If It's Time to Leave the Party, It's Time to Leave the House

The 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."

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. Interviewed on STV's "Scotland Tonight" programme last night he stated; "I was elected for a full term and that's exactly what I'll serve." He went on; "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."

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. Am I missing something, or is that not utterly disrespectful to the people of Falkirk?

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 not triggering a by-election which you might lose."

As if that makes it okay. Well it doesn't. "It was ever thus," might be a statement of fact, but it doesn't constitute a compelling argument in favour of the status quo.

Also on Scotland Tonight, the political columnist Ian MacWhirter stated that Labour sources had reportedly commented "Better a nutter than a Nat." If that is an accurate summation of the Labour party's attitude to this issue, then the contempt it shows for voters is shocking.

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. 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.

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. (This piece 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.)

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.

But I am horrified that he and his former party, seem to think it is acceptable to put narrow party interest before principle. 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? 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?

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.

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.

Mr Joyce wound up last night's interview by saying, "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.

Bravo 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.

There is one exception though. Every couple of months I get the new Bravissimo 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.

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. This is usually accompanied by wistful sighing in the manner of Adrian Mole's Dad admiring his neighbour Mrs Singh's pretty saris.

I get pretty wistful over it too, mainly because it highlights the poverty of my own underwear collection. I have blogged before 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 Morlock that's stumbled across the Eloi picnicking in their smalls.

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.

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.

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.

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 Maw Broon.

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.

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?

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 . 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 many women feel their breasts are too big, or too small, or too low, or too round or not round enough.

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.

My Gran, Stories and Me

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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 Roger Duvoisin, "The Happy Lion", "Petunia" and "Veronica's Smile". The one I loved best was "Anatole", 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 "Cuckoo Cherry Tree", a book of dark fairy tales by Alison Uttley .

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 thrawn and say "Aye, your Gran'll never be deid."

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.

Memories are Made of er, Something

Contender 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.

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".

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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!

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.

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?

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.)

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.

Dressed 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.

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.

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. )

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.

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 Wonder Woman. ("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!!)

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).

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.

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".

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.

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.

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.

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. )

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.

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."

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.

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.

How I Discovered Facebook

Last 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.

In some ways this was an odd decision since mostly I hear nothing but complaints about Facebook from people on Twitter - 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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

The Joys of Middle Age

Today is my birthday, so I am writing a birthday blog. I wrote a birthday blog last year (here it is) and have decided to make it an annual event, like Stephen Fry leaving Twitter.

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.

Invisibility

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.

Reminiscing

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.

Wisdom

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.

Versatility

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.

Inner Resources

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.

The Element of Surprise

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.

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.