Monday 22 March 2010
Wednesday 17 March 2010
When I grow up I want to be a chav
So I have two fears at the moment:
1) I am becoming an fully-fledged adult.
2) Under my liberty-print, Byatt-reading, David Dimbleby-watching exterior, I may actually be a chav.
The first is to do with a sudden liking for Jamie Cullum. For an ex-jazzophobe, discovering that I suddenly can’t get enough of the boo-boppety (ok, not quite the boo-boppety, more the laid back omelettes-on-a-Sunday-morning kinda groove) is disconcerting to say the least. Jazz and wine used to represent the habits of people more grown-up (read: more boring) than myself; now they seem pretty acceptable companions. Well blow me: looks like I’m a grown-up!
The second has been a sneaking suspicion for some time. The way huge gold hoop earrings always seem to be the perfect finishing touch to my outfit; the way I love to drive vans; the fact that my phone is pink and that the other weekend I woke up to find a half-drunk WKD blue in my fridge – these are all serious symptoms of a barely repressed chav persona. The well-bred don’t suddenly lapse into an Aussie accent; they don’t make up ‘alternative’ names for works of art in the Tate Modern; they don’t win sailing trips by dancing on bars – they just sail.
I am never cool and languid, nor are my limbs long and graceful. I have no cheekbones to speak of, my hair will not be bouffant no matter what I do (I cut it myself on a whim in a pub in Victoria, so the most it does in the way of wispiness or volume is to stick out over my ears in racoon-like tufts) and I am never going to be tall. Ever. But with one friend telling me that a male mate of hers isn’t posh enough for me, whilst another tells me ‘you’ve gotta treat those posh boys mean’ – what am I to do?!
It’s not all bad news, however. My Chinese step-grandmother was a notorious Kampong flirt, who used to run up gambling debts then hide under the bed when the collectors came to call and throw scissors at her daughters across the room. She’s now nearly 100 and still going out to lunch. So maybe there’s something to be said for a bit of roughage in the diet…
1) I am becoming an fully-fledged adult.
2) Under my liberty-print, Byatt-reading, David Dimbleby-watching exterior, I may actually be a chav.
The first is to do with a sudden liking for Jamie Cullum. For an ex-jazzophobe, discovering that I suddenly can’t get enough of the boo-boppety (ok, not quite the boo-boppety, more the laid back omelettes-on-a-Sunday-morning kinda groove) is disconcerting to say the least. Jazz and wine used to represent the habits of people more grown-up (read: more boring) than myself; now they seem pretty acceptable companions. Well blow me: looks like I’m a grown-up!
The second has been a sneaking suspicion for some time. The way huge gold hoop earrings always seem to be the perfect finishing touch to my outfit; the way I love to drive vans; the fact that my phone is pink and that the other weekend I woke up to find a half-drunk WKD blue in my fridge – these are all serious symptoms of a barely repressed chav persona. The well-bred don’t suddenly lapse into an Aussie accent; they don’t make up ‘alternative’ names for works of art in the Tate Modern; they don’t win sailing trips by dancing on bars – they just sail.
I am never cool and languid, nor are my limbs long and graceful. I have no cheekbones to speak of, my hair will not be bouffant no matter what I do (I cut it myself on a whim in a pub in Victoria, so the most it does in the way of wispiness or volume is to stick out over my ears in racoon-like tufts) and I am never going to be tall. Ever. But with one friend telling me that a male mate of hers isn’t posh enough for me, whilst another tells me ‘you’ve gotta treat those posh boys mean’ – what am I to do?!
It’s not all bad news, however. My Chinese step-grandmother was a notorious Kampong flirt, who used to run up gambling debts then hide under the bed when the collectors came to call and throw scissors at her daughters across the room. She’s now nearly 100 and still going out to lunch. So maybe there’s something to be said for a bit of roughage in the diet…
Friday 12 March 2010
I think I am actually allergic to Friday nights in. It doesn't matter one bit that I've got a horrible cold, my body temperature doing a jig up, down and all over town - I do not want to spend the best night of the week sat at home alone watching Jonathan Ross and wondering: when did Charlotte Church get hot?!
Note to self - if a mum of two looks that much better than you, it is definitely time to go to the gym. And stop eating ice cream from the tub. That would be now.
Essentially, I think I am paying for last weekend. I had been drinking for fourteen hours straight; something was bound to go wrong. And it had been such a lovely weekend - tequila in the Cuban bar, picnicking in Richmond park, pool in the Pilgrim... Then of course I spoiled the fun with my very special knack for making a mess.
And now someone is very angry with me.
Note to self - if a mum of two looks that much better than you, it is definitely time to go to the gym. And stop eating ice cream from the tub. That would be now.
Essentially, I think I am paying for last weekend. I had been drinking for fourteen hours straight; something was bound to go wrong. And it had been such a lovely weekend - tequila in the Cuban bar, picnicking in Richmond park, pool in the Pilgrim... Then of course I spoiled the fun with my very special knack for making a mess.
And now someone is very angry with me.
Thursday 11 March 2010
Misandry, and other endearing traits
Apparently last Saturday was the 100th International Women’s Day. I am a woman, and yet I was completely oblivious to this fact. Apparently some thousands of women marched through the centre of London, along the very same streets that I trod 24 hours later, guilt-shopping (it’s like comfort-eating, only where you substitute some niggling moral guilt for the more easily assuaged guilt of spending money on scarves and nail polish).
Reading The Independent’s celebratory feature on the women’s movement (well, celebratory insofar as pointing out still extant inequalities and producing lots of mini pie-charts of how badly off some/most women still are is celebratory), I began to feel a little left out. The feminist debate still rages, and so far I have opted out.
It’s never seemed to have much to do with me: I grew up in a home where Mother ruled, where Calamity Jane was the aspiration, where Barbie didn’t need Ken so long as she had a substantial wardrobe and where men, well men just weren’t around to cause any problems. During my teens, the place at the head of the table was more often than not occupied by the most important male in my life – Snoopy the cat.
University changed everything. I had never had to compete with boys before. A girls’ school education, girl guides, dance classes – none of these had prepared me for the discovery that in the ‘real world’, most of the authority figures (dead and alive) are Men. And that Men like to argue.
As a student faculty representative, I sat through many committee meeting discussions trying to unravel why, in a female-dominated subject, academic success nevertheless belonged to the male minority. It seemed simple and yet unsolvable: examiners rewarded those who took the plunge; amongst the reams of exam responses those which stood out would inevitably be those with the wildest and most uncompromising lines of argument. Balanced and consequentially cautious approaches wouldn’t stand a chance, conventionally female approaches wouldn’t stand a chance.
A girl a couple of years younger than me followed me from school to Cambridge, to the same college and the same subject. I think she too was startled at the differences between the High School for Girls and the Higher Education for Everyone. She once asked me, frustrated and bewildered, why we hadn’t been taught to argue the way the boys had – 'the way we were supposed to'.
It was also at university that I encountered openly sexist attitudes for the first time. My male friends compiled a spreadsheet (this was Cambridge, they were geeky as well as misogynistic) rating all eighty-odd girls in our college year. The qualities afforded ratings included Face, Legs, Breasts, How many pints before you’d sleep with them, Accessibility, and – my especial favourite – the Personality tick box: Yes or No.
Back then I wrote an article for the student paper on the facet of sexism which most affected me - which continues to affect me. Putting aside the rights and wrongs, dos and don’ts of promiscuity, language is against us girls. Whilst a guy who is frequently friendly with our sex is nothing worse than a ladies’ man, or a player, any girl who indulges in the same behaviour is likely to find sooner or later that ugly word slut creeping into her company.
For guys, it’s simply a game and you’re the players. Such a label does no damage; in fact often the opposite – it endows you with a little of the frisson of the game itself, the seductive eye-twinkle of the gambler. But for us girls, the appellation ‘slut’ is barely one step up from ‘whore’. Romping in the mire of immorality, with the ample bosom of a milkmaid and unfeasible amounts of underwear on display, the Slut is the nemesis of all Nice Girls, the one-best-forgotten of all Nice Boys, and ultimately the mere plaything of the Player.
Reading The Independent’s celebratory feature on the women’s movement (well, celebratory insofar as pointing out still extant inequalities and producing lots of mini pie-charts of how badly off some/most women still are is celebratory), I began to feel a little left out. The feminist debate still rages, and so far I have opted out.
It’s never seemed to have much to do with me: I grew up in a home where Mother ruled, where Calamity Jane was the aspiration, where Barbie didn’t need Ken so long as she had a substantial wardrobe and where men, well men just weren’t around to cause any problems. During my teens, the place at the head of the table was more often than not occupied by the most important male in my life – Snoopy the cat.
University changed everything. I had never had to compete with boys before. A girls’ school education, girl guides, dance classes – none of these had prepared me for the discovery that in the ‘real world’, most of the authority figures (dead and alive) are Men. And that Men like to argue.
As a student faculty representative, I sat through many committee meeting discussions trying to unravel why, in a female-dominated subject, academic success nevertheless belonged to the male minority. It seemed simple and yet unsolvable: examiners rewarded those who took the plunge; amongst the reams of exam responses those which stood out would inevitably be those with the wildest and most uncompromising lines of argument. Balanced and consequentially cautious approaches wouldn’t stand a chance, conventionally female approaches wouldn’t stand a chance.
A girl a couple of years younger than me followed me from school to Cambridge, to the same college and the same subject. I think she too was startled at the differences between the High School for Girls and the Higher Education for Everyone. She once asked me, frustrated and bewildered, why we hadn’t been taught to argue the way the boys had – 'the way we were supposed to'.
It was also at university that I encountered openly sexist attitudes for the first time. My male friends compiled a spreadsheet (this was Cambridge, they were geeky as well as misogynistic) rating all eighty-odd girls in our college year. The qualities afforded ratings included Face, Legs, Breasts, How many pints before you’d sleep with them, Accessibility, and – my especial favourite – the Personality tick box: Yes or No.
Back then I wrote an article for the student paper on the facet of sexism which most affected me - which continues to affect me. Putting aside the rights and wrongs, dos and don’ts of promiscuity, language is against us girls. Whilst a guy who is frequently friendly with our sex is nothing worse than a ladies’ man, or a player, any girl who indulges in the same behaviour is likely to find sooner or later that ugly word slut creeping into her company.
For guys, it’s simply a game and you’re the players. Such a label does no damage; in fact often the opposite – it endows you with a little of the frisson of the game itself, the seductive eye-twinkle of the gambler. But for us girls, the appellation ‘slut’ is barely one step up from ‘whore’. Romping in the mire of immorality, with the ample bosom of a milkmaid and unfeasible amounts of underwear on display, the Slut is the nemesis of all Nice Girls, the one-best-forgotten of all Nice Boys, and ultimately the mere plaything of the Player.
Saturday 6 March 2010
Oops, I did it again.
I reckon the reason my heart is so fit is the mini workout it gets every Friday night when I decide to get lost and frightened in Brixton or wander through the subway of doom in Elephant and Castle alone at 3am. Thump, thump, thump - I'm surprised all the robbers and rapists of south London can't hear from a mile off how scared I am. But I put on my fearless walk, and I make it home, and my sensible flatmate makes me promise not to do it again.
Then I do it again.
Then I do it again.
Tuesday 2 March 2010
Work in a nunnery
Spring is here, the sun is out, the clouds have lifted and possibilities are as infinite as the sky!
That is, until I get to work.
Today, my boss booked me into a seminar in late November. My contract is due to expire at the end of October. I should be happy; this means they want to keep me. But I'm not sure I want to be kept - at five months this job is approaching my all-time employment record of six months (in an unpaid, come-and-go-as-you-please position). That's five solid months of getting up on time(ish). I have a smart flat complete with real wood floors and halogen lighting; I am joining a gym this week; I wear shiny pointy shoes - and hell, I wasn't even hungover on Sunday. This is growing up, and I don't think I like it.
Reading Byatt's Possession this evening (yep, I came home and settled on the sofa with a book, like a real adult) I came across the phrase 'full-blooded departmental male'. This is what my current job lacks: a full-blooded departmental male. We are a company of full-blooded departmental women. We sit up in our attic office, spinning words like a band of editorial spiders, or more romantically, like fairytale women trapped in towers, awaiting rescue by a knight on a staircase of books.
Ok, I'm exaggerating. FedEx pay us at least one visit a week, and they're normally pretty male, if not full-blooded. And I'm actually the only unmarried member of the gang. Debs is so inextricably intertwined with her boy-husband Alex that I really don't know how she makes it into work without him clinging around her ankles (I do have to listen to on average half a dozen 'It's in the second drawer, where the whisks are... Well, have you looked underneath the whisks? Mmm, yes I love you too...' phone calls per day, all announced by the epic ringtone 'Take My Breath Away'), and our boss Jacky, all jangling bangles, clinging sweater dresses and fiery red hair is apparently at the centre of some steamy love triangle involving the head of Waterstones and the head of Johnson & Johnson. Whereas yours truly... To be honest I suspect the main reason Jacky is so keen to keep me on is that there is basically zero chance of my absconding on interminable maternity leave. And because I like to gossip.
Just a thought: why is it that spiders are always figured as female? Is it just the spinning, or is it something more sinister to do with legs?
That is, until I get to work.
Today, my boss booked me into a seminar in late November. My contract is due to expire at the end of October. I should be happy; this means they want to keep me. But I'm not sure I want to be kept - at five months this job is approaching my all-time employment record of six months (in an unpaid, come-and-go-as-you-please position). That's five solid months of getting up on time(ish). I have a smart flat complete with real wood floors and halogen lighting; I am joining a gym this week; I wear shiny pointy shoes - and hell, I wasn't even hungover on Sunday. This is growing up, and I don't think I like it.
Reading Byatt's Possession this evening (yep, I came home and settled on the sofa with a book, like a real adult) I came across the phrase 'full-blooded departmental male'. This is what my current job lacks: a full-blooded departmental male. We are a company of full-blooded departmental women. We sit up in our attic office, spinning words like a band of editorial spiders, or more romantically, like fairytale women trapped in towers, awaiting rescue by a knight on a staircase of books.
Ok, I'm exaggerating. FedEx pay us at least one visit a week, and they're normally pretty male, if not full-blooded. And I'm actually the only unmarried member of the gang. Debs is so inextricably intertwined with her boy-husband Alex that I really don't know how she makes it into work without him clinging around her ankles (I do have to listen to on average half a dozen 'It's in the second drawer, where the whisks are... Well, have you looked underneath the whisks? Mmm, yes I love you too...' phone calls per day, all announced by the epic ringtone 'Take My Breath Away'), and our boss Jacky, all jangling bangles, clinging sweater dresses and fiery red hair is apparently at the centre of some steamy love triangle involving the head of Waterstones and the head of Johnson & Johnson. Whereas yours truly... To be honest I suspect the main reason Jacky is so keen to keep me on is that there is basically zero chance of my absconding on interminable maternity leave. And because I like to gossip.
Just a thought: why is it that spiders are always figured as female? Is it just the spinning, or is it something more sinister to do with legs?
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