Drawing the line under celebrity

I was going to say I was watching The Lady From Shanghai the other night, but that's misleading. It makes me sound like a film buff, which I'm not. I love good storytelling and I love the atmosphere of film noir, but I rarely have time to sit through a whole movie unless I'm sick. So what I actually did was watch the first twenty minutes of The Lady From Shanghai, remember that I have have an aversion to Orson Welles, regret that someone else wasn't playing the lead, vaguely wonder where I put my Maltese Falcon video, and start watching an archaeology documentary instead. What did strike me about the film, however, even more strongly than the awfulness of Welles's Oirish accent, was how jaw-droppingly lovely Rita Hayworth was. Her frocks were rather nice, too. And then I saw it. She was lying on a yacht (I think), singing, and it was there, clear as you like, magnified on the silver screens of yesteryear and the less magical screens of today. A line. Across her forehead. Right across it. And do you know what? It didn't detract from her beauty at all. If anything, it added to it. Beauty and character. If a woman looked like that now, she'd be vilified. Youth is all, beauty is all, but only if it conforms. All traces of character and individuality must be expunged. Open any glossy magazine. Unless you've nothing else to do with your time, I'd bet you'd be hard pressed to tell any of the women apart. Go back fifty years or more. The stars cultivated their individuality, celebrated it. Rita Hayworth, Marilyn Monroe, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly, Veronica Lake, Jean Harlow, Ingrid Bergman, Hepburns Audrey and Katherine, all of them completely distinct. All we have now is bland homogenity and high streets full of poker-straight-haired clones who aspire to be 'celebrities' without the hard graft. There's little real style, let alone any substance. I'm bored with identikit 'stars'. It's time for a change. The revolution starts here. Chuck out your straightening irons. Banish the botox. Reclaim your character, or, if you haven't got one, do something about it. What are you afraid of?

Open wide and say AAAAARRRGGGHHH

The first time it happened I thought it was a reaction from going from a glimpse of how I wanted my life to be to the reality of how it is. The second time it happened it could just about have been put down to a bad day. Today it happened for a third time. I can no longer ignore it.

I am happier having root canal surgery than being at work.

I know it's a terrible thing to say in a recession, and yes, I realise that I'm lucky to have a job at all, but ossification of the soul is setting in and I want to get out before it's too late. Life is finite and some lives are more finite than others. It's a truism that no-one has ever laid on their deathbed and wished they'd spent more time at work. I suspect there's a trick to it, knowing when to jump. I've done a fair amount of weighing up the pros and cons of resigning. It's not as if I'm employable anywhere else so my options are 1) grit my teeth (those that aren't held together by amalgam) and die slowly five days a week, or 2) politely hand in my notice and hope that the shock of having no income inspires me to find meaningful work PDQ. My landlady would prefer I chose the former option, although she sees why the latter appeals.

A friend has suggested I try for a sabbatical but I don't think that's fair on my colleagues, even if it were remotely possible that the firm would allow it. (Sabbaticals are for management. We minions must drag ourselves in every day unless certified clinically dead by three different doctors.) Last year someone went on unpaid leave for personal reasons and there was some ill feeling among those left to carry the workload. I dreamt of her the other day. I hope she's happier and healthier than she appeared to me then.

So no sabbatical. What other options are there, apart from undergoing a lobotomy? I could talk to the management, but I've tried that and was met with concerned incomprehension. With a company ethos that everyone must be happy at all times and dissenters will be disciplined, the safety valve of griping in the staff room has been closed off. Yes, we still do it in hushed whispers in corners, but it gets us nowhere and I find it easier to be there in body only while my mind is off doing something more interesting. So far only one colleague has noticed that my standard reply to 'how are you?' is 'hello, how are you?'

What I would really like is a year out. Lots of people have them. No-one would be surprised if I announced I was taking a year off to have a baby. No, let me rephrase that. No-one, apart from anyone who knows me, would be surprised if I announced I was taking a year off to have a baby. I'm not going to have a baby. I don't want one. It would be too much like being John Hurt in Alien. But why should I be penalised for wanting to live on through books and scripts than through passing on my DNA? Off the top of my head I can think of lots of books that are more worthwhile than some people I could mention. There's maternity leave and paternity leave. Why not literary leave?

Just think: six months to a year away from the workplace and several shiny new (fictional) people at the end of it. And everyone could share in that simply by reading my book.

Although some might prefer root canal surgery.

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be

"Class of 99," read the invitation. "Ten year reunion."

Words to strike horror into the heart of any sane thirtysomething. The invitation itself was friendly enough, glossy card covered with enticing photographs of the classiest of the campus bars. Tickets were reasonably priced and there was no objection to bringing partners.

And there we hit the first obstacle. There is every objection to bringing partners to a gathering of chums from student days, especially if you haven't seen said chums for a decade.

Look at yourself now. Steady relationship, maybe a kid or three. A mortgage you don't really want to talk about at the moment, thank you. A shelf of cookery books you like to look at but can't quite find the time to use for actual cooking. Your idea of a good night is tucking up the children with a kiss then vegetating in front of The Wire box set with a tub of ice cream.

Now think back to a time when your idea of a good night was something you can't actually remember. When you thought nothing of walking home alone at half past two in the morning, because, hey, it's all right, you've got a mobile phone the size of a brick and you can always bludgeon anyone who tries to attack you. When the bloke in the kebab van admired your mini skirt and doubted you wore knickers, so you showed them to him to prove you did, and he felt sorry for you and gave you a free can of Tango. When you set fire to your friend's hair trying to light her cigarette because you didn't smoke and couldn't get the hang of the lighter. When you ended up dancing on the stage of the students' union with the troupe of professional dancers on 70s night. Four times. Sober. When you pined unrequitedly for men who would have appalled your mother. You're not that person anymore. The relief is palpable. Do you really want to take your partner anywhere near anyone who might tell him what you got up to?

Conversely, those mates you partied with remember you as a mad-for-it goodtime girl, the first to lead the charge to the dance floor. Do you really want them to see you as you are now, with grey roots and crow's feet, opaque tights to cover the incipient varicose veins, yawning at nine thirty and preoccupied with the allotment? Wouldn't it be kinder to let them keep those memories unsullied? That's always supposing they can remember even as much as you about it all.

Then there's the agony of being compared with your peers. There will be at least one who has done stupendously well, who thrives in a challenging but rewarding career which she combines with bringing up two beautiful children and keeping an immaculate home for her handsome, successful husband. There will be others, less high-flying, but happy in the careers they've built on their degree. You got halfway through the course and realised you'd made a huge mistake, but you were too scared to back out. You saw it through but now you're in a dead end job and you couldn't bear your old friends to know that you wasted your potential so shamefully. If you told them, they'd commiserate to your face then gloat about it to their other half all the way home. No, that's not an option. No-one ever goes to a reunion and says how awful their life is.

Time is not kind to students. You agree to go because you think it will be a laugh, that all the familiar faces will be there. You will walk into that room and at first you will think you've come to the wrong place, or on the wrong night, because you don't know anyone. Then you realise that the ancient crone by the bar is the girl from your tutorial group your flatmate wanted to pull, and the balding lech with the pot belly is the stud you cried yourself to sleep over for weeks. And you know they're looking at you and thinking, "God, she's let herself go." The riotous evening of drink and reminiscence you foresaw turns out to be a never-ending ordeal of small talk about the effects of the recession.

This is where sites like Friends Reunited come in. You can find out what people are doing from the comfort of your own home, not standing in a bar that's seedier than you remember, drinking overpriced wine because you don't qualify for subsidised alcohol any more.

I read the invitation, grimaced a bit, and filed it somewhere random. A few weeks later a friend asked if I was going. I didn't think anyone would remember me. That didn't stop me hoping secretly that when the night came someone would be looking round wondering where I was if I wasn't there.

The photo album came out from the back of the wardrobe. Did I really dress that badly? Why didn't someone stop me? I wondered what happened to the people in these photos. Out of the large group I thought of as my friends, I'm in touch with maybe three on a stronger basis than Christmas cards. If we manage to meet once a year, we think we're doing well. If it wasn't for Facebook, that illusion of friendship, some might be given up entirely to vague memory. It was tempting to give in to curiosity, revisit the haunts of my youth and see how badly everyone had aged. And suddenly I missed my friends. I missed the fun we had. I was sorry I hadn't tried harder to stay in touch. Nostalgia is a powerful force. It drives us back to places we can never reach.

I resisted. The album went back in the wardrobe. I didn't go to the reunion. That didn't stop me looking at the alumni website a couple of weeks after the event and finding a list of those who attended. I recognised maybe five of the names. One of them was my first crush. There were photos.

Dearie, dearie me...

Fish and bicycles

One of the main characteristics of working in customer services is interacting with the general public. As anyone who's ever stood on the business side of a counter will know, you hear all sorts of comments to which your only permitted response is a polite smile. The one I heard yesterday is one I've heard many times before, but it's lit my blue touchpaper so here I go. Recently we had our computer system changed. This technological wonder has empowered us to do all manner of hi-teckery. It also means it takes us twice as long to perform basic functions. A customer watched me serve her and expressed disbelief at this. Then she looked at the shiny new hardware and said, "I bet it was invented by a man." Pffft. Szzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Bang. (That was my blue touchpaper in case you were wondering.) Will the world please stop running men down? I know this may seem a little odd in a blog written by a professional spinster, but I like men. I really do. Not enough to want one of my own, but I am fond of them, by and large. Men have done amazing things over the centuries. Off the top of my head, men have invented telescopes, discovered penicillin, pioneered surgical techniques, fought fires, built bridges and railways and cities and drainage systems. They've founded charities to care for children, stood up for injustice, died for causes they believed in. They've composed sonatas and operas and chorales and played air guitar with no trace of irony. And put up countless shelves and removed innumerable spiders from baths. Yes, women can do these things too. Yes, I have heard of Marie Curie and Marie Stopes and Amelia Earheart and Mother Teresa and Erin Pizzey. And yes, I manage without a man about the house. I am the stranded spider's friend. Give me a screwdriver and flat-pack furniture and I'm happy for hours. I used to be a scientist and engineer. I wasn't very good at either, which is why I stopped, but that's because I took a wrong turning early in my career. It's nothing to do with gender. I don't go round sneering at iPods or Twitter because they were invented by men. I go round sneering at them because I'm a luddite at heart and cling to my vinyl LPs and postal communication out of sheer perversity. Since when did having two X chromosomes give women such a superiority complex? Except it's not based on superiority at all, because if women did feel they had the upper hand in any perceived disparity, they wouldn't need to be undermining. They'd act as if it was so final there'd be no need to comment. And don't say men have had it all their own way for too long, repressing women and waving their patriarchy at everyone. So what? People are people. It's time we stop this 'yah-boo, I'm better than you' attitude and start showing respect for people as fellow human beings. Because no-one ever said "I bet that was invented by a woman." Where's the equality in that?

I shouldn't bother reading this if I were you

You'll have to bear with me thoroughout this post. I am in the infuriating position of having almost decided to throw caution (and my pension) to the wind and make my living by my pen. However, several factors have given me pause. In no particular order:

1. I have the most atrocious handwriting, so living by my pen will not get me very far. 'Living by my keyboard' lacks the necessary romance of the grand gesture, quite apart from the risk that the phrase could risk people mistaking me for Rick Wakeman.

2. No-one wants to pay me for what I write. You don't. You wouldn't be reading blogs if you wanted to pay for reading matter. Quite right. Freedom of choice and all that. Not a lot of help to struggling hacks like myself, though. My last semi-pro gig was very enjoyable and the recording of the script went very well, but it's not going to be reflected in my pay cheque. (In fact, the person who recruited me for the job was reprimanded by senior management for using a member of staff to write rather than using volunteers throughout. I hope the final product vindicates us.)

3. Partly as a result of 2, I can't get an agent. This is a well-worn complaint of the unpublished writer, so much so that extraterrestrial observers hear it so often they think it is a mating call. I hope I'm not abducted, I could end up paired off with someone working on volume seventeen of a multi-layered science fantasy epic. That would clash horribly with my retro thriller ambitions. Imagine the children. No, don't. It's too horrible.

4. I've got writer's chilblains. Similar to writer's block, this is a self-inflicted condition caused by having all sorts of fine ideas for plotlines while nowhere near writing materials. When I come to set them down, the ones I can remember in any useful detail are trite and hackneyed and I get cold feet which soon becomes painful when drawn out over a long period of time.

5. When I do actually sit down and make myself write, reading it back it strikes me as the maunderings of a deranged mind.

All these things considered, I fear I shall have to stick to the day job. And for the benefit of those in the blogosphere, perhaps I should go back to wasting time on Facebook instead of trying to kickstart my writing on here.

Thank you for reading this far. I think you deserve a chocolate biscuit for making it to the end.

Variations on the theme from M*A*S*H: Part two

You may have seen the media coverage this week of the deaths of the conductor Sir Edward Downes and his wife Joan, who chose to end their lives together at the Swiss suicide clinic, Dignitas. Lady Downes was terminally ill; her husband, though losing his sight and hearing and becoming increasingly frail, was not. There are those who say that suicide is an abomination, whatever the motivation. Yet even the Catholic church no longer deems it a mortal sin, since to contemplate suicide a person must apparently not be in their right mind. But when a person is a part of you to such an extent that living without them would be more agonising than dying, quietly, alongside them, suicide may seem less like an act of desperation and more like the last laugh against illness and infirmity. I'm not condoning suicide. It isn't my place to be either for or against it, since I believe it's a matter for the individual concerned, and can only feel compassion for those who believe this is the way their life must end. I have no connection with the Downes family, but I respect the decision of Sir Edward and his wife, and I hope they are now at peace. My sympathies are with their family and friends.

Glad to be grey

I saw in the paper this morning that there is a website dedicated to celebrating grey hair (www.goinggraylookinggreat.com). While this is a Good Thing, it's a pity that losing hair colour is something that needs a website to reconcile people to it. And looking at the site, it's still pretty high maintenance, with talk of highlights and different shades to soften the blow of (whisper it) getting older. It's in the interest of the cosmetics industry to hard-sell the illusion that hair colour from a bottle equals youth and beauty. In fact, everything from foundation to nail polish is marketed to sell that fantasy. Face it, we are all getting older every second of the day (unless we're dead, and there's another branch of cosmetics to deal with that). How do you want to spend those seconds as they stretch into minutes and hours? Doing something fun, something enlightening, something helpful? Or crouched over a sink squirting viscous goo into your hair and hoping you won't drip over the soft furnishings? Let alone sitting in a salon having someone else do the squirting while relieving you of a hefty sum? As I've said before, I am notoriously low maintenance. I deal with my eyebrows if they're starting to take over my face and I reach for the bleach if my facial hair starts to make me look like Peter Wyngarde, but otherwise I am much as nature intended. (Nature likes a laugh.) It never occurred to me that I should dye my hair. I've been greying since my early twenties and, yes, it shows. So what? Mind you, I'm a little put out that it's coming through in strands so I look like someone's draped tinsel over my head. I was hoping for a dramatic wing of silver, or perhaps a touch of distinction at the temples. (Have you noticed that women go grey while men become distinguished?) I know I'm odd, but I don't think getting older is something to shy away from. Age is supposed to bring wisdom. How can you advertise your sagacity if you've disguised your years with dye and surgery? So embrace your fading follicles. Grey pride starts here. And use the money you would have spent on hair dye on something worthwhile.