The seventh day of cheesemas

 You did it! You made it to the 7th day of Cheesemas, which means that you lived another year, unlike these people https://www.bbc.com/news/extra/w8pmj2u36t/notable-deaths-2023

The 7th day is my least favourite because as a child I thought it was death day and although I’m grown up and can use my powers of logic I’ll never quite get over the idea that on this day hundreds of famous people get called back to wherever it is famous people came from. When I was a teenager, my grandad died young, suddenly and unexpectedly on New Years Eve, cementing my belief in death day. Ted might not have been famous but he was certainly a legend. 

I don’t want to be a grump, because loads of people enjoy the countdown to the end of something and looking forward to a new period of the same thing. Oh, who am I kidding? I’m a grump about New Year. There’s nothing to be done. Embrace it. Go and see a film, have a curry and get an early night. Perfect.

It does mean that I have to forego friends’ cheeseboards but I have discovered that a saag paneer works just as well. 

I do, however, hope and wish that everyone (and I do mean everyone, even though that doesn’t seem to be possible) has a good year. 

The sixth day of cheesemas

 That’s it. You are half way through. Well done. Keep going. Keep chucking the crumbs from your cheeseboard into your pasta sauce. 

The 6th day, for me, is the one where I start to panic. Too many days on the sofa with a good book, a slice of Christmas cake and blob of Stilton makes you realise how little time there actually is. Maybe it’s too much cheese but day 6 is existential crisis day.

“What am I doing with my life?”

“What’s the point?”

“What’s it all for?”

The house is beginning to look a bit grubby, the Christmas tree is balding, the washing basket is overflowing and your sock drawer is threatening to get out of control. 

Day 6 is when they release the list of people who are to be awarded New Year’s honours and you realise that you are never going to be somebody. Not that you want to be. The idea of all that fuss makes you twitch but still, it makes you question your life choices. 

You look at the half finished jigsaw, the umpteen craft projects that you started and didn’t finish. If you are me, you might even pick up that first draft of a novel you wrote and wonder why. 

You just begin to despair, start to clean the fridge and then you find a Christmas pudding flavoured truckle that escaped the cheeseboard. Oh, happy days. Who needs to worry about self identity when there is cheese?

The Fifth day of Cheesemas

 Day 5. The cheeseboard is looking a little depleted. It’s time to use some of those scraps. Maybe a cauliflower cheese or crack out the Breville sandwich toaster.  Use those leftovers though because it’s not long before you’ll  need to go shopping again. There’s another roast to make soon. 

It’s also time to go out. If you didn’t manage it yesterday then today is the day. It’s time to get back in training. Go somewhere you have to wear a bra and can’t go to the toilet whenever you like. Maybe be around a few ill people and build up that immune system again. Get Covid out of the way before you have to go back to school. 

We chose ABBA voyage. It was the Long Suffering Husband’s Christmas present. He had dropped enough hints and so I succumbed, even though I wasn’t sure. Call me grumpy but I hate the idea of holograms pretending to be live music. But it was ABBA and who doesn’t love ABBA? And it was the 12 days of Cheesemas and so a musical cheesefest seemed appropriate. 

We had a great time. It was a very enjoyable experience. 

But…

I’m going for it. Sorry. 

I’m with the woman who was being berated by her family.

“It was wooden,” she said “I’d rather watch a tribute band.”

“But this was the real ABBA,” they said.

“IT WAsn’t,” she started to shout back before swallowing the rest of her words.

There’s a touch of the emperor’s new clothes about this show. Because it’s ABBA (international treasures) and the lights are great and there is a live band (working a bit too hard) with a totally awesome conga player and very skilled sound technicians (although, even they couldn’t get rid of some of the muffling) it feels wrong to criticise. 

And it’s great fun.

Did I mention that? We really did enjoy the show. Even if, during the animation part the LSH turned to me and said, “This isn’t what we came for.” 

I don’t want you to hate me. I love ABBA. I love cheese in all forms but as I write this (the morning after on day 6 - half way through) I caution you not to feed the cheese rinds to the dog. Baron Bigod is smelly enough going in. Has anyone got a gas mask? 

The fourth day of Cheesmas

 What? Wait. 4th day? Are you sure it’s not the 5th day? Did I forget to put the bins out?

If you didn’t have to go back to work straight after Christmas it is time to venture out of the house. Get out of those pyjamas, as lovely as they are, maybe even put on a bra (not for a whole day, I’m not mad, bras are not for Cheesemas). Maybe it’s the day you take back the jumper that you stupidly thought would be a break from the traditional blue or the dress he bought you that didn’t have pockets. 

If you are from a large extended family then you might still be visiting. 

For many years, the 4th day of Cheesemas was when my mum’s sisters got together. Not when I was very young but later, after my grandparents had died and they all had their own growing families with grandchildren and spreadsheets to work out which child was going to be where on what day. This day seemed a safe distance from the turkey day but also close enough to still be part of the celebrations. One year, though, it got moved to Easter and we made it snow. The thing about extended family is that you don’t expect to see them all the time but you know that they are there. 

You’d meet at one of these gatherings and as you depart you’d suffer the hug and say, “Until the next wedding, funeral or Christmas. Whatever comes first,” hoping that it wouldn’t be a funeral because it would be better not to see them for a year than to have one missing at the next event. 

This 4th day of Cheesemas blog is dedicated to my Uncle Frank, who loved a wheel of brie and a whiskey. He didn’t quite make this his last Christmas and was an important part of my festive childhood. He and my dad were always in some kind of weird competition: Christmas Day lunches with my grandad, seeing who could walk the white line down the middle of the road (grandad couldn’t - fell off - had to go to A&E). Louder shouts of, “I grew that..” “I shot that…” with each mouthful of roast game bird or brussel sprout that went in your mouth. A joint competitiveness springing up to combine forces to cheat at monopoly, just to wind up our neighbour. The later gatherings, usually involved some kind of dressing up - a talent show or a play - anything to keep such a large and diverse bunch of people from talking politics and Frank would arrive with balloons up his jumper. 

Popping on some of mum’s perfume and visiting her sister for a condolence hug was the surprisingly enjoyable way I spent my 4th day of Cheesemas. When I got home I had cheesy chips and stalked the photo albums.

The third day of cheesemas

 Now, I don’t want to confuse you even more but I am writing this at the end of the day after Boxing Day. You are probably reading it on the day after the day after Boxing Day. The day after Boxing Day is the first day of limbo. If you have been for a walk on this day and met people you know they will have greeted you with, “Happy Christmas, or should I say Happy New Year? I don’t even know what day it is. Oh no. Did I forget to put the bins out.”

Some people will have gone back to work (or their full time golf hobby, if they are retired) The alarm probably didn’t go off and they started the third day of Cheesemas in a complete panic. Those of us lucky enough to be in education have limbo. The cheese coma is just kicking in and we are a little confused about most things. Our social batteries are drained. The dog is all peopled-out and is happy to pin you to the sofa, acting as an anxious weighted blanket. 

The cheeseboard is still looking pretty amazing. You crack out some of the wonderful chutney you got for Christmas and pair your breakfast cheese with a mince pie, your lunchtime cheese with a leftover sandwich (you might even give the Friends moistmaker layer a go) and for tea you work your way through the pure undulated cheese-fest that you haven’t really had much room for in the previous two days. 

If you are lucky, someone will have bought you Grace Dent’s comfort eating book and you can devour the cheese chapter, while congratulating yourself on your upwardly mobile social status. You have Baron Bigod on your cheeseboard but still have a Dairylee triangle or two in the fridge. Cheese feels like a cuddle, says Grace and you nod in agreement. 

The second day of Cheesemas

 The second day of Cheesemas, known to some as Boxing Day, or to me as Books-in day is the first serious cheese day. Leftover turkey sandwiches, some mash and getting properly stuck into the cheeseboard and chocolates while you lounge around, read books and play games. 

Perfect!

The first day of cheesemas

 It’s Christmas Day, otherwise known as the first day of Cheesemas. 

It’s a little overwhelming on the cheese front. You have eaten your body weight in Brussels, roast potatoes and have smothered half a jar of your homemade cranberry sauce on the turkey to make it bearable  (why do we have turkey?) You started with a soup or prawn cocktail and followed it with Christmas pudding and custard, brandy butter and cream. You felt obliged to tuck in to stop the host realising that they catered of every relative, living, dead, or eating elsewhere. You are so full you hope someone rolls you to the sofa and allows you to forgo the family game of charades. 

You missed the King’s speech but Christmas Day Doctor Who is a tradition to be savoured. Just as the family is explaining the confusing (why do they do this to us, don’t they know we are in a food coma?) back and forth timelines to each other, someone says, “Oh no, we forgot the cheeseboard.”

You all sit up and pat your bellies earnestly. 

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“I’m still quite full.”

“What about coffee?”

“Oh yes, a coffee would be lovely.”

“And a mince pie?”

“Absolutely! It wouldn’t be Christmas without it.”

“Shall I just open the Stilton then?”

Chunk of Stilton, bite of mine pie, slurp of coffee. The perfect start to the 12 days of Cheesemas. Try it if you don’t believe me. 

Come and Join the Celebration

 The trouble with traditions is that time can change them and you are left feeling weirdly bereft.

Last night at the Christmas Eve church service there was a sense that things were changing. A new vicar. An older lady. Quiet. Understated. Some carols people didn’t know how to sing. How do you fit ‘Enough for him whom cherubim’ into that first line of In the Bleak Midwinter And who knew that the comma in God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen was there and it wasn’t a song asking God to look after the drunk men in your family? 

On the walk home we were discussing the changes we had seen with each vicar and how some are kept and others discarded. One vicar introduced a riotous version of the 12 days of Christmas at the end (which will cause a town uprising if it’s dropped) and another introduced real candles, which is the most beautiful symbology (spreading the light from one person to the next), although a huge health and safety nightmare. My daughter was upset that we don’t sing, “Come and join the celebration, it’s a very special day,” with its weird robotic scanning of words anymore.  The message is nice and clear, though. 

“Why do things have to change, though?” she said, wide-eyed and innocent. I like the traditions.

Many of my friends are struggling with that this year too. Our children are grown, have partners, live away. So, we have to make new traditions. I met someone on a dog walk who was telling me that they needed to make a spreadsheet of where all the children were and when just to keep track of it. 

It is the fallow period. CBGC. (Christmas before grandchildren). I remember that my parents hated it. They even tried going on holiday but they were just mourning the loss of the big family Christmas. People who say, “I don’t know what it is, I just don’t feel Christmassy this year,” are suffering from a change in their Christmas tradition.

Today, though. I’m going to remind myself that it is a celebration and there are many things to celebrate. Not least that there will be people who will come and join my celebration. 

Mince pie for breakfast anyone?

I seem to have made 48 for just 4 people!

OK

 Whoever said that it’s ok to be not ok is bonkers. Right? It’s not ok. It’s horrible. Really. And at this time of year so many people are right on the edge of not being ok that they don’t want your ‘not ok’ to worry about as well. Seriously woman, can’t you just hold it together until books-in day? Fall apart then, like all good musicians do, when no one will notice. That will feel so much better. 

The truth is I’m not ok at the moment but I don’t want you to know. 

Why are you writing this blog then, idiot?

It’s not as stupid as you might think. The worst thing, for me, (and I appreciate that everyone is different) is that people will notice that I’m not ok and treat me differently. 

I suspect that in this month of overwhelm my ‘perfectly fine’ suit has taken a few knocks. It’s looking a bit battered and dented in places. The metal has cracked and in a few areas the light of my bonkers is shining through. 

It’s my fault. I took my eye off it. I didn’t write about the niggily little problems. I didn’t laugh at my own stupidity and so here we are with you probably noticing and me confessing so that you don’t think I’m just a grumpy old anti-social twit. 

If you do see me and notice the bonkers shining through the crack can you just pretend it’s not there? Imagine you see someone funny and great to be around. For me, it’s not ok to be not ok. Do everything you can to pretend that I’m perfectly fine. 

The Long Suffering Husband is good and bad at this in equal measure. Being an engineer, he got out the fragile tape, which was both funny (good) and terrifying because he’d seen the cracks and was prepared to highlight them with the tape. 

He was away for the weekend and before he went I had a small panic about not having started any Christmas shopping. 

“Perfectly fine,” he said, “You’ve got a whole weekend without me. You can go shopping then.”

Great. Except that I wasn’t perfectly fine.

“Did you go shopping?” he asked.

“Hmm Mmmn,” I mumbled vaguely.

“Oh good,” he said, pretending not to notice. 

“What did you buy?”

“A chalk pen,” I swallowed my words, ashamed of my inability to buy a single Christmas present. And this is where he was brilliant. Instead of noticing that I had spent a whole weekend eating biscuits (thank you to the person that delivered a box to my house) and drawing on the windows, he pretended that I had done something amazing. 

Ok. 

A man in a suit?

 Silly season is here. It has arrived, amazingly, with a light dusting of snow. This is just what a woman my age needs when spending many evenings outside. My hips are creaking , I have chilblains on my chilblains, my lips are chapped and crusty and I have no sensation in the ends of my fingers. 

Would it be Christmas without it though?

When I retire, or crack, like an ice sculpture heated too quickly, I’m sure I will miss it. Christmas will suddenly become shopping (which I hate) and a man in a suit.

It wouldn’t be Christmas if I wasn’t responsible for freezing small children half to death in the name of entertainment.

On Friday I took a dozen 5 and 6 year olds to the local pub. They were very excited about it, walking round the school telling anyone who’d listen that they were going to the pub with me and the headteacher. We were to sing before Santa switched the lights on.

When I told the children one said, “Ah but is it the real Santa or just a man in a suit?”

I had to confess that I didn’t know and that we would just have to wait and see.

Before the children arrived I was allowed to wait inside the heated tent with Santa and the put-upon-eye-rolling Mrs Claus. Once the first child arrived it was outside for me to continue my job of freezing small children.

While I was waiting, though, I began to have my suspicions that I wasn’t chilling with the real deal. 

I’ve always assumed that Santa would be slightly narcissistic. In our house he always left presents wrapped in paper emblazoned with his image but I didn’t expect him to be quite as obsessed with the selfie.

Mrs Claus looked at me, sighed, and said, “You’d think he’d have had enough pictures of himself by now.”

“No one ever thinks of Mrs Claus, do they?” I said sympathetically.

I’d hit a nerve.

“No. All I ever do is drive him from place to place, while he cuddles up with all the girls and then I have to pretend that we left the sleigh in a field.”

Santa was, at this point, giving a young woman in a flimsy elf costumes a hug to ‘warm her up.’ Mrs Claus eyes rolled almost to the back of her head.

This children sang amazingly and then Santa came out to do his magic. He explained that his magic was a bit depleted (I’m not sure why; maybe Selfies with Elfies) and he needed their help to count down. 

5

4

3

2

1

Nothing.

Then just as he turned his back the lights came on.

One of the children looked at me, winked and said, definitively, “Man in suit!”

Then there was a bit of children’s Christmas chaos in the tent, which I couldn’t stay for and I’m told he gave out business cards. Dangerous to give a group of 5/6 year olds Santa’s personal hotline but at least there would be no need for the elves to sit on shelves. 

Video evidence

Elves - a tip for stressed parents

 I’m old.

Us old grumpy women find that being told that something is a ‘tradition’ when it was made up less than twenty years ago is irksome. If you love it then please don’t let me stop you but these Elves that sit on shelves have caused me more 3am questions than is healthy.

1. Why?

2. Since when?

3. Why are they so ugly and plastic?

4. What is the point of all the naughty things they do?

5. What’s wrong with just giving your children chocolate for breakfast throughout December?

6. Why boy and girl elves?

7. Who has time for all that in December? Are these people not musicians?

Here are my answers:

1. Because people love a gimmick and we like to be part of the crowd. Social media allows a connection and reward for creativity. Creative people need a reward from something.

2. Since 2005. A woman called Carol Aebersold wrote a book and every publisher thought it was terrible so she self published. The book was about their family tradition (an old Scandinavian one) where a house elf joins the family to keep an eye on the children and report back to Santa. I blame teachers and Pinterest for its rise in popularity. As a tool for classroom control, it’s genius. 

3. They are ugly and plastic because it’s a self published book that came with the elf. A limited budget and a desire to recreate the original toy that the woman used to terrorise her own children in America in the 1960s has led to this monstrosity. 

4. They shouldn’t really do naughty things. They should be reporting back to Santa. They should be found in different places. In the book the elf plays hide and seek and can’t be touched. However, too many adults, who have been on the naughty list their whole lives have got hold of these creatures.

5. Chocolate for breakfast. Every teacher’s favourite thing! Who needs elves? This question is unanswerable. 

6. The boy and girl elf thing is a puzzle. Our society’s need to gender everything has caused so many problems. Leave the gender neutral elves alone! But that is another story.

7. I’ve been wondering if I would have done it if it had been a tradition when my children were small. I think I would have wanted to. Being part of a creative crowd would have appealed to me but in December as a musician I didn’t really have time to eat, let alone manage a naughty elf. So, I would have come up with a creative solution. And this is my tip for busy parents.

I would have bought the book and hidden the elf first. 

“Oh no. There’s no elf in our book. I wonder why?”

Then I would have read the book.

“That’s why,” I would have said. “There’s no need for an elf in this house. You are already on Santa’s nice list. The elf from this book has gone off to watch naughty children. We had better make sure he doesn’t have to come back.”

Job done. Parent off hook. Child shit scared of seeing an elf in their house.

You can thank me later.

Minister for common sense

 So, it’s politics that draws me back into blogging (or maybe it’s editing). I’m quite surprised. There are other things I find more interesting. However, I seem to be drawn to the tragic comedy.

Amongst the news about David Cameron (not an MP or even currently serving in the Lords) being made foreign Secretary I missed another interesting appointment. This was probably due to the amount of baffled swearing alternating with confused hysterical laughter that the Long Suffering Husband and I were doing.

Esther McVey was appointed as a Minister without portfolio. 

Ms McVey (never call her Esther) is one of those Tories that I will never understand. So far right she’s nearly left. And I know it’s Scousist but her accent just grates. 

It’s not uncommon for Ministers to be appointed to the cabinet without a specific role. Sometimes it’s just for balance: token woman, someone who didn’t go to public school, or just to add an annoying accent to the team. 

The political press pack, who will have been talking to people who know why she’s there have labelled her the Minister for…..wait for it….make sure you are not drinking a hot cup of tea..minister for….are you ready? COMMON SENSE!  You snorted tea over your phone? I did warn you. 

Common sense!

Honestly! 

There is no such thing as common sense. If there were we wouldn’t need politicians. It is their job to listen to all the things that different groups or types of people think are common sense and decide (collectively) on the best course of action. 

Ms McVey looks like a daytime TV presenter and the early day motions that she has supported show an interest in pubs, allotments, physics teachers and hunting. 

Her idea of common sense might be very different from mine or yours. 

However, she could start by pointing out that David Cameron’s appointment is completely nonsensical and that there’s nothing common about it. 

The End of Democracy

 I haven't written a blog for a while. Many things have irritated me and I've thought that blogging would help but I'm trying to write a book so I'm saving my words.

However.

It makes you long for the days when Prime Ministers died in office, doesn't it?

I'm writing this down because in the future it won't be believed.  

The conservative party has tried everything it knows and even given a few new ideas a go, to horrific results (Liz Truss crashed the economy). We've recently found out that Boris Johnson was hoping to kill off all the old folks during the pandemic but people still forgive him because he's like a loveable toddler. The Home Secretary, Suella Sneererman had criminalised boats, tents and helping the poor. She got cross with the police for allowing a peace protest on Armistice Day. Who'd have thought that would be controversial? Armistice from the Latin meaning stopping weapons. That would have been fine, as there really wasn't anyone to replace her but she took the unusual step of refusing to edit her article in the Times, as the Prime Minister requested.

So, Rishi, was left with no choice but to sack her, which left him with a problem. None of the young conservatives want to ruin their future career by being associated with this spent government and there is no one else who hasn't had a go.

"Who can I ask?" he wonders. "I need someone clever.....I know.....Cleverly. But that leaves a space for foreign secretary. Who could I ask? It needs to be someone who can get on with other countries."

This morning I opened up a news app and told the Long Suffering Husband that the Prime Minister was considering replacing Braverman with Cameron.

"He's not an MP," he reminded me, "He can't."

"But it's being tweeted by the political editor of the Times. How can he have got it wrong?"

We were both confused then a few hours later the Cleverly news came out.

"See, I told you it couldn't be Cameron. He shuffled off after the Brexit fiasco." The LSH was about to launch into another round of swearing so I headed him off by sending him a short video of a needy dog.

Then we found out the Prime Minister made  David Cameron foreign Secretary. 

The LSH laughed. The idea of the ex-Prime Minister that got on so well with other countries he started Brexit left him properly guffawing, confident that it still couldn't be true, as the foreign Secretary had to be an MP, surely.

Except that they can make up whatever they want now and Cameron is apparently going to be made a Lord or maybe a chocolate covered biscuit (I used to like a Viscount).  

Nothing to worry about. No problem with that. The Foreign Secretary never needs to be questioned or held to account in the House of Commons. No one ever needs to ask the Foreign Secretary anything. 

Oh my!

Someone else to slap

 I’m not sure what is happening to me in my old age. Rarely an advocate of violence I have recently had a strong urge to slap people.

Today, my intended victim is Gillian Keegan - Education Secretary. 

When discussing the crumbling schools problem, caused by a freeze on school building funding since ‘austerity’ started, which might have been fine if schools built in the 1970s weren’t built of chocolate aero bars, she complained that no one ever said, “You know what, you’ve done a fucking good job. No one ever says that, do they?”

There’s a reason for that.

However, she has done a great job of making me want to slap her.

This time, she’s ordered an enquiry. Fucking good job Gillian. 

I mean it wasn’t her fault that her department couldn’t get the calculations right, It’s not her fault that it was announced before it was checked. It’s not her fault that maths wasn’t compulsory to 18 for her staff. But she has ordered an enquiry.

Great job. And as she will be keen to point out the total amount going to schools is the same. £59.6 billion  isn’t to be sniffed at. 

It’s an easy mistake to make. Those of us who count children for a living know; they’re slippery little things, moving around, giving you a heart attack thinking you’ve lost one. It’s so easy to under count the number of pupils in schools and really 0.62% extra children is a tiny error. Let’s not mention that there are over 10 million children. 

“Schools haven’t got the money yet, so what’s the problem?” Gillian thinks. “Surely schools don’t plan how to use the money they’ll get in April in September? This changes nothing. The teachers pay award is still fully funded. The total amount given to all schools (59.6b) is an increase of 3.2%, so that fully funds the pay increase of 6.5%. There is no arguing with that.”

Amazing job Gilly.

The uncounted children will mean that each pupil will have £50 less spent on them, the percentage increase in funding per child is only 1.9% (when inflation is 6.6%). 

“No problem. Just don’t eat the glue sticks. Oh, you already stopped that? Never mind. You don’t need all those staff do you?”

SLAP 

What a fucking job you’ve done Gill. 

 

Wellbeing

Would someone please slap the person that invented the well-being survey.

No seriously. I mean it. A great big slap, right across the face. Then ask them, “What the fresh hell were you thinking?”

I’m not normally a supporter of violence but if you happen to come across TennantR, FisherL, PlattP, JosephS, WeichS, ParkinsonJ, SeckerJ, Stewart-BrownS then I don’t think you should hold back.

Pick them up by the scruff of the neck and say, “I was perfectly happy at work until some HR twit stumbled across your research and decided that managers should be forced to ask me to complete a questionnaire about stress once a year.”

The last thing anyone who is mostly happy in their job needs is to be forced to think about the things that irritate them. Even worse, to be asked to write them down. 

Humans have a tendency to focus on the negative. This isn’t a bad thing. It keeps us alive. Watch the one tiger, rather than the thousand pretty butterflies. When there aren’t any real tigers we have to train ourselves to see the butterflies. The Well-being survey does the opposite of that.

I can’t imagine what it must be like for managers’ stress levels to read all of those niggles; often things that they are powerless to change, that are also causing them stress.

What do you like about work? - that’s what I would ask. 

I like funny children, making noise that sometimes turns into music, my colleagues, the Friday sit, chatting about how recorders make perfect vomit tubes. I like my music room and going for a walk at lunchtime with a book and if my well-being scores are lower than normal it’s because it’s my birthday coming up and birthdays (specifically my birthday) always makes me grumpy. 

Keep a lookout for the butterflies 

The past wasn’t so long ago

 “So what do you think about the Russell Brand thing?” appears to be the new chat up line. 

That’s what I think I’m hearing anyway. Young men try to convince young women that they don’t believe it. “It’s mainstream media.” “They’ve got it in for him.” “Yeah, he was a bit - you know - but it was the time.” And the young women look at them, doe-eyed and say, “Oh yes. It was different then.”

Was it, though?

This past wasn’t so long ago and I remember. In fact if you are over18 you probably remember.

Most men were decent, respectful people. Except that they refused to believe that some men were monsters. Most women didn’t want to be treated badly but they refused to believe that a man who was awful to other women would be mean to them. 

We put the outliers on TV. Those whose behaviour was so shocking it made us uncomfortable enough to try to laugh it off. 

Nothing has changed. Nothing will change until we stop pretending times have changed, know that some bad men exist and stop rewarding those  because it’s easier than admitting what they are really like. 

So, girls, if you are presented with this chat up line then the only truly sexy man is the one that knows the comedian, who I wasn’t going to write about, for what he is; shockingly awful enough to be entertaining from a distance but not someone you should want in your real life. 

Real men collaborate. 

The Sky is Falling

 I haven’t written a blog in ages. It was our disastrous holiday to Bristol that did it. Trust me, none of you wanted to hear me whine on about rain, cow poo and parking fines. I’ve also been doing much more proper writing and didn’t want to waste my ideas. 

Foraging innuendo nearly tempted me back, as did back to school grumpiness coupled with an unseasonable heatwave. There was a moment of joy when I worked with some small people and we made really nice music and then the comedian (who I refuse to write about whose name rhymes with Muscle land) used the word Baroque and my fingers twitched over the keyboard.

However, I have returned for an inspirational, seize the day message.

The weather turned, the wicked witch blew in from the East, the rain smelled of fish, all the leaves flew from the trees and I was walking down a footpath feeling maudlin. Worry pricked my every thought and then an acorn hit me on the head. Smack! It crossed my mind that I had been attacked with a claw hammer - it was that painful. Comedy cartoon squirrels circled my vision and a lump sprang up on my head complete with the ascending pitch slide that you would expect. Maybe the noise was just in my head, it was impossible to detach imagination from dizzy reality.

What if this is the way I go? I thought.

Years of drinking water, avoiding sex drugs and rock and roll, or daily yoga practice and it turns out I’m going to die from an acorn falling from a tree. Chicken Licken  wasn’t so stupid after all. 

Some people would take that as an inspirational ‘live for today’ message. So this is my gift to you, as a first blog back after a short reprieve.

Midsomer

 I love a TV murder however I’ve always said that if I lived in Midsomer then I’d get out of there…quick. I wouldn’t wait for the second person to be killed. How stupid are those people that live there?

I’m on holiday.

I wanted to go to Bristol to see hundreds of balloons in the sky but due to general indecision and being less happy about leaving home than before there was no Bristol accommodation left, so we are staying in a barn just outside in a rural Somerset village. 

The dog is completely freaked out by the country sounds, smells and an echoing barn. There are big dogs that say, “Moo,” outside the door, a farm dog that barks all the time, rabbits, sun, rain, shadows, fences, stone circles, witches. You name it, it bothers him. Still, there are plenty of cow pats to roll in!

I’m beginning to share his unease, though.

As chief map reader I’ve noticed how close to Midsomer Norton we are and how all the villages around this farm sound like the people that have been murdered.

Stanton Drew, Compton Dando, Queen Charlton, Bishop Sutton, Norton Malreward, Hinton Blewett, Compton Martin, Rodney Stoke, Farrington Gurney, Tarrant Monkton, Sutton Benger and….Mark!

The panic phase

 I seem to have hit the panic phase of the six weeks holiday earlier than normal. We are only two weeks in and already I can see that it's not enough time.  The first week was spent just relaxing enough to feel normal.  The second week was spent cleaning and now I'm in panic mode. 

The Long Suffering Husband had a day off from his new full-time job as a retired person; one day without a golf game.  He said, "Let's do something."

"Oh...That...would be ni....actually....I'm not sure.....still too much....the cupboard....book...."

I looked up and saw him looking at me with 'that' look. And I realised that I was in panic mode.

There should have been a clue that it was coming early when I had a full on panic attack in a bookshop. It was a shock.  Bookshops are usually my safe space but last Saturday I walked into Waterstones and couldn't breathe. The books jumped up and down on the shelves and shouted. They all wanted to be read and all I could think was that there's not enough time. 

"Don't panic!" I thought to myself, imagining the front cover of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which was gifted to Arthur Dent just as the Earth was about to be flattened to make a new interstellar highway. Of all the times to be told not to panic. 

I read somewhere that of all the times you panic, it is only 8% of those times when the thing you are panicking about will come true, which is why you shouldn't panic.  But I will never read all the books, my cupboards will never be clean and tidy forever and it looks like I'll never finish writing this blessed book.

Even my fitbit has been trolling me.  Whenever I look at it near the end of the day, when I realise that I need to sit down and do some words, it tells me the date I should be writing about.

I’ve stopped taking photos because I know….1882!

If you are prone to a touch of panic then can I recommend that you don't ever think about writing a book, unless, of course you are actually talented and hard working and able to finish anything without forgetting to eat.

Name Tags

I saw Oppenheimer.

It was a struggle. Just sitting still for three hours, for me, is impossible. But it was more than that. It was a struggle.

“Didn’t you like it?” asked the lovely visiting author at book club, as we discussed the comparative  merits of the Barbie film, feminism, toxic masculinity and the experience of ‘everywoman’ in her book. 

“Oh, I did but it was distressing.”

I think that was the point. You were supposed to feel uncomfortable. 

It could have been much shorter. The whole minute countdown to the bomb test scene could have not been in real time. The music could have been continuous without huge sections of silence and when it did play hundreds of violins could have not played competing rhythms. They could have made the women less trope-like. (The naked sex woman, the underrated intelligent drunk and the Cassandra who warns that Japan were about to surrender)

It could have had an easier timeline and it could have been easier to tell all the men apart. 

However, that would have made it too easy to watch and it was supposed to feel as though you were tied to a rock having your eyes repeatedly  pecked out by eagles.

It was an amazing piece of cinema. Not one you’ll want to watch again but the acting was sublime and the use of colour gave a depth to pov I hadn’t seen before. 

There has been a lot of secrecy about the film and not much analysis post release, except for men of TikTok farting at the end of the countdown. I think it’s because it leaves you feeling devastated. It’s not really something you want to talk about.

We saw it as a family (a wonderful but rare occurrence) and as film lovers were able to discuss our appreciation of it and my inability to sit still (this is my formal apology) 

After about 20 minutes of confusion I had whispered in the Long Suffering Husband’s ear, “I need the date in the corner and for all those men to wear name badges.”

It was almost as though the film makers heard me and the men suddenly had badges. (Although they had all been to the Elon Musk school of naming things: U2, X20, C3PO.)

“That was not the kind of name badge I had in mind,” I hissed at the LSH. 

Hiroshima is a beautiful town that is still grieving for what was done to it. I was particularly struck by two stories and one photo and a document I saw while I was there. The photo was of a child’s bike in the destruction. The document was the date on the surrender form. The first story was of the man who was working in Hiroshima during the first blast, survived a little battered and shocked and went home to Nagasaki only to survive the second blast. But the one that really upset me was the story of Sadako Sasaki.

She was just two years old when the bomb dropped, 2km from her home. Most of her neighbours were killed but her mother and brother escaped the fires. Apparently uninjured she lived a normal life until she was 7, when they discovered that she had leukaemia. The next 5 years of her life were spent with this disease and the trials of its treatment, until she finally died at 12 years old. While she was in hospital she folded over 1000 paper cranes (which Japanese legend stated will allow your wishes to come true). Her classmates also folded and then erected a children’s statue in the peace park, millions of people from around the world have also folded. When we visited Hiroshima in 2020 a project was underway to get as many folded cranes there as possible and it was quite a sight.

Having seen the Oppenheimer film and understanding ‘boys and their toys’ I think I’m going to be busy. If you want me I’ll be folding paper cranes. 

Poor Tressy

 I’ve seen the Barbie film and I thought it was great. A proper film-nerds film that was funny and subtly irreverent. It is not a kids film, although I suspect how you see the film will vary depending on who you are. I can imagine people in their early thirties tipping into existential crisis while the Long Suffering Husband was agreeing with every word of the Godfather mansplaining while I was laughing (probably too loudly) at her feet.

If you look up film times Google will annoy you

Before I went I had seen a lot of commentary on the issues around Barbie, as a doll that feminists had issues with. Women slightly younger than me. My generation were just grateful to not have to play with babies, although the gross fascination of Tiny Tears’ bodily functions will never not be cool. Admittedly, having grown up dolls whose sole purpose was to teach you how to look pretty wasn’t great either but it was, at least, a different kind of future. 

During my childhood in the UK in the early Seventies Barbie had been rejected by children for the more realistic looking Sindy. Sindy was the doll we all wanted. Barbie was, well, just a little spiky. 

History will tell you that it was a feminist rejection of Barbie because of her tiny feet, too-skinny frame and huge knockers that made Mattel dream up all her jobs but it was just that girls preferred Sindy, especially in the UK.  Mattel used the feminist argument in its marketing to create the choice. Were you team Barbie or team Sindy?

Women slightly younger than me will tell of how they secretly wanted Barbie but weren’t allowed because she was the ‘wrong type of woman.’ This was still a slight hangover when my daughter was wanting dolls. I remember mums (slightly younger than me) recoiling with horror that I let my daughter play with Barbie. My argument was that I let her play with a teddy bear but I didn’t expect that she’d grow up to want to be one. 

Maybe I should have been more concerned with the rampant consumerism and production of plastic but I grew up in a household where we couldn’t always have what we wanted, so she had all the Barbies. 

I remember really wanting a Sindy doll. I must have been about six or seven and a new ballerina version had come on the market. She was me. She had blond hair and big blue eyes, ballet tights and shoes, a purple tutu and a crossover sleeveless jumper. I can picture it because it was exactly the same as what I had to wear for my ballet lessons in the dusty-floored church hall, opposite the pub where Dad stopped on the way back from ‘emergencies’.

Money was tight then. My sister had just been born, my parents had brought a new house for £5000 and the overtime emergencies, where Dad was called out to fix any problem in any telephone exchange in Essex, hadn’t properly kicked in. Mum was sympathetic to my want but it just wasn’t possible. 

Our neighbour, Aunty Mary who had a canary up the leg of her drawers, had a grown up daughter, Caroline, who didn’t play with her doll any more and so a solution was found. I inherited her doll and all of the clothes.

However.

Horror of horrors. She wasn’t even a Sindy. No. This abomination of a free gift was a Tressy doll. She had dark hair that pulled out from the middle of her head, so that she could have long or short hair. And she always looked sideways as though she were a spy on a street corner. 

I hated her.

At first.

Then she grew on me. The hair thing was cool and with  the amount of clothes she could look different three times a day and not get boring. I embraced her implied job with MI5 and she helped me notice things.

With all the talk of Barbie vs Sindy I thought I’d share this memory for all the other forgotten Tressy dolls, who never really got mentioned in the controversy. 

First day suggestion

 This is your first day of the holiday. Six weeks seems like a long time. You can lie in bed and read a book. You’ve earned it. Ignore the children fighting over the TV remote control or the dog whining for a walk. Take it easy.

Yes, I know you have a list of things you must do. There are friends you have to see with no excuse of, “I’m sorry, I’m too tired I have 30 cats to wrestle in the morning.” Theatre. Cinema. Eating. Walking. Your To Be Read (TBR) pile hasn’t got any shorter. You might have a project on the go; a watercolour to paint, a novel to write or a court book to transcribe.

There is also the work you brought home that you didn’t quite have time for …but not today. It can wait. It can probably wait 5 1/2 weeks and if we are honest, it probably will. 

My one tip, though, is that you unpack the bags today. The last day will have been stressful. There will be a piece of uneaten fruit somewhere in your bag. You probably didn’t eat the crust of your sandwich because you only had stale bread in the house. No one needs to find a mouldy crust at the end of August. I only hope I remember to follow my own advice.

Are We There Yet?

 “One more day. One day more.”

The refrain from Les Mis echoes along the halls as teachers pack their houseplants and enough paperwork to keep a team of secretaries employed for a year into boxes. 

And what a year it’s been. No one saw that coming. This time last year we tumbled noisily into the local pub, exhausted from Ofsted in the last week of term during a heatwave and thought to ourselves how much better it would feel next year.

Maybe I’m just getting old but it’s been exhausting.

The stress of working in a funded deprived situation where the consequences of not plugging the gaps yourself are that small people don’t get what they deserve has taken a toll on us all. 

Our year 6 show that we chose this year, by the amazing Edgy Productions, had a song called, “Are we there yet?”, which has been buzzing around my head for weeks. 

The opening song, however, is more appropriate for today because at 3.30 we are there. 

“We’ve gained some wrinkles a few grey hairs. Recuperation is so appealing. No more strife and no more stressed. My oh my how we’ve been blessed, bring on our summer vacation.”

There will be tears as a whole year group says goodbye and we will, once again, stumble noisily into the local pub telling ourselves that it will be better next year. Warning: 

What rhymes with Jeremy?

 There was speculation that the teacher’s strike would never be over. The pay review body recommended 6.5%. The government stalled. The chancellor, Mr Hunt, said that if the Department of Education  wanted to give that recommended pay rise then it would have to come out of existing budgets.

This was discussed over the staff room stable at an end of term meeting, where frazzled teachers with more to fit in, in the time that’s left, despaired. How to handle the following week’s ‘sexy time’ lessons made way for fears that the strikes would never be over. 

No one likes strikes, particularly those losing pay and time to finish all their work. 

“It’s all the fault of Jeremy Rhymes with…..,” said one teacher. 

Among the murmurs of agreement were a few questioning, ‘What rhymes with Jeremy?’ And although my first thought was ‘enemy’, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. My overly stressed brain is procrastinating with the thought. I wake up in the middle of the night.

Jeremy wants to stop prosperity.

Jeremy should be in therapy.

Is Jeremy really necessary?

Jeremy has a slug’s dexterity.

Jeremy should resign voluntarily. 

Jeremy is inciting union solidarity.

Jeremy would like to return to the days of barony.

Jeremy doesn’t understand parity.

The idea of Jeremy’s demise causes some hilarity. 

Jeremy could be verily and merrily dismissed with sincerity by the military.

Jeremy is a parody.

And so on. Every night for two weeks.

However, it turns out that the Department of Education have bigger balls than Jeremy (or a surplus in their own budget, which they haven’t been using) and were able to fund an extra 3% of pay rise. Most schools have budgeted for 3% so they only have to find the 1/2%. Simple. No problem at all. Everyone is mightily relieved. 

Maybe I can stop rhyming in my sleep now and leave the rhyming to Fascinating Aida for their next tour.

WTAF

 I’ve just seen this headline.

And all I can say is, “What the actual f…..?”

Make savings?

From where?

Less staff?

Don’t fix buildings?

Chop two legs off because it’s cheaper than waiting until the second gets an infection?

Don’t buy bandages, tear up old rags.

Sew extra pages into exercise books, ban photocopying, hide the glue sticks  (oh wait we are doing that)

Oh dear.

We are in for some very bumpy times. 

The 4% wasn’t fully funded for most schools (many headteachers felt they had enough extra in their budget to fund 2.5%) and it was this effect on the children that was making most teachers take strike action in the first place.

Greed over Need

 'Have you seen.......'

'More houses....'

'It's too crowded.....'

'Oh no, that's really near me.....'

There's a lot of talk in our town at the moment.  A building company have hired the Community Centre to show the town their plans for building on a farmer's field.  Two hundred and seventy five, high quality low carbon homes. They know people won't like it. They also know that if they are clever that doesn't matter.

The government has set a target of new home building, which our area, contrary to how it feels, is falling short of.  https://www.essexlive.news/news/essex-news/maldon-planners-must-find-space-6504056 The council is currently reviewing it's public responses to the consultation that I guess very few people completed before announcing it's new Local Development Plan.

The council would rather grant large developments, asking developers to build, roads or schools as the price for their profit. They believe that it gives them an element of control, in that they can then turn down applications for development that they do not agree with.  

So far, I can't quite commit to what I think, so I'm doing a Boris. This could be my Brexit article and I could end up deciding that something that is plainly bonkers is right. 

Reasons for being pro development on this site

1. I'm old. I'm fatigued. The fight has gone out of me. Can I be bothered to argue about something that is going to happen anyway?

2. It's a field next to a busy road. Think of the bunnies that won't get run over. (Don't picture Watership Down)

3. People have to live somewhere. Why not our lovely town?

4. I bought a house on a 'new estate' (29 years ago) and it made me so happy I'm still here, contributing to the town. Not every new thing is bad.

5. I don't want to be one of those moany old people who complains about everything.

6. I hardly ever drive so the extra traffic doesn't affect me too much.

7. Biodiversity:  Melissa Harrison, in Stubborn Light of Things said that you get greater biodiversity if a field is turned into houses. Individual gardens, where people are taking more responsibility for nature, such as feeding birds, planting a variety of flowers, leaving mess for wildlife creates more habitats than a sprayed farmers field. I think about that often and although it feels wrong it absolutely makes sense.

8. The alternative: A new town (or garden village, as they are calling it these days because of Basildon and Stevenage) takes away from the original town, rather than adding to it and when the people who brought into the idea of living it in grow up it ends up a wasteland of architecture that is no longer fashionable.

9. More people living here means more money in the town. More coffee shops. Less chance of the library being closed.  

10. Large developments usually come with a promise to build some starter homes meaning that our young people may not have to move away. 

Reasons for being against a development on this site.

1. The town is currently expanding enormously.  There are over 1000 new homes being built on each side of the town. Maybe it's too soon?

2. Those 2000+ homes haven't been sold yet. There is no guarantee that there is the demand.

3. There are infrastructure problems with the town that have yet to be resolved for the extra houses currently being built. Our doctor's surgeries are on their knees and barely coping as it is. Our senior school will be the largest in the country and as such can't recruit a headteacher..

4. Although I don't drive much I can see that the roads are much busier than they were. It often takes 20 minutes to get out of the end of our road now. 

5. They never plan roads properly.

6. Everything is such a mess while building work happens.

7. I love this field as it's quiet walk to the cemetery, or it was until this company compelled the whole town to walk there just to see what they were against.

8. The field contains my favourite tree. (Someone else seems to have named it Clive, which I don't object to)

9. The company are claiming they are going to build 'low carbon homes'. Who will check these credentials and hold them to account?  Will they build them with solar panels, heat exchange pumps, water filtration systems? No. Because the government haven't told them they have to, so they will do as little as they can to pretend they are helping the environment.  Plant a tree in Norway, refill a plastic soap bottle or take fewer flights to places they weren't going anyway. Yes, I am cynical.

10. The company are called LSL partners. (London Strategic Land) and they are an investment company whose website says that their mission is to create better housing for Greater London by investing in largely brownfield properties. Our town isn't in Greater London, doesn't even have a train station and the field is green because the wheat is not yet ready to harvest. (Yes, I do know what brownfield means, it was a joke because this isn’t it.)

11. As an investment company they won't be doing the building anyway and will farm the project off to whoever will offer the most money, therefore needing to keep their costs down and abandoning all promises of low carbon housing.

12. Their website shows huge tower blocks clad in green, Grenfell type, fire inducing plastic.

13. This site was on the original list when the last Council LDP was produced. It was rejected because access was difficult/inappropriate. Access is still difficult.

14. The field runs next to the cemetery and particularly the woodland burial part. Somehow this feels inappropriate, although the last time I checked the dead don't have an opinion on houses.

15. It seems morally repugnant to offer a farmer more money than they can make in their lifetime on a field of wheat at a time when climate change, Brexit and wars in the breadbasket of the world are suggesting that we should be securing our own food security.

So, I have more on the JUST SAY NO list. I think this development suggestion is a case of greed over need.

I have no objection to the building of housing if it is needed but I have no desire to reward rich people who are looking to make a quick profit.

The public consultation is open to anyone and although my first point about being and old, tired woman with little fight left still stands it might be worth asking some polite questions.

Maldon Woods Consultation

Dear Ofsted

 Dear Ofsted,

You do realise that you have made everything so much worse?

That poor family, who lost a loved one because she couldn’t bear the shame of the judgement you made of her.

You told the world that she was inadequate so she killed herself, her family say.

After her death, you revisit and now the school, the same school, the same school, reeling from the tragic death of its beloved head teacher, you now say is ‘good’. 

You’ve moved the school up two levels of rating.

And what has changed?

Only one thing.

Well done Ofsted. 

Raising standards by destroying lives

I can’t help thinking that are kinder ways to remove headteachers you believe to be inadequate.

I was neutral about Ofsted but now I do not know why anyone would let them into their school.

There’s no more money

 Warning: I might punch the next person who says, “There’s no more money.”

The truth is, that money is made up. It’s not real. And it’s not fair. Especially if you are talking about government money. They can just make some more. 

If someone says, “There’s no more money,” they mean that thing or person they are being asked to spend on isn’t important to them. It’s rude.

As a weird child, I was aware of this and usually managed to work out that the thing I wanted (usually sweets or comics) wasn’t as important (as, for example, proper food or books) but sometimes I felt snubbed, as though I was least loved. 

The same people who rage about people on benefits with a big telly, then pretend that there is no more money to keep the poorest off the streets, or pay enough to recruit professionals that society needs. 

When the government choose the chairman for a pay review body and tell them what the budget is before they decide on a figure then choose to ignore their recommendations because ‘there is no money’ it is clearly a lie. This is what is happening with teachers and doctors at the moment. Their salaries have not kept pace with inflation, austerity being  blamed for not giving them pay increases when bankers were getting bonuses bigger than a teacher’s annual salary. This has lead to a recruitment crisis and burnout as fewer people try to do more with less. Not only are the salary increases ignored but the general funding is lower (in real terms) and other public servants are having to pick up the slack with police officers sitting with mentally ill people for hours, schools being asked to just add in lessons on gender identity or cricket for brown girls. 

We passively accept that there is ‘no more money,’ but it is really about choosing what is important.

Strike

 The NEU have announced two further strike days for the 5th and 7th of July.

I was shocked when I heard. I couldn’t quite understand why the unions had chosen these dates, as I thought it would put more pressure on teachers than they need at this time of year.

If you don’t know then in primary school (which is all I know about) we are in the manic phase. Even teachers who are like swans, gliding around but kicking like fury underneath, are starting to flap and break arms of anyone who comes too close. There is just too much to do and not enough time left to do it in. (Assessments, reports, data, teaching kids to tell the time, sports day, sex Ed, transition days and meeting the new class for next year, packing things up to move room, end of year concerts, PTA fetes,  parties, assemblies, church services) and then there’s the weather. If you didn’t know, then the weather is hot. 300 children a day will tell you. 

With only 22 days left to fit all of that in (less if you work part time) then 2 less days feels impossible.

“So,” you might be thinking, “just don’t. Why do you need to strike anyway. It’s been going on for ages. Isn’t it over yet?”

And that’s the problem. It isn’t resolved. Schools still don’t know what they will have to pay their teaching staff in September (even though their budgets have already been set). If you were generally anti-unions then you could blame them for not accepting the offer that was made but school leaders were already warning that the pay offer wasn’t fully funded for most schools. The government agreed that their calculations were based on the average school. 

Not only that but the pay offer of 4.5% was considered to be too low. The government agreed to take on the recommendations of a pay review body, which they haven’t yet published although that might not be as sinister as people lead you to believe because it’s always published in July. Rumours are, though, that the report has recommended 6.5%, which gives the unions a reason to demand the government go back into negotiation. 

Gillian Keegan has been too busy attending sports days and steel pan recitals. The end of term is tough for everyone.

Whatever the outcome of these strikes, if the school budgets aren’t increased to properly reflect any increases in pay then this is only the beginning. Head teachers are discussing their options next and when the leaders can’t take it any more then we really are in for a bumpy ride.

So, take the strike days. Cancel the extras because without proper funding they are going anyway. Or don’t because you can’t bear to see the children lose out. It’s a difficult decision and not one any teacher is taking lightly. 

Meanwhile, I will be trying to replan my difficult to plan summer music concert with several options because that’s what we do. 

Dozens of Dicks

 What is our preoccupation with dicks? We obsess over them, see them when they don’t exist (see my last post about the weather) and talk about them even when they cease to be relevant (Boris, the dick, Johnson).

When you work in a school there will be many moments when they appear in children’s work. Potion bottles, a drawing of scissors, santa’s hat, Henry Moore sculptures and so many phallus shaped objects in R.E. Occasionally, an artist will draw a set of headphones on the toilet door and we will all see a cock and balls. The first cave painting was probably meant to be a sky full of birds but looked more like flying Johnsons. 

But is our obsession with the dangly parts a cause for concern? If you work in school, is it a safeguarding issue? Would Ofsted be worried?

I ask because there was an interesting post on a primary school music teacher forum about one of the year six shows. The poster, unironically called Karen, had a bit of a bee in her bonnet.

“How on earth has the line “This spotted dick is hard as a brick” got through writers, editors and publishers?” she wrote.

There were instantly lots of replies. 

“It’s pudding”

“It’s about school dinners.”

“British school dinner pudding.”

“The song is called lumpy custard.”

Her post hadn’t stopped there, though. It was long and ranty.

“Has not a single person thought about the safeguarding issues in teaching this line to children. I wouldn’t even teach this in secondary school.”

No one had. It was unanimous. Nobody could see the safeguarding issue of hard pudding and lumpy custard. The idea of a paedophile sidling up to a child and propositioning them with a brick-like spotted dick seemed laughable. 

Some were teaching the song with no problems, others thought that double-entendre was a performing skill. 

But Karen hadn’t stopped there. She went on. And on. And then on a bit more. She couldn’t understand why the company hadn’t employed qualified teachers, how no one had thought about it, how headteachers could condone it being sung in their schools, how safeguarding leads should be very concerned, how it didn’t cause the warning bulb to be changed in the Department of Education, triggering an immediate Ofsted inspection, which the school would, naturally fail.

The company who wrote the musical replied - perfectly. They confirmed that at no point had any of their fully qualified teaching staff thought there was a safeguarding issue with a hard, raisin-studded suet pudding from a 1970s school dinner however they did suggested that if Karen felt uncomfortable teaching it she could change the line to ‘this spotted dick is making me sick’ or if it was the spotted dick that had terrified her she could sing ‘This rice pud doesn’t taste too good.’

Karen replied to everyone who had commented with, ‘would your head agree?’ and turned off the comments before anyone could tell her. She then edited the original post to say that it was clearly controversial as there were no headteachers in agreement with the line. She was incandescent that she should have to change any words herself.

I started to worry about Karen. Had she had a traumatic incident with a suet pudding? Had someone sewn rohypnol into the raisins of a pudding, like in Danny Champion of the World? She hadn’t really found her audience either, as only the previous day there had been a long thread on favourite tongue twisters to teach as warm ups but she couldn’t see that she was talking to a group of people who had perfected the pheasant plucker song in their early teens and sang ‘roll me over, in the clover,’ in the primary school playground. 

Seeing penises where they don’t exist is a recognised phenomenon (although most commonly its faces) called pareidolia caused by the brain trying to make sense of the world but I’m not sure they are always something to worry about.

I’m going to leave you with one of my favourite children’s drawings where I could have got overly excited and raised a safeguarding cause for concern.

Jesus does look rather relaxed and hasn’t even noticed the giant rabbit heading towards them, as Mary Magdalene washes his feet. 

I bet you didn’t know…

 There are things you might know about the weather 

You might have read that the North Atlantic Sea surface temperature is higher than it has ever been. You might know that this will cause more storms and you may have seen the New Zealand weather forecaster showing the twister cloud that a woman took a photo of on her way back from yoga. You might be able to quote every word of the Peter Kaye sketch about sticky weather.

But I bet you didn’t know that it’s hot.

I usually enjoy working with children but when you are sweating in parts you didn’t know you had and the 120th child you taught today says, “Did you know?…..it’s hot, “ then it’s very difficult not to be sarcastic and reply, “Is it? I had no idea.”

Baby bug vomit

 There’s a story that is running in the newspapers about a dangerous new froth that is appearing on plants. 

WARNING

It shouts. Scientists say…. don’t touch…report….

The original article was much more balanced and interesting https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/warning-not-touch-weird-spittle-27039249 but let’s not let the facts get in the way of an attention grabbing headline. It was an interesting case of journalistic Chinese whispers and so by the time the Sun journalist had read the headline and ‘re-written’ it, you would have thought it was the next Coronavirus.

If, like me, you like spending time outside then this stuff isn’t new. However, if your lockdown walking became a habit then you might be seeing it for the first time. 

These articles have reminded me of my mum and one of the last days of her life. It was a good day. Her sisters had come to visit and she rallied. We laughed and our conversation rambled from one topic to another. As we were talking about Masterchef and the pretentious ‘waft of hay’, ‘fennel dust’ and ‘foam’ we started to talk about this thing that the newspapers have decided is dangerous.

“And that foam,” my uncle said, banging the table, “It’s just like that stuff that used to be on plants when we were kids. Do you remember? I think it was called cuckoo spit?”

We all agreed, laughing heartily.

“We used to collect it up and make sleeping potions for our dollies,” one of my Aunts said.

“You don’t see it any more,” said another.

I had to disagree. It was May and the first globule had appeared in mum’s garden on the Cistus. 

“Is it actually cuckoo’s spit?” my mum asked; brain still intact, wanting to know why right until the end. “I’ve always wondered because I’ve never heard a cuckoo in this garden.”

“Maybe they spit when they are flying over.”

Hmmmm. None of us were convinced.

We decided to ask google.

We found out that it was protective foam that the nymphs (babies) of the frog hopper bug vomit up. They get coated in it and it protects them from being eaten. These nymphs are sometimes called spittle bugs and the reason it’s called cuckoo spit is because froghopper nymphs are around at the same time that you hear cuckoos (May/June) and it looks like spit.

“But it used to be everywhere when we were kids,” my Aunt protested.

I was adamant that it’s just that adults don’t go outside enough but I think she was right and it probably has something to do with pesticides. Environmentalists should be proud that cuckoo spit is back (along with daisies in lawns)

But why have ‘scientists’ suddenly given ‘stark warning’?

It turns out that they are just trying to monitor a plant disease that these creatures are prone to getting. Xylella fastidious causes plants to wilt and sometimes die and hasn’t yet been discovered in the UK. Scientists are monitoring to see if it does spread from diseased plants brought from abroad and the way to do that is sample some of the Spittlebugs.

But why mustn’t we touch them?

Because you might kill them and we’ve only just got them back in significant numbers for the Daily Mail to notice.

We googled what a froghopper and it’s nymph look like.

I think we can all agree that they are truly terrifying.