Crowded places, kids, and fear

I'm off up to London with DD at the weekend. I'm meeting up with my brother and his family at Comic Con and I am really looking forward to an excuse to wear my Morphsuit and dress as Deadpool again, I even bought some plastic ninja swords to add to the look.

But after the Manchester attack and the tragic loss of life at the Ariana Grande concert on Monday I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous, maybe even scared. Obviously I'm going anyway. As daily news stories point out, I could just as easily die on the drive in to work as in a terror attack, and terror is of course what these evil people hope to cause.

The whole thing has upset me, as I'm sure it's upset everyone. I sway between tears as I read about the beautiful people who died, on a night where they were with friends and family having fun, and then laughter as social media does it's best to snark at terrorists and fight light in the darkness. (see more on the hashtag #BritishThreatLevel on twitter)

I take great solace in reading of the things people did, and continue to do to help others, from kind words, free taxi rides, helping the injured, donating to help with hotel bills and funeral costs.

It is in the aftermath we see the truth of people, many will say we see the best of people, sadly we also see the worst of people, the vile and the racist and the spiteful, this sort of event displays the best and worst of humanity, so I hang on to the images of love and kindness, I look for the helpers.

Talking to DD about London, among my quips about dying wearing a Deadpool costume (oh the irony if that happens, but at least the blood won't show) I talked to DD about plans for us if there was a terror incident, I said that she should use me as a shield, that if we couldn't get out she should lay under me to stay safe, she looked into my eyes, her own eyes wide in surprise, saw my sudden seriousness and nodded, "yes, OK" she said, "but if we are OK, if other people are hurt, we are going to help, I'm going to wear an extra T shirt in case we need bandages..." and there it is, the best of people. I'm proud and heartbroken in equal measure. Not all super heroes wear capes, not even at Comic Con, some wear an extra T shirt.

Copyright: blojfo / 123RF Stock Photo

So I fully expect a fun day out, and I'm trying to keep fear to the back of my mind and keep love and kindness to the fore.

I'll be sharing Comic Con photos after the weekend. Stay tuned.

Halloween Fun, Fear and Fancy Dress

Halloween has become a proper mishmash of cultures and ideas since it all started. And who even knows when it all began? The celebration seems to have started around the ancient Gaelic festival of Samhain, a sort of harvest festival linked to the collecting of crops and the slaughter of animals for winter, the Celts also linked this time of year to a thinning of the walls between the worlds, where spirits may pass.

Later, half stolen by the church (as so many pagan festivals were) it became All Hallow's Eve, the eve of All Saint's Day (hallowed meaning holy) and All Saints day a day to honor the saints. Of course people liked to cling on to the superstitions and fears of the past too, so spirits and the departed were caught up in it all over again.

The idea of dressing up seems to stem from the Scottish tradition of guising, where children dress as the dead and perform entertainments in exchange for apples, cake and nuts. In Americia this has become trick or treat with vague threats for those households not giving treats to those dressed up!

The Day of the Dead in Mexico (Dia de Muertos)  also occurs around this time so it is of no wonder that it too is stirred into the melting pot of myth, magic, respect and fears of the dead in costume and decoration, though it's origins are slightly different.

Zombie Bride

In the US trick or treat costumes have totally moved away from those of the dead or of scariness, with people dressing as cowboys, cartoon characters and animals. But in the UK we still look to scare or at least cause a squeak of surprise with our costumes, drawing from around the world with vampires and werewolves from Eastern Europe, mummies from Egypt, voodoo and zombies from Haiti, ghouls, wraiths, goblins, ghosts and skeletons. (and even killer clowns!)

Spider Ghoul - guaranteed to give you nightmares

While I won't be attending a halloween party this year I do plan on greeting the trick or treaters that visit the house in costume!

Stop staring at my coccyx!

There is no excuse not to look fabulous while terrifying if you pop over to the Morphsuits website and check out the amazing costumes. This year I will be wearing the gorgeous Sugar Skull suit, with a mask of course. But there are many frightening suits to choose from. How about a clown costume? A monster? an alien?

What would you choose?

Pop over to Facebook and let me know - or let Morphsuits know! and visit me on twitter to see me in the suit on halloween.

You still have plenty of time to choose and buy a suit - prices start at  £9.99 and they have suits and fancy dress costumes for all shapes and sizes, adults and children.

I was sent a Sugar Skull Morphsuit in exchange for this post. And for reference, I'm a size 12/14 and the ladies large is slightly too big on me! So while there is extra room for pumpkin pie and sweets, you might be better buying a medium if you are a 12.

The Marketing of Fear

I received an email today asking me to review a cleaning product and I turned it down. I turned it down because it seemed to be relying on the marketing of fear.

It's something I've been aware of for a long time, and it's been around for a long time, this idea that advertising, successful marketing, is often based on fear. I'm sure I've fallen prey to it myself.

But just as how I will not be forced to be afraid of food based on a perceived 'best before' date, so I try to remain above the advertising of products based solely on fear.

I prefer marketing to look at helping me, to make my life simpler without damaging anything else on the way. Tell be about useful things, don't try and scare me into using them.

And marketing at a parent it's easy to rely on fear, fear that your baby will have nappy rash if you don't use our nappies; fear that your baby won't sleep through the night unless you buy our sleep training program; fear that without this food or drink your baby won't get enough iron, or vitamins ;fear that you will look haggard and old and have no sex ever again unless you buy our hair dye and our makeup...the list is endless.

I really enjoyed hearing that new theories about allergies seem to point to the fact that we don't let kids have enough 'bug exposure' when they are little. For a long time it was said that a dog in the home helped kids grow up stronger, that breast milk (straight from that unsterile boob) was better, that 'we all eat a peck of dirt afore we die' and that 'a little bit of dirt won't kill you'. How many times as a parent do we invoke the 5 second rule on dropped food to avoid waste or extra expense

"hear, let me blow the germs away, the lolly is fine, just eat it"

The use of 'kills 99% of all known germs' products when the very 1% it misses may be the only actual dangerous ones annoys me. Yet as I work in a medical environment I'm very aware of appropriate hygiene. And that's the thing, appropriate. If I tend a sick person I ensure I'm as clean and as germ free as can be, but a 5 year old with a fine immune system? probably not so much to worry about.

So thanks for the offer but I'll stick with cleaning appropriately, keeping 'clean' rather than sterile and I won't let the odd smudge or bit of dirt on a kid worry me.

Now, must wash my hands.

The Worry of having an Imperfect Baby

When I was a kid, I knew a family with a little boy that had Down's Syndrome. His nickname was Wiggy because he wriggled so much, he was hilarious and very fun to be with. When I was an older teen my best mate introduced me to her pub quiz team mate, he had Down's Syndrome, he liked to visit the pub, have a beer and chat with his friends, he liked the pub quiz evenings too, and was better than me at the questions. And life went on, and I forgot about them both.

~~~

I got pregnant after 6 months of trying, when I was 34. I was only a year off being officially designated an 'older mum' by the NHS. And my husband, 20 years my senior, was quite obviously an 'older dad'. We were both very excited (actually he was terrified! LOL) about having a baby, a small person, a 'mini-me' joining us.

And then of course there was all the usual stuff, I went to my GP to tell him I was pregnant. I had no idea how all this medical care worked, so I expected being told how the NHS would sort things etc. Instead I saw a locum GP (a woman) who looked at me as if I was crazy and then said "and?"...

"erm" I replied "don't you check I really am? or schedule check ups or something?"

She laughed "not yet, I'll just take your word for it, come back in a few weeks"

So I did. Eventually the old wheels began turning, midwives said hello, blood was taken, blood pressure checked. And then at a routine appointment my (male) GP asked when I was having my nuchal scan and Down's testing.

"I'm not" I replied.

"Why not?" he asked, surprised.

"Because there's no point" I said "I won't have a termination and heart defects will be picked up on my dating scans anyway"

There was silence and then he said "I know if I knew I was having a Down's baby I would have a termination"

Would you, I thought, would you really. Well then it's lucky that a) you're a man and never likely to be pregnant and b) that I'm this baby's mum not you and c) that it's not up to you! I was silent too though, until I eventually, and probably fairly quietly said "well I'm sure, I don't want a test"

"We'll put down 'undecided' on the form" he said "Then the nurses can ask you again when you've had time to think about it"

I had thought about it. A lot. As I was oldish and my husband was older I had had a sort of nervous background mental hum saying "this baby might be disabled you know, it might have Down's syndrome, it will look different, have learning disabilities, have a terrible life...."

I had lain awake at night thinking it. I had gone to the shops thinking it. I had talked to my husband about it and he was really afraid that if this baby wasn't 'perfect' we wouldn't cope. I had thought about almost nothing else since I got pregnant. I hadn't worried that I might lose the baby. A common fear among mothers, but that the baby would be 'faulty', I'd worried about that a lot.

Early on I talked to the baby, calling the tiny thing (as yet un-sexed) the 'peanut' and chatting about day to day things. My husband wanted a girl, he believed that girls were the future and could do everything boys do and then some!(turns out he was right)  I wanted a boy, cute in dungarees, collecting snails and making mud dams in streams...
I didn't want a 'faulty' baby.

And then one day, after we had had a couple of scans, and finally knew that the peanut was a girl, we went to Lewes for a day. We sat in a park, we watched children at a wedding, dressed in cute, smart Sunday best and playing hide and seek around the trees. They jumped and ran, they squealed and laughed and I stroked my new bump and thought of our baby. And then...and then one of the children turned around and she had Down's Syndrome and she was beautiful, and perfect, and funny, and laughing and just like all the other children and in one heartbeat my baby was perfect whatever she turned out to be.

(I got teary eyed typing that - what a wuss)

When DD was born, one week late yet under weight and still covered in downy hair, she was my beautiful baby.

Of course if you've seen and read about DD you'll know she doesn't have Down's Syndrome.

Funny thing though, about genetic diseases. When DD was 2 I was diagnosed with Hereditary Motor and Sensory Neuropathy (also known as Charcot-Marie-Tooth or CMT). They do genetic testing for that you know...I expect you can get a termination based on it...we haven't had DD tested.

I'd like to thank Hayley at Downssideup for the lovely picture of her famous super model daughter Natty :-)

Fear

A few days ago I saw that the post40bloggers had posted a blog prompt. The remit was to write about fear. Usually I don't latch on to this sort of prompt but it suddenly made me think to something that happened at a festival a week or so ago.

When we go to Wilderness Festival the thing that DD likes to do most there is to roller skate. They have a rink outside (though covered against the British Summer weather!) and they have lights and disco music. The guys that skate as staff there know all the moves and DD enjoys skating sedately round and round for hours at a time (literally! I have to force her to leave!) watching the others skating.

The things she likes to watch most are the hilarious falls of the cocky, often drunk, and usually hot, guys that come onto the rink to show off.

Sometimes they are dressed up like camp disco kings, sometimes topless and boldly showing six packs and shouting to mates to hold their gin while they show the world their disco skating moves. DD has noticed that the bigger the bluster, the louder the banter and the more flamboyant the dress, the more they fall. She finds this terribly amusing.


On the Sunday we went to the rink and she went to skate while I drank Monkey Shoulder cocktails and ate Burger Bear burgers and sat in the sun (and the occasional drizzle) and listened to gospel music at the Juke Joint.

I looked across to the rink occasionally to see her skate by, to check all was ok. Once I couldn't see her on the rink so I popped over to check. It turned out that the staff had cleared the rink for a lot of large 'tipsy' fellows to have a skate - they were afraid the smaller kids would be squashed! DD was happy to watch them crash and fall until they left and she returned to skate.

Time passed, I drank more cocktails. I chatted to the nice cocktail lady. Telling her how awesome DD was (I was drunk remember) I ordered more booze and sat down again. Halfway through my drink I glanced up. An ambulance was coming slowly across the muddy field. At one point it slipped sideways on a slope and some festival goers helped push it straight and back on its way. It came closer and closer and I became paralysed with fear.

It seems so silly now but it was weird at the time. I immediately worried that DD had fallen, that she must be unconscious as all the staff knew us and knew where I was and she would have cried for me. I thought that she would have fallen while I was telling the lady at the bar how awesome she was. That she would be dying even as I sat and sipped my cocktail. I was too terrified to go and look. I sat frozen in my chair watching the ambulance park and the paramedics head for the rink with a stretcher. I sat filled with fear, still sipping my cocktail, imagining how I would tell my husband, how it was my fault not being there, that I was a terrible parent. I sat almost in tears, too scared to move.

And then the paramedics came out, with a middle aged woman on the stretcher, chatting, laughing.

I got up and went to see what DD was up to. It transpired that they had cleared the rink after the woman had fallen badly and twisted her ankle. When it became clear she couldn't bear any weight on that leg they had called the ambulance. While I waited, transfixed with terror, DD had been enjoying the drama. The ambulance left. DD skated for another hour. I had another cocktail to steady my nerves.

Britmums - See you there on Friday night?

A few of the mums that are going to Britmums live have written short blog posts of introduction. Here are a few as examples.

Britmums Live Linky

I'm only going to be at the Friday night awards ceremony (*excited BiBs finalist face*) and I shall be sober as I'm having to drive to and from the station, (*sad face*) but I shall be looking forward to meeting some of the lovely people I tweet with, and blog writers of the blogs I follow, and of course meet some new people too!

About me ; I am 48, married with one daughter the lovely dd, who is 14. I don't do glamorous, I do slightly scruffy and festival-chic. I like ball gowns in inappropriate settings, like fields and supermarkets. I may appear shy or snooty, I'm a bit snooty, but not shy once I get to know you. Do say hello.

 

I will be wearing a black maxi dress from "Everything five pounds" and yes, it was £5. I'll also be wearing my gorgeous tattoo necklace with my twitter user name on, which was handmade for my by the lovely Vicki at starsNscars.

I  shall look like this. (note nervous smile)

Can't wait to meet you!

Disclaimer : No one sponsored me for any of this, I shelled out hard earned cash....hence the five pound dress! I don't regret the necklace though, it's lovely. I won't be wearing the pith helmet, I bought a sparkly hairband/tiara in Accessorize instead.

A Utopia of Dystopias

utopia - 1 ( usually lowercase ) an ideal place or state.
            2 ( usually lowercase ) any visionary system of political or social perfection.

Dystopia - noun, a society characterised by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding.

I can't help noticing the influx on the YA (young adult) reading scene of the 'dystopian novel'. It seemed to catch fire (see what I did there?) with The Hunger Games and has continued with the Divergent series. Both sagas have been made into films.

There are so many of these novels on the shelves now. Uglies, Matched, Gone, I'm sure you could name dozens. 

Of course dystopian novels are nothing new. There was 1984 and Brave New world. The brilliant Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep (filmed as Blade Runner) and Fahrenheit 451.

But lately two things have struck me. The first is that they are very firnly aimed at young adults rather than adults and the second that they seem to also be aimed at girls. Female leads and heroines have been popular for a long time, Mina Harker in Dracula, Julia in 1984 to name a couple. But suddenly it seems the female lead is back with rather a bang!

Suddenly the 'feisty' (I hate that word!) female is the norm, the woman that notices the rot in the supposed utopia, revealing the horror beneath. The young girl  that dares to kick out against the society that controls everyone including her.


Is this only a blip? Or are our authors (male and female) seeing the important role the female lead can have in society?


Or maybe, they just realise that it's still the girls that do the most reading...


What do you think?


(and are there any great Dystopian Novels I've missed, with excellent female leads?)

 

You know what annoys me?...

stream of annoyance follows...

• People that don't indicate, especially at roundabouts, I'm not a mind reader - bloody signal
• People that stop in a slip road when they don't need to, learn to drive! stop shilly shallying about, get on with it!
• Bum cleavage, on men or women, looks vile, and I bet your kidneys are cold, learn to dress yourself and work out what size you actually are.
• People wearing clothes that are too small, it doesn't make you look skinnier it makes you look fatter, wear the right size, or diet back into the smaller ones.
• Leggings that are actually tights and therefore see through. just *vomit* blergh, wear leggings, or wear a dress/shorts and tights. Don't go out in just tights, hideous
• Uggs. Shuffling horrors that get soggy and worn at the sides in minutes, grubby monstrosities
• Wearing PJs outside the home. No excuse unless you are on your way to A&E. 
• The media creating bandwagons for idiots to leap on, heck we all leap on them. Stop pre-judging crimes. Let the courts do it.
• Facebook.
• People that don't clean up after their dogs - I'd rub their noses in it to teach them a lesson
• Parents that swear at small children
• TV commercials
• Unnecessarily huge cars
• Smart phone battery life (or lack of it - it isn't any use being smart if you are asleep when i need you)
• People that can't leave a public toilet (or any toilet!) clean for the next person.
• Fridges that appear full and yet have NOTHING you fancy eating in them
• Instant coffee, especially when it is called 'coffee' as in "would you like a coffee?" so that you have to ask "is it real or instant?" then you look like a coffee snob (which I am) you wouldn't offer a cup of instant tea without mentioning it was instant! (and yes there is instant tea, and yes it is a nasty as it sounds)
• Luke warm milk. (unless you are getting it direct from the source milk should be ice cold)
• Misleading labels on food like "fresh" or "light" or "low fat" or "green"  most of them are meaningless (what is 'fresh' all about? as opposed to 'stale'?) Low fat is almost always high in sugar, and low salt can have more salt than another brand.
• Wasps
• Stuff women are supposed to do to be 'pretty' or even just 'women'; shaving legs, painting nails, shaving underarms, wearing up thrust bras, make up, false eyelashes, high heels, hair conditioner, hair dye, wearing jewellery... I don't mind doing some of them some of the time but give us a break! It's not essential to life!
• Getting old
• 80's fashions being 'in' again, and remembering them from the first time round and knowing they were dreadful even then
• Not being allowed to be naked when we want to be 
• Intolerance where it doesn't affect you, like racism or homophobic or being anti-gay marriage, or anti religion
• Poor grammar (Sod's law states I have made at least 13 grammatical errors in this blog post - I'm talking about genuinely not having a clue not the odd mistake)
• The loss of innocence as kids grow up - it's all over so quickly

• Vegetarians (just kidding - wanted to see if you were still awake)
• and lastly? judgemental people ...yeah yeah I know - *puts self on naughty step*

It's NOT big, and it's NOT clever,

When I was about 15 or 16 I smoked.
Only a bit, maybe one or two a week if I was lucky (should that be unlucky?) I was strictly ‘other peoples’ in what brand I smoked.
Once I was 18 and living outside of home I occasionally bought my own cigarettes. I still rarely smoked more than one or two a week, mostly I smoked when friends did on a Friday or a Saturday night. Peer pressure, yep, it was both big and clever. But it was also ‘cool’.

I usually smoked exotic and enticing brands like Black Russians, More Menthol or Multicoloured cocktail cigarettes with gold coloured filters ...it was all about the glamour. Packaging and presentation had a direct effect on whether I would buy a brand, I was beyond excited to discover a brand called DEATH that was sold in Brighton that came in a suave black coffin shaped box, too naïve, and too stupid to care about the irony it was quickly my favourite.
I never became addicted to cigarettes, I never smoked more than a couple a week and after the age of 24 rarely smoked at all. I haven’t smoked now in over 20 years.

 I wish smoking wasn’t cool. A smoking ban in public venues has done a lot to stop smokers, it is not so chic to huddle out in the rain to catch a quick puff. Lack of advertising has also helped to stop children and young adults starting the habit and of course you now need to be 18 to even begin. But I think another great preventative would be plain boring non-trendy packaging (think the classic TESCO VALUE campaign!) which is why I’d be happy to see all cigarettes sold in plain white cartons.
 I know all the arguments about cigarette taxes helping the country. I’ve heard things in favour of an outright ban (I’m not in favour mainly as it would only serve to make it cooler!) I think the best way to ensure that less people risk their health is to make smoking a real decision, based on proper information and not ‘oooh look – how cool is that packet!’ or ‘how handsome is that cowboy smoking!’

Breasts, juicy juicy breasts...

So there was a report, it was about breastfeeding, we all got enraged. Yes all of us, everyone..or maybe just me. Anyway the point was I was enraged. The report (widely reported in the media) seemed to say that breastfed babies were poor sleepers, miserable, cranky, and generally sadder babies than the chubby bundles of fun that sleep through and giggle like smiling cherubs when fed formula. No wonder there was rage; I’m almost a breastfeeding nazi! (I’m not but once on twitter someone listed me as such, I was sort of proud) anyway….I went off to track down the report itself since none of the media sources, not even the BBC, saw fit to link to it or reference it in anyway. Luckily the NHS website was more forthcoming and even helpfully pointed out the errors with the ‘study’…such as that the ‘study’ was not actually designed to study the difference between breastfed and formula fed babies at all, it was an aside from a larger study and that the study itself had only 300 participants, that the data was all subjective and no backgrounds were obtained for the babies…well go check see for yourselves(and a snippet below), it’s basically a pile of ‘maybes’ and ‘might haves’. No real concrete data at all.

"There are several additional points to make:

• The researchers did not take into account other wider issues that might affect the chosen feeding method, mother/baby interactions and babies’ temperaments, such as whether the mothers were working, time spent with babies and feeding schedules.
• The study relied on mothers to subjectively rate their babies’ temperaments. Such self-completed ratings could be influenced by other things, such as the mothers’ anxiety about breastfeeding.
• The differences in temperament between breastfed and formula-fed babies as rated by the mothers appeared to be small. For example, the emotional instability score was 2.8 in the bottle-fed group and 3.0 in breastfed and mixed-fed babies. It is not possible to say whether these small score differences would have made appreciable differences in the day-to-day temperament of the babies.
• Educational achievement of women who breastfed or mixed-fed their babies was higher, and how this might have influenced their scoring of temperament was not discussed by the authors.
• It is not known whether the current method of feeding at three months represents a consistent pattern since birth or whether there have been changes. For example, a baby described as formula-fed at three months may have only just been switched to formula feeding and may have been exclusively breastfed up until then. Finally, as the researchers point out, this small study of mothers and babies in Cambridge may not be representative of UK mothers and babies generally."

But why were mothers bothered? If a study says that something may not be as good for your baby you won’t do it – you want the best or your baby. Best is a fed baby. A baby that grows and is happy. Breast or formula can do that, but mothers all want the best. This study seemed to imply that breast was actually inferior…or did it? It said that breastfed babies were more restless, formula fed babies slept more. Well I don’t know about you but after a huge meal of heavy to digest food I sleep well too! Often most of the afternoon, so having a belly full of heavy rich food makes you sleep … ok …

And babies that are breastfed cry more. Now this is the thing that made people sit up! Babies that cry are sad! Miserable! Poor little things! But most breastfeeding mums I know feed on demand. The babies need to inform mum when a new helping of grub is in order, and it might not be in four hours because, well it was easy to digest, it went quick and now “I’M HUNGRY!” and then they drink and are not hungry and can get on with being babies..watching the world, growing, communicating (often by crying “I want to touch the thing!” “why is the light bright” “I want a cuddle” “I want to be left alone” “I want a cuddle “I’M HUNGRY AGAIN!” ) so really is the crying bad? 

No! babies cry! Breastfed babies may (or may not – it’s a tiny, flawed study) cry more but that may be because they are communicating more! Because they are more awake, because they are not dozing with a tum full of formula!

So is formula bad? Of course not. Lots of babies grow up happily on formula, a mum may not be able to feed, may adopt, may have a tough birth, may have a busy job or a second child that is ill and needs her attention too, amy not fancy brestfeeding, there are a million reasons a mum might not breastfeed (one reason I’m not a ‘breastfeeding nazi' and would never say anything to another about her choice unless she asked for advice) but should a woman choose not to breastfeed because of this study? NO! certainly not!

But the sad fact is that thousands of women every year are put off of breastfeeding, and your milk is nearly always the right thing for your baby. The reasons for not breastfeeding are usually fear, fear of exposure, fear of offending people, fear of being verbally abused, fear of not having enough milk, fear of not being able to do it, and an added fear that on top of all that it may be ‘bad’ for the baby is just awful!

Formula is not a poison and may suit you better, but don’t use it ‘to get a quiet night’. My own experience and that of many breastfeeding mums is that if you relax, if you are led by your baby, you can have plenty of sleep with breastfeeding (not all at night it's true!) and will often not get sleep with a formula fed baby…because (guess what) babies are all different. Babies are different and mums are different, babies that sleep may have mums that don’t worry, or mums that fuss more to get things right! who knows!?

You are the mum, you and your baby are a perfect match, and if you can, you should listen to what you, your baby and your family needs, then everyone can relax and be happy. They are only babies such a short time, enjoy them.

Last night I got out of bed and padded into the tiny room we call the library...

I went into the box room (grandly titled 'The Library' due to it's being floor to ceiling shelved and filled with books) because one of my author friends(?) heroes(?) crushes (?) all of those(?) @AndyStantonTM had asked a question about grammar in the George Orwell novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, and I knew I had a copy and could check.

I checked and then of course I lay in bed and read a little, and found myself thinking of the recent riots (which I have trouble sorting in my mind, are people rioting for *more* state involvement in their lives?) when I read this...

Ignorance is Strength

Throughout recorded time, and probably since the end of the Neolithic Age, there have been three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle, and the Low. They have been subdivided in many ways, they have borne countless different names, and their relative numbers, as well as their attitude towards one another, have varied from age to age: but the essential structure of society has never altered. Even after enormous upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same pattern has always reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibrium, however far it is pushed one way or the other --
.

'Julia, are you awake?' said Winston.

'Yes, my love, I'm listening. Go on. It's marvellous.'

He continued reading:



. The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcilable. The aim of the High is to remain where they are. The aim of the Middle is to change places with the High. The aim of the Low, when they have an aim -- for it is an abiding characteristic of the Low that they are too much crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of anything outside their daily lives -- is to abolish all distinctions and create a society in which all men shall be equal. Thus throughout history a struggle which is the same in its main outlines recurs over and over again. For long periods the High seem to be securely in power, but sooner or later there always comes a moment when they lose either their belief in themselves or their capacity to govern efficiently, or both. They are then overthrown by the Middle, who enlist the Low on their side by pretending to them that they are fighting for liberty and justice. As soon as they have reached their objective, the Middle thrust the Low back into their old position of servitude, and themselves become the High. Presently a new Middle group splits off from one of the other groups, or from both of them, and the struggle begins over again. Of the three groups, only the Low are never even temporarily successful in achieving their aims. It would be an exaggeration to say that throughout history there has been no progress of a material kind. Even today, in a period of decline, the average human being is physically better off than he was a few centuries ago. But no advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimetre nearer. From the point of view of the Low, no historic change has ever meant much more than a change in the name of their masters.


I went to bed sad, I'm still sad. Sorry folks, what sort of crappy blog post is this! I'd ask for your money back if I were you.

If you want to read more, the entire novel is online here for free

Do we need a silence?

Every year, once a year, we have silence, quiet, hush.
We say it is to remember the dead, the lost, the harmed.
Some say it glorifies war, horror, pain.
Some say it is boring, useless, unimportant.

Today the sky is filled with clouds, rain, tears
and again we will stand, sit, wait
for the two minutes, the 120 seconds, the pause;
and find a gap in our busy lives, our work, our family
a time we can remember, think, consider

but will we?

In a short 2 minutes what will you do?

Animals, friend or foe

I have read some strange stories in the news lately, and maybe it’s just a coincidence that so many wild animals seem to be killing people lately, or maybe (worse) wild animals kill people all the time but we only hear about them some of the time! But whatever there have been some strange tales in the news lately, so for anyone that missed them I’m sharing them here.

First I spotted the headline ‘Crocodile on Plane kills 19’ and I refused to read the story because I felt that the story would only disappoint after such an amazing headline but how wrong I was, for it transpired that a crocodile had been smuggled onto a plane – forgive me while I imagine ways you can smuggle a crocodile, in your luggage? Disguised AS luggage? Down a leg of your trousers? (risky but can be done with ferrets so who knows) Under a jumper “my oh my that guy is fat and has scaly belly skin’? the mind boggles – but however it happened it appears that the poor crocodile was not securely smuggled (always secure your smuggled crocodiles folks!) and it escaped on the plane, running about and generally terrifying the passengers who dashed away from the ravening beast, unbalancing the plane and causing it to crash! And the worst bit was that the poor crocodile was one of only 2 survivors of the crash! but was killed by rescuers at the scene! Now THAT is a news story.

(as an aside – maybe he smuggled the croc into the plane in a bag of toy crocodiles in much the same way this lady smuggled a tiger cub……)

But jeepers creepers if it doesn’t get worse!

Imagine, you go on a safari holiday, you watch animals during the day and camp in cabins at night, eating round the fire, enjoying the sounds of the wild. Protected in your compound you pop out (with your wife) for a late night outdoor shower under the stars, does life get better? Well it can certainly get worse! Just when you thought soap in your eyes was the worst that could happen, 5 lions attack you! Yes not 1, not 2 not even 3 but 5 lions attack you IN THE SHOWER! This is the stuff of nightmares, and in the case of Pete Evershed  the cause of death too.

And of course last week a young boogie boarder was killed by a shark in the waters off of California, a young man that had joked about 'what if we get attacked by a shark'.

 Nature is fighting back people! By careful out there!

(How morbid would you need to be to keep a Top 10 animal attacks list  though, yeah I'm looking you Time Magazine)

How old is too old? (or 'sniff it and see')

Every now and again on social media someone says they have chucked away a yoghurt 3 days past the 'use by' date, or asks if bread 2 days past the sell by date is OK to eat or........well you get the idea. They want to know if they can safely consume an item of food that seems to be saying  

NO! DON'T EAT ME, YESTERDAY I WAS FINE 

BUT TODAY I AM FILLED WITH POISONOUS BACTERIA 

THAT WILL KILL YOU IN AN INSTANT 

WITH PAIN YOU CAN ONLY IMAGINE 

or something like that anyway.

I am old enough to know that expiry dates are a fairly new invention. Yes young people you read that right, we have not always been told when food is 'past it's best'. For hundreds, indeed thousands of years we used our own judgement! We looked at things, smelled them, touched them and decided 'is it still good'? (* when I say 'we' I do not, obviously, mean me! I mean the human race, I'm not thousands of years old, or hundreds come to that!)

And in some cases we still do. While supermarkets may wrap your vegetables in a plastic bag with a sticker proclaiming 'use by 9 Feb 2010' your local green grocer is unlikely to do the same, my local green grocer sells cucumbers, they are long and firm and green and that's it! I have to fondle the cucumber and decide how fresh it is! Is it soft? getting limp? then I'll ask if it's discounted or buy a firmer one! (are you all right? some of you appear a little flushed?)

Likewise my butcher does not put 'use by' dates on his pork products, i have to admire his loins and decide if they are fresh, are they greenish in hue? Do they smell? If not, I'm happy, a pink fresh loin is most women's dream, as are his sausages and his faggots! but I digress.

Until 1973 no stores in the UK used best before dates at all! And it was Marks and Spencer that began the trend purely as a marketing technique, to show how 'fresh' their food was! Of course all other food sellers leapt on to the bandwagon to be sure and keep up with the new trend.

It's true that some foods nowadays are hard to see. How can I tell if a tin of beans is 'fresh' or if a carton of orange juice is? and the simple answer is of course that I can't, like the rest of society I rely to some degree on labelling of the packets, but wouldn't it be easier to tell me when it was packed rather than a use by date? When I bake a cake I estimate how long it will last (bad example - 10 minutes in my house) by the date it was baked and then I use judgement.

When I open a loaf of bread and it had a patch of mould on it, I tear off the blue bit and toast the bread! I only throw away the whole loaf if it's more mould than loaf or if the flavour is totally tainted. Marmite can disguise a multitude of tastes.

And yoghurt is gone off milk! As is cheese, it can't go off! Sniff it! how does it smell? I've often eaten yoghurts 2 weeks past their 'use by' dates with no ill effects at all. And cheese can usually just have the mould cut off - after all cheddar is often already 24 months old by the time you buy it! So why would another month make any difference?

But I'm not alone, I am aware that many of you eat food that you have judged to be OK. Just remember it's a skill, learn it, pass it on, don't be afraid, trust your instincts.  My good friend Donna on Twitter sent me this handy link to get you started.

And don't come crying back here if you get sick.


Remember that this advice is just from a boring old person, not anyone clever and don't take risks with the elderly, the very young or the infirm. (No testing mouldy yoghurt out on your granny!)

PS   A website called Love Food Hate Waste perpetuates the myth by saying NEVER eat food past the use by date, which is just silly IMO. They even tell you 'if it looks fine, still throw it away!  I still say that for cheese and many other products this is ridiculous.


If you would like to buy some out of date food to practice on - look here for some cheap deals. Yes indeedy, an online retailer that specialises in old food!

The darkness beyond

I'm not the only one musing on the internet. I'm not the only one that posts stuff online. You all know that, you blog or you read blogs everyday, when you find a good one you star it or share it or follow it.

But do any blogs follow you?

I don't mean follow your blog, I mean follow you. Like stalk. Watch you, wait for you to move and be there, at your destination before you?

Are you alone while you blog, or is someone watching, over your shoulder. Biding their time.

I stumbled onto a blog a while ago and I'm hooked. I like to think it's safe to read, but sometimes I'm not so sure. Sometimes the thrill of a scary story seems just a little too close.

Do Vampires exist? If they do do they sparkle?

I doubt it, I expect they prowl silently at night, on rain slick streets, like tigers in a damp jungle, sniffing the city air...waiting.

If I knew there were real vampires would I be happy or scared? Is fear only fun when it's far away. Is danger glamorous, like my padding tiger in the dark.

Twitter seems a safe place to be. Or a blog. But how safe is safe?

Enjoy a scary story? (nothing like Twilight - trust me!)  Check out this blog. But don't say I didn't warn you.