International Women's Day

Today's blog should be a tribute to International Women's Day but my mind is blank.  I have nothing enlightening to say on the subject of International Women.  Maybe it's  because it's Friday but all I want to do is watch New Tricks and play time-wasting games. I'm a sucker for a game of Mahjong on the computer and I love word games.  It makes my day if I can come up with a new word, or even better a rude word on Words with Friends.

The latest game is 4pics1word and I'm a bit confused about why some people are finding it so difficult that they have to post it on facebook to get help.  I'm not brilliant at anagrams but you get all the letters given to you and with a bit of patience and a pen and paper you can easily work them out.

Sometimes it takes several goes and occasionally you get to find a rude word or even a new word.

I love the feeling of being told I'm awesome, even if that makes me shallow but I do know it would feel like less of a compliment if it had been solved by my facebook friends

Mary Beard and the Emperors New Clothes

A little while ago a colleague told me that I reminded her of Mary Beard.  She said it was a compliment.  That I, like Mary, was passionate about my subject, that we had a similar speech pattern and that neither of us cared too much about our appearance. At the time Ms Beard's public profile was low.  She had taken part in 'Jamie's Dream School' and had just started her 'Meet the Romans' programme.  I hadn't seen any of the second programme but I thought she was inspiring as a Latin teacher and wanted to go and learn Latin immediately.  

It was a wonderful thing to be compared to such an inspiring teacher but for a long time the idea that it was obvious that I didn't care about my appearance started to bother me.  I wasn't sure that was how I wanted to be thought of and I kept thinking that if I was so lacking in personal care now then by the time I was an old lady I would be sitting in muddy pee stained trousers, with dirt under my fingernails and knotted hair.  So I decided that I would make more effort. People have noticed too, so I suppose I must have been really scruffy before.

After Mary Beard appeared on Question Time and received shed-loads of abuse about her appearance I felt slightly guilty for my resolution.  I don't think women should only appear on TV if they have beautifully coiffured hair, a face-lifted until they can no longer express any opinion non-verbally and be under 25.  Men appear looking old and haggard without make-up or hair dye so why can't women?  I thought about going back to my old scruffy ways but I had felt happier for being slightly better groomed.

I've never been very good at make-up.  At Christmas my Mum told my daughter that when I first started wearing make-up I looked like a clown and since then I've had little interest in learning how to do it properly.   Last week, my weekly ironing session while watching Jeremy Kyle overran and I accidentally found myself watching This Morning.  A make up artist was showing how you can look younger with make up.  She said that, "No woman over the age of 40 should leave the house without wearing primer.  It's like polyfiller for the skin and fills in all those fine lines and wrinkles."  I feel a bit stupid now, as I fell for this line like a fish after a juicy fat worm.  I bought myself a bottle of invisible liquid for over £5.

I like my wrinkles.  They say a lot about me and tell the story of my life.  My flute player lines might be ugly but they show the hours of practice.

I adore the lines around my eyes, they are happy lines; laughter lines and they are deep and well used.  I like to laugh and am thrilled that it is etched on my face.

I'm developing some new lines.  Teacher lines.  Wrinkles from using an eyebrow to control a noisy class and a set of worry lines.

On the bottle of the primer it said that it allowed you to wear no make up, that it would brighten your skin and make you look younger.  I put it on my face and couldn't see any difference.  Have I been sold a set of Emperor's new clothes?

I'm not sure I can see much difference (except for the fact that I'm smiling more in one picture than the other)

It seems that a smile and a love of life is the thing that makes the most difference.

The Myth of Musical Talent

I have just got home from a day of watching talented young musicians compete in a music competition at our local senior school. The standard was incredibly varied, from complete beginners to those who could play complicated pieces with their eyes shut.  There were singers, flautists, pianists, rock bands, drummers and almost every other instrument in between.  Judging these competitions is an almost impossible task because knowing who is the best is often down to personal preference and it can be really difficult to choose between instruments.  Sometimes the decision seems obvious, the next Lang Lang might be easy to spot
Lang Lang 74 seconds of virtuosity but would it be so easy to find the next Buddy Rich.Buddy Rich vs Animal ?

Recently, I have been thinking a lot about the beginning of musical talent. So many adults tell me that they are not musical, they can't sing, have no rhythm, had violin lessons for 2 years and were never good enough to play in the school orchestra.  Part of these stories always include a music teacher telling them that they couldn't sing, were lacking in talent and should give up, keep quiet or just mouth the words rather than actually sing in the choir.  These teachers sound like horrid individuals but they are not uncommon and they have a lot of support from normal people.(Not that I'm saying that all music teachers aren't normal people but those of you have met me will understand that many of us aren't!)  People will tell you that they think it was a good thing that this teacher saved the world from the untalented or unmusical individual.  I'm not sure that was the music teacher's job.  They were not a judge on a reality TV show but someone who was supposed to help every student reach their full potential. I wonder if the teacher would have the same support if they had told a dyslexic child to give up trying to read because they just weren't very good at it?

There is a myth that musical people are born with their talent and maybe some people have more natural ability than others but there is one thing that is common to all talented musicians that has nothing to do with their natural ability to keep a beat, distinguish pitch or produce a nice tone with their voice and that is work.  All musicians practise.  Sometimes for whole days at a time.  They play when they are sad, or happy, or hungry or angry.  They play because they walk past the piano or because they hear a piece of music they just have to try out.  They play because they want to. But they don't only play when they want to, they also play when they hate every moment of it, when nothing is going right and everything sounds horrid.

Music teachers are often under pressure to only work with the naturally talented individuals.  I am stunned whenever I hear of a primary school choir auditioning students.  Singing in tune is catching and there is no better way of teaching the child who appears to be tone deaf to sing in tune than to wedge them between two strong, tuneful singers. A few years ago, I took a primary school choir to sing for a combined church Christmas Carol concert and at the end one lady, from quite a stuffy adult choir took me to one side and said, "my dear, you have a growler in your choir, you need to get rid of them quickly.  One bad apple and all that..."  She couldn't have been more wrong.  That 'growler' is now a very good, tuneful singer.

I don't know why I'm surprised by this attitude about music because I was a child once and I remember it.  When I was in primary school we had a visit from some musicians from the local music school.  They said that if we were good at maths (and only if we were good at maths) we could audition to be considered for music lessons.  Our parents still had to pay for these lessons and buy our instruments, so they had already chosen the wealthier, more intelligent children.  Then at the audition I had to play my recorder; have an aural test to see if I could sing in tune and clap in time; have an interview to tell them why I wanted to play an instrument and tell them about the music I liked to listen to.  I was SEVEN!  I was terrified that I wouldn't get in and I remember my mum telling me that I could join the majorettes if I didn't pass the audition, which terrified me even more because I would have been a terrible majorette being the most uncoordinated person on the planet and I wanted to make the bird noises that I heard on the Tom and Jerry cartoons. My first term of flute lessons was with a teacher who told me I had the 'wrong shaped mouth' and that I should give up now because I would never be able to play the flute.  I didn't give up. I worked on it.

Every music teacher has had a bright pupil, with an interested supportive (slightly pushy) parent who has natural aural skills, who seems to have a natural ability to make a good noise with their instrument, who gives up the first time they come across something they have to work on.  I suspect that any brave music teacher (who hasn't first screened their pupils) has taught someone that they thought would never be any good; someone who couldn't make a nice noise; struggled to read music; couldn't count to 4 if their life depended upon it who one day just got it.  After the competition today, a few music teachers and the adjudicator and I were talking about this and the adjudicator said that he thought it was really important to encourage everyone because there maybe talent lurking behind immaturity or nerves.  He said that he had taught several people who looked like they'd never get it, who had a little break and then came back to it being brilliant. Another teacher said that sometimes changing the instrument the person plays can suddenly find a musical talent that seemed absent from their genetic make-up. Luckily, the people running and judging this competition agree with me and don't come from the school of thought that it is better to tell people to give up than to give them 'false hope'.

Maybe, I don't know this rule about crushing a child's confidence to make for better music because I am a fraud. Because I'm untrained I missed this essential part of a music teacher's training.  But my student's all did well today because they did the most important thing.  They turned up and played. They did the work and I am amazingly proud of them.

Satisfactory means 'Good Enough'

Boy, it's been a tough week.  Teaching is a tiring job, all teachers everywhere will agree but some days all I seem to do is play.  Friday was like that this week, it was full of fun, noise and laughter but I came home shattered with a pile of paperwork to do, a boot full of music stands and chime bars for a music competition on Sunday and a throbbing headache. Maybe I've just got too old too play.

In truth, it's probably the grown up stuff, that I'm not so good at that makes me tired.  Sometimes I feel like a complete fraud and wonder why perfectionism passed me by.

When reading baking books, I am often surprised by the level of perfectionism that seems to be asked for.  The oven has to be a particular temperature, the size or type of tin has to be just right, the ingredients have to be measured out perfectly.  I have never baked like that and it's usually edible.  I'm reading Ben Miller's book 'It's not Rocket Science" at the moment and he has a section about the chemistry of the Victoria Sandwich sponge.  According to him you have to weigh the eggs and make sure that you measure out the exact weight of the other ingredients and then there was a long explanations of the different types of cooking that happen at different temperatures and his conclusion was that you turned the oven down to 140 degrees c and cook it for longer (45 minutes).  I make sponge by doubling the the amount of ingredients to eggs in a very haphazard way.  If I've got 2 eggs I use 4 big spoons of flour and sugar and half a block of butter and I go for about 180 degrees and take it out when it's cooked.  Reading the book I was won over by the serious scientific argument.  I thought, "So, that's how to do it properly, I must have been doing it wrong all this time.  Fancy being so stupid that I thought I could ignore science and just bung a few ingredients together."  But the cake I made was disgusting and tasted eggy.

I blame the move from ounces and pounds to grams for the need for perfectionism in baking.  Digital scales measure to the nearest 1/4 of a gram (which is nothing) but because it's there in glorious scientific imagery people feel they must stick to it.  My mum said that she didn't really like Joanne Wheatley's new book because it's all the recipes are given in grams and that you can't see how much that is.  She's right.  Ounces are so much simpler.  One ounce of flour is a big spoonful, a block of butter is 8oz and a pinch of salt is a pinch of salt.

Today to obliterate the difficult week, I decided not to get dressed, to read, knit, blog, watch silly films and eat cheese scones warm from the oven and dripping in butter.  I'm sure there are complicated scone recipes but I've always thought scones were the easiest thing to make.  My slightly homesick daughter commented on my facebook status saying that she wished she was at home to eat cheese scones.  Mine only took about 20 minutes to make, which is only a small amount of time to take out of essay writing to cure homesickness.

A cheese scone recipe for those who think satisfactory is good enough.

Put 8 big spoons of self raising flour in a bowl (or use plain flour with a teaspoon of bicarb or baking powder) -
Add a pinch of salt, mustard powder, cayenne pepper, mixed herbs, chili powder or whatever you want to make it tasty.
Rub in a big dollop of butter, stork or other margarine using the tips of your fingers.
Grate in some cheese.  I like strong cheddar and the more the better but cheese is cheese.
Add a bit of milk and squish it all together with your hands (add more milk if you need to)
Roll out the dough to about the thickness of the first joint of your thumb
Cut out rounds using a cookie cutter or glass or cup.
Brush top with egg or milk (you can use your fingers if you don't have a pastry brush)
Bake in a hot oven (about 220 degrees) until cooked (between 10 and 15 minutes.)

Don't eat them too quickly unless you want indigestion.

My paperwork will remain in the boot of my car, my baking will continue to consist of bunging a few ingredients together and I will continue to be happy with satisfactory lesson observations because that means good enough and good enough is good enough for me. In fact I think I might start an anti-perfectionists club, does anyone want to join me?

Something warm and fluffy

After yesterday's ranting blog, I was determined that today I would write about something warm and fluffy.
I will not get sidetracked by the fact that Grace Dent tricked me into reading some smug woman in a badly fitting jacket's article about how she chooses her darling Poopy (honestly I really read the child's name as Poopy - might be time to visit the optician again!) and India's friends. She did this by putting the link on Twitter with the words, "I have so much to say!"  The link was just a series of letters and numbers, with absolutely no mention of The Daily Mail.

So, back to warm and fluffy.  What do I really know about warm and fluffy?  I'm much more inclined to see the sombre, wicked and macabre. The grump is still in full flow and I WILL tame her.  Warm and fluffy.....right....um......OK....I've got it.

I say, I say, I say!  My dog has no nose.  How does he smell?  Terrible.

Really, he does smell very bad.  When we were children we liked it if the dog farted. We liked it even more if the dog hadn't farted and one of us had because the dog could always be blamed but today it was definitely the dog.  No human could possibly make that kid of smell.  Not only does my warm fluffy thing have very bad wind he also just smells.  He smells of.....well he smells of dog.  A dog that has got wet and dry too many times.  A dog that has sometimes pee-d on his own leg.  A dog who doesn't own a toothbrush.

The warm, fluffy smelly thing has spent most of the evening  snuggled up against my leg, twitching his ears, giving me dirty looks and finally issuing a small growl before going to sit next to the Long Suffering Husband. Knitting is the best way to ensure that you don't let sleeping dogs lie.

LSH has just asked, "Is that smell the dog?"

As the writers of Porridge used to say, "It's the small wins that make life bearable."

Can Reading Make You Happy?

It's been a while since I wrote anything and my head is about to explode.  There's so much in it and the more full it gets the less I feel as though I can write anything. Where do you start? Nobody wants to read the random rubbish that's floating around in there at the moment.  As I'm surprised anyone wants to read the normal rubbish that appears on this page, I think the best thing to do is write.  If you are reading this then I apologise and remind you that I am not writing for you but for the sake of my own mental health (such as it is).

Telling someone, yesterday, that my daughter is studying journalism I was accused of rolling my eyes as I said it.  "I suppose you're thinking that someone has to," they commented.  I am very proud of her and I'm sure that when she starts to write I will enjoy every single word but this has been a week when I find myself holding my head in my hands and wondering why journalists actually exist.  I'm probably reading too much and for that I blame Twitter.  The constant drip-feed of news, gossip and speculation about what might or might not be news, the links to both good and bad articles and the reporting in newspapers of what has been said on Twitter has left me jittery, checking my phone every 2 seconds in case I miss the next rude thing to be tweeted.

Last week I was fascinated as the Reeva Steenkamp murder unravelled on twitter.  I use her name on purpose because it is not the Oscar Pistorius' murder, he is not the victim and he might not even be the perpetrator (although as more details unfold in court it seems it was his gun and he did pull the trigger) but reading my twitter feed on that day, you would be forgiven for thinking that he was the victim.  Then, as the day went on he became a 'wife beating monster.' and I worried about laws I don't understand like sub judice.  The next day the 'proper papers' got involved.

The last time I can remember being shocked by the front page of a newspaper was in November 1981 when the Daily Mail called Michael Foot a 'Worzel Gummage' and an 'Out of work Navvy in a Donkey Jacket'

At the time I thought this was terrible. Here was an old man, with a chest complaint, wearing a nice warm coat and they were picking on him, not because he hadn't done his coat up (which I would have thought was perfectly reasonable) but because they didn't think his coat looked like it cost enough money.  The more enraged I got about the picture the more stories I read about it and then it became clear that it was his wife's fault and everyone hated his wife because she was a feminist.  This only confirmed my desire to be a feminist, who didn't have to make sure their husband wore expensive coats. At the time, I decided I would never read the Daily Mail again and until the invention of twitter I have never not even been tempted to pick it up in the Dentist's waiting room. Twitter seduced me, when a girl who had shown us round on one of the University open days had a horrible article about lazy teachers published and then I was then again seduced by the the Samantha Brick controversy. 

As I grew up I took what was written in papers with a pinch of salt and have mostly found headlines to be funny in their crassness and wondered who they were fooling and then last week the Sun stooped to an all time low of tastelessness.  I was genuinely shocked after being confronted with row upon row of the headline, " 3 Shots. Screams. Silence", illustrated with a picture of what I thought was their page 3 girl, pouting and pointing her various assets in my direction.  Only when I got home and consulted twitter did I discover that the picture was of Ms Steenkamp and there were opinions ranging from total outrage to an appreciation of her beautiful form in her 'work clothes'.  

In the last few days, I have been obsessed with Hilary Mantel's comments about Kate Middleton.  One of my pet hates is women turning on each other and having read some of Hilary Mantel's writing before I was surprised, as I didn't think this was really her style.  The Prime Minister got very worried about it, he made a statement from India, where he had previously said that he was worried about the lack of women in his cabinet but really wasn't sure what to do about it.  The poor man is so confused!  The Mantel piece is worth reading in full, not least because the woman really knows how to write.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n04/hilary-mantel/royal-bodies

She wasn't really attacking Kate but the press and the establishment that still forgets that women who marry royals are real people, with real hopes and dreams. I quite like this royal couple and I like to think that they married for love and are strong enough to ignore everything  the stupid press and anyone else says about them and it should end there but the backlash is unforgivable.

Mantel Piece - love a play on words

The criticism seems to have been along the lines of, "how dare that ugly woman who is too clever for her own good say anything about the beautiful princess, who is having a baby." 

The Sun reduced it all to Bump...1 Grump....0, with several pictures of Kate looking beautiful and radiant and Hilary looking, frumpy.  The comments by women on these articles was really shocking.

http://storify.com/robertsharp59/the-unwitting-irony-of-mantel-s-critics

Mostly, this has been about lazy journalism and women being cruel about each other but just occasionally it has sparked a brilliant piece of writing.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2013/feb/19/hilary-mantel-duchess-of-cambridge-controversy

That should please Hilary Mantel, to inspire brilliant writing as twice winner of the Booker Prize has to be worth taking all this rubbish for. 

Waterstones book shop tweeted in the week, "Whoever said that money can't buy happiness has never bought a book."  They may have a point so I'm off to find my happy place in a book and leave Twitter and the Newspapers alone for a while.