The most exciting thing going on just now is that my sister Rosemary is twelve weeks pregnant. Today it is exactly twelve weeks which means I am allowed to tell you about it.
This is what a person-to-be looks like at twelve weeks. Despite the cutesy prose, it is quite an informative site. I was rather concerned to read that Tinker's vocal chords are developing already, but then when I asked Rosie whether they had a preference for a boy or girl she said, "Well now most Cathedrals have girl choirs as well as boy choirs so it doesn't really matter."
"I'm not sure about having such expectations," I said, "I mean, this child might not have a musical flare - it might even be born deaf or something."
To which R responded immediately, "Oh then it would have to learn the xylophone!"
Rosie having babies is something R and I have talked about all our lives and despite my own decisions, I know this is so right for her and indeed Adrian, who will make a really excellent father.
Tinker (as this unborn child shall henceforth be known) will not escape a musical education, but it is that passion that'll be developed first and foremost - most children who have music lessons forced upon them have decidedly unmusical, predominantly image-conscious parents. They will also have tutelage in the visual arts, in science and sport. Adrian speaks French, German, Portugese, Italian and has a smattering of Russian. Between the two of them, Rosie and Adrian have a pretty firm general grounding in any general subject that might be of interest, so I'm sure it will receive encouragement and support in anything it wants to do, which is the greatest thing anyone can offer a child after love, which R & A have in plentiful supply.
I suppose if Tinker needs to know anything about books - proper books - he or she will have to talk to his or her auntie. And if he or she needs to know about... um... how to care for fresh water fish and snails, he or she will have to talk to his or her uncle.
The family have known about the person-to-be since Boxing Day when Rosie and Adrian presented my folks with a Christmas card addressed to Granny & Grandad. My Mum, who had somehow failed to consider this so much as a vague possibility, actually screamed before demanding, “But what are you going to do?!”
Of course, R & A have had to come to terms with the possibility that, because of Adrian’s genetic heritage, any child they have may be born with ginger hair. Despite advances in pre-natal screening for many conditions, there is no way of knowing for sure until the child is actually born. However, ginger hair needn’t be the handicap it once was. Many ginger people lead very full lives nowadays, have jobs and relationships. Adrian himself has triumphed over the stigma of being a carrot-top, copperknob or ginger nuts - something that would have turned a lesser man to drink*.
Let’s just remind ourselves of what my brother-in-law looked like as a baby. Aaah! Talking of Adrian, he has a new blog, which includes everything from a story to warm the cockles of your heart to some truly breath-taking pictures of his enormous organ.
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this blog entry, you may want to look at Red and Proud, Ginger Nation or Realm of Redheads for support and information.
* I was actually really dismayed about the treatment of Charles Kennedy following his admission of alcoholism. It is an illness like any other and his denials would have been perfectly sincere because the nature of the beast is that the sufferer is very often the last to know. However, I am being generally very silly this morning as you have probably gathered.
One way of getting good value out of on-line DVD rental is to hire television series, particular comedy; you usually get at least three hours for your disk and you can dip in and out of it as opposed to having to have the time and concentration for a ninety minute film.
We just worked our way through all the episodes of The Fast Show, which was nice. That show was such genius; some of the individual sketches fell short of the mark, but the whole thing moved on at such speed at it didn’t matter. And at the same time it wasn’t unintelligent; mocking an entire musical genre one minute (Jazz Club), then a parody on Krapp’s Last Tape, followed by another round of childish sexual innuendo. Paul Whitehouse is such a superb actor that some of the sketches are a pleasure to watch just for him, regardless of whether he gets a laugh out of you. Brilliant!
My favourite characters were Ted and Ralph. Nobody gets that.
We recently watched all three series of The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin. I had never seen any of this before and it was quite an education. I thought it was a family tradition which had us identifying the colour of the phone we are speaking from, declaring “I won’t” when someone wishes us a nice day at work and beginning sentences with “I didn’t get where I am today by…”
My nickname at school was Neil as in Neil from The Young Ones (it was because I had long hair, right?) which we have also revisited. That was... variable. Rather like Blackadder there was an almost embarassing contrast between the things I laughed at when I first saw these things on telly as a child and what I laugh at now. With Blackadder there are even more things to laugh at, with The Young Ones perhaps everso slightly less. Everso...
We have also watched a number of comedy television series which we either missed when they were on telly or that have been on since we abandoned the television signal. I can only remember Little Britain and Black Books just now, both of which had their merits.
Things are kind of good and bad at the moment. Today I have to vent the bad. Sorry.
My concentration is often clouded with rage. Rage or… something. Rage against my situation and myself for taking it all so badly. I’m getting angry about things which I haven’t thought about in ages; mostly things I can’t do, things I have missed out on, things I am going to miss out on. I am frustrated for myself for becoming preoccupied, for not being able to get on with those things I do have the capacity for. I’m being brought down by the nightmares, from which I have started waking up with hiccups – proper hiccups which jolt the entire bed. Then there's this bastard guilt thing. And I haven’t been out of the flat this year.
Adrenaline is a horrible, horrible chemical when you have nothing to do with it. The temptation to relieve oneself of this terrific burden, by whatever means, can become intense beyond expression. The consequences of the various methods which spring to mind – primarily violence against oneself, inanimate objects and even other people – are so great that one has to find means of controlling oneself.
What I’d really like to do is to go out onto the moors or somewhere where there’s nobody else about and then run. Run as fast and hard as I can. I have no idea how far I would get before I fell over or collapsed – a few yards, maybe tens of yards, maybe much further. But anyway, it wouldn’t matter because I would then be picked up from wherever I had fallen and delivered back home to bed. I can’t imagine the damage would be so very great. I don’t think the pain can get that much worse and it’s not as if I have bones out of place or anything that I could permanently fuck up.
However, there is no way I could persuade anyone to do this for me. And that’s another thing; I can’t go anywhere by myself. I spend so much time by myself, but I can’t do anything. If I was just a bit better, I could take my electric wheelchair out and go for a walk on my tod, but I’m not quite there. It’s not that I want to be alone, but I want to be autonomous. Oh shut up!
Such rages have to be addressed. I mean really; this stuff cannot be put away. More than once I have tried to drink a cup of tea in this state and managed to pull the handle clean off the mug with the tension in my fist. At the same time, there is no reasoning with it.
Okay, I will be responsible at least… The thing about these episodes is to stop oneself doing anything which one is going to regret or be ashamed of. It doesn’t matter if you have to do something silly but if you damage yourself, other things or your relationships with other people then you will have more to feel bad about next time.
Exercise would be the best release. I would advise anybody else to get out of the house and go for a brisk walk, whatever the time of the day or night – if it is raining and cold, then all the better – thunder and lightning would be an absolute boon! Alas, this option is not available to me.
Eating something can help – at the moment, a period of trembling precedes these episodes, before I feel particularly emotional, so this whole thing may be related to blood-sugar (not sure why I might think this but I do). Chocolate is naughty but has the added effect of stimulating the endorphins. Bananas are the real super fast-acting health food though.
Dough, which can be made with salt, water and flour, is good for beating up. Junk-mail comes into its own when you need something to shred; failing this, loo rolls are really most satisfying. If one feels the urge to burst the bubble by piercing its surface (there’s a euphemism), drawing on white paper or even one’s skin in red ink sounds absolutely naff but can satisfy the compulsion and the marks wash off afterwards. Subjecting oneself to extreme sensations in a completely safe way, for example holding one’s hand it ice cold water, or rubbing Deep Heat into one’s hands or eating something very hot (in the flavour sense) is all good.
Making oneself cry can be very useful because our tears carry cortisone (stress hormone) out of the body. The easiest way to make oneself cry is to stare at something shiny or hold your gaze in a direction which is just an incy bit ittle too bright for comfort and then think of something sad – nothing related to your current crisis, but I don’t know; Tiny Tim or Bambi’s mother. Then don’t blink. I know; I should have been on the stage. Once the tears come, then you can cry about the thing you needed to cry about.
Music is by far the most accessible release, but then you have to be careful; some music will wind you up further, other music will bring you down further than you want to go. Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending, apart from being the most beautiful piece of music ever written, is perfect for this. You have your musical climaxes, which are almost agonising they are so exquisite, but you also have phases to chill out to and a nice jolly bits somewhere in there. Plus frankly if you’ve sat still for sixteen minutes, you’re probably over the worst anyway.
As soon as the emergency has passed, you must put everything in place so that you feel as comfortable as possible; have something to eat and a comforting warm drink, make sure you are warm enough, have a bath or shower etc. Don’t at this stage attempt to address any of the issues which made you feel like this in the first place, but instead get some sleep or watch television, something entirely passive.
Later I suppose, you have to work out what went wrong and whether there is anything you can do to stop it happening again.
I don’t think there is anything I can do to address this long-term, but to keep dealing with it as it arises and try to be patient. Things will get better, or I will get more used to the situation, or one way or another things will change. For now; bugger.
All my clothing is falling apart. It is not that I am bulging out, it is just all failing through wear and tear, seams disintegrating, pulls becoming holes etc. I wear too many tiered or patchwork skirts. Lots of sewing and not enough colours of thread.
The underwiring escaped one side of my bra. I was busy at the time, so I pulled it all the way out to stop it digging in to my chest and… put it on my head. Well, it is the size and shape of a head-band and my hair was annoying me. All this is done largely subconsciously, which is why I didn’t think about it until I noticed myself in the mirror after I had had a conversation with the postman at the door.
But he wouldn’t have known, would he? Anyway, it was the same guy who I answered the door to in nothing but my dressing-gown, having abandoned the defoliation of my legs half way through the job. Imagine one leg from The Pirelli Calendar, one leg from The Planet of the Apes. He clearly isn’t a man easily disturbed.
In other news, Dad has offered to print out my book so I can do the editing on paper. He has access to a laser printer which prints off hundreds of pages of stuff a day so he reckons he can do my entire book without anyone noticing. It is true that when I used to write essays and short stories I would always print them off and read them on paper as part of the editing process, and I am becoming bogged down by the sheer scale of my own work.
I didn’t think I would be printing anything out until its finished and I’m quite excited at the prospect of being able to work with it on paper. At the same time, I am thinking irrational thoughts about my Dad reading some of it or else pages of it getting accidentally mislaid amid health authority protocols. Right now I would be mortified should anyone read any of it.
I invented my imaginary friend when I was twelve, which is terribly late. Of course, I was very conscious that this friend did not exist, but I wanted one. His name was Ambrose. I was a big girl by then so I rarely spoke out loud to him and certainly not anywhere someone might hear me. I did write to him though; all my diary entries through my teenage years begin Dear Ambrose.
Why Ambrose? Well I was interested in etymology, would have known the origins of the word and I was also fascinated by the idea of angels and things. I perhaps liked to think he was my Guardian Angel and not just someone I made up. But I did know I had made him up.
I was obviously lonely, but in a complicated way. Teenage girls both attracted and repelled me and whatever my reaction, I was very uncomfortable about the way I felt about them. I always had to pretend a lot. Not just about those feelings, but I had to pretend to care about this and not to care about that. I had to pretend to have a favourte Gallagher brother and an interest in clothes and cosmetics and not what my purpose on Earth was. And I could never do this thing where you mould yourself to the person you are talking to; most people get the same package from me, despite my best efforts.
In fact I was probably little different everyone else. I do possess my diaries from this period and come across as an obnoxious little shit. But I did have friends and was never bullied exactly. It was just that much of the time I wanted to be alone. Yet I not really truly alone, just unchallenged. Thus Ambrose.
Why was Ambrose male? I am afraid I had a low opinion of what girls could offer me. I could share a joke with Ambrose, having come to the conclusion that humour was an entirely masculine attribute. He would say what he meant and wouldn’t need any interpretation. Plus he was as baffled about feminine behaviour as I was. He wasn’t a fantasy boyfriend or anything like that.
He wasn’t passive though, not by any means. When I saw the otherwise dreadful Lord of the Rings; Two Towers I was struck by Gollum’s conversations with himself, or at least with Smeagal; the part of him that was still good, the part of him that was still a hobbit. That was Ambrose and I; whether the question was does God want me to do this? or should I still be friends with Isobel after what she said? Ambrose was generally more cynical than I was, and tried to persuade me to do the wrong thing. I generally won these arguments, funnily enough.
I don’t know whether it would be more disturbing to have been a teenager with an entirely passive and compliant imaginary friend who agreed with my every opinion than having one who I would fall out with.
However, I have to emphasise that I was in fairly reasonable mental health. I had spells of melancholy and anxiety, but there were no problem behaviours. Teenagers are not generally happy creatures; you have pressures equivalent to those of adult life but none of the choices and none of the rewards. You work very very hard and all you get is an empty grade. You have no confidence about anything, you think you are a total pervert who would be locked up if anyone saw inside your head, your body is doing disgusting things with or without your intercession. You have no perspective on anything and imagine that your life will be over if just one little petty thing goes wrong. It is not fun.
Mind you, I am not about to admit the last time I spoke to Ambrose.
Inexpert evolutionists believe that romantic love doesn’t exist, that it is just about sex and delusion. It is unselfish and we need to be selfish in order to survive, they claim. They are wrong.
The Anti-Science brigade (can’t say Creationists since evolution does not eliminate the possibility of a creator God) argue that if the evolutionary theory is correct, then love cannot exist. It is also an irrational state and therefore, one might think, the dominion of organised religion. They are wrong.Love is real and belongs to us all. It happened something like this:Once upon a time, when people paired off to make babies, all anybody could think about was physical indicators of fertility and the sort of genetic heritage that would allow potential offspring to physically survive and reproduce themselves. All we cared about were waist to hip proportions, distribution of bodily hair, indicators of youth and vitality. We were a very shallow bunch indeed and not getting very far at all. Even sex wasn’t all that good as we only had one position.
One day, an ape creature was sitting on a rock – we’ll call him Johnny. Johnny was a troubled young man who was full of ideas about the world around him but nobody to express them to. Alas, there was no language back then and all his peers were interested in was hunting wildebeest and getting laid. He was lonely even when surrounded by other ape creatures. So lonely in fact, that he sang a sad little song to himself. It went something like this;
“Ug, ug ug ug ug.Ug, ug ug ug ug.
Ug! Ug ug, ug ug ug ug
Ug, ug ug ug ug.”
As he was singing this last melancholic line, a bright-eyed female approached his rock. We’ll call her Jane. Poor Johnny was fed up of women as back in those days, they were only ever after one thing.“Ug ug,” Johnny said, in the nonchalant tone that he had adopted for members of his own species. But as he was about to turn away, he noticed a flicker of comprehension in her eyes.
“Ug?” Jane asked, scratching her head. For she too had had these feelings that perhaps there was more to life that sex and wildebeest – much as she enjoyed both.
“Ug ug,” he explained. “Ug ug ug ug.”
“Ug ug ug!” Jane exclaimed and the two of them fell about laughing at this joke, the hilarity of which has long since been lost amid the shifting sands of time. It was very funny. I guess you had to be there.
And so the two ape creatures sat there talking all day long. Of course they hadn’t got any sort of language, but being a tad brighter than your average bipeds, they were using tone of voice, facial expression and hand gestures to get their message across.
It was getting kind of late, so Johnny suggested that they head back to his cave for a coffee.
Jane pointed out that they were on the wrong part of the continent for coffee, even if they could work out, within the space of an evening, how to process the seeds of that plant into a stimulating hot beverage. As you can imagine, without language, this took the best part of an hour to get across.
Johnny averted his eyes and twiddled his thumbs as if to say, “I know, but I just invented the euphemism.”
...Years passed and Johnny and Jane never did run out of things to “talk” about. When their children were born, they inherited good communication skills both through the genetic legacy of brain architecture, but also through having parents who encouraged good communication. And when these children grew up, they were looking for partners who had something to say for themselves and in turn, produced good communicative children.
Language and love thus developed concurrently. Love is, in reductionist terms, sexual attraction based on a person’s ability to communicate. Call it personality or whatever else you like - that's really what it is.
In order for love to exist, we must have developed the ability to communicate well, but in order for language to exist, we must have nurtured these abilities over many generations, thus we must have been the products of predominantly loving relationships and this somehow gave us the edge over those not-so-communicative ape creatures who made sexual selection on purely physical attributes.
Why? Possibly we make better parents; standing upright gives us a relatively narrow pelvis, meaning our offspring must be born very small and vulnerable – it is literally years before they can be left alone, so at some point pair-bonding needed to become long-term. Love might have helped. Or it could have been that good communicators were better in crises which involved team-work or problem-solving. I don't know everything, I'm just making it up as I go along.
Of course, we must not over-romanticise our genetic heritage or our current nature. We didn’t abandon other types of sexual attraction – look at Keanu Reeves. Exactly. Plus our most romanticised version of love is not necessary the optimal reproductive strategy; in the most primitive of circumstances both parents need to invest in one offspring at any one time, but both men and women may optimise their chances of reproductive success through deception and betrayal.
Perhaps one of the big mistakes we make culturally is to assume that there are only two types of sexual relationship; casual, purely sexual relationships which are entirely shallow and thus illegitimate and permanent love relationships where some mystical rite or institution ensures that both parties remain happily in love for ever and ever and ever.
The whole business is far more complicated than that, but for today I just wanted to argue for love's existence.
It is Rosie’s birthday today, I think, I'm very confused as to what day it is. Anyway...
Adrian, my favourite brother-in-law, has often attempted to capture the essence of the woman he loves on film. However, Rosemary Taylor is a contradiction. A single photograph cannot begin to say it all.
For example, Rosie has a music degree, is a music teacher and has performed in more countries than Mum, Dad and I have visited. Yet she has a really truly appalling taste in music. To this day she actually possesses such albums as Smurfs Go Pop, Vengaboys - Vengaboys, No Angel - Dido and that one by Timmy Mallet. Oh and everything that Mozart even wrote.
This can perhaps be explained by the fact that YMCA was number one in the charts on the day she was born and if you trace exactly nine months earlier, to the approximate date of her conception, you’re looking at Night Fever by the Beegees. Ew.
Despite this, she is a very good music teacher, helping her class to 100% A-C pass rate at GCSE last year – in a school with only a 55% A-C pass rate overall. Which is bloody good.
Rosie’s other talents include art, photography and buying clothes which co-ordinate with one another. She is very grown up, shopping at Marks & Spencers and belonging to the National Trust. But she does have one of those Tetley Bitter t-shirts that you win if you drink ten pints of Tetley in one night and her most recent compositions include a dance re-mix of The Theme from Rhubard and Custard.
Through years of driving a Mini, she has become an excellent wheelchair-pusher and all round disability advocate. She teaches a number of disabled students and finds novel ways of promoting full participation. Shopping trips with Rosie guarantee that I have full access to everywhere, even places I didn’t particularly want to go. She has also got me out of some tight scrapes by cunning use of the Disability Card.
A natural diplomat, she is the only member of our family who can make our Gran laugh, through a combination of complex psychological trickery and toilet humour. But despite her normally happy-go-lucky nature, Rosemary is still aggrieved in her belief that it was my own embittered eight-year-old self that tore her most treasured Kylie Minogue poster in the summer of 1989, under the influence of Bonjovi when they were good.
It wasn’t. Really. I didn’t go anywhere near it.
Let’s just remind ourselves of what my brother-in-law looked like as a baby. Aaah! Talking of Adrian, he has a new blog, which includes everything from a story to warm the cockles of your heart to some truly breath-taking pictures of his enormous organ.
