...so Saturday night is Timeshift Telly night.
I can't understand people who say there's nothing on TV. Just look at Thursdays. Because Sky+ can only record two things at once, you end up ditching a programme of apparent interest, or scanning the Radio Times for rapid repeat (BBC4's ace for that).
For a few weeks we have been enjoying 1½ hours of pure comic genius as given to us by BBC2. Well, Dead Ringers is a bit hit-and-miss, but it's worth sitting through the misses for the hits. "Hello. I'm Fiona Bruce...!" Then there's the Robinsons, which I watched sort of by accident on Election night and have been subsequently hooked. Very subversive. A respectable moderately successful suburban family of three generations and myriad assorted, mainly dead (by misadventure) relatives. I suspect it is an accurate description of the silent and tolerable despair of many people's lives.
And then we get Kath and Kim. I have been informed that a second series was shown in New Zealand last year, so, yay! I suspect if it were British, I would hate it, as being too familiar. But being Australian, the strangeness can be explained by the otherness. Larger than life characters living lives of utter banality, thinking they have a lifestyle, as dictated by the media. And really very very funny.
The interesting thing about the Robinsons and Kath and Kim is the characters that I instinctively warm to - Maggie and Kell. Poor Maggie, desperate to be kind, lacking in self-esteem. And Kell, with his ghastly haircut and appalling dress sense, and his strange mannerisms , is, nevertheless a giant of a man. Caring, diligent, conscientious.
But the best of the lot was Ladettes to Ladies. It's a series - if you missed the first, catch the rest. I recorded it. thinking it would be probably be dire but might be excellent.
Excellent. The premise is clever - select ten ladettes and send them to Finishing School. The selection of the ladettes was clever, too. It seems that none of them is really bad - one was jailed for flashing her boobs in Falaraki but otherwise they don't appear to have criminal records, they don't believe the world owes them a living. They drink like fishes and are exhibitionists. But each one of them is intelligent, with strong, engaging, likeable personalities.
It was hilarious watching the women from the 'Finishing School'. One who was so plummy and so busy talking posh that she could barely string a sentence together, let alone articulate a thought; another who claimed never to have met a 'ladette' (maybe she should get out more from a narrow blinkered existence?) and another so up herself she was referred to on voice-over as Mrs English. And they seemed entirely non-plussed at the participant who is a gas-fitter. Shock, horror - gas fitter!
I found myself identifying with the Ladettes much much more than the pickled snobs. I did disagree with the Voice Over that suggested 'ladette' entered the vocab two years ago. I would see it as a mid-Nineties thing - Zoe Ball and Sara Cox were cited. And finally, I found a term I could identify with.
I've done it all - drinking like a fish, dancing on tables, removing my clothes. And that was just at Lambeth New Labour 'do's. We shall gloss over the student days, I think...!
Which then got me thinking. I liked all of the participants. All of them are fiercely independent, no one's going to tell them what to do. A couple were very scathing at the necessity of wearing heels. And skirts. You go, girl! I exclaim. All capable of communicating, socialising and enjoying themselves, with lively sense of humour. Not self-obsessed and self-absorbed, they'd be well out of place on Big Brother.
But what struck me was, in general, a lack of awareness of how to adapt one's behaviour to context. One was a PA and her bosses sent her on the course because she has a foul mouth and thought you'd have to go abroad to learn deportment. If she was a bad PA, she'd have been sacked.
None of them seemed to have a clue what to wear for a posh event. Even in my most ladette stage I had an instinct for putting on a posh frock when the occasion called for it. I wonder where I learnt that - maybe at University (Aka East Midlands Finishing School!). Partly from TV and magazines, I suspect. And despite the most 'ladette'-ish excesses of Lambeth Labour Group (one January someone suggested there should be a competition to see who could sleep with the most men by summer: I opted out of that one...!), we nevertheless knew how to behave ourselves in meetings, with officers and with the public. And understood what was needed to being to transform the Borough. I never turned up drunk to a meeting.
What was striking was all the participants seem to be from a working- or lower-middle-class background. Part of the finishing course involves removing their regional accents. I can't be doing with that. I notice regional accents when people are struggling to articulate themselves. But looking at Senior Broadcasters, Ministers, and other members of the 'Establishment', I see no problem with the many with noticeable regional accents. I certainly find that, having moved round the country, and mixing with people who have done likewise, I tend to have a less noticeable accent than I would have done if I had stayed in one place and mixed in a narrow group.
Some of the Finishing School techniques are interesting, but life is way too short to learn flower-arranging. And who wants to wear court shoes and twin-set-and-pearls, and sit with one ankle across the other. That's what DMs, trousers and long floaty skirts are for. the only lesson seems to be that flesh-revealing dresses are not really that nice to look at.
The Observer carries an article
How I learnt to be a lady (just about) - quote
I think it's a mistake to dismiss these sort of classes as old-fashioned or pointless because they build self-esteem and give people confidence.. I'm all for self-esteem and confidence, I just think they are not things that can be taught and sit on the surface, but they come from within, from achieving something. Anything. Especially if it takes effort.
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