Crap shoes

A few weeks ago The Boy stomped home from school and barked that the soles of his school shoes were flapping in the wind. And it was raining. My fault on both counts. Especially the rain as it was making his hair stick up like a twat. Yes my flap shoed twatty haired son was Not Happy. And all because I’d bought him cheap school shoes.

The thing was he refused to come shopping with me to buy another pair so I had to guess the sort of shoes he might like. Alas the only pair available in his size were plain black with the words Boys World emblazoned on the inside sole. Not outside for the world to see but on the inside sole where his feet would be unless fashions have changed so much that he is supposed to wear shoes inside out.

As I unpacked the groceries he picked up the new shoes and regarded them as though I had presented him with a pair of freshly deposited dog turds with laces. Muuuuum. I mean are you kidding or what? No No No. He backed off and ran up the stairs as though I’d just suggested he wore ballet tights to school. I honestly couldn’t see what was wrong with them. How wrong can you go with plain black shoes?


Very wrong apparently. The next day I received a phone call from school. He is not allowed to wear trainers. I could hear The Boy in the background moaning But the shoes she got me are crap! Everyone’s been asking me why I’m wearing black cereal boxes on my feet! Then the teacher saying: I’m sorry but you can’t wear trainers. It’s a school rule. Even if your shoes are a bit . . did I hear the word crap?

Later that day he returned from school with a face like Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. I had to whip them off in games and quickly stuff them with socks in case anyone saw Boys World inside them he said mournfully. By this time I was so fed up that I promised to buy him another pair as long as he actually came with me and stopped bloody complaining. He was using the shoe trauma excuse to stop doing any of his chores. Post Traumatic Shoe Syndrome. Finally Husband snapped that if The Boy didn’t empty the damned bins he’d get a white marker pen and write Boys World on the outside of the shoes as well.

I thought this meant Husband was on my side. But later on as I was examining the hated objects and puzzling over what was quite so terrible about them, I caught Husband looking at me with a expression he usually wears when forced by me to watch Extreme Skinny Z list Celebrities. I’m sorry he said but they really are crap shoes.

Are they really that bad (she whines).

Just keep your gob shut Jane

I really appreciate being freelance when I have to travel a lot on the tube. During the rush hour. While I listen, ear half cocked and an expression of grump as the loudspeaker mumbles something about the circle line . . . limited service . . . under train . . sorry for incon-bleugh, all the poor people who have to listen to this shite every day adopt an expression of blank stoicism. Or maybe it’s just despair. Move down the platform shouts someone official with a loudspeaker as all the passengers squash together four deep like commuter lemmings. So I finally stuff myself onto the tube, listen to another announcement telling us in the ancient language of Incomprehensible Mumble that the train will not be going to Leicester Square after all but will terminate at Earls Court. But no matter. Buses will be laid on which might take us somewhere. Scotland? Or possibly back to Earls Court. And London Transport apologises for the inconvenience. Oh that makes it all better!

Squashing down the kind of helpless rage that eventually turns into cancer, I watch idly as a commuter reads the paper. On the back is a big picture of Liam Gallagher looking sulky (does he have any other expression?) and a headline about how the rift would never be healed. My first thought - I wonder what he’s flogging? And my second - twat. Probably because I bet he never travels by tube. Unfortunately I think I said the second thought out loud, because the owner of the paper looks at me sharply and says: Who me? And jerked out of my tube coma, I say: Oh no no – not you. I meant Liam Gallagher.

He looks at me. Where?

So as well as feeling fed up, and full of repressed rage I'm also feeling foolish. Other normal commuters will look at me pityingly - the mad woman who rants about Mancunian rock stars who aren't actually there. Luckily, a young woman nearby saves the day by saying calmly: I met him once. He is a twat.

Accidental Boxing Class

I've got a short term deal on a local gym so I'm making the most of it. Yesterday I stumbled into what was definitely referred to as a Fast Class. Which meant it would be over with fast. Hopefully. It was 8am and I staggered onto the gym floor. 'Ok where's the fast class?' I muttered to a sick makingly wide awake young man with bright eyes and a goatee, hoping for a classload of equally tired, grumpy people I could hide behind. 'Put these on,' he said, smiling, so before I realised what the hell was going on, I had shrugged into a pair of minging sweaty boxing gloves. Hang on! This wasn't a fast class! This was . . er . . .boxing? On my own? 'Yeah it's you and me,' said Elijah with the goatee. 'Where's everyone else?' I whimpered. He ignored me. 'Punch ten times both sides then we go down by two'. Eh? What? Counting and exercise? I feebly punched the wrong number. 'No - put your whole body into it!' shouted Elijah. It's very very hard to punch sulkily but I managed it. When I'd punched the wrong number and dislocated my spine ten times it was time for a 'rest'. 'Round the track!' snapped Elijah. I ran round the track, grumbling. Then I had to punch again. I tried pleading inability to breathe or stand up but Elijah wasn't having any of it. 'You punch like a girl!' he said. Finally I socked him a punch he was grudgingly pleased with. 'Come back tomorrow,' he said in a kind but butch voice. I kept thinking of that bit in Ben Hur when Charlton Heston is chained to the ship. 'Hate keeps a man alive Number Six'. Doesn't quite work as 'Sulking helps a girl to punch.' I've never been so glad when forty five minutes was up. All I can remember after that is slowly collapsing to the ground and whimpering. I'll never laugh at Rocky again.

A Nasty Lady Told off My Girl

Recently, I took The Girl to a magical production of James and the Giant Peach at the Polka Theatre, Wimbledon. At one point, James thrust a giant, squashy peach coloured half blown up rubberised beach ball into the audience and we, the audience had to pass it back through the auditorium. Doesn't sound magical but it was. The atmosphere was as it should be, noisy and slightly chaotic. We sat at the back, so The Girl’s view was slightly inhibited by a family in front of us. The Girl asked the odd question and I whispered the answer in her ear. A few seats down, a boy shouted and shrieked with pleasure. And then just as Act Two was about to begin, The Girl asked what the safety curtain was and the lady in front of us turned round and said Shhh very loudly to her. I was so surprised I had a ‘no that didn’t actually happen’ moment. Then as we sat in silence the lady spun round again and snapped Be quiet! really angrily to my five year old child. For speaking before the curtain had gone up.

I was so shocked my throat stung. Don’t talk to my child like that, I snarled back. The show hasn’t even started yet. She spun round again, face a purple mask of anger-about-something-else-entirely. She TALKED in the first half so perhaps you might restrain her in the second!

So did half the theatre I said loudly. We're in a children's theatre remember? Rage was tearing through me. I would have happily punched her overly made up face with runway burgundy blusher streaks. She in turn looked at me with such hatred, I recoiled. The Girl took my hand, the lights went down and I sat in silence. The Girl was too nervous to ask any questions. I would have happily given five years of my life if the woman's head had exploded in front of me. I sat back in the darkening theatre trying not to cry. The Girl seemed fine. James and the Giant Bitch.

On the way home, I talked to The Girl about what had happened. That the Nasty Lady had no right to speak to my girl like that. She looked at me thoughtfully. And she was fat she said cheerfully.

Where the bloody hell had that come from? Among my many parental crimes and misdemeanors, sizeism is not one of them. I absolutely don't want The Girl to become infected with the horrible body fascism that defines our culture. Probably naive but you can make a start by not whining about your own weight or referring to it in other people. So I launched into my Guardian Lecture about how we were all different shapes and sizes and it didn’t matter. What mattered was that the lady had been rude and nasty.

She was fat repeated The Girl. I didn't laugh. But I did smirk. Then I changed the subject. What is it that money can't buy? Erm, love? Friends? Happiness?

The Girl thought for a minute. Leaves she said. I do love her.

Catchup

First off I’m really sorry about the heinous length of my disappearance. Oh you haven’t noticed. Ok. That’s me humbled. I knew tumbleweed was blowing through my blog when I started getting anonymous emails telling me that I could bulk buy Viagra and a very strange ‘comment’ which I quote in full:

But placid, there are well known companies which deserve benefit words and created an distinguished get Cialis now reputation.

Er right. What?

So, quick catch-up. I’ve been ploughing through work and feeling grateful to have any since at least three of my friends have been made redundant recently. This alas is not much comfort when you get the ninth draft of a script back from your producer with the note ‘I preferred the eighth draft’.

Took The Boy round to a series of sixth form colleges last week. I tried to stay in the background, only to reappear whenever he needed to fling a witty comment in my direction, or to place an umbrella over his head. When did I morph into a butler? At one point as we were wandering round a school, lost, he hissed in my ear: ‘Why don’t you go and talk to the other mums?’ So I sidled up to another mum who was looking really fed up and asked her a few banal questions about her boy going to sixth form. Her boy doesn’t seem to be interested in anything, especially not his GCSEs. She looked at the prospectus. ‘Apparently if they get into this school they have to do a course called Critical Thinking’. I watched her boy and mine hunched, gloomy and wandering round the Art department. ‘Well, The Boy is pretty good at being critical’ I mumbled. ‘I’d be glad for any vestige of thinking’ she added. ‘Perhaps we could enter them as a duo’.

We found our way to the psychology department, where bright eyed students were on hand to answer questions. I mentioned that I’d have loved to have studied psychology at school. ‘Look Boy, they do criminal psychology!’ I chirped over eagerly then saw his face shut down and realised I’d committed the parental Cardinal Sin of Being Eager. ‘Muuuuuuum’ he snarled and moved away as though I had bad breath, BO and swine flu.

Later on as we sat in the taxi I said that I’d been hurt by his obvious contempt. And reminded him that when I was fourteen and deeply into the Grease soundtrack, complete with hairbrushes for microphones, and fights over who would be Sandy (God knows why – Rizzo is a far more interesting character) my dad would wander past my bedroom door and start whooping: ‘Wella wella wella ooh! Tell me more tell me more – now what’s that supposed to mean – doesn’t mean anything . . . ‘ and on and on in a Touretty rant until mum shouted from downstairs that Hawaii Five-O was on. Now that’s an embarrassing parent. The Boy’s mouth turned up slightly at the corner and he touched my hand very lightly. I’d forgive him anything. He’s my boy.

Five Obsessions

Lovely Helen at Commission Me - has presented me with an award which stands for not Tragic Obsession with Big Hats and Small Dogs, but integrity, commitment to excellence and stubborn optimism. I'm very touched. And a bit guilty because I've been a bit lax on the blog front recently. And as a codicil I have to give you my five obsessions. Which are in no particular order:

1. Extremely mature cheddar. You can forget that namby pamby mild crap. Give me the sort of cheese that gives your gums an electric shock. Particularly good when a lump of it is eaten with a splodge of generic pickle.

2. The Boy's Height. It's really hard to tell someone off when you have to look up at them to do it. And their response is Chill mum in a really deep voice.

3. The Girl's developing confidence. I remember a mother once telling me: Once they go to school, they're gone and now I know what she means. She has a set of friends, influences, opinions and tastes of her own. Yesterday she insisted on wearing a tunic with clashing tee, odd socks and a beret. Fashion wise I think she's channelling Vivienne Westwood. Drunk.

4. Writing something good. And I've been telling my students at the OU to allow themselves to write rubbish, to break through that awful inertia that comes when you sit down and tell yourself you have to write something good. I've been teaching them a bit about freewriting - composting - where you give yourself the freedom to write whatever you like. It's like turning your psyche over and over until a little nugget emerges that you can do something with. It's all true. But the bottom line is while it's good to allow yourself to write rubbish, nobody wants to end up submitting rubbish.

5. Aveda Hair Products. I know - I know. Especially as when I went into the 'lifestyle salon' I picked up a few products - one a 'glosser' and the other a 'finishing paste' and asked what the difference was. One glosses zee hair and the other feeeneeshes eeet, said the very glossy assistant. Insulted and patronised like that the only thing I could do was buy some overpriced shampoo. And to my intense annoyance it worked fantastically well.

And now I pass on the nominations to:

Jane Smith at How Publishing Really Works

Kit at Kit Courteney Writes

The Daily Quail

Elle at Product Placement

Nicola Morgan at Help! I Need a Publisher

Hollywood is a funny old place

Kanye West interrupts the acceptance speech of Taylor Swift (no, me neither) and gets slammed by stern moral arbiters like Donald Trump. "He couldn't care less about Beyonce - it was grandstanding to get attention," thunders Trump, a noted champion of young pretty women. (For those of you with lives, Mr West bounded on stage to point out that while he thought Taylor deserved her award, Beyonce's video was much better.) And as a result of this display of bad manners, petitions are being scribbled and we are being advised to boycott Kanye West's music. On the other hand, when a fugitive child rapist is brought to book for his crime decades later, Hollywood gets up a petition to protect him. According to Whoopi Goldberg it's not even "rape rape". I'm speechless.