#bridgetbythebridge

#goodhuman

 

A few months ago, during one of our weekly video chats, Motherbear and I invented the groundbreaking concept of Good Human versus Bad Human. It is based on tried and tested methodology; deep scientific expertise, repeated experiments proving a pattern and the burden of proof beyond any reasonable doubt.

I lie. Not unlike virtually all politics and much journalism these days, the concept of Good Human is based entirely on gut instinct and a single person’s point of view. You pick anyone you like, you look at their face, and you decide if they are a good human or a bad human. It is that simple. A face, an opinion and boo ya, touchdown!

  

You can start with some really easy ones.

Obama, Good Human, Dubya, Bad Human. Good Human, Jennifer Lawrence, Bad Human, Kim K. Kylie, Good Human, J-Lo, Bad Human. Tom Hanks, Good Human, Tom Cruise, Bad Human. Toni Colette, Cate Blanchett, Meryl Streep, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, The Hemsworths, Hugh Jackman, Claudia Karvan, Bill Gates, all fine examples of Good Humans. Simon Cowell, Duchess Kate, Fassbender, Bale, Vin Diesel, Federer, Murray, Seinfeld, Jennifer Aniston, Theresa May, and Pauline Hanson, all…Bad Humans. #youcanstopreadingnow #itsabouttogetworse

No doubt there are names you’ll challenge; Duchess Kate is always contentious. I’d chuck in Diana and Beyoncé too, if I were certain I wouldn’t be lynched. In my humble opinion, Will Smith’s fakery makes him a BH and I still can’t quite make my mind up on the three duplicitous Barons of Boston; Wahlberg, Affleck and Damon. Good Will seems to be on the lighter side, but the other two; I’m not so convinced. It does also change over time. Angelina, Downey Jr and Depp, all once very, very Good, are now très, très Bad. So what is all this hollow conjecture based on? #notmuchscience

 

The Eyes have it. 

There is something about the curve of a person’s eyes and how that portends openness, a generosity of spirit, a kindness and innate warmth. The eyes of a Good Human will always be looking forward, looking into the face of their significant other with unbridled love, with vulnerability, with sincerity. There gaze is more about you than them.

Observe Barack as he cuddles Michelle or Hugh as he leans in to Deborra-Lee. Tom Hanks’s smile when he spies Rita. The eyes show love, show honesty and honour, integrity and intelligence, vigour and vulnerability. People who’s eyes shift constantly, who squint at you, who can’t maintain eye contact, who stare beyond you rather than at you. These people all have something to hide; these people don’t want you to catch out their secrets, these people, like the Vermillion Vulture and his Vacant Vixen are your stereotypical Bad Human.

  

Lips and Arseholes.

The mouth can look remarkably like the anus. When the lips are pursed, pressed and pinched, the resemblance to a human sphincter is astonishing. Look at Trump’s mouth and convince me it isn’t a mirror image of his Chocolate Starfish? Look at Pauline’s cakehole and tell me you don’t see her bumhole?

If you expend so much energy clenching your face, imagine the pressure down below! Ferris Bueller (Good Human) once made a claim that if you shoved a lump of coal in someone’s arse, two weeks later you’d have a diamond. I reckon that Kim and Kanye could start fabricating jewellery to replace the booty the Booty lost in Paris. Smiles that look like bums, like weird aliens in Star Wars, are not to be trusted, hence, Bad Human.

 

Laughter.

Not a mother myself, other people’s babies have generally taken to me. I have a very big face, I have large eyes, and I smile like a goon. Fashioning silly smiling faces at small people who instinctively know how to interpret a very confusing world is hardly a magic trick. Animals will respond more readily to a smile or a laugh than they will to a growl. Laughter, or a smile, demonstrate to your opponent that you are not afraid; think Errol Flynn with a sword, Han Solo with a blaster or think Robin Williams doing just about anything. Laughing eyes, a smiling mouth, Good Human.

Now, reflect over the events of this past weekend.

 

 

A broad face, a toothy smile, a wide grin, open arms and wide gestures versus a vertical snarl, eyes you can barely make out behind a wilting wave of wiry hair and tiny clamped hands. 

Think about a woman whose face is so expressive, she cannot hide her disdain and another woman whose face has not expressed anything since it was medically paralysed a decade ago. 

Think about why we are afraid of hoods, or headscarves or helmets. If you cannot see someone’s face, you cannot conclude his or her intent. Ever noticed that Storm Troopers cover their faces but Rebel Fighters don’t? Death Eaters wear black hoods while the Aurors protect themselves only with a wand?

  

Earlier this week, as I sat on the tube, the girl next to me, somewhat pressed for time, opened her makeup bag and began the ritual putting on of her face. She opened a compressed powder compact, it completely shattered, and she was covered in shards of sparkly powder. #itshappenedtoallofus

Without saying a word, I reached into my handbag, found the little packet of tissues and handed them to her. She was so grateful she nearly kissed me. We sat in relative silence for the 4 stops until I left, and again, she profusely thanked me for my kindness. It was a bloody tissue; it was hardly a gold coin.

But today, in a world where sometimes the Evil appears to be triumphing over the Good, a tissue is a little bit of solidarity among those of us fighting our way through a winter commute. It is a little white flag of surrender as we succumb to a winter cold. It is a tiny gesture of goodness that, when multiplied, will make us all better humans.

 

NB - both photos from the official Whitehouse website

 

 

#bridgetbytheclosedforthreemonthsbridge

 

 

There has been a lot of noise about just how shit 2016 was. Haaaa Chimaamaa the circle of life, it is a path unwinding, etc. Elton speaks the truth of the ancient Gods…and he is the only one 2016 left alive to act as their earthly messenger.

 

In 2016, very sadly, a lot of things departed; Jareth, Snape, His Purpleness, A European Great Britain, the voting intelligence of any human and maybe even the cats not living in an urban UK metropolis, the value of the Sterling, Princess Fucking Leia, George Fucking Michael, Sunshine, New Girl, Australia’s Olympic Gold Medals, Australia’s Eurovision win #wewererobbed The list of leavers goes on!

 

Even more depressingly, a lot of things arrived; Boris Fucking Johnson, Donald Fucking Trump, Zika, The Omnipresent Face of Farage (unfortunately not a cheap chemist cologne), Madonna’s 24 year 4 hour late Sydney show, my third chin and (for those of us dedicated to Sir David A) we were even treated to one of the seven biblical plagues, the South Asian Locusts.

 

Hakuna Ma-fucking-tata.

 

My Little Real Life Pony

 

The slightly warmer world is still turning, the slightly dumber Bieber still has phenomenal abs, the more than slightly destroyed Aleppo looks like it might make it through the end of the month, the slightly millionaire-er Adele is still reigning supreme and Her slightly fluey Majesty is still kicking on strong. #noneofusreallylikechurch

 

And me, not-so-little old Bridget by her closed-for-three-months-of-this-year Bridge. Well I didn’t chuck it all in either. Albeit, there were some pretty close shaves!

 

Would you believe that turning 40 was actually the best thing that happened to me this year?

 

Surrounded by my favourite people, surrendering my little Thamesside flat to family from afar we feasted on fish, we frolicked in matching T-shirts and we Frenched. As in, we went to France.

 

We risked an Air Traffic Control Strike to visit my French Exchange Family and a closed-for-the-holidays museum. The Smartarse saw the birthplace of the A380, Squeal got her Elsa on for the first time in snow, The Art-sist-ologer and I shared a bed for 4 weeks without killing each other. But most importantly, like Madonna in Lucky Star, I was accompanied by my omnipresent duo of back up dancers. Over my right shoulder was my Motherbear, over my left, my lover Bear*. I was safe, I was loved, I was happy. #intakesavillage

 

Unbeknownst to me, “she’s behind you!” that same week, a series of events would unfold that would bring to bear one of the most confidence shattering slaps-to-the-face of my adult life. I am well past it now, and far better off as a result. Looking back at a shitstorm is easy when your plane is jet propelled with pride, with love, with integrity, and with a sense of humour seasoned in more countries, more adventures and more glasses of Pinot Grigio than any little mean girl.

 

And we did so much!

 

Not one but TWO mud obstacle races. I can Clean & Press 40kg, Deadlift 110kg and Single Arm 24kg. That might mean nothing to you, to some it will seem pitiful; but for a woman who has licked, sipped and sucked her way from one end of the globe to the other, it is no insignificant feat. #strongasanox

 

I have a phenomenally satisfying new job. I get to parlay fransay all day. I get to hang out with people who enjoy me; I am teaching and learning again. And I get to do all that on a Mac and iOS. #openingdoorsnotwindows #winkwinknudgenudge

Hairy Coo

 

I spent another year finding firsts.

 

Here at home, I saw The White Cliffs of Dover that are unexpectedly surrounded by the White Council Housing of Dover. At Twickenham I watched Australia founder as the Empire re-conquered her. I ran the Cotswalds, with an actual Princess (Zara, not the clothing kind). I sailed a ferry across the Mersey, I pedalled Penny Lane and discovered the Chav in its native Liverpudlian habitat. I saw a big red Hairy Coo, I ate Haggis, I spied wild seals in the Ness and all that while squired by the ultra-rare Wild Bear in a Kilt. #nopants

 

Further afield… I had a first in Nevada, a city that made me never want to be home harder. In Tokyo, I spied Mt Fuji, scoffed native Sushi and drank enough sake to spew free. In Boston, I wandered around a closed Fenway, ate sickeningly rich Chowder by the Bay and heard that weird accent in their native parlay. In Prague, I ate too much pickled smoked pork, drank so much I couldn’t talk and danced with the Kaiser till we could not walk. #rhyminglang

 

But then, to fill my already overflowing cup, The Body had a baby! He came, he saw, he went to sleep; a lengthy bundle of joy filling my Saturday afternoons with smiles. The Critique and I saw more stars tread the boards. I watched Glenda Jackson make her return to the stage after 25 years. I still can’t drive but I have a license. Adele filled my ears and reduced me to tears. And AG became a Gramma. #goodwillhunting

 

And as if that wasn’t enough to fill a year with joy, there was a third Bridget movie!! She got her Mark Darcy again, she made her family laugh, she drank too much at a party, she wore big pants.

 

And you wonder why this diary is titled #bridgetbythebridge?

 

Happy 2017 everyone.

 

 

Grammie, Lucy & Me

 

 

*I have made it clear in a previous post that similarity in name for Mum and G is completely coincidental; she has called herself that name for many years while I named him after Bear Grylls for their shared passion for drinking water from elephant shit

 

#alt-literate

 

Alt-boring

I’ve been quiet these past few weeks; I’ve been busy, I’ve been clocking up intercontinental Avios’s, but mostly I’ve been depressed and defeated. I had nothing to say that someone cleverer or wittier than me hadn’t already said/tweeted/snapped or sung. My Facebook feed was a spiralling toilet roll of complaints and curses and pleas for mercy from the relentless media shitstorm that has spewed a bright orange flatus onto the collective consciousness. #hisnamemeansfart

Faced with a daily barrage of disappointment in my fellow humans, I’ve become a hermit of hygge. I’ve retreated into the handful of activities that bring me joy during the four hours of weakening sunlight we are lucky to enjoy in a London midwinter. Rich Buttery Food, Danish building blocks, knitting, Disney Movies, Disney Animation, Disney Songs and reliable, relatable TV. David Attenborough had me cheering for baby iguanas, the former Shadow Chancellor Gangnam Style’d his way onto the nations hearts* and Graham Norton’s sofa is the only Bright Orange object I want to see on any screen of any device that whizzes through my line of sight. #tangerinestings  

This week Graham’s sofa was an allegory for our utopian future state; my alt-reality.

 

A married gay woman of Danish origin, a heterosexual cross-dressing Englishman, an intergalactic female American of (by her own admission) dubious mental health and a Muslim woman of Bangladeshi heritage. All of them were corralled into telling their story, or selling their latest oeuvre, by a Gay Irish man. #favouritetimeoftheweek

When the Baked Sweet Potato-Elect has absolute power, the only member of the couch to whom he’d grant an oval audience is Princess Leia, and only if she was wearing her bronze bikini. #nocostumeforhimtobejabba

Each of the Famouses told their unique story. Sometimes they agreed; Grayson had amazing shoes. Other times they didn’t; Nadiya’s arranged marriage. But despite Graham’s best efforts to bait them with his own special kind of humiliation, often an embarrassing photo dredged from the bowels of Internet; at no point did anyone stand up and chuck a hissy fit. No one threw a punch, no one verbally insulted anyone else, no one threatened to sue, build a wall, banish a race or snatch a snatch.

 

In my alt-reality, my curls don’t flatten while I sleep, cheese has no calories, crying in th office is the ultimate sign of corporate strength, I’m a universally adored writer, I’m a proud mother to a Collie that doesn’t poo and I own a country pile with an outdoor pool. My alt-reality is not alternative; it is not real. It is a euphemism for dream, imaginary, immature and escapist.

Which is why I have no time for anyone or anything or any non-descript-abstract-notion that describes itself as “alt-right”. #drevilairquotes

 

 

Alternative to right is left. I have two arms, a right one and a left one. The only alternative to my right arm is my left arm. There is no right-er arm. My right leg is not my alt-right arm. Right and left, like hot and cold, like yin and yang, like cheese and all-other-food is a binary notion. You are one or t’other.

Unless of course you are a Fascist. In which case you are at best an alt-human, but more specifically, you are a Fascist. You are not alt-right. Your political beliefs are not an alternative to conservatism; you are simply a misanthropic cunt (sorry mum) who believes that your race/nationality/viewpoint/ideology/book/existence is more important than someone else’s. 

I hear you; my obscene rant is demonstrative of my own intolerance of someone else’s viewpoint. Therefore, I must be Fascist too!

I’m not a Fascist. 

I am intolerant of electoral ignorance and jingoistic politics stemming from a midnight tweet rather than debated written policy. I am intolerant of British people with Greek parents or English people with Indian parents or Americans with German grandfathers eschewing immigration. I am intolerant of men and boys who thoughtlessly insert bits of themselves into vaginas, conveniently forgetting there is a uterus at the other end. Promiscuous, repressed, men and boys who invoke divinity when they legislate what happens inside that same organ. I’m intolerant of a twice-divorced practising catholic protesting gay marriage on the basis of her Roman religion. I’m intolerant of votes, elections and referenda based on bullshit and blustering and buses. I’m intolerant of Piers Fucking Morgan simulating vomiting into a bucket at the sight of Madonna twerking.

All this makes me a latte drinking leftie. Intolerant, no. Exasperated, yes. I pay more than my fair share of taxes with no claim for a discount. I am an immigrant, albeit a blue-eyed one and so was my father. I have very strong arms, but no guns. I’m big on self-harm, but I’m not out in the streets harming my fellow man. Although I sometimes stand too close to the door in the tube, I’m not restricting the free movement of others. I’m terrified of spiders, but I’m not peddling fear. I’m just bitterly angry that the alt-smart’s are winning.

I wouldn’t mind them winning if the fight were fair.

I wouldn’t mind them winning if they were going to be alive long enough to see the catastrophic outcome of their Geriatric Exodus. I wouldn’t mind them winning if there were coherence between their Christian-coloured words and their rapist-actions. I wouldn’t mind them winning if they were anyone on earth but Nigel Farage.

 

In the face of ignominious ignorance, I can’t beat them, but I can use their misleading misnomers against them.

 

I’m no longer a liberal latte drinking leftie, I’m alt-Farage.

I’m not a woman, I’m an alt-man.

I’m not angry, I’m alt-happy.

I’m not clever, I’m alt-idiot.

I’m not making up words to justify my own selfish means, I’m alt-literate.

 

 

*Such a shame that the last election didn’t require mastery of the Argentine Tango; the world might be a very different place

 

#imwithher

Obama says Yes She Can #imwithher

 

Taking a short break from being the busiest, most stressed person in Christendom; I’ve spent a considerable number of hours reading the news. I’ve read the Blue version, I’ve read the Red version and I’ve even read the Green version. I’ve read the Star Spangled version, I’ve read the Southern Cross version and I’ve read the dieu et mon droit^ version. I’ve had time to reflect on what’s going on, I’ve had time to think about what I would do if called to vote in November. I’ve thought about the horrific consequences if my person doesn’t win.

She on a wrecked train and she's with her

 

The world is already a vicious, volatile, violent and vulnerable place, the last thing we need is an unmitigated, unmeasured, unstoppable buffoon in the top job. But, rather than giving any further credence to pig swill, I’m going to focus on the positive. #holidayhasturnedmeintoahippie 

I know that many Americans don’t like her; they don’t like her voice or her hairdo. Dearest American Pies, the good news is that a hairdo cannot run a country, and even when one has the most irritating voice on earth, one can still be a decent leader (I’m pointing the finger at you New Zealand). #muddleearth

 

Meryl "Iron Lady' Streep is with her

 

In case you live in Pennsylvania and you need a little push in the right (or, as the case may be, left) direction, here are my top nine first-rate things about Hillary.

 

Tootsie, Babs, The Rocket Man & Dory are with her.

 

1. She has a vagina. I am well aware that it takes more than unmutated X chromosomes to run all 50 states, but given the litany of Lotharios who have stewarded the Star Spangled Spanner, let’s just see if some Lady Love can give them a push in the direction of limiting access to automatic weapons, arresting the death toll from ‘shoot to kill’ policing and sorting out that mind boggling obsession with green juice. If a few less people die #imwithher
2. She’s a democrat. If you have read more than one paragraph of anything I’ve ever written, you’ll know that I am a latte-drinking-leftie, a literary luvvie and a conscious capitalist. I’m one of those who thinks that the wealthier must endeavour to look after the poorer, who thinks that paying taxes is the responsibility for every wage-earning human outside of North Korea, one who thinks that abortion is not a topic for political debate (NOT EVER, POLAND) and that the gays can marry who ever the fuck they choose. So it stands to reason that #imwithher
3. She’s a feminist. Which in and of itself is not interesting, but considering her opponent is a misogynist, xenophobic misanthrope; having a POTUS who is ‘pro’ anything seems like a wiser choice than someone who is so very ‘anti’ everything. Anti everything except their own self-aggrandisement and self -tan. If she’s with girls then #imwithher
4. She was the woman scorned. We’ve had a phalange of philandering presidents; Jefferson (D), Harding (R), FDR (R), Eisenhower (R), JFK (D), LBJ (D)* and even her own husband (D). The great irony of this adulterous archive being that the USA purports to be the Christian Moral Compass we must all be striving to chase. Surely it is now time for us to try out a radically different model. How about someone who has not been the cheatER on the throne. Let’s give the top job to the cheatEE. She knows what it takes to lipstick-smile a day through the heinous hours so #imwithher
5. She is articulate. You may not like the voice, you may not like the Powersuit or the hefty hand gestures, but HRC can argue, squabble and skirmish her way out of just about anything. Private email abuse, SNL skits and direct questions about her husband’s dodgy dalliances. She doesn’t resort to personal attacks and incessant interruption and she doesn’t make shit up so #imwithher
6. She supports creation rather than eradication. Creating jobs, creating housing, creating opportunity, creating equality. Funny how all that shit seems to ring truer and carry more weight than demolishing, decimating, refusing and/or building-a-walling. I love Lego, I love to build so #imwithher
7. She has stamina. I am 18 years younger than HRC. A big day for me starts with an early morning workout, followed by a working day slaving over emails and corporate political intrigue, a night on the fermented grape juice and a quiz show. I am not keeping a dawn-until-well-after-dusk schedule of interviews, briefings, meet and greets, being a Grandmum, managing a team of 35 campaign staffers and god knows what else she does in 24 hours. She really is a superhero so #imwithher
8. She has experience. Call me crazy, but I am in the business of hiring people to do a job. Call me even crazier, but when I am interviewing for what is required, I usually look for relevant skills and experience. I reckon if you want to be POTUS, having experience as SecState or Senator is that relevant experience I would be interviewing for. I wouldn’t be looking for a golf club developer, a reality TV star or a serial model marrier. She has the experience to do the job so #imwithher
9. She wore a red suit. #dropsthemic

 

She Kissed a Girl, and she's with her

 

 

As I said at the start, you don’t have to love her, love her voice or her hairdo; you just have to understand the consequences of not voting for her.

 

Lena is the voice of a generation and she's with her

 

^That’s not the French one…

*US President’s prefer to go by three letter acronyms than actual names; it is easier to spell for their Southern Constituents. Leaning Left or Right is no harbinger for fidelity

The Queen is with her

 

#shitstorm

 

According to the world’s most erudite source of reference, the Urban Dictionary, a shitstorm is “a course of action that would appear to lead to a good outcome, but when undertaken, leads to a situation that is utterly out of control beyond human comprehension.”

…Beyond human comprehension…as in, if actual faecal matter started raining from the celestial heavens above, it would likely make more sense than what is happening in real life.

  

For the past two weeks I have spent my downtime collecting and clarifying my thoughts about #Brexit, the EU referendum result, the impending sense of gloom and doom, the idiots, the believers, the readers and of course Rupert the Revolting. I’ve been reflecting on what it means to me, a British Citizen living Great Britain but still very much a foreigner, an immigrant, an imposter. I’ve wondered why globalisation and the freedom of movement and democratisation of knowledge has led to us being obsessed with labels and the search for our own little tribe to belong to at the exclusion of all others. Why do we care so much what our neighbour does when so many of us are barely looking after ourselves and our own?

 

  

My father and his family left Great Britain in the 60’s in search of a better life. The Great Britain that raised him was plunged in poverty, suffocating under smoggy air and very, very small. He and his siblings went in search of something greater…and found themselves in Australia. (Ok so maybe they weren’t that well researched). But still, they left a Great Britain that predated the European Union by a whole 7 years and the stories he told us of his idyllic isle sounded dark and Dickensian.

We came back to Britain in 1986 to learn about the land he loved and left. He hadn’t set foot on the Motherland in almost twenty years and delighted to rediscover ye olde British traditions and share them with his Aussie wife and eldest child. We explored culinary delights from Gretna to Land’s End and all the bits in between. We gobbled on the greasiest Fish & Chips in Christendom (he didn’t finish it), we were blessed with food poisoning from the tinned carrots we were fed in the tradition of all the best English pubs of the day and we revelled in the requisite trip to M&S for a real Pork Pie. I’ll admit, that bit was good, but the tiny pie cost him a week’s wages when converted to GBP. Not wanting to go bankrupt for decent bacon, we spent the majority of the holiday eating in the ever reliable and economical Little Chefs and Wimpy Bars. #greatbritishbuggeroff

The roads were better; he never shut up about that. But Australia is 32 times larger than the UK so laying bitumen is a marginally more arduous task. Equally the intense heat causes road surfaces to buckle and crack. Then, in Selfridges, he purchased the first pair of trousers he’d owned in 20 years that didn’t need to be taken up four inches to fit him. He said it was because England had more choice; we said it because he was a shortarse and Australia catered for the national average not Oompa Loompas.

In short (all puns intended), the Great Britain of the fifties and sixties, post-rations and pre-EU-avocadoes was pretty dire and the POMs didn’t even win the cricket back then. #yesitwasthatbad

So with all due respect, and based only upon my very specific personal example, I’d like to know what exactly Farage, Johnson and their ilk are predicting for our Britannic future. We’ve taken the country back, but back to what exactly, 1949?

 

#Brexit is happening; there is nothing we can do now. The only positive, if it can even be considered a positive, is that they are all quitting, running from the inferno faster than the cockroaches. Our Television screens are a little less polluted by rhetoric, lies and promises written on the sides of buses. I know I usually look to the sides of buses for political insight. But I suspect that when your most prevalent source of information is Rupert the Revolting’s Sun, the side of a Double Decker Bus is positively Stephen Fucking Hawking.

Good thing then that the rest of the world are trundling on so well to balance out the crazies.

…Or Not.

 

 

It’s taken a week to call the election result in the Great Southern Land. A week to figure out that the dude who was in, is still in, only now with added Far Right Foolery in the Upper House to add an extra dose of Bigot to the governing of the country. At least they can vote her out in 4 years. Which will be at least how long it takes for gay people to be allowed to marry in Australia. 

Australians too are obsessed with the pre-globalisation-and–Internet fifties. The Baby Boomers of Brisbane dream of the times when kids played in the front garden, breathing in the asbestos and the leaded-fuel vapours of their Dad’s FJ Holden. Mum went to work to be sexually harassed by her male supervisor while the Italians down the street were victimised for their suspiciously oily skin and the offensive smell of garlic that permeated Sydney’s western suburbs for a decade. Back when the DDT added a little extra spice to the potatoes, when your grandmother was popping pills to see off the tremors and you sent your sons to school to be slapped with a 3-foot bamboo rod while your daughters were date-raped in the back of a ute. Ah yes, those were the days…

Well then God Bless America. The Americans are keeping it real for us all. #facepalmemoji

 

I won’t go off on one (again) about guns. I won’t go off on one (again) about Trump. I won’t go off on one (again) about America in general. Only to say that they have done such an excellent job of setting the global tone since 1950; we’ve all been excellent students and can only hope that the aliens in Roswell are in fact real and will come to save us from ourselves.

 

 

 

 

#dickheads

 

“Hey there ‘American colleague’, how are you on this fine Friday evening?”

“I am genuinely terrified that Donald J Trump is going to be our next President”. So began a lively conversation with a dear friend and co-worker who lives in the US (and not in the homicidal southern bit).

 

After the dance of fatuous ninnies that was the GOP candidate debates, it seems that he of the steel wool scalp is destined for greatness as the Republican Party’s Presidential candidate...and maybe, if the world doesn’t wake the fuck up, in a few months, the very top job. I’ve been allaying the fears of anyone around me with a guffawing, ‘no he won’t, they aren’t that stupid’. After this past month, it seems our star-spangled Brethren might just be that fucking stupid after all.

That they be stupid is ultimately their affair, no concern of yours or mine. That they vote in a Texan Dolt to lead their great nation into years of war is their affair, it will have no impact on my own little world. That they choose a blustering Brillo Pad to forge them blindly into the next decade is their affair. Except that history proves that it isn’t just their affair.

When they remove the colossal fried cheese’n’donutburger from betwixt their buttery lips they look beyond their Rio-Grande-49^th-Paralell box and dick around with the rest of us. Ergo, if the Merino Moron does become the next POTUS, we’ll be living in his slimy shadow and it will very much become our affair. So, in the interests of public safety, a little education on the Witless Woolly Womaniser Who Wants to go to Washington.

 

The bio statement on his website is hysterical. Well it would be if it weren’t presented without the slightest speck of irony.

Donald J. Trump is the very definition of the American success story, continually setting the standards of excellence while expanding his interests in real estate, sports and entertainment.

I don’t know about you, but when I’m selecting someone to represent my political interests, I’m rarely concerned with what that individual might know about football, about renovating or about singing. If I were, I’d have voted for Victoria Beckham and we’d all be legally consigned to pout. Being the idealistic fool I am, I ask questions like what did that person learn at school? What is their track record on human rights? What sort of an image is reflected in their public persona? Have they ever suggested they might bang their own daughter^? Have they ever belittled the disabled? Has this individual who I may elect to represent me ever erected a giant gold building in homage to his genitalia?

Initially I was surprised that anyone might take Trump seriously; surely the vacuous vitriol could not be confused with federal policy? This was a guy whose greatest claim to fame was marrying exceptionally young women; surely 52% of the American population would actively vote against him? Trump was a reality TV figure, voting him as the Republican Presidential candidate is just as stupid and unrealistic as Kanye for President #surelytheycantbeserious #eyerollingemoji Surely the great people of earth’s greatest nation could not vote for a man who believes an elected politician needs only a catchphrase and a theme tune to represent the best interests of a class of people he has never, and will never, physically interact with. 

Thanks be to the Almighty Lord who rules over the Holy Land of the United States that we have some hope of being dickhead free here in the UK. #ornot

 

Boris Johnson, now that he has finished excavating every flat surface in London and transforming it into a cycle lane, now that his glory days of London Olympics are but a distant memory, now that his term as Mayor of London has come to its enforced conclusion, well now Boris needs something new to occupy his days. Armed with his Etonian Elitism, it stands to reason that he jump on the Brexit Bandwagon and stir up the xenophobes, the racists, the frightened and the fascists and encourage Her Majesty’s subjects that Europe are the baddies threatening our Afternoon Tea, our football and our financial fortitude. Because never before have British Banks filled with British Bankers, (many of them Boris’ mates from Eton) dragged British people down to the pits of British bankruptcy. That never happened, that must have been Europe. 

Without sounding like a Naïve Disney Princess Dreamer §, why can’t politicians focus on ways of bringing people together rather than ways of rending people asunder?

If the actual baddies are so fixated on dividing people into those who will and those who will not, the most effective revenge for their particular brand of politicking must be inclusion. We, and our elected leaders, must ridicule their stupid singularity rather than copy it, paint it white (not literally you Muppet) and catapult it back at them.

Bear, in one of his rare sage moments, told me that wanting to be a politician should be the first trait that excludes you from ever being one. I wonder whether wanting to be a public representative is ever altruistic, do people want to help their fellow man? Do they want the money? Do they want the hashtag? Is it purely ego?

How will this year end? Will President Trump and Prime Minister Cameron bond over their newfound glory as diabolical dickheads? Or will common sense prevail? Will the voters realise that the only race worth thinking about is the one where we strive to grow our intelligence rather than our breast size. We must win the race to search for a cure for cancer rather than a race to attract a million Twitter followers. Let’s focus on how hot the earth’s atmosphere and not how hot Ryan Gosling is.

Or are we all just destined to be dickheads?

 

^Just in case you don’t believe me

§I know that is exactly what I sound like

 

 

#imagine

 

A light in the City of Light!

 

“…nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too…”

 

I’ve prevaricated, hesitated and procrastinated. I wasn’t sure whether to write anything. I don’t want to enrage my friends, alienate my colleagues or estrange myself from a few of my closest relatives. But I’m saddened, I’m maddened and the only way I know to process my thoughts is to write it down, swear it out and just maybe share something constructive around an act so destructive.

 

I went to a fee-paying Anglican high school. For 7 years, I was subjected to songs about a God I’d never seen, stories about a prophet I couldn’t be certain ever existed and writing papers about a science that could not be proven.  We spent hours in chemistry validating the existence of science-y stuff with equations and experiments that required exacting measurement, painstaking processes and a dangerous amount of fire (especially considering the largely teenage boy audience and a school located in the bush). Most of our week was about truth, proof and certainty. Then for one hour, an hour that counted towards our grades, we’d sit in a room and share fairytales. #seasdontpart #waterdoesntbecomewine

My Anglican education was broken at 16 with a year in a state-funded high school in France. Science and history and language were still very much the order of the day, but one of the first questions my friends would ask was ‘are you right or left’. Kids were into politics, real life, Mitterand and Mururoa, not fairytales about Mary or Magdelene. In our history class we wrote papers about what we thought and then spent hours debating actual philosophy. ‘What do you think about’ was a question I couldn’t remember being asked during my years of incandescent indoctrination.

My year in France taught me to think, taught me to question, taught me to be me. Napoleon, that short second son of Corsica, had such distrust of religious institutions he separated the church from the state a century before I ever stepped out of the plane. You can’t be legally married in a church in France; the state is the highest authority in the land, not the temple. Which is why it is so frustrating that this insanity is playing out in Paris, a city of the freest peoples, a city that has been the playground of warmongers for centuries, but a city that allows its citizens to pray to whatever god they choose, to read whatever fairytales they wish, a city of religious freedom. (Except for Scientology because the French rightly classify that as a corporation, not a religion)

 

Perfection.

 

I don’t regret that I went to the school I went to, I’m very lucky that I had the good fortune to receive any education at all. If I were born somewhere else in the world, I’d perhaps have been forbidden a day in a school because a dusty book written by someone who has been dead for millennia said girls should stay dumb as a post and open their legs and cook and clean and worship a man. Malala took a few bullets in her brain to prove that girls can do whatever they want, and her parents, her friends and her family all read that same book. But they, like me, benefit from a bit of perspective a bit of context, a bit of common sense. #itwaswritten2000yearsago

I very much live with a keen sense of spirituality, a sense of energy and aura and balance and being. What I don’t have is the ability to read a book written in a language I don’t speak, that NO ONE speaks anymore, and believe word for word that I must behave the way the book says I should. I believe that if I am a good human, other people around me will be good humans too…regardless of their colour or creed. #dountoothers

I don’t get why you want me to pray for Paris; isn’t that what got us all in this trouble in the first place? One guy, with an army and a flag, said that his book was more valid than the other guy’s. That guy didn’t have a flag or an army a few years ago, but he sure does now, and he is so colossally blinkered that he’ll point his gun wherever he wants, wave his flag, and then die for his fairytale. He’s learned his opponent’s rules, he’s standing behind his book and country, with his own songs, his own code and his own twitter feed to mesmerise his comrades and he has no fear. He believes in fairytales too.

Well I propose that from this day, my fairytale be the one we all believe.

 

Once upon a time there was a land of people of all the types, kinds and colours; this land was call Sanity-Land. The people of Sanity-Land loved to read, they read all the time, but they were clever and kind and knew when a story was just a story and not the absolute truth, certainly not worth massacring your neighbours. The people of Sanity-Land didn’t mind if one person read stories about trees, and another person read stories about trucks and another person read stories about butterflies. Everyone read their stories in peace and then they hugged their children goodnight and slept soundly because they were good.

The people knew that the rules in the stories were not rules for everyday living in 2015. Obviously being a Jedi is a fairytale, obviously a land filled with mermaids under the sea is a fairytale, obviously travelling through time is a fairytale and Mr Darcy is too perfectly hot to have ever been a real person, so he must be a fairytale too. 

The Sanity-Landers cared about food, making enough food for everyone to eat. They cared about shelter, and building enough roofs for all the people of Sanity-Land. The people made music and movies and danced and apologised when they pushed in front of you at Waitrose. They didn’t think that pushing in front of you was cause for a violent knife injury; they didn’t film it and pray it went viral on YouTube. The people just recognised that we are all different and unique and if we just imagined that the borders and the books were just that, imaginary, the world would live as one. 

#madashell

 

#melfie

 

Every family has character traits that bind and tie its unique identity. Perhaps you’re gingers, generation after generation of flame haired beauties nicknamed Bluey? If you were especially lucky in the genetic lottery, you’re the spitting image of Angelina or Brad, so blessed by biology that your cheek bones could shave parmesan and your tears could be bottled for the unique purpose of repairing wounded unicorns. Musical virtuoso, piano prodigy or singing sensation; wouldn’t it be wonderful to wake up every day knowing you had the power to captivate millions without barely even trying? Intellectual giant, gymnastic elasticity, Rapunzelian locks, the grace of a gazelle, the wit of Wilde, anything really, would be better than our unique family distinction.

We’re all mad as cut snakes, nutters, creepy and kooky, mysterious and loony, shaky, anxious, morose and maniacal. Being as we are, fully functioning members of productive society, it will come as a surprise to many that we’re barely holding on, teetering at any time between then realm of the living and a week long stint under the doona dampened by the tears of hours spent begging the banes to exit the skin by way of our lachrymal vents.

Not wanting to speak ill of the living, my immediate family might be a bit annoyed at my naming and shaming, I’ll reserve my commentary to the dead, and myself, whose sanity I’ve never sanctioned. So maybe I should rephrase, only my father and myself are nuts, every other member of our genetic Diaspora is completely normal, tip top, ship shape and happy as Larry. 

Sad isn’t it, we’ve reached a point in our collective evolution where it is more acceptable to be filmed having sex with a stranger than it is to admit suffering from mental illness. Divorce, sex before marriage, homosexuality, poverty, single parent families, domestic abuse, and paying actual money for music recorded by One Direction. All the skeletons in our Victorian closest are socially acceptable. We sit on the sofa of social media’s global talk show and share just about anything; who we’ve done, who we would like to do and who we can’t, but standing up among friends, let alone strangers, and calling out the diagnosis of the 21^st century’s single biggest killer is shameful, hidden, swept under rugs and unnamed.

Crazy cats take to the streets, uncared for, untreated and unsupervised, they purchase fatal arms, or use whatever is handy, they kill, they maim, they execute and they assassinate, we spend hours analysing the outcome but never address the root cause. In many instances, those who suffer are undiagnosed and left wandering the streets. Entire societies are at risk of bedlam because we’re too scared to talk about it.

Well here goes.

 

I suffer from acute anxiety. The stress and pressure of the life I lead manifests itself in all manner of creative ways. My personal favourite is an inability to sleep, as I shuffle from side to side in the darkness desperate to close my eyes and my consciousness to the constant mental examination of what is, what might be and everything in between. I lay no claims to being an Air Traffic Controller, a Neurosurgeon, a Spy or a Sergeant; I am but woman, who has a job and lives in a very big city. Some days, that is just too much and my brain struggles to decipher it, breaking down and unable to cope with the more basic processes…like sleep.

Insomnia aside, the compulsive behaviour is pretty special. Checking every door, checking every power point, checking I have my passport, checking anything at all in a futile effort to control the uncontrollable. Anxiety is the fear of what might happen, OCD is the collection of behaviours one exhibits to mitigate that fear.

My father, that brilliant and damaged man whose face I see every day in the mirror, walks now in the sky with Lucy and her Diamonds. When he wasn’t sawing, sanding or singing, he was seesawing between the heights of mania and the depths of depression. His crazed eyes, his twitching fingers and his clenched teeth were the daily signals of a man who grew at a time when marrying a cousin was less shameful than admitting mental infirmity. He would live 56 of his 58 years before ever seeking professional help, before we had a word to describe what we tolerated for so long. By then he was living in a morphine dream and the damage had been done.

I’m intimately acquainted with people who talk about their digestive ailments, IBS, Crohn’s Disease and the intolerance of all manner of nature’s delights. As a society we’ve become accustomed to discussing our bowels, their movements and all associated excrement; we now discuss our shit but we can’t discuss the real shit.

Women sit together in cafes and stage whisper their secrets divulging a litany of complaints but never the shame of insanity. Uteri. Miscarriages. Menstruation. STIs. UTIs. Open season for all of our openings, but hush on the subject of sadness or risk your bestie shifting in her seat at the unwelcome intimacy of knowing that you are just barely keeping it together. There are so few obstacles to inclusion, why is mental illness the must-have accessory of the social pariah?

I don’t know.

I genuinely don’t understand how we’ve come to this place where absolutely everything is ordinary except the one affliction that blights 25% of the UK population. We film, we share, we like, we update, we photograph and we tag, so here is my #melfie. A photo of a mentally ill person, a Mad Hatter.  This is what someone with mental illness looks like…completely fucking average, not hiding, not drowning, just waving.

I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.

#imjustagirl

 

Emily Wilding Davison who died under the King's horse at Epsom Derby

 

My personal trainer, the ever-smiling Bear, that brave man who has transformed me into a slightly wobblier less pornographic version of Ronda Rousey, (my latest girlcrush and I want to be her), has one very annoying habit; he is a bit of a sexist. He is kind, he is wholly supportive of my efforts, he is very careful when we fight because he knows I’m easily frightened (a hangover from a lively childhood spent dodging fists and flying objects) but from time to time he’ll tell me I can’t be trusted because I’m female, and females lie.^

We’ve talked about it, I know why he thinks this (he too has a less than Hallmark personal history), he knows I disagree, and if I’m wearing my gloves, I’ll happily jab-cross him in the belly to make my point. #idontliebutiwillhit Women don’t, as a habit, want to lie; but we are usually required to hide how we really feel, to pretend, to make-believe and to act. We do this not from a place of malicious anti-bloke deception, we do this because we fucking well have to.

Surviving in a world owned by, legislated by, ruled by and swarming with men is really fucking hard. Despite the moderate advances of women’s rights, a shitload of shit still has not changed. #thatwassurprisinglysweary

 

JLAW - a god damn fucking revelation

 

Have you heard of Jennifer Lawrence? If you haven’t, you’ve spent ten years residing under a vacuum-sealed rock. You may know her as Katniss Everdeen, the hero of one of the most commercially successful film franchises since Star Wars. You might also know her as Mystique, the slinky blue nemesis of the X-Men films; those nice little earners that made 20^th Century Fox (and the arsehole who owns it) Four Hundred Million Dollars. Perhaps you heard of her because of all those sparkly golden statues she keeps getting nominated for, and winning. Or maybe, because she’s just a girl, you heard of her because she was dating Chris Martin, or because she has a modelling contract with Dior, or because she tripped in her heels, or because her naked selfies were stolen from her personal telephone and shared all over the cum-splashed pervy corners of the internet? 

Well now you can know about her because she wrote this*. Not only is she among the best actresses of her generation. Not only is she the embodiment of the BFF I want to have. Not only is she brutally honest, funny and clever. She can also write like I wish I could… and get a point across… and maybe just start a fucking revolution. #theswearingiscomingfromsomewhereverydark

  

JLaw makes a point that has kept me awake since I read it, “all I hear and see all day are men speaking their opinions, and I give mine in the same exact manner, and you would have thought I had said something offensive.” Why are we so worried about being precious, or prim, or narky, or bitchy, or sassy, or anything at-fucking-all, when the dudes are quite happy to go first class postal without any concern for the consequences.

I’ve come to the conclusion that whether we lie, whether we tell the truth, whether we’re dressed in heels, boots or sneakers, ultimately it is the vagination of anything I might say that offends. Most men are pretty fabulous, most men are kind and open and generous and loving and fair most of the time. But on the day when decisions are made, on the day when resources are rationed, on the day when arguments are fought and lost; the men are thinking only about winning their fight, they are not thinking about whether their lipstick is smudged, or whether they come over catty, or whether they will still be respected if they disagree with the rest of the room.  

Which is why Suffragette made me so sad.

Carey Mulligan - entirely amazing in almost everything

 

Go and see this movie. Make everyone you know go and see this movie. Once you’ve all seen it, sit together, have a drink and talk about what it all means. 

Almost a hundred years ago, women took to terrorism to get the attention of the men who wouldn’t let them vote. They became rebels, they blew shit up, they screamed and shouted, they made a whole lot of noise and even sacrificed their own lives to force those in power to amend their patriarchal rule.

I’ve voted as long as I’ve been legally able to. I’ve had my own bank account. I’ve walked alone. I’ve signed my own contracts. I’ve purchased (and drunk) my own litre of vodka. I’ve bought all the shit I’ve wanted to buy, by myself. But I worry every single day about whether I’m being harpish, bitchy, negative or emotional. I worry about crying in public, I worry what the people around me think of me, I worry if Bear thinks I’m lying. Every time I ask someone I work with to do something, I worry about being perceived as a moaning preachy cow. But the boys don’t. #andtheygettopeestandingup

  

Did you know that ‘bullish’ is a positive word? Did you know that being bullish is actually a good thing? Did you know that being called a cow (the girl version of a bull) is more insulting than being called a cunt? Did you know that a cunt is a vagina and one man calling another man cunt is more insulting than cock? Did you know that hysteria (being nuts, crazy, unreliable, etc) comes from the Greek word for uterus? Did you know that the language we have to describe what is happening, how we feel and what we want to do was written by and designed for a whole bunch of people with penises and I wish I had a word for how that makes me angry that in no way had it’s etymological roots in my womanliness?

Well now you do.

 

 

^We’ve had a separate conversation about why I should be called a woman rather than a female; one is scientific and one is complimentary 

*I subscribe to LENNY so I can read the full version. You should too.

 

 

 

 

#ohsaycanyounotsee

 

Every time I’ve ever written about America I get in big trouble. 

I unleash a litany of criticism about Australia, the former PM was a colossal knobcheese and Australians spend too much time watching grown men punch each other for fun. I spew vitriol upon the sort-of-not-really-United Kingdom, a tiny tiny spec of an island where everyone is a just a tiny, little bit racist but far too polite and passive-aggressive to say it out loud. I cast grievous aspersions against my beloved France, home to a people so obsessed with an eternal struggle against ‘the man’ that no French human has actually worked more than four consecutive hours since 1945. I poke fun, I make sweeping, often unfounded statements, I draw nonsensical conclusions and no one ever remarks on anything other than my spelling. But when I write something less than fawning about the Stars or their Stripes, friends of mine get a little bit nasty, they come over all judgy; they take it very fucking personally. #goodthingthentheydontcarryaglock

Those friends might do better than to read any further.

 

I’ve recently returned from a wonderful week in NYC; I worked hard, I shopped harder, and I’ve contracted some kind of allergic reaction to the air. In total, this year I’ve spent over 5 weeks in the US of A, I’ve been there every years for the last ten and I’ve worked for Americans since I was 19. I’m not a card-carrying, gun-toting resident, but I have enough Americana in my life to comment with a degree of expertise on what has to be the most batshit-crazy, political-vacuum, money-centric sinkhole of a country that ever there was. #includingwhereverspiderscomefrom

Last week, while I was storming through my all of my bank account and some of Fifth Avenue in my activewear, another whackjob went postal on a schoolroom; this time in the relatively normal, (albeit God-fearing) organic coffee, peace-loving state of Oregon.  This is the second time I’ve been in America at the time of a shooting rampage; the last time it was Gabrielle Giffords, the politician who survived a point blank shooting in Arizona. Watching American news coverage of mass shootings, even in the less right swinging states of California and New York, proffers some clue as to why this crazy-arse-nuttness keeps happening.

The producers, the anchormen, the writers, the editors, the commentators, the shock-jocks, the single cell amoeba that purport to cover news on Fox; all of them, to a person, love this shit. They paste their sad faces over the top of their orange makeup, they invent their hashtags, almost always starting with the word pray, and they analyse, scrutinise and dissect the latest tragedy until you can’t even tell if it is news media, or the latest episode of CSI. They lap it up, they hunt down the ex-Girlfriend, they turn the awfulness of senseless death into a Lifetime movie with a synthesised soundtrack and the viewers remain transfixed until they subside into their corn syrup coma.

Well I have an idea.

 

Perhaps we should just stop broadcasting the aerial shots of people running like ants into the carpark? Perhaps we should not interview the middle-aged postal worker who was three bloody blocks away in a gargantuan, noise-polluting Chevy, what he thinks the killer’s motive was? Perhaps we should not camp in front of the hapless shooter’s hapless-er parents’ house in the hope they’ll wander past the front window in their knickers and offer some kind of explanation as to what it was they fed their child that transformed him from cherub to Beelzebub? Perhaps, instead of quickly scheduling a candlelit vigil and sharing close-ups of the tear-stained faces of yet more sonless mothers and yet more daughterless fathers, we, the people, should collectively enforce a 100% media ban on all gun related violence… forever? 

Many of us acknowledge the reason behind America’s prolific gun deaths is the almost candy-like accessibility of weapons (of mass destruction). I would argue that the constitutional right to bear arms is one thing; the right to 15 minutes of celluloid fame in a society ruled by doe-eyed women whose names start with K is something very different. #fameistherealamericandream

 

 

Congress, The Senate, the lawmakers and lawyers, even POTUS himself cannot win a war against the NRA. They have far too much money, too many Trumps, too many old white men with money, they are bribing anyone who’ll accept their greasy handshakes and state by state, they will overrule any government that attempts to legislate for greater control over weapons.

BUT…

We can win a war against sad, lonely, megalomaniacs whose entire life ambition is to top Twitter’s trending topics list. We can filibuster the egos of immature, uneducated, misinformed morons whose warped morals are learned in video games. We can ensure, that even if they do see through their homicidal tendencies, their identity will never, ever be known, they will never achieve notoriety, renown or social media acclaim for their crimes. Their victims will be mourned by their friends and their families in private, away from media circuses and candlelit vigils, as it should be. Wannabe mass murderers could buy a trillion NRA approved guns, they could slaughter half of their neighbourhood, but they will never ever become tabloid fodder or 140 character headlines.

While we’re at it, we could stop printing pictures of IS victims trembling in their orange overalls, cowering under the curve of a merciless machete. We could stop glorifying poor life choices à la Honey Boo Boo, Duggar, Loser or Bachelor? We could put an end to the pandemic blight of Kardashian-Jenner-Wests by never ever seeing their pinched and pulled faces ever, ever again?

If all of the media, social, public and whatever kind of parasite you classify Fox as, would take some kind of responsibility for the messages they circulate, the hatred they engender, the misinformation they broadcast, we might just give the NRA an excuse to evaporate all by itself. There would be no gun violence left to talk about.

 

So how about it America? How about you tweet a little more about the athletic splendour of the Williams sisters? How about you celebrate the scientific achievements of your Ivy League hospitals? Gloria Steinem, Toni Morrison, Michelle Obama, The Women’s football team, Bill Gates, Michael Moore and Robert de Niro. There are so many useful and interesting Americans we could hear from?

 

Oh say, can I see that?