The poor Long Suffering Husband started the day on the back foot. I was grumpy for many reasons, including the news, having lost my voice again, meetings and death. I really didn’t feel very well but that was no excuse for my over reaction.
It started with me showing him a thread on Twitter and telling him that my daughter and I were really impressed with people’s detective skills. To be fair, he probably hadn’t heard what I said because I have no voice. The thread started with a picture of two middle aged white men on a tube who looked a bit drunk. The picture had been taken by a young black girl who said that before Brexit men like this would never have had the courage to abuse her in the way they had and she was horrified about how justified they felt in telling her she should go ‘home’. They also called her uneducated for refusing to say she was from anywhere other than London. Within a few tweets people had managed to identify the men from a logo on a T-shirt and a bracelet. However, a few tweets later someone had managed to generalise, “Golf and Formula 1 just seems to attract the absolute *worst* type of people. Wonder what it is?”
The LSH finished reading and said, “I like golf and F1.” He had totally missed my point. I blew. Silently, of course, but he got the message. It’s one of those things that really upsets me. You see it a lot on Twitter when someone has been a misogynist or racist, the people who identify them because they are also male or white or play golf don’t condemn the behaviour but jump up and down shouting that they are not like that. Of course, by doing that they are acknowledging that the behaviour is bad but that just lessens the impact of the bad behaviour. It’s something women on Twitter get very annoyed about when discussing domestic abuse. Instead of coming straight out and condemning this horrible thing some (actually lots) of men put more energy into defending themselves.
It is a fact that the majority of violent acts are committed by men but it is also true that not all men commit them. But we like to divide the world into two. Girls are pink. Boys are blue. Men can’t cook. Women can’t play sport. None of these things are actually true. (I’m an accidental poet). Instead of perpetuating these myths it would be so much better if we tried to narrow the divide. Acknowledge the differences but accept that there is an overlapping spectrum of each gender. We are all people.
Since I started writing this blog a weird thing has happened. The BBC has run a smear test campaign, advising all ‘people’ with a vagina to get tested and a prostate campaign talking to ‘men’. It’s almost as if people are scared to use the word woman and here it would be the most appropriate use of the term: men with a womb should get tested. Women of Twitter seem to think that this has happened because of the threats of violence towards ‘cis’ women by ‘trans’ women. This is something I don’t understand but it seems as though some trans women are very angry with the women who were born with their genitals. You’d think that being born with the wrong genitals would be enough to be angry about. Again, I’m sure it’s only a small minority of trans women that are threatening violence. I do wonder if trans women need cervical smears because even though they have a vagina, they still don’t have a womb or a cervix.
I have also been reading Caroline Credo Perez’s book Invisible Women. This is a brilliantly researched book about the data gap in all things female. Things in our society are designed around the 50th percentile man, which isn’t appropriate for lots of women. It has made me think about how we need to acknowledge the difference as well as the similarities in our biological sex.
Before I finish this blog I would like to apologise to the LSH. Obviously, I know he would never racially abuse a young girl on the train because he plays golf and likes F1. He can cook and is a better housekeeper and shopper than I am and none of that threatens his masculinity and he is the only person I know who can win a coconut at the school fete.
Sunday, 30 June 2019
Sunday, 16 June 2019
Climate Change - the last straw
On Friday evening I went to a meeting about Climate Change organised by an extraordinary thirteen year old that I used to teach. I came home and wanted to blog straight away but it took me ages to get my head around it all. I like to think I'm not a stupid person but this stuff can be really complicated.
I cancelled our usual orchestra rehearsal to allow all our members the chance to attend because I thought that young people would want to know exactly what they need to be doing to secure the future of the planet. The meeting was reasonably well attended but not packed. I hadn't been able to persuade the Long Suffering Husband to come with me (although, I didn't try too hard and he was kept up to date by my friend's husband texting him all the way through). As usual with meetings, the average age of the audience was probably over fifty. There were some young people there, probably drawn in by the clever title (last straw) and the wonderful work of David Attenborough, hoping for ideas how to get their parents to stop using cling film. They might have been disappointed if they were because there was very little talk about plastic in the sea. It seems as though the 5p carrier bag tax and Sir David have been the best catalyst.
The meeting was organised by Hattie Phillips and Jill Bruce from the WI and they had managed to get the MP (John Whittingdale) to chair, Gareth Redmond -King (Head of Climate Change WWF-UK), Darren Tansley (Essex Wildlife Trust), Sam Frankhauser (Climate Change academic from the LSE) to speak. The headteacher introduced the meeting, being very rightly proud of his student.
I'm not good at meetings. I get bored and fidgety and my bum is too bony to sit in one place for over an hour. I get cross at people who like the sound of their own voice, so this was always going to be a challenge for me. I had my special notebook for meetings and I think I only sighed out loud once or twice. But I am glad I went.
Because I read and I go outside I am aware that things are changing faster than they should. This meeting gave me some of the facts to back up my observations. Sometimes, I have mentioned my fears to the LSH, who always assures me that it will be fine because humans are resourceful and clever and that we will invent a solution. He might be right because I remember being at school in the Seventies and being told that Norfolk would have washed away by the time I was an adult. We were shown pictures of the Wash and projections of how much further in it would be. They weren't wrong but we developed technological solutions rather than fixing the cause of the problem. We developed flood barriers and coastal defenses.
The man from Essex Wildlife Trust, who from hereon in I will refer to as the Beaver Wrangler, explained that these defenses have, in fact caused problems to our soil, which has less structure and is washing into our rivers and out to sea. Apart from Hattie, the Beaver Wrangler was my favourite speaker. He talked about trees and Beavers and using nature to heal the earth. Water is a huge problem in this part of Essex. We are in danger of flood from being on an estuary with sea level rising and have one of the lowest amounts of rainfall (that I think of as the Maldon Umbrella), so are also in danger of drought. John Whittingdale confessed that he had only this week had a visit from the environment agency to warn him of the dangerously low water levels in his constituency (he didn't say what his response was). There was hope from the Beaver Wrangler.
The man from WWF was less hopeful. In fact, his information made me feel quite depressed. He explained that the main problem has always been carbon dioxide. Releasing CO2 into the environment causes the planet to warm and this is a problem. It was a problem in the Seventies, when we were shown pictures of the Wash and it's a critical problem now. It could be irreversible too. Because we have developed technical solutions to the effects we have ignored what we need to do to stop it happening and have allowed people with less imagination to deny that it is happening.
He told us that the planet has warmed by one degree in the last Century and that the rise in temperature is happening faster and faster. We only have ten years before it's up 1.5 degrees and we are on track for warming of 3 degrees by the end of the Century. When you are faced with facts like that it is difficult not to think that the whole thing is hopeless. All the panelists were talking about keeping the rise capped at 1.5 degrees and none were talking about reversing it. Someone asked about the possibility and were told that if we can stop the rise then there is a possibility that nature can reverse it but it is only a possibility.
The man from the LSE with the beautiful Swedish sounding accent and the geeky facts was more positive. Our country has reduced its CO2 emissions by 40% since 1990 and that we are using 3 times less CO2 per unit of GDP than we were. He pointed out that our electricity production was much better than it had ever been and was leading the way in reducing CO2 emissions. Farming, household, aviation, shipping and industry were lagging behind but there were things everyone could do. He told us that eating less meat was essential to saving the planet and was good for us, as he patted his stomach and told us that he certainly felt better for it. Would it be wrong to kidnap him and keep him in a cage to quote geeky facts at me with that lovely accent? I always have spare courgettes I could feed him. Sorry, I got distracted for a moment there. This is a serious subject.
John Whittingdale was very pleased with himself, having started his political career as Margaret Thatcher's political secretary (or toy boy, as the Sun called him at the time), knowing that her drive to end coal mining and support nuclear fuel had been a large factor in causing the cleaning up of electricity production. It really wasn't the right audience for this kind of self congratulation, as most people there wouldn't have advocated the destruction of whole communities and stomping all over the poor or have described a fuel that can change the genes of all living things and cause cancer as 'clean'. The collective sucking in of breath was almost an environmental disaster of its own. He also confessed that the government has spent too much time talking about "the dredded B word, which divides opinion" but still seemed to think it would somehow help us sort out climate change.
The more I listened to the experts, the more complicated I realised the whole thing is. Just because we are releasing less CO2 doesn't mean we are less responsible, as we outsource our production to China and then ship our goods over. Shipping didn't even make it onto the chart in the race for cleaning up CO2 emissions. I kept worrying that it needed to be a whole world approach and wondered whether there was really any point, as we would never get everyone to agree.
Every expert on climate change seems to agree that we need to eat less meat. The three on the panel were all at least vegetarian. I'm shocked at how important this seems to be. There were lots of facts given that I didn't write down but have been swimming in my little brain since the meeting about how much environmental damage is done by farming of animals. I'm conflicted by this. I like seeing cows on farms, sheep in fields and I get terribly excited if I go to Suffolk and see the pigs. Sunday roast is my favourite dinner and I know that I find it easier to eat a less processed diet when I eat meat. The Beaver Wrangler, was also upset about not being able to eat meat any more. He misses it but has decided that it's what he needs to do to help the planet. John Whittingdale flatly refused to consider the idea, as it would be too difficult for him and his rich constituents are beef farmers. A vegan in the audience asked an important question, which I think was missed by many people, who were too busy being horrified at the idea of giving up steak and chips. She wanted to know if it was time the government changed it's advice on whether you need meat for a healthy balanced diet. This is such a good question because if the government have only advised this to keep their wealthy beef farmers happy then we need to know.
One of the speakers gave us a list of things we could do.
I cancelled our usual orchestra rehearsal to allow all our members the chance to attend because I thought that young people would want to know exactly what they need to be doing to secure the future of the planet. The meeting was reasonably well attended but not packed. I hadn't been able to persuade the Long Suffering Husband to come with me (although, I didn't try too hard and he was kept up to date by my friend's husband texting him all the way through). As usual with meetings, the average age of the audience was probably over fifty. There were some young people there, probably drawn in by the clever title (last straw) and the wonderful work of David Attenborough, hoping for ideas how to get their parents to stop using cling film. They might have been disappointed if they were because there was very little talk about plastic in the sea. It seems as though the 5p carrier bag tax and Sir David have been the best catalyst.
The meeting was organised by Hattie Phillips and Jill Bruce from the WI and they had managed to get the MP (John Whittingdale) to chair, Gareth Redmond -King (Head of Climate Change WWF-UK), Darren Tansley (Essex Wildlife Trust), Sam Frankhauser (Climate Change academic from the LSE) to speak. The headteacher introduced the meeting, being very rightly proud of his student.
I'm not good at meetings. I get bored and fidgety and my bum is too bony to sit in one place for over an hour. I get cross at people who like the sound of their own voice, so this was always going to be a challenge for me. I had my special notebook for meetings and I think I only sighed out loud once or twice. But I am glad I went.
The man from Essex Wildlife Trust, who from hereon in I will refer to as the Beaver Wrangler, explained that these defenses have, in fact caused problems to our soil, which has less structure and is washing into our rivers and out to sea. Apart from Hattie, the Beaver Wrangler was my favourite speaker. He talked about trees and Beavers and using nature to heal the earth. Water is a huge problem in this part of Essex. We are in danger of flood from being on an estuary with sea level rising and have one of the lowest amounts of rainfall (that I think of as the Maldon Umbrella), so are also in danger of drought. John Whittingdale confessed that he had only this week had a visit from the environment agency to warn him of the dangerously low water levels in his constituency (he didn't say what his response was). There was hope from the Beaver Wrangler.
The man from WWF was less hopeful. In fact, his information made me feel quite depressed. He explained that the main problem has always been carbon dioxide. Releasing CO2 into the environment causes the planet to warm and this is a problem. It was a problem in the Seventies, when we were shown pictures of the Wash and it's a critical problem now. It could be irreversible too. Because we have developed technical solutions to the effects we have ignored what we need to do to stop it happening and have allowed people with less imagination to deny that it is happening.
He told us that the planet has warmed by one degree in the last Century and that the rise in temperature is happening faster and faster. We only have ten years before it's up 1.5 degrees and we are on track for warming of 3 degrees by the end of the Century. When you are faced with facts like that it is difficult not to think that the whole thing is hopeless. All the panelists were talking about keeping the rise capped at 1.5 degrees and none were talking about reversing it. Someone asked about the possibility and were told that if we can stop the rise then there is a possibility that nature can reverse it but it is only a possibility.
The man from the LSE with the beautiful Swedish sounding accent and the geeky facts was more positive. Our country has reduced its CO2 emissions by 40% since 1990 and that we are using 3 times less CO2 per unit of GDP than we were. He pointed out that our electricity production was much better than it had ever been and was leading the way in reducing CO2 emissions. Farming, household, aviation, shipping and industry were lagging behind but there were things everyone could do. He told us that eating less meat was essential to saving the planet and was good for us, as he patted his stomach and told us that he certainly felt better for it. Would it be wrong to kidnap him and keep him in a cage to quote geeky facts at me with that lovely accent? I always have spare courgettes I could feed him. Sorry, I got distracted for a moment there. This is a serious subject.
John Whittingdale was very pleased with himself, having started his political career as Margaret Thatcher's political secretary (or toy boy, as the Sun called him at the time), knowing that her drive to end coal mining and support nuclear fuel had been a large factor in causing the cleaning up of electricity production. It really wasn't the right audience for this kind of self congratulation, as most people there wouldn't have advocated the destruction of whole communities and stomping all over the poor or have described a fuel that can change the genes of all living things and cause cancer as 'clean'. The collective sucking in of breath was almost an environmental disaster of its own. He also confessed that the government has spent too much time talking about "the dredded B word, which divides opinion" but still seemed to think it would somehow help us sort out climate change.
The more I listened to the experts, the more complicated I realised the whole thing is. Just because we are releasing less CO2 doesn't mean we are less responsible, as we outsource our production to China and then ship our goods over. Shipping didn't even make it onto the chart in the race for cleaning up CO2 emissions. I kept worrying that it needed to be a whole world approach and wondered whether there was really any point, as we would never get everyone to agree.
Every expert on climate change seems to agree that we need to eat less meat. The three on the panel were all at least vegetarian. I'm shocked at how important this seems to be. There were lots of facts given that I didn't write down but have been swimming in my little brain since the meeting about how much environmental damage is done by farming of animals. I'm conflicted by this. I like seeing cows on farms, sheep in fields and I get terribly excited if I go to Suffolk and see the pigs. Sunday roast is my favourite dinner and I know that I find it easier to eat a less processed diet when I eat meat. The Beaver Wrangler, was also upset about not being able to eat meat any more. He misses it but has decided that it's what he needs to do to help the planet. John Whittingdale flatly refused to consider the idea, as it would be too difficult for him and his rich constituents are beef farmers. A vegan in the audience asked an important question, which I think was missed by many people, who were too busy being horrified at the idea of giving up steak and chips. She wanted to know if it was time the government changed it's advice on whether you need meat for a healthy balanced diet. This is such a good question because if the government have only advised this to keep their wealthy beef farmers happy then we need to know.
One of the speakers gave us a list of things we could do.
Walk, cycle or buy an electric car
Be energy efficient at home
Eat less meat
Travel more thoughtfully
Make your voice heard
Go on school strike.
I think most of us there were too old for school strike but we could make an attempt at the rest.
Although I was overwhelmed a lot of the time during this meeting there was one thing that made me leave full of hope. That was Hattie. When there are young people like this in the world there is still a chance. Her presentation was truly inspirational. She started by saying, " I'm thirteen years old can't have sex for three years but already I've had more education on sex than I've had on climate change."
(Forgive me if I've misquoted, I didn't write it down) Then she explained that things could change because a few years ago no one of thirteen would ever dream of talking about sex in front of their parents, grandparents and MP. She talked about small changes and getting outside, not ordering that dress from Asos that you didn't need, connecting with nature and wanting to save the planet. She also saw hope in the fact that her classmates were dropping litter and sending her videos of themselves doing it, to wind her up. She thought that at least they were thinking about the fact that they'd dropped litter. She talked about having three meat free days a week or walking to school and she showed that she could get politicians to listen. She told us that we'd have to stand in woodland for 500 thousand years before being abducted.
Thank you Hattie. I'm prepared to give it a go.
Tuesday, 11 June 2019
I could be the next Prime Minister
What happened to May?
I stopped writing. You probably didn't want to know how many times I peeled dead skin from my feet, or how my starlings are fighting over the bird feeders, or that I'm conflicted that I can't seem to buy bird food not wrapped in plastic but if you did I just stopped telling you. Probably for no particular reason. In many ways May was quite therapeutic but a little stressful and I just didn’t feel like telling the world (or the fifty people that read this nonsense) all about it.
This morning I woke up and felt a bit flat. Cold, rainy weather is never very helpful for low mood. It is just over one year since my brain got a bit holey and I have been having a recurring dream that I am crazy paving, living in someone's garden. They have decided that crazy paving is a bit old fashioned and they'd like to change it for something else, so they stop walking on me and take me up and I sit in colourful plastic tubs, while they decided if I'm useful. Eventually, they decided to put me back down in a slightly different order and walk all over me again. Nothing to see here. Absolutely no metaphors or meaning can be inferred from this. Step away from the dream.
Instead of thinking about being broken, old fashioned, walked on and put back together in a slightly different way I look on Twitter and see what is happening in the world. It’s a dangerous thing to do if you are feeling a bit fragile. As I have been avoiding the world, it all came as a bit of a shock.
What happened to May?
There's a conservative leadership contest starting in Ernest. I do feel sorry for Ernest, everything happens in him. I imagine him as a flat capped, bespectacled elderly gent who has a liking for a stripy jumper. If anyone deserves to feel anxious it's poor old Ernest. There are currently eleven (oh no sorry, ten because one of them has no friends) possible leaders running around inside him begging to be liked and we are at the stage where they are forced to confess the worst things they've ever done. Obviously, none of them are completely honest. Esther McVey isn't tossing her solid mane and admitting that celebrating the increased use of food banks because of her policies was an awful thing to do. None of them are confessing to burning ants with a magnifying glass because that would be too horrific (although fairly normal behaviour for a six year old and not illegal) They are, instead, all admitting to having used drugs. You can see the appeal of tossing a bone like that to the press. "Yes, I tried a bit of pot at Uni but none since, oh and I also snorted some icing sugar and smoked a herbal teabag." It's the kind of confession that can allow people to think they are normal and make mistakes like the rest of us and it might stop the Daily Mail digging around until they find someone who remembers you putting your penis in your dinner at boarding school. During the last leadership contest Theresa May had no such stories to tell. Being a vicar's daughter who had dedicated her life to being a good girl and a public servant the worst thing she could remember doing was running through a field of wheat and the world laughed.
That should have been an indication that she wasn't going to be a very successful Prime Minister. She didn't even have the imagination to come up with a good drug story. I wish we could elect good people to run our country. I'd quite like someone who obeys the rules and doesn't think that they can get away with things that other people can't but the public doesn't like that.
If I wanted to be Prime Minister, I'd be stuck. There's no illegal drug use in my past. I'm not particularly keen on legal drugs and will do anything to avoid even a paracetamol but I've thought about it and this is my story.
In 1983 I went to a disco with the Long Suffering Husband. Obviously I was too young to be officially in there, drinking Bacardi and coke but no one ever asked. I wasn't a huge fan of discos; thinking they were a bit smelly and sticky. This was before they were called clubs This place was a square white building on a dual carriageway, with it's name in fluorescent green lights calling young people with cars through its doors. In my memory it was named after a dragon but I can't think of what a dragon would be called now. Inside there was a lot of pink, again the neon variety and there was a fake animal skin sticky carpet. It had white leather, or plastic - pleather, sofas around the edges with little round tables. Each table was filled with abandoned drinks. I doubt this would happen these days but then you only thought the risk was having an extra shot of vodka added to your drink. Boys, in those days, thought vodka had no smell. It was a hot summer's day and I was wearing an electric blue ra-ra skirt and a broderie anglaise top, with white stillettos. Just before we entered the white box I was stung by a wasp. I'm particularly prone to puffing up when I'm bitten so I was aware that it could be a little bit of a problem but I've never been one to make a fuss or give in unnecessarily. By the time I'd had my third drink my arm was at least three times its normal size, so I left the LSH on the dance floor in his dark blue shirt and thin white satin tie. He didn't notice I had gone because his style of dancing was to look at his feet while shuffling, nearly in time to Gold by Spandeau Ballet. I went to the toilet and balled up a load of toilet tissue to soak in cold water, which I placed on my swollen arm and then sat on the leather sofa nursing a brandy and babycham (my Mum's cure for any illness) and feeling sorry for myself. One of the LSH's friends had a sister who had come out with us. She was larger than life in many ways; much older, more experienced and with a dirty laugh you could hear from the toilets. She came past to surf up any unguarded drinks and noticed me sitting there. She sat and told me about a quick knee trembler she'd just had with the boy with the quiff who was now leaning against the bar looking a bit pale. Then she noticed my arm. "Hang on," she said rummaging in her tassled handbag. "I've got some Piriton in here." From the fluff, dust and half sucked polo mints she pulled a blister pack of tiny pills. I assumed they were anti-histamine but they could have been anything. They made me feel very woozy, the room spun a little and I fell asleep on the sofa before the LSH noticed and took me home. This was my first experience of Piriton and I can honestly say I regret it. We all do foolish things in our youth. I hope the public can forgive me.
It's not good enough is it? It's a good job I have no intention of running the country. That's no job for crazy paving.
I stopped writing. You probably didn't want to know how many times I peeled dead skin from my feet, or how my starlings are fighting over the bird feeders, or that I'm conflicted that I can't seem to buy bird food not wrapped in plastic but if you did I just stopped telling you. Probably for no particular reason. In many ways May was quite therapeutic but a little stressful and I just didn’t feel like telling the world (or the fifty people that read this nonsense) all about it.
This morning I woke up and felt a bit flat. Cold, rainy weather is never very helpful for low mood. It is just over one year since my brain got a bit holey and I have been having a recurring dream that I am crazy paving, living in someone's garden. They have decided that crazy paving is a bit old fashioned and they'd like to change it for something else, so they stop walking on me and take me up and I sit in colourful plastic tubs, while they decided if I'm useful. Eventually, they decided to put me back down in a slightly different order and walk all over me again. Nothing to see here. Absolutely no metaphors or meaning can be inferred from this. Step away from the dream.
Instead of thinking about being broken, old fashioned, walked on and put back together in a slightly different way I look on Twitter and see what is happening in the world. It’s a dangerous thing to do if you are feeling a bit fragile. As I have been avoiding the world, it all came as a bit of a shock.
What happened to May?
There's a conservative leadership contest starting in Ernest. I do feel sorry for Ernest, everything happens in him. I imagine him as a flat capped, bespectacled elderly gent who has a liking for a stripy jumper. If anyone deserves to feel anxious it's poor old Ernest. There are currently eleven (oh no sorry, ten because one of them has no friends) possible leaders running around inside him begging to be liked and we are at the stage where they are forced to confess the worst things they've ever done. Obviously, none of them are completely honest. Esther McVey isn't tossing her solid mane and admitting that celebrating the increased use of food banks because of her policies was an awful thing to do. None of them are confessing to burning ants with a magnifying glass because that would be too horrific (although fairly normal behaviour for a six year old and not illegal) They are, instead, all admitting to having used drugs. You can see the appeal of tossing a bone like that to the press. "Yes, I tried a bit of pot at Uni but none since, oh and I also snorted some icing sugar and smoked a herbal teabag." It's the kind of confession that can allow people to think they are normal and make mistakes like the rest of us and it might stop the Daily Mail digging around until they find someone who remembers you putting your penis in your dinner at boarding school. During the last leadership contest Theresa May had no such stories to tell. Being a vicar's daughter who had dedicated her life to being a good girl and a public servant the worst thing she could remember doing was running through a field of wheat and the world laughed.
That should have been an indication that she wasn't going to be a very successful Prime Minister. She didn't even have the imagination to come up with a good drug story. I wish we could elect good people to run our country. I'd quite like someone who obeys the rules and doesn't think that they can get away with things that other people can't but the public doesn't like that.
If I wanted to be Prime Minister, I'd be stuck. There's no illegal drug use in my past. I'm not particularly keen on legal drugs and will do anything to avoid even a paracetamol but I've thought about it and this is my story.
In 1983 I went to a disco with the Long Suffering Husband. Obviously I was too young to be officially in there, drinking Bacardi and coke but no one ever asked. I wasn't a huge fan of discos; thinking they were a bit smelly and sticky. This was before they were called clubs This place was a square white building on a dual carriageway, with it's name in fluorescent green lights calling young people with cars through its doors. In my memory it was named after a dragon but I can't think of what a dragon would be called now. Inside there was a lot of pink, again the neon variety and there was a fake animal skin sticky carpet. It had white leather, or plastic - pleather, sofas around the edges with little round tables. Each table was filled with abandoned drinks. I doubt this would happen these days but then you only thought the risk was having an extra shot of vodka added to your drink. Boys, in those days, thought vodka had no smell. It was a hot summer's day and I was wearing an electric blue ra-ra skirt and a broderie anglaise top, with white stillettos. Just before we entered the white box I was stung by a wasp. I'm particularly prone to puffing up when I'm bitten so I was aware that it could be a little bit of a problem but I've never been one to make a fuss or give in unnecessarily. By the time I'd had my third drink my arm was at least three times its normal size, so I left the LSH on the dance floor in his dark blue shirt and thin white satin tie. He didn't notice I had gone because his style of dancing was to look at his feet while shuffling, nearly in time to Gold by Spandeau Ballet. I went to the toilet and balled up a load of toilet tissue to soak in cold water, which I placed on my swollen arm and then sat on the leather sofa nursing a brandy and babycham (my Mum's cure for any illness) and feeling sorry for myself. One of the LSH's friends had a sister who had come out with us. She was larger than life in many ways; much older, more experienced and with a dirty laugh you could hear from the toilets. She came past to surf up any unguarded drinks and noticed me sitting there. She sat and told me about a quick knee trembler she'd just had with the boy with the quiff who was now leaning against the bar looking a bit pale. Then she noticed my arm. "Hang on," she said rummaging in her tassled handbag. "I've got some Piriton in here." From the fluff, dust and half sucked polo mints she pulled a blister pack of tiny pills. I assumed they were anti-histamine but they could have been anything. They made me feel very woozy, the room spun a little and I fell asleep on the sofa before the LSH noticed and took me home. This was my first experience of Piriton and I can honestly say I regret it. We all do foolish things in our youth. I hope the public can forgive me.
It's not good enough is it? It's a good job I have no intention of running the country. That's no job for crazy paving.
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