In A Village By Mistake

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about how rubbish modern life was. Since then I have been inundated with people berating me for my curmudgeonly spirit. Well, there’s been a steady trickle anyway. ‘Oh come off it, Number6!’ they say. ‘You LOVE modern life. And anyway isn’t it a bit rich for someone who spends all her waking hours blogging, twittering, Googling, Facebooking and generally fiddling around with your phone all day long.’

Good point. So I had a long think about all the very many GOOD things about living in 2011. And here they are, in all their glory:

1. Sat nav. You still get lost, but at least you know where you are. Vaguely. And whether it’s dark outside.

2. Being able to Google stuff in the pub in order to prove someone wrong, or to look marginally less stupid in front of your friends.

3. CBBC and in particular Horrible Histories, Sorry I Lost My Head and the utterly GENIUS Copycats, the only television programme that has made me late for work. Almost.

4. Considerably less chance of dying of the Black Death than, say, 500 years ago.

Yes, that was as far as I got. On the way, though, I did think of some more terrible things about modern life, for example:

1. Sat nav. A conspiracy by the anti-car movement to send you the wrong way down one-way streets, into the kind of dead ends where you could EASILY dump a dead body and – on one memorable occasion – across a very deep ford.

2. Other people Googling stuff in the pub when you are trying to have a conversation. And it taking ages, because the signal is so bad, and so in the end they go outside and you’re left looking a little bit like you are so boring that your friends have to go outside and leave you in the pub on your own to avoid talking to you.

3. Terrible TV (i.e. everything not on CBBC). The kind of TV that relies on fake deadlines, manufactured tension and portentous music to create the superficial impression that it is mildly interesting and in no way a total waste of time. Sample dialogue: ‘Tension is BUILDING as the bakers are UNDER PRESSURE. THEY have only TEN MINUTES left to ice their cupcakes before the END of the THING that is going to RING! Will they make it???? Will the FLOUR FLY? Does anyone even CARE????’

4. Passwords – remembering or, more accurately, forgetting them. I consider myself to be a pretty intelligent person. I would say my absolute maximum brain capacity for remembering passwords was reached in about 1996. After that, every time I learn a new one, one of the old ones drops out of my ear and onto the floor. The worst ones are those that include a number in the mix. My record for remembering one of those is just under twenty three minutes.

5. Having to prove I’m a human by typing exactly what’s in the box, forcing me to squint at the screen in an unattractive way that makes me think I might look a bit like my mother without her reading glasses. Especially as I normally give an exasperated sigh at the same time. The other day I had to do a bit of mental arithmetic instead to prove I was a human being, which really made me sweat. ‘What is six times eight! Come on, come on, I’ll have to hurry you!’ What next? Prove you’re a human by typing in the box what you were doing when you heard Princess Diana had died?

6. Trying to book a ticket for the cinema through one of those automated systems – “two child tickets to see Cars 2 in Reading” – “I THOUGHT you SAID FOUR senior TICKETS to see SAW 3 in INVERNESS.”

So, there you go. Modern Life, it’s still rubbish. Feel free to add to my lists, if you can think of anything.
Best of luck with that.

We are now, more or less, half way through the long summer holidays. And how are we feeling about this? Yeah, mostly ambivalent I would say. But it’s about the right time, I think, for a retrospective look at the creative and original nature of my daughters’ bickering over the last few weeks.

GothicDaughter and SparklyDaughter don’t actually have anything substantial to argue about, really. There’s no real rivalry. I don’t make them fight, hand to hand, for the largest slice of cake. I don’t give one of them big piles of presents and lock the other one in a cupboard. Maybe I should, though, because perhaps that would stop them bickering about ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AT ALL.

For example:

1. Who gets to be the dog. For some reason, in any game of make believe, the role of the dog is extremely coveted. There is often an intense struggle for who gets to be the dog. Sometimes, quite harsh words are spoken to resolve this discussion e.g. ‘you’re not cute enough to be the dog!’ This will all come pouring out in therapy in later life, mark my words.

2. Who gets to be Hermione. This bickering frequently spills over from role-play games into passive TV/film watching. E.g. I’m her! No I’m her! No, you can be Dobbie! I don’t want to be Dobbie! You were Hermione last time. Etc etc NB just to clarify the utter pointlessness of this argument, they are not actually PLAYING Harry Potter in this scenario, just watching it. Weird. Similar discussions can arise during a commercial (I’m that burger! No I am! You can be the chips!).

3. SparklyDaughter’s habit of pretending she’s in a musical ALL THE TIME. To be fair, I can see how this could start to grate a little on the nerves. SparklyDaughter loves to sing and dance. Oh My Goodness, does she ever love it. She treats every day as a potential audition for Annie or, possibly, Glee! In The Village. Everything she does is given a lyrical running commentary, with musical backing, and usually a little dance routine. For example, if she was cutting the bread, she might start singing, “I am cutting the bre-e-e-ead! I am cutting the bread! I am cutting the bre-e-e-ead! I! AM! CUTTING THE BREAD!!! YEAH!” and then follow this up with some funky moves. This can make preparing meals something of a long-winded experience. GothicDaughter is, in fairness, pretty patient about this (although only when there are actual words; the ‘scat’ versions – ‘dododododo lalalala nanananana doobie doobie doo’ – can drive GothicDaughter over the brink. Worst of all is the combination improvised singing, e.g. “Doodoobedo Y.M.C.A! you gotta be Y.M.C.A! and there’s everything, you just listen to me, at the Y.M.C.A!’) SparklyDaughter is waging a campaign to get sent to Drama School. In fact the first time she heard the words DRAMA and SCHOOL together, she said in a very accusing tone, ‘DRAMA?? SCHOOL???? Why did no-one tell me about this before?? I NEED to go to drama school!” To which GothicDaughter whispered, ‘That might not be a bad idea.’

4. GothicDaughter’s habit of choosing and wearing boys’ clothes and particularly shoes. This is understandable, as the choices for her are often pretty limited. If she doesn’t want to wear something 1. Pink, 2. Sequined, and/or 3. With Hello Kitty on it, then the boys’ racks offer a pretty good alternative. (We could of course always go to another shop, but GothicDaughter is not often committed enough to the clothes shopping experience to face that idea. Neither am I, come to that.) SparklyDaughter is frankly disturbed by the idea and needs copious reassurance that GothicDaughter can wear clothes for BOYS without actually turning into a BOY. She considers the whole idea to be an abomination.*

5. Whether if you kiss a boy on the lips, this means you are married. I am hoping this is a theoretical discussion, but have opted not to probe this further.

So there we go. This is what amounts to ‘making your own fun in the countryside.’ And still three weeks left to go!

I think I’ll just go and have a little lie down.

* I learned this week that she has biblical support for this view. Deut 22.5, if you’re interested. I have decided not to tell her this.

Extreme sibling rivalry – the Gallagher brothers libel case

Extreme sibling rivalry – the Gallagher brothers libel case

When I saw the headline, my first reaction was a sense of relief: ‘Sesame Street pair Bert and Ernie “will not marry”’ it read. Now that’s what I call a Silly Season news story. Now we can stop talking about Broken Britain™ for a bit and relax with some proper August frivolousness.

‘Bert and Ernie have lived together for more than 40 years,’ the ‘news’ ‘story’ continued and ‘campaigners say the best friends should marry as a way to encourage tolerance of gay people.’

Hmmm, well that’s going a bit far. I mean, I am terrifically keen on encouraging the tolerance of gay people too, but I’d squirm a little at the thought of marrying my best friend for the cause. Quite apart from the fact that I suspect she leaves the top off the toothpaste, it would certainly cause a little comment in The Village.

But hold on, there’s a democratic element here, isn’t there? ‘Nearly 7,000 have signed the petition, with more than 3,000 joining a Bert and Ernie Get Married Facebook page.’ A PETITION? Wow, well if so many people think it’s a good idea, then who’s to argue? Bert, Ernie, sort out your matching buttonholes right now and get down that aisle.*

Bert and Ernie were, coincidentally, born in the same year as me – 1969 – and I would guess that, like me, they cannot fail to have noticed that tolerance of gay people has been one of the massive social changes in our lifetimes. I am not naïve enough to think that prejudice has disappeared, or that there are no areas of difficulty for gay men and women living their lives in the UK. But my observation is that things have changed, and for the better. When I started teaching a few years ago, I was amazed and delighted to come across teenagers who were comfortable enough to be out in the classroom. This is something that, in my experience, would have been unthinkable in my own school in the 1980s.

Individual minds have also been changed. The father of a friend of mine remarked to me not so long ago, ‘Well you know X is gay. That’s up to him, of course. None of our business.’ I managed, through sheer force of will, not to stare at him with open-mouthed astonishment and yell, ‘THAT’S NOT WHAT YOU SAID IN 1985!!!’ Times move on, and we should all be allowed the freedom to change our minds.

But this is where I think those petition makers may have a tiny, weeny point. Why have minds been changed? It’s a complex question, but the media representation of homosexuality has made a difference. In the 1970s, homosexuality was a joke, a subject for mockery. But the portrayal of gay characters, and relationships, on TV and film has, I think, gone some way towards changing individual attitudes. From Brookside, Eastenders and Coronation Street, through to Shameless and Skins – these portrayals of ‘normal’ gay characters do, I think, filter through. They make us, in general, more accepting of gay people we meet, meaning that we are more likely to meet openly gay people. Tolerance and acceptance leads to more openness. And these personal experiences will, sooner or later, over time, drive out the ugly stereotypes based on ignorance and prejudice.

So, will I be signing the petition? No, I don’t think so. First of all, I remain – most of the time at least – within spitting distance of reality and, as a statement from makers of Sesame Street puts it, “Bert and Ernie are puppets and do not have a sexual orientation.” Ah, good point.

Moreover, I think it’s a little presumptuous to make the assumption that two men/puppets living together or who are good friends are therefore gay. Also, it’s going a bit far to turn the right to civil partnership into an obligation to get married. As Dolly Parton puts it, “Sure, why can’t gays get married? They should suffer like the rest of us do.” Tell that joke to a married person, and see how long they laugh, and how guilty they look.

And anyway, where will it all end? If Bert and Ernie are forced to marry for the sake of improving gay tolerance, then who’s next? The Wiggles have some serious questions to answer. Rod, Jane and Freddie – set to become poster boys/girls for the Society for Greater Understanding of the Menage a Trois (after a long tussle with the Dungaree Appreciation Society). Mr Benn – new spokesman for the It’s My Party And I’ll Dress Up As a Knight If I Want To Party? And come to think of it, what exactly are Dougal and Brian up to over there behind the Magic Roundabout?

Anyway. Boing! Time for bed.

*Not a euphemism. SORRY I apologise. What can I say? I have the spirit of Carry On in my soul.

Read more: One in five people not comfortable with the portrayal of homosexuality in the media: