Bittermins

Confession time; I've been shouting at the radio again.  This time, it's because I've heard adverts for vitamin drops for babies.  Newborn, tiny, 0 - 6 months babies.  Apparently, the drops are "delicious-tasting", which means they're predominantly either sugar, or some hideous sweetener so they can claim they're sugar free.

For the first six months of a baby's life, all you have to do, really, is breast feed if you can, and if not formula milk is just fine. Mush up some fruit and vegetables when they're ready for solids.  Resist the temptation to mush up McDonald's "because it's what the rest of the family is eating and we want little Latrine to share the family experience".  

The lucky babies - the ones that are born in the rich nations - have been growing up just fine for the last century or so without vitamin drops.  Why on earth would they need them now?  Answer: £££££££££££££

Grumble...

Mummy, moshing

Tonight, gentle readers, I am taking m'daughter and a friend to a concert which, at 15, they are not allowed to attend without a "responsible adult" (that would be me). I invite you to google The Institute, Birmingham and browse the images. See anyone sitting down? Do you see, in fact, any seats?

Twenty years ago, my heart would have thrilled at this. Now, it's all military planning. "OK, so no point in taking a bag, need to be totally unencumbered. Wear old clothes that I don't mind getting moshed. Dress for a hot sweaty mosh pit, but sufficient layers that I can wait at a freezing train station at 11 pm without dying of hypothermia. Don't want to take iPhone, but must take iPhone in case I get separated from C. Try not to embarrass C with awkward mum moshing, but equally bad to stand there with my fingers in my ears, wincing at every f-word."

I'm looking forward to tomorrow morning...!

Okaaaay....

Enough of the pestering already!  For those of you who are simply dying to know - I got to day 5 of the detox and gave in to Real Food.  I think it was pizza.  I certainly wasn't the organic, unprocessed, wholesome stuff that I was supposed to eat (lest I traumatise my newly-detoxed digestive system).  I seem to remember that whatever it was tasted just fantastic, and fortunately I didn't turn into the green lady from The Exorcist.  But I had a much smaller appetite, as my stomach had shrunk, and it took a while to come back.  Now, of course, I need to do it alllllll over again...

Paperless? Not quite ready yet...

Not when there are Jane Austen-channelling notebooks like this to write in!

Now that 12 November 2013 is almost over...

... I would like to append some remarks to whatever Wikipedia decides is special about 12/11/13 (or 11/12/13 if you're in the USA)

1) CP announcement tomorrow.  Either I will be announced as playing Arthur's bossy, mother-replacement girlfriend, or it's a TV series.  I suspect the latter.

2) Cupcakes should only be made when there are plenty of people around to eat them.  Otherwise the same person eats all six.  And regrets it.

3) The perceived deliciousness in relation to the quality of sausages is inversely proportionate to the amount of red wine that accompanies said sausages.

4) Tuesdays should be Fridays.

Just realised that nobody will read this if I don't tag it

So I don't think I'll bother - there's a delightful paradox around having a totally public blog that absolutely nobody is reading.

The imponderableness of things...

It's a shame you guys can't see my Open University blog, it's really very funny.  Made me wonder why this blog is such a mishmash of crap when the OU blog and Facebook posts are so much more entertaining.  Must Try Harder...

Radio drama

I love radio comedy.  I love radio talk shows.  I love TV comedy and drama.  So why don't I like radio drama?  I listen to a lot of radio 4 stuff on catch up, which gives me the opportunity to browse loads of drama and be very fussy about what I choose to listen to.  However, nine times out of ten I abandon it after five or ten minutes and look for something else, whereas with comedy I will give it chance to get going and deliver.

What's particularly strange about this for me is that radio drama should be really compelling - it should be like eavesdropping on someone's conversation and creating a picture of what is going on for myself, rather than seeing what a director has chosen to present on TV.  Instead, it normally sounds pretentious and self-conscious, especially protagonist-narrated dramas.  I don't know why.  Perhaps the actor isn't doing it justice.  Perhaps I'm unsophisticated.  Perhaps contemporary writers try too hard.  Classics are fine, funnily enough - I'm always happy to tune in to Dickens or Austen in the expectation that they'll be OK.  It's modern stuff that has me swiping back to the menu in the hope of finding something else that flows without jarring.   

Next day
Listened to some more today.  Self-consciousness is definitely the main problem, and the theatrical way of talking - however subtle they try to be, it still sounds like they're hamming it up centre stage at the National Theatre.

Today
I've cracked it! It's because we can't see or feel the non-verbal stuff that's going on between the characters, so it has to be made obvious in other ways.  Those other ways sometimes have to be woven into the conversation, which makes it sound contrived.  And conversations don't flow like that - people interrupt each other, start sentences without finishing them (or change what they were going to say half way through), and say "whatever" a lot.  Conversations are disjointed, and supplemented by body language.  Radio will never be able to reflect this accurately.

Phew.  Now I've cracked that, I can open a refreshing bottle of Shloer. 

To stalk, or not to stalk

So I'm thinking how easy it is to become really caught up in something that resonates with you.  You want to know more about it, and you want to know more about how it was created.  Twenty years ago the people who made the news and who wrote the things we read were distant, unreachable beings.  Now, they are ever-present, but even more distant.  From their outputs, you feel as if you know them.  You can detect when things aren't the same as they were.  But because you only feel as if you know them, without really knowing them, sending a "U OK hun?" would not hit the spot.  You'd be a stalker, a weirdo, an unwelcome intruder on a digital life that is only there to promote the work (and therefore the finances) of the person concerned.  It's strange how you can be so concerned about someone without having actually met them.

Today's insight

Rose wine is either fabulous or hideous.  There is nothing in between.

And now, a limerick. A bad one.

There was a young lady on Twitter

Whose tweets made trolls threaten to hit her

Though the Twittersphere tutted

The haters still cluttered
Her feed with their frankly ridiculous comments

Is that it?

I finally got round to joining the Twittersphere this week, and what a self-aggrandising and surreal place it is.  Teenagers seem to think that nobody over the age of 19 has any business being on Twitter forgetting that they would then have no vapid celebs to follow, and that they are very probably provided with access to Twitter courtesy of the adults that they consider so irrelevant.  I'm blown away by the hatred and insults traded between strangers about things that really don't matter in the slightest.  With a couple of exceptions, nobody has anything original to say.

I shall stay on Twitter, of course, because ignoring something doesn't make it disappear, and I do like the constant news updates and the occasional gems that appear.  I'm not sure why, but I'm actually glad that it's not as great as I thought it would be.  Perhaps it's because, in a world where everyone's efforts to prove the contrary demonstrate just how ordinary they are, it makes me feel slightly less inadequate.

Is that an antler in your pocket?

The sound of footsteps crunching through snow

MAN: A reindeer! At last! I've been looking for you all afternoon.

REINDEER: And now you've found me.  How can I help you?

MAN: Well, it's a bit awkward.  I just wondered if I could have... um... well, a kiss?

REINDEER: A kiss?

MAN: Well... yes.  A kiss.

REINDEER: You've spent all afternoon trudging through a snowy Norwegian wood to find a reindeer to snog?  You know what I'm going to ask next, don't you?

MAN: Well, I guess lots of questions spring to mind.

REINDEER: Indeed they do, but I will content myself with just one - why?!

MAN: Can't a man ask a reindeer for a kiss without being interrogated?

REINDEER: Not this reindeer, no.  They're my lips, after all.

MAN: Well it's not actually your lips I'm after.  It's your tongue.

REINDEER: You want to kiss with tongues? Oh sir, this is so sudden.  A peck on the cheek is one thing; full-on tonsil tennis is quite another.  We've only just met!

MAN: (Sprays) I saw a documentary on BBC2 and it said that reindeer tongue is considered to be Norwegian viagra.  I could do with some, um, help in that direction so I thought I'd try it out.

REINDEER: I think the point is that you're supposed to eat the tongue.

MAN: (Sprays) I'm vegetarian.

REINDEER: Ah.  Well you can put away that breath freshener spray.  I can assure you that the freshness or otherwise of your breath will have no bearing on my decision.  And anyway, even if it does work, how are you going to maintain the... effects?  It's awfully chilly in these woods.

MAN: Oh.  I hadn't thought of that.  Perhaps I'll bring a tent out with me next time.  Or maybe you could come back to the village with me?

REINDEER: Really? Really? Have you thought this through in any way, shape or form?  What is your Intended going to think when she sees that your idea of foreplay is cavorting with a caribou?

MAN: Oh.  I hadn't thought of that either.  I guess I'd better.... Well, thanks anyway.  Nice to have met you.

Footsteps crunch into the distance

REINDEER: Bloody David Attenborough.

And we're off...

My blog title is taken from the only birthday card I have ever kept (other than hand-drawn ones from my daughter when she was ickle, and not yet as sarcastic as her mother).  The birthday card was from my parents, and features a glum-looking dog with W C Fields' immortal caption below.  It's been blu tacked to my desk for five years, but still inspires a smile every time I see it.  Let's see what sort of inspiration blogging brings...