I already knew this of course, but now it is a matter of public record after an incident at school when he bit and kicked his best friend over a lego-related dispute.
Being a bit of a psycho isn’t all bad. Owing to their inability to emphasise or feel guilt, they tend to do well in business, politics, and customer service. They are often charming high-achievers, but on the down side they are incapable of love, can be violently egocentric and frequently cause quite a lot of embarrassment to their mothers.
I found this out when I called his victim’s mother to apologise, she just laughed at me.
“Don’t be silly, it could just have easily been my son attacking yours, might well be next week, it’s just kids, they all do it.”
I consider sharing with her my suspicious that my son is a psycho, but she seems to be taking it all quite light-heartedly, it may not be necessary to raise the darker possibility of personality disorders at this stage. After all, I don’t want her thinking her little boy is spending ‘carpet time’ sat next to mini-Ted Bundy. I decide to say nothing at this stage and see how it all pans out.
She’s very reassuring, telling me about a couple of terrible things her children have in the past and I join in with a couple of recollections of my own. Soon it’s the mother’s version of The Four Yorkshiremen sketch; My daughter bit a child on the cheek and drew blood. One of mine ripped all the buttons off the laptop, Yeah well my son scratched a teacher, etc. I’m just about to throw in the one about the time my middle son smashed the telly with a toy hammer, which is always good for a few gasps, but instead I think it may be best to bring the whole thing to a close before I say something silly like, ‘and my youngest is a psychopath’.
She doesn’t seem to want to call in the police, so best to draw a veil over the whole thing.
I wonder how long I’m going to have to feel responsible for the actions of my children. The accepted belief that the parents are to blame is one thing when the kid is four, but is Mrs Shipman still ringing around the families of victims apologising for naughty Harold’s behaviour? Was Hitler suffering from middle-child syndrome?
A few days on, and I’m not so sure youngest really is a psycho after all. He definitely feels remorse and guilt and he seems to understand the consequences of his actions (kick other kids hard enough and they take away your shoes). Probably all children behave like monsters sometimes, or at least that’s what I’ll be telling myself for a while. We’ve all learned something from this little incident, and I for one will never again mess with the kid’s lego.
My life in shreds, now all it needs is a layer of chicken crap.
Today I am shredding paper to use in the chicken coop.
This week I worked out that we spend nearly £4 a month on hay for the coop, when we could use (free) shredded paper, the idea of saving an impressive £50 per annum fired me up with the zealousy zeal of a zealot and I immediately rushed out and bought the cheapest shredder I could find. So today I am shredding paper. If you’ve ever shredded vast quantities of paper for a chicken coop using the cheapest shredder you could find, then like me you may have reached two conclusions very quickly.
1) Deducting the cost of the shredder from your annual £50 saving, may well leave a substantial £40 saving, however if you also factor in labour costs the saving becomes a loss of around £60 p/a. Even based on minimum wage and lots of tea breaks.
2) Cheap paper shredders are the mechanical manifestation of Satan on earth.
I wouldn’t mind if the job was just boring, but what’s getting me down is the mounting sense of failure as sheet, by sheet I destroy every excited plan, enthusiastic ambition and revolutionary project I have fruitlessly embarked on over the past several years.
I’ve learnt more Spanish vocabulary in the 20 minutes it has taken me to grind up the ‘Simple Steps to Spanish Success’ course, than I did in the fortnight I threw myself into it. I’ve got countless how-to guides printed off the internet, a few abandoned screenplays and lots of knitting patterns. At least I did actually get round to crocheting a pair of slippers- I wonder if they would fit the chickens?
On the plus side, the evidence would suggest that I am trying to become a better person. I suppose if the road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions, then at least I know where I’m going, because at the moment it feels like I’m getting nowhere.
Anyway, the shredder has decided it’s going to start working again now, so I have a few minutes feeding the beast before I embark on another life-changing do-it-yourself journey. What will it be? Dressmaking? Learn guitar? Dry stone walling? Or perhaps DIY divorce, as I’m pretty sure I just accidentally shredded my marriage certificate.
Early hyroglifics found on the northbound at Taunton.
Last night I watched Argo. It was very good, there were some marvellous beards and 1970s glasses the size of enormous glasses.
It was about things and lots of stuff happened, but mainly it reminded me of the Hollywood fallacy about airports being exciting places. There were plenty of sweaty upper lips and furtive glances as the PEOPLE WHO WANTED TO LEAVE were TRYING TO LEAVE while MOUSTACHIOD GUARDS kept glancing at them suspiciously and taking an agonisingly long time before breaking the tension with the slam of their official ‘off you go then’ stamp.
The only mounting tension and furtive glances I have ever experienced at an airport is when you begin to suspect the bloke next to you is surreptitiously manoeuvring his luggage trolly in a attempt to push in front of the queue.
Not that Argo is all about airports, but the main scene on which the entire movie hangs is essentially a troublesome check in. It takes Hollywood to turn this mundanity of airport life into Oscar-award winning material.
At Luton I once thought I’d lost our passports, but then I found them. At no point during the desperate search through my handbag did I think, “Wow, this’d make a great movie”, but I guess that’s the main difference between me and Ben Affleck. That, and the twitching thing, and the bear allergy.
If you ask me there’s much more action to be had at the motorway service station. Just last week, we had a thrilling hunt for bananas at a Welcome Break near Nottingham. Needless to say the hunt was fruitless*, but there were some heartstopping moments, like when we mistook a mint Wagon Wheel for an apple.
Hey movie producers, if you want passion and outrage check out some of the comments on this site which reviews and rates all motorway service stations in Britain. These guys are as mad as hell,( in pretty much every sense of the word).
Imagine some of these as tag lines:
“Cramped, dirty and dangerous”
“A thoroughly depressing experience”
“£4 for a handful of pick and mix!!!!”
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to start my screenplay.
*Punavoidable
You really have to read the post for this picture to make sense, even then it might not.
A week on from my decision to use up all the cosmetics I have lying around and all I’ve learnt is that getting dressed too soon after applying body lotion is like trying to gift wrap a seal.
Despite slathering, rubbing and applying like a mad woman, I’ve only used up three things. Some eye-gel, one of those conditioners you get with hair dye kits and an anti-aging serum.
I quite liked the anti-aging serum because it advised that you test it on your hand for THREE days prior to going anywhere near your face, potent stuff. I like my cosmetics to be a bit scary, along with horrendously expensive, it gives the stamp of effectiveness to a product that actual science can’t.
I think there’s a gap in the market for cruel cosmetics. I’m contemplating starting my own brand. My derma-abrasion kit would be a box costing £100 and containing a sheet of sandpaper. My £50 nail-varnish remover would be paint-stripper, and for unsightly hair, invest in my mini flame-thrower.
Basically, make up is all about swelling up parts of your face and reddening others, and my products would achieve a satisfactorily permanent effect. Buy any two products in my beauty range and get a free Epi pen.
Given the cosmetic industry’s long history of using poisons in their products I’m pretty sure I’d clean up. Make customers sign a disclaimer before purchase and I’ll sell out in seconds. Some people pay a lot of money to have botulism toxin injected into their face, if anything I’m playing it safe.
On the plus side of my cosmetics clear-out mission, showers are more fun. Seeing as I’m spending more time in there using up all my lotions and gels, I’ve taken to using some exfoliating gloves which have been hanging around for a while. They look a lot like my husband’s potato scrubbing gloves, but I try not to think about this too much when I’m using them.
There’s something about wearing gloves which immediately makes me want to mime. I manage to quell this urge in public (mostly), but in the shower I am free to get as Marcel Marceau as I like. My specialty is ‘trapped in a glass box’ although as I’m in the shower and actually in a glass box, I suppose it ceases to be mime and becomes just ‘woman in a shower wearing potato scrubbing gloves’. I could mime scrubbing potatoes I suppose, but I’m not sure my skills are up to it yet. It might look like I’m exfoliating a baby chick.
Of course there are rarely many people to witness this mime, so I probably shouldn’t worry too much. There is the webcam in there, which I set up so I could discover whether guests think my bathroom is sufficiently clean (if a dip below a 40% approval rating, I clean it), which I could use to show people my mime.
Although, maybe that’s not a great idea, if I show people a recording of me in the shower wearing nothing but gloves and miming they might think “Hey she has a webcam in her bathroom” and then in future they won’t be as honest about the state of my toilet.
I apologise if I’ve wandered off the point of this blog, but I promise that I’ll be more sensible in my next post, which will be about how all the chemicals seeping into my pores may be giving me super-powers.
Supermodel Jenny ‘works’ the face.
Today’s dilemma: I would like to order some stuff from the new Avon catalogue, but I already have way too many bottles cluttering up my bedside table, not all of them are wine, not all of them are empty.
I’ve decided that before I can reasonably spend any more money on cosmetics I must first work my way through the mountain of lotions and potions I have amassed from the days when I used to spend a fortune trying to eradicate the lines I got from worrying about how much money I spent.
I used to be quite girly. I’d spend evenings ‘pampering’ myself. Plucking, exfoliating, waxing scrubbing, tweezering etc. and that’s just my knees. When I moved onto my frontal facial zone, the big guns came out. Here the mission changed from corrective to camouflage. So I’d spend half an hour with various creams and scrubs rubbing my face off and then another hour with make-up drawing myself a new one.
At the end of the evening I’d realise that I still have a fat nose, thin lips and in silhouette, I’m still the double of Bruce Forsyth. So I’d descend into depression fueled by alcohol, chocolate and cigarettes.
Nowadays I have less time so I skip the pampering and dive straight into the self-loathing. The only bottle I grab and apply liberally is Merlot.
As Popeye once said I Yam, What I Yam – one of the many things I have learnt from hanging out with sailors which have come in handy, (along with how to untie a reef knot with your teeth and a where to get good sushi in Kaliningrad in a Sunday). So I’m not trying to achieve unreachable goals any more, but I would still like my face to look a bit less like a handbag.
So today I have begun my mission to use up all the gimmicky crap I fell for which doesn’t work, so I can go out and buy some magic lotions which I’m certain will change my life forever.
My new beauty routine begins with Dr Nick Lowe Dark Circle Removing Cream. All I remember about this is that it was very expensive and it had a warning that you shouldn’t use it when pregnant or breast feeding (weird). I see the use before date is an impressive 06/11 and I pat the stuff on and feel the burn.
Next up is Elizabeth Arden Eye-fix primer or Creme Stabilisant pour le Marquillage des Yeux if you speak BS. This is meant to keep your eye make-up on, so now I’ve kinda committed to putting on eye make up. Never mind, in for a penny.
Then I apply Smashbox photo finish primer and follow it up with Soap and Glory’s Show Good Face 2 in 1 foundation and primer.
Dammit, I’ve overdone it on the primer and my face is beginning to numb. I may feel like I’ve had a stroke, but by god is my face primed.
Then I dab on Garnier Anti-dark circles roll on which I like just for the name which sounds like we’re actively campaigning against dark circles, those bastards.
All the chemicals I’m rubbing into my pores are beginning to give my skin a reddish tint I’d describe as ‘aggrevated’, so I decide to skip the blusher and just dust on some Barbara Daly Pressed Perfection Powder using a brush so big I’m going to use it to paint the house.
Time is pressing on and I’m late for the school run. In fact the older one has already gone as he can’t be late today, because of a meeting with a social worker or something, anyway. EYELINER.
Maybeline Khol Express which turns out to be in brown. Which comes as a pleasant relief as I had spotted the brown colouring at the top and assumed it had got that way from being used for ‘other purposes’, but no, it’s supposed to be brown, so I’ll finish off the look (brownness) with Maybeline Colour Tattoo 24hr eye shadow.
I’d forgotton how incredibly boring all this stuff is so I slick on some mascara (Elizabeth Arden Lash Extending Treatment) and get dressed.
Polo neck- NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
After going through all that faffing around, I’ve just transferred my new face on to my jumper.*
* Many people think the reason why TV presenters wear paper bibs when they’re not on air is to keep makeup off their collar, but my husband, who works with TV newsreaders, says that they actually wear them because they dribble like little babies. Something to do with years of hairspray and Piz Buin causing a build up of toxins, paralysing the glands which control their saliva. Huw Edwards isn’t even Welsh, he’s just an acute case.
Ah well, at least I’m partway towards clearing the shelves of ignored cosmetics, Tonight – hands, feet and the bits in between.
What did you expect – It’s a horse ok? Job done.
Just in case you’re thinking this is going to be a confession about my heroin fuelled past and a public apology for any subsequent instillation art I may have inadvertently created, I’m afraid this is not it. One day, maybe, but now is not the time.
My friend and newbie blogger diaryofadressclaire addressed the issue this week of Tesco’s having been found to be selling burgers containing a considerable amount of horse-meat. Which has prompted me to add my tuppence worth.
I share the public outrage that we didn’t know about the Shergar in our burgar (-all subsequent horse-related puns, I will be highlighting with the acronym HRP). After all, if I had known, I’d have bought some.
See I don’t have a problem eating horse. In fact I find it a good use for a generally overrated animal.
I know this will upset some people, but sometimes, I like upsetting people which is why I did that thing outside my best friend’s mother’s house (You saw, I know you saw).
I’ve just never got on with horses. My cousin has always loved horses, even though, one day she was cleaning her horse’s feet when it kicked her in the face, shattering her jaw. She maintains that it was all her fault really because she accidentally approached it the wrong way.
Substitute the word horse for the word husband, and you have a horrific tale of abuse, but did she sensibly get the hell away from horses and never go anywhere near a saddle again? No she moved to Spain with a whole load of the things and now she spends her life looking after them. She doesn’t even realise she is a victim. I would stage an intervention, but I’m not the type to make a fuss.
I’ve just never got the horse thing. OK, so you can ride on them, but there are other less ‘crap in the middle of the road’ forms of transport and horses are just a bit too hippie for me -with their long-hair, big-nose, apple eating ways.
When it comes to eating horses, I have form (HRP). Once, in France, my family settled down to a pre- McDonalds fast food treat. It took us exactly the time it takes to consume half a burger, to get round to looking up what ‘Cheval’ meant.
Even at that age I was ok with it, I seem to remember looking forward to the next horse, I mean course (HRP- I am in the zone here.).
Warhorse didn’t even manage to move me. I felt bad for the people who died and all, but it seemed to me that their cards were marked the minute they ran into that four-legged jinx.
That scene where a German and English soldiers meet in the middle of no-man’s-land to rescue a horse? I’m sorry, but given the scarcity of food in the trenches there is no way they’d have not taken a portable barbeque and a loaf of bread with them.
And while we’re on the subject of equine related media lies, what the hell did Champion the-so called wonder horse- actually do? Other than alert people in an extremely non-specific way that all was not quite right? Nack-all as far as I could tell. A flashy light would have done twice the work with half the fuss.
Not as tasty mind.
Resolution – Find better pictures to illustrate blog.
I know it’s a bit late to talk about New Year resolutions, but I’ve been giving it some thought and while I don’t usually like setting myself up for disappointment with over-ambitious goals for self-improvement, I do it all the time, so I don’t see why January should be any different.
This year however, I’m going to be smart about it. I’m going to set myself achievable goals which are as near to pointless as possible. Then as I chalk up each resolution I’ve met, I can coast on the smug self-satisfaction all through the year.
- Give up smoking.
I don’t smoke, so I could take up smoking for a bit, then give it up = one in the bag. However I did used to smoke cigarettes and I really liked it, so to go back to the death sticks might be a bit risky. Instead I might try a pipe, with the added bonus that I could point at stuff with it. An awful lot of stuff goes unindicted nowadays. In fact I’ll probably not bother with the tobacco and just go about with a pipe clamped between my teeth, taking it out occasionally to point at things. Like I used to do with that pointing stick I found, but people got confused thinking it was a baton, and would say, “Why are you waving a baton about in the supermarket when there’s no orchestra?” and I would say “It’s not a baton- hey, look at that thing over there.” and they’d say “What are you pointing at with your baton?” IDIOTS. No, a pipe would be much better. Now where was I?
- Learn an instrument.
I have to be honest with myself here. I’m not what you’d call musically gifted. Sure I can sing like a nightingale wooing a dove, but I can’t play for shit. Therefore when it comes to picking an instrument to learn I’ve decided to set a realistic goal which won’t demand too much time, money, ability or sobriety- knowing that I will inevitably fail. After much consideration and soul-searching, my instrument of choice is the paper and comb.
-De-clutter
There goes the paper and comb.
-Swear less.
I try not to swear around the kids after that time when I tried to teach them my best swear words, but they already knew them and corrected my pronunciation. This means when I’m not around the children I swear like a Tourette’s-suffering navvy who just got a paper cut from his decree nisi. Plus my mum doesn’t like it when I swear on the blog, but sometimes I think it helps with emphasis and I find swearing funny, which may be immature and cheap, but that’s me. If I could put kids getting hit in the face with cake on my blog, or fat people falling over, believe me I would. Anyway, I’ve making a strong start; I’ve only got one ‘shit’ on this blog, no two- dammit.
- Lose some weight
In theory this should be easy. All I have to do it stop eating the kids left overs. I don’t even like the food I give them, but for some reason their half chewed, congealed, cold remains of beans are irresistible. I hover round the table like a vulture while they eat, and the second they leave the table I’m standing over an open bin, stuffing cold, damp toast in my gob. There’s no way I’d accept spaghetti a la ketchup or melted ice-cream with hula-hoop croutons at a restaurant, not even McDonalds. This should be easy, but we’ll see.
