Sticks and Stones

Sticks and stones may hurt my bones but words can never harm me – well that’s how the saying goes, but it’s not true.   As far as I’m concerned words can drive you insane.  For example, if I hear one more American mother (and they usually are American but I fear it is creeping in over here too) say ‘Good job’ to her child when it blows its nose or sits down when asked to do so I shall scream.   As for the words nibbles and picky bits they make me extremely irascible (now there’s a good word if you like).   Talking about canapes is perhaps a bit formal, hors d’oeuvres are usually reserved for restaurants and I’m not crazy about finger food or titbits so it is a bit of a quandary – better to say nothing or down play it by saying there will be a few nuts and little things to eat.

As for euphemisms they can be infuriating – particularly around death.  Why on earth does Tik Tok allow unalived but not dead?   And when I go I promise I will be back to haunt anyone who says I have passed or passed away.

A trigger warning is an advance notice alerting audiences that content contains distressing material, such as violence, abuse, or self-harm. Its primary goal is to help individuals—especially trauma survivors—mentally prepare or choose to avoid the material to prevent severe emotional reactions or panic.   That is all very well but surely we don’t need to have a trigger warning for Macbeth for example and yet we are allowed to see endless advertisements for incontinence products and funeral plans that I would argue are far more upsetting – especially to people of a certain age.   And the very word chocolate can be triggering to some people.

Today the N word is taboo whereas when I was young you could ask for a skein of wool in N word brown in Peter Jones but if you had used the F word in anger when they didn’t have any the police would have been called.   How times have changed.

You can still refer to people as fat, although one of my grandchildren told me off for that when she was about five and said that I should use the word rotund as it was more polite.   I’m not at all sure I agree and as far as women are concerned I prefer Rubenesque much as I would prefer to be Titian haired rather than ginger.

Scammers can certainly do a great deal of damage with their words when they pretend to be an American silver fox falling in love with some hapless woman who can only too easily, it appears, be deluded into parting with thousands of pounds.

I discover that asking ChatGPT about a black Labrador bitch is forbidden Presumably black is racist, Labrador is xenophobic and bitch is sexist – but how else am I supposed to describe her?   A dark coloured female dog of the retrieving persuasion?

When I was young the phrase ‘a friend of Dorothy’ was often used as a code by gay men to identify one another when homosexuality was illegal.   I rather doubt that anyone today would have any idea what you were talking about if you mentioned it and happily there is no longer any need.

On another subject does anyone else think that this hot weather is melting their brain?   It is making me very scratchy and bad tempered.   Some people manage to look cool whatever the temperature – I hate these people as I look like a bad tempered over-ripe tomato and I have become one of those people who shout at the radio!   Unless you are an Archers fan this final paragraph will be lost on you but Adam was cooking roast beef for his husband Ian and there was talk about a meat thermometer.   For heaven’s sake the only bad thing you can do with beef is over cook it – if you take it out and it is a little too rare just shove back in the oven!!!!

Tough Old Birds!!!

My generation are tough.   Our parents had just come through a world war and if we had told them we were umhappy at school they would have told us we were lucky that we weren’t being taught in German.   Girls had a very differnet life then.  We were quite restricted – no wearng jeans in public, no getting a mortgage without a male guarantor, no birth control without a wedding ring – although logically that didn’t make much sense and you could buy a wedding ring, that that turned your finger green, for a few shillings in Woolworths!   We were made of pretty stern stuff.  We followed in the footsteps of rhe Pankhursts and we aspired to go to Greenham common (if you don’t know  look it up!) and to burn our bras not flaunt them as a Victoria’s Secret model.    We didn’t know what a  ’celebrity’ was – not sure I know now except that if I ever pick up a copy of Hello it is full of identical looking women who are famous for baing famous and completely unknown to me.   It is a mystery why in this day and age, when we have had women prime ministers, have women consultants, CEOs, pilots, engineers – anything you like and yet so many young women want to be ‘influencers’  – I believe that they can  earn a fortune displaying their pillow lips, ample breasts and hair extensions on Tik Tok selling yet another wonder cream that will make you look like them in a matter of moments.   However I do find it depressing that there are women today whose ambition only extends to showing other young women (and probably men) how to create the perfect eyebrow.  If only, you might think, AI could invent a filter to make all of us look perfect – but does everyone one want to look like a clone of everyone else?    Howver if they could invent a way to inject people with common sense how much happier we would be.  

Men often get a bad rap these days as women complain how badly they have been treated.   Of course any assault is terrible and rape is a dreadful crime, but dressing in ultra revealing clothes, having one too many drinks and going up to man’s room in the early hours of the morning because he has offered you a job is just plain foolish.   Sometimes I don’t think it would do any good if a man asked a woman to sign a consent form as in the cold light of day they would claim they were coerced.   We were taught to spot a red flag – and pass the word on.   NSIT was a well known acronym that stood for Not Safe In Taxis!   And as for up-skirting – something I have read about but thankfully have no experience of – that could never have happened in our day.   For one thing trying to take a photograph surreptitiously with a box Brownie would have been virtually impossible   Added to which we wore thick navy wool over knickers and I never knew why but they certainly wouldn’t have made for a sexy photo

One of the chief executive of a hospital told me not that long ago that they had had to change their way of working in A & E because the old are too stoic.   Young people come in with a paper cut and demand pain killers and immediate admission and the old come in with a broken limb apolgising for being a nuisance.

We were brought up tough, we ate what we were given, we sat still in church, we didn’t answer back.   Of course we rebelled as we got older but life was so very different.   My grandchildren find it difficult to believe that people went to prison for homosexuality.   We weren’t vaccinated for much – I certainly had measles, chicken pox, mumps, German measles, hepatitis and scarlet fever, but we were vaccinated against smallpox as that still existed and we had some of the first vaccines against polio.  And there were plenty of things/words that we didn’t know:   Lupus, non-binary, dyslexia, anorexia, ADHD, autism, trans, the list could go on and on.  

Teenagers had only just been invented so that was fun, although early teenage years were blighted by fashion and make up designed for middle aged women.   Of course we managed to misbehave but with any luck without it being splashed all over the newspapers

We didn’t have a fit of the vapours if a man whistled at us or pinched our bum and if we had told our parents that we needed therapy thay would have told us to pull ourselves together.   I had never heard of anyone having therapy and mental health was never discussed.   We did know about criminals who were diagnosed by a psychiatrist as being insane and then incarcerated in Broadmoor.   David Sullivan has been in the press recently for inappropriate sexual advances to young girls but as he had made his money through soft porn even the most naïve girls must have realised that when he wanted to ‘interview; them this was hardly likely to be an invitation to a vicarage tea party.

If I had any wish for the future it would be that if women want equality they learn to look after themselves by using their brains and accepting the fact that men tend to be stronger physically so it is better to think and not to get into awkward situations in the first place.

To err is human, but to really foul things up, you need a computer.

As always, I find life confusing.   Words change their meanings – we’re all used to ‘gay’, so that’s not a problem, and is it brave parents who call their son Dick.   I had a lovely, intelligent but innocent friend who was writing a thriller with a hero called Richard – nothing wrong with that – but then he announced that the character’s nickname was Big Dick!   It took me quite a long time to persuade him that this would turn his exciting tale of derring do into a comedy!  For many years I signed emails off with the letters LOL – which at that time meant ‘lots of love’, but then Gen Z took over with their emojis and acronyms and it became Laughing Out Loud.   When I was a child on a farm, AI meant Artificial Insemination and the A1 was the main road north but now we have Artificial Intelligence and there is no doubt it is taking over.

Google has been my friend for years, yet Google is not a friend, not like ChatGPT.   Apparently, you can build yourself a virtual boyfriend that won’t scam you and will listen to your woes, but until you can find one that will take out the rubbish I think I’ll pass.

However, it is scary how much information machines have about us.   This is useful when face recognition can pick out a sex pest before he boards a train and with any luck a real human will apprehend him before he exposes himself on the 3.15 to Exeter. Not so useful when they bombard you with ads for incontinence pads and funeral plans, items that will not raise the spirits on a dark and gloomy morning. On the other hand, there is a device for helping you put your socks on that looks quite appealing, and I have to confess that I have an extremely useful grabber that I got my husband when he had a new hip.  It is very helpful for retrieving my glasses from under the sofa or tackling the shredded confetti that one of my Labradors likes to make of any tissue inadvertently left in a pocket. –

I no longer have a landline because the majority of calls I got were from ‘people’ trying to sell me something.   ‘Hi, Is that Stella?’ the voice would ask but it was more and more difficult to tell whether I was talking to a real person or not. Presumably as things progress AI is going to put a lot of romance scammers out of work.   In some far off countries there are whole buildings full of young men communicating with women persuading them that they are talking to a hunky looking American millionaire who is madly in love with them but inexplicably short of funds.   I have read and watched a lot about this and the ‘men’ are pretty unbelievable and only succeed because they find someone at a particularly vulnerable time in their lives. As for financial scams – they are much more sophisticated and even financial experts have been taken in.   All pretty frightening.

I’ve got a book called False Friends.  It isn’t a novel about love and lies but a book on the French language.   As anyone who speaks French  knows there are many words ready to catch you out!. .  AI will soon be able to create the perfect False Friend, one who knows you as well as you know yourself and will be able to trick you successfully.   Although I’m not sure that AI will have a sense of humour.   In romance scams the women love being told that their eyes are like deep Mediterranean pools and how wonderful they are.   I like a compliment as much as anyone but nothing beats being made to laugh and I’m not convinced that AI is very witty.  I have just asked ChatGPT to tell me a joke and this is what it came up with.   Why did the AI break up with the calculator?   Because it felt it was doing all the processing in the relationship.  Excuse me while I split my sides!  

As for cooking videos on Tik Tok there are a lot of American women (who might be robotic but are definitely real people) cooking on Tik Tok for their families, although judging by the quantities they must have enormous families – probably in both senses of the word.  These recipes could only be improved by AI.  Not a fresh ingredient in sight and mostly featuring a gigantic block of Velveeta (a plastic ersatz American cheese) and several cans of soup plus numerous other frozen or canned ingredients all mixed together to resemble a huge pile of sick!   AI could only be better in choosing a recipe and doing the shopping list when it would not forget any vital ingredients.   And on the topic of ingredients I read a good tip for cooking kale the other day, if you add some oil to the kale during cooking it will slip straight out of the pan and into the bin.  I’m not a fan of kale!

UTTERLY CONFUSED.COM

This blog started as way for me to write about surviving old age in a modern and confusing world and hopefully make people smile.   That was several years ago and I’m still here, still surviving and still ranting about the numerous things that confuse, irritate or amuse me.   So, to start the New Year I thought I would go through a few of my New Year thoughts.   Of course, right off the bat,  it is no longer the start of the year – we are in February already – so where did January go – looking out of my window it looks as if it drowned.

Moving on, anyone who knows me knows I love dogs and social media is awash with people who own a dog and think that they can tell you how to train your dog.   From the ‘fur baby’ (whoever invented that expression should be shot) to the ‘I can tame a pit bull’ brigade, ‘experts’ pop up all over the place.     It is pick ‘n mix out there.    Use a long lead, use a short lead, use a harness, don’t use a lead at all.   From those who think you should never say no to your dog to the ones who advocate e-collars.   The world of the ‘influencer’ has got a lot to answer for.  I’m not sure what an influencer is but I think it is someone who manages to get thousands of followers on Tik Tok (or wherever) and then get paid to promote stuff.   Hence people who have owned a dog for about five minutes post ‘training’ videos!   A lot of it is aimed at people with rescued ‘reactive’ dogs.   Reactive dogs, along with much else, didn’t exist when I was young.   There were nasty, dangerous dogs, but people didn’t take them out and then shout at people with perfectly pleasant dogs who approached within fifty feet of them.  

As for stories in the newspapers: in the last few days I have come across the following stories that just confirm that I have probably lived beyond my sell by date!! 

A public school head was in court accused of misusing school funds.   In the school photograph from his job he looks perfectly normal but he attended court with shoulder length hair and wearing women’s clothes, although he appears to identify as male!  This in contrast to another person who turned up in court dressed up as a woman but with a full, dark beard and insisted on being addressed as Miss Potter and much to my surprise the judge agreed to this!   Perhaps he should have taken a leaf out of PG Wodehouse’s books where he had a character called ‘Catsmeat’ Potter-Pirbright and just referred to ‘Miss Potter’ as ‘Dogs dinner’.

And here is a selection of other stories from the last week.

A former police officer is suing Scotland Yard for £1 million because she has developed a phobia of police stations.

A scientist with anxiety has sued her employers after not being invited to the Christmas party.

A 47 year old man stole £28,000 from his mother, who had dementia, to buy Lego!

And another one – a woman murdered her (female) partner and buried her under the patio because she decided that she preferred men and her partner refused to change sex.  Or maybe it was gender.   Apparently, I’m a cis woman – what on earth does that mean?  I’ve been a woman all my life and suddenly (in certain circles) I’ve got ‘cis’ attached to my name!

Something that really bugs me is the habit companies have of asking you to revue them – sometimes before they have done anything apart from accept your order.   If you look on line you can see companies with five star revues on ease of ordering before the item has arrived.   And as we all know there is many a slip between ordering and receiving the flimsy dishrag that eventually arrives bearing absolutely no resemblance to the beautiful garment being modelled in the photograph on the website.

As for public figures – and we all know some of them – who, for some obscure reason, think that normal, decent behaviour doesn’t apply to them, that they are immune from accepted standards.   Do they imagine that they are invisible and that they can do whatever they want and no one will notice?   As the old saying goes, if you lie down with dogs don’t be surprised if you catch fleas.  

And finally, on the basis of you simply couldn’t make it up, a 24 year old French man caused major disruption in a hospital in Toulouse when he was admitted in great pain because he had inserted something into his rectum.   The hospital had to be evacuated and the bomb squad called as the object turned out to be a first world war shell.   Presumably the controlled explosion happened after the shell had been extricated from this unfortunate young man who, unsurprisingly, did not wish to be named.

I remain utterly confused.com.

Deceitber!

We’ve got Stoptober when everyone stops drinking or smoking for the month – I gave up smoking several years ago and I don’t really drink much (unless I’m at a party and don’t have to drive).   At home alone I don’t drink.  Then there is Movember, an annual event in November that raises awareness and funds for men’s health issues by encouraging people to grow moustaches. I notice that in this woke world we talk about ‘people’ growing a moustache!   Obviously, like most post menopausal women, I could grow a moustache and I’m as concerned as the next person about men’s health after all some of my best friends are men, but not even for their sake would I be prepared to go out in public without a close examination of my upper lip in a magnifying mirror.

Now I’m thinking of starting Deceitber which, as we know, ‘tis season to be jolly and to tell a load of festive fibs!   Parents telling tales of Santa with his elves and reindeer with children nodding sagely and taking it all in with total belief at first and then with scepticism but not wishing to tell the truth in case Santa stops bringing them bulging stockings.   Although I’m not sure if any child ever believed that one very naughty little boy once got a stocking full of coal.   And the mock delight with which we greet the news that Aunt Anne would love to join us for Christmas as would her hairy, smelly and incontinent old dog and even if we are not sure whether she is referring to the family Basset Hound or Uncle Bill neither prospect pleases.

As for presents – ‘How lovely’ we exclaim, ‘what an interesting jumper and such bright colours too – will make a nice change from my usual muted tones,’ at the same time making a note to self to label this one ready to re-gift but making sure that we don’t give it back to the donor next year.   An old friend and I used to spend happy times thinking up the most hideous and vulgar gifts to give to people we disliked – always provided we had won the lottery and had unlimited funds when we could indulge our fantasies.   Apropos, of absolutely nothing, except Christmas, I read a letter in one of the Sunday papers where someone had written in asking if the council had any powers to insist on people taking down their Christmas decorations and outdoor lights as the writer felt that one of their neighbours was making the street look cheap!    I do wish I knew where they lived I’d be tempted to send the neighbour a donation towards their seasonal decorations.  This reminded me of Dolly Parton’s remark that ‘it costs a lot of money to look this cheap’.  I actually think the picture below is far too tasteful but I do rather love it.  

Personally, I have a large herd of illuminated reindeers outside my house and I’m sure that there are many people who think they are the height of vulgarity – anyway I do hope that this is the case.

I like to think that I’m a truthful person, but actually that is a big fat fib!   I mentioned that I don’t drink when I’m on my own at home alone however I should have added the words ‘much’ or ‘often’ to that!   

Most of the lies we tell are white lies, lies told in order not to hurt someone else’s feelings.   ‘Of course it wasn’t a mistake to cut your hair that short’ we reassure a friend who has gone for quite an extreme crop under the illusion that it makes her look like Audrey Hepburn when the reality is that she looks more like a US marine – very heroic but not necessarily the look she had been going for.  

Sales assistants in shops are often terrible – I have long given up trying things on in shops unless absolutely necessary.   The communal changing room was the worst when some wretched woman who was relying on a commission to feed her family would attempt to persuade you that the dress that gripped you like a tourniquet was in fact meant to do that as everything was being worn very snug this season while pin thin women slipped into tiny garments bewailing the fact that everything was so big!    And as for shoes that assistants assure you will stretch with wear – maybe, but how much agony are you prepared to go through whilst waiting for this to happen.  

Presumably contrary to the popular song ‘things can only get worse’ with AI.   The internet is a world of lies and scams.   The most unbelievable stories appear and what is more people believe them.   There are videos of fantastical creatures that seem completely real but are obviously computer generated and very clever they are too, but for every down to earth person with a degree of common sense there is some naïve and gullible person who will believe that everything they see or read is true.    Surely no one actually thinks that when you ring a company your call is important to them but at least you used to get to a real live person eventually but now the voice that announces ‘My name is Rachel. How can I help you?’ will turn out to be a computer.   It is possible that the computer is called Rachel, but I very much doubt it and as the conversation proceeds it becomes obvious that ‘Rachel’ can only answer standard questions – I’m sure this will change and they will be able to deal with everything – perhaps the answer is that we all have an AI assistant that can deal with things on our behalf and we can leave the computers to lie away to each other while we go out and try to enjoy ourselves

Happy Christmas Everyone!

The Snowflake generation

This was supposd to be about the Snowflake generation and it is,  but first of all in my endless quest to seek out major news that is often missed by headlines of war, plague and pestilence I found this important story about the  cheating scandal that has rocked the world stone skimming championships that took place in the Hebrides.   Some of the contestants have been tampering with their stones that have to be passed on a measuring device called the  ‘Ring of Truth’ .   And, much to my delight, the adjudicator is called the Toss Master.  

However on to Snowflakes.   Watching the VJ memorials was incredibly moving – such extraordinary bravery from men who came back after the most horrific experiences and for the most part never mentioned what had happened to them.   They just got on with their lives.   Difficult to read their stories without crying and also without thinking about how today’s youth might handle things.   Human nature doesn’t change and we still have wonderfully brave young people but we also want to wrap them in cotton wool.   

As children we were allowed to run wild all over the countryside.   People say there was less danger then but I’m not so sure.   We had a gardener who suddenly disappeared – my brother and I were very disappointed as we used to spend time chatting to him in the potting shed.  Years later I discovered that he had been sent to prison for being a paedophile and molesting local children!   Nobody asked us if he had done anything to us (he didn’t) but today I’m sure we would have had therapy.

I read somewhere that a council has closed the swimming pool because they can’t afford to heat it – we used to swim in the English Channel and frequently refuse to come out no matter how much our teeth were chattering.  No Costa del Sol for us, just Heinz tomato soup and sand sandwiches behind a breakwater sheltering from the biting wind.   We knew how to enjoy ourselves in those days.  

Childen today aren’t allowed to be bored – they have activites planned day and night – gym, art, music, after school clubs, and of course the digital babysitter – there is always something to amuse them.   Boredom is a thing of the past.  You don’t know anything about boredom unless you spent a wet Sunday in the 1950s on a farm with no television staring out of the window watching the puddles grow.   If we had mentioned feing bored  we would be told to read a book.   There wasn’e even the diversion of a telephone call.   There were two telephones in the house – one in the farm office and one in a cupboard in the hall.   Not only did we have to ask permission to use it thete was no privacy – my father sat in earshot and could hear every word so no confidences could be exchanged.

If children today tell their parfents they don’t like school their parents take them seriously, listen and talk to the school and  even in some cases change schools – if I had told my parents that I wasn’t happy at school they would have just shrugged and ignored me.   I wasn’t being sent to school to be happy but to learn how to be a good wife.   As long as I knew how to speak English correctly and to add up it would enough for me to find a suitable husband.   We were expected to be tough – prisoners today would riot if they had to put up with the conditions we endured at boarding school.  

And when we were out and about we were trusted to know that ponds might contain deep water and that weedkiller and pesticides were best not drunk without large warning notices.   As for bulls – we didn’t need a sign to tell us to keep out of their field – we knew to treat them with respect.   Talk about calling a spade a spade – when I was young people didn’t worry about offending people.  Now you can’t refer to a chick with a dick as a man if ‘they’ identify as a woman for fear of giving offence.   A shopkeeper recenlty was attacked because, after a series of thefts he put up a notice saying ‘Scumbags keep out’ and he was made to remove it for fear of offending scumbags!    I think I’m going to start pretending I’ve got dementia (not much of a stretch!) so that I can be rude to people and they won’t like to criticise me as it won’t be my fault!!

Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.

‘No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a geriatric home in Weston-super-Mare’.   I have quoted this before, but it is one of my favourites from Kingsley Amies.   Life is pretty random – many of my healthiest friends have died young and yet some of the reprobates are still will us, smoking, drinking, overweight and taking little exercise.   And just apropos of nothing, another good quote from Kingsley Amies is  ‘If you can’t annoy somebody, there’s little point in writing’,

My intention had been to write about what is better about modern life, but I keep getting sidetracked when I read, hear or see things that make me pause for thought.   For instance, this morning I read in the newspaper that a senior female staff member at the BBC showed a junior female staff member a dick pic and that the junior had burst into tears and been traumatised by this.   I can’t help feeling that she has either recently left a convent, is incredibly wet or wants some enormous sum of money in compensation.   For some reason men appear to think that women find dick pics attractive or arousing whereas, maybe because I’m old and boring, I imagine that most women would just think ‘Eugh, put it away!’.  

However much as there is to complain about in modern life there are good things over and above the confusion it causes to the old and bewildered and sometimes one has to stop and think about how many things have improved enormously.  Communication for example – mobile ‘phones are wonderful.   If you break down in your car at midnight you no longer have to wait on a dark and lonely road hoping that the first driver to stop will be a good Samaritan and not a mad axeman!  

If you have grandchildren in Australia they can still know you through the screen even if you only see them once every couple of years.   My grandparents lived in Scotland and when we made our annual visit to see them they were complete strangers who we talked to for three minutes (some of you will know what I mean!) on Christmas Day.  

Another thing that is better is a more relaxed way of life.   In my family breakfast was at eight, lunch at one, tea at four and dinner at eight and only an emergency would vary that.   And the food was very basic – you would never have found an avocado in our local town.   Garlic was considered an exotic foreign ingredient that no decent English cook would have any truck with and as for things such as hummus or guacamole, no one would have known what you were talking about. There may be some people out there who remember rissoles but for the unenlightened they were our version of a hamburger made with left over meat from the Sunday joint minced, seasoned, made into patties and fried.   Known at my school as Grissoles as we believed they were made from the inedible bits of meat that we had left on our plates the previous day.

The internet is another modern day wonder – of course it can overwhelm us, but there ae so many excellent things about it.   The Encyclopaedia Britannica was an amazing set of books, but they were not only incredibly expensive, but took up a vast amount of space and quickly went out of date.   Search engines on the internet can be carried  around on your ‘phone in your pocket and are up-dated hourly. 

Another good thing is that most of us live much better for longer – although our heirs might not necessarily appreciate that!   Photographs of my grandparents show them as very old people when judging by my age in these photos they can only have been in their 60s!   This must in part be due to medicine – when I was younger people whispered the ‘C’ word (not just the four letter one which was seldom, if ever, even whispered!) but Cancer, because we assumed that if someone got cancer they died and yet today there are millions of people who have had cancer and have continued on with their lives very healthily.   And what about all those new parts – hips, knees, shoulders –  you name it.   And all the amazing procedures they can do on hearts, and then there ae cataracts – or rather no cataracts as you seem to be able to have those done in your lunch hour.     

Cars are much more reliable too – when I was young everyone (apart from the very rich) had an old banger for their first car and it broke down with monotonous regularity.   There was no such thing as an MOT and seat belts didn’t exist – admittedly there was not nearly so much traffic on the roads so we didn’t crash into each other so much, even though we frequently drove after several glasses of wine!

Finally, birth control.   The freedom that women felt once they could regulate the number of children they had and weren’t forced like our grandparents to have dozens of them, many of whom died in infancy.   One of my ancestors had four sons with the same name, so determined was he to have a son who bore his first name that no sooner had a wretched little baby died of scarlet fever than the next one was given the same name.  I’m not unduly superstitious but even I would have felt that it might have been putting a jinx on the poor mites.   

So all in all we don’t really have much to complain about – but when did that ever stop anyone?

When did saying no become a no-no?

When did it become taboo to say No.   There is a dog lady on the internet who maintains that you should never say no to your dog. Excuse me?   I have four dogs and they all know that No means No.   I am in charge of the pack – I am the head bitch and they all understand that and are happy, well balanced, cheerful thieves – well nobody’s perfect and they are Labradors!   And  children aren’t allowed to hear the ‘no’ word any more, much less have a clip around the ear.   The frazzled parent is supposed to crouch down and talk soothingly to the little thing who is having a temper tantrum in one of the aisles in Tesco – we don’t usually see that sort of thing in Waitrose!  There are new parenting expressions like  ‘gentle hands’ instead  of saying sharply, ‘No – you do not hit your sister’.   As for the American way that seems to be a matter of negotiation along the lines of ‘If you stop hitting your sister you can have an ice cream’!  And the overuse of the expression ‘Good job’.   It is as if people are scared that saying no to your child or your dog will make them hate you.   In fact the reverse is often true – boundaries make people feel safe.  Families aren’t democracies –a family run along those lines would be complete chaos with a diet of ultra processed foods and sugar.  

Social situations aren’t much better.   Mrs Ghastly-Bore rings up and asks you to dinner and instead of saying a flat ‘No’ you wriggle like a worm on a hook trying to think of a suitable excuse.   Would you like to go and see Little Miss Ghastly-Bore in the school production of Annie? Obviously not,  but your middle class upbringing forces you to tell a lie and say that you are having an operation that week, visiting a dying aunt, have your cousin’s wedding  and are then caught in a trap when you realise they haven’t  told you the date yet.   The worst invitations are the ones where someone rings and asks what are you doing  the 27th?   It would be logical to ask Why, but somehow most of us find that difficult.   Nothing, we say.  Ah good, comes the reply, because my great uncle needs a lift to the Ghastly-Bores and I know they are asking you because I checked.   Now you are trapped.   The best thing to do when asked what you are doing on a certain date is to copy Oscar Wilde and invent a Bunbury.    “Bunburying” is to have a mysterious relation of the name of Bunbury, who always falls ill and requires to be visited. Either when you want to go out of town on some unavoidable business, or when you receive an invitation to dinner which you wish to decline, there is always that invitation to Bunbury which comes in handy.   I had a much loved aunt who fulfilled this purpose – she was in fact perfectly healthy and only about fifteen years older than me, but I used her as an excuse to get out of anything I didn’t want to do.

Perhaps part of the problem is that ‘No’ can be quite a soft word, as opposed to the Russian ‘Nyet’ or the German ‘Nein’.   You have to put quite a lot of effort into the word ‘No’ for it to work really well!   Many years ago I was walking past a garden with my dogs when a large German Shepherd (the four legged kind) burst through the fence and started attacking one of my dogs.   I couldn’t think what to do so I screamed ‘NO’ as loudly and fiercely as I could and much to my surprise it slunk off back into the garden.   I wasn’t sure whether to be impressed with the power of my voice or rather worried by how frightening I could be!

There used to be a fashion for notices hung up in offices that read ‘You Don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps’, and I believe it was intended to convey an idea of a scatty, fun place to work although it actually made one think ‘You don’t have to be clinically depressed to work here, but you probably will be.’   And there was another one that said ‘Please do not ask for credit as a refusal often offends’, and this was supposed to be a jokey way of softening the blow of saying ‘No’.   

My generation are pretty tough,  when we were young passing every building site was a minefield with wolf whistles and cries of ‘you don’t get many of those to the pound’ to every young and certainly well endowed women who walked by and for the most part it was good natured, if vulgar, and not frightening and on days when one didn’t attract any attention it could be a bit depressing.   In my youth nice girls nearly always said ‘No’ and nice young men didn’t push it.   And for the most part even the old roue who would ask you back to his flat at three o’clock in the morning ‘to see his etchings’, would accept a firm ‘no’ and ‘nice’ girls generally had the sense to say “no”.  But all that seems to have changed and I don’t believe that any teacher would say, as my old headmistress said to me ‘No one wants to buy a cake if there’s a slice missing’.   We were taught to say No to save us from ruining our reputation – sometimes modern girls might like to think about this!

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire – unless you’re trying to cook chicken on a BBQ

Jane Austen famously begins Pride and Prejudice with “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife”.   Today I think he would want a luxury car and a large house and I imagine that potential wives would miraculously appear.

Many old proverbs don’t really stand up to close analysis.

A watched pot never boils – oh yes, it does, although it is true that it will almost certainly boil over the moment you turn your back.

Absence can make the heart grow fonder, usually for someone else.

We were told that ‘It will never get better if you pick it’, but as one of my grandchildren pointed out when she was about three, “That’s not true ‘cos I picked it all the time and it’s better now!’

A Journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step – maybe but more sensible to make sure you have a valid passport first.

A picture paints a thousand words – indeed, but a picture of a toothbrush is only a toothbrush until someone captions it ‘Hitler’s Toothbrush’.

Beggars can’t be choosers.   Oh, can’t they?   The last time I tried to buy a cup of tea for a man begging in the street I got a mouthful of abuse

Good things come to those who wait – but better things come to those who help themselves first.

Honesty is the best policy – until you tell your best friend that her new, expensive dress makes her look fat!

All roads lead to Rome – not if you are on the M6 at Spaghetti Junction where all roads seem to lead to hell.

Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today although as Oscar Wilde said ‘I never put off till tomorrow what I can do the day after’.

An apple a day keeps the doctor away – if you throw it hard enough.

Let sleeping dogs lie – they won’t tell the truth once they wake and even though you know they ate the sausages.

A woman, a dog and a walnut tree, the more you beat them the better they be!   Good luck with that one today.   You’d be in terrible trouble for the first two and there could well be a Walnut Tree Protection Group out there somewhere!

All the world loves a lover – although not necessarily in public.

If life gives you lemon why not make a gin fizz.

Give a man enough rope and he will hang himself – alteratively he might tie you up and run off with all your money.   Don’t think that would be worth taking the risk.

The best things in life are free – try telling that to your family at Christmas.

We could all do with some new proverbs couldn’t we – well, anyway I’ve had a bit of fun making them up!

The wetter the dog, the warmer the welcome.

The fatter the legs the shorter the skirt.

The worse the speaker the longer they will speak

If you observe that traffic is very light you will immediately run into a traffic jam

If you say work is very quiet the ‘phone will begin to ring off the hook

If you go shopping without brushing your hair you will bump into your best friend coming out of the hairdresser.

On the other hand if you set out in your best finery you will never see anyone you know.

If you are waiting for a telephone call get into the bath.

If your dog suddenly starts to drag its bottom along the grass you will meet the vicar.

If money doesn’t grow on trees why do banks have branches?

Sell the vacuum, all it is doing is gathering dust.

I’m on a seafood diet – I see food and then I eat it.

Keep away from children – seen as safety instructions on lots of products but can also be read as a lifestyle choice.

Enjoy every birthday, studies show that people who have more of them live longer – lot of research must have gone into that!

Apparently God created the world but everything else is made in China.

If you’re not supposed to eat at night why is there a light in the fridge?

Alcohol doesn’t solve problems but neither does milk so you might as well get drunk.

I’ve made a long list of things to do today now I’ve just got to find somebody to do it.

Time wounds all heels.     

There must be hundreds more both new and modifications of old ones in this changing word.   I’d love to hear some of yours.

Are you having a laugh?

This blog was started so that I could write about the things that amused and surprised me with the occasional rant.  By nature, I am an optimist and my glass is usually half full, but recently the world has seemed like a rather disturbing and depressing place.   There is certainly plenty to rant about.   I saw this the other day and wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry out in disbelief –  there is a new film that has raised the question as to whether dog show judges manipulating the genitalia of male dogs constitutes sexual harassment.   Surely this must be a joke   My father always used to say, ‘To the pure, all things are pure’ and all I can say is someone with a very impure mind must have raised that concern.

However, there is always something to cheer one up if you look hard enough.  Recently I was helping out at a Pony Club event.   I had forgotten about Pony Club mothers – the most formidable and admirable group of people – a regiment composed of these women would never be defeated.   And what is more they are bringing up fearless children who understand that life is full of obstacles that can be overcome – such as a bolting pony or a tumble over its neck!   ‘You’re fine…hang on…oh, dear, never mind… just get back on.   You can do it.   Don’t cry, it’s fine.’     It was wonderful and so refreshing after all we hear about gentle parenting!   Music to my hard boiled ears – it reminded me of the way things used to be and cheered me up enormously.  

I have always considered a day without laughter to be a wasted day, but sometimes you have to search quite hard for the laughs.    I didn’t think the 6.30 comedy programmes on Radio 4 could get less amusing than the News Quiz in its present incarnation, but the Naked Week manages it.   Whatever made the scriptwriters (if they have any) think that the word ‘knob’ used to describe someone would be hilarious – although to judge by the shrieks from the studio audience some people do, unless they are all on drugs.   Of course, the word ‘knob’ is innately funny but is it prime time listening on Radio 4 funny?    More and more I turn to my favourite humourists of the past.   Who doesn’t find P G Wodehouse amusing?  

For example Bertie Wooster asking the wonderful Jeeves his opinion of a new and rather loud tweed suit that he has just bought:

‘Lots of fellows have asked me who my tailor is.’

‘Doubtless in order to avoid him, sir’

Very dated, but still funny.   A reassuring world where Bertie Wooster is a bit of an ass, charming and well intentioned, but an ass nevertheless and Jeeves is so infinitely superior as far as intellect goes, albeit a bit supercilious.   This was a world ruled by aunts – the sort of aunt who has disappeared.   What has happened to the aunts of yesteryear when Aunt called to Aunt like mastodons bellowing across primaeval swamps and every family member leapt to do their bidding?   They certainly don’t make them like that any more.

And more recently the late Alan Coren whose observational humour always made me smile – just putting into words things that I have thought about myself such as:

“There are many mysteries in old age but the greatest, surely, is this: in those adverts for walk-in bathtubs, why doesn’t all the water gush out when you get in?”

A bit obvious but something that I have wondered myself.   David Mitchell said something similar on Radio 4 the other day and he is one of the few modern comedians that I find both intelligent and funny.

Of course, there are others, but you have to look quite hard to find them.   There is no doubt that there is nothing better than having a fit of helpless giggles with a friend or two or that wonderful feeling you get when something has tickled you so much that you just have to share it with someone.   One of the secrets to a happy marriage has to be a shared sense of humour.   Although that can be dangerous if you catch each other’s eye at the wrong moment.   My father loved to make people laugh at the inappropriate time so when he and his brothers went to visit the family solicitor after their mother died he told them that the solicitor, who was a very short man, was taller when seated than when he stood up.   As the brothers came into the office, he got to his feet whereupon my two uncles gave out loud guffaws in front of the poor bewildered man.

Just as an afterthought here is my Mystery of the Week.   English is my first language and I pride myself on having a good vocabulary.   Admittedly I don’t understand a lot of the words my teenage grandchildren use, but surely that is the point of what they say.   On the other hand, I do expect to be able to understand things on mainstream television, so what is ’A Gaffer of an Acca’ – No idea!!!  Something to do with betting?   Am I the only one in the dark here?