Kissing Cousins

"Just before Nan died I visited her in hospital. She grabbed my hand and said, "Keep this family together," and I thought, "Oh, blimey, why me?  I'm not very sociable," my cousin told me today at a family gathering that she hadn't organised.  "I don't know why I can't do it because we've got loads in common and why shouldn't we?  Brothers and sisters are often alike, they get on don't they?  Well, they do, all except my brother.  We don't get on at all." I knew exactly what she meant, except that I don't have a brother and my sister is quite nice, even though she's never forgiven me for how mean I was to her when we were young and I've never forgiven her for putting my dress down the toilet just before the school concert.

When your father's side of the family contains 22 cousins it's nearly impossible to keep the family together and when you factor in the way we are alike, which is that none of us are very sociable then the idea is a risible hare-brained scheme. It might not be true that the rest of us are a bit reserved but as I boarder on reclusive the idea that it's the fault of my genes is very appealing.  I can see a strong family resemblance with my cousins on this side of the family, so why shouldn't a preference for the sofa, gin and tonic (or 6)  with a good book be a family trait too?

No family tree template is big enough.

We usually see more of my mother's side, where there are a mere 9 cousins and even then I have found family gatherings difficult.  The problem has been all the kissing.

I don't do kissing.  The Long Suffering Husband will tell you that I'm not really a touchy feely person.  I prefer to slip in and out of a gathering unseen or with a little wave, "See you soon (but maybe not too soon because sitting on my own on my sofa is much less effort),"  I'm trying to be better but I have very autistic tendencies when it comes to kissing people I don't really know.

 At Christmas the Aunts used to try to kiss the children a lot.  It would go something like, "Come here and give me a kiss," and you, as the child, would try to duck the sharp claws and slobbering lips.  If they did catch you then a painted wet mouth would bear down on you, while you wriggled and screamed for your life.  Everyone would be laughing, the other cousins displaying immense schadenfreude.  I laughed when it wasn't me too, relief washing over me.  Then a wet sloppy kiss would be planted on your cheek, which you would spend the next 2 hours trying to rub off, making gagging noises.  I'm not saying that I was traumatised or anything but I would be much happier if a greeting kiss had never made it's way over the English Channel.  I would even consider voting UKIP if they would send it back.

If you are a cousin of mine who I have avoided at the end of a party, ducking an air kiss, holding a hug at arms length or contorting my neck to avoid a cheek brush then I apologise.  If you are not even a relative then I'm warning you now.  BACK OFF. Kissing cousins is acceptable but friends and strangers and I'm afraid it's just not happening.  Everyone is supposedly somewhere on the spectrum and I'm admitting to my place.

Slough

There are some places that are treated unfairly and I suspected that Slough was one of those. It's the home of the Office and Jimmy Carr and is the butt of many jokes. Sir John Betjeman wrote this famous poem in 1937, as a protest to the concrete way it was being developed..

Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!

Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
Those air -conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned minds, tinned breath.

Mess up the mess they call a town-
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half a crown
For twenty years. 

And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women's tears:

And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.

But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are mad,
They've tasted Hell.

It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead

And talk of sport and makes of cars
In various bogus-Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.

In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.

Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales. 

The Nazis obliged, a few years later, with not so friendly bombs and I suspect that Betjeman regretted publishing the poem, which lead to such ridicule of a place he loved. When I have observed something funny in my town or at work I find I am thrown into a quandary.  I want to write about it but I don't want other people to think there is something wrong with the places I love.

We stopped in Slough (which has the biggest Tesco I've ever seen) on the way back from Wales to walk round and stretch our legs and although I'm reluctant to add to Slough's troubles I must tell you about a funny observation.

A strange thing has happened to this town. All the dogs have been abducted. There's not a dog to be seen, anywhere. Not one single fury canine companion. The people of Slough were frightened and confused by the sight of our dog. As we walked down the stairs of the car park, people backed away into corners, small children cried or, if they were braver, pointed quizzically. 

In the town centre it was the same story. A group of teenage boys walking behind us started to discuss what they were seeing.

"What is that, blud?"

"It's a cow, innit?"

"Nah, it's not a dog. It might be a cat. Hey cat, what's your name?"

The dog looked at me, looked at the boy and we both smiled.

"See I told you it wasn't a dog. It didn't tell me it's name when I asked. If it was a dog it would have told me, wouldn't it, Bruv? I think you're right. It's not a dog."

Dog, Cat or Cow?

She's leaving home

If I had to pick a favourite Beatles song it would be She's Leaving Home.  It is arranged so brilliantly, with the harp chords, mellow cello counter melody, smooth strings and it's amazingly clever narrative lyrics.  It's a bit like Eleanor Rigby in that respect, which I also love but She's Leaving Home always touched a nerve with me.  Even as a child I found the song left me with mixed emotions.  It is full of conflict.

People love to analyse Beatles songs and they are often afforded transformative powers. The AQA exam board recently added three songs from the Sargent Pepper Album to the GCSE music syllabus. She's leaving home isn't one of them and I'm actually quite glad. Having to learn what an exam board thinks is the correct answer can suck all the fun and creativity from a song.

I have read articles that claim that the song is Paul McCartney commenting on the generation gap that existed in the sixties. They say that the parents have stifled the girl with their conservative pious attitude, which is represented by the close harmonies in the chorus making it sound like church. They paint the story as older people not understanding the needs of their liberated sixties children.

I never heard it like that. Paul McCartney was brilliant at spotting a story and any good story has conflict and can be seen from different angles. This was based on a newspaper cutting from the Daily Mail about Melanie Cole,17, who had gone missing. He used some of the parents quotes in the song but I don't think he missed the conflict of the girl or the parents. I thought it was terribly sad that the girl had to leave a note that she hoped would say more because parents who had given her most of their lives and sacrificed most of their lives would have been only to help her find what she was looking for.

Teenagers are notoriously self obsessed, so that they can make decisions about their life and future, while parents always want the best for their children. 

This song has been stuck in my head recently and I admit to some conflict. I am amazingly proud of my daughter who has finished her degree and landed herself a really nice job. However, I am also sad. She won't be coming home and will instead make a life for herself eighty miles away. When your child goes to University you feel some of this sadness but you know they will be back with piles of washing, a craving for roast dinner and unusual sleep patterns every holiday. Secretly, you hope that they will find a job close to home and maybe they could live with you until they are established (even though you know they would drive you absolutely mad.). It's quite a conflict but I'm trying to be wise and say nothing (whoops too late).

I will just say to the LSH in the words of the song, "Daddy our baby's gone," but not before we finish rushing round helping her to buy a car and find somewhere to live and I'm certain we will always worry.

Follow Your Dreams

I haven't written a blog in a little while,  mainly because I've been on holiday to Pembrokeshire, which might be my favourite 'get away from it all' place.  I go, with my family and eat, walk, drink diet coke, play cards or backgammon and read.  Writing is something I do in the kitchen before everyone is up but as there is no internet or phone signal I don't post blogs.  Instead, I have been working on my story about the woman who kills her husband by pushing him in an Amsterdam canal and the Long Suffering Husband has been vary wary of me as we stand at the top of mountains.

I thought that when I got back all the ideas I'd had for blogs would be fighting their way out of me, arguing about who goes first but they prefer to hide.  They are pretending to be shy, afraid of what people might think of them, worried that they might be judged and found lacking. This surprises me, as my blogs (it turns out) have been about me finding a writing voice and even I have been surprised at how intrepid it has been.  It is not daunted by difficult subjects or rude words, so it seems odd that after a small break it's checking over it's shoulder pleading to be liked and cowed into silence.

In my phase of devouring self-help books that I went through in my unhappy and self-obsessed twenties I remember reading that you should do what you think about doing when you are relaxed and on holiday.  Follow your dreams. I would but my dreams are only about eating, reading,sleeping and murdering husbands.

Is that man's wife just behind him about to give him a big push?

I think reality might be safer, so this blog is an attempt to force the writing voice back into action and return from the holiday, where it dreamed of being silent and popular.

Hysteria

Hysteria has set in again. Not the kind caused by gynacalogical problems and a wandering womb but the end of a term/half term kind.

Teachers are getting excited for a few days without children or a few days with just their own kids where they can totally be themselves. They can stub their toe on the kitchen cabinet and shout, "bugger" without anyone saying, "Um, Miss, we're telling of (sic) you!" and potentially losing their source of income. And this is why we need school holidays.

In the staff room at 5pm last night, teachers were frantically marking, "Crap! Crap! Why is this work such crap?" Hearing primary school teachers swear can cause cognitive dissonance; a small disconnect in the brain. I imagined a parent walking in at that point, although they wouldn't because they all think we go home at three, despite the fact that school doesn't finish until 3.15 and most of us were running clubs until 4.30. If they had, though, they might have had the same experience I did in the Nineties in the BBC lobby when a children's TV presenter walked past the big screen showing one of the European Cup football matches with England playing Sweeden. You just don't expect a children's TV presenter to shout, "Come on you bollocking bunch of wanking tosspots,"at any time.

The conversation in the staff room then turned to the 'what's your favourite swear word?' game.

"Crap is my favourite," said the teacher marking the books.

"I like a good shit," said another.

"You can't beat a good fuck," said a third.

One of the male teachers walked in and was asked to join the game. "Well, I like bollocks," he said.

I resisted the urge to reply with, "I like cunt and I'm moving to Brighton," which is a good job because he then said," I was going to say the C word," which was interrupted with a chorus of, "Oh no, too far."  Never mention Christmas to teachers in May!

And this is why teachers need holidays. I have a theory that it is only possible to hold in the expletives for 6 or 7 weeks at a time and so children are given time off from teachers on a regular basis to protect their innocent ears. So, I hope all teachers enjoy their week off, writing reports.....(insert swear word of choice here!)

Spinning

The election is over and I'm spinning. Actually, I'm not spinning at all but the press are.

It must be a wonderful time for news writers, their chance to write fiction, where, "never let the truth get in the way of a good story," becomes the motto. 

If you know me personally, then you will probably have guessed that you should take everything I write with a large pinch of salt. I might not actually be telling you about my life, as it actually happened because I would never let the truth (or even politeness) get in the way of a good joke but you do expect journalists to do some fact checking. 

In the last few weeks we heard about the things that could be in George Osbourne's Austerity Budget; terrible things that will make everyone except his friends suffer. We heard about the abolition of the Human Rights Act and its replacement by the sensitive and brilliant Michael Gove, who definitely won't have any trouble with those push-over lawyers the way he did with the tough teachers. We heard how Nicky Morgan plans to make the school day run from 8am to 6pm with no holidays, so that hard working families can work harder and forget they have children. We heard how John Whittingdale plans to get rid of the BBC because the licence fee is the worst idea since the poll tax, which as he was private secretary to the Prime Minister when it was introduced I can only assume he means it's a good idea. We read stories that Caroline Dinage, as equalities minister planned to ban gay marriage. Jeremy Hunt, we heard, announced a plan for hospital bed-sharing to ensure that the NHS remained free at the point of delivery, since the information of how to get the NHS to pay for your Calpol from Boots went viral on Facebook. Whoops! Sorry, there I go again: making stuff up for the sake of a joke but it doesn't sound very different to some of the things I've read. 

Since the loss of newspaper circulation many journalists have had to find other work and many have ended up in PR. They write press releases that reporters on newspapers won't check because they trust that the NCTJ qualified contributor has followed the ethics of their training and because there isn't time now that they are doing the job of ten men (which does seem to be possible for female journalists).

These spinning stories do worry me a little. When, whatever these departments make their real changes we will all say, "oh that's not too bad. I'm happy to have   gynaecology consultants replaced by plumbers. Better than sharing a bed!"

Time with the LSH

The Long Suffering Husband and I have been together for a tiny bit over 30 years and married for a smidgen under 24. That is a long time for anyone to have to put up with me.  He is a man of extraordinary patience.

Recently, I've been harder to live with than ever; dragging myself through a working week to collapse, grumpy and fit for nothing over the weekend.  He has responded by getting on with jobs that I would normally do and playing lots of golf.  This weekend, however, was the first in a long time that I've felt more like myself, so we spent time together doing the boring things that couples do that you'd never think you'd miss.

We walked the dog, went to the supermarket, the allotment and the garden centre. We had a walk round B&Q and went to the theatre.

We saw Noises Off at The Mercury, which is a side-splittingly funny farce. The LSH came away concerned that his sense of humour chip had broken. "I know everyone was laughing but I just don't find things funny anymore," he complained at the end. "The only thing that makes me laugh now is you!"

It's good to know that I have my uses, even when I am tired and grumpy.

He had laughed all weekend. He laughed when, in the supermarket, he had been suddenly inspired by the tape measure in his pocket to see how tall I was.

"Are you measuring me for my coffin?" I asked,not unreasonably. 

"I'm not getting you a coffin," he chuckled.

"That's fine. I'd rather have a cardboard box. It's such a waste to burn all that lovely polished wood and brass fittings."

"Anyway, I've told you I'm going first," he reminded me.

"Well, you're having a cardboard box too then," 

"I want a proper box, though," he protested.

"It's such a waste. I wonder if we could re-use it? You know, once the little curtains close and the organist plays lots of wrong notes too fast, they could take you out of the box to chuck you on the fire. Then we could use the box for other family funerals."

"A rental scheme? You do make me laugh," he said.

I don't see why. It's just practical.

Then when we were in the garden centre I bought a present for my grandma, who is suffering because she's in hospital. It's not what's wrong with her that's causing the suffering but the fact that she isn't allowed her daily G&T.

The LSH looked at it and started laughing. He was reluctant to tell me why but eventually he said that they should make one that said, "Julia's Garden. Fuck Off!" Again, I don't know what's funny about that: it would be practically perfect. He had, after all, spent some time with me at the allotment being nice to people and talking to them, while I pretended to be engrossed in a weed, muttering, "Allotment Nazi!" under my breath.

He makes me laugh too. He is a complete numpty with a computer, which is a surprise considering he is an IT expert at work. He had managed to book tickets for the theatre for the week after. Luckily, while he was getting stressed about his mistake and I was laughing the nice people at The Mercury allowed us to sit in the emergency seats, rather than going home. His texts are also very funny but I am concerned that he has saved one of mine (a shopping list) so he can get his car to replay it to him every time he needs a laugh. It's not my fault the car grouped the list in threes: Chocolate dog food, pizza cotton wool, balls cucumber coke!

I'm glad he finds me funny because really, the man deserves a medal.