Gymtastic

The day I joined a gym (aka yesterday) brought back memories of the day I bought my first mobile phone. I had ranted objections for the preceding years until peer pressure broke me down and/or my materialistic side got the better of me...
Right now, I am heavier than I have ever been in my life (post-marital bliss they say), drink too much alcohol and do very little exercise. I know this to be quite stupid but finding the will-power to do anything about has not been easy. I am generally quite healthy and slim-ish so have never dieted etc. and don't think I need to do that so much as exercise... Oh, and the Mr is the same, except he's arguably in a worse condition than I... Oh jesus, what am I saying. Neither of us are over-weight, but we're lethargic and can feel those extra inches...
So, how can I morally and fiscally defend my decision? I'm not sure, 'cept to say the gym is gorgeous, its only around the corner and has a lovely swimming pool.
Swimming pooooooooooooooooooool with different coloured lights and classical music.
Water....
Swimming....

Right back to bloody work in my little office.

Do you know, joining a gym makes me feel more grown-up than buying a house or getting married. Is that normal?

Motherly love

Scene: Post office queue

Mother of two: Give'im that fucking book if he wants it
Daughter (about 10yrs old & tearful): But he's [referring toddler in pushchair] hitting me with it
Mother of two:[to daughter] You're annoying me, I'll make you go to school if you don't cut it out
Daughter: But I just want to go home now
Mother of two: Shut up, just shut up
Daughter: Why?
Mother of two: You're pissing me off
Daughter: ... but mum...
Mother of two: Oh just fuck-off. Go on, fuck off I dare yah.

I don't think anything more needs to be said.

I seriously considered walking straight into the police station to report her (as I'm sure did everyone else in the queue), but at the end of the day the woman was incredibly scary.... and huge... and mad... and round here you need to be very careful about what you say or do lest you get punched in the head..

Poor bloody kid.

Horrific, hellish woman.

Some women are just not meant to have kids. There, I've said it.

Anonymity

This has been a complex issue for me. On the one hand, I am a loud-mouth extrovert whose life is an open book which I love people to dip into and amuse themselves with. It amuses me no-end, but then I have always laughed the loudest at my own jokes. I have a very strange family and there are many secrets and lies there, but ultimately this is not the root cause of my anonymous blog.

NO-ONE that I know knows that I write this blog. I haven’t told a soul, not even my husband or very closest of friends. Is that bizarre? Well, it’s not because I intend to slag them off, but it might because I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings… that and the fact that the sort of job I do would not look well upon a ‘public’ blog.

There, that is my reasoning.

The genius of the Bush

I had put Aerial to sleep for a while, as I had listened to it too often with frustrated perseverence when it was first released. Was Kate taking the piss? I am now convinced that she was in some respects. She was fed up with being 'hounded' about producing a new album, and I imagine she finally relented by saying something akin to the following: 'look, seriously this is what my life is like now - all mundane and beautiful - a little boy, the countryside and housework - this is my life now and I really don't think it will interest anyone, but if you insist I'll write about what's in my head'... Maybe she's not so much deliberately laughing at us, but I think the album comes with a definite 'shrug' gesture.

NEVERTHELESS - I love Pi and I adore Joanni (and like so many others, I really enjoy that climax of the second disc)... I love Joanni so much that today I day-dreamed about calling my daughter Joanni if I should ever have one - will be tough seeing as I thought I'd settled on Maya. The relgious connotations of Joan of Arc are obviously not something I want to conjure up (although her strength of character is something entirely admirable of course), and I have been very taken by the beauty of Maya Angelou's life -

...but Joanni, such a great name.

Creationism has no place in Science!

Thank goodness for the power of reason and logic to overcome myth and superstition...
http://www.tes.co.uk/2233920
This whole thing was beginning to worry me a great deal...

Also, I have been asked recently, as a representative from a local humanist group, to attend some meetings with local R.E. officials to urge them to include humanism in the R.E. curriculum, but I'm afraid I'm just not convinced - you see, humanism is not a religion, it is a philosophy and to ask for it to be included in R.E. in schools would surely be undermining its whole philosophy and reducing it to the level of religion... There should be an historical approach to teaching the fundamental tenets of major religions; at the moment the world still needs this to help us understand each other more effectively and work to achieve world peace. Secularism, science, Darwinism, progress, cosmopolitanism, understanding the universe etc. belong to the realms of futures studies and global citizenship education...

All of these educational forms are still needed to ensure contemporary social progress, but in the end, the latter two will outlive the former (lest we remain trapped in a form of slavery until humanity's inevitable extinction).

Give that man a bloody tissue & make that one pay for an extra seat!

I travel by train every other day or so. Long journeys. Whilst I find the usual delays etc. frustrating, I find the general experience to be a pleasant one, time to reflect and read. I am an ordinary person in this respect.

But is my profound annoyance and frustration at the behaviour of others normal? There are two things that, quite honestly, piss me off (and they have little to do with mobile-phones or personal stereos, something British Rail seems to think we are all obsessed by)...

1) People who sniff, sniff, sniff all the way home but fail to use a bloody tissue. The sound of sniffing is akin, for me, to the sound of grating fingernails down a brick-wall, or the sound of someone eating noisily with their mouth open. Now they may have hayfever or a cold, or some other legitimate CAUSE, but there is no legitimate EXCUSE. Do I: (a) offer them a tissue and smile sweetly (even if this involves walking from one end of the carriage to the other)?; (b) gather myself together and move away from them to another carriage?; or (c) cough extremely loudly (or even better, shriek) immediately after every sniff they make?

2) People who take up two seats, usually with excess baggage, which could so easily be stored under the bloody feet. I empathise with the need to have your stuff close by, but hogging that space on busy trains, hoping that you will be the very last person who has to give up the spare seat next to them - well that's just damn selfish.

Mind you, if there are too many of those in category (1) above, I have considerably more sympathy for those in category (2).

The sexist British Gas salesman

I couldn't believe it - I am still raging and it's right up there with the solicitor episode (when I went to sign the contract on my house, and they had put my partner's details on first without need, it seemed, for my NI number, address etc. even though I HAD PAID FOR EVERYTHING AND DONE ALL THE F***ING WORK [he had only 'decided' to come in on it at the last minute]).

So, a British Gas man calls to dutifully tell me I was paying too much with Powergen and should swap back to BG etc. etc. He was a fairly young guy, who was not the most articulate of speakers. He failed to garble one point to me and, when I told him I hadn't understood, he saw the man sitting on the sofa and said to him, 'Oh, I didn't see you there', turning back to me, 'can I speak to him please?'.
'Why????', my husband and I responded...
'I am the one who sorts everything out here, why would you like to speak to him?' I said.... this flumuxed the guy and he continued talking absolute bollox to the two of us. So I said I wasn't interested, shut the door and was left utterly shocked.

Hmmm, what should I do? Should I run after him and give him a loud feminist dressing-down so that everyone on our street could hear? Should I get on to the phone to BG and report this amazing event? Should I go slash his tires?

But then reason and compassion won the day... the guy was just a BG salesman and not a particularly attractive one at that! He lacked communication skills, intelligence, and, if anyone was forced to knock on people's doors at 7pm each evening to sell shit for a living... well you've got to give them your pity right? I mean, the guy obviously hadn't benefited from a decent education... poor, sexist bastard.

As if British Gas have a hope in hell of ever getting my custom now!

To baby or not to baby

As a woman soon to be 30 it seems society makes you start thinking about when is best to have children - or maybe you start thinking about this considerably earlier but you daren't admit that to anyone. If you're a career-orientated, driven, ranting lady like myself, you might have gotten married by now (cos weddings are great parties right, and done honestly, truly & equally they can be one of the most amazing days of your life) ... but you've always just put off that 'children' decision.

I think people put off this decision for a variety of reasons. Lots of press and magazine shite about us being the most fantastically selfish generation (Thatcher's children etc. - always love that excuse/phrase, wonder what Mark & Carol T think of it), but I think it's so much more than that.

For me, I'm shit-scared - seriously shit-scared. Until embarrassingly recently I was petrified of needles, I had my first blood test less than 2 years ago and that involved 2 sleepless nights prior to the event. So, obviously the thought of all that pain and being entirely out of control ... I mean jeeeeesus. Now you don't hear that reason very much in the papers do you? I mean, I'd like kids, I think, and I know my other half wants them... but TIME & PAIN are my key reservations... I have lots of things to achieve in this life and having kids involves crazy amounts of precious time right, not that you'd regret it at the time.....

My conclusion - I THINK - is that you're more likely to regret NOT having kids than having them... perhaps I am wrong in this....

My other conclusion is - I'm not ready yet baby'o!

Returning to planet earth: renewed, rejuvenated and refreshed:

I think I was getting trapped in a bitter, downward spiral of self-obsession, self-loathing and profound frustration. Hence the fact that I have not written anything here for a few weeks - I was beyond ranting, I was lost and now I am found (as they say). Actually, that's a bit of a lie - I did write a couple of rants but they were so abusive and cruel that I decided not to post them: don't you just love it when reason and common-sense prevail and spoil all the fun!

So who/what shook me out of my navel-gazing? It was the refreshing company of my genius brother and his amazing ability to look beyond his own selfish wants and desires, towards the greater good of humanity, science and progress. A good humanist, global citizen, visionary and a damn good person. I had a great weekend in Paris to rest and reflect and have come back with the drive and determination I had lost for a while... My aims to make this world a better place are renewed!

So, what better than an evening with Richard Dawkins (http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins) Went along to one of his talks, dragging the taller half away from his playstation kicking and screaming and I know that he was pleasantly surprised. The guy is just so right on so many levels - and when one of the audience members begun 'I agree with a lot of what you said, I am a scientist and a Christian', Dawkins handled it so beautifully (unlike the audible groans, tuts and rolling eye-balls in our row!).

So, having made contact with two brilliant people in the last week I have managed to get some perspective... I am going to pick my fights more carefully, focus more effectively, work more diligently and NO MORE F***ING COMPUTER GAMES....

The world is back in sight...