Backwards In High Heels

It Turns Out I Look Great & Speak Sense

Gawd bless my matey Jo who knows just the right time to send me stress busting internet addresses where for a few minutes (or hours) you can just be plain silly.

Go visit www.faceinhole.com and see yourself as a new person. It turns out I look great (my chocolate and no exercise regime is working) and I talk sense, I give you:

 

2012 Olympics - Competitive Facebooking

I saw part of a programme the other night about how artworks have increasingly become a commodity. The critic presenting the show was shown to have been prophetic when on film he foresaw this change of attitude towards art in the 1960s. The catalyst for this had been the lending of the Mona Lisa to the US in the 1960s and the high level of wonder around it.

As thousands of people queued to glimpse the famous artwork the critic noted how people didn’t come to look at the Mona Lisa they wanted to have seen it – two very different reasons.

This reminded me of a very sad but thought provoking article I’d read in a woman’s magazine a few years ago. A young woman was diagnosed with terminal cancer and she was recalling how it was not the fear of death that struck at first but the fear of not doing all those things you must do before you die. She rushed to Egypt to see the pyramids but whilst there would preferred to have been at home, watching tv with her family.

This ‘you must’ do/see/experience list has often fascinated me. No-one knows who penned it but it haunts you throughout you days. One of the greatest areas of the ‘must do’ is travel. There was a time when to say you went to Europe ensured you were one up on the Joneses, then it was America, then India, Africa…

Now the trend is you must go off track, there must be an element of adventure, and add in raising some money for charity if it feels too indulgent.

The social networking sites breed one-upmanship like bacteria on a toilet seat. Many use it as the public checklist to show off how many ‘musts’ they have ticked off. And if you look up old acquaintances on Friends Reunited no-one is married with children, they are happily married with beautiful children (and politeness dictates that when you are faced with 15 public albums of the beautiful children you can’t say your first thought which is ‘That reminds me. Chimera, that was a good series’). If Friends Reunited is to be believed we really live in a country full of contented married people, with delightful offspring, in jobs they love.

You can be assured that any future photograph I foist upon you will be of a place, experience or thing that I have genuinely felt compelled to visit, partake in or wonder upon. This may be the Empire State Building but it may just as easily be a rainy afternoon in Morecombe. I have no desire to see the Mona Lisa, visit the Taj Mahal or read War and Peace, and am confident I will not regret it on my deathbed.

If you are not careful and spend too much time doing what you you must do before you die you'll find you've run out of time to just live.

With blogs (or certainly the blogs I like to read) people are a bit more nitty gritty. With aliases and initials protecting the innocent we get to hear how delightful offspring make their parents rue the day the condom split and daydreams of lottery wins so the tedious job can be dumped with a fanfare where the trumpet ends up the boss’s arse.

But I have to say…

Today I’m really loving my job. Sorry.

Move Over Cowell

Simon Cowell had better pull his trousers up (and Lord knows there isn't much room for that). But, there is a new judge in town...my Gran.

My Gran, whose love of food I've spoken about before on this blog, was invited to judge produce at a show the other week.

With tressle tables of everything from scones to quiches, cakes to chutneys in front of her it was always going to be a tough call for the competitors versus Granny's tastebuds.

For those who have never entered village shows, beforehand you get a schedule which clearly notes the entry requirements. So when presented with a plate of 3 biscuits Gran would neither taste nor judge them as it clearly said in the schedule 4 biscuits to be presented and likewise the person who dared to put butter icing in a sponge cake when only jam was allowed.

Luckily baking appears to be in fine form in the north-east. We can sleep easy knowing the future of drop scones is in safe hands. Gran came away rather impressed.

Gran awarded the best in show to a Bakewell Tart and when the entrants were revealed (of course all judging is blind) it was the same woman Gran had awarded it to the year before (I believe it was her scones that took the honours then) - she must be some sort of baking Saint on earth to have impressed my Gran two years in a row.

I loved village shows as a child and wished we had some around here. I remember a family friend would always clean sweep the produce section of one particular show. Her baking was beyond compare and her talents spread to cheese making too.

In a bid to stop her winning the organisers invited her to be the judge the next year, a very underhand move. She was so incensed she declined the offer and entered three items in each catergory and dually clean sweeped 1st, 2nd and 3rd across the board the next year!