Fairytale of Truro

As something of a newcomer to Truro, I thought the Wednesday night Christmas shopping extravaganza of a couple of weeks ago was a one-off.

How wrong I was.

Last week, again struggling through a throng of over-sugared school children
and tense looking parents with fixed grins on their faces, I wonder
when it was that I lost my Christmas spirit.

It could perhaps be partly to do with the fact that this year, for the first time in quite a few years, I'm not spending the run-up at home.

I feel almost traitorous spending my money somewhere other than the local shops I
know are struggling under the heavying weight of the recession back in Kent. But aren't the shops here under the same strain? No. That's not it.

Perhaps it is something to do with the fact that as I get older I'm starting to feel a bit disillusioned about the consumership of Christmas.

As we watch our old friend Woolworths buckle to it's knees, Mr J Public almost convulses with the excitement of getting a good deal.

Giving and receiving - fine. Remortgaging your house so your kids can have an xbox and a new pair of Nike Airs? Not fine.

And at times of hardship I'm a big believer in the 'it’s the thought that counts' gifts. Craft-making your way into a solvent Christmas by making someone a shell necklace. Giving your nephew that old mini-mal that hasn't even seen the sea since 1999. But are those kind of gifts really as appreciated as a Cath Kidson luggage bag, or a new Quiksilver Cypher suit?

Perhaps my scrooge-like spirit will vanish tomorrow night as the happy elves of Cornwall and Devon Media will once again let their hair down for a veritable feast of fancy dress and no-doubt drunken debauchery. I'll let you know after the weekend. If I remember any of it, of course…

Oggy, oggy, oggy

I find regional dialects all too easy to pick up.

Having come from the land of cockney rhyming slang, no turn of phrase is too preposterous for me.

I used to knock around a bit in Somerset where locals would call each other ‘babba’. It sounded so affectionate and endearing – so much softer than the London trend of calling everyone ‘love’. It stuck to the roof of my mouth like Dairylea, and wouldn’t come down.

Worse than that, it’s impossible to say "alright, my babba?" without employing a hugely exaggerated southwest twang. And use it, I do. Frequently. Now other friends have complained that they’ve picked it up from me, and I’ve vowed to cut down its usage.

It only takes a short while to overhear and adopt the idosyncrasies of regional language, but some are better known than others.

In research carried out by Travelodge, 40% of the country recognised the ‘affectionate’ Cornish name-calling of tourists as 'emmets', while only 20% knew that an 'oggy' is a pasty.
Having said that – when was the last time you actually heard someone other than your dad call it an oggy?

Just 2 hours up the road in Cheddar, some good friends of mine refer to me, an outsider, as a 'grockle'.
I think I prefer this term, as said with something of a London twang, a grockle sounds like a warm fuzzy feeling one might get after having a long hot bath – “oooh, I’m feeling a bit grockle...”.

From what I can tell, however, it means exactly the same as ‘emmet’, just applied to a different part of the Southwest - a mildly derogatory term for anyone who isn't local.

But even the locals disagree on the definitions sometimes. A colleague of mine assures me the term ‘emmet’ only applies to someone who has actually moved, and is now living somewhere they weren’t born locally.

The Urban Dictionary however (I won’t link it due to some of its over-enthusiastic characterisation of the stereotypical tourist) most definitely applies it purely to those tourists (mainly northerners) who sun themselves on the Cornish beaches between the months of July and August.

One thing is for sure – I am bound by birth to never be able to thrown my hands in the air and raise my eyes to heaven at the summer traffic jams to cry ‘bloody emmets!’. Bit of a shame really.

I will just have to start my own lingo.

Drunk dialer

I think I could do with one of these. Or rather, the people around me could do with one of these.

Step aside in-car breath tests, step up the breath test for email.

Are you sure you want to send this email? Are you really, really sure?

The Urban Dictionary defines the problem thus:

So it is with a collective sigh of relief that at long last a safeguard has been designed to stop one rattling off a message when ‘emotionally charged’ (or indeed, my personal favourite, ‘alcoholically challenged’).

Brainchild of an employee at Google, activating late at night and on weekends, the gismo asks a series of ‘short mathematical posers’ (love that phrase) which you have to answer before the email or text sends.

Now, ordinarily I’d like to think myself supreme enough to be able to answer a ‘short mathematical poser’ even after a few jars, but wise with the experience of ballsing up about a hundred late-night sudokus while on the last train home, I know different. It’s harder than you think.

Having been on the receiving end of many a drunken email and text, and admittedly sending a couple myself, this can surely only be a good thing.

My only worry – don’t make them too hard, guys. Otherwise I can imagine, even without the dealy ingredient of alcohol, struggling after about 3 o’clock every day.

Facebook group: Mobile number changed

I can’t even begin to fathom what 6.7 billion people looks like. Half the world.

Imagine that number of mobile phones going off at once. Unlikely, yes, but soon possible, as the UN's agency for information and communication technologies predict that half the world will own a mobile phone by the end of the year.

Goodness. Half the world. Half the world with the potential to hear Guns’n’Roses
Sweet Child of Mine emanate from a tiny gizmo every time someone else
is trying to speak to them. The possibilities are endless…

Ironically, this news comes on the day that after 12 years with the same mobile phone number (I was carefully presented with a brick of a Nokia at the tender age of 17 as I hurtled back and forth from London to Cornwall every weekend in my 10 year old Polo) I had to change my number due to a recent abundance of malicious texts. And that’s the problem with everything fantastic – there’s always a downside.

Which got me to thinking - do I really need to be available 24/7 to anyone who happens to have picked my number up along the way? Do I really need the constant finger-ache and ear-ache of night and day communication? I bet there is the odd person out there in the county who has still refused the technology which interrupts, costs, and keeps tabs on you. A bit like those who have managed to hold Facebook at bay - I am in awe of these people.

I’m even jealous of people who own one, but rarely use it. My mum was a great example of this when, a few years ago, she actually DID break down in her car and her trusty old pay-as-you-(don’t)-go failed to work. On closer inspection by the network provider, her SIM had actually malfunctioned because it had become dusty. Imagine.

Another friend’s parents were asked to text their daughter when they got home safely at the end of a dinner party. About an hour and a half later, she received a text simply with the word 'BACK' shouting out from the tiny screen. As we giggled through tears of amusement, we mused that it probably took them half an hour to compose.

For those of us more frequent users, it’s a double edged sword. Although we are at the cutting edge of technology, bluetooth’ing, wi-fi’ing, video calling and picture messaging all at our very finger tips, it’s also all too easy to fight on text. Too easy to say things you would never say to someone’s face. Too easy to accidentally slip a ‘xx’ on the end of a message to a new love interest and appear ‘too keen’; and too easy to accidentally blurt out inner emotions when you’ve had a few on a Friday night.

It’s a nice thought but I know I’m addicted, and I’m sure I’ll never be able to quit. The ability to stay in touch with my brother by text when he’s in Singapore is priceless, or to catch up with friends when I’m on 5 hour train journeys home blissful. Yes, I am a slave to my mobile, and soon every other person in the world will be.

In need of an Indian summer

How very English of me to blog on the weather. We’ve bitched, moaned and whinged our way through the most dreadful of Augusts in living memory. Kids have been sat indoors on their Playstations while parents despaired at their wasted summer holidays in the British Isles.

So last weekend came as nothing if not a blissful relief, as the cloudless sky which had been forecast, actually came true. Locals and tourists alike blew dust from their sunnies and blinked sun-spots from their eyes.

Never has the Wood gene been so lucky, as my brother and father rocked up from the South East for a weekend visit, only to wonder if the weather in Cornwall is always so lovely. Ha!

We were in the sea 3 times on Saturday and twice on Sunday, sampled some Cornish folk music at the Ring’o’Bells in St Issy, and as they wended their weary way home on Sunday, no sooner were they over the Tamar, it started to rain again.

Our hopes that we would be able to fill up on vitamin D before the winter sets in once again were dashed as quickly as they were raised. As a sufferer from SAD this is a big deal to me. Predictions that depression will increase become ever more real as we stare out of office windows for any break in the cloud.

My advice? Take lots of photos on the sunny days and look at them frequently; listen to Mungo Jerry’s In The Summertime on repeat; buy a sturdy winter coat, and when the sunshine comes again next May and June, lets not marvel at ‘what a nice spring we’re having’. Book 4 weeks off work then and there and enjoy your summer 2009.

It's a fair cop

It’s not been a good week for me and my car. After 11 years of safe and careful driving (see blog below), a minor slip saw me morph into a common criminal. Cluedo style, it was the girl in the red Peugeot, on the deserted A30, with a mobile phone. Or not as deserted as I’d
thought, as the unmarked Officer Dibble behind me - the only other car in sight - took no time in giving me the flashers and pulling me over, moments after I’d managed to tell my mum
that I couldn’t talk – I was driving.

Now, dear reader, before you scoff at my carelessness, I fully understand the dangers of driving whilst distracted. A long conversation down winding local roads at school kick-out time is obviously a problem. I explained very politely that I’d ended the conversation before I even knew that it was a Police Officer driving behind me.
That I had only been on the phone moments. That I have an automatic – no changing of gears required, even if I needed to break suddenly. I even breathed in my stomach and batted my eyelids a bit. Nothing. Zilch. Nada. He was not to be moved. Crime was apparently a bit low that day and quotas are quotas.

Officer Dibble carefully explained to me that ‘tests show that driving whilst on your mobile are proved to be more distracting than driving whilst under the influence of alcohol’. It took all my willpower to suppress an aghast ‘you cannot be serious’ laugh. Was he kidding? I’d pressed a button, put a phone to my ear, said two quick sentences and pressed another button. I’m not even sure my eyes left the road. More dangerous if I’d had a bottle of vodka? Well, a miss is as good as a mile – I almost regretted not having that glass of wine at lunch time.

Defeated, I took the ticket, the fine, the points (more difficult than it sounds as the sister part of my driving license had to be sent down from East Sussex and produced within a week – a close call when my mother accidentally forgot to put a stamp on the envelope). As the tight-lipped Policewoman at the station tutted and sighed her way through the paperwork a few days later I got to wondering. How about all those times I rummaged around for a CD to play? How about when I change radio stations or laugh or joke with my friend in the car?

Distracting? Absolutely. But not illegal? No siree. Perhaps there needs to be some kind of distraction richter scale.

It’s a fair cop, guvn’r. I did, after all, break the law. But after 11 years of driving in and around the Big Smoke, never even to be pulled over, it was a bit of a slap in the face. Lesson learned, I’ve now got hands-free for my mobile. Which is even more fiddly and distracting than putting a phone to my ear, but apparently, that’s legal.

Engine trouble stops play

Friday: Day 9 in SouthWest.

I’m always nervous about taking my car into the garage. There’s a fine line between getting overcharged because you’re a bolshie pompous guy who purports to know intimately the inner workings of the engine, or getting overcharged because you’re a clueless 20-something who knows more about the delicacy of the Middle East peace process than she does about what’s happening under her hood.

So it was with trepidation that I took my car in for its yearly MOT yesterday. They said they’d look at it in the morning and call me if it needed any work done, so by 3pm I thought I was home dry - enough to boast to a colleague about how my little L-reg had obviously sailed through its yearly medical, clearly down to careful ownership and model driving.

At 3.10pm and the call came. “Miss Wood? It’s about your car”. My faithful companion. How bad was it? I felt I should probably be sitting for the news. In the moments that followed I felt a good portion of blood rush to somewhere near my little toe. Something about a new exhaust. Something about a new headlight. And a further twist of the knife as apparently my number plates are too battered to be read according to legal standards (are you sure?). The damage? More than I’d budgeted for by a few hundred pounds.

It does make me wonder. If I had fallen somewhere in between bolshie know-it-all, and clueless-I-know-my-car’s-red-and-that’s-about-it, would I have needed so much ‘essential’ tinkering? Essential it is, however, as having no car in Cornwall is probably on a par with having no date for prom. You just don’t get very far.

Criminal Justice - Drunk on Duty

As highlighted by this superb article by Zoe Williams, the recent case of a rape victim receiving only 75% of the usual compensation given to rape victims highlights the incompetency of our justice system to understand that rape is rape. There is no grey area when it comes to drugging someone and raping them. Frankly the 100% £11, 000 is mildly insulting as it is, bearing in mind there is 25 levels of criminal compensation for which they pay out from £1,000 to £250,000.

As the victim herself said, it is not a crime to drink- it is a crime to rape.

This brings to mind many a debate on CIF where the odd hound dog trolls along with a 'who's in the wrong' list. According to such men, women on a night out should be prepared to expect unwanted attention if she wears something revealing. So ladies - no short skirts if you don't want to be raped, please. Or if a girl's gotten so pissed she can't be 100% that the guy who bought her drink didn't drug it, well, that chick's just glutton for punishment eh.

Society really needs to wind it's neck in when it comes to rape. No woman deserves this violation to her human rights. The vast majority of cases go un-reported, or un-solved. For any justice system to give less weight to such cases when alcohol's been consumed is a disgrace.

Pig Mario

Ok, so it was my own fault for watching Big Brother in the first place. I’m not proud, it’s not big, and its not clever. That said, what I saw today was so unbelievable it left me agog, staring at a blank screen, long after I’d turned it off, jaw still firmly on the floor.

‘Italian stallion’ and Sly look-alike Mario – which, by the way, isn’t his real name, and he hasn’t set foot in Italy in his entire life – got nominated for eviction. On mulling his imminent possible ejection from the house over with girlfriend of 3 years Lisa, who is also in the house, the sexist pig told Lisa that if he left her days would also be numbered in the house ‘without your man here’ because she ‘isn’t strong like him’. Is he kidding? I mean is he actually yanking my chain? No one on God’s green earth could possibly say that and mean it could they?

Mario is not known for is liberal thinking when it comes to gender equality, however. Lisa’s father has branded Mario a bully, after he reportedly bullied and manipulated Lisa into having her breasts enlarged. More seriously though, the red tops have been chocker block with allegations of his past domestic violence, and even forcing a 19 year-old ex-girlfriend into an unwanted abortion.

Whether these allegations are true are not, what is perfectly clear is that Mario apparently thinks himself to be God’s gift, and clearly needs taking down a peg or two. The best thing that could happen to that guy is to leave the house in a cloud of shame next week, then watch Lisa become a more accepted part of a group she’s been isolated from because she’s been tied to Mario’s apron strings. Come on Lisa – it’s time to grow some balls and stick up to that sexist pig of a boyfriend.

Calling all women

Don't be one of the silent complainers (see Sitting on your hind below...)
The Guardian is doing a series on feminism to celebrate 90 years in Britain since women won the right to vote. Be heard. Join the debate: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/awomansplace

Sitting on your hind

"Further to this Jill Saward has written this piece on why she’s standing for the by-election. Needless to say, it being a Comment is Free piece so far she’s been described as “pathetic” (robertdaniel), told to “grow up” (GoingGoingGordon), that her writing is “spurious” (RoadRiverandRail), that women reporting rape are all liars (comment detailed but quoted in another one), that women shouldn’t make this a gender/feminist issue (tangerinedream), that talking about rape is “sneaky” (Kvasnik) and that her campaign is “absolute bollocks” (funwithwhips). Lovely."

And needless to say, it being an F-Word piece, they love nothing better than to bitch into the wilderness without actually, err, doing anything. I know it's a new concept. But how about in loving to hate the misogynists, one actually logged into commentisfree and wrote in defense of Jill? Or complained about some of the more undesirable comments by reporting the abuse? Isn't the whole point that misogynists are heard too much, too loudly? Why not just stand up to them there and then, instead of creating a safe environment where no one else is allowed to speak? Why can't we have the courage of our convictions to be heard on the same stage as our opposition?

Or is it just that its so much fun complaining, if we actually took the bull by the horns and changed it ourselves, we'd have nothing left to bitch about. That is true feminism - an actual desire to change, not a desire to winge.

The Fynl GdBi

Recently, a best friend of mine was told by her partner of a year that it was over between them. No biggie. We’re all adults here.

It was 3 days after her birthday.

And it was by email.

Now, in fairness the fucktard in question blamed everything on himself, and even more impressively, recognised that his fucktardedness was only amplified by the fact he’d done such a thing in such an unbelievably cowardly way.

It seems it’s more common than you’d think, this email dumping business. Here’s a site dedicated to such personality imbalances. This is part of a personal favourite:

“i wish you would have given me a reason to be mad at you or hate you.
it would be so much easier then.
but you didn't. you were so good to me.
and i know i'll never find that again
i wish i could say i wanted someone else or something tangible but all i have is a
want of something i don't know i'll ever get
i'm so fucking sorry baby.
i feel so stupid
i'm sorry”

It makes you wonder if these misguided individuals actually think they’re better able to express the complications of the inner workings of their brains by text, but the lack of empathy for another’s feelings on receiving such a patronising load of old rubbish by email in working hours is just breathtaking.

Modern technology has given those with even an inkling of cowardliness an easy way out – a text, an email, a web announcement.

The basic of all human interaction seems to fly out the window when the subject matter is something a half Mars Bar away of what we call ‘sticky’.

How you behave behind the wall of modern technology is the real personality test

Narcissism with a penis

Are all men narcissistic at some level? I know that’s a blunt tool to throw at you so early on a Thursday morning, but I’d at least like the idea to be entertained. Some less so than others, and of course the odd complete exception from the rule. Many men I know would freely admit that they are. Narcissism goes hand in hand with the arrogance I find many modern men drape around tailored shoulders, and are all to often proud of. It’s a quality that, I’m almost ashamed to admit, I often find rather attractive.

Ashamed, because of course this narcissistic quality in men has a frightening danger of turning into something more than just “an abnormal desire for ones self, where you lack empathy, and unconscious inadequacy of self esteem, due to regression of child development… a delusion that you are more important than everyone else.” It can turn into something much darker, as all too frequently we’ve learned the hard way.

“In a relationship, a male narcissist wants to be the centre of a woman's life and feels that she should be subordinate to him in all ways. He may devalue the partner because she does not live up to his wishes. When frustrated, he withdraws his love and resorts to rage and projection. He provides very little emotional satisfaction for his partner, yet he demands her perfect responsiveness.” Now, you ask yourself why any woman would be so silly as to make herself vulnerable to a man of such deficiency, but let me tell you. It happens to the best of us, and it’s easier than it sounds to fall for a guy who nestles many of these qualities close to his heart. In its infant state, it has meant that dating in the modern age has seemingly become a power battle – who can call who less, who can give less of a shit. The person who wins is the person who will, eventually, get the elbow– a kind of bittersweet reward for being the most important. But before that happens, a woman will all too often lose her confidence, sense of self, happiness and sanity.

This describes it perfectly:
"A narcissist is skilled at the art of verbal abuse and the narcissist is proficient at verbally abusing women. Narcissists like to frustrate women. Their behaviour toward a woman keeps her on the edge of insanity because she doesn't know what is coming next. The narcissist uses what he deems the blunt or brutal truth to eat away at any attributes that a woman might have. The woman is left with no self-esteem when the narcissist is through with her. This is the way he wants her. If her self esteem is not in tact he can gain control over her and retain her as narcissistic supply.”

Of course, I’m not making the sweeping generalisation that all men are of this level – indeed, talking to a physiologist girl friend of mine last night, I found myself trying to convince us both that there were men with a normal level of narcissism pumping in their veins, in order that we might be a) attracted to them but b) not get too bruised a heart along the way. I really hope I’m right.

Either way, what's in a name?

Loath as I am to promote this website, having been in the audience of a seminar where the editor sat as one of the panelists, the f-word throws up an interesting 'Ask a feminist'.

Lets, for a moment, ignore the puke-inducing title of this section, and focus on what they're saying. Surnames. Taking one's partners name on marrying them, and giving your kid the same.

I have some experience here - not as childbearing mother or doe eyed wife-to-be - but as a child who's hippy parents who were thinking about the very same thing, all the way back when chicks were burning their bra's and dudes thought feminists were cool.

Mum kept her name. Dad kept his. Neither, by my recollection, ever wore a ring. Dad lost his diving and Mum claimed to, mysteriously, 'have one somewhere'. I was given Dad's surname, as was my older brother. A surname we now share with a step-mother and step-sisters. For this reason, I now feel little ownership with my surname (indeed, I couldn't have a more common name if I tried) so the opportunity to spice it up a bit would be jumped at like a fat man in a bakery.

The thing is - their decision was a personal, and to them, a natural one. Although it wasn't widely done at the time, and Mum had a bit of a battle reminding certain stubborn people that no, in fact, she wasn't Mrs Wood, nor had she ever been, they claim there wasn't the kind of hair-pulling 'is it more feminist for me to do this or this' that one is required to go through today. It seems, although much more widely accepted, the choice has just given us more of a dilema. But what's in a name (and that argument works on either side of the coin)?

Nor did it ever cause much of a fuss that I had a different name to Mum. In fact, I grew up wondering why other families weren't the same as mine, putting it down to extraordinary coincidence that their my friends' parents' surnames should match. How unique, I thought, they were! When Mum worked as a substitute teacher once in my tiny primary school, it saved me much rib jabbing and bullying taunts, as no-one but teachers and close friends were any the wiser that I'd been brewed a few years previous in a womb not far from them... And I'm pre-e-etty sure Mum didn't love me any the less because I had a different name. We, as mother and daughter, are individuals fussed by a bond reaching far beyond an initial.

My point is - families are unique - in this day and age, more than ever. The choice is hers, for her to embrace, not fret over. With a bit of common sense and individuality, such decisions shouldn't have her ears bleeding. I find it sad that someone need write to a feminist website to ask them what to do on this issue, as it should be about what's right for her, and her family.

I call myself a feminist. A normal feminist. So I'm not going to lose any sleep if I take another name one day. Nor am I going to if the opportunity doesn't present itself.