Not on your nelly

Sweethearts, yes, I have neglected more than one of you shamelessly. Which goes to prove that absence doesn’t make the heart grow fonder. Not at all. All it does is make you forget you ever existed. Who the ‘you’ in the last sentence is I shall leave for you to decide: You, me or all of us.

The good news is that I was once proposed to by a Professor of a language I shall not disclose to you.   He had accepted a posting in Paris (Goethe Institut), promised to take me to a Viennese Ball, allow me all licence taking my fancy and generally make my life as soporific as only I can appreciate it. Yes. Insert pregnant pause. And more yes. Except it was a no.

Let’s leave aside that at the time I was married already (to my first husband). Considering that I am not the marrying kind it’s never stopped anyone proposing to me. I wish I were one of Emma’s sisters (ref. Jane Austen). At least her mother wouldn’t have had any problems marrying me off.

So if I had married the Professor my blog’s readers and I would have probably never met, and even if we had, I’d be “Parlez-vous Francais?” NON? Well go away then. Because the French only speak French. Even when ordering French fries.

Fast forward – not that fast. Instead of which after gently disposing of husband number one I married an English man. An English Man of the most exacting type. You want a cucumber sandwich? You can have cucumber sandwich – extra thin. You want tea in The Ritz? You will. Just make sure to wear a tie. Unless you want to be humiliated by the doormen offering you a left over. You want an after-eight? Just make sure you … Don’t ask. I have suffered more than an education in the use of an apostrophe.

Don’t knock The Ritz. I had champagne there after getting hitched at Marylebone Registry Office (the church ceremony being in the father/motherland two days later). Wish that bloody scanner of mine be working to provide you with photographic evidence. Give me a few more months and I’ll be back in the money replacing all that is on its last leg.

Which brings me neatly back to where I started: Instead of speaking French 99 % of the day I now speak English 99.9 % of the day (I do swear in the mother tongue which accounts for the missing .1 %).

I leave all of you with offspring with a dreadful thought: Imagine I’d have married the Professor, the Angel wouldn’t exist. No contest there then.

May your egg hatch too. Happy Easter,

Ursula

PS Not so much an afterthought as a fact: The Englishman proposed to me in Paris.

PPS To keep the record straight: The Englishman is now – and has been for a considerable time – married to an American. A Catholic. The Englishman, apart from being a gentleman and a defender of the apostrophe, only has  two pet hates: Americans and Catholicism. One wonders. So far so good. And let me remind you: He is the father of my son. And few can claim that accolade.

Ripe

One of the most annoying aspects of blogging is that there are many subjects you can’t touch. If you are the coward that I clearly am shaping up to be.

I cannot believe how much I’d like to put out here but can’t. I can’t. Either there really are too many lunatics out there after my hide, or I am currently suffering a spot of acute paranoia. People get killed over the contents of their wallet (say, five Pound Sterling): Do I want to be killed over my totally irrelevant views on any matter political, religious (any denomination) or how to bring up your children? No. I don’t.

Your loss. And mine.

U

Misconception

A blogging acquaintance (one with whom I sometimes cross swords – yes, Jean, you) brought to my attention snobbishness.

She, as does the dictionary, defines it as people looking down their nose at others, feeling superior in their knowledge.

Sorry, but that’s not my real life experience. To me the Snob is a much misunderstand person. Just because you know about, say, wine (I largely drink Sauvignon Blanc – so easy on the palate – yes, that’s the peasant I am) doesn’t mean that you feel superior to a person who only drinks Sauvignon Blanc unless she hangs off the arm of a man who knows his wine list. In which case I will trust him entirely and I don’t care whether he is a snob or not. In fact, come to think of it, it’s a positive aphrodisiac when the man takes charge of the wine list. I am now in danger of veering off the original subject.

Yes, snobs.

In my perception it’s the person who feels inferior – and resents it instead of enjoying the other’s ‘superiority’ – who fashions the more knowledgeable into a ‘snob’. Please do read that last sentence again since my whole reasoning rests on its content.

Just because you know more about and spout your knowledge in any field, may it be literature, painting, music, food, wine, whatever, doesn’t mean you are a snob. It means you will be put down as a ‘snob’.

Give me a snob any time. I love snobs. They are so much more interesting, so much more amusing and entertaining than the boorish who point their unknowing finger at a ‘snob’.

U

Larousse

I will not be outdone by bloggers who think they need to reinvent a culinary wheel.

Chilli Sans Carne.

Want the recipe? Apply yourself.

U

Top Dog

You can’t beat it: The United States of America that is. Not that I would want to. After all, most of the inhabitants stem from their forebears in Europe.

The States’ dialing code being 001. It’s quite fantastic when you think about it. Number 1.

France, being cha cha, oh dear, yes, let’s not dwell on the unadulterated (sic) treachery and jealousy, sickness by another name, of La Rottweiler (First Lady), a cool 0033. England not to be outdone by their arch enemy another double act at 0044. Whilst Germany a most charming 0049. Italy clearly distracted by stirring risotto and grating Parmesan cheese at 0039. Or maybe they just don’t want anyone to phone them. Who remembers 39? And anyway talking with your hands does not easily translate via trunks under the ocean.  Naturally, one could have a friend (as do I), deceased, in Trinidad. Don’t ask.

Yes, so: What’s in a number?

U

Mercenary

I need to vent a spleen. No doubt it’ll come back and hit me over the head. Yes, Karma.

What I have done in any previous life, indeed in this, to be constantly reminded by people of the concept of Karma I do not know. I must have been an absolute swine, still am, that not only do I not understand what Karma is, what it stands for, what purpose it can possibly serve – but that I am becoming more and more exasperated by how many people believe in it.

First things first: I am all for anything that gives people comfort (as long as no one is hurt). If you want to worship at some shrine and it makes you feel good that’s fine. I’d extend that courtesy to those who believe in the stars (astrology). Whatever stills your fever in the quest to grapple with  life and fate.

What’s not fine is that I (and maybe others) are made to feel that we are wholly responsible for whatever luck or ills befall us. It is so much nonsense, to my mind, that if banging my head against the wall would make it go away I’d happily live with the concussion.

There are some people in my life (all of them male since calm, reason and indifference all peculiarly – and attractive – male traits) who’d shrug their shoulder and say to me: Maybe you move in the wrong circles.

Maybe. That won’t make that blasted Karma go away. Remember: One of those friends of mine who hates the catholic church with a vengence – and is scathing of Americans – married a devout Catholic and American. You may laugh. As do I. Their relationship a constant source of amusement to me. Proving that the human soul is perverse. In Karma terms I shudder to think what his sins were back in the ice ages.

Like with most things which confound me I am torn between anger and laughing it off. The concept of Karma, on the whole, just annoys the hell out of me. In my layman’s terms it appears that we are supposed to believe that “what goes around comes around”. That idea is just so not true I could cry. Whenever I hear about Karma I feel like an animal rattling the cage, wanting to get out (that’s when it pays to be a Gorilla – their chance of breaking out slightly higher than mine).

I have known some wonderful people in my life. I have worked with some absolute bastards. If Karma is about justice then I think Karma needs to have its vision tested. Get some new prescription glasses. Or just go blind.

Someone will now repeat (see above) that Karma makes sense in that  it is not tethered to this, our current, life. I am supposed to believe that I am paying for the sins of a previous life, that I am reaping the seeds I sowed in yet another life. Maybe I misunderstand. Maybe there are certain thoughts that some hold dear I am just not cut out for. All I know: There is nothing ‘fair’ about life. Just because you give doesn’t mean you’ll be given, just because you don’t give doesn’t mean that you won’t be given.

What annoys me more than anything else about the concept of Karma, in my limited understanding: How can life be a trade off?

U

PS No lab rats were used or hurt in the above. May you too have it in your heart to forgive me. Remember: What goes around comes around! HA.

PPS I have deliberately not tagged this post with ‘Karma’. Who wants to drop dead tomorrow morning to be reincarnated as slime?

Beyond help

In the wake of Lorna’s procrastination inspiring me to put off the urgent, I am following my need to focus on the unimportant. Since I am hot on recycling and composting I shall make my last response to both Lorna and Renee into this post. It’s not so much second hand as dug over.

Lorna, Renee, if I had the patience I’d write the pamphlet of all pamphlets in my war against self help books. When did that wave of delusion start? Maybe late Seventies/early Eighties (I myself blame Americans – but then what else are Americans for than to blame them for the world’s ills). Both my fortune and misfortune lie in being curious (which does not extend to nuclear science or brain surgery). So, yes, why not explore the genre of self help books? If only to make us feel miserable.

You do know what’s wrong with self help books, don’t you? They promise to make you the wonderful person you thought you were before they draw to your attention that you are less than sufficient and in dire need of improvement. It’s a complete con. One of the best and most useless books I wasted money on was a DIY one: “How to do 100 things you don’t need a man for”. I only bought it because the cover reminded me of Doris Day. Doris Day being my ideal of womanhood. Nipped in waist. Flared skirt. 1950s. Happy. Cheerful. Kids’ teeth brushed. Cake in the oven. At the ready with a cocktail on the bacon hunter’s return. No bull. I mean it. Yes, so 100 hundred things you don’t need a man for. I didn’t know there were so many. But then who am I to argue with a self help book? Don’t get the wrong idea. I am sure if you want to hang a door without capable muscle that book does come in useful. Trouble is I had no intention, still don’t, to do any of those one hundred things. And how to unblock a toilet I was taught, by osmosis, when I was barely out of my nappies/diapers.

Then, and I bet my bottom Euro you know that title (which woman doesn’t) there was: “Feel the fear and do it anyway”. Trouble was I didn’t feel any fear (still don’t), neither did I want to do IT whatever ‘it’ was. To this day I have now idea what, was it Susan Jeffers, she was talking about.

However, I will admit to enjoying lifestyle books of the kind that tell you how to get rid of rubbish, and organise your sock drawer. And books on cleaning. I don’t know how long ago – let’s say a long time ago – I bought, no not Martha Stewart, the other American, Cheryl Mendelson “Home Comforts – The Art and Science of Keeping House”. It’s a hardback, 884 pages long – that includes the index, and tells you all about, say, wool fibres that you do NOT need to know in order to live a happy, clean, sober, self sufficient and content life. It’s a collector’s edition (I probably bought it on ebay) and I’d dearly love to sell it. Trouble is I lack the will to spend any effort on it. Now there is a title: “Lack the will and don’t do it”.

Maybe the three of us should pool our remaining inertia and help the world to become a better cobweb.

Hugs, kisses and Doris Day,

U

Smalls

Let’s turn to that in life which we appreciate only by their absence:

Toilet paper to name but one. And the flush.

I don’t classify myself as anal yet am fascinated by how people survived the olden days, and at their considerable inconvenience.  Even Charles Dickens didn’t venture where horse manure mingled with chamber pots emptied through first floor windows. I don’t think they did second floors in those days. More is the pity. Because matter might have dispersed on the way down.

If ever there was the perfect age for the mini skirt they missed it. Instead of which ladies’ coy hems would sweep up – on leaving and returning from market – that which superfluous to our bodies. Unlike upper class Indians (and Madonna) all of whom I believe to be carried door to door, by minions, then, and Madonna now, without ever setting foot into that which unites us all: Shit.

U

PC – polite company

Always run with one who is just that little faster than you are. They will pull you along. Making you excel yourself. At grammar school, 100 meter short distance, we ran in pairs. A very fast runner myself (to this day, meep, meep) I always tried to be teamed up with Susanne (her of the extra long legs). She was as fast as the wind, ambitious too, a quality I am sadly lacking. I quickly recognized that her speed, always just that tiny bit ahead of me, pulled me along and, whilst she always won, resulting in ever fewer seconds for me to reach the finishing line. Loved it.

Yes, so Totsy (see my http://bitchontheblog.wordpress.com/2012/01/12/feeds-and-facts/ currently pulling me along and covering a subject, so dear to my despairing linguistic heart, of PC, political correctness. If I weren’t such a talker, I’d shut up – in public. Use of language has become a mind field. Please NOTE: I did not say minE field, I said minD field. The former leaving you limbless, the latter mutilated.

My father, sometime back in the Sixties, brought me a toy, plastic, much loved, black, called “Gollywog”? Dare I mention this – now – in polite company? Will I be tarred and feathered (ending up looking like Gollywog, only feathered)?

The Angel, always good for an anecdote, age four, Heathrow Airport departure lounge, points at another passenger and, audible to all, with wonderment in his voice: “Mama, that Lady is black”. Yes, indeed. She is. Undisputably so. I whisper to him (not sure of my facts): “That’s not the thing to say.” “But, Mama, she IS black.” Yes, yes, yes, and yes. What am I trying to teach my child here? To pull wool over dreadlocks? Blacklisted myself that moment.

A neighbour of ours has a baby. It’s adorable. As chocolate babies are. The Angel is appalled. My formidable mentor is “chocolate” too. OK, son, let’s make this conversation a return match (16 years on). Me:  ”I am sorry, Angel, it is chocolate. Just as his mother is white. Undisputably so.” The Angel let it pass. He is not conformist either, just worries about his mother being lynched when not chaperoned.

With another wink to one of Totsy’s remarks: Yesterday I give the Angel some lunch to take into work – in a plastic box. He shows some reluctance accepting this token of motherly love and care: “Oh, Mama, that’s so GAY”. Since I am generally short fused I raise my voice: “For … ‘s sake, what’s gay about a lunch box?” He observed that he is so glad that no one can overhear some of our inane conversations. I wouldn’t bank on it. Walls are thin. Paranoia is rife. And 1984 was written well before Big Brother arrived.

Go and read Totsy http://writinginflow.blogspot.com/2012/01/dear-sirmadam-political-correctness-ive.html#idc-container

U

Niceties

A question which has long been burning a hole into the fabric of my life:

If you saw a stranger walking around with his fly open, her tights/stockings laddered, were talking to someone with a bit of spinach between their front teeth: Would you point this out to them?

U