May You Live in Interesting Times

The Chinese have a curse, which goes something like, "may you live in interesting times."

These are interesting times and they are hurting my head.

Everyone else seems much more confident about what is wrong with  society are and how to fix it than me.  All I can see are problems and no solutions and it just makes me want to run away and hide.

Theresa May is going to be Prime Minister on Wednesday.  Whether she's still Prime Minister on Thursday......well, the way things are going, who knows?  People are saying that she doesn't have a mandate, Jeremy Corbyn has a huge mandate and Angela Eagle will never have a mandate.  I don't even know what a mandate is.  It's one of those words that makes me snigger, like a naughty 14 year old in a sex education lesson.

Theresa May's first words were, "Brexit means Brexit," and again I'm confused.  I don't know what Brexit means, especially when she pronounces it Br-egg -sit.  I imagine a sit in protest by British hens. If you have read my blog before then you know what I think about the vote to leave the European Union and I know that people have voted to leave but how that leaving happens, well, I'm completely confused.  I just hope no one actually invents a time machine to take us back to the 1950s because I suspect it wasn't as great as people imagine. The only thing that really seems to know what Brexit means is the jet-stream, which has firmly cut us off from the rest of Europe.

Politics isn't the only thing that is happening.  Schools are getting ready to break up, giving parents, teachers, students and politicians one last chance for a row before the summer break.  Everyone is a little tired and fractious.  Exams are done, SATs results are out, and the hard work is over. Teachers are desperately trying to cram all the lovely things that kids will remember into the last two weeks.  They have planned more than they can fit in.  Parents are feeling the pressure and are writing blog posts about being asked to provide a yellow t-shirt at a moment's notice, or pay for an autograph book. They are complaining that they shouldn't have to give up an evening to bring their child into school for the play, when that child only stands up to mumble, "Please turn off your mobile phones," wondering how hard it would be to teach them to enunciate. (Trust me: it's very hard)  Politicians are blaming the teachers for the incomparable SATs results, teachers are blaming the politicians, parents are blaming everyone and the kids are keeping quiet, hoping that nobody blames them. In the blog posts everyone seems very certain of how much everything should cost and how much work everyone should be doing for the money they are paid.  I don't even know how much work I'm meant to do for what I'm paid.

This idea that everyone knows how much money, time or effort it takes to do someone else's job baffles me.  Until you've walked in someone else's shoes, you have no idea.  It's the kind of thing you hear when people talk about teaching.  "How hard could it be?  They start at 9 and finish at 3 and those holidays!"

The Guardian, this morning had an article about Newsquest newspaper group offering a very senior journalist £100 a week to 'put together' 5 pages of news content.  https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/jul/12/newsquest-to-freelance-fancy-producing-five-pages-for-100
Newsquest is the group that took over (and in my opinion) ruined our local paper by reducing the pages, having less reporters, relying on press releases and moving offices out of the town.  The most stunning thing about this article are the comments.  There are people who are saying they could do the job for half the price, which I'm sure they could, although whether it would be a good job and whether they could pay their fuel bill is questionable.  The suggestion that one person could write 5 pages of news in a day and sub-edit it (so that it fits on a page) seems a bit of a push to me but even if they could then I question whether the comments suggesting £100 for a day's work is good pay.  Freelancers are always paid more than full timers - that's because they don't have any of the other benefits in a salary package. So, at £100 a day, you are looking at a maximum full time salary of £25,000 (for an editor/journalist/sub), as a senior position.  That's not going to pay your mortgage in Reading. You might earn less than that but should a highly qualified person (degree and further exams) really be earning that when MPs are earning about £75,000 a year (plus expenses).

Then there's music.  Today music is interesting.  Piano keys are shifting, children are shaking in their sandals and people turn up to exams without their music or instrument. At least David Cameron cheered me up with his happy tune last night and some very clever musicologists have analysed the ditty and others have turned it into a proper piece of music.

I'm thinking about starting a new political party.  I might call it, "let's just be nice to each other party."  We could wear beige, drink tea (or hot water, in my case), share cakes.  We wouldn't be the party for people who want to take control but the party for people who find it difficult to decide what to eat for dinner.  We'd make sure that people were paid fairly and that everyone was allowed to have a nice time. It would be the party for the people who don't want to fight and certainly don't want to live in interesting times.

When Engineers Organise a Sweepstake

Us Brits have an unusual relationship to sport.  Most of us are armchair players, with loads of advice and suggestions, even though we would be a bit breathless and sweaty if we had to run for the bus. There is a hierarchy as well.

Most sports are only watched during major tournaments and often only if they are played in the UK.  Wimbledon, for example, is probably the only Tennis you will watch all year and you might not even watch it all, unless Andy Murray is winning and you suddenly allow him to be British, rather than Scottish for your full support.  Cycling might get you shouting at the TV during the Tour de France, especially if it is in the English leg and you can see your town in the distance.  You might have a little bet on the Grand National (with mini eggs in our house because it coincides with Easter) and you watch the boat race wondering why Oxford and Cambridge are the only two teams to reach the final every year. Rugby is for world cups, Cricket is for the Ashes with the hope that we show those Aussies who invented the game.  Football, however, is to be watched religiously if 'your' team is playing and comments will include you, as if you were a vital part of the team, "We were rubbish tonight, hardly got a kick on the ball." Football is on the TV all the time.  Even when the season is supposed to be over.

International Football tournaments, like the Bake Off and the imminent birth of a baby trigger a compulsory office sweepstake.

There was one at your office, right?  You picked a team out of a hat (or more likely the box the photocopier paper came in or an empty crisp packet) and even if you hate football you were mildly excited when Iceland were still in, despite everyone laughing at you when they saw your pick. The person with the team that wins gets the money.  If you work in a creative office there might be a prize for the worst team or the team that scored most goals but it's usually simple and straightforward.

This is not the case if you are an Engineer and your colleagues are somewhere firmly on the spectrum.

The Long Suffering Husband has tried to explain his office sweepstake to  me several times and although I'm still not sure I understand it, I think this is how it works.

1.  The organiser (we'll call him Fred, for no reason other than I prefer to use a name) uses some complicated mathematical technique to sort the teams into 5 groups.  This could be based on world rankings, but there are almost certainly other factors involved which alter the statistical calculation to determine whether they are in group A B C D or E.  Group A is the best and group E is the worst.

2. Fred's wife has made five beautiful velvet and silk lined bags with a gold cord drawstring with embroidered letters on the front.  The team names are printed (Engineers can only write in print) on individual pieces of paper (all exactly the same size and shape) and placed into their correct bags.  This step is checked several times, following the Engineers life motto, "measure twice cut once."

3. Each member of the office is seen in turn and once the fee has been taken from them and only when the fee has been taken Fred lets them pick their teams.

4. Each person picks seven teams.

This is where I started to get confused.
"What do you mean seven teams? Are there 3.4 people in your office."
"No, you don't understand.  Listen."

5.  They pick two teams from group A, two from group B and one from the other three.

"But there won't be enough to go round."
"Wait. You will understand but it's complicated."

6.  Fred makes a note of the teams they have picked and puts them back in the correct bags. The person picking is not allowed to put them back, as they can't necessarily be trusted.

7.  Fred goes to see the next person to extract money and make a note of their picks.

"So, lots of people could pick the winning team?"
"Well yes."
"That's silly."
"No it's not.  It's more complicated than just the person with the winning team getting the money."
"It would be."

8.  Each person who has entered is asked to guess the number of goals that will be scored over the whole tournament as a tiebreak decider. This, of course, isn't a guess but is another complicated mathematical calculation based on the number of goals in previous years, weighted by the length of the goalkeepers hair.

"Ah, so if two people have the winning team then the winner will be the one with the closest number of goals."
"No.  It's more complicated than that. We'll come back to the goal thing later."

9. Fred makes a beautiful spreadsheet to keep the results in.  He enters the names of each of his colleagues, the teams they have picked and their total goal 'guess' He colour codes cells and adds formulae so that he can keep up to date with how things are going.

"What if nobody has picked out the winning team?"
"That won't matter."

10.  The tournament starts.  Fred relaxes: he has nothing to do for the first few games.

11. After the first round the people who have teams that have been eliminated get zero points for those teams.

12.  Teams that are eliminated in the next round get 10 points each.

13.  Teams that reach the quarter-finals get 15 points each

14. Teams that reach the semi-finals get 25 points each.

"Oh, I see.  It is complicated."

15.  At this point someone will have worked out that their combination of teams could get them to win if only they had Germany as well.  They seek out someone who has picked Germany and makes them an offer of combining both their teams and splitting the money. Fred rules the idea out, as, "it is not in the spirit of the rules", as he devised them.

16.  After the final, Fred sets his spreadsheet to work.  The second place team gets 50 points and the winner gets 100 points. Fred has the final scores for everyone.

"So you could have picked out the winning team and still lose because you haven't got as many points?"
"Yep."
"Weird."
"I know."

17.  If two people have exactly the same score then their guess of total goals becomes the tie-breaker.

"See, I told you the goals would become relevant later."
"Yes. I wonder if  Fred will have to use them?"
"I hope not. We're only up to 103 and I calculated 124........."  He goes into a long detailed explanation of how he worked out an average of goals over the 45 matches multiplied by the tensile strength of the goalkeeper's toenails.

18.  Fred calculates the winner.

"So the winner gets all the money?"
He looks at me as if I have lost my mind, "Well, no."

19.  Fred give the person with the 4th highest score 10% of the takings.  The person with the 3rd highest score gets 15%.  The runner up gets 25% and the winner gets half the money.

"How many people are there in your office?"
"Twenty two, why?"
"I was just thinking that it might not work out but it will be alright because the 4th placed person will get £2.20."
"Oh no, Fred thought about that.  There's no point in splitting pounds up.  It was a £5 stake."

20. Fred delivers the winnings to his colleagues.  Each colleague tries to explain how the sweepstake could be improved for next year.  Fred sulks and refuses to speak to anyone for at least two months. The rest of the office are relieved: talking at work is most definitely over-rated.

As a mother

It was coming.

I knew it was.

A leadership contest between two women could only end in tears. Where were the men to save us from all this? Sensible men, who wouldn't need to be perfect. Men who didn't need to be everything. Men who could make mistakes and that would be fine, in fact it would make us like them more because they were human. Men like Boris: he's still a dick but that's fine. (Luckily, Gove is out of the contest because he's a cunt and no one wants to think about that bit of female anatomy) Men who might have children (or not) but don't  have a womb to worry about. Honestly, if there had just been one man left, none of this would have happened. He could have become leader and we could have all pushed those bloody wombs to the back of our minds. 

As soon as Andrea Leadsom appeared on our screens for the Leave Campaign TV debates her constant refrain of, "as a mother," was ringing in journalists' ears. It    was one of those dissonant chords that jarred and bought an uncomfortable lump to the throat. Anyone, and yes I do mean anyone, who interviewed her would be compelled to ask about it. 

I've had children, am slightly younger than Andrea Leadsom and I was baffled by her constant referral to herself as a mother. Being a mother was my main job, anything else I did was part time work. It was a choice I made because I was lucky enough to be able to and I loved it. It's probably the only job I've actually been any good at but now that my children are grown up I wouldn't reference my mothering job at an interview to run the country. It would be like saying, when I was in reception class I liked playing with Lego and so now that I'm 18 I think I'd make a good banker. It was also odd because it implied that unless you had pushed a baby out of your vagina (oh wait, that might be a step too far. Was she one of the too posh to push brigade?) you didn't care about the country.

Rachael Sylvester from the Times asked the question.

"During the debates you repeatedly said as a mum. Do you feel like a mum in politics?"

Good question.

It could have gone in so many different directions. 

But it didn't. 

It went down the direction that would make a splash. I can just imagine the journalist texting her own mother after the interview. "Can't say anything yet. Got a really big story. So excited."

She said, "I'm sure Theresa will be really sad that she doesn't have children so I don't want this to be 'Andrea has children Theresa doesn't' because that would be really horrible but genuinely I feel that being a mum means that you have a very real stake in the future of the country, a tangible stake. She probably has nieces and nephews, lots of people but I have children who are going to have children who will be part of what happens next."

She offered it to them on a plate. The conflict. Remember, conflict is always the story. Set childless women against those of us with baggy wombs and the story is sold. And she's right. It's really horrible.

The reporter filed her story. Twitter went mad. Women were fighting in the aisles of the supermarkets. It was a bloodbath. Andrea Leadsom cried, "it's not what I said! This is gutter journalism!" Theresa May kept quiet (although it might be too early to say that as she's not on Twitter)

I don't agree with Ms Leadsom but we should be very careful about dividing women into two groups. Look what happens when we give the world binary choices. (Chaos over Brexit)

Vote Mothers! Vote Childless Women!

These are not the issues. 

Vote for the person that can do the best job. Remember that no one is perfect. Stop buying the line that women can have it all, do it all, be it all. Women are just like men, with a womb. Remember that the press is there to entertain us; be entertained, enjoy the hilarity of the comments but don't base your voting decisions on it. And above all, don't take a side and join the fight. This is not about defining womanhood.

When Truth is Stranger than Fiction

I've had a couple of days off work, sick.  I'm not very good at having sick days.  I know some people can enjoy them but I feel guilty, even when I'm sleeping a lot.

I've spent the last two days watching House of Cards on Netflix and keeping up with what is going on in our bizarre political world at the moment.  I started to worry that I was getting the two confused but it turns out that the real life stuff is weirder than the drama.

I fell asleep during a episode (sorry, chapter) of the first series and when I woke up Tony Blair was looking tired and emotional and talking about the Iraq war. After an hour and a half he'd pulled himself together and was looking like someone who was quite enjoying himself. Journalists had been given three hours to read a 2.6million word report before they interviewed him. I read at about 200 words a minute, so it would take me 9 days and nights, only longer because it seems like the kind of book that would help insomnia. I'm so impressed with those journos. Most have hardly slept since the whole Brexit thing as well.

I was confused. Then Michael Gove appeared and said something sinister to the camera. "You might think that but I couldn't possibly comment." No. That was a dream. I think.

     Huffington Post had the same dream

Today, I had reached the second series where Gove had been replaced by a woman. A woman who knows how to shoot a gun. There was speculation that her CV was a work of fiction. Financial journalists claimed they had never seen her at any of the meetings she had claimed to be at. 

Her supporters organised a rally. "Meet your new Vice President, Andrea Leadsom." She was supposed to give an in depth post Brexit financial analysis but said something about it not being so bad, really. It was worse after the last financial crisis that plunged us into recession for years and it hasn't even happened yet. She suggested that people just needed to be positive, so her supporters said, "Yes, too right, what-ho. Let's have a march like those jolly chaps that support Corbyn do and doesn't she have nice hair."

They tried but they weren't very good at it. They spilled out onto the street and milled around, wondering who had the jug of Pimms. Eventually, they walked, chanting, "What do we want?....Leadsom for Prime Minister.....When do we want it?.....right now (please)" One woman clutched her pearls (literally and possibly figuratively). Never have you seen a group of people less comfortable in a Tshirt. They were tucked neatly into jeans or worn over a shirt and tie. A dog barked. 

Then white powder was discovered in some mail. The White House went on lockdown, while the VP's wife told the world she'd been raped but that was the fiction. In real life the white powder had caused the Lords to be ushered out onto the balcony, where they were fed ice cream.

I'm really looking forward to getting back to work, where the children won't confuse me. 

The Garden Vote

I confess, what is happening in the Labour Party is making me sad. I wanted Jeremy Corbyn to be everything his supporters say he is. I wanted him to fight passionately and stubbornly for the rights of the workers. I wanted them to be right that it was just the biased press that was stopping us seeing the real Jeremy. A little bit of me was even hoping  that the vote of no confidence from the people he is meant to be leading was just hype by a Blairite PR company. I suspect, though, that none of that is true and that he is just stubborn, humourless and not a very good party leader and I say that as someone who often has the House of Commons on the TV as background noise when I'm home alone, sad as that confession is. However, my biggest problem with Corbyn is his front garden. The man is supposed to be a gardener. You can find pictures of him on the Internet with an enormous marrow but he seems happy with a scruffy hedge, roses that need tying up that scratch him whenever he forgets to duck when leaving his house.

With all of these resignations we are being treated to a nightly view of politicians' front gardens. Mostly, they're a scruffy lot. Even Boris Johnson, who has a very smart London home with a shiny black door, railings to match and swept paths has a huge weed in the pot containing a straggly tree by his front door. Michael Gove's front patch is a disgrace and the number of MPs that have their wheelie bins on show is just criminal.  The only garden I've liked so far is Tim Faron's.

Angela Eagle:  "I've got marrows in the back garden this big.  Beat that Jeremy!"

Would it be too much to ask for a photo of the front garden of the person you are voting for on the ballot paper? I think it would really help.

When Dads are in charge

"Hello Miss.  Is that your dog?"
"Yes.  Are you having a party?"
"It's the presentation evening."
"I get free drinks," one lad boasted, shaking his glass of coke at me.
They flashed wristbands in my direction.

I had steered the dog past paper plates of sausages and a small pile of vomit.  We had taken a sudden side step to avoid the young man swearing at and kicking the bins, while a group of older men ignored him, preferring to stare at their pints and discuss football.

"When I grow up I want to be a dog," one of the children said, wistfully.
Normally. I'd say that they can be anything they want to be but that might be a bit ambitious.
"OK.  But it would be good wouldn't it?"
They all agreed.
Even I was convinced.

There were children everywhere.  I was now surrounded by a large crowd that could have been quite intimidating.  The dog took an exception to the boy who pulled his tail and growled at him before hiding under my legs, looking at me and saying, "Sorry. but where are his parents?"

"Miss, do you know about the scary men?"

"Are they at the party?" I asked, thinking about the chap arguing with the bins.

"No, they're in the wood."

"Are they?"

"Yes. There's two of them. Army men. Will you go with us and see?"

While I was trying to think of an excuse to avoid going into the thicket with 50 kids, one girl rolled her eyes.

"It's a fairy story."

"A fairy story? What, like Cinderella?"

"Yes, you know, when you are meant to believe that Step-mothers are horrible but then they turn out to be nicer than your own mum and they take you shopping and let you have a hot chocolate and a big bit of cake."

"No, you're wrong. There are two army men in there."

"There might be," I said, "Sometimes people go in there to smoke."

"Yeah, I told you."

"They're in there by the lake."

"The lake?"

"Yeah, there's a lake in there.......with alligators  in it."

"There's no lake in there," I said

"Well, it's more of a swamp."

"There is a damp area if there's been a lot of rain and loads of foxes," I conceded

"There are still alligators, or crocodiles. Crocodiles live in swamps."

The girl with the fairy tale theory had heard enough.

"Look, it's a myth. It's like Theseus and the Minotaur. You know, like a story that they tell you to stop you going in the maze. It's what happens when Dads are in charge"

I left them to continue my walk. We turned the corner and the dog noticed a sweet smell before two men, dressed in camouflage gear, clutching larger cans, stumbled out of the copse. They were giggling.

"Mate, did you see that crocodile?"

"Nah, bruv, it were an alligator, weren't it? Stands to reason. Crocodiles aren't pink."

A Dali Painting of Hell

When you don't sleep the world turns into a weird place. Last Thursday I stayed up to watch the referendum and this week I forgot how to sleep after an exciting concert.

Last week, on Friday, after a full day of teaching and orchestra practise I went to see a small play in the Moot Hall. It was about Ann Carter, who I will write about in another blog when the world has calmed down. As is usual for these type of events the cast and building managers outnumbered the audience. 

After the show we were all ushered into a back room, where there were bowls of crisps, nuts, chocolate fingers, twiglets and bizarrely a plate of cheese scones, the size of a 50p piece. There were cartons of wine and juice, for which we were encouraged to donate £2.50 a glass and we had to buy raffle tickets. The room was small and dark, with a musty smell. The huge oak door had been shut behind us and the lead in the tiny windows at the top of the room gave the effect of bars. Perched on a brick ledge outside the window were two fat and ferociously bonking pigeons. The crisps and wine were on a huge dark wood table with intricately carved legs, which took up most of the room. Around the edge were church pews. Most people stood and we talked about the referendum, the play we had just seen, the grain riots and women's history. I was feeling woozy, the room seemed to shift a little, so I sat on the bench. Suddenly, I had won the raffle and people had burst into song. Proper, finger-in-the-ear-folk-song singing. The kind that tells a moral tale. Everyone else knew the songs and joined in. I looked around, concerned that I might have actually died at some point and this was Hell. Time started to do the thing it does in the Dali painting. After several songs I found myself tapping my foot and singing, "A drop of Nelson's blood won't do you any harm. Oh, a drop of Nelson's blood won't do you any harm. Oh, a drop of Nelson's blood won't do you any harm. And we'll all roll on behind. And we'll roll the old chariot along......"

A lady looked at me, smiled and said, "Come on, I'll take you up now."

I followed her up the winding stone steps, while she talked about witches and bells. She threw open the door to fresh air, a glorious sunset and a feeling that this might be heaven. I looked over at the building where I had conducted an orchestra rehearsal in and it was glowing.

 

It wasn't heaven or hell and I was allowed to leave. 

But the world had changed beyond recognition. History was being made, politicians were fighting, the weather had forgotten that it was meant to be doing summer and everyone was stressed and miserable. I tried to carry on as normal. I walked the dog and stood on a bee. George Osborne taught me a new world as he appeared onTV to say that he didn't "resile" from any of his earlier warnings. I did the shopping and pushed the fully loaded trolly over my foot. I went to work and had an uncharacteristic cross moment where I think I might have resigned. I read the papers (and Buzzfeed - who seem to be keeping a humourous perspective on it all), wrote my blog and spent time with my family. I went to a concert that I didn't have to organise. It started at 7 but I didn't finish teaching until 8. "It's ok, I'll put the band on just before the interval," I was told. I walked into the building at ten past 8 and could hear the band playing. I ran up the stairs putting my bass clarinet together as I went hoping that I would be in time for the solo in the Stevie Wonder piece, however I only managed the last note. In the interval, I ate strawberries the size of a six year old's fist. The dog got depressed. The groomers wondered if his strange mood was something to do with Brexit. He told me that it was the ugliness of the word that really bothered him.

 Then on Thursday evening a hall full of sweaty people forgot everything. They sang, laughed, cried, encouraged and burst with pride. "I had the worst week but that was just what I needed," people said.

I had something to eat and watched Question Time. It was on late. Then I went to bed. 

At 2am I woke up. Wide eyed. Two hours sleep seemed as though it was enough. I got up, paced around, went back to bed, read, wrote and the sun came up. I listened. Nothing. There hadn't been a dawn chorus. Panicking that the end of the world really had arrived or that I had really gone to Hell last Friday evening I went into the garden. There were some bird noises, especially pigeons who seemed particularly frisky. It appears that the dawn chorus is mainly a mating thing and most birds (except pigeons) have done enough of that for one year.

 I relaxed a bit.

Standing barefoot on the patio in my nightie I spotted the little patch of chamomile lawn. Chamomile is supposed to help sleep, so I walked round and round in the fine drizzle that had just set in. After twenty minuites I felt calm and thought I'd try to go back to bed only to discover I'd taken a large family of baby spiders with me. I got up and wrote more.

Friday passed in a blur until I noticed that the political madness has moved to Austria, where a court ruling has over-turned the presidential election result and Australia, where people have been trying to vote for the gorilla that was shot.

This morning I told the Long Suffering Husband that my daughter's address was 32 Windsor Gardens, which I am fairly certain is Paddington's address. 

If this is a Dali inspired version of Hell then I'm not sure I'm coping with it very well.