Gertsamtkunstwerk

Thursday night is telly night...

...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.

People on Transport

I got on the bus on Brixton Hill. There were no empty double seats, and no empty single outside halves. So I turned to a woman and said "Excuse me, please..", expecting her to shove over or stand up. Instead, grudgingly, she swung her legs round and glared at me. She was no thinner than me (and I'm being kind...). She obviously hadn't clocked my rucksack, sitting happily on my back, containing my handbag, a three-CD box set, a sandwich box, an A5 notebook, and my camera, as well as assorted ephemera. I just could not avoid clouting her in the face...

I alighted from the Tube at Vauxhall station. I have a slight problem at Vauxhall. I emerge from the Northbound platform, and have to cross over the path from the 'down' escalator to reach the 'up' esclator. At that time of day, people are pouring off suburban South Western Trains to hit the Vic line to head into Central London. I am amazed at how many of them run. I have some sympathy with people running for trains. If they are only once in fifteen minutes and you just miss one, it's an irritating waste of time.

But the Victoria Line? In the peak the trains are a minute apart. Two at most. I wonder how stressed these people are. I decided in my early twenties that I intended to spend the best part of forty years travelling to work. I decided to make the best of it, relax and enjoy the experience. Their stress is their problem. But when they lack the ability to anticipate people emerging from the platform and cannon into them, it becomes a wider problem. I am fairly steady on my feet and fairly solidly built, but I still don't like being barged into.

Going up the stairs to leave the station. I followed a man wielding a bright yellow golfing-umbrella-as-ski-pole. At about the level of my eyes. He was waving it around unpredictably. So, at the top of the stairs I pointed out to him that he was brandishing a dangerous weapon and he could hurt someone. He looked at me with utter contempt and said,

"Calm down dear..."

I thought - 'So, you wish to be patronising. You have summoned up all your intelligence and your experience of nearly twenty-five years on this planet and the best put-down you can come up with is a catch phrase from a universally loathed TV advert fronted by a universally detested Michael Winner for a product resolutely not targeted at you. '

What a shame I couldn't summon up a pithy soundbite to precis that. He was wearing an iPod.

It reminded me a few weeks ago I decided to take my chance and cross Horseferry Road. There were traffic light controlled junctions to the left and right of me , but I just could not be arsed to walk down, so I decided to dodge the traffic. Usually it works; on this occasion I got unlucky and had to wait on the white line. I was not frightfully bothered, just kept looking at the traffic to my left, and occasionally to my right. A white van drove past, and the man driving it decided to laugh at me in a sneering put-down way. I wondered what his point was. Okay, I had misjudged - hey not the end of the world. But he was driving a white van and wearing a Post-It Note coloured tie.

A few years ago I was at a friend's house and she was showing me a book someone had bought her, called How To Bring Up Boys, or somesuch. It was so bad it was comedy. It was predicated on an assumption of all fathers being emotionally illiterate and stunted (and omni-absent) and all mothers being paranoic smotherers, with no acquaintance with any men, and it said some really stupid things.

But amidst the almost total stupidity was one notion that made me think - the rule-proving exception - that many boys are arrogant and condescending because no one has bothered to take them down a peg or two. I have some sympathy for boys in their mid teens, with their adult-size bodies but poor co-ordination, their adolescent emotions, and their confusion about their role (child? adult?) and what it takes to be a man. Much of the cockiness is a mask for a lack of self-esteem and subtlety.

But when men in their twenties or thirties are wielding yellow umbrellas or wearing yellow ties and putting other people down, I reckon they have not left that adolescence.

Update: And if Sasha had trackback, I could link to a post which finishes

And they looked to me like kids whose parents had never said to them, "you know, son, you might sometimes be wrong."

Baseball caps

Mall bans shoppers' hooded tops

I have to say that the nearest I have ever got to shopping at one of these new-style out-of-town 'malls' is some god awful nausea-inducing claustrophobic place in Bromley, and the old fashioned Arndales etc.

Living so close to the West End, wild horses would not drag me into such a sterile shrine to commercialism. I moan about the pavement congestion and maelstrom of Oxford Street, but there's something organic about it, there are plenty of places to escape, and the shops are more diverse and comprehensive than anywhere else. Plus, you don't get told how to dress.

I think banning baseball caps and hooded tops is a hammer to crack a nut. You don't get marauding gangs of threatening chavs in Oxford Street and environs, which merely adds to my theory of anomie about the artificial places.

I actually think that Bluewater will enforce the ban partially. If I happen to go there wearing my M&S hooded jumper I do not suppose I would be banned. They'd probably ban me for smoking, which seems yet another good reason to stick to 'traditional' High Streets.

But I do think that baseball caps should be banned wholescale, merely on the grounds of taste. If that is fashion, forget it. Don't people realise they look stupid. Jimmy has one, which he wears when the temperatures top 80 degrees and there's not a cloud in the sky; even then, he never wears it indoors (because men shouldn't wear hats indoors) and even outdoors, only at beaches, parks etc.

I have a straw hat. It's been a while since I've sported a winter hat, but I often used to. It did attract attention, admiring attention, because I looked stylish and distinguished. Not some tacky cheap thing swearing allegiance to something of which I know nothing.

Toddler gets vote

But in an election bungle the 18-month-old from Colchester, Essex, was sent a polling card by local council officials.

Would that be because he was on the Electoral Register?

I wonder how he got on the Electoral Register?

Did his parents perhaps put his name on it?

Even though the form says only include those who are aged 16 or above, and if 16 and 17 put their dates of birth?

And then they go to a national newspaper and tell the world how thick they are.

Should the parents perhaps be barred from eligibility to vote for the next eighteen years?

Hey, we all make mistakes filling in forms. But we don't broadcast it from the rooftops!

And of course he got election leaflets from various parties - because they used the electoral register...!

Parenting skills

Heads back parent lessons for all

I'm not sure about this. I think it's insulting to very many people to be told that they have to learn what should be second nature to any half-intelligent person.

And those that need it the most are likely to be the ones that object the loudest.

We were in a restaurant last night and there was a group of about eight adults and two children. One of the children, aged about six kept making a noise. It was an extremely high pitched tone with pronounced wobble, loud and sustained, intermittently for an hour or so. This set my teeth and nerves on edge, and I ordered red wine when I had meant to order white. The waitresses were visibly wincing. The other one, about eight, intermittently beat his fork against his glass arrhythmically. They were ignored by their adults. The other adults in the restaurant kept looking at them in irritation.

Mother told the restautant at least four times that she was going to half nine 'Marss' tomorrow (this morning).

When the boys were running round she drawled languidly, in an unpleasant artificially high and elocuted voice "Henry, you're being too noisy. Henry you're being too noisy." Henry and the other one totally ignored her. She had no authority in her voice. When they ignored her, she carried on ignoring them. They carried on running around.

Eventually, Mother announced "It's time to leave." As one, the restaurant the rose and applauded wildly.

Jimmy, who had his back to them, exclaimed in horror "They're not Toddlers...?"

Depressing

One in four parents who watched Jamie Oliver's TV campaign for better school dinners has ditched junk food, a poll revealed yesterday.

I'm not sure what's more depressing - the inferrence that many parents watched it and still feed crap to their brats, or that those millions who have switched didn't know beforehand what poison they were dolingout. No doubt their heads are filled with trivia. Or, alternatively, they have now swallowed the propaganda hook, line and sinker, without considering that a bit of junk now and again for convenience ain't going to kill anybody.

Meanwhile in other news, Rowan Williams says it's about time adults grow up

Some interesting thoughts - but he's wrong on the Welfare-to-Work issue. Perhaps he would like to see all women at home, financially dependent upon their husbands, regardless of the age of their children. Many mothers - and, in some cases, fathers - would like to take responsibility and get back into the workplace, but need a bit of a helping hand

It has served importantly as a corrective to a passive attitude, but, insofar as it presumes that economic productivity is where we all ought to end up, irrespective of our nurturing and forming responsibilities, as a society it isn't enough productivity and too little on persuading them to develop nurturing skills for their children's sake.

Of course it isn't enough. He clearly hasn't heard of Surestart, which the Tories would scrap. For generations and generations ordinary people combined parenthood with working - my mother said she was the first person in her family to be a stay-at-home mother.

But whether the god-botherers like it or not, we live in a fundamentally capitalist society where economic activity is essential for survival. Not exclusively so, which is what he's hinting at, but still essential.

Jane's Margherita Weekly

Army pilot rap over pizza flight

A lieutenant has been disciplined after using an Army helicopter to deliver a pizza to his girlfriend.

I love the last paragraph -

The Ministry of Defence spokesman was unable to confirm what toppings were on the pizza.

Manners

At the Coliseum this evening, I had been to the loo, bought my programme, dumped my coat, and bought a drink. I realised it was ages until curtain-up so I thought I would nip outside for a fag. Obviously, at that time the majority of people are coming in, not going out, so I knew that the onus was on me to pay attention whilst going against the flow.

I opened one of the heavy, inward opening front doors, and was about to pop out when I realised that my way was blocked by a very immobile woman, with a walking stick, being helped up the steps by a taxi driver. He and I did an exchange of facial expression, where he ensured that I knew how immobile the woman was, and I ensured that he knew I would hold the door for as long as necessary. She thanked him profusely and gratefully, and then thanked me. Not just with her voice - 'thank you so much, every little helps' but with her eyes. Her eyes told a story of a once independent woman embarrassed by her now dependence on others.

Immediately following her was a group of four perfectly able-bodied people - or two twosomes - who flounced through the door, tried to push her out of the way, looked at me as if I was something the cat dragged in. In amongst them was a man who saw me, realised what was happening, gave me a sympathetic look, and a 'thank you - oh dear'.

Following behind was a man with a walking stick who was relatively spritely as walking stick users go, but, nevertheless, clearly needed the stick. Cheerily, he said "Oh! Are you trying to get out. Everyone's stopping you!" I said "I don't mind you!" "You'd better get out while you can!" he advised, with a conspiratorial smile, and he took the door from me, for which I thanked him.

I stood against the wall smoking my cigarette and finishing my drink (ssssh - don't tell anyone, I took a glass outside...) A woman was walking backwards across the pavement, fairly rapidly, and was about to cannon into me, so I said "Don't walk backwards any more..." Swiftly she turned round, and looked me up and down in the most condescending manner. She realised what she had done, her face turned to embarrassment, and giving me one last filthy look she scuttled away. I wasn't expecting an apology but she clearly decided she was better than me.

I'm not going to rant. I want to analyse. We are in a situation where there is a large number of people in close quarters (it's called a city...) Perhaps I am over-conscious of my dyspraxia, so maybe I tend to over-compensate by being hyper-aware of my physical surroundings and (lack of) personal space.

The man who offered me a thank-you/oh dear had clearly realised, but a tad too late, what was happening, and graciously acknowledged his mistake. We all make mistakes - a couple of weeks ago I tutted at a group of people sitting on the floor, a micro-second before I noticed a First Aid bag, and a moment before I overheard 'She's had a fit'. I felt bad about that, and there was nothing I could do make amends.

But the people who tried to push the infirm old lady out of the way and looked at me like I was something they had trodden on - what's their excuse. Surely they must have seen the old lady teetering up the steps - unless they had barged their way through the crowd on the pavement, too. I was not wearing the uniform of a Coliseum employee. If I was, I would not, but should, have been showed common courtesy.

I can only assume that these people, who clearly looked like they were Tory voters from Surrey or Buckinghamshire, are so unfamiliar with being with people, let alone in a city, that they cannot cope. People who are used to cities negotiate crowds; those that drive around their smug suburbs and commuter towns have lost any spatial awareness. And they obviously think they are better than me, which is, patently, untrue. And better than the deeply infirm elderly lady who showed herself to be vastly superior to them by her grace and charm.

Public behaviour

The foyer/bar area at the Barbican is an interesting exercise in studying public behaviour.

Last night, I was in an amorphous mass of people huddled round a litter bin to catch the ash from our cigarettes. A few yards away a rather snotty middle-aged woman exclaimed loudly and pointedly "You would have thought it would be non-smoking. There are people smoking."

In a way, she had a point. However, I thought her approach was rude. Am I now the only person who thinks it is bad manners to make rude remarks about other people, not to them, in their earshot?

To be honest, I would have thought it would be non-smoking. Indeed, it is almost non-smoking in an ad hoc self-regulated way. Almost always when I attend the Barbican, the smokers are outside on the Lakeside Terrace. The exceptions are when it's lashing it down, or, like last night, bitterly cold and windy. Even then, the smokers lurk on the periphery. Many hovering in the vacuum between the double doors.

I don't know what her problem is. When we were all smoking in the loos at Taba airport some angst-ridden woman regaled us about how she had crossed her legs for a long time, scared of going in in case it triggered one of her 'attacks'. Everyone looked at her witheringly.

I wanted to ask her - if you are so susceptible to 'attacks' caused by pollution why have you voluntarily put yourself on an aeroplane to travel for five hours - and on at least two previous occasions, to my knowledge, for eight hours to Varadero and Cancun. I wanted to ask her how she intended getting home from Gatwick. I suspected strongly it would almost certainly be by car.

Last night I wanted to tell the woman in the fur coat that she was an ignorant illbred moron, and to enquire whether she drove a car, what was her mileage, how big was the engine.

The thing is, though, I was brought up, not dragged up, and, therefore, I find it goes again the grain to be confrontational. Unless directly confronted. If this cow has a problem with smoking in the Barbican, perhaps she could complain to the management. The trouble is Management (in general, I mean, I know nothing about the Barbican management) tend to respond to the one complaint without weighing all the non-complainants in the balance.

I don't want to rehash all the arguments about smoking in public places, but I do think that there is an element of people, or perhaps an element in all people, which is highly critical of other people's behaviour without being at all critical of their own.

People, again

Then you return to Blighty and have two negative exposures in one day.

At lunchtime, in Eat, the woman in front of me was buying three salads - presumably for her and two colleagues - and was paying with luncheon vouchers. A group of twenty-year old ex-public school boys from the Prince Harry Behaviour School walked in, all wearing pink ties with enormous knots pulled sloppily off their necks, all braying at the top of their artificially accented voices, all being annoyingly over-hormonally ill-brought up arrogantly male upper class twats.

In loud voices they proclaimed "Fucking luncheon vouchers. Giggle giggle snort snort deride condescend fucking luncheon vouchers". I really wanted to give them a pieceof my mind about

a) how rude it is to make loud comments about people in their earshot - poor woman must have felt self-conscious or mortified - and

b) to grow up and start understanding the eonomics of the workplace - presumably her workplace doesn't provide a canteen or sommon room, so issues LVs instead. So what.

On the train home two women. Obviously acquaintances, chance meeting. Both of them really ugly. They may not have been born ugly. It was a mixture of the cheap yellow home-peroxided hair and their utter lack of humour, in all its subtleties and nuances. Some mention made of some 'flu bug that's coming over here. How does it get here? Sideways furtive glance at me (who was looking very foreign with my dark hair and beige complexion) and a whispered 'immigrants'. Made me laugh!

Continued conversation about their journey to/from work. I couldn't quite work it out, but they both go a convoluted route to avoid something or other. One stood up immediately the train left Balham in order to ensure that she was able to get off at Streatham Hill.

Moaning and complaining about the new road layout and how difficut it is to cross (I have to say, it is slightly irritating, but it's all covered by Green Men). Then moaning about the floods in Carlisle. As far as I can tell, it's all Tony Blair's fault, because he wants a plane like Air Force One. My instinct tells me they are the Streatham Vale Chapter of the BNP.

But what struck me most of all was their clear shared belief that everything is conspiring against them. They are depressed about everything, their mouths are turned down in disapproval, and there was no indication whatsoever that either of them had the slightest ability to look on the funny side, or to shrug anything off, to live with it.

The Braying Hoorays and the BNP women both have my pity. Their lack of humanity, of compassion, of love, mars their very existence.

For 2005 I am going to be filled with compassion because it is only through compassion that we find love, through love peace, and, well, it really is the meaning of life...

From now on I am going to be the nicest most beautiful person on the internet

People

The more I study them, the more fascinating they become. I had a sort of Epiphany on holiday, almost by accident. Instead of getting all ranty about the foibles of fellow holiday makers, I somehow managed to compute that maybe it's not an inherent part of their personality. Just a foible.

Eg 1: The woman next to me on the trip to/from Jerusalem* On arrival at the Dead Sea resort and in Eilat, she saw the famous sign and said "Mm, McDonald's" with such desire, relish and grieving it was as if her life depended upon it. Do I judge? no. Doesn't make her a bad person, probably not symbolic of anything. OK, it was an ironic juxtaposition with her later comment "I'm really fussy about what I eat, no fat or gristle"

Eg 2 Chap we shared a table with for New Year. A bit full of himself, and a rather loud voice and irritating voice that carried far whiletal king incesantly about nothing. But actually, a very nice man. And his wife exceptionally nice. So, we have little in common. but nice people.

Eg 3 Chap encountered in bar in Rangers FC t-shirt (generally a warning sign). We chatted about holidays, turns out his wife owns a couple of travel agents. I suspected an hour or two in his company might be too much to bear. But he was asking my opinion about things, and we had an amazingly intelligent conversation, where I was confidently expressing my opinions and he was listening and processing. And we agreed about certain things - not least the crapness JMC (spawn of Satan) reps that, on arrival in holiday destination at 10 pm , direct you to the lovely English bar/restaurant five minutes to the right that might still be open if you're quick, without mentioning the exceptionally lovely and incredibly cheap Spanish restaurant two minutes to the left that will definitely be open well into the night. He said he had found English run bars in Spain charging twice the price for the same beer as nearby Spanish-owned bars. And we agreed that local food is generally cheaper and better quality than that laid on for the Brits in the Brit owned Brit themed pubs.

Eg 4 On the same subject, when I said the drawback of a Taba All-Inclusive is the inability to go and wander round the town and find a small, but perfectly formed local restaurant, and the weird over-fussy woman who said "But that means taking your purse out with you..." I suppose I just felt sorry for what she is missing out on, due to misplaced fear.

* inadvertent mention of pub name there!

Big boobs

Lea's ops for 30M boobs

Totally grotesque - although my eyes are drawn to the scary face, much preferring the 'before' picture.

But what makes me laugh is the sanctimonious Sun preaching

And surgeons should not blindly give free rein to women who, for some unknown reason, feel so utterly insecure about themselves that distorting their body becomes their chosen way to express this anxiety.

Presumably, this is a different Sun from the one that routinely objectifies women, especially breasts, and keeps on with that subliminal message that surface appearance is all that matters.

Bah! Humbug!

Bethlehem? What's that?

Nearly a third of Britons don't know Jesus was born in Bethlehem, according to a poll.

I apply my normal scepticism to polls and wonder how that could have come about. The newspaper clip includes a quote from a Free Presbyterian Church spokesman "It's despicable." I assume that he is appalled at the ungodliness of a nation that has largely rejected the hypocrisies and hatreds of organised religion.

But surely there is a level of General Knowledge that most people possess. I am thinking of a range of people I know who are ill-educated, and not necessarily focused on the knowledge society. But I am absolutely positive that they know stuff like that.

A poll by Sky Box Office - perhaps it's made up by The Sun to act as advertising for another arm of Murdochia.

What do they mean by nearly a third? That could mean less than ten per cent. I accept that there are people who lack the capacity to understand or participate in such a poll, but they wouldn't have been able to give a 'wrong' answer.

Sometimes I am amazed by the lack of General Knowledge displayed by highly intelligent, educated qualified and articulate people - some immediate colleagues spring to mind. But I'm sure even they know stuff like that.

Perhaps I haven't recovered from nine years working in an environment where it was a badge of honour to know stuff.

But I guess if people who are 'paid and trained to be nosy' don't know stuff, it's hardly surprising that others don't.

But I don't understand it. My immediate and extended family 'know stuff'. Most of my friends - as opposed to colleagues - 'know stuff'. One of the friends from University was regarded as an oddity partly because she didn't 'know stuff'.

But I would have thought that there was a body of knowledge that most people (excepting those with the incapacity to learn) know eg where Jesus was born; what benefits one may be entitled to; when the Second World War took place; who the Prime Minister is; basic function of the kidneys; that the speed limit is generally 30 in built-up areas. Stuff like that. Not even the obscurantist stuff that crops up in pub quizzes. I'm not even talking the tricky stuff like which pop group originally sang 'Yesterday' or who is the England football captain, or what the pancreas does or who the Chancellor of the Exchequer is.

I'm not saying that I know everything, and I have some very distinct weaknesses, but I cannot understand how people can be so cut-off from the world in which they live that they don't know stuff that every school child ought to know.

Maybe that's my blind spot. Because one of my greatest skills - perhaps my greatest skill - is my ability to absorb, retain, and regurgitate trivia, I can only barely recognise that most people are not as good at it as me. So I singularly fail to understand people who are bad at it.

Being with the ignorant

The difficulty when frequenting public spaces is, well, the public.

A lot of strangers to London fret about the sheer numbers of people inhabiting the public transport system, but, to me, with a few exceptions, the morning rush hour is an almost perfect example of how rational people perceive that acting for the greater good of the greater community actually benefits themself - enlightened self-interest?

I have a theory that considerable proportions of the population live most of their lives in a hermetically sealed environment. They go everywhere by car, and much of their leisure time is spent at home or, rarely, in some sterile quasi-restaurant, where interaction with others is minimised. It seems that have little instinct or understanding for how to conduct themselves outside of the hermetic seal.

Last night, I encountered a family who were quite possibly the rudest, most ignorant, arrogant and solipsistic that I have ever encountered, except on package holidays. And they were sat directly in front of me in the Royal Albert Hall. Two couples - the older couple were the parents of the younger woman. Her husband was also there. Mum and Dad were seated long before me; daughter and son-in-law sat down a couple of minutes before the start.

Daughter arrived and exclaimed. It's harsh to judge people on their accent, but she spoke exactly like the ghastly P. with whom I used to work, and not dissimilar to the almost-as-ghastly L. with whom I worked elsewhere. Straight out of Essex - not that I'm anti-Essex, three of my best friends, polite, considerate and aware women, are all from Essex. Heck, I used to live in Essex.

Her initial comment amused me "I can't believe it's full. I can't believe there are people standing on the top level!". She had clearly never been before to the RAH. Which is fine, but, I wanted to say "See it, believe it..." That was just harmless, but it was kind of indicative of the rest of the evening.

The first piece was orchestral. So Father and son-in-law decided to talk. Uh-oh, I thought 'it's just a quiet piece, nothing's going on, we might as well chatter'. I won't describe in detail the extent to which they were talking. But in an Albert Hall filled just about to capacity (6,000; 7,000?) you thought they would have realised that there wasn't a lot of talking going on.

Let's just say that halfway through La virgen lava pañales, Father said loudly "It's in Spanish!" The fact that the singer was Spanish (well, Catalonian, actually) and that the programme printed the song title with a tilde might have been a clue, anyway.

We got to Silent Night, and the son made some loud noise along the lines of 'I know this song, I don't like it'. Then father repeated "It's in Spanish..." By the third verse he proudly proclaimed to everybody "It's in English" Duh!

Daughter was full of herself, spending most of the concert with her head on husband's shoulder. I don't think she was really paying attention, but her constant fidgeting was distracting me. Then she would kiss the husband and then look round to make sure that everybody had noticed. 'Everybody' was largely older couples, and women in their twos and threes of various ages. Behind me was a forty-ish couple with daughters of maybe 12 and 9.

Each choir piece was greeted at the end by son-in-law exclaiming "Beautiful, beautiful." Which was true, and would have been entirely inoffensive, except that he was an offensive man. Father-in-law decided to sing along to the overture from Die Fledermaus. Well, I say sing....And father and son-in-law both 'sang' along to White Christmas.

It was funny at the end/encores. Son-in-law decided to whistle - he explained loudly that he wanted the star to be greeted with applause when he returned for a bow (because, like, the rest of the 7,000 crowd were sitting on their hands...). Various audience members were calling for various songs. Obnoxious son-in-law repeated over-and-again "He'll sing Santa Maria. He'll definitely sing Santa Maria." Loudly, so that loads of people could hear him. I was trying to work out whether he wanted Santa Lucia or O sole mio!

After about the third encore, one member of the orchestra left. Son-in-law kept telling people it was nearly over because the 'man with the horn' had left. I did so want to tap him on the shoulder and say 'Tuba'.

Not one of these incidents in themselves was particularly obnoxious, but the behaviour of the father and the younger couple, throughout two-and-a-half hours was one of ongoing irritation and utter disregard for those sat in close proximity and casting them filthy looks. They behaved as if they were in their living room at home, when, clearly they weren't. (Bizarrely, Mother was ignored for the entirety).

You think, what would it take to make people like that understand that their actions impact on others, and to make them see that therefore they shouldn't behave in such a way? There is no direct benefit to them in controlling their poor behaviour and ill manners; they therefore would disregard all attempts to persuade them to self-discipline. Unfortunately, most of their grossness was in the second half; if they have behaved like that in the first, I would have demanded their removal, or my money back (this was, incidentally, the most expensive event ticket I have ever bought...!). They are probably the same people that park their car regardless of the fact that it will then cause two miles of bumper-to-bumper slow-moving gridlock - doesn't matter, doesn't affect them.

When I had a coughing fit the son-in-law turned round and shussed me. I would have been entirely outraged if it wasn't that the coughing fit was a direct result of suppressing a giggling fit at the start of White Christmas, IMO, one of the naffest and cheesiest, and irrelevant songs ever written. During my giggling fit I got the decided feeling that the star of the evening was looking daggers directly at me (probably not, of course, in an audience of 7000, but have you ever got that feeling?)

In the pub

We went for an Indian on Friday night. Local curry house. Top quality food, excellent wine, good service. What more can we want?

Walking past the pub we realised that Black Elvis was performing. Black Elvis, or Gay Black Elvis, as he could term himself, but doesn't, is actually barman and friend to the residents of Gert Cottage. He's actually pretty good. Although he was turned down for Stars in Their Eyes, because he doesn't look like Elvis. Being black.

We arrived at about half ten; he had been on since nine, so I guess we missed most of the well known songs. And I was feeling weak and listless, and looking pale. Jimmy reckons I'm anaemic. My bloodtests say otherwise.

Being pale and interesting, I sat and people watched. One of the great things about my area is the diversity of people who can gather in a backstreet pub on a Friday night. All stereotypes, of course, but what a diversity of stereotypes.

There's Richie, who is Educationally subnormal (or whatever it's called these days). Perfect timing is Richie. Just as Jimmy and I start waltzing around in a quasi-romantic way, Richie comes up "Hello" he says to each of us. "Richie," I say. "We're just in the middle of a slow dance together."

Then there's Mick, Renee's Mick. Also ESN. He's the kind of guy who picks up a local street tart, takes her back to his flat (or rather, Renee's sheltered flat) and wonders in the morning why he's been robbed. During my Audit Sabbatical as bar staff he asked me out. As in "Will you go out with me?" No, I said. He was surprised, because, as everyone knows, barmaids are easy. I'm such a two-faced cow, nice to people's face, total bitch behind their back "I bet Mick has an entire bedroom as an Elvis shrine," I opined. Then I looked round. There were a large number of women of a certain age, and, let's be honest, a certain class. All owners of Elvis shrines, the lot of them. I reckon.

There was a group of four on the next table. Stereotypes. Now, I'm not a totally malicious person. I characterise those four as being the sort of women who do the thankless jobs - cleaning, admin assistant, maybe classroom assistant at a pinch, for rubbish money, keeping the public services running. Probably paying their own rent, not expecting hand-outs, perhaps with a husband (and it will be a husband, no cohabitation for them) in a similar unskilled job. Not aspiring to-right-to-buy. The sort that Golden Brown calls 'hard working families' because 'deserving poor' is too patronising. Dressed in track suit bottoms and polyester polo shirts from QS or the market, not chavcrap. Off-colour home dye-jobs. Faces made hard by life. Poorly-applied foundation and ill-judged blusher. and looking daggers at me. Because I'm as different from them as they are from me.

And the public school boys. They're being cool. They're nice chaps. All about age forty. Not braying hoorays. Solidly middle-class. Went to their local independent school. Play rugby on Saturday afternoons. Fascinated to see that P was smiling. Rare event - thought it only happens when Ireland win at Rugby. Seems to have a girlfriend. Never seen him before with a woman. She's a lot younger than him. Not much over twenty. Probably a student. But probably at a Polytechnic. I'm surprised. Not his style at all.

I point out a woman to Jimmy. I had no need, he'd already seen her. He said he'd never seen a pair of jeans fit so perfectly. Just ordinary jeans but perfect for her. Perfect body. Slender, but with curves. Ordinary stripy t-shirt. But fitting perfectly. Good quality expensive haircut and bleach. Moved with understated elegance. Nothing special to look at in the face, but a definite eyecatcher. And Jimmy pointed out her friend. A bit of a look of Saffy from Ab Fab. Behind the utilitarian pony tail, the sensible glasses, the sensible coat, she was beautiful. I wonder if anybody has ever told her. Maybe she doesn't care.

At quarter to, Last Orders was called. The woman sat opposite moaned - it's not on, calling 'Last Orders' early. I said I don't see the problem. If it means everyone gets served. As long as they don't call Time early. As long as they don't end Drinking Up time early. Not a problem. Give me a problem, I find a solution. 'Can Do' mentality, that's me. Not that I ever 'Do', but you know, I ought to have been a Management Consultant. She says they ought to have an extension, have live music every Friday. There's a pub in Stockwell that has live music every Friday, karaoke every Saturday. It's packed. Eventually she came round to my way of thinking - is it worth sitting through three hours of people who sing like me in order to hear that one person who can give a convincing rendition of 'Eye of the Tiger'. Give me a jukebox anytime. Especially if I can take control of it. (In my pre-teens, my ambition was to be a Radio One D-J. Then Prime Minister).

This woman started talking about her husband, who died last year. He had had Alzheimer’s, and she nursed him for eight years, sometimes when he was violent- it wasn't him, it was the Alzheimer’s. Finally, she had to put him in a home. I'm so two-faced and hypocritical me. Confronted with that, I remember all the tips I learned on audit and recruitment interviewing courses - positive listening, empathetic body language, nods of affirmation, positive strokes. Actually, I think it's really rude to go to a pub on a Friday night and pour out your troubles to total strangers. But I guess she's lonely and miserable.

I suppose what I find frustrating is that there are countless people like her who care for partners and parents, and it's horrible, shitty (sometimes literally), thankless work, physically and emotionally draining. In the end he had to go in a home; she visited him every day, and all day at weekends. She was clearly defensive about that. His relatives criticised her for doing that. Not that they were ever around to do any of the caring. They turned up for the funeral, wanting this and that, but she did it the way he wanted. She paid £2800 for the funeral and is still paying it off. Neither Jimmy nor I said anything at the time. But we both knew what the other was thinking. It's ridiculous.

Mike who worked in the Labour Group office had previously worked in Housing Benefit. If you have some savings it may reduce your entitlement to means tested benefit. If you have more you lose eligibility. It used to be £6000, but it did increase substantially. He found it frustrating seeing elderly people going without in order to save for a 'proper' funeral. Cardboard coffin, on the car roof rack, he reckoned. And cremation. Did you know that a new grave costs £6000? Cremate me, scatter my ashes in the lake at Nottingham.

I took part in a Best Value Review of carers. There are hundreds of thousands of carers. Many of them are elderly and infirm themselves. Many lack social support, formal or informal. Carers are entitled to an assessment of their needs, and an allocated social worker themselves, separate from the caree. Sometimes a bit of respite care, or a few hours at a day centre. Some have more profound needs.

I did an audit review of domicilliary care and read quite a few case files. One sticks in my mind. This elderly woman had been caring for years for her husband, with some assistance from Social Services. Eventually, he was admitted to a home. They had been married for Sixty Years, but she divorced him as soon as went in the home. Years and years of abuse, mental cruelty, misery. But women of that generation - they put responsibility first.

This woman in the pub, now her husband's dead, she's caring for an eighty-three year-old neighbour. He used to be fit and active, but he was dragged along the road by a 137 bus that set off prematurely. Never goes out now, she's even got Power of Attorney to pay his bills. Renee's Mick also got dragged along by a prematurely moving 137 bus. Modern accessible buses have now replaced the Routemasters on the 137 route. Nostalgics like me may mourn the passing of an era. But, practically, it's a no-brainer.

No fucking manners

A radio one DJ asks Why are you all so f*****g rude?

Very good question. I often snigger silently at the surly who bark out orders with contempt for those serving. I'm usually pleasant to serving people. Why?

Pure selfishness.

If I smile at a checkout assistant, they often smile back, which lifts my spirits. No, actually, smiling lifts my spirits.

When I establish a relationship with staff who regularly serve me, little favours get returned.

The other day a woman and I were both getting off the bus and inadvertently made a move at the same time, bumping into each other. Our eyes met. Together we both smiled, connected in a conspiracy to acknowledge our mutual clumsiness. We could have challenged each other, blamed each other, felt angry. But we just connected and it was a beautiful moment.

Chav watch

My baby brother is a doctor. A fully qualified professional doctor, no less. In England's largest county, the county of the White Rose, on the wrong side of the Pennines.

The other day he had a severe challenge to his professionalism. A bloke came to see him with a rash. This was no ordinary bloke. He was tattooed all over with Union Flags. He wore a Union Flag t-shirt. He had a skinhead hairstyle. The sort of bloke who wouldn't wear a burberry baseball cap because burberry baseball caps are for poufs.

This bloke had a rash, that was all over his chest and shoulders and creeping down his arms. He was petrified because it was creeping lower than the limits of his (Union Flag) t-shirt sleeves. This was no ordinary rash. This was the sort of rash that changes the pigmentation of skin of a white Yorkshireman, with Union flag tattoos into a, how shall we phrase this, somewhat brown colour.

Baby brother was tempted to tell him that time was a great healer, and send him away to be racially abused by other Union Flag tatooed Neanderthals. Unfortunately, professionalism took over, and BB prescribed an elixir to restore skin to white Neanderthal shade.

The bloke sat next to me

On Tuesday night we stayed in the bar until the last possible opportunity. I commented to Jimmy that Sod's Law dictates that if I arrive early to the auditorium I have an aisle seat; if I'm late, I am in the middle of the row. Guess what - middle of the row. My first thought was - oh no, I'm next to a large person.

Not extraordinarily large, but big frame more than amply filled with excess flesh. I had only spent thirty or so seconds faffing when I detected a distinct and proximate odour of body.

The Crickets came on stage and Sonny Curtis struck a chord, part warm-up, part check the guitar is plugged in, part, perhaps, unconscious pre-performance ritual. The people in the row behind were just finishing their conversation so the man next to me, who shall henceforth be known as Smelly Man, went "Sherrup". Effective, I thought.

He was the sort who cheered the opening bar of each song, and as the rest of the Albert Hall applauded, he was the one shouting "Howay that man". Only, not loudly. My feeling is that if you're going to shout out your appreciation of a performance you might as well project.

He didn't seem that enthused about Nanci coming on stage, and indeed, he got fidgety during the second half. But even before the second half began, I had decided he was well creepy. As we made our way back to our seats, I did the 'excuse me, thank you' routine, and he said 'No Sweat'. Pleasant enough, but, unfortunate in the circumstances. Let's just say that I had to suppress my giggles.

I had a further route through my bag- I had just stuffed my purse and change in at the bar, my camera was lurking precariously, and I was on a search for my binoculars. Loudly, Smelly Man commented to his neighbour "She has glasses just like you." I wasn't sure whether he meant my spectacles or binoculars; I thought it slightly ill-mannered. Not that it annoyed me. Jimmy said that the man was staring intently into my bag as I rootled. Possibly he doesn't have ready access to women's handbags and was hoping to get a cheap thrill at the sight of condoms or tampons or something.

The guy fidgeted all through the second half. This fidgeting included absent-minded arhythmic key rattling, and moving repeatedly in his seat. I had already arranged myself so I was touching legs with Jimmy, rather than have Smelly Man impose his leg onto mine - in fairness, not entirely avoidably. Unfortunately, the fidgeting led to a barely perceptible movement of air. I say barely, but it was sufficient to cause a renewal of Fragrance de Corps every few moments.

He didn't really approve of what Nanci was saying - I don't think he especially liked the music, either. When she introduced a song by saying "This is about, how if you just open your heart up to it, you can find love - Love Conquers Everything" he said "Oh shit" in a really derogatory manner. I felt that he probably didn't have a clue what she was talking about - although, as I commented to Jimmy, "If you just take a bath, you too can find love." I wondered whether he lived with his mother.

I seem to have so many encounters with people who don't know how to behave. I wonder is it:

a) there is a conspiracy between all of London's venues to annoy me
b) I just have bad luck; or
c) there is too high a proportion of people who are simply unaware of how to behave in public

Moron TV

I have finally sussed it.

The reason for downmarket TV programmes on downmarket TV channels.

It's to laugh hysterically at people.

Particularly the smug self-satisfied 'I'm significantly richer than you are' small-minded middle Englanders.

Package Holiday Undercover. A couple, late forties to early fifties, booked a holiday to some tropical resort. To their horror they discovered they were right in the flight path to the airport. As soon as I saw it, I said "That's the one Joseph found on the plane-spotters photography website. And it soon proved to be correct. It was indeed St. Maarten - or St. Martin, as ITV called it.

Mr and Mrs Smug clearly felt that the objective of a holiday was to sit on the balcony of their all-exclusive bland hotel run by Global Capitalists. So they didn't bother checking their guide book; they didn't do their homework. They never bothered to venture out of their hotel. And they stated that this hotel was only suitable for the deaf or for plane-spotters. I bet you a pound to a penny that a Rough Guide or Lonely Planet would have said it was a mecca for plane-spotting photographers, and why. But Mr and Mrs "I'm smugger and richer than you are" knew better.

Ya boo sucks. I laugh at them.

The other side to this programme is nasty. A resort, don't know where, but I'm guessing Spain or a Spanish-speaking country. Go to three down-market ice-cream outlets and take samples, to be tested in the lab. The lab results come back - surprise surprise 55% of samples are riddled with unpleasant-nasty-lethal bacteria.

Sub-text - it's those nasty dirty foreigners taking our money and poisoning us. Without considering that, almost without a doubt, at least 55% of ice-cream samples taken from downmarket outlets in this country would also contain said bacteria. So ITV's target demographic would conclude that all 'foreign' is 'foreign muck' and not to be trusted, without giving a second thought to the British-American fast food crap with which they force feed their precious brats.

The 'reporter' returned to these outlets to report the findings. Rather than speaking in Spanish, or in plain, well-enunciated English, he put on a stupid accent and decided to chop random words out of his sentences. Because foreigners understand pidgin-English so much better than grammatically and syntactically correct English, right?

What an arsehole!

But I suppose ITV's intelligence-challenged demographic lap it all up and increase their ignorant, ill-informed, unconsidered xenophobia to the detriment of all.

Litter bug

I was standing at the bus stop this evening with a group of teenage girls. they were eating that crap masquerading as food, that comes from McDonalds. One of them threw her McD's bag on the ground. I gave her a hard stare, and realised she was looking sheepish. In fairness, I did look round and could not see a litter bin. Nevertheless.

Slowly, deliberately, I leaned over, picked up the bag, and acting tentatively, and very sweetly, with a slight questioning tone in my voice, even though I felt assertive, I said, I think one of you dropped this." The girl took it back, and maybe later deposited it on the bus. But I think, hope, they will all think twice in future. They looked the type who would understand and think.

Stinking suburbs

Drivers Swerve around injured woman.

This is absolutely indicative of the selfish, cocooned, I'm allright jack, I don't give a shit attitude that thrives in the dormant dormitory suburbs. Last night, a woman lay injured in the gutter opposite my bus stop, in the inner-city. I didn't go to offer assitance because when I arrived, half a dozen or more people already were assisting.

The suburbs de-humanise. And yet people want to live there and become less than human.

I blame Margaret Thatcher explicitly for this callous disregard.

And I just sit there quietly, saying nothing

I walked to the bus stop. Something was going on on the other side of the road. Then I realised - it was somebody lying, being tended to. A taxi parked up, a bike seemingly abandoned on the pavement. The person was moving, semi-conscious. Selfishly, I thought, I hope the police don't come and stop the traffic, then I'll have to walk to the tube. But it was okay, came, I got on. there were some sticky-beaking teenage boys. Nasty little boys, I thought, they're viewing an incident, something that relieves the monotony of the journey. And then one said, with feeling, "You know, I feel sorry for them..."

The bus was headed to Waterloo; so was I. Just before the Oval, three young boys got on. Barely out of Primary School, if that. They came upstairs. then, at the next stop, they went down again. Boys, I thought! Then I smelt it. Everyone stood up. We all went downstairs. A formidable black woman remonstrated with the boys "You're spiteful, stupid, selfish" and with the driver - "those three boys have just let off a stink bomb." I didn't hang around, I scooted across the churchyard, to the Tube, to Waterloo and into the Royal Festival Hall. Thinking I was short of time I had loads to spare.

It was a strange concert. A concert of accessible 'Easy Listening'. Part of the Listen Up! season. I'm not even sure what that is. And I don't know if it was the hall in general, or just near me that ignorami seemed to be the majority. It was the talking that got me. Now, I know, and many of you who have met me know that I am a very talkative person. But I know there is a time for silence. And reflection.

Perhaps people are not aware of how their voices carry. Perhaps they are aware and simply think they have the right to do what they want, not realising that their rights only extend as far as the point where they reduce another's rights.

I can understand it when between movements people will turn to their companion and make some succinct expression of approval or disappointment. A lively conversation is too much. And just a hint to he couple in D12 and D13. when the composer starts the music pianissimo, and the conductor and orchestra follow that instruction, it is not out of consideration for you, it's not so that you can complete your conversation. The very first note of the movement is as important as any other. Perhaps you should try listening next time. Although I rather hope there won't be a next time. Not anywhere near me, anyway.

And to the family in C11-13, there really is no need to hold repeated three way conversations during each movement. Though your son - an only child, perhaps? - is clearly a spoilt brat, perhaps he could have followed the example of the very many teenagers of his own age who were attending in school parties and knew how to behave. They probably learnt it from their parents. He learnt his loutish behaviour from you, that's obvious.

And to the couple in F12-13 - woman - did no one ever tell you that a whisper carries more penetratingly than spoken word. Man - if you insist on making clever remarks at every opportunity, please ensure they are a) clever and b) somewhat quieter than in my earhole.

Just to explain a few things - that man standing up at the beginning wasn't taking the register. He's the assistant leader of the orchestra, and, in the absence of the leader, due to walk on with the conductor, it's his responsibility to ensure that the orchestra is in tune. We like our orchestras to be in tune.

What's happening now? Well, the configuration of the orchestra is different for the piece we just heard than for the one we're about to hear, so some of the players leave; those that remain sit more snugly and compact to each other; and, also, there's a soloist (there usually is in violin concertos), and she needs room.

They haven't stopped to turn the page. They've stopped because one movement has finished, and another will shortly begin. The publisher has (hopefully) ensured that page turns are strategically placed so as to not interrupt the playing. In between movements is usually a good place.

The reason the organist has a rear-view mirror is to see the conductor. It's not so that he can check his hair is in place - although, like rear-view mirrors in cars it may also serve that, secondary, purpose.

And finally, to the very many people around me. This may well be your first concert. I didn't say anything, because, of course, we all do things for the first time, and it can be a little bit anxiety causing knowing what to do. It's best to observe other people. Some of them have been going to concerts for fifty or sixty years. In my case, thirty.

It isn't customary to clap in between movements. The first time is a mistake. The second time, you stopped swiftly enough when you realised you were in a majority. The third time...why? And the fourth time - were you really paying attention, or were you just concentrating on your next inane comment? If you want the people around you to think you're clever, smart, sophisticated, it's often best just to lie low. It's even better if you listen to the music. Not just with your ears, but with your eyes, and with your brain and with your soul. You will enjoy the experience more, and I most certainly will.

I am considering writing to the management of various concert halls and suggesting that they insert in the programmes a request for people not to talk during pieces - especially when the music is playing, but also in between movements. If they fail to insert a notice, and my evening is disrupted by such behaviour I will request my money back.

What do the kidneys do?

We Don't Know Our Arse from Our Elbow

60% of Britains don't know what their kidneys do.

It really doesn't surprise me.

It's probably the same 60% that think diet means weight loss. And think that the Atkins Diet is healthy.

It's probably the same 60% who go to the doctors for anti-biotics when they have a cold.

But they probably know the details of the sex lives of everyone who has ever appeared on Big Brother.

Futurology

Building a new Briton - how will Britain look in 2020?

The piece looks back to 1988 to highlight the changes that 16 years bring.

In the early 80s there were various predictions about life at the turn of the century. Few have come to pass - space travel as a norm, increased leisure, and replacing food with chemical powder are three I remember the most.

In my view there has been three major changes in society and my life since 1988 (apart from the maturing and ageing process).

The most significant is technology. I am sitting here surrounded by all sorts of technology that i never dreamed off in 1988. Or did I? I am at the computer - yet I used a friend's home PC at University (88 or 89). I'm now using the internet. But my Stats course in 87/8 depended upon Janet (Joint Academic Network). I have a mobile phone - but in the 1987 Election Campaign, Nottingham South CLP had use of two mobile bricks phones. I have an answerphone, which I didn't then. I have caller-display and ring backs, but the telephone hasn't really changed that much.

I am listening to music on a CD player. I didn't have a CD player in 1988, but a few friends did. Ironically, I am listening to a CD recorded in 1953 of music premiered in 1900 to a play written in the 1880s and set in 1800. Even the packaging of this 2002 remastering is designed to evoke the 78s of the mid-20th century.

In the next room is a TV, video, DVD. In 1988 I owned none, but had access to a TV, and by 1989 to a video. DVD is just a refinement of video. The range of TV channels is greater than I would have expected in 1988, but not shockingly so.

The role of women has changed significantly, but quite subtly, and not enough. There are current media frenzies about binge drinking and casual promiscuous sex, but I have memories of such activities being the norm in 1988. (Not sex, not me).

Women are still under-represented in the workplace, but a high-flying successful woman is no longer automatically newsworthy. In my organisation, we have a majority of ministers as women, a broad equality of gender at Director level. (The problems lie at middle management and sub-Director senior manager level). Women are far more likely to be householders; being single and/or childless is no longer a matter of surprise. Even my mother never blinked an eyelid when my partner moved in with me. In the early 80s people were still hesitant about mixed-gender platonic house-sharing.

The role of ethnic minorities has changed dramatically, too, although not far enough, and attitudes amongst many people remain ante-diluvian. I actually don't know how many ethnic minority MPs there are. The best England football defence is black; we have black goalkeepers not so long after it was decreed that black men could only be midfielders or strikers. We have black newsreaders and reporters who go almost without comment, except when they happen to have enormous sex appeal. But we don't have any black editors of major newspapers or magazines to my knowledge. Last week, Newsroom South East fhad an Asian woman reporting from Highbury on the build up to Arsenal's European campaign. Okay, this was Arsenal, not Millwall or West Ham - but an Asian woman?

I suspect, and alluding to my previous post, the greatest social change we will see in 2020 will be an increasing cleavage between those who seek and use knowledge and diversity of interests and those who are increasingly brainwashed and controlled by the forces of capitallism. What that will mean is anybody's guess.

Press the red button

A thoughtful piece from Mark Lawson on Interactive TV - Call the shots from the sofa - it's good to see someone at last noting that a Sky package is far more expensive than the TV licence.

I tend to agree with him about the trend to choose trivialisation.

However, what I see emerging in society is a divide between knowledge levels. There are people who are choosing the easier availability of knowledge to enhance their own understanding of the world. And there are those who aren't.

There was a story in the news yesterday about a doctor who subjected his patients to sexual assaults for 17 years, including asking female patients with ear aches to strip naked for a full physical.

Nobody complained for 17 years. Three victims - sisters - were interviewed, and, basically, said that they didn't question his methods because the 'doctor knows best'.

There is plenty of information available and easily accessible about what conduct we should expect from our doctors. I have had a numerous conversations over the years about experiences in doctors' surgeries. People are choosing not to use this information, instead they are following closely the lives of characters and actors in soaps, or are obsessing about diets aimed 'merely' at weight-loss. I can't feel terribly sympathetic towards people who colluded through their chosen ignorance to their own victimisation.

For the first time in human history, neither the Government nor the economy can erect barriers to knowledge. For the first time we have to take responsibility for ourselves. That we choose not to is our own fault.

Stupid people

We're both moping round the house. Dunno why, it doesn't especially matter. But you know when you're in that mood, you just watch crap TV.

Well, there's crap and crap. Watchdog isn't especially good - all rather lot of huffing and puffing over nothing a lot of the time. I understand they do right some obvious wrongs from time to time.

But it provides unintentional hilarity. They had a feature on people who bid for jewellery from something called Auction TV. This is not the Cubic Zircona from QVC beloved of Jasper Carrott. This is serious stuff.

Basically, this Auction TV displays an item, and you bid for it. They used an example of a watch for which Auction TV set a guide price of �16,000. And it's up to you to bid, much like a tradiitonal auction.

Hey guess what - they took the watch to the Birmingham Assay Centre and it's worth about �1650. There were other examples - people buying rings and so on. Three hundred and fifty people wrote to Watchdog to complain.

You know, I would be really embarrassed to admit to such a monumental mistake in public. Buying is a funny business. I'm a great believer in Caveat Emptor. Sure, I buy online, but the only time I've ever spent over a hundred pounds is with already established reasonably reputable businesses - supermarkets, Amazon, theatres, airline companies etc. If it goes pear-shaped I believe I have some right of redress. In general, the amounts involved are not large. The more I spend, the more careful I am. Online or in Meat Space.

These people have more money than sense. When I bought a watch - for two hundred pounds, with Christmas and birthday money - I looked quite widely places. Probably not an exhaustive search, but about half a dozen places. I tried it on. I had a look what it looked like against my small hands, against my skin colour. I then waited half an hour until the bracelet was adjusted to my size. Not difficult.

I don't know whether these people are greedy or flash. The irresistible lure of a bargain. Showing it off in public. Showing their lack of taste. Their lack of judgement. And then exposing themselves to ridicule by appearing on Watchdog. If it were me, I would have sat in the shadows and asked for my voice to be disguised. They bought jewellery, paying hundreds and thousands of pounds, without even seeing it first!

Bwhahahahahahaha!

Little girls wear make up

Fury over girls, 7, wearing make-up

I think is a bit of a over-reaction. Don't misunderstand me, I deplore the sexualisation of young children for cynical profit and I despair that not only do shops sell clothes unsuitable for little children, but their parents buy them - I once saw a pre-pubescent girl with a t-shirt that said 'Slut'

But come on, make-up, perfume?

Perfume in particular. If you say little girls shouldn't wear perfume, do you also say they shouldn't use smelly bubble-bath? I got a bottle of perfume as a Christmas present when I was of infant school age; I was wearing eye-shadow to church by the time I was ten. This was back in the Seventies.

My niece is five, and is allowed to wear make-up to the local curry house.

I think a sense of proportion is required - stupid parents will tell their daughters that they must wear make-up when they go out. Sensible parents lay down boundaries.

In top Juniors, shoes were the thing. The shoes we wore were ridiculous for running round the playground. One teacher used to warn us of the perils of high heels for later life.

It's like all this fuss about under-age drinking, or TV dramas with sex in them. A moderate amount of alcohol, on special occasions, Friday night, Sunday lunchtime, isn't going to hurt a child. Some of us watched Brideshead Revisited first showing when we were thirteen. With parents. Two of us read the book concurrently, borrowing the copies owned by our mothers. Another person was banned from watching the TV or reading the book. Which still strikes me as a misjudgement of colossal proportions.

ASBOs in reality

This is not a comment on the policy on Anti-Social Behaviour Orders...

My cousin lives directly opposite the ultimate chav family. There are ten children in the family, no visible father or step-father and general unruliness prevails. Needless to say, one of the (young) teenage girls is visibly pregnant. There have been various incidents over the years - juvenile drunkenness, throwing stones at traffic on a busy A-road, criminal damage, frequent police visits - you know the usual repetitive shit that makes neighbours' lives unpleasant, if not unbearable. And the usual collection of old sofas and fridges dumped in the garden.

The 12-year old has an ASBO. Leaflets - doubled-sided glossy A4 folded in three - were distributed to the neighbours. My cousin showed me. It's impressive. It names the child and shows a picture, listing his various acts of thuggery and vandalism, with instructions to report to the police any similar behaviour.

I don't know if it will do any good, but, surely, it must be mortifying to have the whole town standing and pointing derivisely, and taking great pleasure in grassing up your every move.

It also gives great inspiration and scope for Photoshopping - we're thinking of using it as a template for a missive to be circulated around the family featuring our Aunt, the Wicked Witch...

Ignorance

... is bliss for children tackling history reports the Telegraph.

It just amazes me to read this. I realise that I have been blessed with an exceptionally absorbent and retentive memory - oh you want me on your pub quiz team!- and even I have lapses eg yesterday I could not remember the word that means the sound a train driver causes the train to make as it goes through a station without stopping. The closest I could get was 'hooter'.

But this isn't just about forgetfulness - by substituting 'hooter' I was able to communicate my meaning (ie that one hears such things in the middle of a still, windows-open night).

Ask me cold when the Battle of the Boyne was and I would be struggling to get more precise than the late 17th Century. But I do know for sure that it has absolutely nothing to do with the Lord of the Rings. That's not about knowledge of cold, hard facts - that's about a modest analytical ability to compartmentalise unassociated information. I thought it was a skill that the overwhelming vast majority of people develop at Infant School age.

It's too easy to blame the schools - for heavens' sake, most of them are struggling to instill basic social skills into a the small but significant minority of their pupils. To a certain extent, all through life we absorb information we understand, or about which we care, and filter the rest.

Perhaps I shouldn't care about widespread ignorance. Perhaps it has always been like that. Perhaps we - the chattering classes - just expect more nowadays.

I suppose I just pity those without a thirst to learn. A couple of years back I was horrified to read that half of Primary School teachers didn't know what the Human Genome Project was. I don't pretend to know a lot, but I bet I could explain it reasonably satisfactorily, if superficially, to a Primary School teacher child.

And even though I have absolutely no interest in the Lord of the Rings I know that it is a series of three novels by JRR Tolkein written in about the 1930s, ultimately about the struggle between bad and good, set in a mythical fictional world, with a Ring symbolising power and goodness. If pushed, I could also name some of the characters. I could also tell you that CS Lewis had the view that it reflected Tolkein's support for the Nazis, and that Tolkein was heavily influenced by Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung, whichin turn heavily influenced the Nazis. I could tell you why that is important, and I could also tell you why both Rings should also be viewed as Stand Alone works of art without recourse to political analysis. Oh, and Lord of the Rings was made into three films.

Britain's Biggest Boobs

Utterly bizarre

Reading through this, I read someone who should have maybe had some counselling, or got herself a hobby, or something.

Looking at the photo of her at fifteen I don't see an ugly girl - maybe a little young looking, mousy, but waiting to bloom.

She got 9 GCSEs and 3 A Levels, and her parents wanted her to go to Uni to take an Accountancy degree.

Perhaps that's where her problems lie. In my Opinion, Accountancy degrees should be abolished. Such graduates do significantly worse in professional exams than those with non-relevant degrees. Successful accountants have an understanding of the world in which they operate.

And to have one's parents choose one's degree subject seems a recipe for disaster.

Perhaps it's difficult being academic in a non-academic environment. Perhaps the majority of her school friends had a false confidence, stemming from prematurely indulging in adult behaviour.

(at 19) she had her first boob job. "I remember going to a club two nights after.

“Loads of guys were coming up and asking me for sex. I felt more attractive — great.”

I also find it worrying to measure one's self esteem by the number of men who want a casual fuck. Don't misunderstand me - I know why men are attracted to breasts, but most of the boob-men I have known over the years (and I've known a good many...) are actually capable of looking for a person behind the boobs. And to put it almost crudely, it's not generally the boobs that get fucked. I would find it disturbing if the relationship revolved around the boobs.

It's a shame, because if she had gone to University, or got a job appropriate to her abilities, she would have been able to develop self-esteem from inside, rather than from the lascivious stares of men on a mission.

It's a fairly well known fact that large boobs often cause back aches. I would imagine that this is even more the case in a 32" person, which, to me suggests all boobs and no chest/back, and thus no muscles to carry the weight.

Shop assistants often will not accept when I tell them what size I'm looking for. But, in addition to an ample bosom, I have slender shoulders and a strong muscular back.