"It's political correctness gone mad," gone mad

I am a feminist. A liberal, lefty feminist. I am for LGB equality, trans equality, equality for disabled people. I am for immigration, for the rights of carers to be recognised and enshrined in law. I am for the NHS. I am for home-made cheesecake, Malted Milk biscuits and Ian Hislop.

I am against the Daily Mail, hate-mongering, lazy TV and journalism, jeggings, the use of stale, over-chilled malted bread on pre-packaged supermarket sandwiches, and plain, common-or-garden bad manners. More specifically, I hate the phrase, "political correctness gone mad."

Now, I wouldn't like you to think that I espouse the cause of political correctness just because the Daily Mail regularly bash it, although that would be reason enough for any reasonable, compassionate human being. I like political correctness because it's a good thing. Because it prohibits a person from groping me without my permission. Because it stops some mean-eyed, braying dickhead from yelling, "SPASTIC!" at someone in a wheelchair who passes them in the street, referring to their colleague as a "Paki" or making abhorrent jokes about rape. I happen to think, as do most normal people, that it's better to dislike your neighbour because he or she is an arsehole, and be able to back that up with reasons if required, than huh-huhing like a mouth-breathing Beavis in between shouting "retard" or "black bastard." Political correctness, and its adoption broadly across daily life, has reduced the number of people who think it's all right to behave in this shitty way to the minimum, which can only be a good thing. Our manners as a nation have improved somewhat. We are more courteous to one another. One thinks of the Big Brother "scandal" where Jade Goody and Danielle Lloyd targeted Shilpa Shetty using racist language, which once would have been reasonably unremarkable, and, since times have changed, was no longer so. (Although to be fair, it seemed to be more about "gang up on the pretty, bona fide celebrity" than "gang up on the Indian woman", but regardless, the language was used.)

So, given that political correctness is mainly about shying away from the kind of horrible language that very few people would publicly espouse now (as the Big Brother incident showed), why do so many people seem to shy away from saying that political correctness is A Good Thing? The answer is that political correctness has been integrated so successfully into our everyday interactions now that the only time it ever really comes up is in the form of the right-wing whipping-boy of "political correctness gone mad." This is wheeled out every time a new law, or regulation, or suggested modus operandi comes to the attention of the tabloids, including the Mail. The emphasis here is on "suggested." It doesn't even have to be real.

Read my lips: there has never been a "baa, baa rainbow sheep" (or green sheep, as some versions have it). This is an urban legend. The reason whiteboards have replaced blackboards in schools has nothing to do with race. I mean, listen to yourself. It's ridiculous. Schools, in fact, are a repository for a lot of these made-up stories about "political correctness gone mad." An example: "schools now aren't allowed to put plasters on a child's knee when it falls over in the playground!" Bollocks. My eldest is seven this month and always skinning his knees. The school is constantly putting plasters on him. He is half child, half Elastoplast. They don't even have to ask my permission. What they do have to do is tell me that they've done it, which is why I now have a collection of neat little red and white slips chronicling my son's playground injuries. They might have to ask my permission as he gets older when his illnesses might require, say, aspirin, but - and here's the thing - that would actually make sense, given that aspirin makes some people ill, or aggravates pre-existing conditions.

Again, a lot of these legends are "the health and safety" culture. Now, pretty much everyone has been on eye-poppingly irksome health and safety training when they start a new job. You know the kind of thing: don't pour coffee over your computer, don't set yourself on fire, etc. And you can see why it's such an easy target for the anti-political correctness brigade. That said, isn't it better to have a health and safety culture in workplaces than not? Wouldn't you rather have a bit of tiresome jibber-jabber about proper lifting than risk breaking your spine heaving boxes around the wrong way? Personally I'd rather not be killed or severely disabled by my job, so yeah, I'll laugh at the training, but I'll also pay a LOT of attention. So that I live.

And if life and a bit of common courtesy are the outcome of political correctness, then let it go as mad as it likes. I'll see you in Bedlam. But no straitjackets, please. It's not that sort of place any more.

Spinster TV: Junk Food Mums - Pushy and Proud

We recently got TV in the Spinsterhaus, following many months of begging on the part of Mon Geek, and an unexpected saving a a result of switching one of our household bills which left us an additional £20 per month to the good. As a result, a whole new dimension of tack has opened up in my life. I have recommenced my grapple with popular culture, rather more successfully now that I am pinned to the sofa with a baby surgically attached to my nipple. I have developed low-level addictions to programmes I never watched before, like the inescapably middle-class Bob Larbey sitcom As Time Goes By, which is repeated daily on UK Gold, or Nothing To Declare, Pick TV's documentary about Australian border officials. I'm not ashamed. Honestly.

It was after an episode of Nothing To Declare (some madwoman tried to smuggle in three pounds of roast pork in her luggage; a sniffer dog found some cocaine sewn into a vast soft toy that had been mailed to a misspelt address) that I left the TV on the same channel absent-mindedly, and found myself watching a programme called "Junk Food Mums - Pushy and Proud." The title sat awkwardly on top of the programme, like an ill-fitting and inappropriate hat. It purported to be a serious examination of three women's attitude to junk food in their families: Nadine, a 21-year-old mum of four children under five; Debbie, a single mum desperate to stop her twin teenagers from putting on yet more weight; and Sharon, who weighed 37 stone and promoted a fat-positive view to stepdaughter Kate, herself a size 20. What he programme was had nothing to do with a serious examination. In fact, it was a proper carve-up.

Censorious footage of Nadine's four children stuffing McDonald's into their mouths was piled on top of interview footage with Nadine herself, a guileless young woman with a laissez-faire attitude - "My kids eat when they're hungry. If all they'll eat is McDonald's, I'd rather they eat it, and then I know they've been fed." Her unemployed husband, Ricky, (naturally, the programme had to mention that the family was living on benefits at the time) preferred to cook his own food, possibly because he was a qualified caterer. "But your food tastes like crap," Nadine retorts, which is possibly why they split up after the programme was filmed. The whole tone was of blame for this Bad Mum who forced her kids to eat junk. Umm, hello? The other parent in the house? Wasn't Dad as responsible as Mum for what the children ate? Clearly not on this show. As well as the benefit-bashing, partners were conspicuous by their absence. At least Ricky got an interview segment. Sharon's partner, Andrew, made no appearance at all, a bit like Captain Mainwaring's wife. The nearest we got was a lifesize cardboard cut-out of him that appeared with Sharon when she was interviewed as "Britain's Fattest Bride" on This Morning. So, This Morning - flying the flag for acceptance there, then. But the message here was clear - if these kids ate crap, it was Mum's fault.

Nor was there any exploration of the reasons behind the way people eat. Nadine admitted to being "a fussy eater" who struggled herself with trying new foods, and towards the end of the programme, mentioned that she had eaten a lot of junk food growing up. Sharon - an intelligent, articulate woman who started out saying that she was happy with her weight and believed that it was possible to be healthy despite being very overweight - ended the programme by admitting that she was frightened when she went to sleep in case she didn't wake up. The programme barely spoke to Debbie's daughters, although the head of the fat camp she sent them to explained to her that searching their possessions for chocolate wrappers and constantly banging on at them for being fat probably wouldn't really help them lose weight. There was a bit of bogus"exploring the issues" too, as bride-to-be Debbie and her stepdaughter Kate went shopping for bridesmaid's dresses in Debenhams, struggling to find much in size 20 for Kate to try on. (Which is fairly pathetic for a high-street shop. Get your act together, Debenhams.) People stared after Debbie, and occasionally shouted insults, if they were really small-minded. There was a horribly voyeuristic feeling about all this, sneery and unkind, as though watching people shout insults at a bright, pretty woman because of her weight wasn't really much different from heavy-handed, meaning footage of the same overweight woman sweating after a short walk through a shop. It left a bad taste in my mouth.

As the credits rolled, a defensive message screened, stating that all the individuals shown had been given access to healthcare professionals to help them with their eating choices, as though that was enough to make it all OK. It wasn't. This lazy snide type of programming is a disgrace to the schedules. If this is modern TV, bring back the freakshow. At least it didn't try to pretend it was anything other than what it was.

Bringing up baby: what I remember of it

I'm now in a strange limbo time. A week ago, I started maternity leave. I'm too huge to do stuff, apart from napping and eating, both of which I am proud to say I am now practising at Olympic level. Even if I wasn't, my partner, family and friends greet any sign of activity in me with cries of, "Think of your womb!" so I'm more or less forcibly confined to quarters. (Not as much fun as it sounds.)
The result is that I've cast about for ways I can consider that I'm productively using this time, and one of them is to cast my mind back to the early days of bringing up Eldest, the existing small person (now aged six), to make a list of useful baby stuff to remember. And in the spirit of sharing, here they are. (This is about as far as the spirit of sharing goes with me, I'm afraid. It's not like you're getting any of my Easter eggs.)

A musical cot mobile is a brilliant thing
I bought a hideously bright circus-themed mobile for Eldest that played a tune. This was indispensable for the first year. It stopped him crying, gave him something to look at when he was awake and something to soothe him at night. I won't exaggerate, but I heard that tune at least twenty times a day, right up to the point when, aged fifteen months, he pulled it down off his cot and broke it. In the spirit of scientific enquiry, I presume.

A change of scene can stop a baby crying.
The first thing that stopped Eldest crying was to be taken to look at the trees outside the front window. Outside is even better, or just going into another room. I was a big fan of walking round with Eldest in my arms when he was feeling grumpy. Must remember to try that this time.

Don't buy any toys that make a noise
The abovementioned cot mobile is exempt from this, but generally, toys that make a noise or play a tune are A Bad Idea. Eldest was given an Activity Baby Walker push-along toy with a panel of buttons to press at the front. He loved this so much that I still have nightmares about it. From this helltoy I learnt that a) a six-month-old can work out easily how to turn a toy back on when you've turned it off and b) that toys that encourage babies to push buttons and turn dials are a bad idea when your gas cooker has a row of shiny brass dials on the front within the reach of the newly toddling twenty-month-old. I have never moved so fast IN MY LIFE.

The more you talk, the more they talk back
Common sense, but still a surprise when they greet the morning nappy change with a pained cry of "Oh my Goddddddddd...." (That doesn't go down well with grandparents either.) So be careful what you say. The flip side of this is that it's seriously awesome to say, "Today we're going to feed the ducks," and hear your tiny toddler say, "That'll be fun, won't it?"

You need to put the muslin over your shoulder *before* you pick them up
You have sicky babies, or you have pooey babies. Eldest was sicky, a born posseter. I had no clean clothes for approximately two years, firstly due to posseting, and once posseting stopped, due to sticky banana handprints at knee level. Muslins save a lot of washing, and also stop your entire wardrobe smelling faintly of Roquefort ever after.

I can't remember a lot else. Sleep deprivation was not severe, but it was enough to stop me setting down a lot of memories for the future. Hence why I'm writing down what I *do* remember now, while I still have a working memory, and while I can still look at the healthy, boisterous, functioning result of these lessons and remember that I haven't completely bombed as a parent yet. And before I end up lying on the floor of my mucky house, surrounded by dirty dishes and with a boob falling out of my top, like I will do in about six weeks' time.

Oh yeah. One more thing I do remember about the baby years. They're awesome.

Unhelpful things to say

In every situation in life, there are helpful things to say, and unhelpful things to say. In pregnancy, the latter seem to outweigh the former by quite a lot. So, if you want to find out how to be less of an unwitting pain in the vulva to someone who soon will be getting more than enough pain in their vulva without your help, read on.

1. "You just wait till the baby's born, you don't know what knackered is..."
Really. Consider this a plea for common sense. It's perfectly OK for a pregnant woman to say she feels tired. She's up every hour of the night emptying her newly pea-sized bladder. She's growing another head inside her. She has an unaccountable craving for mutton curry served in a wheelbarrow, and she breathes like a dirty phone caller with emphysema. Most women who say they're tired when they're pregnant aren't implying that they're more tired than you, or the person next to them, or anyone else. They're just tired. So don't get defensive, or you're liable to get lassoed with a bump band. And for Christ's sake, I know that babies don't sleep through the night. I know I'll be tired when the baby's born. You really don't need to tell me that.

2. Your birth horror stories
I don't want to hear about the person you know whose baby's shoulders got stuck in her pelvis, the time your wife finished work at 36 weeks planning to put her feet up, meet her mates for a mocha and perhaps paint the nursery, only for her waters to break two hours after she got off the bus home, or your mate who weighed twelve pounds at birth. Why are you such a frigging sadist, exactly?

3. "I managed when I was pregnant."
Further digging reveals some big glaring differences in the two situations, like actually you didn't work while pregnant, or that your mum came round every day and did the laundry and cooking. Or that I've spent the entire nine months throwing up my intestinal lining, while you felt fine the whole time. And maybe you did manage while you were pregnant. So what? It doesn't make you superior, just lucky. So don't be an arsehole.

4. "Haven't you had that baby yet?"
Damn, you've rumbled me. Of course, I dropped it out in a desk drawer and it's having a nap now. I'm only moaning about backache and clutching a bump the size of a planet for the hell of it, really. It's just so much fun, I didn't want to stop.

5. "blah blah breeders blah blah spawn blah womb-brained idiocy"
So, you don't fancy doing it yourself? That's fine, it relieves some of my residual anxiety about contributing an extra person to an already overpopulated Earth. So don't think I'd knock your choice. That said, call me a womb-brain again and I'll aim my waters to break all over your pretty new shoes.

I'm not denying that pregnant women, myself included, can be pretty annoying, but, y'know, have a bit of sympathy. If you can't have sympathy, try to be equally arseholey to the pregnant and non-pregnant alike. Equality's a great thing. And, y'know, we appreciate it.

Day in the life of a heavily pregnant working woman

So, here's how the days go.

8:30: Arrive at office clutching half a croissant and a frazzled expression which betrays uncertain memory of whether I should be there. Colleagues unsurprised by arrival; wall chart says I am where I ought to be. Breathe sigh of relief, refuse offers of tea, log on and start work.

9:00: Eat modest pack of seaweed crackers absently while rubbing bump and listening to colleagues' stories of births they have known.

10:00: Coffee. Meeting. Unaccountable loss of memory when asked about response to a query from last week. Delve in notebook and come up with answer. Wistfully recall days when memory worked.

10:30: Orange. Melon. Mango. Pineapple. Mentally run through list of nearest sources of further pineapple, but can't be bothered to walk to Waitrose. Drink smoothie grumpily while wondering what idiot thought a dozen pineapple chunks were "a snack". Explain that I do not plan to watch One Born Every Minute till I have given birth. Smile modestly as colleagues compliment me on healthy food choices.

10:45: Large cappuccino and a Double Decker. Wonder why boobs so searingly painful. Very distracting. Can't even moan about it to colleagues. Go to toilet in order to hoist boobs up without everyone making Les Dawson comments. It hurts.

11:00: Need for pineapple getting desperate. Eat apple. It is no substitute.

11:35: How long till lunch? How long?

12:00: Crack and eat large salad full of basil oil and pine nuts. Wash down with approximately a litre of orange juice. Poke about on Babycentre website, wishing that I didn't come across the word "meconium" quite so often. It's probably the same colour as basil oil.

13:00: Teleconference. Am asked several times how long I have now. Answer to resulting swift mental calculation results in my having to have short lie down. Work frantically all afternoon until realise will miss train. Dash out of office at fastest waddle possible, looking like overfed walrus. Develop heartburn on route, adding to breathlessness. Swear at stupid man driver who nearly runs me over. Inventive vocabulary less effective when huffing like grampus.

17:00: Land up at station totally knackered. Go home and eat king-size plate of couscous with stuff in it that I made up out of the cupboard, followed by peaches and cream stuffed meringues.

18:00: Tidy things. House must be clean, clean, clean. Wield cloth energetically for forty minutes and collapse in a heap. Whinge about dust on skirting boards. Deny that this is nesting instinct, but remember that actually it never bothered me before I was pregnant. Continue to deny it.

20:00: TOAST.

22:15: Struggle up from sofa, go to bed with book.

3:00: Awake for loo trip. Get back to bed. Grump at overheating. Throw off duvets and remove pyjamas. Shift position like whale beaching itself. Repeat fifteen times. Snooze lightly.

3:10: Awake ravenous. Go in search of food. Milk. Crackers. Consider that roast lamb probably a bit of an ask. Eat further cracker.

3:20: Back to bed. Plan frantically. Organise things in brain. Wonder if valerian safe to take during pregnancy.

4:00: Finally fall asleep. Dreams confused and mainly about work.

7:25: Awake five minutes before alarm goes off, having forgotten all plans made in small hours.

Hmm. Starving.

things happen fast

I am unnerved. Pregnancy goes very slowly, as a general rule. After all, you're pregnant for about three-quarters of a year...and I *did* find out very early on that I was in pig...so I feel like I've been pregnant for ages. Which I have. Except that pregnancy is like tortoises. It seems to move very, very slowly. And then you look up, and it's out of sight. Among the long grass. Right at the other end of the garden. Bloody miles away.

OK, I've slightly overworked my analogy there, but basically, that's how one day I was staring at two blue lines on a less than hygienic stick, and now suddenly I'm the size of a WW2 barrage balloon and my midwife is booking me into antenatal classes and saying things like "practise your breath control for labour." Somehow, five months have passed in the time it took me to drink a hot chocolate, and I'm about to give birth in a matter of weeks. Bloody hell.

I have a bag packed with the most hideous nightdress you ever saw (I chose one that could only be improved by splatting my placenta on it at 30mph), pants I didn't mind throwing away afterwards, isotonic sports drinks, clothes that won't cling, baby clothes, tiny weeny hats, scratch mittens and a whole bunch of stuff I never even thought of, including socks. (Apparently while I am shoving a human head out through my knicker area, yelling, grunting and swearing creatively, I will also be thinking, "Goodness, my feet aren't half cold.") I'm going to need all this stuff soon.

How did this happen so fast? I'm scared, people. Happy, but scared.

The next great adventure

I suppose it's time for me to do a thoughtful, introspective, old-year-out-new-year-in post. After all, why should I flout internet tradition? But I hesitate. These things can have a tendency to turn into self-indulgent navel-gazing, and I'm Victorian enough to prefer a little emotional restraint once in a while. That said, I don't want to completely break with tradition...so...here goes. But I'll keep it short.

2011 has been a pretty good year on the whole. I changed jobs and now work in a much nicer place. I put out my book BiOlogy in paper and Kindle format, and got reviews from Bi Community News, Diva and Forge. I also got interviewed in Nottingham's fabulous LeftLion magazine. That was pretty amazing. But the most brilliant thing that happened was conceiving and gestating my first biological child. On 02/01/12, I'll be 24 weeks pregnant. Mon Geek, the elder small person, and the rest of my family and friends have been wonderful, welcoming the coming new baby as much as I could have wished for.

Naturally, this leads me on to 2012. In the springtime, I'll give birth for the first time, which is kind of daunting, but not as much as you'd expect. After all, other women do it; I'll be in hospital with doctors and drugs; Mon Geek will be by my side; amd as I've never done it before, I don't know how much it will hurt. So I'm not too worried. Furthermore, I'm writing more stuff to be published. Plus, we are now looking for a new house, with a garden and space to raise our family. So, on the whole, 2012 is looking good so far. Bring on the next great adventure.

If I was rich...

You know that game you play when you're a kid? The one that goes "IfIWasReallyRichLikeREALLYRichIWouldBuy....." presuming that money is infinite and of the scale that could easily purchase everything from a magic pony castle populated by talking monkeys to a live-in French patissier/sex wizard, depending on the player's age. Some sad cases continue to play this game until way past the age where it might do them any good whatsoever.
I am 29, and I am still playing it.
Moreover, I am proud to advise that I have now come up with the definitive list of what I would buy if I were magnificently, massively, amazingly, pant-wettingly rich. And here it is.

1. A Rembrandt. A really massive one. I've spent years of game-playing time hesitating between a Rembrandt or a Vermeer. So I've decided that I would have a huge Rembrandt on one wall of the enormous castle I would build to contain it, and a Vermeer facing it on the opposite one. That way, I have all eternity to sit and contemplate which one's prettier.

2. A Peter Scott painting. After careful deliberation I can now advise that this would be the remote and unlikely one entitled one entitled When The Tide Turned The Brent Geese Came In Against A Background of Showers

3. An Indonesian island one which gibbons and orang-utans could live undisturbed by humans.

4. A lake with reeds and ducks by it. I could pick it up by the corners and move it to just outside the massive castle I would build to contain my Rembrandt (see no. 1)

5. A holiday to go whale-watching in the Arctic. The elder small person and I would love to do this. Even Mon Geek has expressed halting enthusiasm. And the unborn will go where I take him, at least for now.

6. A bookshop. No one would be allowed to buy anything from it, though. It would be for housing my huge collection of first editions, and other stuff. And I would sit in it working my way through a case of Pol Roger.

7. A library with a wing back chair and a walnut desk where I could look at the lake (see no. 4) whenever I wasn't feeling sociable enough to be in the bookshop.

8. A harpsichord with a goat grazing nearby. No explanation is required for this.

9. A diamond-encrusted mechanised root vegetable dissecter, to stop chopping swede being such a frigging workout.

10. A skywriter to slag off all the people who irk me daily. "WANKER ON THE BUS - STOP SHOVING PAST PEOPLE" "VICTORIA CENTRE SHOPPERS - MILLING RANDOMLY WILL EARN YOU A KICK UP THE BUM" and so on.

There, that's my top ten. Of course, there are loads more, like the employment of a tutor to teach Mon Geek to be a top patissier and Escoffier-ranked chef, a permanent rotisserie in the kitchen, and an elephant to ride through the forests picking peachy fruits from the back of, but it's a start. Now, when my lottery numbers come up, I'll know where to start. It's a strategy I tells you.

old wives' tales

I tell you what. Pregnancy doesn't half let you in for a load of old crap. No, I'm not changing nappies yet. Instead, I'm talking about the motley collection of old wives' tales, superstitions and rubbish that people suggest could possibly have some impact on the gender of your baby.

The gender of an unborn is of great interest to the wider world. Of course, some people have preferences for what they end up with. We're not too fussed. After all, whatever it is, it'll end up playing with Lego. I would mildly like to have a crack at parenting a girl, having had a boy. Mon Geek would mildly like to have a son. Neither of us are fussed. We just want a healthy baby. Come the scan (three weeks and counting down), and provided our child has no objection to doing a full frontal close-up while still in the womb, we'll look forward to finding out for sure. Meanwhile, however, there are lots of suggested ways to find out.

So far, 7 people think I'm having a boy, 2 think I'm having a girl, and my mum and eldest brother have some sort of sweepstake on and won't tell me what they think. Neither Mon Geek nor I have any feeling that it might be a particular sex. I've had two dreams about the baby, in one of which it was a boy and in the other of which it was a girl. So we're no help. I tried four baby gender predictors on different websites as research for this post (the things I do for you, honestly). Two said it was a boy and two a girl.

So I delved deeper. The people who come up with these things are deranged. That's actually the only firm conclusion I could draw. It suggested I look at all kinds of things including the colour of my wee and how fast my leg hair grows as opposed to before I was pregnant. So, actually "they" (whoever "they" are) are deranged AND intrusive, getting a kick out of asking total strangers about urine and leg hair. Freaks.

And some of these superstitions are nuts. Special points go to the people that think if you crave chocolate, you're sure to be carrying a girl, and if you want crisps and cheese it's a boy. I haven't had many cravings yet - except for cheese, ice cream and milk, which coincidentally are all the things I crave when premenstrual. Possibly something to do with the same hormones being active? Well, possibly. I also like the people who look at how high you're carrying your bump. Umm, I am five foot tall and overweight (this is not a bad thing, I'm placing no value judgment on myself, I'm stating a fact). My bump is *always* going to look high.

Swinging a needle over my bump told me I was going to have a boy. The fact that my hair looks like a bird's nest told me I was carrying a girl. In fact, if you're carrying a girl, you're supposed to look worse and more knackered than you did before pregnancy. Which I do...maybe because I'm undertaking a three-hour daily commute door to door, studying for a qualification which involves two gruelling twelve-hour days in Birmingham each month, travelling regularly on business trips and, well, life. And suddenly I'm coping with pregnancy as well? Of course I'm not going to look dewy and fresh-faced. I look like a bear rudely awoken during hibernation and intent on killing the waker-upper. Which frankly is a fair reflection of my mental state.

And whether I'm married to Mon Geek will affect what we're likely to have? Umm, bollocks. I don't think for a moment that my having a pretty dress and some new finger bling is going to bring forth a rush of XY (or XX) sperm, which last time I checked was how baby gender gets decided. And if it did, well, to be honest, I'd worry. I'd worry badly.

About my dry cleaning bill.

it's listening in

I am concerned. Apparently the baby I am currently gestating is now developed enough to hear sounds. The boy and I were looking forward to this point; the point where we could talk to our offspring and know that somewhere, deep within the bodily darkness, a tiny human no bigger than a pear would hear what we had to say...

That, of course, was before we realised just how much crap we talk.

You listen to yourself a bit more when you realise that someone is doing a spot of in utero eavesdropping. And when you listen to yourself, talking to your boyfriend, you hear conversations about:

- farting
- petty annoyances of the working day
- cake
- working men's club singers
- why Mon Geek will never, ever be allowed to have hair again (past mullet)
- what you'd cook if you were on Come Dine With Me
- threats to sell my pants on eBay for revealing Mon Geek as an ex-mullet

And more. Can our child be allowed to hear this stuff, liberally sprinkled with expletives ("WANK BUCKET!") and childish threats ("I'll blow my nose on your X-Men shirt")? I fear for its later conversational skills.

And what about all the other stuff? Crunching Monster Munch, heckling teative TV quiz Eggheads, snoring, attempting to imitate the morning call of a lar gibbon? Quotes from films that an embryo is way too young to watch ("I feel like a pig shat in my head")? Threats to one another concerning axes, rectal insertion and Z-list celebrities? Cries of "GO ON MY SON" while watching Man Vs. Food? Slagging off of bad '80s knitwear?

I am concerned. Maybe I live too adult a lifestyle to birth a child. Maybe my baby is already smirking at old REO Speedwagon videos, and laughing at its father's white-faced, jelly-kneed reaction when I threaten to give his phone number to Kim Kardashian. Maybe I'll have to learn to be quiet and well-behaved to an extent that would satisfy even the rigorous standards of Lady Whiteadder...

Nah. Fuck that for a game of soldiers. I'll shut up when it comes out. Till then, this is my time to be as riotously adult as I know how. Twister, anyone?

Wars of the Roses

Most parents argue about their children even before they're born. Names are a popular cause of pre-birth rows. My own parents were so completely unable to agree on a name for their first child (not me, by the way) that they ended up exhaustedly agreeing on the only name that they could think of that neither of them hated. I was proud to have dodged this particular bullet. Mon Geek and I agreed on names with the minimum of discussion. I felt that I was entitled to feel a little smug.

No more. For this week, we realised that our child will be half-Lancashire, half-Yorkshire. It will be a Tudor rose. It will be a cross between perky buxom Lancashire lass (think Gracie Fields) and dour old Yorkshire bumface (think Fred Trueman). And this hideous realisation that we have produced a Lancashire/Yorkshire hybrid child, who will be growing up in Nottingham, has led to many, many rows.

Will our child say "barmcake" or "breadcake"? Will it aim for holidays in Blackpool or in Filey? Will it crack a superb deadpan joke, or will - No, there aren't any Yorkshire comedians. Even Boyfriend can't think of any, thus proving my natural Lancashire assumption that the Yorkshire temperament is naturally grumpy and miserable. (Boyfriend, aided by Wikipedia, has just come up with Charlie Williams, which, but he's the only one either of us can think of.)

We finally managed to compromise on bilingualism. We will teach our baby some of the great and deathless words in both our dialects. From his, words like, "maungey" and "fettle" and "How do"; from mine, ""ginnel", "skrike", "sken" and "mither". Compromise is key. My baby may end up eating haslet, but at least this way, it'll be in a barm. With black pudding.

And dripping.

bad to balloon?

I hesitate to do another pregnancy-related post, but I'm all womb-brained at the moment so here one is anyway. Suck it up, people.

EAT MUNG BEANS! GO TO THE GYM! DO YOUR PELVIC FLOOR EXERCISES! DO YOU WANT TO BE FAT AND INCONTINENT IN NINE MONTHS' TIME?! I SAID, DO YOU?!!

That's what pregnancy feels like. It feels like doing a fifty-mile run up Mam Tor in a blizzard while being mercilessly yelled at by a sadistic marine of a midwife. All while you're in a state of permanent and total exhaustion and hungry enough to fry up your own arse for a midnight snack.

Seriously. This is a bit of a culture shock. I thought of pregnancy as a time to relax, be easy on myself, bask in the serene glow of my expanding girth and eat more or less what I wanted (within reason). Far from it. Suddenly, my health is everyone else's business. Magazines, midwives and mothers all tell me how I should try not to put on weight, should keep away from takeaways, should exercise. To which I reply, "I commute a total of eighty miles each day on public transport, working a 50-hour week every week. I am growing another head inside me and nothing fits anyway. I deserve bangers and mash once in a while."
"Nonsense," shouts the magazine/mother/midwife in a cod-SS screech. "You vill comply, you lardy bitch."
"Leave me alone," I weep, pregnancy hormones oozing from my eyes, as I craft myself a face mask and matching hat out of pizza.

I was overweight before I was pregnant. I can't diet now and nor would I want to. I'm eating OK for the most part (apart from the pizza hat) and I've been doing the Release Your Inner Trapped Wind Pregnancy Yoga Workout. I'm not smoking, drinking or investing in a giant crack pipe. Why am I suddenly satanic just because I fancy chow mein once in a while? Hmm? I'm sensing that something's blown way out of proportion here. It could be my thighs, but then again, it could also be their thinking.

I know my body isn't my own now, but the only other person it belongs to can't speak yet. And if they could, they'd probably say, "Thanks for the pineapple, Mum. And I don't think the melted cheese has stunted my growth, really."

madverts

Since becoming pregnant, I have taken up a new career as a sloth. I move slowly, expand rapidly and spend approximately twenty-two hours a day asleep. (Well, I would, if I had my way.) My widening arse is permanently attached to the sofa, and I have to be practically peeled out of my pyjamas when the need to go outside becomes urgent (i.e., when I am late for work).

The consequence of being glued to the sofa is an exponential increase in TV watching. With a wedge of Edam in one hand and half a pizza in the other, I alternately goggle and doze through Come Dine With Me, The Origins of Us, Supernanny US, Snog Marry Avoid and endless repeats of Jeeves and Wooster. And naturally, many of these choice televisual morsels come with Adverts, many of which are repeated over and over and over again until I am maddened to foam-mouthed rage.

So, in the spirit of sharing my pain with you, dear reader, here are five adverts that are driving me buggering mad at the moment:

5. Perle du Lait, and other yoghurty rubbish
It is yoghurt. Just yoghurt. Slightly soured milk with a flavouring mixed in. It is not a sex aid. It will not make you substantially more beautiful. It is not a secret to share with your friends. If you did, they would think you were a bit demented. Getting Martine McCutcheon to sell it doesn't make it any better than basically, Munch Bunch for grown-ups. Don't try and sell me yoghurt as a treat. Have a Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough and shut the fuck up.

4. Uniform Dating
Now, I'm not against internet dating. Some people find it a valuable way to meet a partner, getting the chance to try out interaction before having to meet people in person. Which is valuable, and believe me, I have no intention of knocking it. But dating someone purely because they're a police officer, or a nurse? You are basically wearing a big internet label that says "SHALLOW AS A PUDDLE IN A DROUGHT." Why anyone in a uniform would sign up to be loved for the clothes they wear is beyond me, although I'm betting that traffic wardens probably don't get much loving on there.

3. Mazuma Mobile
Be persuaded to sell your barely-bought smartphone by cockneys shouting euphemisms for money until you want to put your foot through the plasma screen. Only worth it if your phone is a very new model indeed, otherwise you'll be lucky to get the price of a Wham bar.

2. Anything with car insurance
I don't drive. (Well, I'm just learning now, but I have to fit my lessons in around the nervous breakdown I give my instructor every time.) I have never driven. And yet, every time I turn the television on, I'm inundated by yelling moustachios, talking meerkats cynically marketed to the lolcat generation and people singing to the tune of YMCA. I have never used a price comparison website. I have no issues with third party indemnity. Why would I? I've never driven. And yet, due to exposure, I could probably get car insurance in a hurry quicker than I could whip up a treacle sponge. It's frigging ridiculous.

1. Kindle
Remarkable less for the product than for the hugely ire-inspiring advert, the Kindle ad features a smug gadget-twat slagging off a woman for carrying an oversized handbag. She retaliates by listing all the millions of books, magazines etc she can fit in it and eventually agrees that it would be oh so much better to get a Kindle. I have no issue with Kindles. I do have an issue with know-it-all wankers telling me I'm a Luddite for carrying a modest paperback in my smallish bag. If he comes near me, I give you fair warning that I will snap his stupid Kindle into and use it to sever every vein in his testicles.

You have been warned.

bump in the night

Change can be scary. There's no two ways about that. For male teenagers, change can be so frightening that they forbear even to change their mucky knock-off Calvin Klein pants for days (or weeks) on end. For me, an alleged grown-up, change is less scary than that, but still, y'know, pretty unnerving. I don't like moving house. Come to that, I don't like moving desks. So it's kind of odd that I find myself undergoing the biggest change a person can go through...
...I'm growing another head in me.
Now, the boy and I have been hoping this would happen for a while, and so it's not a total surprise that I am, in fact, pregnant. Even so, it is part amazing, part, wildly exciting and part rather scary.
I'm not scared by raising a child. Rather, I'm scared by what's happening to my wardrobe. I'm now fifteen weeks pregnant and already have a sizeable baby bump. I went into maternity clothes very early, and this is my primary irritation. Maternity clothes, unless you're able to pay Isabella Oliver prices (ie, sewn from cloth-of-gold by nuns), are almost universally ugly. Leggings feature prominently, as do horizontally striped tops - surely the last combination of garments to put on anyone who is expanding rapidly. The clothes veer between "plain and utilitarian" or "hysterically fashion-conscious". The selection for alt or goth mums consists of ugly slogan t-shirts with coy, bump-related slogans. I'm 29. My days of suiting slogan t-shirts went out years ago. In blue jeans (the only alternative to leggings) and whatever black tops I can get my hands on, my much-loved alt identity is subsumed.
Why, though? Why aren't clothes made to flatter and hug the beauty of the pregnant shape? To play up the enhanced boob and play down the bloated cankle? Instead, we are offered clothes that tent, not skim; played down versions of the latest fashions which frequently uglify the body enceinte; and slogan t-shirts and pyjamas which feel kind of undignified when you're nearly thirty, and in any case, forget that the primary aim of clothes is for the wearer to look deathlessly chic, rather than to advertise that she will be giving birth within the sixmonth.
If I had the chance to design my own maternity range, it would be full of v-neck tops, long fishtail skirts and not a single pair of fuck-ugly leggings in sight. Anyone who wants to employ me to do this, I'm available now. Go on, you'd be doing a favour for pregnant women everywhere.

Dear reader....

My dad is coming to visit tomorrow. He's driving the many miles between his house and mine to arrive here about 11:30am, and he won't stay past about 3pm. He'll want to go for lunch, then coffee, then cake, so he'll only be in my house for a maximum of half an hour.

So, given this, why have I still spent all evening scrubbing the flat from top to bottom?

Because I have. I've scrubbed the tiles in the kitchen, a job which has only been done about once a year since we've been here, in case he decides to go and inspect the grout. I cleared all the out-of-date stuff out of the fridge, finding in the process a tub of Philadelpia which may well have been older than my son, since it was sprouting a virulent orange mould which made me squeal like a child. I only just stopped short of hoovering the boiler, and that was only because our airing cupboard is so small and full of junk that dear Daddy wouldn't be able to squeeze into it anyway.

It's not even like my dad is some sort of clean freak, either. He'll only be in the house for about half an hour in total between his need for large plates of various foodstuffs, and he'll hardly be clambering up shelves to inspect the light fittings for dust in that time. Because he's normal. (Unlike his only daughter, clearly.)

So why, every time my family turn up, does the place have to be spotless? I haven't got a clue. I generally exist in a state of contained chaos. In that, my house reflects my brain. I don't feel bothered about my friends seeing this, but the imminent arrival of my family awakens long-dormant cleaning instincts, and before I know it, I'm climbing on a chair to polish the light bulbs.

Is this normal?

Poetry in motion

Poetry's got a bad name. At least it has where I come from, which I can sort of understand because local poetry's pretty terrible. Not just poetry local to my home town but poetry local to anywhere. It's always amateurish, and usually about kittens and how this were all fields once but now is full of drugs and guns. I always feel bad criticising local poetry, when I find it printed in local papers next to the letters page. I feel like I'm poking fun at something a bit rubbish but essentially well-meaning, like the cheap market-stall trainers worn by a good but unstylish teacher on school non-uniform days. People who write this poorly scanning, self-consciously rhyming doggerel really value it. So I try not to be a snot about it.

I fail, though, every time. It's not personal. I don't have a crusade against middle-aged men and elderly women in local writers' groups, expressing themselves, getting the brief thrill of seeing their stuff in print. It's because I'm a perfectionist. I hate my own stuff, too. I pick it over, time and again, pulling apart lines, beating myself up over words, hoping that one day, by a sudden miracle, I'll wake up and find I've turned into Ivy Compton-Burnett or Alan Bennett. It hasn't yet, needless to say.

Plus, I love poetry in itself. It started with studying Hughes and Heaney at GCSE. I devoured everything of theirs I could, including their collection The Rattle Bag, which opened the door to WB Yeats, Elizabeth Bishop, Federico Garcia Lorca - the works. I read that stuff and I poured myself into it so much that I memorised so much of it. Through the hell of school (yes, you knew it, school was hell) I kept this stuff near me, like a Bible in the pocket of a Tommy in the trenches. I turned to it time and again, to make sense of the stuff that happened to me in my life, when so little of life seemed to make sense at all. I learnt to lean on that. You've got to have something to lean on, at least.

The thing is, like I say, poetry's out of fashion. I feel so old-fashioned. When my peers are there running to Rihanna, quoting Adele, when they need something, there's me, clutching on to a slim volume of Housman or Eliot. It's like a foreign culture - a huge, complexity of stuff that sits behind my experience, simultaneously soothing me and cutting me off from most of the other people I know. Take what you want and pay for it, says God.

Which is why I adored the poetry-loving eccentric Hector in The History Boys, who has something wondreful to say about reading: " The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - that you'd thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you've never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it's as if a hand has come out, and taken yours."

A hundred per cent, Hector. A hundred per cent.

New short story available for free!

I have a free short story available for download! My new short piece, BEFORE YOU LEAP, is available online entirely free.


http://dreamridermedia.wordpre​ss.com/2011/07/15/new-free-sho​rt-story-from-claire-louisa-th​omas-free-to-download/
Please go and download it and tell me what you think!

Scarlet woman, or Why I don't read magazines

I'm a girl. Bring me impractically foot-crippling, fugly, orthopaedic-looking high-heeled shoes in a range of migraine-inducing colours. Bring me nauseating "statement" bags with tassels on them. I can't live without the latest 'sleb news n' pics. Abbey Clancy in her bikini, showing off a rack of ribs that would do credit to a xylophone. Is JenAn wearing sunglasses to hide her tears at yet another doomed relationship? (They'll print her picture next to one of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie looking uxoriously smug, just to ram the point home.) And articles about the latest obscure Amazonian "superfood" said to be relied on by Victoria Beckham, a woman who has made a career out of being a smartly-dressed, blank-faced twig.

Really. Give it all to me. I can't get enough of anodyne daytime TV presenters, empty-headed reality TV "stars" and the girlfriends of oafish, lumpen footballers - all hovering on the edges of fame, waiting for the divorce sacndal or the sex tape that will catapult them into genuine D-list status. I can't get enough of the guilting to starve to fit into the clothes these substandard loo-roll mags tell me I should want to wear, the horrible, creeping feeling that somehow people who happen to have two X chromosomes will have the same three interests in common.

This is why, for years, I avoided magazines more or less completely, bar the occasional peek at Wired or Pick Me Up, providing that the latter had a banner headline about somebody "accidentally" impaling a rusty nail through their penis or finding love in the frozen-vegetable section of Jack Fulton's. And then, I discovered Scarlet magazine.

Scarlet magazine featured nothing on diets or fashions and the people they interviewed were successful businesswomen talking about their fascinating careers, rather than Christine Bleakley flashing an engagement ring and simpering. Sex formed a large part of the topics under discussion - as something you were free to enjoy however you pleased, rather than to be alluded to with the kind of arch tee-hee that is old by the time you leave puberty. I loved Scarlet. And it went under.

That's right. Somebody produced an intelligent, relevant, interesting magazine for women, and it went under. Due to the failure of the distributors, but still, doesn't that sound bad?

Nothing will replace Scarlet in my affections. Nothing. Certainly not Cosmopolitan, that depressing archive where "aspirational" means "guilting you about the fact that you don't have a high-powered career, a cordon bleu in cookery, a small number of well-groomed designer-clad children and an Oxford blue for sexual intercourse." I gave up trying to be perfect long ago, it was far too knackering. And not Good Housekeeping. I haven't got time to launder my dishcloths freshly with angels' tears or tenderise duck breast through the medium of interpretative dance. So what am I to do?

Back to Wired, I suppose. But wouldn't it be nice to find a fulfilling read on the women's shelf?

Murder redux

News broke this week that a skull unearthed in David Attenborough's garden has resolved the infamous Kate Webster murder case. Naturally this is a matter of extreme interest to me, as a student of Victorian crime. Because if you want to know anything - anything at all - about the Victorian mindset, then study this case. It's Victoriana in microcosm. All the fears, anxieties, emotions and relationships between domestic servants and their employers can be found in the Kate Webster case.
Kate Webster was one of the many women who lived their lives on the blurry line between domestic service and criminality. She was a heavy drinker, often violent and a habitual thief. These habits cost her most of her occasional forays into gainful employment - and on the final occasion, came together in a terrifying synthesis.
Middle-aged Kate secured a job as a cook with a widow, Julia Thomas - known for having a vicious way with words. In the days when an employer was free to treat a servant with appalling conditions of privation and hard labour, Mrs Thomas was well known to be unable to keep a servant for any length of time. Had this not been the case, she would no doubt have been able to engage someone better than Kate to cook for her. But she couldn't.
Inevitably, the two women clashed. There was a row. Kate later confessed that she threw her employer down the stairs and strangled her. Panicking, she dismembered and boiled the body, disposing of the head, selling the fat off as "best dripping" and carrying the remains around with her concealed in a large carpet bag. Meanwhile, she tried to sell off the furniture. The suspicions this aroused led to Kate's arrest. She was hanged for Mrs Thomas' murder, but without the head, the body could never be officially identified and the case was never closed...until the skull of Mrs Thomas was discovered during excavations in David Attenborough's garden this week, one hundred and thirty years after Kate buried it.
The case received record coverage in the Victorian press. The relationship between servants and employers was ambivalent in the extreme. Horrified employers followed the ghoulish case with terrified fascination, and, I like to think, were that little bit nicer to their maids thereafter. A servant knew the ins and outs of the house; they could choose to pilfer, or to abet thieves from the outside. Employers were vulnerable to their servants then in ways we often find hard to understand now. Looking at the Kate Webster case gives us a uniue insight into the complex, fearful ties between two classes of people who are far less common now than they were. It's a pause for thought.

Middle-aged teenager

Do you ever want to run away from being grown up? I do. I do all the grown-up stuff - I have a Proper Job (with accompanying intensive study course to prove I'm qualified to do it). I rent a pretty spacious flat with magnolia walls and pine bookshelves. I pay the bills on time. I can't wear a short skirt without trying to pull it down over my knees approximately every 1.08 minutes. I get my hair done at the salon very six weeks, instead of roping in a mate for an evening where we dye all the bathroom sinks (and our ears) dark blue.
And yet, every so often, I look at my life, and feel kind of nervous. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for all the many good and lovely things in my life, but sometimes I feel that this is all a bit too grown up. A bit too much of the belted three-quarter length office coat, and a bit too little of the hoody thrown on over vest and combats. A bit too much of proper meals eaten at a table, and a bit too little of smoked salmon and fruit eaten straight from the packet while I read. A bit too much getting to bed at a sensible hour, and hardly any of the picnicking in Endcliffe Park at midnight witha bottle of Blavod.
And at those times - maybe it's springtime, I don't know- the sap rises, and I feel like doing silly and quite innocent things, like getting legless on a school night, just to prove that I'm still in control of my own life, not fenced out of my own freedoms somehow. Just to prove that it's still up to me what I do and why. A kind of teenaged instinct, but there you have it. A poor thing, but my own.
I haven't yet done it though. The nearest I've got so far is having one more drink than I think I should when I know I'm at work in the morning, spending stupid amounts of money on beautiful but utterly un-sensible shoes, or staying out too late. But even that I've done with that attitude of "ooh I shouldn't, really" which characterises middle-aged women treating themselves to a verboten tiramisu. God, even my rebellion's middle-aged. There's clearly no hope for me. I'm off to buy some sensible sandals and a beige cardigan, ready for my exhausted slump into the menopause years.
I might take a bottle of Midori and some lip gloss, too.