Study in black and white

It’s been a while since I last posted, and I blame work for getting in the way. There have been some difficult decisions to make of late, and I find it very damaging to my head space when I have a decision to make. I simply keep thrashing it out to the exclusion of almost everything else.

Instinctively, I feel the need to debate matters properly, explore the shades of grey. And I am ever sceptical of those who make their decisions easily, assuming they are somehow weak-brained, and haven’t properly grasped the problem. But, as T.S. Eliot puts it, there is ‘time yet for a hundred indecisions’. So I thought I should rightly write about the business of decision making.

Broadly speaking we tend to make our decisions using either our reason or intuition. But if you have a conundrum that you just cannot decide upon then you might like to try the following ways:

1. Listing all the pros and cons, and giving each a weighting. Then totting up. This is a slightly more scientific way of:

2. Tossing a coin. Very handy in settling disputes among squabbling children, but chance seems an unsatisfactory method for resolving anything that matters.

3. Prioritize the options , because – as a well-known psychologist once explained to me – most people actually make their decisions based on a very limited criteria of the two or three things they care about most. (K is a master at this reductionist method of decision making, which tends to be a quick and infuriating process.)

4. Ambivalence test yourself, by asking ‘what are the benefits of doing x?’, ‘what are the benefits of not doing x?’ ‘How will I feel if I do x?’, ’How will I feel if I don’t do x?’ and so on. This seems to me a deeply tedious way of going about solving a problem, but I expect it might come in handy if you’re thinking of leaving your husband or something (see 3).

5. Look to your motivation. Buddhists believe that there are three undesirable motivations: raga (passion or lust); dosa (hatred or malice) and moha (delusion). The desirable motivations are basically the absence of these, or put another way, caga (renunciation), metta (loving kindness) and panna (wisdom or understanding).

Well, it would seem that even in writing this post I have failed to reach a conclusion. But my instinct tells me this is a decidedly good thing.

Silent weekend

It's been a funny old week. Having nursed everyone else through the lurgy, I finally succumbed and ended up bedridden myself. Then on Wednesday, I completely lost my voice. But I started a new job three weeks ago and thought it would be bad form to look like an ill person who always takes days off, so I hauled my sorry self in and whispered to everyone. Which made the voice worse (and, frankly, made me look like an ill person).

Well, yesterday was my birthday, and because last year it was disastrously eclipsed by our house move, K very thoughtfully arranged dinner an a room for us at 36 On the Quay, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Emsworth. We had planned to go there for our anniversary in November, but as readers of this blog will know, our travel plans are generally foiled. And so it was that on that occasion, the Boo was too ill to be left. So the whole expedition was rescheduled to my birthday weekend, when, inevitably, we were foiled again, this time by the ridiculous situation of my not being able to speak.

But this was our first night away together since the Boo was born and I was determined that a lack of words was not going to fail me. (After all, the queue of volunteers willing to lose a night's sleep on our behalf is not long.)

We arrived in good time and were taken to our room, entitled 'Clove' and fragranced accordingly to give the off-putting impression of being at the dentist's. Style-wise and size-wise it was rather like spending the night in a caravan, but no matter: it was clean and child-free.

K explained our predicament. Could they please seat us in the quietest corner of the restaurant, so as to avoid the ridicule of the other diners while I played out the necessary charades? But of course.

And indeed much thought and attention was granted to the seating arrangements, but unfortunately none whatsoever to the evening's timings. I imagine that they put their staying guests on the most leisurely serving schedule. New diners arrived and left while we waited. Very quietly. An hour after being seated we got our amuse bouche. Two hours after being seated, we finally got our main course, by which time - conversation being a sore point - I had drunk fifty quid's worth of Chablis. So I ask you: what the fuck did they think we were going to do for an entire evening when we were unable to converse? Eating seemed to be off the menu.

So when the main course arrived, it was subject to the kind of great expectation that carries its inevitable disappointment. The food may have lacked balance and flair but so did I, and feeling decidedly queasy I abandoned my fish and poor K, and beat a hasty retreat upstairs. And thus, I am sorry to say, it was not the happiest of birthdays.

But there is a happy ending and it arrived in the form of breakfast in bed. Breakfast is my absolutely favourite meal of the day. Perhaps it's because I am 'a mornings person' (which is not to say that post-midnight revelling and gluttonous consumption are pleasures unknown to me). But if you have an enormous breakfast, you have a whole day in which to work it off. If you have an enormous lunch, you lose a three-hour chunk out of your day and feel as if you need a sleep afterwards. If you have an enormous appetite for dinner, chances are you won't have an enormous appetite for sex afterwards. Yes, breakfast works for me.

So I will say this about 36 On the Quay - they serve a mighty fine breakfast. A Continental breakfast that is (which always brings out a kind of xenophobic disgust in my beloved, who never fails to find room for a Full English, in the same way that the children can always squeeze in a pudding, even when they are 'fully up for veggies'). Delicious homemade muesli, hot toast and jams, warm and perfectly-formed pastries, sweet fresh raspberries and pineapple, and not-too-gelatinous yogurt.

Enough of poncy dinner reservations. Have a break, have a breakfast. I now intend to launch a very thorough investigation into the finest places to breakfast. And you know the best bit? It is socially acceptable to breakfast in silence.

Déja vu

Have you seen Episodes starring Matt LeBlanc, Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan? There have been four episodes so far and it’s just about the only thing on British TV at the moment that leaves me wanting more rather than less. But as I sat down to watch the first episode I realised it was strangely reminiscent of Moving Wallpaper (which to my mind was just a teeny bit better.

I hardly ever watch TV these days – mainly because I’ve developed A-list fatigue. I simply can't bear to see any more of the likes of Jamie Oliver, Stephen Fry, David Attenborough, Alan Titchmarsh and Graham Norton. I'm not saying they're not brilliant, and of course they are national treasures, but it's a bit like having visitors that stay too long: however fond of them you are, sooner or later you just want to see someone else in your living room.

And it's not just the talent, it's the formats. Peter Kay's hilarious parody Britain's Got a the Pop Factor and possibly a new Celebrity Jesus Christ Soap Star Superstar Strictly on Ice revealed Saturday night TV for precisely what it is - the same programme shown over and over and over again. And they go on forever. I mean how many more series of The Apprentice and Strictly Come Dancing will they foist upon us? Big Brother is a genius concept, but has now run to 11 series (not to mention all the celebrity series), which surely makes it rather tired in anyone’s eyes. Several people have asked me if I’ve been watching Michel Roux’s Service and the answer is ‘only the first ten minutes of the first one’. I’ve seen Raymond Blanc’s The Restaurant and I’ve seen Jamie’s Kitchen – I get the idea and am bored now.

To be equal handed, I won't limit my derisory sniping to reality shows, because so-called factual TV has been driving me bonkers too. The same old tedious A-listers making documentary series about things they know nothing about. For example, Alan Titchmarsh on nature (British Isles: A Natural History), David Dimbleby on British architecture and art (A Picture of Britain and How We Built Britain), Jeremy Paxman on history (The Victorians), Sophie Dahl on cookery (The Delicious Miss Dahl)... I'm find myself so embarrassed watching it that I have to peep out from behind the cushions. I mean, it would be like me commentating on the tennis - sure, I like tennis, but that hardly makes me qualified to comment on it.

Of course they can't make new things all the time, and with so many channels now they have to fill the schedules with something. And it's fair enough to say that I probably don't know about many very good new shows because I don't like watching TV any longer (and because it was my New Year's Resolution to stop buying the Radio Times). But the unfortunate truth is that in the UK we have the BBC and we actually believe that our creativity and media are pretty much the thing we do best.

So are we quashing that creativity with a risk-averse media culture, or have we just run out of ideas? Is the golden age of TV long past? Long live the internet!

PS For what it’s worth, here (in no particular order) are a few things past and present that I’ll never say a bad word about:
Cracker, The Street, Lost, 24, Mad Men, Sex and the City, Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes, Shakespeare Retold, Jeeves and Wooster, Cold Feet, Sopranos, Yes Minister, Moving Wallpaper, Outnumbered, The Trip, Grass, Gavin and Stacey, Blackadder, Teachers, The Green Wing, Grand Designs, Simon Shama's History of Britain, Andrew Marr's Making of Modern Britain, and pretty much anything by Louis Theroux (which is why I must stop typing right now - Ultra Zionists is just about to start).

The necessity of failure

As a P.S. to my previous post, I happened to be listening to Howard Jacobson talking about his book The Mighty Waltzer on Radio 4’s Book Club . Having just won the Man Booker for his latest novel, The Finkler Question – and receiving the biggest ever sales boost from the prize since records began - he had this to say about his success:

‘All my books have been about failure of some kind and I’ve always argued success is not interesting. It’s not interesting to a writer, it doesn’t make a story, it’s not what a writer is; if a writer were a successful person he wouldn’t be a writer. I actually say to all of you in the fondest way, if you are readers, as I am a writer, isn’t that because we are all in a sense failures together? Failures at being worldly - we read because we want the world to be somewhat another place, we write because we want the world to be [another place], we do not feel the world is satisfactory to us, or that we have made our way in a satisfactory sense...I mean this in the most complimentary way. For me to be a failure is the highest achievement...you haven’t been a banker, you haven’t become a footballer, you’ve gone into the imagination, to remake and to relive the world....Even in success, a man of imagination can find failure.’

Manic obsessive

Something has been bothering me this past week. Yet again I am beset by that morale-sapping anxiety of not having made much of myself. It tends to sneak up in January, when the year lies stretched out in front of you like a crisp white page waiting for the next chapter of the story to be written. That familiar internal conflict arises: on the one hand a sense of aggrandisement that allows you to imagine yourself achieving self-realisation and leaving a valuable legacy in the world, and on the other hand a bitchy self-sniping about your own limitations that forces you to conclude that writing a novel, or composing a symphony, or discovering a cure for the common cold, or growing a beard, is work best left to humanity's more talented pool.

I'm talking about success, but not the sort measured by happy homes, good friends and getting through a week without recourse to prescribed medication. No, I'm talking about old-fashioned, traditional success, measured in terms of fame, fortune and 'reaching the top'.

Getting there, of course, has less to do with innate talent than with knowing what you want and being sufficiently committed to get it. But it has now dawned on me that there is another ingredient still more relevant in the recipe for success: obsession. Think of anyone you know who is a shining star in their area of operation and I will bet you that they are a total obsessive...

...which brings me to the nub of the matter. A man who is obsessive is, frankly, just a normal man. The well-known 'men and their sheds' scenario: women have hobbies, men have obsessions. Men do obsession naturally and they do it brilliantly (a psychologist would probably say that as hunters men are biologically designed to focus on the target without distraction). But an obsessive woman is distinctly noteworthy, as in 'God woman, you're obsessed!'. So I ask you, who wants to work with an obsessive woman, or date an obsessive woman? They're way too weird. I mean, 'just get some perspective!'.

Typically, a woman will allow herself to do the thing she really wants to do only after she has done everything she has to do. Take this blog for example, which is only ever written after the children are both asleep, my paid work has been dispatched, dinner has been shopped for, cooked and eaten, everyone has the things they need for the next day, and all social engagements have been fulfilled. Compare and contrast Mr London Street who is my very favourite male blogger. I have no idea where or when he writes, but I notice that in 2010 he wrote 178 posts and I wrote 11. My energies, I fear - like those of a cave woman foraging all over the place while keeping an eye on the children - are simply too diffuse to ever amount to much.

So are men pre-destined to be more successful than women? Perhaps my New Year's Resolution should be to get a bit more obsessive. But now I come to think of obsessive women I have known, it didn't end well. Helluva story though...

Rate your Santa

Dear Father Christmas

It isn't often that I write letters of complaint - and perhaps my thirty-something years should have made me world-weary enough to let this pass - but I can't help thinking that it's not too late. With a few pointers there is still time before Christmas to keep the magic alive for hundreds of other girls and boys.

You might think that I'm not your target audience, but as one who paid your £5.50 entrance fee on Tuesday you would be wrong. I don't expect you to be RADA trained, just convincing enough so that a three year old can't see right through you.

It has to be said that you've got a lot going for you – the willing suspension of disbelief has already been created. Most performers don't have the benefit of such a receptive audience, but unfortunately this comes with a certain level of expectation. I've spent a long time building you up, and you've got a great back story, lots of magic powers (always sells), a warm and jolly persona and a fine intellect to match. You can break and enter into any house without chimney, and best of all, you are the image of selfless and bountiful giving. What I'm trying to say is that you're trading on an elaborate cultural lie and your job is to enhance it. The last thing we want is to tell our children the truth, or who can say where it will end?

Allow me to enter into specifics:

1. Your 'grotto' was frankly grotty and your 'elf' was entirely without any elfin features (a hat and rosy cheeks really would make all the difference. The diet can wait until January).

2. £5.50 for a five minute interview and a tube of bubbles did not leave me feeling bountiful and full of festive cheer.

3. I didn’t see a list of your convictions pinned up outside, so you really didn't need to discuss your CRB checks with us at such length, nor launch a tirade on taxi drivers the world over who do not require such paperwork. The Impster was totally befuddled, but mercifully on this occasion was sufficiently distracted not to request her customary chapter and verse explanation.

4. Your parting shot should not be 'Goodbye! If you liked it, Merry Christmas, and if not you can see Santa at Debenhams.'

5. Don't ask a three year old the kind of question that would fox an adult. They are probably feeling rather shy and in awe of you (particularly in light of your passionate feelings regarding the necessary police checks) so starting a conversation with 'Now how many reindeer do I have?' won't put anyone at their ease.

6. I know that in this era of globalisation it’s probably harder to get your story straight, but you really should decide on where you live and stick to it: is it the North Pole, Greenland or Lapland? It doesn't help to give the impression of being hazy about geography when you have to cover the world in a single night.

I don't mean to be picky, but it is clear that you are not a man who enjoys his work. Perhaps you dislike children? Or consider parental expectations to be wildly excessive these days?

Anyway, you can take heart from the fact that the Impster still thinks you were 'better than the Father Christmas with the bell' who was outside the cathedral last week. I, too, was unconvinced by the cut of his jib. There is something altogether wrong about a skinny Father Christmas (though that is one accusation I would not lay at your door).

Well, I wish you the very best of luck for the remaining festive season, and let us sincerely hope you find more satisfying employment in the New Year. Should you wish to persevere with this career path, please don’t hesitate to contact me. I am now actively engaged in launching The Father Christmas Consultancy in time for next Christmas.

All best wishes


This Father Christmas was found in his Ice Cave at the Winchester Cathedral Christmas Market. If you've had an encounter with a good, bad or indifferent Father Christmas this year then please leave a comment about it.

By the way, as long as you’re not too fussy about where your letter ends up, little people can write to Santa Claus, Reindeer Land, SAN TA1 and the Royal Mail will try their best to deliver it in a timely fashion. (Just for the record, the real Father Christmas lives in the mountains of Korvatunturi in the Finnish province of Lapland but then you have to rely on the chimney method of delivery which is somewhat fraught with hazards.)

Also, don’t forget you can track his movements around the world on Christmas Eve here (they need Disney or Nintendo on the case with their animation but it’s clever enough to impress a three year old).

Merry Christmas one and all!

May cause offence

It is bath time. I am kneeling devoutly by the side of the bath, engaged in the ritual practice of extracting the Boo’s fingers from the tap. Suddenly the Impster pops up holding her watering can and sponge. ‘Blood of Christ?’ she asks proffering the watering can.

‘What?’

‘I’m playin’ churches,’ she explains. Then picking up the sponge, she hollers loud enough to shame a barrow-boy, ‘Anyone want some body of Christ?’

The Boo looks suitably impressed and flaps his arms as if to say, ‘Don’t mind if I do.’

It started one evening way past her bedtime. K told her she could choose ‘just one’ book for her bedtime story. So she chose the fattest one she could find: The Bible. They embarked on Genesis and she pointed to the picture of Noah on the opposite page: ‘Look daddy, it’s the Fat Controller.’ It was clear that we had a little explaining to do.

Or at least someone did. The following week she started Sunday School and came home full of it: ‘I thought it was horrid. I wanted to draw pictures of wicked witches.’

Perhaps it was the post-Sunday School chocolate digestives that eased the way, or possibly her recent discovery that Holy Communion contained edible goods: ‘Daddy, did you get something to eat?’

Six months later, she has started spreading the word. ‘I like Church,’ she said trudging along the other Sunday. ‘I wonder if granny knows about Church?’ And lo and behold as we are taking our leave of my parents she says, ‘I’ll watch out for you granny, and God will watch out for me. God is at Church.’

No evangelist, however good, can match the charming yet obsessional fervour of a three year old. How otherwise could Disney and Barbie continue to practise their strangulating hold on families the world over? Yes, children spend their days greedily consuming everything they see and hear, only to throw it back up when you are least expecting it. Like my friend’s four-year-old niece, who sent shockwaves across her family last Christmas by yelling ‘let’s open the fucking presents!’

Childish enthusiasm knows no abstention, no tact, no diplomacy. It is boundless, heartfelt and unbearably honest. Just don’t ask for an opinion on your haircut.