tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4490467472617243392024-03-13T02:58:02.933-07:00The AbsurdistShelagh McKinlayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12109135739554833294noreply@blogger.comBlogger48125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-449046747261724339.post-2529892444673158282013-10-13T10:09:00.000-07:002013-10-13T10:09:00.640-07:00Making The Most of Middle Age Today is my birthday. I am forty six. Saying that out loud makes me laugh since it is so patently ridiculous, yet my mother and other apparently sane people insist it is true. Given that my age appears to be a fact of life, I gave some thought to middle age - the good stuff and how to make the most of it.<br />
<br />
<b>Every time is like the first time</b><br />
<br />
I have read many books in my lifetime and the wonderful thing about reaching middle-age is that I can't remember the plot of any of them. Every time really is like the first time. Until you get maybe about half way through and then people's names and behavioural tics start to feel uncomfortably familiar. Same with sex.<br />
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<b>Room for improvement</b><br />
<br />
Frank Sinatra once said, "I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning that's as good as they're going to feel all day." When you're middle aged the same applies to the way you look. You may wake each morning with a face like a dirt bike track, churned up and splattered with sun spots, but at least you have the satisfaction of knowing you can't look any worse. (Except for some days, when you do.)<br />
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<b>Bucket lists</b><br />
<br />
In middle-age your bucket list becomes shorter and more achievable. One of my new bucket list items is to ride on a Stannah Stairlift. There is every chance that this will come about quite naturally and with no effort at all on my part. What could be better? James McAvoy, in his shirt sleeves, making me an omelette, that's what. Probably have to put my back into that one a bit.<br />
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<b>Modern life</b><br />
<br />
There has never been a better time to be middle-aged. Beds are comfier, slippers are cosier, tights have in-built temperature controls also, LAKELAND! Rock concerts are another example. So easy to use! This year I attended my first ever stadium gig. I was expecting a Woodstock vibe with naked nymphs getting high and writhing in mud. Thankfully, I couldn't have been more wrong. It was mostly cheery middle-aged people eating hot dogs and drinking coke like an open-air Costco. <br />
<br />
<b>Financial security</b><br />
<br />
If you were lucky enough, or daft enough, to buy a house 15 or 20 years ago you will have sufficient equity that when it all goes tits up and it's Weimar Republic time, you'll be able to buy all the wheelbarrows you need to take your useless paper money to the bank. Trebles all round!<br />
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<b>Losing your inhibitions</b><br />
<br />
Dance like no-one's watching. Love like you'll never be hurt. Sing like no-one is listening. Drink like you don't loathe yourself. Eat a Scotch egg in the street like a pure animal. Middle age is very liberating I find, you lose your inhibitions. (Not to be confused with becoming disinhibited, which is all of the above but in your nightie singing, " Roll Out The Barrel". Been doing a bit of that lately, too.)<br />
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You get the gist. Now, brace yourselves, because here comes the soppy bit.<br />
<br />
Growing older is often seen as going into a decline. I prefer to think of it as the ascent of a strange, wild, hill. An exhausting, exhilarating climb, sometimes striding out, sometimes scrabbling for a foothold, occasionally locking eyes with a stranger who may stay with you for a while. If you're very lucky, holding the hand of a small person till they're big enough to strike out on their own.<br />
<br />
So, I've been climbing for a while, my breathing is a little ragged and I've been knocked about a bit, but the view is all my own and it makes my heart glad.<br />
<br />
(PS Earlier birthday blogs can be found <a href="http://theabsurdistshequeen.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/happy-birthday.html">here</a>, <a href="http://theabsurdistshequeen.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/joys-of-middle-age.html">here</a> and <a href="http://theabsurdistshequeen.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/the-joys-of-middle-age-part-2.html">here</a>. It's basically more of the same.)<br />
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<br />Shelagh McKinlayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12109135739554833294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-449046747261724339.post-37092547247771575212013-09-11T00:16:00.000-07:002013-09-11T00:18:35.971-07:00Democracy Max <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #4d4d4d;">T</span><span style="color: #4d4d4d;">he
Electoral Reform Society Scotland (ERS Scotland) has just published a report,
“Democracy Max: an Inquiry into the Future of Scottish Democracy”. The report
follows a year long process of discussion and deliberation which set out to
explore a vision for a good Scottish democracy. It started with the premise
that politics is too important to be left to the politicians. I was involved with the second phase of the
process as a participant in the round table discussions which explored issues
in a little more depth, chairing the third of the round tables and co-authoring
that section of the report. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This short post
does not set out the findings of the report in any detail, nor does it
represent the views of ERS Scotland. These are simply personal observations on some
of the broad themes. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Increasingly, it seems, people
are not interested in politics. And if they are not interested in politics per
se, they are even less interested in its dullard, techy, room-mate political
process. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Try and run a vox pop on
deliberative democratic techniques, or the case for a written constitution, and
you’d have a hard job keeping the participants awake long enough to get a
response. In that context ERS Scotland’s Democracy Max initiative could be seen
as an anoraky exercise in constitutional navel gazing. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I disagree. Democracy Max asks a
question of fundamental principle; not what party of government do we want, or
even what powers we want, but what <i>kind </i>of
democracy do we want? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And people do care about that. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">People may not be interested in
political process but they are interested in power. They know when they are
denied it. They know when decisions are taken, not in their interests, but in
the interests of powerful lobby groups, or political parties themselves. They
know when politicians act in bad faith.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The clichés of, “They’re all as
bad each other”, or “They’re all in it for themselves”, may do our
parliamentarians a disservice, but those sentiments exist because of a real and
deep dissatisfaction with modern politics. It cannot be wished away as
ignorance, or railing against authority for its own sake. Traditional
representative democracy is faced with falling confidence, and without the
confidence of the people it will fail. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In Scotland the forthcoming
independence referendum is an opportunity to rethink how our democracy works.
To re-imagine how power is exercised. Sadly to date the debate has ploughed a
depressingly narrow furrow, with parties bickering over where to draw the line
on powers and economic shroud waving. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Is this really the best we can
do? Can we not take this opportunity to introduce some more radical thought to
the question of how political power could be shared and exercised more
equitably and with greater integrity? Are we really saying political evolution
stops here, with the shuffling of powers from one established political class
to another? If so, how sad, how complacent and how limited is our vision of the
future, and how little faith we must have in ourselves. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No one is suggesting that we take
a hatchet to the central concept of parliamentary democracy. There is much in
the political life of Scotland and the UK to applaud and to be thankful for,
but we have been depressingly reluctant to open our eyes and minds that little
bit wider. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is ample precedent
internationally if we care to look and to listen: citizen’s assemblies where
members are selected by lot; further devolution of power to local communities
who control the budget for their public services; a genuine belief in the
concept of virtuous leadership - these are not ridiculous notions. They exist
and work in the real, wider world <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Certainly alternative models are
not perfect. Neither are they a replacement for electoral politics. But they
can complement, scrutinise and “round out” representative democracy, making it
more diverse, more open and less susceptible to atrophy and self-interest. Any
alternative systems will have drawbacks and problems and there will certainly
be failures along the way. But frankly traditional policy making has produced
some catastrophically awful results, yet we still keep putting our money in the
slot and taking the gamble. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Democracy max report does not
pretend to offer fully thought out solutions to all of democracy’s woes.
Neither should it. Far too much government is about a handful of interested,
well- meaning people with a bit of expertise shutting themselves in a room and
doing the policy making equivalent of the Disney Fairy Godmother’s “Bibbidi
Bobbidi Boo”. Many proposals in the report are embryonic and seek simply to
open up a dialogue. Democracy Max is just one way of encouraging our political
elites to demonstrate their willingness to talk, to listen and to live up to
the rhetoric of a desire to introduce a new kind of politics.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Change is needed, but it will not
happen of its own accord. I hope this inquiry will be an important early step
in challenging the political system to deliver on the high hopes that voters
still hold for democracy in Scotland.</span><span style="font-family: Knockout-HTF32-JuniorCruiserwt, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Shelagh McKinlayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12109135739554833294noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-449046747261724339.post-51646998875570717022013-04-18T06:32:00.002-07:002013-04-20T16:35:40.722-07:00Procrastination Is the Name of the Game I like my deadlines like I like my men, urgent but not too serious.<br />
<br />
In fact I approach deadlines in pretty much the same way I approach men I fancy - ignore them and hope for a miracle.<br />
<br />
Well, not ignore them so much as put on an elaborate display of ignoring them, while watching their every move in my compact mirror and having anxiety dreams about them.<br />
<br />
Some people have a very straightforward relationship with deadlines. "Aha!" they cry, training their spyglass on the event horizon, "A deadline! My favourite! I shall pack my spotted handkerchief this very day and make steady progress, little and often, until I reach my goal, in good time, with some cheese, bread and spreadsheets left over to share with the mouse I befriended on my journey."<br />
<br />
That is not me. I am a thrill seeker and procrastination is how I get my rush. Not buying milk when you're down to the last quarter of the carton, not opening that HMRC package that says "OPEN IMMEDIATELY!", not wiping the steam off the bus window till you're almost past your stop.<br />
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I am tingling at the very thought of the myriad ways in which the daily grind can be avoided, subverted or toyed with like, er, like, chewing gum that you can't get rid of because there's no bin and you threw away the wrapper so you can't spit it into that, you idiot. Where were we? Oh yes!<br />
<br />
Procrastination! You sexy, maddening, Mata-Hari of time management! If procrastination is the thief of time, I like to imagine it as a dashing cat-burglar, negotiating the dangerous moonlit rooftops between Netflix and a thousand words on genetic engineering with aplomb. In reality, of course, it is a shifty-eyed <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/ulsterscots/words/nyaff">nyaff,</a> stuffing your potential down its jogging bottoms.<br />
<br />
I know this to be true. I know procrastination is responsible for any number of humiliating failures; birthday gifts of wooden spoons wrapped in newspaper, laddered tights held together with nail varnish, unravelling hems, rambling speeches, blotted copybooks - need I go on?<br />
<br />
And yet, I still lock horns with it, still hang onto the messed-up buzz it gives me. Let's face it, a cliff-hanger's not a cliff-hanger if you stop the coach and horses half a mile from the cliff edge, is it? Far better to walk nonchalantly backwards towards the precipice, whistling "Dixie" and teeter on the edge. I am the Harold Lloyd of deadlines, defying gravity, doing my best work when hanging by a thread.<br />
<br />
Sometimes a bit of jeopardy is just what we need when a task requires super-human effort. Which makes me think I'd make a pretty great super-hero.<br />
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"Shelagh! I love you! But we only have fourteen hours to save the earth!"<br />
<br />
"Put the kettle on, Toots. Plenty of time."<br />
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(So, if I'd started a little earlier maybe we wouldn't have lost Alaska. Let's write that up as a learning point.)<br />
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Maybe procrastination is bad, maybe I should embrace deadlines, not circle them warily like a neanderthal circling fire. But maybe it's just the way I am.<br />
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Sometimes it's fun to defy nightfall and dance in the dusk till the last embers of light are gone. Unless you get eaten by the wolves.<br />
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<br />Shelagh McKinlayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12109135739554833294noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-449046747261724339.post-22211618373834531952012-10-13T04:09:00.001-07:002012-11-03T17:30:21.356-07:00The Joys of Middle Age Part 2. Today is my birthday. I am forty-five. This means that if you laid me end to end I'd feel obliged to buy you a drink.<br />
<br />
Seriously though folks, the fact is that if you joined two of me together you'd make NINETY. There can therefore be, in mathematical terms at least, no question that I am middle-aged. Some people recoil from the thought of being middle-aged, as if it were bearing down on them like Kay Burley on a grieving townsperson. I choose to embrace it. I am middle-aged. There, I said it. (Ooh, I felt a bit like Harry Potter when he says "Voldemort" then.)<br />
<br />
This is the third birthday I've had since I joined Twitter. A significant achievement, I'm sure you'll agree. What with that and the Nobel Peace Prize it's been quite a week. Anyway, I have written a blog on my birthday each year since I joined Twitter. (You can find them <a href="http://theabsurdistshequeen.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/happy-birthday.html">here</a> and<a href="http://theabsurdistshequeen.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/joys-of-middle-age.html"> here.</a>) This continues that grand tradition and I am sticking with the same theme, namely The Joys of Middle Age.<br />
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Sexy Time<br />
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In your 20's sexy time could be the kind of frenzied romp that smashed the lampshade and pulled the curtain pole off the wall, or that at the very least made the neighbours think the mice in the walls were back, but it could also be bloody hard work. First you had to catch, kill and cook your boyfriend and who has time for that nowadays when there's so much good telly on? When you're knocking on a bit, and if you are fortunate enough to have a long term partner, you have, in the grand tradition of Blue Peter, one you trained up earlier. Even if you <i>don't</i> have a partner possible quarry tend not to be quite so fast on their feet so, all is not lost.<br />
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Sexy time in your 20's could be exciting and wild, it could also mean putting a chair under the door handle to stop pervy "sleep walking" housemates attempting to join in. Now it's okay for sexy time to involve comfy trousers and a couple of walnut whips, maybe with some hot Tina Fey "30 Rock" action as an appetiser since of course you both fancy her. (Who wouldn't?) Most importantly though, in your forties you know what you want if you can get it.<br />
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Food<br />
<br />
Science has proven that in your 20's it is possible to live off Tango, Monster Munch and ouzo without your internal organs behaving like the alien in, er, "Alien". In your forties you have to be a bit kinder to the ravaged temple that is your body. I'm still not averse to the odd Pot Noodle but, whereas I once ate nothing but fried egg pieces for two weeks, now my fridge looks like a proper grown-up's with unusual vegetables and condiments that are not Branston pickle and HALF DRUNK bottles of wine. Good food is one of the glories of being alive and in middle age I savour it more than ever.<br />
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Personal style<br />
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When you get older your personal style is supposed to become more refined, classic. You are supposed to want to start wearing structural grey garments and statement jewellery. Sorry, not me. I increasingly want to dress like Sylvester Stallone's mother. If it sparkles or has animal print I am on it like Paul Gambaccini on an obituary. When I was younger I wanted to dress like everyone else. Now I want to dress distinctively. I'm not saying I always achieve it, but I dress how I want to dress and I couldn't give a toss if it's "directional".<br />
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Friendship<br />
<br />
I <a href="http://therealshequeen.tumblr.com/post/21736153561/tuesday-24-april-fear-of-flying-today-i-watched">wrote something</a> a while back about having recently re-watched Woody Allen's "Hannah and her Sisters". I watched it in my 20's and it washed over me like when your parents used to reminisce about when they were courting and you were thinking, "Yeah, yeah, great, now give me the twenty quid." This time it touched me deeply. I am not denigrating the friendships you have when you are younger. Many of my closest friends today were also my closest friends 20 years ago. But the weight of time does something to your knowledge and understanding of a person, compacts it like silted earth into much more precious material.<br />
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If you have read my two earlier birthday blogs (and if you haven't - Chop! Chop!) you will know that this is the bit where I tend to go a bit soppy and Hallmark greetings card. I make no apology for it. I am quite a soppy person.<br />
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I am middle-aged and I am glad of it. Being young is, or can be, fantastic.I loved it. I loved feeling free and doing crazy shit and learning and making my way in life. Of course I know I have been very lucky. Many people have dreadful hardship in their lives from a very young age. I don't know how I would feel about life if that had been my experience. I have been incredibly fortunate and have had a life filled with love and opportunity. Even so, you can't get to forty-five without the little of pebbles of sadness building up like stones on a cairn, and some days I feel the weight of it. Sometimes life doesn't go the way you want and it's hard not to rail against it and to force yourself to wake up and smell the coffee. But still, how glorious to open your eyes each day.<br />
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<br />Shelagh McKinlayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12109135739554833294noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-449046747261724339.post-24344924834400716642012-08-12T11:36:00.003-07:002012-08-12T11:52:28.289-07:00How Not to Miss the OlympicsWe are all agreed that the Olympics has been a hit. (I do of course entirely respect the view of those who disagree, even though they are wrong.)<br />
<br />
At first I had my doubts, which was understandable given the distasteful air of positivity and sportiness. But just as you never fancied that Dad in the playground that tucks his jumper into his trousers but changed your mind when you met him in his trunks at the pool, so the Olympics has won my heart by revealing its essential self.<br />
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I know you're all dying to read my thoughts on the Olympic spirit and what it tells us about the inner city but I am a terrible tease, so instead I offer some more practical advice on how not to miss the Games in the post-apocalympics period that lies ahead.<br />
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1.When complimented on your hair, don't forget to thank the whole hairdressing team.
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2.Buy some union jack pants and cry when you hoist them up on the clothes pulley.<br />
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3.When your turn is called at the Post Office, moonwalk to the cashier and kiss your t-shirt.<br />
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4.Do a deep lunge while twiddling some turkey drumsticks in Sainsbury's. <br />
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5.Buy some Dracula teeth, put on a cloak and tell people to take their tops off. Hey presto! You are Sebastian Coe!<br />
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6.When you get on the bus, turn and wave to the queue, both hands above your head.
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7.Take a hobby horse with you when line dancing.<br />
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8.Ask women leaving the ladies' loos whether they have left a legacy.<br />
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9.Marry Clare Balding. Marry Denise Lewis. Marry Michael Johnson. Do not marry John Inverdale but leave the coat hanger in your jacket at all times.<br />
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10.Always ensure you are wrapped in the flag when crossing the finishing line. If you impregnate your wife with twins, all the better. <br />
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Last but not least, sit on the sofa, crying and tweet about the telly. Oh and watch the Paralympics.<br />
<br />Shelagh McKinlayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12109135739554833294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-449046747261724339.post-90142614236349233022012-08-09T08:04:00.000-07:002012-08-09T08:05:07.499-07:00Change of Lifestyle<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Welcome to my life! Or rather my lifestyle, which is a bit different, in that it is how I live in my head, unencumbered by the constraints of time, money, general ineptitude and chunky ankles. </div>
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In an idle moment today I indulged myself by making this "mood board" from leftover magazine cutouts that my daughter had been mucking around with at the weekend. </div>
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"Look at this," I said proudly to my husband, "Isn't it pretty? This is what life could be like if we were much richer and naturally stylish, if we were not us. Why is our life not like this? Something is awry. Our tea towels, for example, are all wrong. We have failed. I blame you." </div>
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The answer is simple. I must become a totally different person. How hard can that be? People do it on Oprah all the time after 15 minutes with <a data-mce-href="http://www.drphil.com/articles/category/5" href="http://www.drphil.com/articles/category/5" style="color: #007bff;">Dr Phil</a> and his magical hamster moustache. I will simply envision it. </div>
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My table will be graced by the world's most beautiful fruit bowl, filled with guavas and pomegranates, not dusty grape stalks and a surgical bandage, no siree Bob.</div>
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I shall ride my vintage push bike with its basket full of hyacinths, wearing my pretty tea dress, flip-flops and cloche hat. This will not result in my unprotected head being stoved in when my flip-flops catch on the pedals and I am hurled into the path of a corporation bus. These things do not happen to people like me. And even if it did, I would go gladly to my doom rather than be caught in a stained fleece, leggings and a helmet, calling to mind an escapee from a high security hospital. </div>
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My night table will be adorned only by a cut crystal water decanter and a slim volume of Rilke's greatest hits, sorry, I mean poems. It will not feature balls of hair, mouldy raisins and post it notes which read "Sell things?" and "ARMPIT SUDOCREM". </div>
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The cupboards will be stocked with miso soup and harissa paste sandwiches and different coloured magic beans. There will be butterflied lamb for supper, not Special K or anything, oh no, we are not SAVAGES. </div>
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At night the garden will be lit by hundreds of tea lights in Victorian glass specimen jars arranged to form the face of <a data-mce-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diana_Vreeland" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diana_Vreeland" style="color: #007bff;">Diana Vreeland</a>, the children's rooms will be adorned with original artwork, not posters of Rhianna fellating a Solero, the cat will not shit in the sock drawer, the phone will not be found in the bread bin, spiders will not hatch in my hair, I WILL NOT DRINK THE BATHWATER. </div>
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It will be lovely. I just have to not be me. </div>
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(First posted on my other blog <a href="http://therealshequeen.tumblr.com/">http://therealshequeen.tumblr.com/</a> on 10 May 2012.)</div>
</div>Shelagh McKinlayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12109135739554833294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-449046747261724339.post-62394090094751870382012-08-09T07:51:00.001-07:002012-08-09T07:56:04.514-07:00Exercised<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I need to get fit.</div>
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I used to be very fit. I used to hang off the wall bars at the gym and lift my legs up to my nose, quite effortlessly. I liked to cartwheel round the garden and, after several pints of snakebite, would do forward walkovers down the corridors of the student union.</div>
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Sadly that was knocking on 30 years ago. Now I am a dreadful indolent mess, whose efforts to haul herself out of the swimming pool call to mind a sea lion climbing the stairs.</div>
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I went to the gym for a while. It wasn't me. I tried the treadmill, but always ended up near horizontal, hanging onto the bar, like a toddler that is learning to walk by pushing a cart but that has forgotten to move its legs. It just never felt like fun, all that grunting and groaning and not even the excitement of having rearranged the furniture as a result.</div>
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Once every six months I decide that I will take up running but by the time I've found my sports bra, which is older than most Olympic competitors, I've generally gone off the idea.</div>
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We bought a Wii fit but it's proximity to the telly often proves to be a distraction.</div>
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I went to Zumba and liked it, but due to the same mysterious self-destructing gene that makes me eat Pringles when I don't really like them, stopped going.</div>
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I think I need some kind of head gear that will dangle a photo of Ryan Gosling in front of me while, at the same time, I am chased by Jeremy Clarkson.</div>
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That might get me to shift. I dunno though. I wish I'd just get on with it. I really annoy myself sometimes.</div>
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(First posted on my other blog <a href="http://therealshequeen.tumblr.com/">http://therealshequeen.tumblr.com/</a> on 7 June 2012.)</div>Shelagh McKinlayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12109135739554833294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-449046747261724339.post-19492915779464789882012-08-09T07:45:00.000-07:002012-08-09T07:48:49.122-07:00Excellent Tomatoes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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These tomatoes were on display in the very fancy organic supermarket and cafe that I sometimes frequent when I am pretending to be posh and the kind of person who can pay fifteen pounds for a chicken. </div>
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It's a bit like when I was little and my Mum would send me to the Pick N' Save (or Nick N' Save as we called it) supermarket for a pint of milk and I would pretend to be doing the shopping for a family of fifteen. </div>
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I would wander the aisles, just managing to peer over the top of my trolley, palpating melons and earnestly studying packets of washing powder. I would then pop the stuff in the trolley, whistling nonchalantly, secure in the knowledge that my expert shopping technique would fool my fellow customers into thinking that I was a midget housewife with very good skin and a fondness for David Essex T-shirts, ankle socks and Clarks T-bar sandals. (Actually, that sounds pretty cool. I wish I looked like that now. I look a bit like David Essex does now. That will have to do.) I would then casually retrace my steps, putting everything back until a pint of milk remained. </div>
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Anyway, the whole idea was to appear sophisticated. That's what I'm doing now when I go to the posh organic supermarket. Hmm, Jonty Bumpimple's Cotswolds Sausage Pie only FIVE THOUSAND POUNDS. "I'll take TEN!", I boom, to no-one in particular. </div>
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I then saunter for a bit, sniffing the courgette flowers; "Are these ready for stuffing?" I enquire, before asking if they have any fresh snails or quinoa or condiments made by dead saints.</div>
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Basically, this goes on for a bit and then I say loudly; "Perhaps just one of your small baguettes please, my good man." And the nice assistant smiles and does not acknowledge that I am mad and that I've also been carrying the same JM Coetzee book for six months now. </div>
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I'll tell you what though, those tomatoes are good. Firm, yet yielding, one sharp bite piercing the promise of taut glistening skin, flooding your mouth with an earthy sweetness that makes you write like Melvyn Bragg when he's doing a sexy bit.</div>
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There's too much talk of rotten tomatoes, these ones are excellent. </div>
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(Originally posted on my other blog <a href="http://therealshequeen.tumblr.com/">http://therealshequeen.tumblr.com/</a> on 30 May 2012)</div>Shelagh McKinlayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12109135739554833294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-449046747261724339.post-39552618234143893932012-08-09T07:28:00.004-07:002012-08-09T07:48:28.429-07:00Football Crazy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Football, I like football. I like end to end stuff and flamboyant Latin types. Or am I thinking of a Ricky Martin concert? ANYWAY, I do like football though I don't think, in all honesty, I'd have made a terribly good premiership footballer myself. If I was a premiership footballer I'd be a bit like this: </div>
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"Hi there! Have we met? Your shorts are FAB, you're so lucky, I could NEVER wear something that stopped just above the knee like that. Oooh, are you my partner? Sorry, not partner, gosh hang on, they told me this! MARKER! Are you marking me? I do hope so, you have kind eyes.</div>
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"Golly, on the attack again! This lot are keen aren't they?"</div>
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"That chap in the black and white is jolly good. He's doing it all running backwards! Like Ginger Rogers! Oh dear, there they go, on about the pies again. I always think they mean me, about the pies. Big boned, what can you do? But look at you! Thin as a pin. Major envy."</div>
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"How long till elevenses? Sorry, interval. SORRY, half time! Honestly, hopeless! Listen, this whole oranges thing, do you think we might ring the changes next week and maybe try some dim sum? Just something a bit different. Might be fun."</div>
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"I like your alice band. Functional <em>and</em> stylish. PARFAIT! Did you see Question Time last night? That guy from the union was on. PLEASE tell me you know him. Quelle dish!" </div>
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"Anyway, what's all this about playing deep and square at the back? I'm so over it. Up the wing, cut it back and BOOM! That's what my Dad says. Oh dear, am I offside again? Sometimes I think I'll never get the hang of this."<br />
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(First posted on my other blog <a href="http://therealshequeen.tumblr.com/">http://therealshequeen.tumblr.com/</a> on 7 May 2012) </div>Shelagh McKinlayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12109135739554833294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-449046747261724339.post-75160333868746641332012-08-09T07:23:00.001-07:002012-08-09T07:48:06.857-07:00Tidy Cushions<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Look at those cushions. Plumped to within an inch of their life. A wee tip. If you have been sitting on your fat backside all day with your snout in a bag of kettle chips and you suddenly look at the clock and realise that your loved ones will be home in T minus 5 minutes, plump the cushions.</div>
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That's all it takes. </div>
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There can be six inches of stoor on the skirting board and a decomposing kebab on the hall table, but if your cushions are plumped no-one will care. Dirt schmirt, who gives a monkey's? Plump 'em up and it's tidy. </div>
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The only danger is that they look so goooood, so pristine, so fresh, so unsullied by the neighbourhood posteriors. In short, you can become addicted to a plumped cushion. If you find yourself addressing visitors thus;</div>
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"<em>Do</em> come in. How <em>lovely</em> to see you! Gosh, isn't it chilly? Brrr. Come in and get warm! Me casa es su casa JESUS CHRIST! WHO SAID YOU COULD SIT DOWN?! STAND UP! STAND UP! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WHAT IS <em>WRONG</em> WITH YOU, YOU FILTHY LITTLE COMMUNIST!!"</div>
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or words to that effect, you may have a problem.</div>
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Likewise, barbed wire, "KEEP OFF" signs, trap doors, cross bows triggered when arse touches cushion, all of these can be warning signals that you've crossed a certain line. </div>
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Still, when properly executed there is nothing like a plumped cushion for giving the illusion of an ordered home. You're welcome. </div>
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(First posted on my other blog <a href="http://therealshequeen.tumblr.com/">http://therealshequeen.tumblr.com/</a> on 6 May 2012) </div>
</div>Shelagh McKinlayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12109135739554833294noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-449046747261724339.post-18527822959102674502012-08-09T07:16:00.004-07:002012-08-09T07:47:48.652-07:00Playhouse<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7q28aYiRQlNkYz83DFm7HlCAnlaELIiUiccK6MV2-J1nJfTnYZSkmYdnEFqQ47z0l-cQK0_fkL_7_XzlmGZAlZ2-XXMNaqVWrNzTLh53BbMKYNQxhBILz9KKHgP8MHqVKx-FJdTKHTUgr/s1600/IMG-20120417-00130.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7q28aYiRQlNkYz83DFm7HlCAnlaELIiUiccK6MV2-J1nJfTnYZSkmYdnEFqQ47z0l-cQK0_fkL_7_XzlmGZAlZ2-XXMNaqVWrNzTLh53BbMKYNQxhBILz9KKHgP8MHqVKx-FJdTKHTUgr/s320/IMG-20120417-00130.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I look out at our ordinary garden every day. Most days I don't even really notice it any more. It's funny to think how excited I was when we moved to this house, our first ever house, our first ever garden. I got my husband to film me hanging out the washing on my very own washing line. The first time I filled a vase with cut flowers from my very own garden I felt like a proper grown up. </div>
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Sadly, the euphoria about the garden has worn off. I have turned out not to be a natural gardener. I do not have a green thumb. I swear when I walk past a flower bed all the living things in it wilt in my wake. </div>
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So, I often don't pay much attention to the garden, since it just reminds me of my shortcomings, a bit like avoiding the mirror when you know you're looking as rough as a badger. </div>
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At lunchtime today though there was a glorious spell of sunshine and I sat out with a coffee and found myself staring at my daughter's playhouse. </div>
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We bought it when she was three, I think, seven years ago. We tacked pretty floral wallpaper inside. There was a teeny bench, a table and a play cooker along with lots of toy food. Plastic roast chicken, chips, peas, a cake cut into slices. Sometimes we would have proper breakfast in there. I would drink my real tea while my daughter poured dirty water into a plastic cup; "Cuppa tea Mummy?".</div>
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Some sunny days would see troops of small girls in princess outfits making endless pretend toast, or writing on the blackboard, sometimes just screaming and running in and out like maniacs, throwing water at each other, slamming their fingers in the door, folllowed by tears, hugs, elastoplast, sweeties, the usual. </div>
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I realised looking at the playhouse today that last summer was the first summer that no-one played in the playhouse. It had been gradually neglected in favour of going out on bikes, or playing swingball or just lying on the grass. Because it wasn't used we started "temporarily" storing odds and sods in it.</div>
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I looked in it today for the first time in months. The pretty wallpaper is still there, curling a bit, and so is the blackboard. The bench has been unscrewed and is lying in pieces. There are boxes of bird seed and an old cabinet. The cooker and all the plastic food were given away a while back.</div>
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Gradually, its function has changed. When was the tipping point I wonder? If I plotted the lifespan of the playhouse on a graph, when would I get to adjust my specs and point with my pointer and say "This is when the playhouse was no more."?</div>
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Of course it's impossible to know. It was a gradual thing. Just like gradually you prefer to get home to your own bed rather than sleep on someone's sofa, or you gradually stop listening to Radio 1, or you gradually become able to have alcohol in the house without drinking it all. </div>
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I asked my daughter whether she thought she would play in the house again and she was pretty doubtful. I then asked what she thought about us giving it away. She hummed and hawed and then said; "Can we keep it Mum? I know I don't play in it anymore, but it's my<em> playhouse</em>."<br />
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(First posted on my other blog <a href="http://therealshequeen.tumblr.com/">http://therealshequeen.tumblr.com/</a> on 17 April 2012.) </div>Shelagh McKinlayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12109135739554833294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-449046747261724339.post-71794780698514585122012-04-26T06:48:00.002-07:002012-04-26T06:54:23.700-07:00Leveson Inquiry: The Tale of Mr MurdochIf you have been living under a stone, in a cave, on a planet far, far away, you may not have heard of the Leveson Inquiry. If you have been doing all those things you are clearly a very odd person and I'm not sure I want to address my remarks to you so, let's assume that you <i>have</i> heard of the Leveson Inquiry.<br />
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Today and yesterday the star witness was Mr Rupert Murdoch octagenarian antipodean and bazillionaire.<br />
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The transcript of his evidence session will be posted shortly on the Leveson inquiry website, but if you really can't wait I've posted my own version, that I just totally made up, below:<br />
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<i>Counsel to the Leveson Inquiry (QC)</i>: Good morning Mr Murdoch. Thank you for attending. Would you like to make an opening statement?<br />
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<i>Rupert Murdoch (RM):</i> Well that's very kind of you young man. I do so enjoy these little trips, sometimes we go to see the ducks in the park, but not on a Tuesday. No. Tuesdays the vicar comes. Terrible man, dreadful bore. He might be a pervert. You can never tell. In days gone by some Sunday newspaper would have done him over but they're all in the doldrums these days. It's very sad. I know they say there was some rum stuff going on with secret tape recorders and whatnot, all that kind of thing, you know? They make it out to be worse than it was sometimes I think because they are jealous, especially the BBC.<br />
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No, not really. That was a joke. I always was interested in the BBC, but merely as an issue of the day, do you see? There was never anymore in it than that. I knew I was wasting my time anyway, everyone likes Richard Attenborough better than me. Sit around with a few mangy gorillas and you're a national hero, crush the print unions, all of a sudden you're a bad guy.<br />
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But that's how the cookie crumbles I guess. All those Prime Ministers, Blair, Thatcher, Asquith and so on, we were never as close as people say. I never wanted to make love to them, not dressed as a porcupine or anything else for that matter. If I did say that I must have been drunk, or they were. It was a light-hearted remark. It wasn't supposed to be taken as a threat. But anyway, Sunday newspapers, they were fun while they lasted but what happened was wrong, I know that now possums, my darlings.<br />
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As for the future, well I worry that in ten years time we'll all be wearing jet packs and eating roast beef flavoured tablets. Don't you? Like these smart telephones. You can talk to people on the other side of the world? Would you believe it possums? That's where the future lies.<br />
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That and those over-arm tidies you get for the sofa where you keep all the TV controls. They're going to revolutionise this industry. You just hang them over the chair and you keep all kinds of things in there. Your glasses, peppermints, the Radio Times if you're a goddam communist and believe in such things. Do you see? That's my take it on anyway, my darlings. Would you like a peppermint? No? Quite right, you shouldn't take sweets from strangers. Thank- you my darlings.<br />
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Is this thing off? Do you think they bought it?"<br />
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<br />Shelagh McKinlayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12109135739554833294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-449046747261724339.post-6912039583840712652012-03-16T11:31:00.043-07:002012-03-18T05:22:45.702-07:00The 10 Signs You May be Turning Into Your MotherThere are many milestones in romantic relationships. The first kiss, the first time you say "I love you", the first time you go ahead and just yawn right in your partner's face when they're going on and on about how Lesley at work eats that rank salad and worries at her hairline with a compass. <div style="font-style: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-style: normal; ">One of the key relationship moments for any woman though is when, in the middle of a heated exchange, she first hears the words, "You're turning into your MOTHER." Oddly, even if one's mother is a cross between Marie Curie, Livvy Walton and Carmen Electra, this is rarely seen as a compliment. </div><div style="font-style: normal; "><br /></div><div>But, heaven forfend, what if it's true? What if we are turning into our mothers? So before you take the pinking shears to his "Q" magazine collection, take a long hard look at my helpful list which sets out the top 10 signs that you <i>may</i> be turning into your mother. </div><div style="font-style: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-style: normal; ">1. When you open your mouth your mother's voice comes out. </div><div style="font-style: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-style: normal; ">2. When you put on a swimsuit your mother's thighs come out. </div><div style="font-style: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-style: normal; ">3. Before you go on holiday you decide to keep your jewellery safe by burying it in the garden, marking it with a large stone. Or rather you get your husband to do it. You disapprove of your husband's choice of stone, worrying that it is too similar to other stones in the garden. You ask your husband to find a more distinctive stone. The stone is too distinctive. You work your way through every stone in the garden, or rather your husband does, before you finally settle on a half brick which you arrange casually on top of some dead leaves. You still <span style="font-size: 100%; ">worry that the hiding place is too obvious. You worry loudly and often on the 14 hour car journey. </span></div><div style="font-style: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-style: normal; ">4. You start making gifts of packets of mince to dinner party hosts because it was such a bargain, and everyone likes mince. Well, not the vegetarian couple from choir, but it'll freeze in case they change their minds. </div><div style="font-style: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-style: normal; ">5. You have a cavernous drawer of emergency presents and cards for all occasions. Births, deaths, marriages, moving house, driving tests. You also have blank ones with daffodils which can do at a pinch for Easter, divorce or a minor criminal conviction. </div><div style="font-style: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-style: normal; ">6. You engage the Scouts packing the bags at Sainsbury's in conversation. You tell them about your husband being in the Boys Brigade and sing "Will Your Anchor Hold in the Storm of Life" at full belt. You give them a donation, but you do not let them pack the bag. </div><div style="font-style: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-style: normal; ">7. One day, you come home late from work to be greeted by his nibs asleep in front of the Tour de France, 500 pairs of freakishly gigantic putrid trainers in the hall and an empty bucket of KFC. You go postal and tell everyone you are running away. To, to, to, to, er, to ROME YOU SELFISH BUNCH OF SH*TS! You pack a bag full of evening wear and your best bra. You get as far as North Berwick where you go for a pizza and get hammered in your room in a nice B and B. </div><div style="font-style: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-style: normal; ">8. You sigh loudly and roll your eyes whenever your partner speaks, you mock him mercilessly when he is unwell and you behave like a martyr over taking the kids to judo. Oh no, hang on, you don't, because you're not a total cow, your partner is a nice, thoughtful, reasonably stoic man and life is not a Boots advert. Thank Christ. </div><div style="font-style: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-style: normal; ">9. When you see someone you know down the High St who has been going through a rough time you do not pull your jumper over your head and hide in a doorway. Rather you smile and ask them how they are and if there is anything you can do, because you now realise that life's too short and it's really not about you. </div><div style="font-style: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-style: normal; ">10. I don't really have a 10. Anyway, this list is indicative only. Maybe your mother doesn't do any of this stuff. Actually, mine doesn't do most of it either. Mothers are not some homogeneous bunch of clones who think and act alike. (Note to advertisers, if you mention Zumba or cupcakes one more time I will hunt you down. I will hunt you down and string you up by the Bubles.) </div><div style="font-style: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-style: normal; ">Hopefully what most mothers do have in common is that they love their kids, they love them literally more than life itself. So that when the waves come crashing down, your mother will fight till her last breath to keep your head above water and she will do it willingly and with love in her heart. </div><div style="font-style: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-style: normal; "><br /></div>Shelagh McKinlayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12109135739554833294noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-449046747261724339.post-82211992812918313052012-03-13T04:21:00.027-07:002012-03-13T13:38:35.242-07:00If It's Time to Leave the Party, It's Time to Leave the HouseThe Scottish Labour MP Eric Joyce yesterday resigned from the Labour Party after pleading guilty to assaulting four people in a House of Commons bar last month. Speaking in the House, Mr Joyce apologised unreservedly for his conduct which he said; "fell egregiously below what is required for a member of this House, or indeed anyone anywhere." <div style="font-style: normal; "><br /></div><div><div style="font-style: normal; "><span style="font-size: 100%; ">Mr Joyce has also, however, made it clear that he intends to stay on as the MP for Falkirk until the end of this parliamentary session in 2015. </span><span style="font-size: 100%; ">Interviewed on STV's "<a href="http://bit.ly/AkJO3H">Scotland Tonight</a>" programme last night he stated; "I was elected for a full term and that's exactly what I'll serve." He went on; "</span><span style="font-size: 100%; ">It's not the easiest thing in the wake of what I personally did two weeks ago... but the simple fact is that I have an obligation to serve out the full term and I will." </span></div><div><div style="font-style: normal; "><br /></div><div>So, if I've got this straight, Mr Joyce has been judged unfit to represent his party, but is still fit to represent his constituents. <span style="font-size: 100%; ">Am I missing something, or is that not <i>utterly</i> disrespectful to the people of Falkirk? </span></div><div style="font-style: normal; "><span style="font-size: 100%; "><br /></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; "><span style="font-size: 100%; ">This is where seasoned political types shrug their shoulders and say;"Oh well, it's in the grand tradition of making one last sacrifice for the party by </span><span style="font-size: 100%; ">not triggering a by-election which you might lose." </span></div><div style="font-style: normal; "><span style="font-size: 100%; "><br /></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; "><span style="font-size: 100%; ">As if that makes it okay. Well it doesn't. </span><span style="font-size: 100%; ">"It was ever thus," might be a statement of fact, but it doesn't constitute a compelling argument in favour of the status quo. </span></div><div style="font-style: normal; "><span style="font-size: 100%; "><br /></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; "><span style="font-size: 100%; ">Also on Scotland Tonight, </span><span style="font-size: 100%; ">the political columnist Ian MacWhirter stated that Labour sources had reportedly commented "Better a nutter than a Nat." </span><span style="font-size: 100%; ">If that is an accurate summation of the Labour party's attitude to this issue, then the contempt it shows for voters is shocking.</span></div><div style="font-style: normal; "><span style="font-size: 100%; "><br /></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; "><span style="font-size: 100%; ">I would be very happy to give due recognition to the official Labour party view on Mr Joyce's decision not to stand down as an MP, but I have been unable to find it. </span><span style="font-size: 100%; ">Prior to Mr Joyce's conviction, Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont stated that she thought he was unfit to stand for the Labour Party. Also prior to his conviction, the local Falkirk Labour Party said that if the allegations against him were proven they expected him to "do the right thing." But, to my knowledge, a statement from the Labour Party calling on Eric Joyce to resign as an MP has been conspicuous by its absence. </span></div><div style="font-style: normal; "><span style="font-size: 100%; "><br /></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; "><span style="font-size: 100%; ">Their silence is in marked contrast to their swift reaction in suspending Mr Joyce on his arrest and, indeed, the readiness of Labour figures to comment in advance of the trial. (<a href="http://www.heraldscotland.com/mobile/politics/in-depth/no-way-back.1330225495?_=292c7ebb82651f1977f19458c30a3bee33c808d7">This piece</a> by Tom Gordon of The Herald is pretty jaw dropping in the extent to which Mr Joyce's Labour colleagues were willing to go on record about his weaknesses.) </span></div><div style="font-style: normal; "><span style="font-size: 100%; "><br /></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; ">The whole affair is depressing and infuriating on many levels. Despite the seriousness of the offences, I have sympathy for Mr Joyce on a personal level. I also have huge sympathy for his family who must have been through hell in recent weeks. </div><div style="font-style: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-style: normal; ">But I am horrified that he and his former party, seem to think it is acceptable to put narrow party interest before principle. <span style="font-size: 100%; ">How can it be that you are unworthy of membership of the Labour Party, but you continue to be worthy of the trust and support of the community which elected you?</span><span style="font-size: 100%; "> Why should the people of Falkirk be expected to make do with a politician whose own party regards him as damaged goods? If this doesn't reflect the Labour Party view, why don't they call on him to resign?</span></div><div style="font-style: normal; "><span style="font-size: 100%; "> </span></div><div style="font-style: normal; "><span style="font-size: 100%; "><br /></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; "><span style="font-size: 100%; ">What is it going to take for our politicians to realise that they cannot keep treating the electoral system like their own private property? I understand that it may be good for the Labour party to avoid a by-election in the near future. But frankly I'm not interested in what's good for the Labour party. I'm interested in what's right. I imagine that goes for many allegedly sought after floating voters, of which I am one. </span></div><div style="font-style: normal; "><span style="font-size: 100%; "><br /></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; "><span style="font-size: 100%; ">We have come to a very dangerous point when our political leaders seem to be serially unable to grasp the extent of the electorate's disenchantment with politics. Despite my whining and moaning in this post, I spend most of my time trying to enthuse people about democracy and defending politicians from the familiar charge that they're all in it for themsleves, or they're all as bad as each other. And then they go and do something like this and frankly I feel like a prize bloody chump. </span></div><div style="font-style: normal; "><span style="font-size: 100%; "><br /></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; ">Mr Joyce wound up last night's interview by saying, "<span style="font-size: 100%; ">It's easy to sound terribly over idealistic about it, but I am gripped by a sense of public service and I will continue to serve through to 2015." Talk about devaluing the currency. Mr Joyce may be sincere in his view but I doubt he'd find very many supporters on the streets of Falkirk. </span></div><div style="font-style: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-style: normal; "><br /></div></div></div>Shelagh McKinlayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12109135739554833294noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-449046747261724339.post-61374090907690175592012-03-08T03:40:00.024-08:002012-03-08T09:50:32.980-08:00Bravo for Bosoms or "It Takes All Sorts"It's not very often we get excited about the mail in our household. Bills, pizza leaflets, community council newsletters about the lethal front step at the Post Office. Not stuff to set the pulse racing, to be honest. <div><br /></div><div>There is one exception though. Every couple of months I get the new <a href="http://www.bravissimo.com/">Bravissimo</a> catalogue. For those of you not familiar with this great institution, Bravissimo is a firm which sells women's underwear. Its speciality is bras for ladies with a fuller bust. </div><div><br /></div><div>Its arrival is always greeted with delight, particularly by my husband who falls upon it like a long lost friend, settling onto the sofa and reverently smoothing the pages as he nibbles delicately at a ginger nut. <span style="font-size: 100%; ">This is usually accompanied by wistful sighing in the manner of <a href="http://www.suetownsend.co.uk/adrian-mole">Adrian Mole'</a>s Dad admiring his neighbour Mrs Singh's pretty saris. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: 100%; "><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: 100%; ">I get pretty wistful over it too, mainly because it highlights the poverty of my own underwear collection. <a href="http://theabsurdistshequeen.blogspot.com/2011/10/secrets-of-long-term-love.html">I have blogged before </a>about how one of the consequences of being in a long term relationship is that your foundation garments hanging on the washing line begin to resemble dead moles on a fence. Flicking through the Bravissimo catalogue brings me into contact with a way of life I have only ever heard about in the movies. Green bras, orange bras, jungle print bras with mauve trim. I feel like a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morlock">Morlock</a> that's stumbled across the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eloi">Eloi</a> picnicking in their smalls. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: 100%; "><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: 100%; ">I'm not entirely sure where this Calvinist (no pun intended) streak about underwear comes from. It may be something to do with the fact that for many years, my choice of bra was extremely limited blessed, or perhaps burdened, as I am with a large bosom. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: 100%; "><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: 100%; ">This wasn't always the case. In my teens my chest could have been described as fair to middling in size. It was possible for example to go out bra-less without closing major routes to non-essential traffic. But then I went to University and drank too much beer and ate too much pizza, and properly matured and then I got pregnant and the result was a bosom like the Hindenberg. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: 100%; "><br /></span></div><div>Having seen photos of me when I was younger, my daughter is fascinated by the change in my chest. "Where were they before again Mum? Show me. Up about here?" She also finds it hilarious when a feeble bra fails in its duty and one breast lists to port and the other to starboard, like a boss-eyed sailor.</div><div><br /></div><div>Fashion can be difficult when you have a big chest. Anything with a shawl collar for example makes me look like I am smuggling asylum seekers. Passers-by look down expecting to see several pairs of feet sticking out from under my coat. Frills make me a dead ringer for the dowager from a Marx Brothers' movie. Either that or <a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-j7JC9On2ZHg/SQSFNdVQ-5I/AAAAAAAAAFE/JXrY5D3eqxA/100_6170.JPG">Maw Broon</a>. </div><div><br /></div><div>And coming full circle, there is the problem of finding underwear to fit. Years ago, I flirted briefly with a padded bra. The madness of this is akin to the Michelin man buying a puffa jacket. When discarded it stood proud like the dwelling of some ancient pygmy race. My then five year old nephew saw one once and simply cried, "WHAT IS THAT!?!" eyes wide in terror. </div><div><span style="font-size: 100%; "><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: 100%; ">I remember going to be measured for a bra when I was pregnant. The sales assistant sucked her teeth, pursed her lips, raised her eyebrows and said, "We've only one that'll do for you dear. It's called the "Doreen". Of course I cried. Wouldn't you? </span></div><div><span style="font-size: 100%; "><br /></span></div><div>It's at times like this that it is tempting to hate one's bosom, a more common state of affairs than you might imagine . <span style="font-size: 100%; ">Breasts are perhaps the most obvious outward signs of our femaleness and, as such, I think how we feel about them is quite important. It is a shame therefore that m</span><span style="font-size: 100%; ">any women feel their breasts are too big, or too small, or too low, or too round or not round enough. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: 100%; "><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: 100%; ">I'd say that, where bosoms are concerned, it takes all sorts. Breasts are as individual as the women they belong to. Why should we want them all to look the same? There is no more reason for us to have identical breasts than to have identical faces. You may have a whispered hint of a bosom or a rather more "out there" pair, either way, basically, it's fine. I'm just glad that nowadays I can find a bra that fits. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: 100%; "><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: 100%; "><br /></span></div>Shelagh McKinlayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12109135739554833294noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-449046747261724339.post-18092290960460363532012-01-25T11:32:00.000-08:002012-01-26T13:54:18.860-08:00My Gran, Stories and Me<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1fMIc0lFW-YA5b9jitrI2z-6mn94V_l1GmoA9lsx7edsyo15pKxPfK20N3OqgkwAUCGblzofWCtD3prWItwa5LP3dS9-9pLgiOD7U8BJkwplzQPsT10e79HWyzPrUm-hHz4PR5MOtXLkt/s1600/gran+smiling+in+flowery+dress.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1fMIc0lFW-YA5b9jitrI2z-6mn94V_l1GmoA9lsx7edsyo15pKxPfK20N3OqgkwAUCGblzofWCtD3prWItwa5LP3dS9-9pLgiOD7U8BJkwplzQPsT10e79HWyzPrUm-hHz4PR5MOtXLkt/s200/gran+smiling+in+flowery+dress.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5702062356125720770" /></a><br /><i>A few days ago I was looking at some old family photos and came across some pictures of my maternal Grandmother, my Gran. I idly posted some messages on Twitter about my memories of her and suddenly, for the first time in a long time, I really missed her and wished that I could see her again. </i><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>Some people on Twitter sent lovely messages, sharing memories of their own grandparents and a few said "You should write a blog about her", so I have. </i><i>I am sure there will be mistakes and omissions in this post. Some stories will be half-remembered or perhaps embellished a little - but you don't have to know everything about a person to love them or cherish their memory.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Christened Jane, though most folk called her Jean, she was born in 1908 in Ayr, birthplace of Rabbie Burns. She was one of 9 children; 8 girls (Annie, Belle, Agnes, Jenny, Mima, Alexandra, and Bessie) and a boy (David) . She came somewhere around the middle. Her father was the trainer of Ayr United Football club and they made ends meet as families did in those days, with Sunday shoes a luxury and dolls conjured from wooden spoons and dishrags. </div><div><br /></div><div>She was around 60 when I was born. She and my Papa lived in a small brick "corporation" bungalow in Ayr, with an immaculate garden full of roses. Gran would sometimes set a bowl of water with rose petals in it near a radiator or the fire and the sweet, dusky smell of roses reminds me of her.</div><div><br /></div><div>She always wore dresses - never trousers, rarely a skirt and blouse that I remember - shift dresses or "shirt-waisters" in strong colours with strings of sparkly crystal beads that you now find in trendy vintage clothes shops. She wore cardigans, with a hanky tucked in the pocket or up a sleeve. She had horn-rimmed glasses which made her big hazel eyes even bigger. When she died I asked if I could have her glasses and they are still tucked away somewhere in our attic, several pairs all the same with their blue-ish rims. </div><div><br /></div><div>I never saw her dance, nor wear a swimsuit. The swimming pool was "the baths" and the beach "the shore". She never swam (I don't know if she could) but sat on the tartan rug ready to wrap you in a towel and provide a "chittery bite" to stave off the cold. </div><div><br /></div><div>She had arthritis and when we went for a run in the car we would stop and pick sheeps' wool from the barbed wire fences which she would wash and use to cushion her painfully twisted toes. She wore sturdy girdles with suspenders attached and sometimes I would have to help her with them because her poor sore hands couldn't manage the fastenings. I think my Mum sometimes found her weeping silently with the pain, but I don't ever remember seeing her cry. </div><div><br /></div><div>She was a wonderful cook, not a great baker, but a magician with savoury treats. She cooked sweetbreads and ham hough and boiled ox's tongue. She also made legendary creme caramel, sometimes equalled but never bettered in any restaurant kitchen. The kitchen and pantry had grey slate flagstones and for special occasions she would stand at the kitchen counter and make elegant curls or balls of butter with two wooden pats.</div><div><br /></div><div>She was very particular about table manners and always used good linen, which was folded away in the sitting room sideboard, where a green glass box full of stamps sat next to a little square of mirrored tiles and a china figurine of an old beggar lady. Out in the hall there was a thin red runner bordered by lino which was excellent for marbles, though sometimes we got in trouble for the racket they made. </div><div><br /></div><div>The beds were old fashioned, probably just a cut above utility and had blankets and candlewicks or old fashioned satin eiderdowns. On cold nights there were stone hot water bottles, wrapped in towels, to warm the sheets. Pink fabric lampshades with ruffled rims were clipped to the headboard for reading in bed. </div><div><br /></div><div>The bedroom was papered with hunting scenes and in front of the window was a dressing table with three hinged mirrors on the top. I would move the little cut glass tray with candlesticks and trinket pots which sat on top and close the mirrors around my face, till it was reflected into eternity like Rita Hayworth in "The Lady from Shanghai". Sometimes, I would try to make myself cry to see what it looked like. Nothing about the house was unusual, yet many objects in it always had a certain exoticism, perhaps because they were of the past, part of a world that was tantalisingly out of reach. </div><div><br /></div><div>Because the house was small, I often slept in the double bed with Gran and in the mornings my brothers and I would get a story, quarters of orange sprinkled with sugar and, sometimes, a "Black Magic" chocolate. Trying to recall her face as it really was is difficult of course, frustrated by the insistent images of photographs which drain life from the original. The nearest I get to recapturing her true image is when I picture her telling us a story, her eyes wide and mischief in her smile.</div><div><br /></div><div>She told wonderful stories, mix and match fairy tales where Cinderella would climb the beanstalk and discover seven dwarves and the heroines were cheeky and resourceful and often told the princes "Thanks, but no thanks" at the end. She liked gory stories too. She would tell us of the man who loved to eat pigs' trotters and who one day, ate and ate and ate till he could eat no more only discovering as he got up from the table that HE HAD EATEN HIS OWN HAND! (I think it took me till I was about 13 to work out that this couldn't possibly have been true.) </div><div><br /></div><div>She bought us wonderful children's books. I often wonder how and why she picked them. They were rather out of the ordinary for the time I think, though many are now classics. "Madeline" of course with her unruly nature and ruptured appendix, lots of books by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Duvoisin">Roger Duvoisin</a>, "The Happy Lion", "Petunia" and "Veronica's Smile". The one I loved best was "<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/802348.Anatole">Anatole"</a>, about an honourable mouse who saves the Duvall Cheese factory with his exquisite palate ("good""not so good" "needs orange peel".) When I was a bit older my favourite was "<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0012ZSZNQ/">Cuckoo Cherry Tree</a>", a book of dark fairy tales by <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jun/17/diaries-little-grey-rabbit-uttley">Alison Uttley </a>. </div><div><br /></div><div>My Gran was clever at school and excelled at English. On her last day at school she ran home eager to tell her parents that her teacher wanted her to apply for a bursary to attend Grammar school, but her mother told her firmly, "Jane, I've got you a place", a place in service and she started work as a maid the next day. </div><div><br /></div><div>After she died my Mum found scraps of paper scattered around the house with fragments of remembered poetry, and the beginnings of stories written in Gran's spidery hand. In another time would she have made more of her love of language? Who knows. Her life didn't lend itself to periods of introspection. </div><div><br /></div><div>After the war she took in lodgers and with the profits she rented a sweet shop. She made a decent enough go of that and wanted to buy a guest house, but my Papa wouldn't sign the mortgage papers. He didn't refuse out of malice, he was just a working class man of his generation who didn't believe in taking on debt.My Gran took the money and booked a long holiday on the continent, travelling to France and Italy with my Mum and Aunt, an exceptionally rare experience for women like them at that time. </div><div><br /></div><div>She was a strong woman who knew her own mind and wasn't afraid to speak it. She had a temper and a sharp tongue and was prone to feuds with the local butcher, being barred on more than one occasion when she questioned the provenance, or cost, or something of his ham bones. She liked to watch the wrestling and would shout "Bite his bum! Bite his bum!" before letting out a throaty chuckle, eyes wide again in mock horror behind the blue-rimmed specs. She had her secrets, some of which I know but even now wouldn't share, because they're not my secrets to tell. </div><div><br /></div><div>She died of pancreatic cancer in her early 70's, her hair still almost jet black with just a few strands of grey. After she died my Mum says a that a strange black cat with a smattering of grey hairs suddenly appeared in our garden. It would sit and watch my Mum hang out the washing or tidy the weeds. After a few weeks it disappeared as suddenly as it came. Perhaps it was my Gran's familiar, perhaps not. It's a good story, one she would have liked. </div><div><br /></div><div>My parents live close to us and see my daughter often, more regularly than I saw my Gran. Sometimes she will stay with them and we will get a phone call from the three of them giggling like naughty schoolchildren in the queue for sweets at the cinema or in the toy shop. Sometimes I would come home from work in the dark and see them dancing in the lit sitting-room window. Sometimes I see glimpses of my Gran in my Mum, and my Dad will look at me when I am being <a href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/thrawn">thrawn</a> and say "Aye, your Gran'll never be deid." </div><div><br /></div><div>She is not here anymore, but she has left her mark, part of herself, atomised in her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, not just in her blood, it's not that simple, but in the memories we share and the stories we tell. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Shelagh McKinlayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12109135739554833294noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-449046747261724339.post-17210097169145196782012-01-06T08:23:00.000-08:002012-01-06T12:54:42.445-08:00Memories are Made of er, SomethingContender for most depressing news of the day is that apparently our brains start to deteriorate from as young as 45 - 15 years earlier than previously thought. According to a study in the on-line version of the BMJ, memory, reasoning and comprehension skills all tend to get worse as we enter middle age. <div><br /></div><div>Well, tell me something I don't know. No, please. Tell me. Especially given that the list of things I don't know grows by the day; passwords, the name of my Primary 3 teacher, what happened at the end of "Moonlighting". </div><div><br /></div><div>I have known for some time that fings ain't wot they used to be in the brain department. I'm not quite at the stage of wafting down the street in my nightgown, trilling "We'll Gather Lilacs", but there are days when I've got one foot out the door. </div><div><br /></div><div>I've never had a particularly good memory. Not for events at least. My memory seems to resist a linear narrative in favour of a jumble of split second recollections, lightning flashes of past moments, untouched by troublesome context. My brother will say "Oh, that was the day Gran had the fight with the butcher. I got a comic and you were sick on Mum's shoes." To which, despite entirely useless and annoying promptings, I will reply, "I don't remember." I really don't. I have no memory for like, what actually happened or stuff. I just remember my Mum had nice shoes. </div><div><br /></div><div>My memories are of picking the hot tarmac out of the pavement, or the rustling wrapping of the sweets I stole from the secret drawer in the dressing table. Basically my memory is all "Don't trouble me with the facts, dude." </div><div><br /></div><div>I also have no memory for lyrics or quotations. All I remember from four years of English Lit is that old perv John Donne going on about a "hairy diadem". I did however have startling powers of recall where conversations or jokes were concerned. Like a choir master with perfect pitch auditioning a tone deaf school boy, I would wince as some poor soul mangled the punchline to a juicy story. No longer. </div><div><br /></div><div>Sadly, it is my facility with the spoken word that seems to be showing the most wear and tear. I used to roam the sunlit uplands of language at will, merrily vaulting symbolic stiles and fording rivers of simile. Now I need a good mental run up to the minor incline of a longish sentence, before collapsing in the heather of an over-extended metaphor like this one.</div><div><br /></div><div>That terrible feeling of the wheels grinding slowly, click, click, click, till the brain at last shudders to a halt at the right word and the tongue falls weeping on the required phrase, "Yes! I would like a BANANA!" Banana! It is a BANANA! Joy to the world! We are saved!</div><div><br /></div><div>No wonder I seek out the company of fellow peri-menopausal women: women who point dumbly at the sky like a UFO obsessive because they have forgotten the word for cloud; or who are reduced to miming "scorching case of thrush" to the practice nurse while they make a phone call on their purse.</div><div><br /></div><div>All of which makes me realise that I don't think I hear men talk about their "senior moments". Certainly not as often as women do. Is it because they don't have to contend with that spot of hormonal bother? Or do they simply like to keep their linguistic and other mental deficiencies to themselves? Perhaps their brains get more regular exercise from rehearsing the scores of decades of international football matches? </div><div><br /></div><div>Perhaps we women are too hard on ourselves. As I keep telling my daughter as she rolls her eyes at yet another instance of my mental infirmity, "Everybody remembers what I forget, but you forget what I remember." Great swathes of dull domestic family life still fall on women's shoulders and it's not the kind of stuff that anyone wants to hear about. I could drag you to the pub to chew the fat about what went in this week's lunch boxes, but why bother when we could pour bleach in our eyes? (Plus, I can't remember.) </div><div><br /></div><div>I do miss the mental athleticism of my youth, just like I miss a 24 inch waist or my real hair colour. But where does that get me? The solution is big pants, a bottle of hair dye and er, something else. </div>Shelagh McKinlayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12109135739554833294noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-449046747261724339.post-36816505347895227872011-11-20T11:37:00.000-08:002011-11-29T12:03:37.240-08:00Dressed to Impress? Or Dressed for Distress?Being a woman of a certain age, it is not all that often that you will find me loitering in a taxi queue in the wee small hours. I have a very active social life but most of it is conducted on my sofa, or friends' sofas, or on Twitter, where you can eat too much and undo your trouser buttons without risk of arrest. <div><br /></div><div>If I do venture into town, I usually make a point of getting home before chucking out time, when young people start humping lampposts and throwing themselves into the traffic. <div><br /></div><div>But the past couple of Saturdays I was out and about till well past pub closing time and found myself, on my tod, stuck in a taxi queue due to wearing stupidly high, spindly, cheap heels that made walking home an impossible dream. (Imagine shoes made of jay cloths, sequins and twigs and you're in the right ball park. )</div><div><br /></div><div>Cursing my idiotic footwear and coveting the chips of passers-by could only hold my attention for so long and, eventually, I got round to examining the fashion choices of my fellow revellers. Particularly the young women. And what an eye-popping sight it was. </div><div><br /></div><div>When I was in my 20's, my flatmates and I would sometimes drink too much wine and then, for a laugh, put on our thermal vests, big pants and our one pair of court shoes and jump around the sitting-room to the theme from <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKdMILd5btk&feature=fvsr">Wonder Woman</a>. ("All the world is waiting for you, and the power you possess! In your satin tights, fighting for your rights, And the old Red, White and Blue!!) </div><div><br /></div><div>Remarkably, it seemed that the attire of the young women in the taxi-queue had been inspired by just such a scene. (Although, unfortunately, without the super hero vibe). </div><div><br /></div><div>Next to me stood a shivering girl clad in a medium-sized Lakeland piping bag, her lady lumps oozing out of it like fondant icing with goose bumps. Her friend wore microscopic denim hot-pants and a halter neck top only just visible to the naked eye. They were both shod in a nest of tables strapped to their feet with dental floss. Or near enough.<br /><br />Wincing like The Little Mermaid at every step, looking for all the world like they had been hobbled by Kathy Bates in "Misery", their "look" was more "physio appointment" than "sexy time".<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>I am cringing slightly as I write this, because I am conscious that I sound like a snooty old crone. Am I the equivalent of the Victorian dowager nursing her hump and necking the laudanum at the sight of a finely turned ankle? Or the 1950's gynaecologist sneering "harlot" at the sight of a painted toe-nail? Maybe. Sometimes it's hard to tell. I'm a good twenty years older than the young women I'm talking about and perhaps I am, quite simply, out of touch. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'm not setting myself up as fashion expert, which is just as well since I am mostly channelling Rip Van Winkle in Wallis party wear. It's not really about fashion.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>My beef with the flesh on show is not that these young women were dressing provocatively. If they been enjoying their sexual power, reveling in the male gaze they attracted, then bloody good luck to them. But they weren't. They were cold, uncomfortable, self-conscious and clearly frankly bloody miserable. To be perfectly honest, it was a bit distressing.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>The sad irony is that for many young women, dressing like a porn star seems to have become synonymous with sexual liberation. But it's not liberating if you're dressing that way because you feel like you have to. Just like it's not liberating to flash your boobs on Spring Break because you want a cheer from the guys. I weep that empowerment has come to mean shoes that make you bleed and bad sex in the loo of a "fun" pub in Magaluf. (If these girls are having earth shattering orgasms in these two minute couplings, I'm Eva Peron. )<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>I appreciate I'm hardly the first person to have commented on the mainstreaming of sex industry aesthetics. (See of course most recently Caitlin Moran's fantastic "How to be a Woman".) But some things bear repeating. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'm not suggesting that young women shouldn't have sex. If they're old enough and mature enough to be having good, safe sex, then carry on, knock yourself out. I'm just sorry that some feel they have to be in a state of undress in order to "fit in."<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Of course it's not true for all women. Some young girls stumble through the forest of adolescence and choose the road to a fashion identity of skinny jeans, Converse and Breton tops. Why do some go that way and others aim for the land of Jordan? Is it related to self-esteem? Class? The rise of narcissism? I'm not sure that we know.</div><div><br /></div><div>I just know that it makes me sad to see young women reluctantly bound and trussed like prize turkeys in the name of being dressed to kill.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div><div><br /></div><div><div><br /></div></div>Shelagh McKinlayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12109135739554833294noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-449046747261724339.post-56629112546776734102011-11-02T07:10:00.000-07:002011-11-02T10:21:04.842-07:00How I Discovered FacebookLast week I discovered Facebook. I say "discovered", but I do not mean it in the sense that Christopher Columbus discovered America or Blind Date discovered Jenni Falconer. I mean that, approximately four years after having signed up for it, I actually started to use it. <div><br /></div><div>In some ways this was an odd decision since mostly I hear nothing but complaints about Facebook from people on <a href="http://theabsurdistshequeen.blogspot.com/2011/09/twitter-why-little-blue-bird-is-good.html">Twitter</a> - but that's a bit like Aldi slagging off LIDL and they're both pretty good actually, especially for mulled wine and esoteric biscuits - so I shrugged it off and took the plunge.</div><div><br /></div><div>I am aware that one or two of you may already be familiar with Facebook. (I learned my lesson a few months back when I thought I was blazing a trail with the cafes that have the sushi roundabout and drainpipe jeans. ) Still, for those of you who are not, here are my thoughts. </div><div><br /></div><div>My first tip is not to keep going on about how you have discovered Facebook, unless you also claim to have been in a coma. If you take this route you must prepare thoroughly. I decided that my last waking memory would be Darius singing Britney on Pop Idol, which doubled helpfully as my reason for falling into the coma. </div><div><br /></div><div>Also, do not be caught out by trick questions like poor Gordon Jackson in The Great Escape. If anyone mentions Gary Barlow, laugh loudly, puff your cheeks out and go cross-eyed before intoning "And he was never heard of again." </div><div><br /></div><div>But to the Facebook experience. At first it's a bit like being a new start in Minority Report with Tom Cruise. Pictures, words and invitations to join the Smurfs down at the Casino appear at random on the screen alongside adverts for haemorrhoids. The idea is that you then bat them around ineffectually like a dozy cat trying to catch a laser beam. </div><div><br /></div><div>This is mostly done via use of the "Like" button which tells the Captain of Facebook that the passengers have at least one functioning digit. (At least we hope it's a digit.) I was under the impression that the "Like" button also delivered a short electric shock to the person who had posted that picture of Halloween pumpkin erotica, but it turns out that was just wishful thinking. </div><div><br /></div><div>Sometimes a little box appears where people can chat with you and tell you all about their day, but personally I get enough of that at home, thanks. </div><div><br /></div><div>In a way though, all that stuff is a sideshow because your friends are what really matter. In order to maximise your enjoyment of Facebook, you should categorise your friends. This helps you to keep all the weirdos that you are friends with from knowing anything about you. </div><div><br /></div><div>You can use any categories you like, I started with "Snog, Marry, Avoid" but there was too much crossover between the three groups so I binned that one. I am currently using "Useful" and "No Use", which is working well.</div><div><br /></div><div>Friends are the best bit about Facebook, apart from friends of friends which is even better. For in Facebook's house there are many mansions and they are all full of ex-boyfriends gone to seed and that slut who sat in the second row at sociology lectures and is now a TV evangelist. </div><div><br /></div><div>In getting to know Facebook, it is important to understand that it is powered by an addictive mix of schadenfreude and sentiment. I don't understand how you can not find it fun to stare at your ex-schoolmates' wrinkles through a magnifying glass, before slapping your thigh in joy and ticking the "has not worn well" box on your spreadsheet. (Don't pretend you don't have one.)</div><div><br /></div><div>I secretly rather like the dreadful old photos actually. You are less likely to cry over your lost youth when you realise you spent most of your thirties looking utterly hellish. Take the pics of me in that khaki duffle coat that I thought made me look like Melanie Blatt, when really I looked like a homeless person. </div><div><br /></div><div>But leaving aside my dreadful narcissism for a moment, the photos are also just, well, nice I think. It's been great fun trawling through pictures of parties, dinners, days at the beach, christenings and weddings. Some of them I had missed, some of them I remember, some of them of course are happening as I type this. </div><div><br /></div><div>I know the novelty hasn't worn off yet, but at the moment I'm rather basking in the collective Facebook experience, wandering serenely through its pages like Kate Winslet being reunited with her chums at the end of Titanic. I don't intend to use it as a way of making new friends, but as a way of keeping up with old ones, of enhancing the dusty memories of our days in the sun, I like it.</div><div><br /></div>Shelagh McKinlayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12109135739554833294noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-449046747261724339.post-47248919982581705782011-10-13T09:16:00.001-07:002011-10-13T10:54:36.088-07:00The Joys of Middle AgeToday is my birthday, so I am writing a birthday blog. I wrote a birthday blog last year (<a href="http://theabsurdistshequeen.blogspot.com/2010/10/happy-birthday.html">here it is</a>) and have decided to make it an annual event, like Stephen Fry leaving Twitter. <div><br /></div><div>I am 44 years old. So far, being 44 is jolly nice. I even like the number itself. I like its symmetrical elegance. Also I rather like the fact that, being half of 88, it is properly middle-aged. Poor old middle-age gets rather a bad press, most unfairly in my view, so I've decided to rectify that by promoting just some of its many joys. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Invisibility </i></div><div>Many middle-aged people bemoan the fact that you become invisible - especially to younger members of the opposite sex. This is undeniably true, but I have always found it to be a great advantage when shoplifting in Abercrombie and Fitch. So, y'know, swings and roundabouts. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Reminiscing</i></div><div>I once heard a kid at a bus stop say " Primary 6 was the best year of my life. Apart from primary 7." Proof, if it were needed, that young people are rubbish at reminiscing. They just don't have the material. We have cremola foam, Raleigh choppers, "Poldark", the three day week, Wimpey Bars and punk. What do the young un's have? The Maastricht Treaty and combat trousers. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Wisdom </i></div><div>Probably the best known advantage of middle-age. Why only yesterday a workman passing by whistled loudly and shouted "Look at the wisdom on that!" At least I think he said wisdom. It might have been "arse" and he might have been pointing at the twenty year old blonde next to me. No matter, I think I've made my point. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Versatility </i></div><div>The advantage of having been around a bit is that you can turn your hand to most things. Plus your girdle makes an excellent temporary fan belt when you break down on the motorway. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Inner Resources </i></div><div>Young people seem to need to be constantly entertained. They lack the inner resources of the middle-aged who can find contentment in themselves or at the very least in idly doodling whiskers and a tail onto the liver spot on the back of their hand. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>The Element of Surprise </i></div><div>In the office I was one of those middle-aged working mums who sat in the corner in an ill-fitting suit from Next, typing like a maniac while picking lego out of my hair and whispering aggressively down the phone about mashed potato and ointment. What joy then to turn up at the office party in heels, lipstick and NASA engineered cleavage and regale the juniors with tales of being on the tour bus with Debbie Gibson, before drinking them under the table and cartwheeling off into the early dawn. </div><div><br /></div><div>Of course, if I'm honest, middle-age is not all beer and skittles, though there's a fair amount of both involved. The onset of physical decrepitude isn't always a barrel of laughs, and the lightness of being that settles on us in moments of pure happiness can be ever more fleeting. But middle-age still has many joys, chief among them that you're not dead yet, for which I remain eternally grateful. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Shelagh McKinlayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12109135739554833294noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-449046747261724339.post-48159769167064536402011-10-09T03:17:00.001-07:002011-10-09T03:19:20.251-07:0010 Things I Love<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQJDxPHgDQRiqX2gN_MiHbiqWbXkuVtnkSG87e6kDARg0wGg92ZdrpaA5B9qTuUU-mOcpAWGEUi9DTKNBlX__VuC_HB7RX0LH4AeF7IQ3IG9wsE0sUCXaWkB6ZUM3-38QisOHNbOMC63J0/s1600/tinycottage.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQJDxPHgDQRiqX2gN_MiHbiqWbXkuVtnkSG87e6kDARg0wGg92ZdrpaA5B9qTuUU-mOcpAWGEUi9DTKNBlX__VuC_HB7RX0LH4AeF7IQ3IG9wsE0sUCXaWkB6ZUM3-38QisOHNbOMC63J0/s200/tinycottage.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5661434715789829570" /></a><br />A while back I was tagged by the marvellous Betty Herbert, (@52Betty on Twitter) author of the equally marvellous blog, and now book, "<a href="http://bettyherbert.com/category/52-seductions/">The 52 Seductions</a>", to share 10 things I love. So here they are...<br /><span id="formatbar_Buttons" style="display: block; "><span class=" down" id="formatbar_CreateLink" title="Link" style="display: block; " onmouseover="ButtonHoverOn(this);" onmouseout="ButtonHoverOff(this);" onmouseup="" onmousedown="CheckFormatting(event);FormatbarButton('richeditorframe', this, 8);ButtonMouseDown(this);"><img src="http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif" alt="Link" class="gl_link" border="0" /></span></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic; ">Beaches (Not The Movie)</span><br />I grew up in a seaside village and I can't imagine not living within striking distance of the sea. I think I would get horribly claustrophobic. I love every kind of beach, sandy, rocky, grassy. I'm even rather fond of seaweed. I like to pop the mermaid's purses. My favourite beach is Saddell beach on the Kintyre Peninsula in Argyll. You can stay in little cottages right on the beach and, one day, I will.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; ">Disco </span><br />My musical education began with propping a Thorn tape recorder next to the radio to tape the Top 40. Probably my first criminal act. To be honest, my musical tastes have never developed much past that. I might <span style="font-style: italic; ">listen</span> to classical music, but if it's pop I want to<span style="font-style: italic; "> dance</span> and if I want to dance, it's disco. Do I even mean disco? Sometimes I might mean Carolina Beach Music, or funk or soul. Anyway, I don't mean boys in skinny jeans and low cut t-shirts exposing their wee concave chests. Bless. I mean something like <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pKlLUWFSjI">this..</a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; ">Telly</span><br />When I was younger I had lots of hobbies. I used to do canoeing and gymnastics and play the violin. But the only one that's really lasted has been watching telly. Want to sit on your own and cry into your Chablis? Watch the telly! Want to get really irate and shout at the Prime Minister? Watch the telly! Want to see Michael Portillo in a green satin shirt? Watch the telly! This wondrous sliver of shimmering dreams. This electronic encyclopedia of emotion. This shining citadel of learning, flickering in the corner of our lives. I love it.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; ">Bread and Butter</span><br />If I had to describe how happiness<span style="font-style: italic; "> felt</span> it would be the sensation of my teeth sinking into half an inch of butter on a thick doorstep of white freshly baked bread. I have a strange fantasy about sleeping in a bed made of bread. Can you imagine, cushioned on that pillowy softness, encased in the aroma of buttery crust. Oooh, I feel a bit peckish now...<br /><span style="font-style: italic; "><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; ">Ladybird Children's Books</span><br />"Her shoes were so wet that the water was running in at the toes and out at the heels." If I close my eyes and conjure up the princess in "The Princess and the Pea", the picture in my mind's eye is never my own. It is the illustration from the Ladybird book of the fairy tale published in the late 1960's. They are the technicolour MGM musicals of children's illustrations: princesses in wasp waisted primrose yellow dresses, millers' sons in open necked shirts and tight breeches. I still have them and when I take them out and look at them I can almost taste the Creamola Foam.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; ">Cushions and Shoes</span><br />I am calling this one thing under a notional heading of accessories. I love their infinite variety. If humans were not as wonderful as they are, someone would have invented the cushion and left it there; a bit of burlap sacking with some horsehair, Bob's your uncle. They'd have got as far as the hobnail boot and then gone to the pub. But they didn't. They took these mundane objects and looked beyond their function, they made them pretty and luxurious and funny and fetishistic and they don't half cheer me up some days.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; ">Democracy</span><br />I don't wake up every day and actively think "I LOVE DEMOCRACY!" but it's probably unlikely I'd be faffing around here thinking about shoes and cushions if it didn't exist. In my previous job I met elected members from Parliaments around the world, like the representatives from Oyo State in Nigeria, who had been besieged by gunmen in the Parliament shortly before their visit. They asked how politicians and officials were "made" to do things. Were they prosecuted? Were they put in jail? Well, we would say, it doesn't always work, but for the most part people just sort of, um, follow the rules. Boring, but also kind of magical really and certainly precious.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; ">My Daughter</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic; ">(and Everyone Else Who Knows Me, Or At Least The Ones I Like)</span><br />It's hard to say something here that won't make the non-parents throw up and the parents go "WE KNOW!", but I couldn't write this without including my daughter because she is the joy of my life and I adore her. Like millions before me it was a bit shocking to realise how much I loved my daughter, how fierce it is.<br /><br />I love my friends and other family too and I don't have to wash their clothes for them, which is nice.<br /><span style="font-style: italic; "><br />Large People Falling Over At Weddings</span><br />I don't mind a bit of witty banter but I'm really a slapstick merchant at heart. There's not much makes me laugh more than a sturdy middle aged man in tartan trews crashing full pelt into a trestle table. Unless it's a tented bridesmaid falling off a chair.Shelagh McKinlayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12109135739554833294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-449046747261724339.post-18393907401055375082011-10-07T05:18:00.000-07:002011-10-08T03:11:34.921-07:00The Secrets of Long Term LoveTwo good friends of mine just got engaged and I am quite delighted for them. It is lovely when two friends get together and they are two lovely friends so the whole thing, basically, could not be lovelier. <div><br /></div><div>I'm a bit of a softy at heart. I love weddings and try to be an exemplary guest. I agonise over gifts (or the price, certainly). I'm also one of those people who cries (especially if there is no free bar or late night buffet).</div><div><br /></div><div>Sometimes I do worry though, that young couples are not entirely prepared for the reality of long term love. Of course, it is now quite common for couples to live together for a while before they marry, or have a civil partnership, or decide to commit in the long term. But there is a big difference between two or three years of fondue parties with fellow young solicitors and proper, down in the trenches, blood and guts, toe-nail clippings on the armrest, long term love. </div><div><br /></div><div>So I have taken it upon myself to tell a few home truths. The first rule of long term love is that you have to discuss what is for tea EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. Reaching terms of agreement on beverages can also be a minefield. Particularly getting your partner to accept that placing the teabag in the cup the night before, "to save time in the morning", is an early sign of madness.</div><div><div><br /></div></div><div>It is also true that it is difficult to keep the romance alive. Delicate whisps of underwear dancing like snowflakes on the washing line, are replaced by sturdy cotton items resembling dead moles on a fence. The courtesy of only breaking wind in the garden is abandoned, to be replaced by a lift of the cheek and a cursory flap of the Radio Times. </div><div><br /></div><div>Bearing all of this in mind, I think it is best to approach long term love with low expectations. The key to this is to have a really crap wedding, or rather, have a great wedding but a really crap wedding night, since this best reflects later life when fun times are reserved for going out with your mates.</div><div><br /></div><div>A friend played a blinder in the crap wedding night department. She and the groom had their small reception in their flat, the idea being that they would slope off to a swanky hotel in the wee small hours. In the end they both got hammered and couldn't face the journey. </div><div><br /></div><div>My friend went to bed just as a food fight was breaking out and awoke some time later to find her husband climbing into bed, apparently coming down with something, so cold and clammy was his chest. But still, he also had a raging erection. The good news was that the cold and clammy chest was only a large slice of gammon stuck to his pecs, the bad news was that the erection turned out to be half a cucumber in his boxers. Shortly after, the door opened to reveal a sleepwalking male house guest who urinated on the bed. </div><div><br /></div><div>I rate this as an excellent introduction to long term love, particularly if having children is on the agenda. For the horrors of secret nose-picking, or tights worn two days in a row, pale into insignificance when you enter the long term love landscape of parenthood. </div><div><br /></div><div>For example, no-one tells you when you're exchanging rings that one day you will dress your concussed husband's head wound with a sanitary towel, before making him have disorientated sex with you, because you are ovulating. Or that he may be forced to take dictation for a shopping list that includes "nipple protectors" while you stand naked after your shower, blowdrying your episiotomy stitches.</div><div><br /></div><div>I imagine there are people in long term relationships reading this "tutting" and getting ready to launch into a lecture about how to keep long term love "fresh" as if it were a smelly armpit you were forced to sniff on the tube. </div><div><br /></div><div>I am not about to criticise them. I admire them, I really do. I am in awe of people who have date nights and won't let their wives see them in their curlers. I wish I were more like them, rather than being someone who shouts "OH, DRY YOUR EYES!" when my husband suggests that I might like to change out of my pyjamas in order to go to Homebase. </div><div><br /></div><div>And yet, and yet, there is also something very special about allowing one other person in your life to see you very far from your best. I'm not cut from the same cloth as I was 20 years ago. Not emotionally, and certainly not physically. If we want to be loved for who we really are, then surely that must admit the possibility of still being desirable with a crumpled face in last night's make-up.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm not advocating making no effort for your nearest and dearest, it's a bit disrespectful to say the least. But I also believe that true love has tenderness at its heart, and that tenderness does not require perfection. Thank God.</div><div><div><br /></div></div>Shelagh McKinlayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12109135739554833294noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-449046747261724339.post-4177414879344016112011-09-28T02:40:00.000-07:002011-09-28T14:03:31.812-07:00Twitter: Why the Little Blue Bird is GoodI had a lovely day yesterday. I spent most of it with Celia Pedroso, a travel journalist and food writer from Lisbon. We drank coffee, walked up Arthur's Seat, ate a scrummy lunch and generally had a fine time.<br /><br />Celia was put in touch with me by a mutual acquaintance, food writer and legendary Metro restaurant critic Marina O'Loughlin. "Fascinating, but what is your point caller?" I hear you cry. Well, rather oddly, I have never actually met Marina. I only know her through Twitter where she tweets under the name @MarinaMetro.<br /><br />And yet, there we were, Celia and I, two real life people chatting in the sunshine, brought together by a person I have only known as a series of 140 character tweets and a picture of a giant slug in horn-rimmed specs.<br /><br />I used to attempt to explain the attraction of Twitter to non-Tweeters, but no longer. Now I simply hang a sign round my neck saying "I use Twitter so, yes, I am a moron." It's less painful and does not distract me from getting quietly slaughtered while the conversation moves onto bunions and how much to spend on cheese at Christmas.<br /><br />The fact is Twitter is much like life. On Twitter there are good eggs, bad eggs, smelly eggs, clever eggs, sexy eggs, pompous eggs, an egg to suit every pocket really - as long as you're careful how you sit down. Also, just because the eggs are not <span style="font-style: italic;">actually</span> in your pocket, do not presume that they will not one day end up in a delicious real life egg sandwich. Are you following this? Thought not. In which case, read on. Or not.<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><br />Being on Twitter is a Substitute for Living Life </span><br /><br />An assumption often made by anti-Tweeters (let us call them "hostiles") is that relationships on Twitter are a substitute for bona-fide corporeal relationships.<br /><br />Fact 1: Tweeting does not render one incapable of texting, or hiding from the neighbours like a proper normal.<br /><br />Fact 2: I have friends in real life and I see and speak to them often. Sometimes even when, quite frankly, I really cannot be arsed.<br /><br />Fact 3: A cursory glance at my timeline shows that, miraculously, people who tweet can do other things as well. They work, they go to the theatre, they run, they read, they cook wonderful food, they walk up hills, they swim in the ocean, they care for ill relatives, they help out at school. Their lives are as rich and diverse as anyone else's. Clearly there are exceptions, like Piers Morgan, but they are in the minority.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Twitter Friends Are Not Like Real Friends </span><br /><br />Fact 4: I follow more than 600 people on Twitter and I'm not going to pretend that they are all bosom buddies. I am not about to invite the postman to dinner either, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have the odd exchange about the weather.<br /><br />Fact 5: Some Twitter friends become real life friends. I know because I have drunk wine, eaten cake, danced and laughed with them. I had mentally tacked a large "No Vacancies" sign to the "new friendships" part of my life. Twitter brought back a bit of the freewheeling attitude to friendships that I had when I was younger, when I was quite happy to have half-cut partial strangers arrive at the door in order to watch Vic and Bob and share a slevery bottle of Irn Bru.<br /><br />Fact 6: Sometimes, though perhaps rarely, you can develop a real friendship and fondness for people you have never met. I don't understand why people who think "84 Charing Cross Road" is charming and delightful refuse to believe that people can establish a genuine connection on Twitter.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">People Only Talk About Rubbish Like What they have for Breakfast</span><br /><br />Fact 7: Have you taken part in any real-life conversations of late? See my earlier point about bunions and cheese. I am as likely to talk crap in real life as I am on Twitter. In fact more likely because, like squeezing yourself into a tight party dress, you have to make a bit of an effort for 140 characters.<br /><br />Fact 8: For lazy toe-rags like me Twitter is heaven sent. It is like having the zeitgeist elves visit while you are sleeping. Tweets I have favourited send me to wonderful photographs of Victorian London, obscure Northern Soul recordings, the full text of political speeches, recommendations for books and films, copies of research and inquiry reports. As well as sites where you can draw stick men and watch kitttens ride on tortoises.<br /><br />I don't like everything about Twitter. There are times when a clash of "tone" makes it feel prettty uncomfortable - like going out for dinner and having the person next to you strip naked and sit on their lasagne, crying, while other diners are playing scrabble or trying to put a hat on a guinea pig.<br /><br />There are plenty of things about Twitter that irritate the hell out of me. The playground spats, the pack mentality, the displays of aggression and snide remarks. But, let's face it, walk down Princes St on a Saturday and you're bound to bump into one or two total and utter gits.<br /><br />Twitter can also be a bit exhausting. I think it may have been Greg Stekelman, aka @themanwhofell who said it's a bit like having an angry wasp in your brain. The knowledge that it's whirring away all day and all night, like a giant pedantic cocktail party can make it hard to switch off. But then, some people get addicted to Benylin.<br /><br />Sometimes I see myself from the outside, staring at a never ending stream of tiny people on my phone and think "The whole thing's bonkers." But I don't ever think, as its critics do, that it is a barrier to "real" experience.<br /><br />I've been thoroughly cheesed off and Twitter has lifted my mood, I've been happy as a clam and Twitter has made me happier. It has made me laugh, it has made me cry, it has patted me on the back and it has made me pull my socks up. Twitter is not the pinnacle of human achievement, but it's thought provoking and fun and I'm glad I found it.<br /><br />Twitter is what you make it, and what makes it are the people. You know who you are and I'm glad to have met you.Shelagh McKinlayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12109135739554833294noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-449046747261724339.post-13082335912051503812011-08-24T03:01:00.000-07:002011-08-26T09:10:50.462-07:00Raising My Heckles<div>I just love heckling. I cannot tell you how much I love it. It's almost as good as the thrill you get when you buy a jam doughnut and find two angry wasps in the bag.
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<br />So imagine my delight when I went to see a comedian the other evening and got treated to some top notch heckling. Bon mots such as "Speak up!" "Not funny!" "Oi! You! Yeah, you! Ha!" kept the audience entranced, or at the very least, homicidal.
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<br />For if brevity is the soul of wit, these guys were really, really, really, reallly great. No, really, they really were, really good.
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<br />At times they were positively avant garde, dispensing with the tired tradition of heckling with words and critiquing the performance with atypical groupings of syllables and urgent grunting. Some heckles may even have been produced by body parts other than the vocal chords.
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<br />I do hope that if any of them ever get to have sex, their partner shouts out "BOOOORING!" just as they are hitting their stride.
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<br />Anyway, in honour of that fine body of men (oh yes, they were men) I have set out below some of the most momentous heckles in history.
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<br /><strong>10, 000 BC: IN THE MOUNTAINS</strong></div>
<br /><div></div><div>Troglodyte 1: Man! Or rather, neanderthal man! A bolt of light came down from the sky and hit that twig and all of a sudden my little hairy tootsies are roasty toasty! Whoa! What's all that about?!? Tell you what, let's get more twigs and keep it going! Yay! This is like that time when me and the missus nearly fell in that volcano and...
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<br />Troglodyte 2 steps forward and pours water on the burning twig.
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<br />Troglodyte 1: I guess it did need more work. </div>
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<br /><div></div><div><strong>12th CENTURY: SOMEWHERE IN ITALY </strong></div>
<br /><div></div><div>St Francis of Assisi offers up a prayer to God. </div>
<br /><div></div><div>St Francis: Lord make me an instrument of your peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, ...</div>
<br /><div></div><div>Unknown peasant: BALDY!
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<br /><div>St Francis : Pardon? Oh, I like that actually.
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<br /><strong>15th CENTURY: ITALY (AGAIN)</strong>
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<br /><div></div>Leonardo Da Vinci holds forth to a group of students on his many diverse and marvellous achievements in art, design, engineering, cartography. Suddenly, a passing washer woman cries:
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<br />"IS THERE NAE END TAE THAT MAN'S TALENTS?"
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<br /><div></div>(Some records attribute this to a member of the audience in the Glasgow Apollo during a Roy Castle show, but true to the spirit of the piece, let us not be troubled by the facts .)
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<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">CIRCA 1600: LONDON ENGLAND</span>
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<br /><div></div>The opening night of Hamlet at the Globe Theatre.
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<br /><div></div>Hamlet: To be or not to be, that is the question.
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<br /><div></div>Unknown peasant: Make your mind up, son.
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<br /><div></div><span style="font-weight: bold;">NOVEMBER 19, 1863: GETTYSBURG PENNSYLVANIA</span>
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<br /><div></div>Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg address.
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<br />Lincoln: Four score and seven years ago...
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<br />Unknown pedant: Oi! Big nose! "Four score and seven?" What's wrong with "87?"
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<br />Lincoln: ...our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, ...
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<br /><div>Unknown pedant: Ooh, "brought forth"! Lah de dah! What's wrong with "made"!? Bloody left wing intelligentsia! Plain English too good for ya?!
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<br />Lincoln: ...conceived in liberty
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<br />Unknown pedant: LIBERTY BODICE! BIG GIRL'S BLOUSE!
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<br />Lincoln: ... One nation, under a groove. Er, um, sheesh, I've lost my place now...
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<br />Unknown pedant: YOUR MUM! YOUR MUM!YOUR MUM!YOUR MUM!
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<br />(The unknown pedant subsequently became a successful political blogger.)
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<br />I could go on. (<span style="font-style: italic;">Please don't - Ed</span>) Instead I will give you the words of Teddy Roosevelt.
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<br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: arial;font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:100%;" >"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."</span>
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<br />I'm not sure I'd condemn all critics quite as harshly as President Roosevelt. Intelligent criticism is an essential componment in public discourse and the evolution of art forms. Even some hecklers are quite funny. Just not the ones I heard the other night. And to those of you who disagree, I would simply say, "LOOOOSERS!".
<br /></div>
<br /><div></div><div></div><div></div>Shelagh McKinlayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12109135739554833294noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-449046747261724339.post-35069997964384129262011-07-19T02:08:00.000-07:002011-07-19T04:14:13.266-07:00IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves/> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:donotpromoteqf/> <w:lidthemeother>EN-GB</w:LidThemeOther> <w:lidthemeasian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:lidthemecomplexscript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:splitpgbreakandparamark/> <w:dontvertaligncellwithsp/> <w:dontbreakconstrainedforcedtables/> 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mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:shapedefaults ext="edit" spidmax="1026"> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:shapelayout ext="edit"> <o:idmap ext="edit" data="1"> </o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style=""><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><span style=""></span></span></b><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >Today the great and the not so good who presided over the shocking saga of phone hacking at the News of the World will appear before a committee of MPs to be held to account. (Or at least those not under arrest will.) </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >As a piece of political theatre no doubt it will be gripping. It may even provide some of the answers to important questions about who knew what and when. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >But it cannot hope to address the fundamental issues raised by this scandal, not least because of the extent to which politicians have been made complicit by their failure to act. So there will be the inquiries and possibly, perhaps probably, the prosecutions. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >As I write this I am on holiday abroad, not on-line much and therefore very much out of the loop. Muffled cries of more resignations and arrests have filtered through, but the allegations of wrongdoing seem essentially unchanged. As appalling as the story has been, in recent days there has been a sense of stasis, of further revelations going over old ground. <span style=""> </span>There may be little more that can usefully be said at this point. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >And yet I can’t stop thinking about it. Why? What is it about this story that makes me keep turning it over in my head? I keep on worrying at it, trying to make sense of it. Conflicts still rage around the globe, nations teeter on the brink of bankruptcy. <span style=""> </span>A few hacked messages, the attempted smash and grab of a politician’s bank details, seem pretty small beer by comparison. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >So why do I care so much?<span style=""> </span></span><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >Is it the ruthless power of a media dynasty? The household names who cried foul but were deemed fair game?<span style=""> </span>The politicians who raged and wept in private but in public kissed their tormentors and wished them well? </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >I think it is because it has shaken my faith in the system. It has made me question whether I really know the country I have lived in all my life. I am aware this sounds rather melodramatic. Maybe it is. Maybe I’m a bit hysterical; maybe not. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >I wrote recently about democracy, about the fact that I worked for a long time in the Scottish Parliament and that, during meetings with politicians from emerging democracies, I felt very lucky that I happened to live here and now, in a political system where, basically, those in charge follow the rules. I felt lucky to live in a country with a delicate system of checks and balances, evolved and refined over many decades, which protects us from corruption and power without responsibility. But, in relation to hacking, that system failed. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >I am reminded of the received wisdom about great disasters. In essence, "man-made” disasters occur when not one but several mechanisms fail simultaneously. We have been failed by not one, but three of our most important institutions: an elected parliament accountable to the people, a free press, and an independent police force. If this wrongdoing had not been exposed, who knows how much further we would have drifted toward catastrophic democratic failure. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >Again my melodrama detector is flickering. But it is difficult to overstate the seriousness of what has been uncovered.<span style=""> </span>The unscrupulous behaviour of some journalists on one newspaper, or even a number of newspapers, is only the beginning. The serious breach of trust is that, as evidence of that behaviour began to emerge, politicians failed to act decisively, the police failed to investigate fully, the wider press failed to report. The refined system of checks and balances did not work, more than that, barely seemed to exist.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >But we have been fortunate. We have been fortunate to have practitioners in these institutions who were not persuaded to let questions lie unanswered. The story may never have seen the light of day if not for the exemplary journalism of Nick Davies and The Guardian. MPs such as Tom Watson, Chris Bryant and Norman Fowler continued to campaign on these issues when no-one wanted to listen.<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >But overall we cannot escape the fact that we have been let down.<span style=""> </span>So how on earth did we get here? </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >The story of how sections of the press have increasingly felt an entitlement to private information is a whole other blog in itself. Suffice to say that the “they were asking for it defence” most recently expounded by the former News of the World journalist and moral amoeba Paul McMullan, is wearing pretty thin, not least because many of the victims of hacking were not celebrities or public figures. (Though frankly, I thought hacking was a pretty big deal even when it was starlets, and Max Clifford because rest assured, if they'll do it to the rich and famous, they'll do it to you.)<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><span style=""><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><span style="">As for the politicians, I am glad they have acknowledged that things had got too cosy by half with the fourth estate.</span></span><span style="font-family:arial;">This is the ray of hope to have emerged in these murky times. If the main parties stand together, this is the best chance they will have had in many years to free themselves from their self imposed servitude. </span></p><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ></span> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >For while there may have been reasons for politicians' complicity, there was no justification. If you put yourself forward for high public office we have a right to expect you to make brave moral choices. We certainly have a right to expect you to confront the abuse of power even where it might be held against your party or you personally. The alternative is a whole political class in hock to the media barons.<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >As for the Met police, their behaviour has in some ways troubled me most of all. Incompetence? Poor judgement? Cover-up? Corruption? I'm not loving any of those as explanations, to be honest. When we start to doubt the willingness of the police to investigate without fear or favour we really are in serious trouble.<br /></span></p> <span style="font-family:arial;"></span> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >So where do we go from here? </span><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >Tougher regulation of the press is surely unavoidable. The PCC has been overseeing this essential national industry like the management committee of a private members club. That cannot continue. But we m</span><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >ust remember that good journalists got us out of this hole when elected members, regulators and police<span style=""> </span>were missing in inaction. We need a regulatory system that encourages and protects the kind of reporting undertaken by The Guardian on this story, while curbing the worst excesses of intrusion and abuse.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" > </span><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" > </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >I don't accept that tougher regulation and press freedom are mutually exclusive. I have never believed that a regulatory and wider legal framework which protects legitimate private information <span style="font-style: italic;">and</span> press freedom is beyond the wit of legislators. </span><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >There are other areas of law, (medicine for example) which throw up difficult questions of competing rights, freedoms and responsibilities.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >Frankly the issue, while complex, is not as impossible to resolve as some journalists would have as believe. In that respect we must remember that the media, as the messenger, is also the subject of the debate. This is quite unique. No other profession enjoys the privileged position of directly arguing its own case in the court of public opinion.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >Of course we must listen to the views of the press on how their industry should be regulated. Their experience and insight is essential. But sometimes insight is gained at the expense of perspective and objectivity.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >Stronger regulation does</span><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" > not have to mean a move away from self regulation. There are analagous examples such as the way in which doctors are “policed” by the General Medical Council which could be followed. Why can a body of (former) journalists and lay people could not be given the power to impose large fines and also decide that newspaper executives and editors may not be fit to hold senior positions?</span><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >I care passionately about the quality of the press in this country. It's not only the banks that are too important to fail. A strong and vocal press should be our national conscience, asking questions others would rather ignore, calling out bad decisions, forcing the body politic to acknowledge its failings.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >Press, politicians, regulators, police, we need them all to act in the public interest, because the public interest is what matters.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ></span><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><br /></span></p>Shelagh McKinlayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12109135739554833294noreply@blogger.com0