Developing a List

There are many things I am not:

I am NOT a

Or, as you know, a

Both these jobs, I would imagine, require a certain degree of organisation.  For instance, a rocket scientist would need to keep track of what shiny metal bit goes where;  you would need to be sure that you didn't muddle rocket fuel with the wiper fluid, that you hadn't confused Sod's Law with that of Newton's Third.  Lives DEPEND on having the ability to work in a systematic fashion.

Same goes for domestic goddesses...  Well, obviously lives are hardly imperilled if a recipe for a cherry cafloutis isn't followed to the letter but nevertheless, slipshoddery in the old Nigellas can send you down a path made treacherous with  public mortification at the PTA cake stall.

The horror of public mockery

These people need lists.  Lists were developed for exactly this type of person, like Factor VIII for haemophiliacs.  They play an essential role in their day-to-day existence; without lists rockets would drop from the sky and scones fail to rise.  The science of dough management and exothermic chemical reactions hinges on the ability to write stuff down and put it in numerical order.

Now, stand up everybody.  Good.  Right, anybody who is NOT a rocket scientist or a domestic goddess, please sit down.

As I suspected.

For most of us, lists have become an unnecessary feature of our lives like Kerry Katona and pre-grated carrot.  List compilation has become a modern malaise, the crack cocaine of the literate poor.  At first it creeps up on you, pretending to be your friend by boosting confidence, making you more socially acceptable, filling you with the warm feel-good factor of the ordered cognoscenti.  But then after a while you need more to get the same buzz.  You start ordering your iPod (and those of your kids) into playlists, you keep a birthday book AND a calendar. 

Before you know it, you're having people over to admire your new in and out trays.

The problem with lists is that you have to be a List Person for them to work.  Otherwise it's just a half-hearted effort to delay forgetting something.  How many unread shopping lists spew from a groaning glove compartment or tickertape around our ankles every time we pull out a wallet or purse?  Carefully numbered, neatly handwritten lists making sure we don't forget our innate half-wittery along with the semi-skimmed?

As I'm not a rocket scientist OR a domestic goddess it follows that I'm no list writer.  I forget stuff.  Frequently.  But the up-side of this is that getting from A to B can involve going the long way round, the pretty way — meeting up with folk I hadn't planned to, buying things I don't know how to cook, and dreaming up things to write about which weren't in my head this morning.

Without lists, life is just so more... alive. 

If you would like to live a life free of lists, follow this eight-step programme...

1. 
   
   
   
   
   

The Uncommonness of Common Sense

"For God's sake, use your common sense!"

There were four of us, only one of Mum.  Consequently, she said this a LOT.  Her central nervous system had maternally evolved to such a stage that it could recognise situations of gross, childhood buffoonery without even bothering the brain,  bypassing it altogether with a reflex arc.   So when one of us stumbled into her arms snivelling for comfort after tumbling from the washing line without the aid of a safety net, "Where was your common sense?" was dispensed as a matter of course, along with a brisk rub, a quick kiss, and a teaspoon of

mixed in a glass of squash to make it fizzy. 

But what is common sense?  Some of us agree that using your common sense means accessing a universal vault of  blindingly OBVIOUS conclusions; conclusions so obvious that to reach them barely needs any brain activity whatsoever.  We know without thinking that climbing an electricity pylon in a storm is inadvisable, that texting while drunk is a VERY BAD idea, and that getting a tattoo of the name of your beloved inscribed across your chest automatically leads to an acrimonious split and some tearfully deft editing. 

In the same way, my mother knew that our garden wasn't the Grand Canyon, the washing line a tightrope, and that none of us was Phillipe Petit; putting all of these factors together equalled an accident waiting to happen. 

Common sense here is defined by a basic, inescapable logic.

But what about that other definition of common sense — the logic of the common people, of the majority?  Bearing in mind this type of reasoning is applied by politicians and lynch mobs alike, surely we're right to remain wary of it.  Bearing in mind this type of reasoning sees

as hot favourites to win the 'X Factor', we are right to nurture a healthy suspicion with regard to those who smugly say "I'm only using my common sense". 

And they're always smug these people.  Always. 

The trouble I have with this definition is that in reality it is sense-lite, the only thing going for it is the power of numbers.  It seeks to preserve the status quo, using arguments such as "That's how it's always done" or "Just because...";  a refuge of the scared and timid when faced with change or a differing viewpoint.  The unthinking side of logic.

The reason I've been deliberating these semantics arose from an article in The Times by Caitlin Moran, 'The Joy of Obliquely Being Accused of Being a Paedophile'. It provoked ENORMOUS reader reponse in the form of hostile on-line comments. 

I won't reproduce the article for you here, just follow the link above, but these comments highlight the very real difference in how common sense is interpreted.  I was in the painfully small minority supporting the Morans because I tend to see things with an objective logic.  But clearly the majority view the world through more subjective eyes.

I'm not saying I'm right  — there's that minority I mentioned, after all — but if you have a political party promising to lead the country under the banner of common sense, it's good to be clear just what definition is being applied.  And possibly to be just a little bit afraid if it chooses to create national policy based on the fickle and subjective nature of the pitchfork-waving masses. 

And as for the definition of logic?  Well, for God's sake, use your common sense...

Northern Exposure

It seems that am-dram in the Borders has gone all

and

 

Don't get me wrong, here at Flyte-Tipping we are BIG fans of  trembly dogs and unleavened head gear, but we are surprised that two similar plays have stumbled in front of our headlights at the same time.

We have a choice.  Do we swerve wildly and continue on our way with nary a glance in the rear-view, or do we slam on brakes, steer into the skid, then summon the courage to get out and examine the

 

 road kill?

Stomach of bloody cast iron, us!  Of COURSE we get out!  We would be failing in our duty to bring you the very best of the very worst of Border-based amateur dramatics if we drove off.  Besides, we may have only clipped them, they could be lying perfectly intact with nothing worse than a few superficial cuts and bruises.  And if there proves to be no sign of life, well, we can roll them into a ditch, cover them in brushwood and say no more about it.

First up, then.

Bill Naughton's northern comedy-drama 'Spring & Port Wine', performed by a new group, Pocket Productions, directed by a magnificently pregnant Lizzie Bell at The Maltings last Wednesday to Saturday.  Set in the late 1960s, a time of explosive social change, blah-blah, the play was a wonderful observation of the differing aspirations and expectations of parents and their children.

On the whole, it was a faultless production, with imaginative three-quarter staging drawing the audience into closer involvement.  While ALL the performers were excellent (not one 'ee-bah-gum', can you credit it?), the Flyte-Tipping Award for Realism in Theatre (F.A.R.T.)  must go to Hugo Hughes, veteran treader-of-boards and a joy to watch.  A good first-turn was delivered by A-level student, Miss (sorry, I lost my programme so it may or may not be her name) Gudgeon, as Hilda, with slight projection problems being our only quibble.  Had she been acting on the stage proper, rather than the considerably smaller Henry Travers Studio, she may have struggled to be heard.   One to watch, though.

The lovely Miles was on hand as usherette and genial host and it became clear, talking to cast members post-performance, that he had offered invaluable directorial advice to first-timer Liz.

The end of this man's talents is still far from view.  We LOVE you, Miles!

All in all, an impressive debut from Pocket Productions.

Moving on, then...

Come January 2010 we can all look forward to a production of 'Celebration' by the late Keith Waterhouse and his long-time collaborator, Willis Hall, by the newly regrouped Duns Players.  This will be their third production and will be directed by Barry Jones, another of the old thesps that seem to litter the countryside in these parts like bog roll in the hedgerows.

Whether this production of another northern comedy-drama set in the 1960s is as successful as 'Spring & Port Wine' is less a done deal.  For a start, the proposed venue of the cavernous Duns Volunteer Hall creates real staging difficulties and, it has to be said, the calibre of acting talent amongst the Duns Players — ahem — varies widely.

So right from the start pulse is thready and sats low.

Still where there's life, there are fingers crossed, so Flyte-Tipping will hold-off from digging a

'til January...

Baking as Passive-Aggression

I am not, it has to be said, much of a domestic goddess.

And for 363 days of the year this works to my advantage. I can live up to people's low expectations, basking in the warm glow of accomplishment.  However, my peace of mind unravels two days every year — my children's birthdays.

Suddenly I'm expected to separate egg whites, beat things to dropping consistency, crimp, cream and caramelize with innate skill and savoir-faire.  Only last night, on Masterchefs, The Professionals did I learn that pastry was a DISCIPLINE, and one that had to be undertaken SERIOUSLY.  Michel Roux said it with such soft-spoken gravity that my jaw fell open in awe.

What a stupid

I've been! 

Blundering through life thinking tae kwon do was a discipline, karate, that thing with the sticks, even water-boarding at a push — but PASTRY?!    Look at it the wrong way and that choux bun could KILL you.  And we're not talking clogged arteries here.  We're talking a sucker punch to the Adam's apple that you won't even hear coming.

In the world of Twitter this morning a distress call went up. Poor @audreysluyter.  She has a birthday looming, her son's.  She has courageously decided to attempt a cake in the shape of a train.  Now, I'm guessing from her tone of desperation that @audreysluyter is no Jane or Nigella.  In fact, I'm guessing she's exactly like me, with wooden spoon and Magimix lying snug and warm under a thick pelt of dust.

Not for me the competitive, bun-eat-bun world of architectural kiddy cake baking.  I know someone who genuinely believes she's a superior breed of mother because she insists on creating fairy palaces, and 100 Aker Woods, and High Street Musical tableaux out of an organic Victoria sponge and half-a-dozen mini-rolls for her predictably bored and ungrateful offspring.

But of course she's not superior — between you and me, she's on medication for a personality disorder — but she is desperate to get one over on the rest of us.  She's a closet Alpha mum who exercises her frustrated lack of status through passive-aggressive baking.

Is this the sort of club you want to belong to?  No.  So when your child's birthday rolls around, do what I do.  Bake a sponge, cover it with icing, then smother it with sweets containing a sugar-to-E number ratio high enough to cause temporary blindness.

Your kids will love you for it!

How to Grieve in the 21st Century

Welcome, dear Blog-Reader, to the first in a series of  'How to... According to Chastity Flyte'.  Throughout the series I aim to educate and elucidate, as well as make a lot of stuff up.  But don't worry, you're in good hands, I'm an expert in making stuff up.

Here is an example of me making stuff up.  This is a picture of me:

Me.

Did any of you spot what I did?  That's right, I substituted a picture of Heath Ledger for one of me — in essence passing myself off as a dead Hollywood LEGEND.  Clearly I'm not a dead Hollywood LEGEND. Yes, I made it up.

Now that you know what to expect, let's make a start.

How To Grieve in the 21st Century

1. It's always tricky to know the etiquette involved with regard to the deceased.  When deciding in which direction you want to take your mourning, there are things you might like to consider, the main issue being your closeness to the corpse.
   
   
2. Now, a Mr Keating from Dublin has written to me saying, "Chastity, I don't know what to do, so I don't, to be sure.  How can I tell if I was close to the stiff?  Please help."
   
   First of all, Mr Keating, my darling, stop panicking.  It's quite simple.  Ask yourself this:  Am I consumed with the desire to tattoo my body with  a permanent reminder of the deceased as a public demonstration of how special he/she was to me?  If the answer is 'yes' then obviously you had formed a deep attachment to the dead person and anything less than a tribal bicep cuff would be disrespecting their memory.  If you find yourself wondering how the tattoo would look years down the line on sagging, parchment-like skin, then clearly your relationship with the deceased was shallow and probably a bit two-faced.  There's no shame in admitting this.  Better now, than scarring yourself at a later date with corrective surgery.
   
   
3. The issue of flowers at a funeral can be a minefield.  In recent years there has been a laudable move away from discreet (let's face it, cheap) graveside posies towards more visible floral statements.  What is it you want your flowers to say?  "Mummy" is popular, as is "Top Geezer", both climbing steadily in the Interflora 'Say it With Flowers Because They're Dead and Can't Hear You' chart. 
   
   Whatever you decide, it's important you leave plenty of money aside for enough single-stem carnations to throw at the hearse and successfully obliterate the driver's view.  This is VITAL.  The aim is to slow him down to a hushed crawl thus enabling your sobs — or preferably, keening — to enliven any general wishy-washy and frankly depressing sadness.
4. If you find yourself at any time with moisture in your eye, ask yourself this: "For whom am I crying?" 
   
   A surprisingly large proportion of mourners are actually crying for THEMSELVES at funerals.  In an age of instant photography and internet upload, they recognise a photo-op when they see one.  If you're one of those people who find crying on cue difficult, then don't leave the house without pre-smudging your mascara, sniffing an onion, and affecting a look of tragedy.  You will be amazed at just how far this will carry you — sometimes all the way to the post-burial vol-au-vents.
5. Whatever you do, DO NOT forget to update your Facebook status.  Assuming you've already notified all your pals that you were off to a funeral, you can simply state "[your name] is feeling sad :-(".  Anything more will come across as gushy and insincere.  Remember, you are grieving.  You must give yourself time to work things through and participating in an impromptu game of Mafia Wars may send out the wrong signals.
6. Most of all, relax, enjoy yourself! These events don't come along every day so make the most of it! In these dark days of recession it's a good way of remembering that life goes on!
   

If you have been affected by any of the matters discussed above, please don't hesitate to leave a comment or contact me at flyte.tipping@yahoo.co.uk.

How to be Rich, Famous and Regularly Laid

Okay, I'm gonna hold my hands up. 

This post is not going to be an eight-step guide to becoming a pornstar.  Becoming a pornstar, I imagine, is relatively straightforward; there is a clear direction of travel, well-documented steps that need to be taken.   No, right from the start of this blog I fess up — this post is a completely cynical ploy to generate blog traffic.

According to blogging help sites, the way to get folk moseying their way across cyberspace to read my rough-hewn prose over that of the sublimly crafted wordsmithery of the better-educated blogger, is to declare my blog a site of knowledge — a veritable pantry of wisdom to which only I hold the key, and where I am the only person tall enough to reach the top shelf and magnanimously distribute erudite crumbs to my famished readers.

In other words, blogs that do well are blogs telling people how to do stuff.

And really, my normal style of blethering on about anything that amuses me or has caught my eye that day, doesn't remotely help anyone.  Unless they were looking for proof that literature is dead. 

I'm realistic about the extent of my influence, and although I seem to have got away with things for the last couple of months, I need to remain fresh, I need to keep my punters coming back for more, turn a few new tricks, which is why I've decided to:

1. Use numbered points. 
2. Apparently numbering points in your posts is a sure-fire way to start a blog stampede.  Forget the Bulls of Pamplona, my friend, the simple act of numerical highlighting guarantees a trample.
3. I also need to become an expert on something, and pretty damn sharpish.  This is tricky.  The only thing on which I have any expertise is blethering (see above).  Something of an own goal, there.  Clearly I will have to champion the maxim of style over substance. 
4. Fancy.  This has turned out to be a blog on How to be Rich, Famous and Regularly Laid afterall.

From now on in, I shall be posting a number of "How to..." posts.  Tomorrow I will be posting the definitive article on "How to Grieve in the 21st Century".   Rest easy.  You can expect numbered points and bite-size chunks, but between you and me it's a big bushy 

for me blethering on about the advisability of allowing the the tattoo to replace the black armband as a traditional show of mourning.

You think I'm kidding?  Better come back tomorrow...

Mists and Mellow Fruitlessness

A Saturday afternoon in autumn, sunlight spearing low through my office windows, and I contemplate amongst other things this:

cheese, onion and chilli sauce on toast.

But this savoury goodness only serves as a snacky distraction from REAL contemplative business, the business of my LIFE.  Y'know, big stuff, that needs sweating over a low heat.

The thing is, autumn for me always feels like a new beginning, the proper New Year.  If I'm ever going to make a resolution (say 'no' to cake, 'yes' to cardiac activity), I choose this time of year to do so.   Much more realistic.  Your vision isn't clouded  from binge-drinking Babycham and snorting sentimental lines of Auld Lang Syne.  You face the coming twelve-month with a clear head and a clear eye, and it meets your gaze head on.  You can lay claim to an objectivity over what's truly doable that's missing when the leftover Christmas Baileys is talking its special bullshit.

Usually at this time of year I'm starting a new project — a script, more often than not.  But this year... I don't think so. 

Let me explain. 

Four years ago, the Beeb managed to persuade eight established scriptwriters to each write the first twenty minutes of a sitcom.  It then invited members of the public to enter a competition whereby they complete the last ten minutes.  I duly wrote my first ever script and sent it off. 

And won.  Cue champagne corks and streamers.

That win sent me off on a course that I hadn't really considered before, and over the last four years I have followed it with hardly a pause for breath.  I have written three pilot sitcoms  for the BBC and while all of them have met with praise and approval, none of them has made the BBC reach into its pocket.

Surely time to look up?  Take my bearings, stop kidding myself, see what else is new and exciting out there?  I'm not a quitter.  I am that Chumbawamba classic with a Weeble sensibility made flesh.

But I could CRY when I see the BBC commission juvenile crud like We Are Klang and lazy, unimaginative spin-off sitcoms from past glories of its sitcom heyday in the 1980s.  (To be honest, 'cry' is probably a bit strong, but I do splutter and look despairing.)

I am taking stock.   Should I continue flogging something already lying on its back on the conveyor belt at the glue factory?  Sometimes we need to look up from the path long enough to spot a turning we'd never noticed before; who knows, it could even turn out to be a short-cut.  What was right then, may not be right now...

Would you believe it?  Turns out I'm a quitter after all!  And so I continue on this wonderful voyage of self-discovery.

Anyone looking for a feature writer?  She's quite funny...

Happy New Year!

And Smiles To Go Before I Sleep...

A lot of people are in the wrong job: 

to name just one.

We've all said it.  We've all come back from that restaurant meal, during which the waiter sneered, spat and sighed his way through service, and said "Blimey, he's in the wrong job."

Of course he is, and he damn well knows it.  That's why he takes it out on you by gobbing in the arrabiata. That waiter harbours dreams of being a folk-musician or a flamenco dancer, or an accountant — it doesn't matter what, the thing is he KNOWS he's in the wrong job.  It's only the misfortune of an impoverished skills set as a direct result of parental disinterest that keeps him in it. 

Take El Hombre, for example.  He hates his job with a passion so deep, throbbing and rounded, that were I a less confident woman, I'd feel threatened and hire a private detective.  He is the classic

Such is life.  He is not alone.  We play the hand we've been dealt and go fish.

But what if you're in the wrong job and you just don't know it?  What if, say, you think you're in your dream job — believing, indeed, that you are born to it — but if push came to shove, you'd be the only person willing to write you a reference?

That's what El Hombre and I were up against today.  A valuer who would have been much better suited as a children's TV presenter.  Or a cat-loving spinster.  Or a person specially trained to giggle... 

I mean, it's not as if she didn't have options.

Mrs Valuer clearly LOVED her job; loved it so much that she couldn't help smiling.  She smiled and smiled and smiled and smiled... and when she was done smiling she simply switched off her eyes but kept her lips in place.  My own cheeks spasmed in sympathy, responding no doubt to some inaudible scream of distress similar in haunting beauty to whale song being emitted by her zygomaticus major.

Poor woman, if the wind had changed direction she would've been stuck as Mrs Sardonicus, and that'd be a shame because then she would die from hunger and thirst and whilst she could do with maybe losing a few pounds, death would leave her looking positively GAUNT.

Less is more, Mrs Valuer, when it comes to using smiles as a sales technique.  You scared our custom away with the rusty sickle of your grin.  We were scared of contracting lockjaw. 

Needless to say, El Hombre will be in touch with another valuer's office, hopefully one who doesn't enjoy his job quite so much...

And We're Off... Finally

Flyte-Tipping has been caught on the back foot.  LOOK!

While here in the office we've been busy squabbling over the funny pink wafers in a Rover's family tin, the am-dram pixies have been busy flitting hither and thither around the Borders with their audition notices.  To be honest, we'd given up on them; what with all their meetings, non-meetings and general ineffectual faffiness, we thought the chances of them getting it together long enough to put on an actual performance was about as likely as Alesha Dixon getting the older woman's vote.

Obviously, as soon as we discovered this notice pinned to a village bus shelter, Flyte-Tipping has pulled out all the stops to find out the latest, and you WON'T be disappointed.

• The Duns Players are desperately trying to recruit new members.  It seems existing members are not loyally working together as an exclusive team, preferring to gratify their own individual egos by WHORING themselves to any am-dram production going.   By the time Duns Players have finally sorted themselves out, no members are available to act anything.  So in a touching move, the Duns Players is trying to schedule its performances around everybody else's.  It's just so, so... polite, so Last of the Summer Wine-ish, and we love them all the more for it!
  
• What with rehearsal time already at something of a premium, it must've been dismaying to have the performances moved closer by a week due to hall availability.  This follows on the heels of a previous forward-rescheduling due to others', er, commitments.  Still, their loss of rehearsal time can only be our gain.
  
• While investigating this forthcoming production, we have discovered that Monsieur LeGrand maybe participating!  This is THRILLING news!  Flyte-Tipping is setting up a book on not only a) at whom he'll point his shag-dar, but b) at how many!  It's like watching an episode of 

 and guessing the body count.

Incidentally, Flyte-Tipping's delicate shell-like has been the grateful recipient of gossip that Monsieur LeGrand has very recently pouted and stamped his foot.  Hearsay makes it official!  He will not be performing in the Emergency Services Panto in February on account of  hurt feelings last year during a directorial spat. 

Quite right too.  If we start putting fund-raising for a local cancer charity before our own personal feelings — well, heavens knows where we'll end up.

Monsieur LeGrand is obviously a big enough man to realise this and make a stand...

and Flyte-Tipping looks forward to his performance in particular!

Tuesday Bluesday

I'm ill.  Properly ill.  I can tell I'm ill because I coughed and a lung flopped out onto my keyboard.  I'm also delirious.  I can tell I'm delirious because I've just searched Google images for 'Lung on Keyboard'... 

Dung on Keyboard

Sorry, it was the best I could do.

This is El Hombre's fault, him and his bloody man flu.  I tell you, if the virus doesn't kill him I bloody well will. The groaning, the heavy sighing, coughing so violently he's at risk of giving himself whiplash... Actually, let's stop a moment with the coughing.  I don't know why, but El Hombre has developed this habit of coughing like he's headbutting a bouncer, and without even bothering to put his hand to his mouth.  I suspect this is because he likes the sound it makes.  Noisy.  Rattly.  A little bit put on.  Why muffle the acoustics of his glorious suffering with a germ-catching palm?

So my immune system catches the virus instead, fumbles it and lets it roll through its legs and into my body.  Butter-fingered phagocytes.  Don't they know I can't be ill, that I'm busy?  I have a house to sell, and before I can sell said house I have to rebuild it from the ground up.  By Friday.

And now with added incovenience of only having one lung, I fear I may be asking the impossible...

Monday, Monday...

Bah, baaah, bah, bah-bah-bah, looks good to me... 

Sure, with the curtains drawn, the lights off, and me treading water in the soft, warm currents of prescription drugs.

But they're not and I'm not, so BUGGER OFF! Monday*, you can't be trusted.  The Mamas & The Papas say so, and I ain't gonna argue with Mama Cass because 1) she's dead, and 2) she is (appropriately) morbidly obese.  I wouldn't want her falling on me from a height trying to eat my brains is all I'm saying.

I never realised until today that I live in a hovel. 

I mean, you'd think I'd have noticed before now — the muddy fingerprints on the living room door from children who find using a towel just too challenging, the corner of the ceiling working a stole of green mould, a stench of death leaking from somewhere under the bath, dog fur and cat dander tumbleweeds rolling forlornly across open spaces in hope of coming across an allergic reaction...

I am clearly a housewifely SLUT of the first order,

and while I'm sanguine about sharing my failings with you, it's on the presumption that none of you is a prospective purchaser.  I've postponed the valuer, and I've now got until Friday to divert a river through my front room and dry it all off after.

CURSES, Location, Location, Location with Kirsty and Phil  tutting and arm-slapping like some dangerous experiment in mixed-class marriage; BOO-HISS, Kevin McCloud and your immaculate 'contemporary living spaces'!  You lot have raised the bar so high, waving a duster around a can of Mr Sheen is no longer enough  — I need oxygen and crampons just to get to base camp.

The more I look around my house the clearer it becomes that what my house really needs is not a bloody good scrub, but a

tossed inside and the doors closed.

I have spent the entire day trying to second-guess somebody else's idea of their dream home as I dismantle my own.  I'm tired, aching, grumpy, and covered in paint, and face the prospect of doing it all again tomorrow.  And the next day.  And the one after. 

I repeat.  How come I NEVER noticed before?! 

Then once I finish with the house, I have to make a start on the garden...

*#buggeroffmondays — a welcome antidote to Twitter's  #followfridays. 

Chivalry isn't Dead, Merely Resting

There are so many things to scupper that most fragile of ideologies — Faith in Human Nature.   For instance:  people trafficking, religious fundamentalism,

Louis Walsh,

gun running, rampant capitalism, human cloning, political correctness, Lycra leggings on fat people, the blame culture, moral turpitude,  pre-grated carrot, child abuse, hate, intolerance,

Louis Walsh...

the list goes on.  Human beings are simply pre-programmed to be a bit shitty.  Or, of course, a lot shitty, depending on whether they are working or middle class.

Shitty working class people can NEVER be a lot shitty because they are the unfortunate consequence of not having two holidays a week and an au pair.  Shitty middle class people, everybody knows, are ALWAYS a lot shitty because they have had the education to know that killing and stuff is WRONG, so deserve everything they get.

So beneath the faecal morass that makes up the bulk of human nature, it's always a pleasure to catch a glimmer of the sunken treasure beneath, and I have two little tales to tell that can do nothing other than cockle warm.

We start with last Friday, and Bridge Street car park in Berwick-Upon-Tweed.  Now, parking is always at a premium in Berwick-Upon-Tweed — the successful outcome of a town council initatiave which actively encourages shoppers to stay away so that small businesses can fold in peace — and a friend of mine was feeling inordinately smug at squeezing into a narrow space by a wall.

She felt less smug on return from her hair appointment and discovering that she couldn't get out.  It didn't matter which way she turned the steering wheel, there was no way her car was coming out of that space short of a vehicular episiotomy.

What is a girl to do?  More to the point, what is a modern, liberated girl to do?  Easy.  She takes her hard-won liberation and marches over to the Granary building site where she figures there will be at least TEN men capable of flinging four tonne diggers around unfeasibly small spaces.  A Nissan X-Trail, so her thinking went, will be a dribble of wee-wee.

Was it the Women's Lib Movement imbuing her with the confidence to commit such an heroic act of post-modern feminism?  Or was it quite simply the fact that she'd had her hair done.

To her delighted surprise, her request was not met with sniggers, raised eyebrows or indulgent smiles.  Instead, she was offered perfectly charming assistance and the type of rescue that would not have looked out of place at Camelot.  With the car birthed safely, my friend confided in me that she simpered at her hi-vis saviour.  SIMPERED!  Something she hasn't done since catching Bill Bailey's eye on his Tinselworm tour, like, a whole year ago.

My second tale of chivalry takes place in Morrisons.  Yep.  More accustomed to acts of shoplifting than acts of chivalry, this rich man's Lidl has given rise to a modern knight.  Basically, I'd left my bags in the car and I had loads of shopping and couldn't afford to replace the bags and how was I going to get home and the Swedish Glace was thawing and ...

"Whoa, chill.  Go and get them."

"Really? I don't want to hold anyone up."

"You need bags.  Go.  Don't rush.  S'all sweet."

My brushes were placed back on the Scalextric track of Saturday morning shopping by this calm oasis of oxymoronic hormonal youth.  I learnt, as we happily packed together, that he is teaching himself Japanese for fun, is going to live on a farm in Japan for a few months, he writes music, can't understand why men and women can't be friends, and wants not just to be a teacher but the "best teacher, like, EVER in the entire WORLD!"

Surely, this is what being human is all about.  Not shitty at all.

 

.

Communication Breakdown

I'm going cold

I've suspended my Facebook account.  I can't keep up.  The pressure to find out what dead legend I am or my lovin' style has proved too much.  (Heath Ledger and HOT, as you ask.) Every time I log on I'm deluged with 'Friends' Requests' or challenges to quizzes that otherwise wouldn't interest me except for the fact that they provide me with the alluring opportunity of getting one over on my — get this — friends. 

There has to be something WRONG with me.  Why else would a 98% score in 'Name That Sweet' give me such an overbearing sense of superiority?  You scored 65%?  What kind of special needs confectionary know-nought ARE you, for chrissakes?! 

And I while I blush to mention it, I always do awfully well in the film quizzes too  (though less well in the Eighties music one, but then they were all American songs so it doesn't really count because everybody knows American music is rubbish).

Then there's

Twitter.

Twitter with it's #followfridays and retweets and depressing insights into the fabulous lives of celebrities. (@Xanneroo, the mellifluous Alexander Armstrong, seems to lead a particularly charmed existence, and I suggest you all tweet him just to take the shine off.   You have 140 characters, so choose only your very favourite swear words.  Tell him I sent you.)

The thing is, to get blog traffic you have to participate, you have to be a joiner-inner, and I've always been more of a 'doesn't play well with others' kinda girl.  Oh, don't get me wrong,  I have friends.  But I like them to go away a lot of the time. 

I find today's continual need to cyber-interact exhausting.  Stressful.  Because there it is on screen in front of you.  How popular you are.  Apart from walking down a street naked and not receiving a single wolf-whistle, there's nothing more mortifying than discovering that you've been unfollowed or defriended (I get upset even if  the porn spam dumps me, and that can't be right).  While I don't particularly want to want to follow/befriend all these people myself, they should  be bloody-well panting to follow me! 

Basically, what this tells me is that I should be a cult leader.

So I'm reducing my habit.  Goodbye Facebook, farewell chat rooms, hello Twitter, but slightly less often. This leaves me in an awkward position.  Could you.... would you mind...  Look, will you do me a HUGE favour and direct everyone in your contacts list to my blog? 

I've got to keep the hit rate up somehow, after all...

Bell Tents, Ridge Poles & Camping It

'Camp — informal adj (of a man) ostentatiously and extravagantly effeminate'.

I agree with Concise Oxford English Dictionary.  My notion of the adjective 'camp' involves small, portable dogs, walking from the hips, and eyebrow-waggling innuendo. (Innuendo?  Ooh, vicar!)  Dealing in the currency of amateur dramatics I thought I was pretty au fait with this.  I'd go so far to say an authority. But no, browsing through last week's Saturday Times (mid-week, and I'm still ploughing through the supplements, one for every breakfast) and I stumble upon an interview with the director, Wes Anderson, by Hugo Rifkind.

Now, I'm a fan of Hugo, a regular scribbler for The Times and quite amusing to boot.  I have been known to turn to 'My Week According To...' even BEFORE Caitlin Moran's intelligently written and coherent treatises on absolutely nothing.  That's how big a fan I am.  Afterall, Hugo is the mastermind that brought us the classic Guy Ritchie homage, 'Desperados with Avocados'.  Yes, you heard right,

It's another sign of quite how highly I value this seminal contribution to mock-gangsta culture that I provide you with the link.  Hugo is also, less interestingly, the son of former Cabinet Minister, Malcolm Rifkind, a fact I found out only today via Wikipedia.  So it may or may not be true.  (That's pretty much the extent of my research — lazy, surface, and thoroughly modern.)

Hugo Rifkind:

"... Anderson is often spoken of as a sort of heir
to Tim Burton.  In truth he's actually far less
 accessible, and with none of Burton's
sickly witchy-witchy campness."

Firstly — Tim Burton, camp?  I missed that tweet.  Dark, gothic, macabre, inventive, sinister, bloody brilliant... yep, I can tick off all those on my Tim Burton check-list.  Secondly — Burton's work sickly?  As in overly sweet, saccharine?  I don't remember slumping into a diabetic coma watching the blood spray in Sweeney Todd, but then I suppose that's the point of comas, isn't it, everything being a bit vague?  But you'd think I'd at least notice a neuropathically gammy toe after Batman, or Sleepy Hollow. 

And, come on, Hugo — "witchy, witchy"?  Bitchy, bitchy, darling.  As my mother might say, quite unnecessary.  It's like you've found a new BFF and consider your old one everso slightly rubbish. 

In my view, Tim Burton's only crime is wearing ill-advised spectacles out in public  — big, ugly, eff-off spectacles that have the temerity not to be even in the slightest bit camp.  See?

Tim Burton's snog prevention strategy

In future, Hugo, kindly leave the definition of campness to the OED.

Baby's On The Move Again...

Next Monday El Hombre and I have a very nice lady coming to value our house.  Yes, dear Blog Reader, the Flytes are on the move!   So the next few weeks will be spent cleaning and painting all the bits that we've stopped noticing —  the unvarnished doors, the peeling front door (working the kerb appeal is VITAL, apparently), chiselling dried catfood from the tongue-and-groove...  Expect lots of blogged exasperation, in other words.

And what has spurred on this flurry of activity?  Well, we've both realised that we're ready for new challenges, that we're stagnating, and that we're no longer content merely to tread water.  Just say "NO!" to middle-age complancency!  We're still viable.  If you poke us with a stick we still squirm!

I think a lot to do with this embracing of life is the imminent departure next year of Genius Son from the nest. 

We're hitching a lift on the back of his youthful enthusiasm, and while obviously we still have Most Beautiful to consider, the time feels right to do something different, shake things up a bit.

Most Beautiful sobbed when she heard the news.  She loves her home.  I too will have excess moisture in my eye when it comes to closing the door for the last time.  We've been so fortunate to live in our dream home for six wonderful years.  I shall be taking lots of pictures.  But as I explained to Most Beautiful, something even better is waiting just around the corner and to run towards that means having to leave something else behind.

I feel wise as I impart my knowledge, I feel like a GOOD EXAMPLE (and God knows that doesn't happen often).  Most Beautiful digests this pearl in respectful silence.  Then, "Yeah, that's nice Mum, but what I want to know is — will I have a bigger bedroom?"

Aah, youth.  Enthusiasm AND adaptability!

All Talk and No Lights! Camera! Action!

Another meeting?  Flyte-Tipping is in AWE!  Where do these am-dram folk find the energy?  We discussed this during a rather pleasant half-hour dunking chocolate HobNobs over our keyboards.  We like to live dangerously.  Big Sue even more so because she favours

The dunking equivalent of base jumping.

"Didn't they have a meeting last week?"

"That was the week before.  And it was cancelled."  Big Sue, fishing around in her mug with a ruler.

"Why?"

"Due to an earlier meeting being inconclusive."

"So what's tomorrow's meeting about then?"

"The last one."

"The last one?"

"They're hoping to move it on."

A crumb wedged itself between the space bar and 'Alt Gr'.  I have no idea what 'Alt Gr' means.  Not the foggiest.  I would REALLY like it to stand for 'Altitude Growl' and for this very reason I am unable to press it,  for pressing it could only lead to certain disappointment, another wonder of the universe lost, another Tinkerbell snuffing it.  I cling to my preferred theory —  if you press it a bear comes parachuting out.

Bear Grylls aka Alt Grrr

"Have they decided on the next production?"

"Mmm?" Big Sue had moved on from the ruler, trawling her coffee with a popsock.

"The next production.  All up in the air, wasn't it?"

"Ah, yes.  Our Man In The Know informs me that it has most definitely been decided upon.  The whens, the wheres, the whyfore-arts."

"And?"

"Oh, it's been cancelled."

Big Sue looks up, her dragnetting temporarily suspended.  Seeing my confusion, she takes pity.

"Look, following a meeting there was a meeting to decide upon the production.  Then there was a meeting to discuss the results arising from a meeting in which a reading group met.  Only the reading group didn't meet, because the meeting they thought was for them to meet in was in fact meant for EVERYONE to meet in, but that was wrong because they hadn't had a meeting to decide on what the next meeting should be about.  So that meeting was cancelled because it wasn't meant for everyone.  So there was an informal meeting last week with a couple of committee members because they felt they wanted a meeting when they failed to meet when they should've met.  At that meeting it was decided that a formal meeting should be arranged for the following week, tomorrow."  She paused.  "What are you doing down there?"

Flashback,  like I was THERE, experiencing the primary school's  PTA AGM all over again.  (Sometimes the horror never leaves you.)

"Where do they find the stamina?"  I whimpered.   "They must mainline Berocca or something.  All that nominating and seconding.  It's gotta take it out of you.  I am so deeply, DEEPLY humbled by their dedication and drive.  I shall watch their production with new respect and far greater admiration than am-dram typically deserves."

"No you won't," said Big Sue, spooning a mouthful of biscuit sediment into her mouth on the end of a highlighter pen.

"I beg to differ, Big Sue.  These aren't mere mortals, these are am-dram POWER-HOUSES!  I've half a mind to fall on my knees before them and kiss each and every one of their committee-loving toes!"

"No, you won't be watching their production.  Remember?  It's been cancelled.  On account of running out of time.  Because of all the— "

"—meetings,"  I finish, sadly.