Mums know best – out of the mouths of harridans

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So, in the midst of post-Brexit chaos, the fight for the leadership of the Conservative party rumbles on, tossing aside carcasses as if mown down by the wheel-blades of some post apocalyptic desert vehicle from Mad Max.  First Boris ‘take back control, until I need to actually take control’ Johnson, followed by  Liam ‘nepotism is my middle name’ Fox, next Stephen ‘I wanna sex you up’ Crabb, <shudders uncontrollably>, then Michael ‘et tu Brute’ Gove….. And the feminists rejoiced.  We were going to have another female prime minister!!  Hurrah!

‘Come on, don’t be scared, eat my scones’


The two remaining candidates are Theresa ‘I’ll cut you’ May and Andrea ‘As a mum, I’ll bake you a lovely scone-then cut you’ Leadsom.  
The beauty of being a feminist is that you can champion women and applaud their achievements; and you are also legitimately allowed to call them out for being a total c**t, if that is indeed what they are.  And that’s what, in particular, Leadsom has proven herself to be this week.

In a beautifully crafted schoolboy error, it was revealed that in an interview with The Times, she claimed that being a mum was a legitimate advantage to being an effective Prime Minister.  Off the record, of course.  Doh!  Eh? What’s that you say Andrea?  

“….. genuinely I feel that being a mum means you have a very real stake in the future of our country, a tangible stake. She possibly has nieces, nephews, lots of people, but I have children who are going to have children who will directly be a part of what happens next.”

What you can’t read here is the sneering emphasis she put on the, ‘but I have CHILdren’.  But you can hear it if you choose to listen to the Leadsom audio released by The Times, in its defence of malpractice.  She claims they twisted her words. They quoted them. Verbatim.

Initially, I was pretty outraged. Then I thought, ‘I haven’t actually thought about the future, since approximately 1987‘. And that was only because I genuinely thought that my future was going to see me marry Roger Taylor, the drummer from Duran Duran.  It’s true; I don’t care about anything.  And darling bonkers Aunty Andrea was right to say, I and my ilk have no real stake in the future as a result.  We say ‘fuck you all!- with your kids and your empathy and shit’ (and throw some drugs down our neck. Or something) – and you say to us, ‘fuck you too, you’re irrelevant in our decision making you barren harpies’.  And Whitney Houston poignantly blares out in the background, something about children and future.  The future only really occurs to me when I inhale, and think about the next inhalation and rejoice that I’m still alive.  When I can make progress on my tan.  And when I will have my next large gin. And sex. And a bag of peanut M & Ms. You gotta get your kicks where you can. 

Leadsom has persistently said throughout her campaign, ‘….as a mum‘, leading to that Times journalist’s question.  She suggests that pushing another human out of your vagina is somehow the magic key that unlocks the door to that elusive empathy chamber.  Like some kind of genital Narnia.  And also apparently equips you to participate in high-level international trade negotiations, manage the likes of Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-Un and heaven forbid in the future, Donald Trump and restore the respect the World has lost for the UK, due to the aftermath of the successful campaign you actively participated in, to leave the EU.  Maybe she’ll show them pictures of her kids during talks.

It’s true that not almost ripping myself in half has left me an emotional shell of a woman.  I hold my hands up.  I never vote, I was not devastated after the referendum result, I have never been moved by photographs of thousands fleeing for their lives, escaping war-torn countries and I couldn’t give less of a f*ck about the turmoil in America at the moment, or the prospect of President Trump.  Chilcott who?  I didn’t cheer on the Welsh boys and I definitely did not cry when Andy Murray just won his second Wimbledon.  I did not cry at this because it was not a little moment of lovely in a fortnight full of shit. Nope.  I drop my pants and moon at Wimbledon!

I walk around snarling at couples in love and kicking puppies.  Largely I just live the life of a Libertine.  A kind of hedonistic free-fall into gin oblivion, if you like.  I burn rubber in the street, insist on receipts for EVERY purchase, because who needs trees: and I buy oodles of beer purely so I can toss the plastic six-pack rings into the sea to deliberately f*ck up the dolphins and turtles.  Because: whatevs.  Future schmuture – that’s what I say.

I’ve got probably forty good years in me, and after that I could not give less of a crap if I tried.  If indeed, I even manage to survive my next night in Sidecar.  And if the world blew up tomorrow?  Yeah, yeah, yeah <exaggerated yawn>.  You can all go to hell in a hand basket for all I *care.  

*Because I can’t, because I don’t have kids.

<throws head back and cackled maniacally into the abyss, like the soulless gorgon that I am>

Repercussions for generations to come 

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My heart is broken. Physically, I am displaying the following symptoms; dull ache in the chest, gut wrenching and knotted stomach.  Emotionally, an overwhelming sadness.  I can’t stop crying.

Last time I experienced these was when a significant long-term romantic relationship ended.  Which means that I was actually in love with the European Union, and now our relationship has come to an end, I’m devastated.  Not least of all because the break-up was not of our doing.

pretty accurate depiction wouldn’t you say?

From outside my country I watched on helplessly as the right-wing press, and wannabe Hitler – Nigel Farage and wannabe Churchill – Boris Johnson (completely oblivious to the irony of their  informal union), steared the titanic decision towards the iceberg. I cast my vote and hoped for the best.  And then Thursday arrived. When Swindon’s result came in, I felt nauseous. This was actually going to happen.  I stayed up until half past three, woke at five thirty and watched with horror as the truth was dawning.  My country was rampant with rabid xenophobia, racism and idiocy.  What the hell had we done.

No amount of logical and informed support from educators, world leaders, scientists, experts and academics could guide a terrified nation away from the idea that gangs of crazed rapists were coming through the Channel Tunnel to steal our precious teapots, remove us from our beds as we slept, put us out on the street and change the locks.  And of course there were the tourists having a lovely time coming in dinghies to holiday in our hospitals and job centres.  Seventy five percent of the voting population donned their bowler hats and marched into polling stations to the sounds of brass bands playing Rule Britannia, with an anti-MI5 pen in one hand and a scone with jam and cream in the other.  And the majority of them voted to leave the European Union.

They voted to leave peace and unity. They voted to leave progress, they voted to leave community.  And quite apart from the rose-tinted romantic notion that one day we might all live together in (almost complete) harmony; there are the practical aspects.

Not least of all the money poured into those communities that had long been forgotten by our own central government.  Say for example in the north of England and Wales.  Who, for some reason saw fit to vote leave (except it must be highlighted, Liverpool and Manchester who have received millions in funding and whose local authorities have made no secret of it).  Maybe there’s a lesson to be learned there. Instead of glory seeking local MPs claiming ownership of those regeneration projects across the country, how ’bout shouting about how grateful they were for the amount of money that came from ERDF funding pot, in light of neglect from a succession of British governments, eh?   I know this is a thing because I worked in local authority for nine years in a small seaside town in the north west of England.  That town was transformed over a number of years from a shabby, sleepy town to a thriving British coastal resort once again. Thank you European Union.  Likewise Cornwall, who has been kept afloat by our friends on the continent. (Who without any sense of irony have also publicly announced that they would like a guarantee from the government that they will replace the millions of pounds they were expecting from Brussels).

“We will be insisting that Cornwall receives investment equal to that provided by the EU programme which has averaged £60m per year over the last ten years.” John Pollard, the leader of Cornwall council.

You couldn’t make it up.

Likewise hundreds of areas around the country, where this money is a very real safety net, that now has been snatched away by the very people who benefit the most.  But then, if you don’t have the relevant information, how can you make an informed decision.

And of course the more superficial consequences: cost of travel, free roaming, holidays, shopping……

And the not so superficial:

Within twenty-four hours, the pound dropped to a thirty year low, Morgan Stanley were rumoured to be moving two thousand jobs to Ireland and Paris, and two major financial organizations down graded the UK’s international credit status. Two trillion was wiped off the international markets, TRILLION.  Farage denied the £350 million back to the NHS, Daniel Hannan retracted the claim that leaving the EU will reduce immigration (the biggest cause of the discontent apparently).  Families potentially ripped apart. The PM resigned, Labour are looking to oust Corbyn, and the EU have said ‘get on with the formal application to leave, we aren’t mucking about’. Scotland are keen to separate themselves from the UK to protect their EU status,  and there are questions about the border between Northern Ireland and Th Republic. France has said they have no formal obligation to keep refugees in Calais, and are happy to let them make their way to Good Ol’ Blighty…. and there’s a universal feeling outside the UK as it looks on at the chaos ensuing, that we couldn’t actually organise a proverbial piss-up in a brewery.  It’s going to be a long while until credibility is restored.

So yeah, well played Grande Bretagne, well played. <slow hand claps for eternity>

This post could go on and on and on and on and on.  But, I don’t think I can adequately express my profound disappointment and pain.  There are no word.  I’m ashamed of my country.  I’m ashamed of what the outside world sees: arrogance, nostalgia, ferocious xenophobia, deep-rooted racism, and ultimately: stupidity.  How easily led we were.  How easily manipulated by the lies of Farage and Johnson.  For Christ’s sake!  Two caricatures of clowns pretending to be politicians.

My country voted to leave the European Union based on an outdated nostalgia for the grand old days of the Empire and such a misplaced colonial arrogance that the world is still in awe of us, this GREAT Britain.  I lost count of the number of times I heard “they need us more than we need them” during the campaign….. I have my doubts (not so united any more) Kingdom.

@hattiestewart.

That’s my biggest problem. The UK may be OK, eventually, but for me the sadness of realising my country is inherently isolationist, openly aggressive and hostile and hateful towards ALL those it sees as ‘others’ and damn proud of it.  To see it turn in on itself as it upended and slowly started to sink; still snarling and snapping.  That is irreparable.  I will never feel the same again.
Again I say:  I am heartbroken.

PANKY’s EU Referendum breakdown

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With a little over a week to go until the biggest decision the British public have faced, and are likely to face in their lifetime, I thought it only right as an aunty to ten munchkins in Blighty; to proffer my concerns for their future.

There has been much weeping and wailing and beating of breasts (on both sides of the vote to be honest), some truth stretching, a smattering of blatant lies and a healthy dose of scaremongering.  The promise of war if we stay, the promise of war if we leave and the very real possibility of a zombie uprising.  Both sides have wheeled out the big guns to show their support for the different sides of the argument:

In favour of REMAIN:

BAFTA award winning

Actress Keira ‘don’t f*ck with my future!’ Knightly, giant brain Stephen Hawking, lord of everything and otter impressionist Bendybrick Cumberbund, bastion of enterprise Lord Alan Sugar, a role-call of two hundred artists/actors/directors/authors/a myriad of generally creative folk swathed in chiffon, wafting around in turbans.  President  Obama.

And non-celebrities: pretty much every independent financial, economic and scientific body in the whole wide WORLD.  Almost.

In favour of LEAVE:

EIGHTIES cricketing legend Sir Ian ‘Beefy’ Botham,  uuumm, Vicky Pattison (?) who said, ‘I hate to jump ship when everything’s going to shit but when you see all of the problems that are going on in *Greece, **Germany and ***Turkey, it’s clearly not good for us’, professional c*nt Katie Hopkins who advocates shooting refugees in the sea and is a c*nt, Marine Le Pen (not worried about this at all), Donald Trump (not worried about this at all),  Vladimir Putin (not worried about this at all), Sir Michael Caine and tweet-stealer, Cheggars.

And non-celebrities:  Niche product billionaire (JCB) Lord ‘I’m alright Jack‘ Bamford, the four major media tycoons who have their head offices registered at off-shore addresses to avoid paying the correct taxes into the British economy.  Allegedly.

But there is so much more to consider than simply siding with your favourite celebrity, before making your decision.  Not least of all how much you value the extremely important EU laws that the Leave campaign have been using as examples of the completely bonkers regulations, foisted on us from Brussels.  Or not.  Sadly, it is true that I know of several friends who are languishing in giant Euro-prisons specially commissioned for fruit-based crimes (and paid for by YOU no less, with your tax dollar).  But why?  I hear you cry.  Well, because they bought either just one banana – as a healthy lunchtime snack – or six/seven bananas to take home for the entire family.  There are also compounds specifically designated for vacuum offenders (beware if you’re a fan of the strong suck), and also for hardened criminals who have acquired electrodomestics on the kettle black-market; feeding an ever-growing demand by those obsessed with water boiling ten whole seconds quicker than is written into EU law tomes.  So amongst the many important Leave arguments, they have a particularly valid and worrying point about the militant bloody banana policia patrolling every single supermarket in all twenty-eight member states, making sure we buy only three or five at any one time and appliance gendarmerie outside every Argos.  None of us want to shop under that pressure, looking over our shoulder all the time, speaking in hushed tones, ‘just two please’.  I know you’ve all experienced this.  They’re right – WE DON’T WANT THIS!  We want our FREEDOM!

There is also of course, the case against the completely undemocratic nature of the evil control centre in Brussels.  Which I understand is furnished in the manner of the lair of reclusive megalomaniac Karl Stromberg, complete with shark tank and trick elevator to send unwitting autocrats who disagree with any of the aforementioned rules and regulations, to their gruesome death.  This abomination has been mostly highlighted by several members of our completely democratic and duly elected House of Lords.  Bloody bureaucrats, looking after our basic human rights.

And what of those bloody pesky migrants?  Coming over to steal the  incredible quality of life that Britain has to offer and all the money too!

SO MANY EU NATIONALS STEALING OUR MONEYYYYY


You will also find no British criminals in any British prison or reform facility as all criminals are from ‘other places’.  If that’s not a reason to leave, I don’t know what is.

But most attractive of all a ‘free’ UK, with Boris Johnson at the helm, and a cabinet made up of Ian Duncan Smith, Michael Gove, Nigel Farage, Liam Fox amongst other notable popular public servants, and Rupert Murdoch pulling some strings. What a team! Rule Britannia!  I mean, what could be risky about that? They weren’t universally hated and/or ridiculed a few months back…….. And none of them have ever supported any austerity measures or cutting financial support for the most vulnerable in society. Nope.

And on the REMAIN side, what have they got?  Not much, only:

Fair working rights for everyone.  But that’s of no consequence really, I mean no-one really wants their daughters to earn the same as their male colleagues and we definitely don’t worry about protected maternity leave or guaranteed minimum wage for all.  The European Working Time Directive includes the regulations regarding holidays, working hours, breaks, etc. But, like, whatever.

Huge pots of ERDF funding to plug the gap in all local authority budgets left by central government, to fund social projects, poor area regeneration, arts and culture programmes, after schools clubs, sports facilities and only a few other bits and pieces.  But honestly, I like those parts of town that have gone to rack and ruin.  They’ve got character, and I was never one for exercise.

A great green agenda and a commitment to take better care of the planet. Remember our scabby British beaches?  I miss those!  Swimming in a grotty sea was a challenge, and what didn’t kill us made us stronger.  Aaahh, memories. Kids these days don’t know they’re born!

Low cost of those goods we’ve grown up with that as a result, we’ve really quite frankly begun to take for granted.  We need to learn to appreciate brie again, and who needs affordable good quality wine from the continent, when we’ve got a growing wine production industry expanding in the south of Blighty.  In a couple of years they’ll be able to produce all the prosecco to feed a nation of thirsty 30/40-something women on a Friday and Saturday night.  Don’t you worry about that.  We prefer to pay higher prices for travel, we’re all loaded!  I’m definitely not that bothered about getting around anyway and I don’t need free phone coverage and the healthcare covered by the EU healthcard.  I just won’t break a leg skiing or get sick filling my face full of paella and sangria. Or smash it open getting cracked up in Shagaluf.  Simple.

All the benefits and none of the disadvantages of being a member of the EU but not Schengen zone or single currency.  And? What’s your actual point, Remain?

Subsidies for agriculture.  Basically farmers are lazy and if they simply worked a bit harder, they wouldn’t have to rely on that.

And the UK definitely doesn’t get back £10 for every £1 invested in EU membership.  A rebate and an EU return in British exports and the 3.5 million jobs that accompany that, no trade or tariff barriers. And almost half of all inward investment comes from Europe.  But that’s not really so important.  Like keeping those bloody European immigrants out.

I know what I want for my future, but more importantly for the future of the young people in my life.  That’s why I didn’t hesitate to register and cast my vote.  There or not, I care about my country and I care about my loved ones there and I want nothing less than every fine opportunity there is, to be readily available to them as it has been for me, growing up in the United Kingdom as part of the European Union.  I wonder how many of those Brexiters could quote a personal negative experience as a direct result of being a member state. And I’m not talking about a friend of a friend has a mate whose wife has a boss who said that once someone told him an ambulance driver said ‘hola‘ instead of ‘hello‘. I bet not many.  And equally, which will be first in line to bitch when none of the promised magic happens and they lose their job because they’re not protected by anything, their daughter has been ordered to wear high heels to work and getting paid half the going rate for the job, and they’re paying £20 quid for an average bottle of plonk that set them back a fiver in the time before the great ‘getting back of control’………

Nothing is perfect, I know that (except Santiago Cabrera, oh, and cheese) but it’s much easier to make the improvements you want if you’re on the inside and part of the club. Much easier than if you have to subscribe to the rules you hate any which way, you’re an impotent outsider and all you can do is pout and stamp your feet.

It’s not just your future, it’s your kids’ and their kids’.  Vote wisely.

*Note: Greece is there not here

**Germany is pretty OK actually

*** Turkey isn’t in the EU

But thanks anyway Vicky Pattison.

Reasons why I don’t have kids #53

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What a time to be alive!!!  And I don’t know how to write that in a way that you’ll understand just how sad the whole sorry mess is. And that I am in no way joking. 

Dennis Leary said it best when he said, ‘Racism isn’t born, folks, it’s taught. I have a two-year-old son. You know what he hates? Naps! End of list.’  It’s the same for xenophobia, sexism, homophobia, religious hatred and all the negativity in between. 

How does one explain to, say a four year old, why a man walked into a nightclub and killed fifty people of the LGBT community?  Or why a white supremacist  killed sixty-nine people at a Labour Party youth camp on Utoya Island two years ago?  Or why wars are fought solely based on religious differences?

There is such a bleak global sensation at the moment, that we (humanity) made a tentative step forward, got spooked and ran at full pelt backwards in the direction from which we came.  And at what speed!!  This rise of global bile-spewing seems now, to have been simmering under the surface for some time – such is the ferocity of the rearing of its ugly head in the last decade.  Maybe even the last five years.  The far right narrowly losing the Austrian elections, the BREXIT campaign demonising immigrants and blaming them for all the UK’s woes, the Orlando hate crime, Donald Trump a real contender for the presidency-these people are only the face of a population growing nastier and more secular and more isolationist by the hour.  Or so it seems.  Am I wrong?  

I usually like to keep this blog light, it’s what it’s all about, but these are very real concerns in which I cannot find the funny.  Finding the funny is what I do, for example here in the ‘reasons for….’ posts, where I highlight my own ineptitudes.  My tongue is most definitely firmly in my cheek -for the most part.  But I can’t find anything humorous in this universal global rage.  It’s quite terrifying.  I’m scared.  The world is an ugly, swirling cesspit.  Look at those baying angry faces at Trump rallies (these are the people who can lay their hands on arms at a moment’s notice).  And even in recent TV debates in Blighty.  Booing and heckling and such pent-up frustration that explodes when up against even the slightest, most rational opposition. The most recent Russian vs England violence at the Euro Championships in France.  It’s out of control.

it’s a simple message


I fear I couldn’t protect my children, who like little curious sponges soak up everything.  The hatred is widespread and they are not in your charge 24/7….. How does one field the bile, and prevent negative influence? There is only so much you can say or do to counter the negativity, and the rest is on a wing and a prayer.  You can only hope your children value your explanation above the father of their friend, who maybe let’s say, has strong  opinions  on Muslims.  Or that they trust you more than what they overhear when another mum says Donald Trump ‘has a point’ about guns to her husband while preparing beans on toast for an after-school tea date.

The future is a frightening prospect for me.  I’m still clinging to the tiniest bit of hope that this craziness will pass and humanity won’t let us down and will do the right thing.  But right now; I’m not so sure.  I would be absolutely terrified if I had children, at the thought that I would be raising them and then leaving them behind in a world that has turned on its head and seems to be, for the most part, absolutely fuelled by fear and hatred.  What a sad, sad place to be.  And if it continues to gather pace at the rate it is now, how tragic for those future generations.  

And that is my ‘reasons why I don’t have kids’ #53.

 

Reasons why I don’t have kids #52

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After the events of the past couple of weeks, (no, I’m not talking about blah, blah Brexit, legend Ali passing away or rapists’ father and friends trying to garner sympathy for  the poor perpetrator who can’t eat steak anymore.  Just the kids vs wild animals sagas), I’ve realised that being a parent is costlier than anyone could possibly have imagined.
Apparently now, when you take your kids to the zoo, it’s imperative to have a full sniper team on stand-by, just on the off chance you drop the ball.  Dropping the ball being; taking your eye off your child long enough for them to effectively clamber through a fence and fall headlong into a gorilla enclosure, facing the very real possibility of being ripped limb from limb by a 400lb alpha male.  That’s almost THIRTY stone, to you and me.  Of pure, hairy muscle.  Mmmm, well accidents happen – quote, unquote gorilla pit boy mum. 

RRAAaaaaaRRRRGGGHH!!!


Over in Japan, the military was called out to look for a seven-year old boy who went missing for six nights, after his parents had left him (as a form of punishment) in a raging bear-infested forest. Like you do.  Apparently the annual budget for defence in Japan is $41.4 billion, divide that by twelve months then four weeks then a bajillion hours and a savage landscape…… well, it’s a big bill to have a hundred soldiers, and local police searching for a boy who was chucked out of the family car by his dad.  Yes, admittedly throwing rocks isn’t aces, but shit me, running the gauntlet in bear country is a hell of a way to teach him a lesson.
Apparently, to be a parent these days it’s de rigueur to include very real wild animal risk in your everyday family activities and secondly to have the firepower to take care of your kids in those situations, when ‘they get in to unfortunate scrapes’.

I’m a lowly English teacher, I could hardly afford the zoo entrance, never mind the security detail for one, let alone two or more children, and that is my ‘reasons why I don’t have kids’ #52

Women of a certain age

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In the last couple of weeks I have experienced a pretty surprising couple of contretemps in my Twitter timeline.  This is a first for me.  But, not one to shy away from confrontation, if it’s warranted, I faced them head on in a virtual sparring match.  Interestingly, both conflabs were with (for the most part, it seemed) ill-educated, right-wing bigoted f*ck monkeys.  But of course, I could be wrong.

What was interesting to me, was that in both instances, the opposition when lost for a legitimate argument resorted to (what they thought) were valid, insulting put-downs.  But to me, were simply quotable facts.

Twitter troll #1 was a Trump supporter.  I imagine, you can imagine him immediately.  When I tried to actively engage him in a conversation about Trump’s actual policies (or lack there of), he fired back, “aahh I’m not surprised, you’re single and childless I bet you have cats”, after trying to one-up me with his enormous earnings of – wait for it – $30,000.  Whoa there buddy, those numbers are dizzying.  I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised that he could read; he’d obviously taken the time to look at my profile.

Troll #2 was a charming gentleman with an SS officer for an avatar, who it would seem, had created his account simply to annoy others.  Our thread went like this: 

Me: well & truly in @eddieizzard!! There’s 2 much I love about being a British European. Waiting 4 my overseas vote papers to arrive as we speak

(So he was rudely butting in to a something he wasn’t a part of.  It must be noted, Mr Izzard didn’t respond.  Disappointing)

Troll #2:  @diaryofannepank @eddieizzard why leave then? Stay therw

M: @simonthespider2 @eddieizzard what?

T2:  @diaryofannepank @simonthespider2 @eddieizzard why do you care if you don’t live here?

M:  @simonthespider2 @eddieizzard You have an opinion on Austria’s election. Why do you care if you don’t live there?

T2:  @diaryofannepank @eddieizzard I don’t vote nor want to, passing opinion isn’t the same as voting

M:  @simonthespider2 @eddieizzard Did it take you 10 hours to come up with that? My vote is my opinion on the situation, so……..yes it is

T2:  @diaryofannepank @eddieizzard no Anne some of us have a life other than twitter, you don’t live here

M:  @simonthespider2 @eddieizzard ok, let’s say I don’t vote. My opinion is the same. Which is ok according to you. Like your opinion on Austria

T2:  @diaryofannepank @eddieizzard you’re just a middle aged woman with no kids, I bet you have 50 cats

M:  @simonthespider2 @eddieizzard yes, that’s correct. Apart from the cats bit….. Not a fan

In the absence of a cockwomble photo on Google images, here’s a kitten. Oh the shame


Apart from their chronic inability to come up with a rational argument, annoying the shit out of me (if you’re going to try and engage me in an argument – you better come prepared), it really astounded me that age, singledom, lack of children and imaginary cat ownership are still considered ammunition for effectively insulting a woman.  Cats are cute, what’s your problem?  They’re the most popular thing on the Internet mate, you know that. 
And moreover, what f*cking decade are we currently inhabiting?  The fifties, it would appear.  Equating a woman’s unique worth to youth, her ability to find a man, hang on to him, frog-march him down the aisle, adopt his surname and produce his offspring, is so enormously out of date.  I can’t actually believe I even have to address that.  But then to think that by using the fact that these are absent as an effective means of attack – just seemed pretty redundant to me.  Laughable in fact.  I’d go so far as to say, a giant argumentative anti-climax.  Those facts are at the top of my Facebook page, Twitter and right here in this blog.  I own that shit dude, you’re just quoting facts at me.  It’s like shouting at your adversary, “WELL, THE SUN IS IN THE SKY!” or “I LIKE TO SLEEP AT NIGHT!”

Yes, that’s right.  What’s your point?  I’m beginning to experience a very different attitude as I get older, mostly this has happened on dating apps (but that’s another post for another day), but it would seem it’s still a universal attitude to women over a certain age in general.  Amongst men mostly, but dare I say it, some women too.

These ‘insults’ were in threads connected to my opinion on the current political situation in America and the EU referendum – what on earth has age, marital status and possible pet-ownership got to do with that?  Your guess is as good as mine……. 

The longer it is, the harder it gets

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Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been thirty -four days since my last blog post, and these are my sins….. *(I looked that up on catholicsareus.com, lots of advice on how to Catholic there).

Wow!  Being irreverent is HaaaaRRD, with a capital H for Hard, at the moment. Look, see it’s right there at the beginning of the word.  I’m so saturated with BREXIT and the Trump clown and TTIP and some papers in Panama and mounting racism and xenophobia and sexism just about everywhere, (including at work); that it’s been impossible for the humour to find the strength to shift the giant emotional shit plug that’s currently blocking the way.

And whatever you do, do not post photos of your puppies or recommend that episode of Girls where Hannah’s nana (spoiler alert) <stage whispers> ‘crosses over‘.  Actually, most episodes of Girls.  Do not stop in your tracks to leer at me in the street with your ninety-year old toothless face when I’m a sweaty, huffy post-run mess.  Not that I’m ageist or gummist; it’s just really annoying.  Or say with absolute conviction that, ‘the women want to be in charge of the house’, because I might just burst into tears.  Or get a little bit stabby.  And then burst into tears. Because the world is a swirling cesspit at the moment.  N.B. Baby photos really have no effect either way, so…. go for your life with those.

Annie P’s daily game face – showtime

For the most part I’ve been perfecting my hermitting skills, and by all accounts, I’m pretty bloody good at it.  I’ve only been getting it together to run or go to work.  Socialising is at an all time low – well, all time low for this year at least, so not really, but you get the idea.

And like anything, it seems that the longer you leave it (writing that is), the harder it gets.  Like getting out of bed on Sunday, apologising, having sex, shaving your armpits, feeling love, being social.  So, I realise that the only way to lift this funk is to push myself out of my pyjama-clad, binge-watching comfort zone and DO something about it myself.  Ain’t nobody else gonna do it for me, honey.  <read in southern drawl>.   So, the first step is right here; crap writing or not.  Second is a friend’s birthday on Saturday.

Wish me luck becoming human again.

*is it weird that I always really quite fancied going to confession, even though I am in no way religious?  I think it might be a sexual thing……

Reasons why I don’t have kids #51

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“It takes a whole village to raise a child”, or so the saying goes.  And so with people scattering around the world, becoming more and more solitary when they eventually land there (social media correspondents), and less and less interested to know those around us – a cursory nod to the neighbour, virtually extinct these days: it’s a wonder people are having children at all.  The ‘village’ is all but gone, unless you live in an actual village, in which case you’re all kinds of villagey – lucky you.  You can have all the babies.  It ain’t easy being solely responsible for a little human, no siree, and so you need all the help you can possibly get.  I see that with my mummy friends…. I’ve said it time and again, they’re totally amazing.  But what happens when the ‘rents are not around the corner, or your sibs are not a short drive away and your coven (those women you’d trust your own life to, therefore equally equipped to take your offspring off your hands), are all over the world?


My village (parents, siblings, friends) are scattered far and wide.  So I really don’t know how I could possibly have had children without my network around me, and say….  nip out for a spot of innocent afternoon drinking – and accidentally roll in at 4am. These are serious considerations.  How in God’s good name could I spontaneously book a flight to let’s say, Copenhagen, or thinking about it, everywhere and anywhere?

 

 

1. Book flight without thinking

2. Remember have kids

3. En route to airport, take kids out of school and drop at office of bemused friend, complete with instructions on a PostIt note, attached to one of them

4. Head to airport for five day trip

How could I not switch the alarm on for the Saturday morning and drink a bottle of wine while watching Masterchef on the evening of the Friday?  How could I even loll (before lol was a thing, it was a verb)…….

Definition: sit, lie, or stand in a lazy, relaxed way. 
example; “the two girls lolled in their chairs” 
synonyms: lounge, sprawl, drape oneself, stretch oneself, lie, sit, flop

…. all day, thinking about getting off my slightly-bigger-than-it-should-be backside (read: Kardashian-sized)?  And for the love of sweet little baby Hayzoos, how could I spend a day writing, rewriting and editing this blog post?

1. Call septuagenarian mother explaining that you need just another FOUR hours, to change ‘is not’ to ‘ain’t’, and back again a gazillion times.  So could she just pick the nippers up from after school club, make them tea, bathe them and deliver them at bedtime, like lovely snugly bugs in rugs.

2. Actually change ‘is not‘ to ‘ain’t‘, and back again a gazillion times, finally post, open wine smugly, and wait.

I’ve lived away from that invaluable support network since I was in my early twenties, so it’s never been an option, unless I wanted to stress myself all the way out to Hell and back, and meet myself coming back on any given day (that includes weekends, people).  So, without that tight knit group of loved ones around me, I’m afraid there was never going to be an option to pop a couple out.  I know my own capabilities, all too well.

And that is my ‘reasons why I don’t have kids’ #51.

My Sex and the City moment

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…….But with MaryPaz shoes, Carrie’s let herself go and gained two stone, no pop-up gallery openings and ‘Mr Vanilla‘ not ‘Mr Big’. Although I have dropped my bag (condoms an’ all), in public and worn a tiara, that’s probably where the similarity ends…. 

Every so often, the mist clears from my eyes, and I see something afresh.  After my brief trip to Copenhagen, and having lived for four days, like a somewhat ‘normal’ adult (see Ten Commandments of Adult Life ); that being with another actual living, breathing human, in a shared space – I felt kind of weird.  And also that that human being, was the last person I loved and shared love air with, weirder.  But Spring has sprung and the days are warmer and lighter, and the sun puts a different perspective on everything.  I kind of woke up from my post mini-holiday blues as I was dragging my sorry arse out for the first foray into anything resembling exercise, in the best part of 18 months….. and realised I am capable of love: but only after I had first envisaged myself, lithely bounding towards Parc de la Ciutadella, in manner of gazelle, arriving at my destination, pounding along the paths in the park, bouncing around laughing children and charging up the steps behind the fountain, to arrive at the top like a triumphant Rocky.

The PANK triumphs

I arrived at the top of the steps like Rocky alright; after he’d gone the distance with Ivan Drago (and without the Star Spangled Banner and a baying crowd of admirers).  What actually happened was that I lurched the less than two kilometres to my destination, ‘power walking’ the bit of the route where I thought my lungs might actually explode, and dragged myself up the final push to the top.  I did manage to bolt up there huffing and puffing, (so anyone who might be lurking at the top, at eleven a of the m, would be super impressed with my arrival).  And it worked, they were. Result!

Having exhausted myself thoroughly, I decided to saunter back home, picking up a coffee en route and enjoying the sunshine. Nodding smugly to my fellow gym bunnies getting beasted in the boot camp at the park exit, in a ‘keep up the good work’ way, I felt elated for the first time in months. I sang to the chaps in the cafe, Africa by Toto, a better power ballad cannot be imagined for a Saturday morning coffee shop singalong, and appreciated the streets and hidden squares like I’d forgotten to do for a long time.

My heart swelled with real bona fide love,  and I found myself shouting (silently inside my head, of course) – I BLOODY LOVE YOU BARCELONA! ❤️ – and fighting back the tears of joy and emotion.  It would be nice to feel the same sensation for a human being person, but in the absence of that, this city loves you back like no other I’ve lived in, and I’ve never felt akin to anywhere else, quite like I do here.

 

Rocky would sh*t to reach the top of THESE steps.


 

So thank you Barcelona, for welcoming me with open arms and an open heart, for taking me to your Mediterranean bosom and not batting an eyelid at my eccentricities.  For the highs and the occasional lows, you are like an actual lover in that respect (only without sexy times). Thank you for filling me full of love and reminding me how lovely that feels, and just…. Well, just being bloody incredible.

Life is good, (apparently after you go for a twenty minute, less than two kilometre run on a Saturday morning).

Same time next week? Hell yeah!

Note: Endorphin highs are REAL, people. 

Life lessons from Mr Vanilla

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So, I fell off the Tinder wagon, after claiming I was going dating ‘organic’, at the same time I hopped right back on the booze bus, after (Dry January and a half).  Still – more or less – sugarfree; I should be thankful for small, self-control mercies I suppose.

I also bought a month on Match.com and yet again immediately regretted handing over the cash, as I have every other random time I’ve decided to take a peek during my extensive single years.  Same faces, same crap (I honestly don’t know why people bother paying, to say the same sh*t they could say for free on any number of apps).  Baffling, but hey ho, each to their own.  

There was however, one chap I connected with (and by that I mean, he put me in his shopping basket and I put him in mine, not on any kind of spiritual level!) who seemed really rather nice and we went on a date, two weeks ago.  So far, so good.  Sadly, there was no, what we call here, ‘chispa‘, but I thought I’d go for a coffee with him the night before Copenhagen, and I was right.  No spark…. I suppose that his normalness and lack of any life experience and dislike of anything too far from the straight and narrow, was only highlighted all the more by the fact that my host in Copenhagen, was my ex.  A scientist, who’s travelled and lived in many places, with a sharp sense of humour and….. Yada, yada, yada.  You get the picture, despite being a big pain in my *rse, he set the bar WAY. TOO. HIGH.  I was visiting as a friend only, but nonetheless, it’s impossible to not make comparisons.

Mr Vanilla, viewed our one and an eighth dates as something more and expressed his profound disappointment that I had not let him know I’d arrived safely…. and more messages of a similar ilk followed while I was away.  Which, I have to admit, a little teeny weeny bit, got my GOAT.

I decided on day two of my trip that we wouldn’t be meeting again….. I seriously contemplated my first foray into ghosting, but having never done it before, and having been on the receiving end of that too many times, I bit the bullet and sent the, ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ text.

  I got this back….. from a man who’s never lived more than four doors around the corner from his entire family.  So I guess that’s me told, good and proper.  I still don’t consider myself a fully formed adult it’s true, see previous post, but I do think that everything in the life lesson, I’ve done and am currently doing.  Unless I wake up tomorrow and it’s all been a dream….. But if it isn’t a dream, I will continue to live in the same manner as long as I am able.

There’s nothing at all wrong with liking what you know and knowing what you like, and there’s room in the world for everyone, and I think I was very polite in my approach to no more dates; he just wasn’t for me.  I certainly wouldn’t have  dreamt of saying, ‘you need to get out more!’  So I just sent an equally polite response to his advice, as my initial message, allowed him to send a string of rambling follow-up messages about how we weren’t right for each other and it wasn’t our time, (one date dude, one date), sent a simple smile emoji (SO twenty first century), and wished him all the best with everything.  Instead of giving him short shrift and pinging his message right back at him with a ‘you should heed your own advice mate!!’

Actually, maybe I don’t give myself enough credit and I am growing up, after all.  Yeah……… maybe I am.