Varying degrees of Idiocy...

My mother, by contrast to my father, issued her worldly advice in less colourful language.
Treat the sea with respect. This was a stern message from an early age. Borne, I suspect from her early experience of picnicking on a beach in Bury Port, South Wales, with a matriarchal mixture of mothers, aunts and Grandmothers and being stranded  on a sandbank by the rapidly incoming tide. The joy of being rescued on the shoulders of her father who was one of the many men who waded across to rescue them had left an indelible memory that the sea should not be messed with.
Today in The Times was a glorious headline:
Wife, 65, grabs handbag and swims for cruise ship in search of husband
Well, it's what we ladies of a certain age do, if we get to the airport in Madeira where we have decided to end our four week cruise four nights early, and we can't find our husband. We immediately assume (given that we have had a bit of a public tiff on the boat) that he has sailed on by. But we are made of sterner stuff. We take a taxi to the harbour and not letting go of the  handbag we jump in the sea and swim to catch up with the Marco Polo.
Three hours later, you'll be pleased to hear, she was rescued, 500km from the shore. Impressive, but lunatic.

But the tale it inspires me to tell, does not cover me with pride. Both Dearest and I come out of it smelling of seaweed.
About ten years ago, when certainly old enough to have known better, and not so old that my mother's advice long forgotten, Dearest and I re-visited Trebeurden, staying in a wonderful hotel called Ti Al-Lannec in Brittany. We walked down to the harbour on a beautiful day. But that was not sufficient for my venturesome husband. He'd always wondered what that island was like just across the way... Yes the one we could walk to over  those rocky outcrops  exposed in the glistening sand.
I saw no harm in walking across to the island, keeping a weather eye open on the distant tide line, but when he said, "Let's just have a quick look round the island," I did initially demur saying I thought we really ought not to push our luck.
But there were no messages for English idiots saying, 'Watch out, morons, there are tides, you could be stranded', because the French aren't a namby-pamby bunch like us Brits.
I nevertheless made sure that we hurtled round the really unremarkable island at top speed, but it came as no real surprise to the pessimist in me, to see upon our return, our sandy route covered by swirling tide. No phone signal. No passing boats to the rescue, totally stranded.
Two fishermen in wetsuits with their catch slung over their shoulders appeared out of nowhere. In hideous French (I know no other kind) I established that no, there would be no passing boat, ferry or helicopter, and the tide would be back out again at 12 midnight. How were they getting back? They were going to wade back (they were dressed for the part, obviously) and we could if we wanted, follow them.
And this dear, reader, is what we did. Fully-clothed with water, chest-high, I exaggerate not, and as chilly as you could possibly imagine. "Hope you have a strong heart!"smiled our lead guide.
Dearest got a signal on his phone halfway across, as he held it above the waves. The office will always find him. And so it was, that we did the most wittingly dangerous and stupid thing in our entire lives.
That is why I am not judgemental of the lady with the handbag, and why when I go on a cruise later this year I will not be letting Dearest out of sight.

Survivors' souvenir

Parenting foibles....

Have you ever eaten somebody's Easter egg, or at least a large part of it, and carefully replaced the foil to look like it was untouched and whole?
No, neither have I.
Well, not this year at least, but it used to go on a fair bit when the my children were little and easier to fool. 'Yes, darling, Daddy ate it while sleep-walking. Don't mention it to him.. '
Frankly, I regarded it as one of the unwritten rules of parenthood ... chocolate-snaffling.
Dear Lord, had to to do something to keep up one's strength.
There was of course, the time when darling daughter and I snuck into a box of Godiva chocolates that belonged to dearest son which were (because of the fresh cream content) being kept in the fridge. But for how long? The girls asked themselves as they surreptitiously palmed  another. Eventually the gaps we'd left in the box far exceeded the remaining chocs, so I invested in some Milk Tray to plug those tell-tale gaps. A thirteen year old boy is not going to know the difference, we thought...
How wrong can one be?

But Easter isn't about scoffing for many teenagers, it is the last school holiday before the dreaded GCSEs or A Levels. A time for cramming of an entirely different nature.
So my sympathy is very much with all those souls busy revising, or wracked with guilt because they are not.
I can remember the run up to O Levels, as they were called, as being the most challenging of my entire education.

I was a diligent student, in most ways, and took revising for exams seriously. However, I can remember feeling totally overwhelmed at one point when it seemed that the task ahead was too monumental. Young hooligan that I wasn't, I tried banging doors at home: they were the sort that refused to provide the appropriate resonance. So I started a classically misguided rant at my parents who exchanged glances.
"Come and help me collect the washing," said my Dad whose domestic chore was to use the Laundrette which was conveniently close to The Swan; there he would happily while away the time it took for a service wash.
Bemused, I went with him, still banging on about how I had worked so damned hard but could remember nothing, absolutely nothing.
He sat me down on a table outside the pub ( as I was 16 and underage) and put a shandy in front of me.
As I sipped gingerly, beginning to wonder what my mother would make of this (headline in local rag: 'Head's daughter in underage drinking scandal with her father') my father explained that all this hiatus would be the same in a hundred years time... and "You," he said, "Lella, in the nicest possible way, are just a pimple on the arse of evolution."
It was either the shandy or the advice, but everything slotted back into perspective and my mother applauded my father's genius.
We never mentioned our little detour to The Swan..

Breakfasting like a King is so old hat....

I like breakfast. A lot.
It's the one thing that will get me to spring like a chicken (who says I am am no Spring Chicken?) downstairs in search of oats and an assortment of fruit, nuts, seeds, and any assorted roughage I can lay my hands on. (Sounding more like a chicken with every word I write.) Not wildly exciting, I assure you, but seems to keep me going until about 11.30 when peckishness (help, I'm a hen!!) creeps in, and an early lunch becomes appealing.
We've always been told that missing breakfast is bad for you: "Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and supper like a pauper," was a favourite saying of my late mother-in-law.
So as a concept it has evidently been around for a while... Further digging reveals that it was a marketing ruse over a hundred years ago by Mr Kellogg to sell more of his cereal.
But guess what? I read this week that there is no evidence to suggest that a hearty breakfast is going to slow the intake of calories over the rest of the day. In fact, if you want to lose weight you should skip breakfast altogether. Bleak news indeedy.

The only time I have the full English breakfast is when we are staying in hotels. I have the works. If it's on the menu, I find room for it.
I never learn. It's totally debilitating. Go sightseeing? No, not on your Nelly!
I need to find a small quiet corner with the newspapers to let that lot settle. But I don't want lunch (sometimes ever again) after a huge breakfast, so I balance the calorie intake that way, I fondly imagine.

Calorie-counting, however, is futile over Easter, so I am going to succumb to temptation while the great white Easter bunny flies over us laying chocolate eggs (another modern miracle of marketing) and peck up the pieces of my over-indulgence on Tuesday.   Happy Easter, she clucked.

How can you tell if your goldfish loves you?

A goldfish in a bag from a fun fair. 

That was the sum total of our pets growing up in the sixties. The fish never lasted long enough to justify the cost of small fishbowl that had to be purchased each time my Dad struck lucky at the fair.  

Grandma Leyshon, however, had one which actually lived long enough to reach maturity; it remained in an old glass sweet jar on her draining board for 20 years. It had local celebrity status due to its extraordinary longevity.

When Charlie finally gave up the ghost, it was a borrowed bereavement. We missed Charlie of course, but there was undisputedly more room in the scullery.  Let me just take you back... the scullery was where she cooked, washed clothes in a boiler she had to fill by hand, and rung them out  using a mangle. 

Sheets would then be hung to dry outside, in a billowing line of dazzling Persil brightness or over the wooden pulley or Kitchen maid, that hung above the stove. 

The room called the kitchen contained a scrubbed table,covered with a chenille tablecloth, a battered leather chaise longue, an open fire which was part of a range where pots could boil next to the fire and a bread oven which latterly was used for warming pyjamas. 

The connection of utilities, however, meant she could abandon the open fire as a means of cooking and use a proper gas oven.  

There was, nevertheless, an open fire in the kitchen every day.

My young brother once threw a pair of dungarees on it; she caught him before the second pair went on. 

"You blaggard!" she called him, in her horror. Although three at the time, he never forgot the day his grandmother called him a blaggard. 

In her later years, when the old range was removed and replaced with a modern gas fire she confessed, midst our nostalgic demurring, that she did not miss black-leading the grate, or polishing the brasses or lugging in the coal from the coal-house outside. The luxury of instant heat was an enduring pleasure to her.  

In Heol Elli, the front room was called the parlour and that too had an open fire on high days and holidays. It was always laid ready to be lit, though she fooled many an unwary guest who glanced in thinking that glowing embers from the hearth meant it had been lit in honour of their arrival. She had, in fact, skilfully inserted some red foil from sweet wrappers amongst the coal. You instantly felt warmer even though the room was the chilliest in the house. 

As I climbed into the double bed last night, in a warm centrally heated house to take up residence next to my half-asleep granddaughter, there was a stand-off between Ted and me. Who was going to make it into that side of the bed first?  

I gave him the hairy eyeball, but as you'll have seen he has two very fine ones of his own.  

Neither pre-or post bunion op have I ever been much of an athlete... I judged the distance and jumped on to the wall-side of the bed. No room for manoeuvre. A faulty judgement meant I would catapult myself back on to a sleeping child.  

We leapt simultaneously, me and Ted, landing haphazardly in a heap.  

"Bloody dog," I said under my breath, as I was subjected to a victory lick.  

"He's more than just a dog, Grandma," came a sleepy voice from my left.  

She's right. I'd never  have had that much fun with Charlie...

He who snores loudest?

I have no recollection of my grandmother's natural teeth.
They were extracted way before I arrived on the scene. She did however, have a faultless set of false gnashers.
My late mother-in-law, many decades later, when she memorably came to live with us for nine months would casually parade hers in the family bathroom overnight. I acclimatised no more to that grinning glass than I did to the enforced co-habitation.
But Grandma Leyshon of  bunions fame mentioned in early Bunion Chronicles, was so modest with her denture wearing that I never saw them any where roaming free.. The only time I ever saw her without, was in darkness when I shared her wonderful, nothing comparable, feather bed.

Last night, still proud owner of a full set of natural enamel, I got into bed with my own granddaughter.
I am staying here for the week as her father is away on business.
We've shared a bed before, so while it's no great novelty for either of us, it always takes a little readjustment.
It is not unusual to receive a gentle tap on the shoulder to be told that I am snoring. (Qui moi?) However, the biggest adjustment of all is sharing our space with a bundle of canine hairiness.
Ted, their gentle adoring cockapoo, has decided that my snoring is no impediment to his personal comfort. He sprawls languorously across my legs like some primitive pulsating lionskin. He also snores. Maybe it's simply a snore too far that wakens my grand daughter. All I will say is in the kindest possible way that my breath is sweeter than his.

And so it will be three in a bed.
It is going to be an interesting week.



A sweet anecdote, but I can hear your concern from here. You are thinking, how could I desert the most undomesticated male in Hertfordshire? The chap who poured Fairy Liquid into the dishwasher instead of Rinse Aid when I last abandoned him.
Well let me reassure you. Yesterday, he popped into Waitrose just to pick up some milk.
As I said a fond farewell to him yesterday, I could see a plastic bag on the back seat of the car, containing:
two (two? Yes, indeedy) packets of Hot Cross buns, a jumbo packet of peanuts and a carton of (full glorious fat) prawn cocktail.
I tell you, the old boy will have to run a few Airmiles off his clock when he does his early morning perambulation.
That lot is going to take some shifting....

No sexting, I'm sixty...

Dear me. The paper has been full of it all week. The pernicious and prevalent issue of sexting amongst school children.
PSHE (Personal social health education) lessons have decreased in secondary schools over recent years. Teacher training in this area is sometimes inadequate where it is perfectly obvious that careful training is required. I am all for good informative sex education, but the one question which I have been asking myself for quite some time is: why do Heads allow smart phones in schools? Why is there a need, actually, for any child to have a phone in school at all?

We have all become slaves to our mobiles. Plain and simple. Apart from the obvious distractions and delights that a smart phone offers our children, its wide spread prevalence stems from our need to reduce uncertainty.
Have you noticed how we just can't cope with not knowing what's going on at all times, or not being contactable?
We give our children phones primarily to ensure they can contact us to inform us when they will be late, or that they need collecting. Ostensibly to keep them safe. How did we manage in the old days, I ask?
Well, we made choices,  used initiative, and worked out how to get around a change of plan. The safety net of the phone ensures that we hand-hold each other all day every day.
It's driving me nuts because I believe that our phones are insidiously draining our own battery life, and more importantly, harming our young population.

A starting point towards freer, more independent thinking would mean a unilateral ban on phones in schools.
Parents as well as students would howl at the prospect initially, but we all need to be weaned off this insidious dependence.

I mentioned driverless cars yesterday. This week also saw a landmark event in the contest between artificial intelligence (AI) and man, where a human champion of the game "Go" ( don't ask me, more of a Scrabble on a Saturday night person, me) was narrowly defeated by the computer. Today I read that Nike has produced self-lacing trainers...
Can't you see? I want to shout.
Hang on to your brains and shake them all about because if we don't, sexting will become the least of our problems.
I'm getting off my soap box now, to lace-up my trainers with pride... Happy weekend, and thank you for listening.

Cliff Michelmore RIP 1919 -2016

As a child I only saw my mother cry twice: once when President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. The second was at the news of the slag heap disaster in the Welsh Valley mining village of Aberfan in 1966.
We watched, shocked, on our grainy black and white television as both dramatic, tragic events were broadcast, three years apart, on live BBC television by the broadcaster Cliff Michelmore who died today (March 17th).
He first entered my life as a child when we used to listen to a programme on the wireless on Sunday mornings called Two Way Family Favourites, on the Light programme. Its aim, post-war, was to link troops in West Germany with their families at home.
I was one of 26 million listeners. It gave me an enduring love of Frank Sinatra (whose son Frank Junior also died today).
This is a nostalgic tribute to a broadcaster who was so much part of my youth.
I'd like to share a BBC link to an excerpt which shows him and Robin Day in action.
It is a meaningful insight into the distance my generation has travelled.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32602453

Free wheels on my wagon..

Some people are natural drivers.
Do you know what I mean? The sort of people you just know in your heart  were born with four wheels and an under carriage. They evolve into normal-looking human beings but you know that the original hard-wiring is there. They pass their test after four lessons which is hardly surprising since they learnt all they needed to know at the age of three by sitting on a parent's lap going through the gear levers.
It will come as no surprise that I do not fall into this category. It's genetic. My mother did not learn to drive until her mid fifties.
She expressed a desire to learn to drive when she was considerably younger. My father, game chap that he was, offered to take her for a few lessons.
These took place early in the morning when they had the Hertfordshire roads to themselves. Reassuringly, after several lessons they returned in one piece and were still talking to each other.
The lessons came to an abrupt halt, however, when my mother took lasting umbrage over my father's loss of nerve.
They returned one morning with him driving and her looking like thunder.
He later explained that she had been driving along very nicely, so nicely, he said that for a moment he'd relaxed allowing himself to look out the side window. "I'd forgotten who was driving, so I said, 'Jesus Christ!!' very loudly. Your mother thinking something was very wrong, slammed on the brakes, stalled and said that that was it." And that was indeed it for another twenty years until his premature death prompted her to learn to drive.
Whilst she never became an enthusiastic driver, she did in the early days venture forth to see friends in Potters Bar, and came home one day saying she'd inadvertently found a new route home. She said it was a marvellous new road, a three lane highway and not another soul on it. A bit disconcerting, at first, but a very speedy journey nevertheless. It turns out she was on the soon to be opened M25 . A little known fact that it was unofficially test-driven by one very careful Renault 5 driver.
She remained a very safe, immensely parochial driver until the day she died.
I too am a very parochial driver. An ardent avoider of motorways. I haven't driven for 18 months now. That's because I decided that having two cars was no longer necessary. We'd had Minis ever since the new version came out, but now with grandchildren we (Dearest) decided we needed a bigger car.
I'd never really thought about it, or felt challenged by it but when I saw car-love in Dearest's eyes I was not going to ruin it all by saying, "I'm not ever going to drive that thing.." So I kept quiet and developed a love affair of my own, with public transport.
However, now retirement is kicking in, I need to have my own set of wheels. So reading about driverless cars this week makes me falter: shall I wait until technology takes over or shall I fearlessly take to the roads once more? Looking for B roads. And in daylight hours...

When doing nothing is called deliberation...

When you are not retired, retirement hovers over the horizon like an enticing option. "Come and get me", it says. Or "Jump in the water's lovely.."
Well, let me tell you this: it's not that straight forward, right? It takes a bit of getting used to.

I know the enforced bunion recuperation was supposed to limber me up, so to speak, but it was more like a state of limbo (not to be confused with the waterproof item described 21/1/16 ) before the very soft reality of unstructured days hit me like, not like a wet blanket, but a Hungarian down duvet. Enveloping me and stultifying my strength.
I confess, I have been struggling to surface in the mornings to fly the flag as Dearest still continues to march on a much longer treadmill than the one I once walked.

So I have had to haul myself up by my oxters (Scottish arm pits) and apply myself.

We have two bathrooms: one upstairs and one down. Both are in need of renovation. Not merely requiring a lick of Dulux, but in serious need of attention. So I have undertaken a crash course in plumbing. There, you weren't expecting that.
Of course, I haven't, but I have looked at an awful lot of catalogues, gone glassy-eyed studying photographs on Houzz and now my mind is awash (naturally, given subject-matter) with ideas about what we could or should do.
Our plumber, a champion chap, who installed our central heating four years ago, came and talked turkey for about two hours. I sent him an email of what we'd discussed to help him with his paperwork then I hear absolutely nothing...
This could aggravate most mortals, but you are talking to Queen of Patience here.
It also means that the the past two weeks have enabled me to run at least three different permutations by Dearest (who I should say definitely wants two working bathrooms but probably would like to be the invisible star of Changing Rooms whereby he comes home from a weekend away to find the whole bloomin' job done and dusted. It must be the thought of television exposure,  holding him back..)

I had yet another idea this morning. I thought I'd get in quick while the endorphins were still surging (his not mine, after his new jog-before-work-regime).
He quite liked my idea which was much cheaper than the previous idea.
However, later this morning I've had another quite controversial one, which means swapping the roll top bath upstairs with a shower downstairs. (It doesn't take much guessing as to who has a preference for candle-lit baths over he-man showers...)

The only thing I would really miss on a weekly basis, is the sight of his barely covered-bottom beating a hasty retreat  up the stairs as Ewelina arrives brandishing a bog brush and a bottle of bleach.
So let's say I'm still deliberating...

Upstairs or downstairs?

Spin drying early ambitions..

Borehamwood was where I grew up.
It was apparently known as the British Hollywood because of the proliferation of film studios in the area. I say apparently, because while growing up as children we were aware of the studios but possibly not quite so aware of Hollywood.
Elstree film studios, the Gate studios and the British MGM studios were all on my doorstep. I even lived next door to The Invisible Man. Bob Hedges was such a small chap that he slipped into the Invisible Man costume a treat. Well, that's what I was told and I was very excited at the proximity of such celebrity. And he was indeed a very small chap.
When I was about eleven I came across a book by Egon Larsen, The History of Film-making. It was absolutely riveting. Much more interesting than Enid Blyton which had provided my literary diet up 'til then. So when I met up with Rosalind at secondary school and found out that her mother was a Continuity Girl in films I almost fell over myself when she offered to take me to  Elstree film studios to see her mother at work.
Her mother was working on The Avengers at the time with Patrick McNee and Linda Thorsen. Patrick McNee was very charming to us wobbly-kneed teenagers and suggested we said hello to Roger Moore who was filming The Saint round the corner. Sure enough, there he was in a sports car with a huge blue screen behind him. Can you blame me for being hooked? This was the world that I had read about in Egon Larsen.
I went to a conventional girls Grammar school, Queen Elizabeth's in Barnet. In my second year they asked us to write down what we wanted to be when we grew up. Midst  the suggestions of doctors, lawyers, and teachers written down by my contemporaries, I put, Continuity Girl.
When I cam home later that day, my mother was grappling with a new spin drier which was doing a bucking Bronco across the kitchen floor. Over the noise I told her what I'd written down as my ambition.
"A what?" she shouted.
"A Continuity Girl", I shouted  back.
"A what??! A Call girl?" she sounded perplexed, searching for the off switch.
I walked away wondering why she showed such consternation when she'd mistakenly thought I wanted a job in the telephone exchange...

Clogged filters...

Anorexia is narcissism says Joan Bakewell in a leading article on the front page of The Sunday Times yesterday.
Baroness Bakewell, once described many years ago as "the thinking man's crumpet" has made herself look a complete doughnut.
I found her derisory attitude extremely unsettling. "Anorexia was called hunger when I was young".
She attributes the rise of this insidious mental illness to the preoccupation of being beautiful and being thin. "Keep Young and Beautiful (if you want to be loved)" was written the year she was born.
It's a centuries old preoccupation.
Mental illness can take many forms; anorexia is just one.
Our developing  awareness of all forms of mental illness is positive progress. Too long it has been hidden away, shamefully. The rise in mental illness amongst youngsters prompted The Times to start a campaign on Child Mental Health a year ago.  Constructive debate is useful.
If, however, you are in the eye of the public and you know that you also have the ear of the public you should be very cautious indeed before you make Great Aunt Maud type declarations in the belief that your seniority, or your status, gives you the right to do so. Particularly when you are so extraordinarily mis-informed.
Yes, let's have a debate about narcissism, over-indulgence and introspection but do not cite these as the causes of Anorexia.
Today Joan Bakewell apologised. I am glad she apologised sooner rather than later for causing distress. Not surprisingly Mental Health charities were in uproar.
However, her Tweet that she was speculating loosely about what might cause anorexia indicates the clear and present trend of saying publicly what's on your mind without reflection or using the filter of circumspection.

Accents...and a rolling gait.

Recently I referred to my Icelandic accent coming on a treat. I lied. It really is more Swedish chef (think Muppets). Dearest isn't impressed either way.
My real accent when I think about it, is more Waitrose than Iceland, however. The voice of middle England. With a few renegade Welsh vowels left over from my youth.

I was brought up by Welsh parents on a council estate in Borehamwood. So not in the slightest bit posh. However, the Welsh accent was the first I heard and I stuck to it, or it stuck to me for many years.
My younger brother however, embraced the glottal stop (where water is pronounced wa-er, and bottle, bo-ul) so that he became no different from his peers.
If anyone asked me for directions, when I was a child, as soon as I spoke, they assumed I hadn't been in the area very long. I gave up explaining that I had been born and bred in Hertfordshire and took to saying that I came from Llanelli, South Wales which is where my grandparents lived.

As the years went by I developed an ability to adapt my accent. I found that when I finally left home to go to university in Stirling that my basic Welsh accent developed traces of Scottish which I find are reactivated every time I cross the border.

I remember, many years ago, as a student going to a party in Glasgow where one friend commented to another,
"I love the way she rolls her rrr s".
Back came the reply, "Ach, she canny help the way she walks!"

Curbing excesses..

I bet you think by that, I mean food and drink and wild rollicking. How well you know me, and to think we only met at the beginning of January.
Friends who have known me longer will have no doubt at all that I am just about to launch myself at yet another abortive health regime. I tell you, being retired stretches one's will-power like knicker elastic. When what you really need is for it to be firm and unyielding like a good old fashioned pantie-girdle.

That is not, however, what is troubling the idling brain today.
This morning, I read the  latest research from Canada ( I have one reader, it seems, who looks in from Canada, so I would just like to say, Hello, Canada! with an exclamation mark before the government here decrees it illegal). Apparently, those who use social media , like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are more shallow and less moral than the rest of us.
Shallow, I can buy into that idea , but less moral? A bit harsh. Seemingly this large bunch of social engagers are too busy pursuing hedonism rather than doing things that enhance the lives of others.
Well, I go along with this to a certain degree. Always been big on having a bloody good time.

No, really, I do feel that Twitter and Facebook are responsible for contributing to to the me-ish mode that prevails. But not me, guv. They didn't mention Bloggers, so I'm off the hook.
But to be honest, I have compared the process of blogging with presenting a big verbal selfie.
Now that I am bunionless  I am speaking to an even more select audience. But I promise you this: I will not photograph my puddings, my cakes, my pile of ironing or even my piles.

Paddling is no mean feat.

I just want to reassure you that while I might be paddling in shallow waters, I wouldn't hesitate wading in to help you if you were not waving, but drowning.

On just keeping awake..

There was never any time to watch TV when we were young. Nothing much beyond the News at Ten and maybe the odd drama along the way.

Now however, we have discovered the joys of sub-titled drama.In the past we regarded such stuff as too high brow for our low brow desires. Not that we had much energy for desires  as work and children sapped our strength.
There is however, a regeneration of television taking place. Television is competing with film once again as directors of note realise that there does not have to be a divide between the big and small screen and stories do not have to be pared down and told in 90 minutes or two hours. They can be told through six or more in a serial.

As if we cannot keep up with demand in our natural tongue, we are importing our drama. First we watched  The Killing, Borgen  and The Bridge, and now we are hooked on an Icelandic Saga, Trapped.

I like foreign dramas because the subtitles force you to watch. You cannot half-watch, playing on your device, large or small. You have to concentrate, and for that I love it even more.
I never thought Dearest would fall prey to the multi-task of I-padding and watching TV, but he has embraced it in a way that leaves me intensely irritated.
Particularly when the the permutations of plot leave him bewildered and in need of explanation.

I believe the physical act of reading sub-titles keeps him awake for a longer duration while we watch together, although I still keep one weather eye on his drooping ones to ensure he is still with us.
I find that my reading the subtitles aloud often brings him round. Somewhat grumpily, and a tad ungraciously I have to say. Particularly since my Icelandic accent is coming on a treat...  I even do different voices for different characters. Male or female. Basso profundo has never been a problem to me. (Though upon reflection, I did many years ago severely strain a muscle in my tongue when doing an impersonation of Louis Armstrong's  "Wonderful World" )
Talented or what?
Totally unappreciated..

Cutting back on the shriek marks!

Government cuts. Again. Soft targets? None softer than seven year olds.

This age group will be penalised for over-use of the exclamation mark when they do their government driven grammar tests this summer.
According to government guide lines exclamation marks should only be used  with sentences that begin with "How" or "What," such as, "What stupidity on the part of the government!" or "What absolute balderdash!"

The more pedantically inclined amongst you will see that I personally have an aversion to exclamation marks in case they inadvertently make my writing look like a seven year old's.
In my teaching I have always tried to calm down the over-excited application of exclamation marks, and certainly have always attempted to remove a double exclamation mark on the grounds of refinement and taste.
The government has chosen to step in because of the proliferation of exclamation marks in social media.
Am I so cocooned in my world that I believe that most six and seven year olds will not yet be infected by exposure to social media? Or has the government found that texting amongst older children reveals such poor punctuation that they have decreed that bad habits should be strangled at birth, preferably, or at least by the age of seven?

So why the government has got a bee in its bonnet about this I really don't know. It strikes me that the fundamentals of literacy require far more attention.
Spelling, for example, needs to be taught properly from an early age in an analogous word-family approach. At the moment my six year old grandson is being given a number of totally disparate words to learn each week because they are on some government must-learn list. It won't kill him and he will be able to learn them despite this unnecessarily haphazard approach.
There are, however, many other children for whom this will be a painful and unsuccessful experience, and for the dyslexics this will be a complete waste of time.
If only successive governments allowed teachers to teach instead of hamstringing their teaching methods to make the results 'quantifiable'. Tick-box teaching means that children have no room to think outside the box.

And as for testing all the time.. my old granny used to say, "You can't fatten a pig by weighing it!"

Straw poll

Oh my goodness, I have provoked a national debate about Grey Hair.

Don't worry, it's not Cherie channelling me, the timing is pure happenstance.
Last week kicked off with scientific news that the grey gene has been identified.
This coincided with the popular historian, Mary Beard, reappearing on our screens delving amongst the petrified dead of Pompeii. For those of you unfamiliar with this lady, she sports very long, indisputably grey, flowing locks. And the dear soul is much maligned for this choice.  In the same week she explored on Radio 4 the business of dying grey hair.
Interesting facts emerged such as in the 1950s 7% of women dyed their hair; 75% do it today. Even the language of the process has changed from "Dyeing" to "adding a rinse" until in the 1970s it became "colouring".

I grew up in the fifties and regularly visited an aunt who dyed her hair : memorably pink, on one occasion and lilac on another. Nothing particularly wayward or punk-like about this lady. Her experimentation was regarded with bemused bewilderment by the adults around me.
My mother took to dying her own hair as soon as the grey crept in. It was a mucky, messy job, it seemed to me, but my mother was a very capable person in all practical matters and nobody once suggested that she went to the hairdressers to get the job done professionally.

I can remember as  an early teen asking my father why my mother dyed her hair. He had a mass of luxuriant auburn hair without a trace of grey throughout his life. He took me aside conspiritorially, and said, "Well, she has to dye her hair, otherwise everyone is going to think I married her for her money."

I have had my hair professionally coloured for the past seven years now. I have been  fortunate in that my hair has always been expertly looked after: first of all by Russell McGrath until he became Australia's gain, and now by Gustav and Jodie who will between them determine the nature of the eradication of grey by way of an embracement of blonde.
"How blonde?" is a question that everyone asks.
"Not a Marilyn Monroe/Diana Dors type of platinum, " I say, feeling more foolish by the minute. "More of a dirty blonde," I add, feeling the colour rising in my cheeks.

I begin to see why my mother opted for the Clairol route at home.

Talking Rubbish...

Sorry. Did you want me?
I was in the middle of cleaning my Grotspot...
U-bend gleaming; understairs cupboard whence no traveller returns, ship-shape; front garden hedge de-littered.
Ah, litter...That leaf-buster  has come in very handy for sucking up the assorted crud that gets caught up in our hedge. A marvellous 60th birthday present.
Birthday presents are, of course, a problem the older you get.
Mainly because you don't actually need anything in particular.
And the things you really need like like tooth implants, and  hip-replacements seem a little too grabby as gift suggestions when the giver merely had a box of Milk Tray in mind.
We are approaching at least one of her Royal Highness' 90th birthdays. As she already sports a perfect set of gnashers, a pair of swinging hips, (and who needs a leaf-buster when you own the crown jewels?)  it makes it hard to think of a truly original present.
The Keep Britain Tidy campaign, Clean for the Queen, has caused an awful lot of hoo-haa this week. Frankly, the use of the word Queen is not  to ennoble the filthy job of litter-clearing but just to give it a jaunty catchiness. It's not about her at all. Let's face it she has a totally sanitised view of life anyway, with people painting the corridors she walks down, ten minutes ahead of arrival. She must think the world smells of Dulux. She's certainly never going to trip over a beer bottle or a MacDonald's carton. She probably thinks that Clean for the Queen is yet another bloody useless present.

However, it's brought out the joy-dodgers in spates.  This is patronising. How? That Her Majesty expects her commoners to pick up their trail of trash?  Tosh.
This is outrageous. Why? Because Tory cuts have meant that street-cleaning has been reduced, so it is part of a fiendish plot to get the job done for free.
What utter tripe.
Here we have a dedicated weekend, and just a weekend, where people are invited to do their bit to clean up their own local corner of Britain. Their own personal Grotspot.

What is outrageous is how we allow litter to accumulate; we just step over it or turn a blind eye until it pokes us in the eye. We do not train our children properly from a young age. This was obvious to me when I worked in a secondary school which employed men to collect the litter dropped by the students after every break time. A dereliction of duty on the school's part? Or health and safety taken to ridiculous lengths? Both.
I hope that the activity this weekend gets things in motion long-term, and that it starts a discussion that expresses itself in positive action in the future.
If we really take the issue of litter seriously then maybe like the writer David Sedaris we too can have a garbage truck named after us. He and his partner Hugh have become Litter Warriors in West Sussex. If you don't know his work, you have a treat in store.
By way of an introduction go to www.newyorker.com/contributors/ david-sedaris and read A Modest proposal.
Even if you don't pick up any litter at all this week end, read this and see what joy you could be missing.

On Losing the Ability to Write or Launch ships...

Handwriting.
Mine is top-notch; Dearest's looks as though he was injected with squid ink at birth. Mine is good enough to be asked to write wedding invitations: once.  You only have to write
Mr and Mrs Grabitass for Mr and Mrs Gabbitas and word gets round.
Handwriting defines us in many ways. Or at least it used to. Years ago when you applied for a job it had to be handwritten. In those days we were all amateur graphologists deducing what we could from a person's handwriting... Sloping forward good; sloping backwards ? Whoah.. not so good. Never knew exactly why, was just told from an early age that this was not a good look.

When I say I've got decent handwriting. I say this without any semblance of false modesty, because I have had many years of studying handwriting which has given me many points of comparison. I am the product of two parents who had good handwriting skills and a 50s/60s education where handwriting was taught by teachers who had been properly taught themselves. I believe these to be significant factors.
Handwriting as an art form went out the window with the advent of progressive education which also devalued the need for correct spelling, punctuation and grandma.(Just checking you're still with me?)
As typing takes over from handwriting, penmanship will eventually achieve historic status.
Sorry, too much Gravitarse.

Dearest finds lists incredibly helpful. When asked to compose a list of useful information recently (A Doomsday list) he said he could write it on the back of a fag packet. Which only goes to show how entrenched is  motor memory  in that he gave up smoking thirty five years ago.
I on the other hand, find lists pretty useless. Shopping lists in particular never find their way into my bag; they habitually remain on the dining room table but  they magically serve to marshall my thoughts in the supermarket.
I used to keep a day book when I worked for the BBC as an Assistant Floor Manager in Drama: that was full of prop lists; but in the real world I have never resorted to them. This is not smugness, or a reflection of my superb internal organisation, it's just that a Post-it note is sufficient. On every available flat surface. And a few vertical ones, just in case.

Today I read about an exhibition by Alice Instone, an artist who has taken more than a  special interest in the to-do lists written by women. She has apparently scanned the lists and blown them up to display on walls, and on furniture. Conceptually, she is interested in the content of those lists, but artistically, I imagine, it will be the handwriting that that gives them an entity.

Am I interested in other peoples's lists? Not in the slightest.. in this exhibition there was a list of contributors I'd never heard of, apart from one Cherie Blair. Now apparently she keeps hers in her head. (Similarities between me and Cherie end there) And who knows what goes on in that over- active mind of hers?

Lovely story emerged yesterday that Admiral Alan West, First Sea Lord, was miffed that during his four year tenure he was not once invited to Downing Street when the Blairs were in residence. His moment came however, when Cherie Blair asked if she could personally
launch a ship. (Like you do..) He agreed to her launching the 12th of the Type-45 destroyers commissioned by her husband. What he didn't tell her was that the number of ships had been cut to eight.
Don't you love it when vaulting ambition, HMS Hubris is sunk without trace?
Bet her handwriting is leaning forward, probably near horizontal...