Working 9 to half-5...it's a mug's game

I guess if the suspense was going to kill you you'd be well dead by now, but the good news is...I have a job. A proper one. With a desk and a shiny new Mac and biscuits and a  designated lunchtime and a monthly salary! Hurrah! 

It's hardly my dream job, but it's a Sub-editor's role, it's pretty well-paid and well...beggars/choosers and all that.

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly humans adapt/forget, and having worked in this new job for just shy of  a month, 'freelancing' (!) from the kitchen table seems but a distant memory.  All I miss is not having to wear tights; George Lamb's radio 6 show; and being able to drink Oxo whenever I want, for it seems that supping a mug of gravy instead of tea is not socially acceptable office behaviour...

Anyhow, so far so good...apart from when I gave the man who sits next to me the wrong mug... but the less said about mug-gate, the better. Needless to say, I have learnt my lesson and will not be giving the 'Chessington World of Adventures' cup to anyone else. Ever.

Harvest Festival

Harvest Festival. Just an excuse to fob off those dented tins of peaces and mystery meat on an old people's home, right? Well, yes... but this year I was able to cobble together a harvest festival dinner of my own containing no less FOUR homegrown components and nothing from a tin, dented or otherwise. Exciting stuff, especially as I never thought the potatoes (despite a vigil second only to that of The Queen Mum's corpse) stood a chance.

Okay, so the seeds were more than the cost of a bag of potatoes, the plants took hours and hours of careful attention, and only enough spuds sprung forth for one (admittedly gluttonous) meal, but still...it was more thsn worth it.

So we ate ourselves silly and gave thanks for the 14 potatoes, 2 carrots, heaps of thyme and on-its-last-legs lettuce that came from our own little plot and not only did we please ourselves, we seemed to have pleased The Pagan Gods or whoever else in charge, for very good news indeed followed....

Stop Press: Old People Like Sex Too, Shocker!

Have a snoop around your local newsagent at the moment and you may well find my mugshot grinning back at ya, for I am no less than Scarlet's contributor of the month. Oh yes.

For the uninitiated, Scarlet is a ladies magazine that contains no diets, but more sex-toys than you can shake a giant dildo at. It also has some genuinely interesting, socially aware articles and is kinda what Cosmo was when it was first published.

Being contributor of the month meant I had to answer a few wee questions - best/worst thing about the magazine etc. And I half in jest, but with some element of truth to it, declared that the worst thing about Scarlet was the fact that my Mother would undoubtedly buy it to read her darling daughter's superb words....but blatantly read the sex stuff while she was at it.

Not surprisingly, this happened. Mummy Hughes did her dutiful Mum thing and told me she thought my piece was very interesting, well written....and that my Grandad had particularly enjoyed it - that in fact he'd loved the entire magazine, reading it cover to cover. Surely not the sex-toy review page? Apparently so. The erotic fiction? Yup. That too. Woah.

I think I must have involuntarily made my feelings pretty clear as my Mum's response was a matter of fact "Well you lot don't think you invented sex, do you?" Well, no, Mum, but I also don't spend much time thinking about my Grandma and Grandad bumping and grinding.

However, in a Sex and The City stylee, I got to thinking.... Ageism is probably the one 'ism' that still runs rife and seems to be acceptable. Why? Reasonably forward thinking mags like Scarlet make a point of using models of all sizes, looks and races, but, they don't ever feature anyone over the age of 35, tops. Apparently this is because the publication is aimed at 20-40 year-olds, and the images should reflect this. Fair enough, but what happens when you get to 40? Do you suddenly have to ditch the dildos and buy an Argar instead?!

There seems to be a similar lack in pornographic products too - mags and movies alike seldom feature models over 35, and if they do, it's a fetish item!
And what about the people who buy sex stuff? I think that part of my initial freak-out at my Grandad's love of Scarlet is the completely irrational 'dirty old man' tag - double standards at its finest... Let me explain: Groups of women going to a sex shop and buying toys are 'having a laugh', couples who do similar are 'exploring their sexuality', young women who enjoy Scarlet or porn are 'empowered', but a man looking at top-shelf matter is a 'perv' or a 'dirty old man'.

So yes, Mummy Dearest, you are right. Pensioners have as much right to sex as anyone else. Now let's think about something else. Quick....

You say tomato...I say 'the most exciting thing that has ever happened. Ever'

So, losing a job is undeniably cack, but it did, (at least initially) make me get on with stuff I'd always wanted to do but never had the time. And now, six months on, I am finally seeing the fruits of my labour. Literally. And my God is it exciting - I reckon I now have some idea of how it feels to see your first child ride a bike without stabilisers.

So now I can only hope that the tomato plant is some incredibly twee metaphor for my job chase and that that too will soon bring forth tasty round fruits. Or just a nice editorial job somewhere....

PLEASE NOTE: Image used is of MY ACTUAL BABIES. Not a stock image.

Candle in the wind

For a part-time jobless, yours truly has been a wee bit busy of late, and rather neglectful of the blog. I am sorry. It will not happen again.

Since my last post, Michael Jackson has died, my Mum had a birthday, I attended an interview for a well good job (and didn't get it), my tomato plant has borne fruit, Steve Lamacq played my song on BBC radio 6, I had a suspected case of swine flu, and the Dr and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary.

The latter was especially lovely, even though I managed to knock over a giant candle and cover my entirely black outfit in white wax whilst shouting FUCK rather loudly - just to make sure the whole restaurant got a butchers. It was a wonderful evening; I ate 3 kinds of meat and learnt that when something bad happens, you might as well just laugh, because if you don't, all that will happen is that you get hugely upset, calm down and then laugh. Surely the sensible response is to just skip the middle bit.....or, I guess, to be slightly more co-ordinated and not through a candle down yourself in the first place.

x

Stop Press: Gemma Likes Hippy Music Shocker!

When not tending to my organic vegetables, I have been listening to a girl with an acoustic guitar and enjoying it a little bit too much.

In an attempt to redress the balance of hippy v normal, I then wrote all about it for trendy-wendy website, The Playground.

Read all about it here: http://www.theplayground.co.uk/reviews/article.php?revID=26

Peace out.

x

Friday Night's Alright for Fighting

The pub I work in is a North London prosecco-serving, 16-quid-for-a-steak, riddled-with-children-with-ridiculous-names gastro pub. It is by no means a spit and saw dust affair and often bears more resemblance to a Creche than a boozer.

This all changed last Friday. I pottered off to start my 6-close shift blissfully unaware that the restaurant section was booked for a wedding party. They'd been there since 3pm, and were all getting proper stuck in. Jager-bombs all round. Yikes. So when they were still going worryingly strong at midnight, the landlord decided to serve for another hour. This was a huge mistake.

At about quarter past midnight some drunken oaf pushed into some other drunken oaf and something along the lines of What the fuck did you call my wife/brother/mother/best mate? was just about overheard before all hell broke loose.

One of the 'contenders' was apparently some kind of local businessman, and five of his employees were drinking in the corner. They saw someone attacking their boss, and perhaps with dreams of a pay rise in mind, all jumped in to 'help'. It didn't help. What started as text-book drunk argie-bargie turned into a full-on brawl, that moved en masse around the pub knocking over stools, smashing glasses and most worryingly, at one point reaching over the bar in an attempt to grab the 16-pound-steak knives.

This was when I asked to call the cops. I've never had to call 999 before. It's really weird. Firstly, even though people were stamping on each other and stools were flying, I still felt guilty in case I was wasting police time and stopping someone else getting through - the film they showed us at school about a boy dying because of a hoax fire call is clearly rather deeply ingrained. Secondly, I have no idea how they recruit for call centre staff, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's just a night-time gig for the HSBC lot. The lady I spoke to seemed completely unable to understand the urgency of the situation, instead just commenting over and over on 'how awfully loud it was'. Indeed. 30 men trying to break each other does tend to make a bit of a racket.

I was shocked at how scary it all was. The Mary Whitehouse cliche of violence being all around us is actually pretty true: in cartoons, in movies, at school, on the news, on the street - everyone's seen a fight or two.
But when a heap of grown men are trying do each other real harm, metres in front of your face, it really is quite different. The noise of a proper punch against breaking skin is really quite sickening, and unlike on TV, if you drop an anvil (or bar stool) on someone's head, they don't get straight back up unscathed.

The police eventually turned up, but the ringleaders had legged it by then and were long gone. No-one needed an ambulance, but the next couple of days revealed two broken noses and the truly-horrible sounding 'pinning-back-on' of someone's thumb.

So, what did we all learn? That Elton is wrong, and Saturday night is no longer the choice night for a ruckus. That violence isn't big or clever.... and neither are the old ladies manning the emergency phones.

x