In the days of Jane Austen courtship was a gentler and more elegant affair (albeit possibly more commercial – pity the poor girl who was destined to remain a spinster or become a governess). After Mr Darcy proposes to Eliza Bennett and has been turned down he writes her a letter which he hands her the next day and part of it reads: `Be not alarmed, Madam, on receiving this letter by the apprehension of its containing any repetition of those sentiments, or renewal of those offers, which were last night so disgusting to you.’
Whatever might have disgusted her it wasn’t a dick pic and I am pretty certain that Elizabeth Bennett wouldn’t have recognised a dick pic.
What did you do during lockdown? Did you learn Origami? Russian? Do Zoom Pilates? I have spent much of it watching television that I consider educational but my family dismiss as rubbish. You shouldn’t knock programmes such as Catfish or 90 Day Fiancé until you’ve tried them. A fascinating window into modern life and the reason I know about Dick pics! Apparently after meeting online and messaging back and forth you are ready to move on to the next level in your relationship and that is when he sends you a dick pic and then it is only polite for you to send him a picture of your hoo hah. I think I can leave it to your imagination to work out what a hoo hah is!
The vocabulary is certainly confusing for someone of my generation – when I was young a G & T meant a gin and tonic now I imagine it means gay and transgender
Catfish was a creepy looking bottom feeder and now it is a human creepy bottom feeder who lurks on the internet pretends to be someone he or she isn’t to reel in their prey.
Pansexual is a fashionable word and apparently it means you’ll shag anything and not Jamie Oliver on pancake day
Just to complicate things further cisgender is a word used to describe gender identity. Straight, on the other hand, is used to describe sexual orientation.
Being cisgender isn’t the same thing as being straight, but they can overlap: People can be both cisgender and straight. Honestly I think I’m going to have to go and lie down with a wet towel over my head.

As for online dating sites there are far too many to mention.
On Tinder apparently you swipe right if you fancy someone – how humiliating it would be if no one ever swiped right! Do you know about this?
Grindr is the world’s largest social networking app for gay, bi, trans, and queer people. Probably not much use to me – I think that Ocado would be more my line.
Plenty of Fish – there seem to be a lot of Catfish on there – perhaps it is the name. I don’t suffer from particularly low self esteem but if an incredibly hot looking man professed undying love for me after a few weeks of texting and then told me he had been kidnapped and needed money to pay the ransom, I’m pretty sure I would smell a rat!
How different it all is from the days when my mother started The Marriage Bureau (in 1939) It was the first ‘dating’ agency of it’s kind and was exclusively for marriage. Of course times were as strange then in their own way. For example one of the questions that was asked was ‘Would you allow your wife to work after marriage? ‘ .
As girls we were warned to be aware at all times – men only want one thing so we were advised to be careful. The one thing in those days was sex and not money. We took offence based on how attractive the man was. Nowadays the messages are so unclear. There are companies advertising clothes for young women that leave nothing to the imagination and yet women seem to think that you can dress like a hooker and expect men to look but not say or do anything. I rather miss the days of wolf whistles. It could be quite cheering on a dismal Monday morning to get some whistles of appreciation from a building site when on the way to work.

On the other hand change is sometimes very much for the better. This is an actual extract from a sex education school textbook for girls, printed in the early 60’s in the UK.
When retiring to the bedroom, prepare yourself for bed as promptly as possible. Whilst feminine hygiene is of the utmost importance, your tired husband does not want to queue for the bathroom, as he would have to do for his train. But remember to look your best when going to bed. Try to achieve a look that is welcoming without being obvious. If you need to apply face-cream or hair-rollers wait until he is asleep as this can be shocking to a man last thing at night.
When it comes to the possibility of intimate relations with your husband it is important to remember your marriage vows and in particular your commitment to obey him. If he feels that he needs to sleep immediately then so be it. In all things be led by your husband’s wishes; do not pressure him in any way to stimulate intimacy. Should your husband suggest congress then agree humbly all the while being mindful that a man’s satisfaction is more important than a woman’s. When he reaches his moment of fulfilment a small moan from yourself is encouraging to him and quite sufficient to indicate any enjoyment that you may have had.
Should your husband suggest any of the more unusual practices be obedient and uncomplaining but register any reluctance by remaining silent. It is likely that your husband will then fall promptly asleep so adjust your clothing, freshen up and apply your night-time face and hair care products. You may then set the alarm so that you can arise shortly before him in the morning. This will enable you to have his morning cup of tea ready when he awakes.

And this was in the ‘Swinging 60s’!

As for preferences the biggest taboo today seems to be smoking and when I was young it didn’t really come into it – everyone smoked all the time. This makes quite a neat link to my only contribution to BLM – pulling down statues – presumably all that children in the future will be taught about Sir Walter Raleigh is that he was a ‘very naughty man’ – after all he has been responsible for more deaths than anyone else by bringing us tobacco and potatoes!

Graduates from the University of Stating the Bleeding Obvious.  Now there’s a pandemic.   So much that ‘research shows’ or ‘scientists claim’ appears to be simple common sense.

For example, we’re told that people in care homes are more vulnerable to this virus – what exhaustive research went into finding that out?  Every death is a tragedy, but most people would imagine that older, frailer people who are no longer able to live in their own homes might be more susceptible to illness.   And they have found out that looking after a family member with Alzheimer’s is likely to make someone more isolated and lonely than someone who is not.  Finally, they have discovered that the virus can be spread though sex – well who would have thunk that!   It may have been a long time but I can just about remember the technicalities and I’m not sure how socially distanced sex would be possible.  Phone sex?

With too much time on my hands, I am spending hours delving into Google.   I don’t know what sort of profile I’m creating but I keep getting pop-ups that tell me “These 5 incredible erection superfoods will keep you hard for HOURS”.   However, I digress, I did look to see what ridiculous research is out there and these are some of my favourites.

Study shows beneficial effect of electric fans in extreme heat and humidity: You know that space heater you’ve been firing up every time the temperature climbs above 90º in August? Turns out you’ve been going about it all wrong. If you don’t have air conditioning, it seems that “fans” (which move “air” with the help of a cunning arrangement of rotating “blades”) can actually make you feel cooler. That, at least, was the news from a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) last February. Still to come: “Why Snow-Blower Use Declines in July.”

And

Study shows benefit of higher quality screening colonoscopies: Don’t you just hate those low-quality colonoscopies? You know, the ones when the doctor looks at your ears, checks your throat and pronounces, “That’s one fine colon you’ve got there, friend”? Now there’s a better way to go about things, according to JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), and that’s to be sure to have timely, high quality screenings instead. That may be bad news for “Colon Bob, Your $5 Colonoscopy Man,” but it’s good news for the rest of us.

And my own particular favourite

Spiderman Doesn’t Exist: After an extensive analysis, researchers at Cambridge University have concluded that the larger a person is, the more adhesives he would need to stick to a wall, making it virtually impossible for a normal sized human being to have the characteristics of Spiderman. “If a human, for example, wanted to climb up a wall the way a gecko does, we’d need impractically large sticky feet — and shoes in European size 145 or US size 114,” said Walter Federle, senior author also from Cambridge’s Department of Zoology. As for Batman, the jury’s still out.

The problem with science and research is that it is difficult to separate fact from fact.   Following the science is a bit like trying to get out of Hampton Court Maze – there are too many twists and turns.   We won’t know whether we did right or wrong until all this is over.  There is an expression about not being able to see the wood for the trees and we need to get some perspective on it.   At the moment it is like comparing a banana with an orange and a pineapple.   We have no idea how other countries are measuring their figures. But one thing is certain when all this is over and most of the world is struggling to regain some form of solvency and to pay their mortgages there will be scientists rubbing their hands with glee as they are commissioned to do endless studies and research and to come up with REPORTS.   These will not add to the gaiety of nations in any way but maybe they will give us ‘people to blame’.  

Money won’t buy happiness, but it will pay the salaries of a large research staff to study the problem.

When I think back to my childhood and compare it to life today I can’t imagine how any of us thrived.   How the world has changed – Not so long ago I was sitting in my office listening to Radio 4 discussing periods, vulvas and vaginas!   I very much doubt that my parents ever discussed these things even between themselves and they certainly would never have expected to hear those words coming out of the ‘wireless’!   My father probably thought a Vulva was a Swedish car (Oh, come on!   Of course he didn’t, but you have to love the old jokes!)

According to Radio 4 people are talking more about vulvas these days – not people I know.   Why would people want to talk about this?   Are bottoms going to be the next thing – hang on a second we’re onto bowel movements.   My word, is nothing sacred?  When I was growing up these things just weren’t discussed.   My brother and I used to giggle uncontrollably about bottoms and Nanny used to say, ‘There’s nothing funny about bottoms – everyone’s got one’.   Apparently now although we all have the same parts we have to put photos up on Facebook – this is true – there is a Facebook page devoted to the vulva!   In my view they’re called private parts for a reason!    I’ve managed 76 years without looking at this subject too closely and I think I’ll keep it that way.  

And the other day it was all about pornography and masturbation.   When I was young and dinosaurs roamed the earth there was a lot more innocence about.   Of course things went on – but mostly in private.   I remember my maiden aunt (and I’m pretty sure she was a maiden in the true sense of the word) asking my father what f*** was?   She had seen it in a book with the asterisks and had no idea what it was and when my father told her the word she had no idea what it meant!   Imagine someone who had never heard that word today when it is the only adjective that some people know.

There are, of course, loads of things about modern world that are miles better.   Communication for one – keeping in touch has never been easier.   My grandchildren aged eleven and twelve have a lot of independence because of their mobile ‘phones.  They understand and use HouseParty, Zoom, Skype.    When I was young a telephone call was a big deal, in order to speak to my grandparents in Scotland at Christmas we had to book a trunk call in August!  And after all that we spent the allotted three minutes of comparing the weather in Scotland and Kent.

We had a cook – almost everyone I knew had a cook, but the tyranny of cook ruled our lives.   Breakfast was at 8.00 am – coming down after 9.00 meant no breakfast – there was no question of popping into the kitchen and making a cup of coffee!   Lunch was a 1.00, tea at 4.00 and dinner at 8.00.   And as for asking someone to lunch on the spur of the moment – we practically had to give cook a month’s notice.   And post-war food was predictably boring – avocados were an unheard of luxury only available in London restaurants.   We had a roast on Sunday with over cooked, home grown vegetables.   Rissoles made from the leftover joint, on Monday, chops on Tuesday, and so on until fish on Friday.  Puddings were either stewed fruit or rice pudding.   Half the house seemed to be taken up with bottles of preserved fruit and tomatoes.   Salad as a meal was a couple of slices of ham, a sliced hard boiled egg, bit of lettuce, cucumber and tomatoes with salad cream.   But we did have fun as children running wild in the farm doing things that would give health and safety a heart attack but there were no video games or computers and the television was a small screen scarcely bigger than a cigarette packet encased in a large piece of brown furniture.   About ten minutes before the programme was about to start the doors were opened and the television was turned on to ‘warm up’.   We would sit gazing at this tiny black and white rectangle and once the programme was over it would be turned off and the doors shut again.

Everything is much more relaxed now – my grandchildren will come and talk to me while I’m having a bath, something I would never have dreamt of doing with my own grandparents, indeed I very much doubt that they had ever seen each other in the bath.   That seems to be a lovely thing – my grandchildren confide in me about all sorts of things.   On the other hand informality can be a bit disconcerting.   People I’ve never met regularly ring me up and call me by my first name and it sounds a bit pompous to ask them to all me Mrs Sykes so I let it go, but it still sounds strange.

Language is another thing that is complicated – words change their meaning, sometimes as if they were out to trap you.   When I was young there was a colour brown that you could ask for quite happily in John Lewis – yes, we did have a colour called N***** brown!  We didn’t think anything of it – I never related it to race – I didn’t know any people of another race.   I was brought up on a farm in the depths of rural England and we had a neighbour who had married a French woman – that was as exotic as it got.   At some point we started to talk about coloured people – this was meant to be polite – now they are black or people of colour, a subtle difference.   We talked about Mongols and Spastics – we didn’t mean to be offensive, they were the words in in common parlance and we didn’t know any better.   People with mental health issues were loonies.   If someone was gay (or queer as we called them) you spoke about it in hushed tones – not only was it illegal but you assumed that people were ashamed of it.   Now everyone can be who they want to be, hopefully without fear of being bullied.  I do, however, miss the word gay in its original sense.   A gay party used to be light hearted fun.  

Illegitimate children were another source of deep shame – and were usually either adopted or brought up by their grandparents believing their mother was their aunt.   And other words suddenly change – the other day I heard someone saying that a friend wearing a blue scarf made her eyes ‘pop’ – apparently this is a good thing not as when I was young an indication of a thyroid condition.  

So in order to survive old age and indeed to enjoy it we have to embrace the best of the modern world and not look back too much to bemoan the alterations – we can be as nostalgic as we like but not all changes are for the worse.

This Spring, amidst the virus, I’m definitely channelling my inner grumpy old woman.    The list of things that make me grumpy grows daily.

People wearing masks and gloves and then picking over fruit and veg with them on as if just wearing the gloves makes them safe.   Then driving off still wearing the gloves.   And masks that cover the mouth but not the nose.

People who get to the check out and then spend an inordinate amount of time rummaging around in the bottom of their bag for their wallet/purse as if it has come as a complete surprise to them that they might be asked to pay and then counting out their money with finger and thumb held out at arm’s length.   For £5.75 use contactless FFS!  

People who tell you they are busy, busy, busy, and loving lockdown.   Apparently they are building a new shed, learning Mandarin while inventing recipes and sending them out to all the family.   Why aren’t they slobbing in front of the television, eating junk food, drinking too much and getting fat like the rest of us?

And the people who claim they are slobbing out in front of the television, eating junk food, drinking too much and getting fat, when I’m pretty sure they are actually building a new shed, learning…… etc.,, but don’t want to sound too smug.

Experts – for every opinion there is a counter opinion.   Everyone is an expert and as there is no news except the virus, all the news is the virus and in order to fill our screens, radio and newspapers they have to write about the virus and for every unsung hero or heart-warming story about a stray kitten there are acres of blank space that has to be filled with dire predictions about the future.   Some days it appears as though us oldies will be in lockdown for the rest of our lives and at other times as though the whole world will be forced to wear protective clothing at all times – this will of course eliminate the need for any beauty treatments so that could be a plus.   But I digress from my deep-seated grumpiness.  

When mad cow disease appeared in 1993 180,000 cows were killed and the pundits predicted that 500,000 people would die from it.    In actual fact 150 people died in the UK.   In 1967 scientists predicted that there would be world famine by 1975 and in the 1970s scientists were predicting a new Ice Age by the year 2000.   When did that suddenly change?   One of the advantages of old age is that you learn to take scientists and their predictions with a pinch of salt.  Of course, many of them are quite correct, and in normal times they are fewer and further apart so we can examine them and digest them and filter out those that simply aren’t true.   But in normal times we have other things to be getting on with and these are far from normal times.   The pundits are in their element.   I can imagine this must be a wonderful time for them.   A life spent in relatively solitary intellectual study and research and all at once the world wants to know you and to hear your views.   It must be quite heady stuff.   

More dire predictions – just today we have been told to prepare for nine new waves (one source) and six new waves (another source) of the virus to reoccur in the next few months.   At best this has to be a guestimate – or the dreaded algorithm again I suppose. I don’t think anyone knows what is going to happen but everyone has an opinion.   It is Brexit all over again but this time there is no escape by flying off to a tropical island to sit in the sun and drink cocktails.

And what about perfectly healthy people, in areas where it is impossible to get on to the online deliveries, who insist on having all their shopping delivered even though (at least in our area) all local shops are taking every precaution with hand sanitisers, and plastic shields to keep the staff away from the customers and supermarkets are allowing people into the shop in very small numbers and operating a one way system.

This pandemic is also bringing out the inner dictator in some people.   Council officials, police officers, and members of the general public who seem to think it is incumbent on them to act as if they were the school prefect or some other Jobsworth.     I think you can take it as read that I was never a prefect.  But we all recognise those people who always like to take it that little bit further.   When I was walking my dogs yesterday I saw a woman come towards me with her dog on a lead.   When she saw me she stopped and waved me away.   I got off the track I was walking along and made both my dogs to sit, off the lead, while we waited for her to come past.  I could tell from her expression that she was dying to tell me to put my dogs on a lead, but as they never moved a muscle despite the fact that her dog was lunging hard on its lead, trying to get to mine, she couldn’t say anything and I’m perfectly certain that I ruined her day because she was unable to give me a good dressing down.  

My goodness, all this ranting has made me thirsty and the sun is very nearly over the yardarm – whatever that means, so it must be time for a drink.

In order to survive this virus we have to think of ways to keep ourselves amused:

Jokes are one way and some people seem to be able to find the best ones.   My mobile, laptop and PC ping several times a day with things that make me laugh.  

Clothes are making me cheerful too – I don’t have to buy any or think about them. I am wearing all my wardrobe failures – those items that hang in the back of the wardrobe making you feel guilty every time you look at them.   That lime green chiffon skirt that seemed so attractive after three glasses of wine at lunch with your best friend.  That skimpy top you bought off the internet because it looked so amazing on the size six model forgetting that scaling it up to  a size 20 wouldn’t necessarily work, or the floral stretch leggings from an insomniac visit to the shopping channel.   No one’s going to see you so you can wear them with impunity.  

Houseparty is another thing that keep me cheerful – my grandchildren contact me via this and we play games – most of the time I have no idea what I’m doing, but we have fun.   They are being incredible:  stoic, cheerful, resilient and laughing at Granny and a bit with me too!

The deep freeze is an another area of satisfaction – diving into the depth is proving very interesting.  I ate a delicious lamb curry two days ago that was dated 2014.  The pumpkin soup from 2012 was not such a success – I have a feeling that it wasn’t very nice when I made it originally so I thought that instead of pouring it down the sink I would freeze it, in the fond hope that time would improve it.   It didn’t – so I have now poured it down the sink eighteen years later.   Rather a waste of deep freeze space and electricity. 

Using up leftovers is a bit of a lost art that we are re-discovering.   My father, a very frugal Scot, could base an entire meal around a tablespoonful of left over gravy.   He used to make some very aptly names rock cakes out of stale bread and then the uneaten ones (of which there were many) would be made into some sort of disgusting pudding which eventualy ended up being fed to the birds and as final resort the Labradors.   I am thinking of writing a book on 1001 things to do with leftover  mince!  

Another pleasure is that the tide of junk mail that used to come through my letterbox is drying up.   It has worried me for ages that vast number of trees have been cut down to produce all these espensive catalogues which are mostly binned unread.   Maybe this will stop for good now.   We can find almost everything we want on line (including love) so we don’t need to destroy the rain forests.

And another thing – financially things are going to be very tough for many people, but on the plus side we are not spending as much of  the money we do have on travel, holidays, hair, manicures, clothes, resatuarants, pubs and on and on! 

The sound of the  birds in the trees – the dawn chorus is ear splitting.  

And the community spirit is amazing – our little village has a WhatsApp group where people ask every day whether anyone needs anything.   And it seems to be the same in all villages.

—- * * * —

And on a less cheerful and more sobering note the topic of domestic violence is in the news.  I am sure unless we have been in that situation ourselves few of us can imagine the horror of being trapped inside with someone who you are terrified of and who hits you.   The strongest mesasge that we can give to girls (and indeed women) is that if a man hits you HE DOES NOT LOVE YOU.   It doesn’t matter what he says or what you have done.   He can apologise all he wants, but if he does it once and you stay with him – HE WILL DO IT AGAIN.   Mothers, sisters, friends have to make sure that every woman knows this and acts on it.   Women are killed every day by violent partners, partners who have apolgised and promised to change countless times.    They don’t and they won’t.   One strike and they should be out.  

Keep well, keep safe and keep indoors.  

I live alone so in some ways self-isolation is a bit more of the same.  I can go to bed when I want and get up when I want and slob about in old t shirts and trackie bottoms – so no change there then!   I’m saving money by not going to the hairdresser, going out to lunch or buying any new clothes.   I’m a bit worried that I might frighten my grandchildren when we FaceTime so I make an effort to at least brush my hair in case they ring when I’m not expecting them.   As one of the ‘worried well’ I am constantly checking to see what symptoms I’ve got.  So far – none.   I do have chronic rhinitis, which makes my nose run whenever I go out into the fresh air and I cough occasionally.   I’m not going out but, at the moment, I reckon I could clear a shop by just clearing my throat.   A friend of mine was on a train the other day when a man started to cough and the entire carriage glared at him as he gasped ‘biscuit’.   A crumb had gone down the wrong way.  Luckily we Brits don’t go in for lynching – much.

We certainly all need a laugh to lift our spirits so I thought I would try and find some silly old jokes that make me laugh and put them into this blog.  

I like this one – black humour but I think it’s funny.

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He’s not breathing so his friend calls 911. ‘My friend is dead! What should I do?” The operator replies, “Calm down sir, first make sure that he’s really dead.” There’s a silence, then a loud bang. Back on the phone, the guy says, “Ok, now what?”

And this one – a bit surreal!

And the Lord said unto John “Come forth and you will receive eternal life” but John came fifth and he won a toaster.

And probably my favourite joke of all time from Bob Monkhouse:

“I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my father. Not screaming and terrified like his passengers.”

And finally, a topical one for Corona virus shortages:

“The last time I was in Spain I got through six Jeffrey Archer novels. I must remember to take enough toilet paper next time.”

And now for something completely different!  Perhaps we should use this time for a bit of self improvement, heaven knows in my case there’s plenty of room for it.   I am going to try and become more tolerant (Hark! Is that my family sniggering and muttering ‘as if?’)  For starters I must stop my tendency to correct peoples’ texts. I am not the apostrophe police.   Channelling my inner Grumpy Old Woman.   Sitting at home shouting at the television/radio.   I heard a woman on the Radio 4 state this afternoon that there were only 100 grey or English partridge (our native bird) left in this country and yet according to the Game Conservancy there are approximately 43,000 breeding pairs.   Slight discrepancy there!  On the other hand, the ‘new and improved’ tolerant me thinks it is possible that I misheard her so before I write to BBC as Disgusted from Hampshire I need to check that.   But then we do have the ultimate irritation.   The Smug – they dwell amongst us and they will always rise!   You know who you are – the self-isolaters who have been getting up at 6.30 as usual, washing their hair, putting on full make-up and then downstairs to bake a cake before breakfast to take to the local old folks’ home!   Their children are doing their schoolwork and after they have finished that they are knitting blankets for the homeless.   Daddy has painted the garden shed and is busy making lovely educational wooden toys for the children.   I don’t think so – they are probably at the gin like everyone else!  Tolerance can only take me so far!

 I started writing this in those distant days before the dreaded virus hit us!   Now that the first feelings of shell-shock and fear have dissipated somewhat and the human spirit is beginning to triumph in lots of small ways I thought that I would attempt to finish this and then moving forward try to find some humour in social distancing!   So here goes with the blog I started all those weeks ago.

I love my grandchildren, they are full of enthusiasm and energy and sometimes some of it rubs off.  At whatever age you are the urge to jump in a puddle should never go away.   And children’s jokes don’t change – bums and farts are always funny.   And seeing things through children’s eyes can bring back memories of a distant childhood.   But then…there are the things that make you feel  hundred years old.   The fact that happened ‘the other day’ in my mind turns out to be something that they are learning in history.   However, even to me it seems extraordinary that I was actually an adult when homosexuality was still punishable by a prison sentence.   As for language – the ‘N’ word was in common usage – you could go into any haberdashers and ask for a skein of wool in ‘N’ brown.   How weird is that? I get that a lot of things that happened in my lifetime are not being taught as history in school. So how did it happen?   How did I get this old?  I still feel just the same and am quite surprised that people don’t ask for my ID when I am buying a bottle of wine!   I know that I look like a very old lady to my grandchildren but apparently I look like a very old lady to everyone.   Grandchildren do keep you young in a sense, but when I text – using one finger and imagine that I am pretty modern – they snigger as they text using both their dexterous little thumbs.   And if I need to do anything with my phone – the smart one that is far smarter than I am – then the grandchildren can do in a nano second what takes me hours of Googling and searching You Tube to work out.  Same applies to my PC, my car and even household gadgets.   I have a vacuum cleaner that has an IQ higher than mine.  I like to think that I can still ski – I was never very proficient, but I do enjoy it and the mountains and it is wonderful to go to the mountains with all the family including the children who are very kind, but incredibly patronising, when they say ‘Well done Granny, you did really well there’, when I have negotiated a green run without falling over.

And to round off there are two things I read recently that reminded my how much time has passed since I was young.   The first was from Jeremy Paxman who said ‘I explained that once upon a time we used to write with ink and then pressed absorbent paper on to it to stop it smudging.   It was as if I was explaining Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle to my dog Derek’.   He was trying to buy blotting paper!

The second was that apparently nearly two thirds of Millennials can’t work out how an iron works!   So I suppose it is, as always, horses for courses.   And in these uncertain times we need to pool our skills and help each other.  Let us all try to stay safe and well and get the next generation to help us FaceTime, WhatsApp, Zoom – anything else we can do to say in touch and stop us being lonely.

I‘d like to think old age does bring wisdom.   The Chinese have great respect for the elderly but in this country it is only too easy to become invisible and ignored with age.   I’m determined that won’t happen to me so this year I’m trying to learn new things.   To be precise – two new things.   First, I hope I have finally learnt is that the trick to losing weight is that there is no trick.     Losing money is easy – just buy diet books.  I’ve bought them all.   The Scarsdale diet, the Cabbage diet, the Atkins diet, the grapefruit diet…  I’ve taken pills and I’ve had injections.   In the sixties there was a diet ‘doctor’ – I use the word loosely – who injected you through your tights and gave pills that were reputed to contain tapeworm eggs.   Everyone went there – the waiting room was filled with film stars and models – all of whom claimed, when interviewed, that they owed their amazing figures to exercise and a sensible diet.   Of course, that is the way to lose weight – eat less and exercise more!  It’s not exactly rocket science.  So why is it that whenever I see an ad pop up on my computer for a new ‘miracle’ way to lose weight I have to click on it to see.   ‘Lose a 14 lbs in a fortnight’ – what’s not to like about that?   Lose £14 in a minute by buying this amazing diet book more like.   But hope springs eternal and all that.   ‘This is not a diet’ they proclaim maintaining that it is an entirely new method of losing weight all based on science.  I know all about the so called science in ads.   In a previous life I was a freelance copywriter for an advertising agency and I once wrote an extremely successful campaign for a (now defunct) skincare company – I don’t think that my campaign had anything to do with the death of the company.  This company was very old fashioned and they advertised their skin care products in The Lady.   My grandmother used their vanishing cream.   Not as I fervently wished as a child that it would make her vanish – she was a terrifying old bat, nor indeed did it make wrinkles vanish, it was called vanishing cream because it was supposed to be so light it vanished on the skin.   In any case I was asked to write a series of ads for this skin care range.  The amount I knew about the subject could have been written on a postage stamp but a few trips to the library (in those far off pre-Google days that was what we did) gave me plenty of facts about the dermis and the epidermis.   I wrote in glowing (and completely fictional terms) about the benefits of the different products.  The appeared below a moody photograph of a beautiful young woman.  The client loved them and so too did the customer.   Sadly anno domini overtook the customers as my grandmother’s generation died off.   The cod science remains but I think that today blatant lies are discouraged!  

The other important thing that I have learnt with age is the secret of packing.   My husband always thought it was highly amusing to ask just before we left the house when the pantechnicon was arriving or even more amusingly he would remind me that I had forgotten the kitchen sink from which you will gather that packing light has never been my forte.   But no longer – I am determined to take only essentials with me the next time I go abroad.   While it is good to be prepared for every eventuality, it has to be said that I have never been asked unexpectedly to go to a ball whilst on a week’s package holiday in a ski resort.   This time it will be a pair of jeans, a couple of T shirts, a pair of ski pants and three or four tops.   On the other hand I might just slip in a pair of stilettos just in case and perhaps a couple of cashmere jumpers – I’ve never yet stayed anywhere in the mountains where the central heating has failed, but there is always a first time.    And I’m sure there’ll be a corner in my case for that ball gown – after all you never know.

Emojis – What’s the Emoji for ‘What the f*** does this mean?  If you Google emojis to try and find out what they are trying to say they give you helpful definitions such as ‘Grinning Face’, ‘Grinning Face with big eyes’, ‘Grinning face with smiling eyes’ and finally ’Beaming face with smiling eyes’  That is far too subtle for me.  I can manage ‘happy face’ and possibly ‘sarcastic smile’ but I’m not sure I do more degrees of smiling.   However, what I don’t want to do is send someone a wink by trying to be ‘cool’ and ‘down with the kids’ only to discover that it means ‘Do you fancy a shag?’ Particularly not if I send it to my accountant in that fleeting moment of smugness after I have filled in my tax return!

As for the rude ones!   Apparently two fried eggs don’t mean ‘Let’s do lunch’ but I’d like to see you naked – again a minefield for the old and innocent.   An aubergine doesn’t mean ’I was thinking of making Moussaka this evening’ – it is ‘emoji’ for a penis!  Why?   It’s been a while, but I don’t remember ever seeing one that looked like that!   I feel I have to look all these things up as I don’t want to inadvertently say something completely inappropriate – I am having a very interesting time!   I have just discovered that ‘raindrops’ are shorthand for masturbation.  I may not have much imagination, but I can think of no circumstances in which I would find the word or symbol for masturbation useful in a text.  But I suppose that is my age.   In fact I think that if might be safer just to go emojiless for the time being unless we invent some new ones for ‘I think I need a Zimmer frame’, ‘I’ve lost my hearing aids’ or  ‘I didn’t sleep a wink last night – did you?’   Maybe I could make my fortune by inventing a whole new glossary.  

I only learnt what FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) meant a few years ago, but now there is the even better JOMO (Joy of Missing Out).   That wonderful feeling when you know you’ve got an evening in front of the fire with a good book and don’t have to go and have drinks with the neighbours.  Sadly I’ve become rather adept at lying – I’m too superstitious to use the excuse of being ill – that is sure to tempt fate and I’d probably succumb to some nasty lurgy immediately, but grandchildren are an excellent excuse – everyone gets brownie points for doing granny duty, and no one can guilt you out of that one!   It is lucky that our desires change as we get older – I longed for ringworm as a child, I thought it sounded quite glamorous.   I was a great animal lover and had newts, frogs and toads that I had caught in the wild and incarcerated in a large tank in the nursery.  Happily for them they were usually released by my father after a few days on the grounds that they wanted to go back and see their families!   I suppose I imagined that I might be able to make a pet of a cute little ringworm – no one explained me that the name was a misnomer and there were no worms involved only a fungus!   I also longed to be to be able to do cartwheels and to break and arm or leg so that I would have a plaster that my friends wold sign.   I did eventually manage to do cartwheels but I was in my fifties when I first broke my arm and was in plaster by which time the desire to have it covered in signatures had dissipated[SS1] .

Old age brings many tribulations but there are compensations and JOMO is definitely one of them.   I never went to Studio 54 in New York, in fact I never went to New York during the time it was there, but if I had been there I certainly wouldn’t have got in – I would never have been cool enough, but I would definitely have felt a pang of regret or envy.   A clear case of FOMO.   No longer.   I would happily relinquish any chance of going there – in fact I would pay good money not to have to go to a club, any club, that involved a lot of noise, crowded rooms and standing around.   There is a local venue called YOYO which is short for You’re Only Young Once – for which thank heaven.   Arguably our youth passes us by too quickly but being frozen in time would become increasingly weird as the years went by.   There are so many things to worry about for the young – I’m very glad that I didn’t waste money on plastic surgery when I was young – having a perfect body was more a wistful fantasy than something I was prepared to spend money on, although dieting did play a big part in my life.   As I once said to my late husband ‘I’d do anything to lose weight’, to which he retorted, rather unnecessarily, ‘Except eat less’!   FOMO indeed when I measured myself against my friends who all seemed to be effortlessly slim, but in that case my FOMO was for another potato or an extra slice of cake.

I went to a funeral recently and obviously one doesn’t suffer FOMO on those occasions, but I was giving a friend a lift and when we arrived for the wake cars were being directed into a field, however the man in charge waved me on towards the house.   Once we had driven past him my friend told me she was sure he meant us to go into another field.   ‘No’, I said, ’I think he thought we were very important’.   However I wasn’t completely convinced as no other cars were going directly to the house, although as soon as we had parked in the field we did see several other cars being directed down the drive.   When we left some time later I was, as frequently happens, hoist on my own petard.   It was not the VIPs who were being directed towards the house, but the halt, lame, elderly and infirm!  A bit of misplaced FOMO there.

However I am not completely immune from FOMO due to an incursble Amazon habit.   The other day my car wouldn’t start snd a friend produced this great portable pack with jump leads which you can use to start a vehicle comletely independently of another vehicle.   I had barely got into my house before I was on the computer ordering one for myself.   Another friend had this amazing heated jacket – I simply had to have one.   FOMO reared it’s ugly head with a vengeance – the desperate need in the afternoon for something that I hadn’t known I wanted that morning.

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