...and wine

The esteemed Dr Thomas Stuttaford in his column in The Times proclaims that giving up chocolate and wine for lent is ridiculous, and potentially fatal. Your blogger could have told you that for free. Wine, obviously along with curry and chocolate form the 3 most important food groups and should be consumed every day for optimum cheerfulness.

Now the offspring came back from uni with some very strange ideas. Having survived for 3 years on lentils and organic veg boxes in the vegetarian, Jewish, hippie commune one found herself in, (an amusing contrast to the Catholic convent school she'd just escaped from), they arrived back post-finals with the glassy-eyed fervour of the born-again proselytiser, determined to convert me to the sanctimonious worship of brown rice. But then I reminded them of steak, and they got a lot more bearable.

Nevertheless, they cling to an unhealthy obsession with fruit and vegetables. I have no personal objection to these harmless botanical growths, I just don't feel the need to count my cauliflower florets to ensure I have assembled sufficient to meet the government-busybody-determined amount for 1 portion, and hyperventilate if they aren't joined by enough other garden rubbish to meet the 5-a-day target.

The other defining quality about one particular of the offspring is her wind. God help us all, its foul. I don't just mean a bit stinky. I mean Porton Down manufactured biological weapon. She's lost count of the times she has cleared supermarket aisles, shop and even pubs. She is particularly sheepishly proud of the time she cleared a Post Office on pension day. Old people generally have no sense of smell left. The highlight of their week is queuing at the Post Office. Yet they melted away like summer snow when Sprog 1 let rip her silent killer.

It is sufficiently bad that a contingent of her co-workers approached personnel and asked the unfortunate woman to "have a word - or don't renew her temp contract." So to save her blushes (and her workmates' concussion as they bang their heads on passing out), she now tramps the streets of the Barbican at lunchtime.

It was suggested to her during this squirming interview that she might like to visit her doctor for a second opinion. This she duly did, into the face of a silently astonished GP, who referred her on to a nutritionist. After a month, appointment day arrived. Off she tramped, food diary clutched in hand. The nutritionist was very thorough, went through everything with her and her verdict? You eat too healthily - too much fibre. Eat more crap for a while and see if that helps. Less veg. White bread. White rice.

Ha. Should have listened to your mother!

Fat Kids, Thick Mothers

Now far be it from me, a short, round woman as I may have mentioned, to get unduly fattist, but for God's sake, how thick must you be, how big a wet drip to let this happen? "He doesn't like it, he won't do it, I can't make him" For crying out loud, what is your existence as a mother for, if not to impel your kids to do things that they may not necessarily want to do, but are good for them. It's called being a parent.

I would say its called being an adult, but as I had twins at 15, and managed perfectly well to encourage them to eat sensibly, study hard, get qualified and start their own lives without the benefit of being old enough to vote at the start of the process, I will simply refer to it as common sense.

If the kid gets ill and needs antibiotics, are you going to acquiesce to his whines that they're too big to swallow? Are you going to avoid giving him his jabs cos he might cwy? Are you going to let him not go to school cos its a bit hard? Apparently so. This woman has it right, if you can't outwit a kid, what the fuck are you doing having one?

Curry 'n' Elvis

Who could resist? Just got back from a curry house in Rayne in Essex where they had an Elvis impersonator. Let's say he enjoyed his job! I think he was paying them in the end, but he put on a good show and the restaurant was packed. Cheesy but fun!

Irritating but partly right

The indefatigably irritating Jeremey Clarkson in his latest column rails against this governments growing war against the middle classes. He points out that

"They tell you not to go to Tuscany this summer, and they throw withering
looks at the Ryanair flights to Gascony"

and that they have declared war on the Chelsea tractor, but

"when Kentucky Fried Chicken starts advertising a bucket of supper with
disposable plates and nonbiodegradable plastic cutlery so you don’t have to get
your fat arse out of your DFS sofa and wash up, do we hear a murmur?"

Now personally, I neither have nor want a 4x4, nor can I afford flights to Tuscany nor do I have a second home in France. Nevertheless, I am aware that as a tax-paying, car-insuring citizen, I'm an easy target for the lazy, revenue-raising, target-obsessed, Chief Constables of our fair land, and that this is just a subset of a wider mentality.

If I were the chavvy type who was quite happy to hide behind the "no speak English" excuse, or merrily considered car tax and MoT as farty bits of paperwork of no concern, I could drive where and how I wanted with impunity, with nary a uniform to impede me. This is starting to sound like a BNP rant, which its not. This is not about colour, race, nationality or creed. Its about contributing as much or more to the society you live in than you withdraw.

As much as financial debt has become the norm, there is a growing acceptance that its okay to take and not to put back. The nonsense of taxing vast swathes of people in order to give it back to them in tax credits, thereby keeping full track of their earnings and movements just encourages this mindset. "We owe all we have to the state. Long live the state!" seems to be the message. Well bugger that.

More Intro

and I realised I missed out sex. Hmmm, what does that say about my life :(

The intro

So a new blog - why?

Well I started an entirely different blog on a particular subject. This has got me looking round blog-world in general & I'm finding loads of fascinating, interesting, readable blogs that have nothing to do with my first blog (which is about debt), so I thought I'd start a personal blog so I could link to them.

Plus I could ramble on about politics, religion and any other taboos I might have missed, having covered money in the first one.