I went into M&S this afternoon and came out with nothing but self-loathing. What is it with those changing rooms that means that you go in feeling normal and come out feeling like some kind of freak?
I have seen more flattering images of myself in the Hall Of Mirrors at the fair.
I looked like a deflated souffle.
A blow-torched lilo.
Shrek in a thong.
How do retailers expect to sell clothes to people who look at them under glaring light, in distorting mirrors and with the lingering smell of other people's feet? They put mirrors behind you as well, so that when you turn away in horror it is only to see the tier of bulges from another angle.
For goodness' sake, even when you put your own clothes back on, you still look awful. You wonder how you dared to walk the streets, let alone go to work, looking like that. Ten minutes in front of the mirror in a M&S changing room and any dictator - Mugabe, Hitler, Pol Pot, any of them - would be so consumed with doubt and loathing that they would come out and immediately relinquish power and retire to the remote countryside to keep chickens.
So I didn't buy anything. We've got some old paper potato sacks in the shed. I'll cut three holes in one of them and wear that instead. After all, I won't be venturing out in daylight again, will I?
Thursday, 16 July 2009
Saturday, 4 July 2009
Privet
The privet beside the bus stop is in flower, and I love the smell - it's one of those "madeleine" moments that take you back.
When I was quite young we lived in a house with long privet hedges down each side of the front garden. I don't suppose they were as long in reality as they are in memory, but cutting them was quite a big job, especially for my father, who hated gardening, only had hand tools to use and cursed those privet hedges (almost certainly more colourfully when I wasn't listening than when I was).
So, the smell of the privet takes me back to long hot sunny summer days, my dad getting cross (but pleased and satisfied when it was all done and raked up) and me with not a care in the world and all my life ahead.
I bought a privet bush for my garden last summer, but it's going to be a long time before I have to trim it, or until I can enjoy the smell.
When I was quite young we lived in a house with long privet hedges down each side of the front garden. I don't suppose they were as long in reality as they are in memory, but cutting them was quite a big job, especially for my father, who hated gardening, only had hand tools to use and cursed those privet hedges (almost certainly more colourfully when I wasn't listening than when I was).
So, the smell of the privet takes me back to long hot sunny summer days, my dad getting cross (but pleased and satisfied when it was all done and raked up) and me with not a care in the world and all my life ahead.
I bought a privet bush for my garden last summer, but it's going to be a long time before I have to trim it, or until I can enjoy the smell.
Wednesday, 1 July 2009
Chills
Does noone catch a chill any more?
When I was a child, every vague and non-specific illness was always attributed to a chill. "I expect you've caught a bit of a chill", my mother would say. If the complaint was located in any particular part of the body, then that was where the chill would be - a chill on the tummy, or a chill on the kidneys. The remedy was always the same, to keep warm and rest. Make no mistake about it, chills could be serious, especially if you were weak or elderly. You had to wrap up warm and take care not to catch one.
Nobody nowadays ever seems to catch chills. Perhaps it's because of cars and central heating, although you'd think that would just make us more susceptible. In twenty-odd years I've only once known someone ring in sick and give the excuse of a chill - and she was an odd girl anyway.
The only alternative ailment to a chill was a bilious attack. Noone gets them any more, either. You didn't catch these off someone else, nor were they the result of poor hygiene - they were always the result of something you had eaten not agreeing with you. This wasn't your fault, it was just a fact, and it meant you could never ever eat it again. By the time I left home, I had a list as long as my arm of things I couldn't eat. I particularly remember pilchards in tomato sauce as being forbidden. (Pilchards in any other form were just fine). My mother couldn't eat anything flavoured with orange. It was years before I realised that I could eat them all with impunity, even the pilchards (not that I particularly wanted to).
When I was a child, every vague and non-specific illness was always attributed to a chill. "I expect you've caught a bit of a chill", my mother would say. If the complaint was located in any particular part of the body, then that was where the chill would be - a chill on the tummy, or a chill on the kidneys. The remedy was always the same, to keep warm and rest. Make no mistake about it, chills could be serious, especially if you were weak or elderly. You had to wrap up warm and take care not to catch one.
Nobody nowadays ever seems to catch chills. Perhaps it's because of cars and central heating, although you'd think that would just make us more susceptible. In twenty-odd years I've only once known someone ring in sick and give the excuse of a chill - and she was an odd girl anyway.
The only alternative ailment to a chill was a bilious attack. Noone gets them any more, either. You didn't catch these off someone else, nor were they the result of poor hygiene - they were always the result of something you had eaten not agreeing with you. This wasn't your fault, it was just a fact, and it meant you could never ever eat it again. By the time I left home, I had a list as long as my arm of things I couldn't eat. I particularly remember pilchards in tomato sauce as being forbidden. (Pilchards in any other form were just fine). My mother couldn't eat anything flavoured with orange. It was years before I realised that I could eat them all with impunity, even the pilchards (not that I particularly wanted to).
AIDS. And rape
Sitting in the sun on Saturday, idly half-watching the morris dancing, and two women came and sat next to me. They were obviously friends, one visiting the other for the weekend perhaps. One was telling the other about her daughter.
She had come to her mother and said how glad she was that she hadn't had a gap year. She had wanted to go to Cambodia.
Her mother had told her, "I'm just going to say two words to you. AIDS. And, rape. Look at you - if you go out there you are going to be first in line to be raped and murdered".
When did we all get so scared and selfish? Is it the effect of mindless television or the rantings of the Daily Beast? What has happened to curiosity and an open mind and a sense of adventure?
If these are the kind of people left behind, I'd rather take my chance in Cambodia.
She had come to her mother and said how glad she was that she hadn't had a gap year. She had wanted to go to Cambodia.
Her mother had told her, "I'm just going to say two words to you. AIDS. And, rape. Look at you - if you go out there you are going to be first in line to be raped and murdered".
When did we all get so scared and selfish? Is it the effect of mindless television or the rantings of the Daily Beast? What has happened to curiosity and an open mind and a sense of adventure?
If these are the kind of people left behind, I'd rather take my chance in Cambodia.
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