She was only

 There’s been another rape and murder of a woman. The commentators are shouting, “She was only going for a jog.”

I have a problem with this.

It implies that there are things she could have been doing that would have justified this man’s actions.

“Well, what did she expect? Wearing clothes, leaving the house, being out after sunset. How could he have been expected not to rape and kill her?”

It makes me particularly twitchy because I do something women are not supposed to do. I walk at night. Alone.

I know! Terrible! 

It worries me, not for myself but for my family. How awful would it be for them if they had to cope with the double trauma of my death and everyone saying, “I always told her not to walk at night.”

The thing is, life is precarious. Bad things happen because of awful people and if they happen to you it has absolutely nothing to do with your virtue. It’s luck.

I have always been very bad at spotting a threat, which is probably why I will continue to put my family at risk of double trauma. 

When I worked in a bank someone tried to rob my till and I didn’t notice. He came to my window and slid a money bag through the hatch. It was empty and I looked at him, feeling confused. 

“Put everything from the top draw in it,” he said.

I laughed and said, “No, really, what do you want?”

He said, “I’ve got a gun.”

I laughed again and said, “Don’t be silly.”

During this exchange the woman on the next till had raised the alarm and the deputy manager chased the chap down the road and sat on him until the police arrived. It sounds very dramatic and as though I was terribly brave but I really had no idea of the threat. I had to have extra training but I honestly couldn’t say I wouldn’t do the same again because I genuinely thought the man was mucking about.

A similar thing happened on my way home from work on Friday night. 

Actually, it wasn’t similar at all but it was another example of how funny things can happen when you can’t see threat.

I was walking down a dark alley and a group of lads were on their way out for the evening. They were probably about 16 - a loud jumble of hair gel and aftershave. I didn’t look up, which I might have done if I had perceived their laddish banter as a threat.

“Hey babe,” one of the breaking voices said.

I smiled and not thinking that it was directed at me but only hearing the beginning of a song I replied, “Take a walk on the wild side. Do de do de do de do do do do.”

The Armani Code surrounded voice gulped and giggled and ran to catch his mates.

“0h no! I think I just made a pass at my old teacher.”

Poor lad. You’ve got to feel sorry for him. Do de do de do de do do do…..

She was only singing. 

Operation Little Dog

 I don’t want to write about politics anymore, except that it’s so bonkers, no one will believe it in the future. 

At least 14 parties, now, while we were worrying that we might be prosecuted if we went for a walk with two people. The R rate of parties is now bigger than the virus ever managed. A Prime Minister who condoned or attended them, walking round the offices, popping his head in and saying, “Having a great time lads? Jolly good! Carry on!” Staff going to the Co-op with a suitcase to fill with booze and ‘wine-time Fridays’ in the office.

One party, hosted by a director of communications, the current editor of The Sun, was on the evening before the nation watched the Queen sit alone at her husband’s funeral. 

The Prime Minister has now gone into hiding (again), citing Covid rules that no longer exist. (A member of his family has tested positive). He is waiting for the results of Sue Gray’s enquiry to tell him if he was at a party or not. Do we trust this man to have the nuclear codes if he needs someone else to tell him if he was at a party?

Meanwhile, his mates are briefing the press that Sue Gray is about to find that whatever happened, it wasn’t illegal. So much for independence. 

This morning’s news tells us that Boris is WhatsApping everyone and telling them to delete all incriminating messages under the title of Operation Save Big Dog. What a child!

I am currently being distracted by Operation Little Dog, which I’m sure you are going to find much more wholesome.

It’s not possible to explain how empty a house can be when a dog that has been part of your family for 13 years dies. At every sound; scuffle or scratch, you look to see if you’ve misremembered and a little furry face will appear around the corner, hoping for a walk. But you are caught in a strange situation, where the need to have a dog in the house fights with the thought that your last dog is actually irreplaceable. 

I’ve never tried to call a drug dealer but I imagine you get a similar response that cairn terrier breeders give you.

“How did you get my number?” they hiss into the receiver.

“No. I’m sorry, I don’t have what you are looking for, I’ll give you Someone’s number but don’t tell them I gave it to you.”

In the limbo phase between wanting to get a puppy and not wanting to replace the dog I’m driving myself nuts. 

We went to look at some, thinking that a puppy would choose us. It didn’t happen though. They all looked sad and the Long Suffering Husband looked completely miserable. My son wanted to take then all home and I just wanted to find a breeder that was exactly like the one we got our last dog from. 

While conservatives are busy deleting messages titled big dog, we are looking at little dogs, which is a lovely way to spend your time, even if you can’t make a decision. 

I’m sorry if

 These are stressful times. 

It’s my daughter’s fault. When she was younger she decided that she wanted to live through ‘history’ and then she decided that instead of studying history she would learn to write the original sources. So, here we are. The universe is granting her wish and we are about to live through a revolution (or not, depending upon whether people can be bothered after they’ve watched granny’s funeral on Zoom).

I know that’s you’ll agree with me. I’ve seen a lot of people blaming journalists. Why didn’t they say something sooner? (because they were working in their bedrooms and no one told them what was happening in the Downing Street gardens.) They we’re probably  at the parties themselves (maybe some were, not everyone followed the rules but journalists didn’t make them) 

I’m not enjoying it.

People in public life should follow the Nolan principles, so that we can be certain they are working in our interests. The longer this all goes on, the less trust we can have in them. We see their games. We watch the Labour Party not really wanting the Prime Minister to resign just in case someone competent takes over and we have another 5 years of conservative rule. The baking (ed: banking! Clearly, a baking crisis would be worse!) crisis led to the development of Bitcoin and I can’t help thinking that if they don’t sort themselves out soon, bloody-man-the-barricades-flag-waving revolution is on its way. Do you hear the people sing? Singing the songs of angry men?

Anyway, back to my daughter. I think we can all agree that she should apologise.

Being a journalist, though, and being good with words and understanding grammar she will know how to make an apology in the passive voice. 

“Mistakes have been made. (not by me). I want to apologise (but I won’t) I’m sorry if you think I wished this on you (but I didn’t). I will have an enquiry (and get my mate to tell you I’m lovely really and have no powers to wish an ‘interesting’ life upon you all, even though you all know that I did.)”

Even if the Prime Minister resigns and we avoid a revolution then can I suggest closing the House of Commons bar? No other industry still has the boozy lunch, popping out of a couple of pints at lunchtime, or a drinking your clients under the table culture anymore. No wonder the Prime Minister is confused. We think that bring your own bottle of booze equals party. They think it’s work when the subsidised bar is closed!

*None of the words in brackets are to be spoken out loud (Boris is a *******)

BYOB

I used to know what BYOB meant. In my teenage years, it was a bottle of cheap cider or a Spanish red wine that came in a plastic bottle. As I’ve got older, it is rare for me to be invited to a party with BYOB mentioned and if it does, I secretly hope it stands for Bring Your Own Book.

Yesterday was a very depressing news day because of BYOB, or Bring Your Own Bullshit, as Eddie Mair called it on Twitter. 

Journalists have uncovered ANOTHER party in number 10 Downing Street during lockdown. This makes eleven. That’s right, ELEVEN! (Yes, I have been counting). While we were all terrified and many people were completely alone the government were organising after works, socially distant (nudge nudge wink wink) drinks parties. “We’ll provide the nibbles, you bring your own booze.” This gathering has a paper trail. An email sent to 100 members of staff by the Prime Minister’s personal private secretary. It has been confirmed that Boris and Carrie were there by witnesses. Why wouldn’t they be? It was their garden. The email was sent by his personal secretary.

The date of this one was 20th of May 2020. This is very early. It was a few days before Dominic Cummings sat in the garden to defend his eyesight test at Barnard Castle,ten months before Wayne Couzens used the lockdown laws to kidnap and murder Sarah Everard and women were stopped from attending a vigil. It was while only key worker children were in school, before the Black Lives Matter protest and while significant numbers of people were being ventilated and dying. We had just been told that, maybe, it would be ok if we took more than one walk a day and that rules were relaxed to mean that we could meet one person from outside our household for a socially distant walk but playgrounds were still closed off because going on a swing could kill the child’s granny. People were being arrested for sitting on a bench with a coffee. Ten people were allowed at funerals, no visitors were allowed in hospitals or care homes, women had to give birth or miscarry without the support of their partner. One retired nurse was arrested for taking her mother out of a care home to look after her at her own house. 

The news of this party caused the Prime Minister to hide in a fridge and refuse to go to work. However, he but did manage to pop into a vaccination centre, where a journalist caught him on camera, smirking and laughing at her questions. It was really nasty.

 “Were you at the party?” 

Smirk

“We will have to see what Sue Black*says.”

“But surely you know if you were there.”

Twinkling eyes. Laughter. “Enquiry!”

*not Black, Gray. Sue Black is a forensic anthropologist. I decided not to edit her out because everyone should read her work (BYOBook)

Sue Gray is one of those invisible civil servants who might not actually exist.

The news of this party dropped and social media flooded with horror stories of what people’s lives were like on the 20th of May. It was very sad. I expect some of these stories will be in the press today. So much pain, heartbreak and complex grief.

With these sad stories as a backdrop it can make it hard to admit that you had a good lockdown but in the interests of balance I’m going to tell you about my 20th of May 2020.

I took advantage of the new rules that meant you could go for a walk with a friend. We met in the park and walked round for a while and popped into the chemist for paracetamol on the way home. Before I left there had been much excitement because the council had delivered more pink recycling bags. When I got home, I did a bit of work, practised my flute, swore at the piano and sat in the garden for a while, making the ‘most of the lovely weather’.Then I sorted the pink recycling bags, folding them in a way that was easy to access. 

It was a brilliant day. One of my best ever. 

This is what I wrote on Twitter

I know it doesn’t really compare to the suffering of many or the wild Conservative party party but it’s my kind of party. Bring Your Own Blue tit.

Dear Parents

 I know, the last thing you want to do is home school again. 

‘Anything but that! I’ll stick something up their nose twice a day, take any drug or vaccine offered, work from home, give up my exercise classes, even go dry January, February, March and April but please don’t make me teach my children again! Do you know how little they listen? Do you know how lazy they are? Why don’t they remember anything?’

Teachers know. Add in thirty farts and coughs and the risk of catching ‘it’ themselves and the fact that they too have lived through nearly two years of walking on quicksand and they could be forgiven for not performing at their absolute best. 

It’s ok, though, parent, the government have you covered. The absolute last thing they will do is close schools again. They will even send Ofsted in to make sure everything is still being done by the latest book.

They are panicking, though, as kids go back to the virus-breeding Petri dish and Omicron spreads like wildfire (because it’s airborn and more infectious) they know that loads of teachers are going to catch ‘it’, so they have a cunning plan.

Boris went on telly last night and although I haven’t watched it yet I am reliably informed that it was the clearest he has been.

They are going to keep schools open.

If that means combining classes, getting Geoff and Margret out of retirement with their OHP sheets and wild ideas about stretching year six to do a bit of long multiplication and abandoning the unimportant subjects, like music, then so be it.

What?

Sixty children crammed into a tiny room? That will definitely mean the teacher won’t catch it. (That’s sarcasm)

Unimportant subjects like music. Why is it always music? 

Now Parents, you should be as worried about this as I am.  What are the music teachers going to do? Does the virus know that it’s only allowed to infect the music teachers? Maybe the government plans to redeploy uninfected music teachers as maths or English teachers because children absolutely can’t miss a lesson to understand the language that is spoken around them every day. Singing a song, reading the words, making patterns with instruments couldn’t be crossover skills at all. I could have a large group of children making music together, I know how to do that but I do think it would be very unfair to your children (and me) if I suddenly have to teach 60 kids how to do whatever happens to be on the maths or English curriculum at the moment.

I am hoping that schools will be sensible, that your children will still get a broad and balance curriculum and that not too many vulnerable teachers die. But I’m being purely selfish here and I can be because my kids are grown up and so the prospect of home schooling is not a possibility.

Solidarity

 Emma Watson is in trouble or being praised (depending who you listen to) for an Instagram post. Personally, being on neither side of the point that she was trying to make my only concern is with the grammar and the fact that it’s just not true.

Her post said that solidarity is a verb, when clearly it’s a noun. 

Her point was that, in her opinion, if you want to show solidarity to a person or a cause then you have to take action. 

Solidarity actually means standing with someone and being a united group. Sometimes that means not doing anything. When life is tough, the best friends and supporters are those who can sit with you when nothing can be done. The people who are only prepared to be on your side when they can do something to ‘fix’ it can be very wearing. They can sometimes do more damage too. The people who tell you how to ‘fix’ it can be worse. 

Today, I won’t be fixing anything (because I can’t) but I will be in complete solidarity mode, hoping for the right things to happen at the right time. 

Happy New Year

 I read somewhere that being happy is 50% genetics. This was quite a shock. I thought we had more control than that. I thought circumstances played a bigger part but according to a study, using twins, baseline happiness is significantly inheritable and there were more serotonin transporter genes in those that reported happiness. (De Neve, J.-E., Christakis, N. A., Fowler, J. H., & Frey, B. S. (2012). Genes, economics, and happiness. Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics, 5(4), 193–211.)

So, I could wish you a happy new year but if you didn’t inherit enough of these genes then the happiness drug is going to take longer to get to your brain. 

Another finding from this study was that people significantly over-estimate how much circumstances affects happiness. I’m saddened by this because I’d like Ghislane Maxwell to be unhappy. I hate the thought that she will go to prison and carry on being the manipulative person she was, who continues to believe that everyone owes her everything and because of that belief, gets exactly what she wants. 

But it’s also good news because when life deals you a heap of manure it doesn’t mean that your capacity for happiness is over.

If you were genetically gifted to have lots of boats to take the happy juice to your brain then even in dire circumstances you will be able to occasionally feel happy.

The even better news is that we can do things to increase serotonin production and that makes up 40% of our happiness. 

You’ll not be surprised to learn that these things are exercise, being outside (getting enough sunlight), being grateful, laughing, eating nutritious food (especially food containing tryptophan), getting enough sleep, touch (don’t panic that includes stroking a dog or cat), laughing and listening to or making music. 

New Year’s Eve is the day when I feel least happy. It’s a depressing day, filled with death: The end of the year; the lists on the TV of the people that have died and Betty White from the Golden Girls not reaching her one hundredth birthday. I have a friend who has a dark New Year game where they predict the celebrity deaths of the year and although their celebrations are currently postponed due to one of life’s manure dumps I am cheered by the fact that one celebrity death will make them smile. It’s a sick world, I know but you have to get that serotonin pumping in any way you can.I also find the negativity of resolutions to be tough. On one day a year you must think about all the things you didn’t do well and resolve to be better. Why can’t we make, ‘that went well, I’ll do that again’ pledges?

But New Year’s Day is a day for walks and food and being grateful for everything you do have, so today I wish you all of those things to fill up your brain boats with happy juice.

And if you can’t get outside today here is a tree and some sunshine from my walk.