of an order, with a hint of accusation in their voice; if you can't readily come up with something you want that's affordable and easy to buy, you're not to blame them if you end up getting something you hate.  But is present-giving only about getting people what they want?  What about the 'quirky', weird and wonderful things you always get (mainly from well-meaning older relatives) that you had no conception of wanting or not wanting because you didn't know they existed in the first place, but make you smile anyway?  Case in point: my Dad buying me a yellow bath towel one Christmas, and my Nan proudly presenting me with a kitchen air freshener selection pack that had no actual smell because it had already been used.  (Nan is also fond of giving opened boxes of chocolates with a couple of said chocolates pre-snaffled, but that's another story).  Isn't that the real spirit of Christmas, or of present-giving in general?

So this year: be bold.  Don't ask anybody what they want for Christmas, just buy them what you think they'd like.  And if that happens to be a cracked china dog sold for 50p at your local boot sale, or a signed photograph of Rolf Harris, then so be it.  They'll remember you forever, at least.

On not having kids

I love kids.  I just couldn't eat a whole one.  Isn't that how the joke goes?  Or at least, it's the sort of comment a childless (or child-free as we like to be called) might make, accompanied by a nervous giggle when asked if they're intending to procreate.  Because it's an awkward thing to admit, that you don't want a child of your own, so best add a bit of humour to your response just to show that you're not really dead inside like everybody thinks.

That's if anybody's really interested these days.  I've read so many magazine and newspaper articles where a child-free person is rolled out to tell "my side of the story", about how they've been persecuted by their peer group for not wanting to join them in child-raising Hell and how people tut at them in the bus queue and throw fruit at them in the supermarket for having these wild, uncontrollably heretic views.  Yet I haven't experienced much of this myself (and if I'm honest I'm mildly disappointed that I haven't; what's the point of having a 'controversial' point of view if nobody actually thinks of it as controversial?); just a malleable "fair enough" whenever I've stated, when asked, my intention never to have children.

That's not to say I haven't had the odd comment, and as I get older these are becoming more frequent.  Such comments range from the harmless "but you'd make a great mother" and "Jon (my husband) would be great as a Dad - it'd be a shame not to" to the not-so-harmless "you drink so much black coffee, it's no wonder you're barren" (courtesy of my Nan) and a mother-of-three I'd only just met at the gym who snippily asked me if not having children made me "more selfish".

The "more selfish" thing is an excuse, granted.  I think a lot of people do assume you're probably more selfish if you don't fulfil your biological imperative, especially if you're a woman.  But is it our only biological imperative, to have children and then do nothing?  Some people do appear to think so.  I watched a documentary about teenage mums on TV once.  It made me sad; not because these teenage lives were being ruined, but because it was clear that they felt there were no other options available to them other than becoming mothers.  It was as though they now had the perfect answer for anybody who asked them "what are you doing with your life?" There was almost tangible relief that these mothers could now absent themselves from life's Big Questions simply by defining themselves as parents.  Because it's what we're all supposed to be doing, isn't it?  It's the stock, thoughtless answer to the "why are we here?" question - "well it's to procreate and continue the human race of course!" that renders the lives of the infertile, the homosexual and anybody with imagination utterly useless.

That said, I do think parents are amazing people.  They do a job I could never do in a million years, full of wall-to-wall tedium and tantrums, as I see it, with the end result a lottery no matter how much care and attention is put into the parenting.  Most of the parents I know handle all this admirably; in fact I'm full of wonder at exactly how they manage it.  My Dad brought up my sisters and I practically single-handedly and I still don't quite know how he did it.  I'm not sure he does, either.  Maybe the key to good parenting is just taking each day as it comes; not thinking too far ahead.  I think that if I were ever to become a parent myself, I'd spend half my life in a comatose state.

Tolstoy once wrote "People who do nothing must make people, the rest of us must fill their lives with happiness and enlightenment"  I don't agree that parents do nothing except "make people", but I like his quote for the simple reason that it allows the child-free a real purpose in life.

Ethereal...why?

I set this blog thingy up today, and from the lovely selection on offer I chose 'Ethereal' as my background.  What that says about me, I'm not sure.  Do I want my writing to be seen as 'ethereal'?  'Extremely delicate and refined' is how the dictionary describes it (and yes, I did know what the word meant before I looked it up - what sort of a pretend writer would I be if I didn't?)

So yes...alright, that'll do for starters.  I don't mind people thinking of my writing as 'extremely delicate and refined'.  That's if anybody ever reads it.  'Nina's Witterings' isn't exactly a title that draws the eye excitedly to what's coming next, is it?  In fact it reads and sounds more like something a weary nurse might scribble on a patient chart at a mental hospital.  But hey, if I want to be a writer then I've got to write things.  Writing novels are great, but you do need the stream-of-consciousness stuff too sometimes.  Which is I guess what this blog will be for.  I won't blog about anything in particular, just things that occur to me every now and again.  And I will write, as the majority of writers tend to do, as though I had an audience of people who are actually interested in what I have to say, regardless of whether or not that actually turns out to be the case.

(Deep breath)  Ready, set, GO!

ADDENDUM: this blog is now called 'Fake Blonde Procrastinator.  For obvious reasons.