Bankers bonuses again!

I see that bankers bonuses are all over the news again because Stephen Hester, Chief Executive of RBS has been awarded but then declined a share bonus of almost £1,000,000 (£963,000 to be precise, I think!).

I'm not entirely sure where I stand on this. On the one hand, Mr Hester has been brought into RBS to turn round a bank that was failing and had made some very bad decisions about safeguarding its customers' money. So far as I can make out, that's what he has done and although the government has not yet been paid back for its bailout loan, things are looking up. Presumably he took the job under a contract which made clear his terms and conditions which again presumably, were agreed by the government's lawyers as the principal shareholder. So legally, he is entitled to every penny that he has been offered.

Morally, things look a little different. Many thousands of people have lost jobs and seen their lifestyles ruined by the profilgacy and greed of the big banks in lending to high risk clients for the chance of making an easy buck. The Labour government at the time of the crash was hasty to say the least in the arrangements it put into place and totally failed to build in any conditions or safeguards, and so also must have a moral responsibility as well as a legal one for what has happened. The bank's directors must surely be living in a little bubble insulated from the rest of the world if a) they thought that the news of the bonus award would not leak and b) they thought it was an acceptable thing to do and c) they would not be vilified by everyone else.

Stephen Hester should be congratulated on having the moral backbone to turn down his bonus, even if he has done it in response to the outcry in the press (and there is no proof of that). He has gone on record as saying that he does not want to be seen as a pariah and in the same bracket as Sir Fred Goodwin, who ruined the banking system in the first place by his greed and poor judgement. His next task should be to instruct his Board of Directors to do the same and set an example to the rest of the banking sector that the misery they are inflicting on others is not something they can escape from themselves (although perhaps just not receiving a humungous bonus cannot be placed into the same category as losing your job, home and lifestyle because you have been made redundant from a job you have worked hard at for many years).

The Labour party should stop throwing stones at the Tory coalition about this and also stand up and accept its share of the responsibility. Let's not forget it's their non existent regulation of the financial sector, coupled with their hasty decisions about bail outs and poor decisions about investment in the country's wealth (eg Gordon Brown selling off the gold reserves when the price was at an all time low) that have got us in this mess in the first place. And David Cameron should stop lecturing the little people that didn't go to Eton, remember who sets the rules and tackle the bonus culture by law and ensure that the country gets its money back, even if it does mean he has to offend his old classmates. Constantly penalising you and I will not get us all back on our feet, we simply don't have the combined cash to do it, but putting the shackles on the corporate greedy fat cats ought to go quite a long way to help, wouldn't you say?

Not well!

I have a cold.

I’ve had it for several days, starting with a nagging sore throat like someone had tipped a load of broken glass into my throat as I slept, then progressing onto a nose that ran like Niagara Falls, and which then blocked up like a drain full of cooking fat (yuk – nasty image!) needing Dyno Rod to clear it. Now, it’s just left me feeling generally below par and with an occasional nagging cough which will probably take weeks to go.

Of course it’s only to be expected and it’s incredible that it has taken a whole week since panto for me to get ill. In fact hardly anyone was ill during the panto run at all, which must be a record. There’s usually at least one panic as a principal loses their voice and crawls into the dressing room croaking “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’ve lost my voice. Can someone sing for me tonight?”.

Naturally as a female I have soldiered on! Despite feeling like rubbish, I’ve persevered and gone to work, done a gym induction, done all the chores and brought the ironing and the admin up to date. If I was a bloke (cue outraged denials from any men reading this), I would have claimed to have had man-flu!

I did have a flu jab this year, which I firmly believe helps stop you getting colds and similar minor ailments too badly even though they tell you it doesn’t. I have experienced similar illness patterns in previous years when I’ve had one of these, and not been nearly so ill with bronchial stuff as in the years when I don’t. They dole flu jabs out at work for free, so it’s a minor inconvenience and they have never given me a mild dose of the flu either, which some people claim they do.

You’d think by now that some bright scientist would have developed a prevention for viral stuff wouldn’t you? They seem to pay scientists to research the bleeding obvious most of the time, so why not pay them to do something that’s useful for a change? Surely there must be some university academic that is currently under-utilised and who would welcome the opportunity to squander several year’s worth of public money developing a cure/preventative treatment for the common cold?

Until they do, I suppose we all just have to soldier on making a fortune for Kleenex and Beechams in the process. Perhaps there already is a cure, but its all a plot by the pharmaceutical companies to retain their profits? Who knows?

At the  moment, I look like Rudolph on a bad day and no amount of make up can disguise it. Maybe that’s an opening in the market – viral symptom disguising make up? Hmmm, thinking caps on!

A Very Nice Day!

I didn't blog yesterday because I was having a Very Nice Day. After a week behind a desk playing with a computer (they all think I'm working and thinking deep strategic thoughts, but that's because I am a superb actress) I simply didn't want to sit down at another one and write several paragraphs of mindless drivel - even though I enjoy it when I do it.

We got up late, went into town to do a few chores, had a nice lunch at Pizza Express, came back, did a bit of tidying in the garden and then had a nice dinner with a bottle of wine. Just the two of us, with no interruptions and no problems to deal with. You wouldn't believe how rare such an occasion is.

Personally, I find it very easy to have a slow paced, relaxing day like that with no guilt whatsoever about the ironing / food shopping / hoovering / other domestic drudgery. I have no elderly parents to think about, and no particularly troublesome adolescents. The Hubby is not so fortunate, with troublesome relatives every way he turns and a deeply ingrained sense of guilt if he is not gainfully occupied every minute of the day. That's why he looks like s**t by the end of the week; well, I say by the end of the week because it used to be he looked like that by Friday evening. Then it advanced to Thursday, and now quite often he looks like it by Wednesday night, poor sod. He should get more sleep.

There is a big difference between us in how we sleep. Due to the reasons outlined above, The Hubby is asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow. I can always tell because the snoring starts; discretely at first, more like heavy open mouthed breathing, then slightly louder like the snorty noise cute little piglets make, then real corkers. He's a fidgeter as well, so his legs and arms twitch like mad. I put up with it for a while, then give him a hard poke in the ribs and he turns over, which gives temporary respite. I'm a dreadful sleeper - take ages to get off, then wake up every three or four hours and can't get back to sleep. I sleep very lightly, so the room has to be dark and absolutely quiet and still. You can see that as far as sleep is concerned, we are incompatible!

A resolution for 2012 is to find more time for us. 2011 was difficult with children at various key stages of life which need a lot of attention (starting first jobs, chosing 'A' level courses, starting uni), family bereavements, health issues and work becoming manic,  so outside of holidays we had very little time as a couple. We both missed it, and when you don't get it, you realise how important it is. So we are making more effort - coffee at the weekends, the odd long weekend away, time taken just doing stuff together like yesterday. So far, so good, but it is only January.

I'm the last person qualified to give advice to anyone on how to look after their relationship, but if my disastrous track record has taught me anything it's that you have to make time for each other, appreciate each other and enjoy each other. If you don't, one of you will quickly find someone else to do that with and things will go terribly wrong. At best, you will regress to being blind eyed house sharers, at worst, you will get acrimoniously divorced.

So we are aiming for more days like yesterday - low key, but very satisfying and more valuable than I can say. Everyone should do the same!

Ten ways I know I'm still young

1. I wear mini skirts
2. I think my legs are still good enough to do that
3. I don’t have bingo wings!
4. I am capable of drinking copious quantities of white wine without being sick
5. I like music by bands like The Killers and Mumford & Sons and by people like Amy Winehouse
6. I play harmless practical jokes and pranks on my husband
7. I don’t have any grey hair (well, not much)
8. I don’t have any wrinkles (except the ones I’ve had since I was 16, which don’t count)
9. I wear skimpy undies in nice fabric (probably too much information, but I think it’s a good indicator of mental age at least) instead of Bridget Jones style knickers from M&S
10.  I buy clothes in Gap, Top Shop and River Island

Ten ways I know I'm getting old

1. Policemen, firemen, doctors and other men in uniform look too young for me

2. I like listening to Radio 2, and find myself moaning about the departure of Terry Wogan

3. My daughter asks me where I am going or where I have been and will I be alright, like she's my mother!

4. I shout at people on TV when I think they are wankers.

5. I won't allow anyone to watch 'Big Brother' because I have 'standards'.

6. I drink cocoa in the evening.

7. I am becoming even more clumsy. If there is something to drop, break, trip over or fall down, I will do it.

8. I talk about things 'in the 80s' as though it were yesterday.

9. I belong to the National Trust and honestly enjoy visiting their properties.

10. I have numerous aches and pains where I didn't have them ten years ago.

Where does the time go?

I can't believe it's a week since I last blogged. Of course, I have been busy terrorising children for the last week. Not, I might add, by lurking down an alleyway with a bag of sweeties and a pad of chloroform going "Come here, little girl", but by poncing around on stage dressed in a big black frock and scary black wig and occasionally shouting "Oh, no I didn't". Much to my gratification, in every performance but one there were at least two small children that had to be evacuated to the bar and were too afraid to come back in! For the baddie, that's a result!

The older I get, the more I don't know where the time goes. Perhaps it is an indication of age that time passes more quickly the less you have of it left, although I am very hopeful that I have several more decades still to go. I can well believe it when oldies say that they have never been so busy since they retired; I have just had five days off and I can't think how I have passed the time (except for the evenings, when obviously I do know where I was - see above).

It is scary to think that panto is over for another year and I now have to start thinking about what I want to direct next year. I am being nagged by the Player's committee for my choice, and I haven't had five minutes - or so it seems - to even think about it. I am going to have to force myself to work on it in the evenings and if I want to finish writing something, I am going to have to work on the train. I did do something this evening but all I have done is decide what I had already written is not good enough and started again virtually.

There seems to be so much to do, quite honestly I don't have time to go to work. I could quite happily spend all day doing Operatic Society work, learning lines for 'Midsummer Night's Dream', working round the house, writing rubbish like this and painting what I optimistically call ' abstract art'. I firmly believe I have at least one novel in me, probably a bodice ripper, and I have several more panto scripts to write.

What I really need is a moderate lottery win, enough to pay off the bills and to stop work and allow me to do all of this at leisure. I'm sure I could make some pin money out of it and get a lot more satisfaction than doing what I do now. If you write for a living, you can do it from anywhere there is an internet connection so perhaps I could get broadband put in by OTE in Crete and work from our apartment there. I wonder whether all that Cretan sunshine would affect my mood? Of course I'd miss The Hubby, but I could pop back and see him from time to time when I had to come back to London to see my publisher. My publisher - doesn't that sound grand!

For the moment, it's all a pipe dream. Too many mortgages, too many children and too many responsibilities. But in time, it's an achieveable dream and I too, intend to be busier as I get older doing more of the things I want to do. And I'll keep writing - I like it! 

Stricken cruise ship - who's to blame?

The disaster in the Mediterranean of the capsized cruise ship is filling the headlines.

The Captain says his charts were out of date and incomplete, and that he is a hero for saving so many lives by sailing his ship closer to the shore so they could be rescued more easily, when clearly so many more could have been lost.

Observers, most of whom admittedly are not nautically trained and were looking at what was happening in the dark, say that the ship was too close to the shore before the accident and therefore the Captain is negligent in that he was disobeying the charts and not observing good practice just to give his passengers a good view of what is apparently a very pretty island. But in the dark - surely not? An electric light shining out of the inky blackness of a Mediterranean winter's night looks pretty much the same everywhere.

Passengers are saying that their safety briefings were not timely, and that maritime law says a briefing only has to be held within 24 hours of embarking. Well, that's about as much use as a chocolate teapot! What if something happens within the first 24 hours, as in this case? That ship was carrying over 4,000 people, and only a tiny proportion had received any kind of safety instructions. Lifebelts were stowed in cabins but don't appear to have been anywhere else, or at least not obviously so. Even the crew have admitted that they were not trained in evacuation procedures when the ship was listing so badly that almost half of the lifeboats could not be used - they are only trained for evacuation from a level vessel!

Some one is negligent here, and from what I can gather from what I have read, it probably isn't the Captain, although he is the obvious scapegoat. The company's procedures seem to be woefully inadequate, passengers and crew alike totally unprepared and the equipment provided, whether charts, lifebelts or lifeboats, inappropriately stored, maintained and inaccessible. So far, it has been established that eleven people have died and I have no doubt that there will be more. This seems to me to be a clear case for a corporate manslaughter charge.

Do they have that in Italy? This was an Italian ship, with an Italian crew and a large proportion of Italian passengers, although there do appear to have been a fair few Brits as well. It has sunk in Italian waters, so it is not unreasonable to expect that any enquiries or a trial, should it come to that, will also be held in Italy.

Whatever happens, those poor people have been so traumatised that they will probably never set foot on a boat again. I can see the legal cases rumbling on and on, and the lawyers rubbing their hands.

They say that cruising is one of the safest forms of travel, but personally I have an in built fear of water (I get panicky in a deep bath!) and can't swim, so you wouldn't catch me on one of the things even before this. I'll stick to planes any time!

Half way through! Oh, no it isn't!

Well, half the panto run is done and yet again it is great to give such a lot of pleasure to so many people.

We have had five sell out performances so far, with another five to come. Along with everyone else, I’m exhausted and totally ready to have tonight and tomorrow off before starting again on Wednesday.

Almost 50% of our audiences so far, if not more, have been children, many of them very young. Watching them watching me, I am reminded that children, particularly the under eights, still have the capacity to be amazed and entertained by live entertainment which touches into the very roots of childhood. The simple concepts of good and evil, colour, light and visual spectacle remain, even in this sophisticated technological age, wonderful entertainment for children and adults alike.

Live entertainment, particularly live entertainment that the whole family can watch together, is more than just passing the time. It is a shared experience, a coming together of the generations in an age old activity which transcends politics, religion and other secular interests.  That doesn’t just apply to panto, it could equally well apply to other forms of artistic entertainment or even to sports watched together. Anything that everyone can participate in whatever their age, intellect or physical limitations could apply equally well.

This weekend, I have seen children’s faces lit up with pure, innocent enjoyment at the music, dancing and colour. They have cheered the goodie and heckled the baddie (me!) with enthusiasm. They have been allowed, for a brief time, to participate in something which does not depend upon violence, bad language, strife (watch any episode of East Enders, for instance, to see strife on a daily basis) or other people’s misfortune (reference ‘Stenders again!) for entertainment. In short, they have had a bit of fun and a bit of balance put back into their lives.

That might be stretching it a bit too far for some of you, but personally I would like to see more of this (ie live entertainment and activity) for our children and less of the telly and video games.  It’s very easy to detach oneself from violence or bad behaviour in celluloid, pretending it’s not the real world (although some clearly find it difficult to do so judging by the copycat actions of a few loners) but watching something with real people that you can touch has a more profound effect.

I am looking forward to the second half of the run very much. It will be more adults in the audiences from now on – it always is – but it is equally good fun watching grown men and women regress into childhood, shouting, laughing, booing and cheering for 2 ½ hours. Hopefully they will all go home having thoroughly enjoyed themselves and been able to detach from the cares and responsibilities of reality for a short while. If they can, I shall feel it’s a job well done.

Isn't it mild at the moment? Is the climate changing?

What unseasonably mild weather we are having. Perhaps there is something in this climate change malarkey, but I’m not really convinced despite the fact that David Attenborough (who is God in human form) says there is.

The weather all over the place seems to be peculiar. Only a couple of weeks ago, the alpine countries were complaining of a lack of snow. Now, some parts of Austria have had five metres of snow in one week, more than they would normally expect in a whole season. Villages are cut off and there is a real danger of avalanche. Loads of foreign skiers are marooned and can’t get home (shame, poor rich bastards).

Meanwhile, some parts of Europe are really warm for January and all the spring plants have started to blossom already. One cold snap now and the blossom will die, along with it all next season’s fruit as nothing will have matured enough.

Personally, I’d quite like to live in 30 degrees of sunshine all the time. I love wandering around in swimsuit and sarong (quite a sight, I can tell you) and being able to go out until one or two in the morning in short sleeved tops and not be cold, or have to worry about whether it is going to rain tonight. But I do understand that not everyone is like that, and we do need the full range of climates to feed the planet and preserve some of the animals and beautiful places on it.

Yes, I’m sure that all the pollution we chuck out into the atmosphere doesn’t do it any good. All the cars, factories and so on must have an impact and change the gaseous mix up we all breathe. But I do get irritated when people lecture me for using my patio heater for one hour on perhaps two evenings a year (the rest of the time in this damp country it’s too cold to sit outside even with the heater on) or on burning my garden waste (if I take it to the tip, I’m using petrol, so which is worse?) or the various other things that the climate change lobby gets excited about.

The trouble with our approach to this is the same as with our approach to health and safety which I blogged about yesterday. We take it too far and get anal about it. Yes, we can all make a small difference but the main difference can be made by tackling the big polluters – industry being the main one. It’s the old 80/20 rule – tackle the 20% of contributors that make 80% of the impact first and leave the little man alone until later.

Instead, here in good old Blighty, we get lectured in the press and by the government about what we are doing wrong instead of, for instance, tackling the supermarkets about the amount of packaging they manufacture and use. The other day I unwrapped my supermarket shop to put it all away and was left with two carrier bags full of packaging – ludicrous.

So maybe I am contributing to our planet warming up and leaving a legacy of poor air and dry parched earth for my children’s generation to deal with, but I doubt that I’m the deciding factor in the future of mankind.

Now I must go and wrap things up in plastic, bump up the heating and light a bonfire because its going to be cold tonight and we can’t have that now, can we?

Scottish independence - a bit controversial?

I see that those nice people from over the northern border with the funny Och-ay accent have started banging on about independence again. They seem very set on this, and have guaranteed that a referendum will be held on Scottish independence by 2014, even though polls show that over 70% of the Scots are, at the moment, against it.

Now I have nothing against Scottish people. I even know one or two very nice Scots who have lovely gentle accents and seem quite sensible. But then they have lived in England for several years, so perhaps they have been influenced to the good. And there are several quite nice things that have come out of Scotland – porridge, (some) tartans, heather, raspberries and the Loch Ness monster to name but a few (not whisky – can’t stand the taste nor the smell of the stuff).

However their politicians are now starting to annoy me about this. To be honest, I’m now getting to the stage of thinking that if they want independence, then we should let the buggers go. I think they’ve got more to lose than we have.

At the moment, they have free prescriptions and free university education in Scotland. Presumably, they can afford this because they get a huge subsidy from the rest of the UK which they chose to spend on that instead of other things.  If they went independent, then that subsidy would have to stop; let them raise their own taxes to pay for it (oh, they can’t can they, because their population either isn’t big enough to raise enough money or too poor – or both). The Scots have one of the worst health records in Europe, particularly for heart disease, and again their health service is heavily subsidised by the British taxpayer. Again, presumably that would have to stop. There must be numerous other examples that, as a southerner and English at that, I am unaware of.

And they’re always whinging aren’t they? Bad old England won’t let them have/do this, insists they do/have that and so on. Whiney sods; frankly if they want independence that badly perhaps we should not protest too much and let the complaining so and so’s get on with it..

“Ah”, but they cry, “we would have North Sea oil, so we're OK”. No they bloody shouldn’t! It was British, not just Scottish, money that went into developing the oil fields and the infrastructure to support them and they should remain a wholly British resource. There is no way that the rest of us should be held to ransom over that.

So lets present the Scots with all the facts, financial and otherwise, and let them make up their minds.  I don’t subscribe to the view that the United Kingdom should stay united, particularly if one substantial minority doesn’t want to, but they must understand that if they vote to move away then they have to stand on their own two feet in every way. And if they vote to stay put, then perhaps we need a complete look at the way we work together, financially as well as ceremonially.

Good luck to them. Their choice. Oh - and if the vote goes against it, don't complain, because that will show that most of you know what's good for you!

Health and Safety

David Cameron has been in the news this week telling us all that he is going to relax some of the useless rules we have in Britain around Health and Safety.

Well, good on yer Dave, if you really do it. Somehow I doubt it will come to much; there will be some ridiculous protocol or something which says that what we want to change we can't, or the red tape involved in doing so will take so long to unravel that anyone but the most dedicated would give up in disgust. Or something more pressing, such as the country going broke, will take precedence. And don't forget the powerful Elfin Safety Lobby - you know, the ones that shout if a child picks up a conker or there is a pebble on the pavement they might trip over.

Middle England has a lot to answer for here, because they are the ones that over protect their kids and won't touch anything unless it has a patent safety device fitted to it which has been accredited by various expensive and usually useless national associations. Lower England can't be arsed between the footie and the bingo, and Upper England is off its head with cocaine and has staff to do things for them, so they don't care. But in the squeezed middle we all wrap our kids, and also ourselves, up in cotton wool too much and are unwilling to accept the consequences of our own actions, which we ought to take personal responsibility for. 

Of course there must be safeguards in life. Things must be fit for purpose and reasonable precautions taken so that our possessions or the things we use cannot damage or injure us, and that the things we do are safe. But you cannot legislate for everything; we all have the ability to make choices and arrange our own lives and we simply must be more prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and not let the state do it all for us, then sue someone if something goes wrong.  

Much of the legislation governing this is European and will be difficult to change. So in theory all of Europe ought to be as up themselves about it as the Brits are. But they aren't. Whenever you go to Europe you will see examples all the time of things which simply wouldn't happen in the UK because of our anal approach to health and safety. Roadworks without barriers (we fence off everything for 300 yards it seems), seaside promenades without barriers (ours are made of iron and look like prison bars, and do their utmost to keep you off the beach which is why you have come there in the first place) festivals and events with exciting activities which you would have to wear protective helmets and luminous clothing for in the UK but which people simply go along to and enjoy and, by and large, if they get hurt shrug their shoulders and accept it's been their choice to do it. As long as you are aware of the dangers, then if you chose to go ahead it's your picnic! It's a much free-er, less bureaucratic and healthy approach altogether - they have the legislation, but they take a much more relaxed approach to it.

I work at home twice a week, and I have been supplied with a nice little laptop and mobile phone to do so. I have also had to undertake four on line tests about my working environment, the equipment and my eyesight, just so my employer can tick a box to say it has fulfilled its obligations with regard to health and safety. It's daft, and I lied anyway. Of course I don't sit at a special workstation with dedicated space, I work at the dining table surrounded by the detritus of ordinary life and four cats, in an inadequate chair which I pad with cushions so it's the right height. If I get RSI, I will still claim for it!

I'm off now to do a dress rehearsal for the panto. I will wear costumes which have to be checked for flammability, walk past scenery ditto, avoid thunder flashes which could set my (non flammable) costume on fire and throw sweets at small childern which have to be wrapped so they are sterile and must be above a certain size so they couldn't lodge themselves in one of the little brats' eyes. The insideous health and safety gremlin gets everywhere, even into something as centuries old as panto.

Perhaps I could consign the Health and Safety Inspectors to the dungeon where the baddie usually gets put, which has no windows, rats and no proper ventilation. The floor would be uneven and water would drop from the ceiling onto their inadequately prepared food from a kitchen with no food hygiene certificate. I bet health and safety would soon cease to become their foremost worry then!

Too much technology

Clearly, lots of people have been given gadgets for Christmas.

Today was the first real day back at work for lots of people. The trains were pretty empty last week, but crammed this morning. I have never seen so many people with i-pads, Kindles and new phones (trying to work out how they work).

I have to confess to being a bit of a philistine about stuff like this. That is despite managing the IT team at work (embarrassingly, I got a new work mobile phone and laptop last week and I had to ask one of my techies how to turn them on. My street cred has taken a considerable tumble!) and having quite a bit of technology at home.

I love the feel of a new book, and the smell of fresh paper knowing you are the first one to turn the pages is a constant pleasure. We have so many books in our house, it's like a library. Until very recently when its battery packed up, I had an ancient but perfectly servicable Nokia as my mobile. Virtually all it did was make phone calls and send texts. It could take a photo of grainy quality in an emergency (such as a prang in the motor) but otherwise I prefer a separate camera with a nice clunky shutter (although I must say digital is a great advance over film, particularly when you are a crap photographer like me. Did you hear Kodak has filed for receivership?). I do have a lovely high spec light weight laptop, but only because I take it to Greece with me to write my panto scripts and watch a DVD on the plane.

In the very near future, technology is going to take over the world and if you ask me, that's not a good thing. It is a constant battle at work to get staff that sit 20 yards from each other to get up off their arses and SPEAK to each other rather than play e-mail tennis. E-mail is so often misinterpreted; many's the time I have been caught out by sending an unwise e-mail or ill thought through phrase which has caused upset or offence.

Much to my regret, my children and step children entertain themselves almost solely through electronic devices - the TV, games consoles, their phones and the computer. I don't mean they're couch potatoes - they do go to the gym and play sports - but they don't read, they don't want to go for walks and the thought of playing an old fashioned game fills them with horror. These days we have lost the art of talking to each other. I make myself very unpopular at family do's if we host them by banning telly, because once it is switched on no one talks and there is no interaction. We might as well all be in different houses. So it gets switched off, people talk and ultimately the day is much more enjoyable. They all have DVD or video recorders or Sky Plus boxes, so if there really is something they don't want to miss they can watch it later.

One of the greatest pleasures of going on holiday for me is no telly and no technology demanding our attention. Even the phone pisses me off sometimes - if someone walked into a room and interrupted your conversation you'd think 'How rude!', but if the phone rings we stop what we are doing and answer it. It's the same thing! When it's been very busy, we have nights in for two - we unplug the phones, turn off the mobiles, switch off the telly and ignore the doorbell. It's amazing how restful that is - try it!

I'd like to experiment with a week with no gadgets and see how we get on. Perhaps a week long power cut would do it and then we couldn't use them! I bet we'd all come out of it less stressed and happier people!

Getting too old?

I'm definitely getting too old. For life in general, and in particular for energetic pantomimes. First pre dress today, another tomorrow, and then two dress rehearsals, night off Thursday and then into a 10 performance run, with the first five performances in the first weekend.

By next Sunday night I shall be on my knees. It'll be home, a bath, cocoa and bed. I know I am sounding ancient, but the days of going out to party after every performance are long over and I just know I shall be a wreck, particularly as the first performance will be to over 230 very vocal brownies, cubs, beavers and rainbows. I can't really complain; after all I am a volunteer, the adrenalin will get me though and when I'm up on that stage I shall love it. But at the present moment, I am looking forward to it with dread. 

It's a very odd thing, this amdram compulsion. People ask you why you do it and to be honest, I'd have to admit I do it for a certain amount of artistic satisfaction but mainly for the applause. Applause makes you feel good, gives you a buzz and sends you out on a high. I've taken some time off for the show because it's impossible to come home and go to bed at a sensible time then go to work the next day and perform to my employer's required standard; my mind is going round and round, revisiting what could have been better, remembering memorable moments or hilarious cock-ups. I will need to watch trash telly until at least midnight if not later before I even try to sleep.

Not all went smoothly tonight and there are one or two things to change tomorrow but overall I think we should all be pleased with ourselves. What we need now is our audience to clap, laugh, shout abuse and cheer. They will lift us up from the mundane and run-of-the-mill to something much better.  As things like costumes, props, lights, the band etc are added, I can always feel my own performance lifting and the audience completes it.

So now, fairly ludicrously early, I'm off to bed to get some sleep before the busyness of the week ahead. At least that's the plan. It takes a lot of energy to go out on stage and terrify children every night - it's not easy you know - and us villains need our beauty sleep!

Best Christmas film ever!

I am in the middle of watching the best Christmas film of all time. It's nothing highbrow, cultured or with amazing special effects or big stars. It's the Muppet Christmas Carol, which I love. Of course it stars the ever watchable Michael Caine, who has made films on many occasions (it would seem ) simply to pay the bills as well as making some corking entertainment. It must have taken some guts to make a film otherwise cast entirely from puppets including a genetically modified frog, an irritable diva pig and talking vegetables.

I've never really worked out why I love this movie so much. It may be because it is based on wonderful story telling which, because Dickens wrote his novels originally to be serialised in the popular press, is digestible and understandable (unlike some Shakespeare, which requires dedication). It may be because I loved the Muppets back in the 70s and 80s, with their cruel and well observed humour and predictable characters. Or it may be because it is simply colourful entertainment, gentle and without aggression, bad language, any attempts to moralise (although of course Christmas Carol is, essentially, a tale of morals) but with stacks of visual and verbal humour.

Jim Henson was a clever man. So was Frank Oz. They should by rights still be earning good money from this (or their estates should - at least one of them, sadly, is dead) and future generations should be made to watch it every year. Never mind Sound of Music and It's a Wonderful Life, for me they don't even come close.

The telly hasn't been too bad this year and there have been a few decent programmes on (Downton Abbey & Sherlock to name but two) but not many decent films. I think MCC was on Sky, but I missed it, so I've bought myself the DVD. And some of the characters remind me irresistably of people I know or have known - I know a big bumbling bear of a man that resembles Fozzie, and I know several old boys who have a resemblence to the two old men that heckle from the balcony, and there was once a boyfriend very similar to Animal. Over the years there have also been one or two people that remind me of Miss Piggy! But so far, no one that really resembles Kermit (I don't know many green people with webbed feet).

So I'm going to immerse myself in the film with total pleasure, because it may be some time before I watch it again. It's a winter thing really, not something that seems right in summer. There must be a summer film which fits the same bill, but I can't think of one at the moment. Can anyone else? Or do you have another winter film which is your all time favourite? Bet nothing tops this one!

Brain power

I see it says on the news today that some scientists in Switzerland (I think?) have discovered that our brain cells start dying off faster than they grow when we are in our forties, not in our sixties as previously thought. So we can all expect to see a reduction in our mental capacity sooner rather than later.

Well, frankly that’s come as no surprise and I could have told them that staggering fact without spending gazillions of euros or whatever it has cost for two academics who have never been out into the real world to do several years worth of expensive research to justify their existence.

For me, the decline has already started! For ages now, I have been going into rooms and forgetting why I’m there, forgetting appointments (unless I write them down) and feeling mentally exhausted at the end of each day presumably because my brain is dying off faster than it regenerates and simply doesn’t have the capacity any more for the enormous amounts of useless information I try to cram into it.

Even without mental degeneration, I am constantly amazed that I have got this far through life without :-

a) being arrested (I get crosser with life and other people than I used to and whilst not doing anything obviously criminal, I do throw insults around occasionally and I have been known to tell fibs),

b) going bankrupt (because I am a spendthrift) or

c) suffering a fatal injury (I am extraordinarily clumsy – you would not believe how much I bump into things, drop things, trip over, break things and so on)

Therefore it is something of a worry to discover that on top of my natural clumsiness / irritability / financial recklessness / etc, I am going to become vague and lacksadaisical as well because my brain is dying.

I’m only 50 for goodness sake. Good health and luck permitting, I should have at least another 30 years in me if not more.  There’s no way I would want to lose my mental faculties whilst retaining robust physical ones; I can’t think of anything worse unless it’s the other way round (actually, to be mentally alert but physically degenerating must be dreadful, so perhaps that is worse). There are lots of things I want to do when I don’t have to work any more, and most of them need me to have all my marbles intact!

Supposedly there are super foods which you can eat to increase your brain power. Apart from fish, which my mother always used to tell me would make me clever (how?) I have no idea what they are and even the fish thing could be a fib. So I better find out and eat more of them. That of course, flies totally in the face of cutting back on the grub to lose the weight I want to and become a supermodel look alike again (and if you don’t remember me like that, you obviously haven’t known me that long!).

So what should I do? Eat more to save my brain or….. now what was the other thing?

It's a blustery day!

As Winnie the Pooh would have said, it's a blustery day! When my kids were little that was the WTP episode they loved the most, with Pooh flying off on a balloon and Eyeore chasing him, Tigger bounding after them with enthusiasm.

Not much damage here. A few twiggy branches down and the winter cover blown off the vegetable beds. And one piece of glass blown loose, but not broken, in the greenhouse. We probably ought to count ourselves lucky - it was blowing a gale all night as well. (Of course, now I've typed that, it'll be sods law that a tree will go over or some tiles come off the roof or something).

The Hubby had trouble getting to work this morning as the Dartford Bridge was closed and the traffic was tailing back for miles. In the end he came home and tried to sit it out, it didn't improve and so he went to work by train - let's hope they were running OK. Personally, I'd have rung in, said I was marooned (in Surrey mind you, not exactly a backwater) and worked at home, but then he is a martyr to the cause of local government. God knows why, it's a thankless profession.

The cats don't want to go out. They're standing at the cat flap, obviously desperate for a pee and almost crossing their legs, trying to time it between the gusts of wind. So far, their timing has been rubbish; I saw one of them almost get blown up the garden, tail aloft, in mid stream! Very amusing, but poor creature obviously got very stressed and came dashing back in without finishing off what she was doing. It's my pretty Tortoiseshell long hair, who hates bad weather of any kind. She's probably pee'd up the rubbish in the lobby out the back as revenge for my laughter.

There have been some tragedies; I saw an interview at lunch time on the news with a poor man whose van had been crushed by a falling tree and the guy sitting next to him was killed. The only reason he escaped was because at that very moment, he had bent down to retrieve his cigarette lighter from the floor of the van where he had dropped it and was in the footwell, not sitting upright. He hasn't even got any bruises, but he'll live with the mental scar of seeing his mate die for the rest of his life.

Supposedly it's all going to calm down tonight, but get cold and frosty. That's fine. I just can't help thinking that it's panto soon and we haven't really been hit yet by any bad weather to affect rehearsals or performances. I bet Mother Nature has something up her sleeve! I won't be really happy about that until we get to the last night; rain, winds, frost is all OK, just no snow please.

Another cat has just ventured out! I'm now off to watch her out of the window, and am prepared to chuckle as the wind blows her fur up the wrong way and she tries to find somewhere out of the wind to do whatever she needs to do. They really do resemble people on the beach at Brighton trying to shelter and pretend it's a lovely day to be beside the seaside, struggling to put up their wind break. Now there's a thought - a wind break for cats! Not sure it'd catch on though; those paws are useless for holding a mallet!

Using London's Roads

I am forever amazed at the way people behave in the street with regard to their personal safety and that of others. I have today witnessed various acts of stupidity, carelessness and recklessness by drivers, cyclists and pedestrians alike.

There has been a great deal of publicity recently about the sad deaths of a number of cyclists in central London. In almost every case, these had been cyclists that were riding along the left hand side of large lorries which then subsequently turned left and crushed them. Inevitably, in a contest between a 10 stone cyclist and 10 ton lorry, the cyclist comes off worst.

Now I don’t know whose fault these accidents were (was the lorry indicating, was it stationary and suddenly moved, did the driver not see the cyclist because they were too close to him etc), but if you listen to the cycling lobby it is always the demon lorry driver and never their fault. But I have seen cyclists do some absurdly careless things; crossing red lights (including pedestrian lights when people have started to cross), weaving between stationery traffic likely to move at any moment, sneaking down the left when vehicles are indicating left and so on. All these things are much more dangerous than not wearing a helmet, which is all they tend to get told off for by the press. And don't even get me started on motorcyclists, who are the most reckless of the lot.

Today, I have also seen pedestrians who are clearly not keen to live much longer be absurdly reckless – running over a pedestrian crossing when the lights are green and fast moving traffic is approaching them, darting in between slow moving buses, stepping into the road because the pavement is crowded without looking and so on.

Of course cars and other vehicles have by far the greatest potential to cause harm and some drivers are more than cavalier about safety even in the city when traffic moves relatively slowly. But I am getting a little tired (as a driver –although not often in London) of being blamed all the time. Personally I (and most other people I know) drive considerately and carefully with full awareness of pedestrians, other vehicles and road users.

I think it’s time for a little balance in what we hear about this and also for all the user groups to stand up and take their share of both the blame and the responsibility. If you are in the wrong place or doing the wrong thing and you get hurt, well then it’s very sad but it’s your own fault. Don’t seek to push the blame onto others; think how those lorry drivers must have felt when it may not have been their fault in the first place – after all they’re not all the typical cartoon-ish ‘White Van Man’. Most of them drive for their livelihood and take good care not to do anything which will endanger that. Those that are pictured on ‘Police, Camera, Action’ (my step children have low taste in telly, which is how I have watched that programme) are not typical.

So if you are a pedestrian or cyclist in London remember that you have as much responsibility for using the road network safely as drivers do. Or you may one day regret not taking more care.

Commuting. Bet there's more to add to this list.

Ten things I hate about commuting:-

1.        People who talk too loudly on their mobile phones

2.        People who listen to their music too loudly, so I can hear it too

3.        People who sit next to you in soaking wet coats

4.        People who sniff

5.        People who eat very smelly food that makes the carriage stink for hours

6.        People who insist on walking along the platform trying to text or still to read their book/newspaper

7.        People who are total strangers but try to talk to you (usually old!)

8.        People who are too fat for their seat, and squash across onto yours

9.        It’s unreliable, overcrowded and expensive (actually that’s three, but never mind)

10.     It’s such a waste of time!

Ten things I like about commuting

1.        You can read (you can’t if you are driving a car)

2.        You can sleep (ditto)

3.        It requires very little thought / effort to do it

4.        You can listen to your favourite music without car sharers asking for something else

5.        You can blame late arrivals/early departures vaguely on ‘the trains’

6.        It’s a little bit of ‘me’ time for line learning, thinking about life etc

7.        You can eat pretty much anything (but see aforementioned comment about smelly food, and try eating a take away Chinese whilst driving the car!)

8.        Can’t think of anything else (amazed I thought of seven!)

9.        Ditto

10.     Ditto

Back to work

Christmas is well and truly over. Glittery decs put away, cards in the recycling, house tidied and ironing done. It's back to the grindstone tomorrow.

I love Christmas, with all its sparkle and cheesiness. Which makes the new year return to work seem even greyer and less attractive. I'm conscious I'm always whinging about work and that in reality there are lots of other people with much worse jobs than me (or even no jobs) but I honestly feel I didn't sign up for this much hassle on a daily basis.

My parents would not have recognised the modern workplace. The pressures to perform, tight finances and the knowledge that you are only one step away from the dole queue. In their day, the public sector really was the tea drinking pen pushing environment of comedy (at least in some departments) and the private sector was where hard work was rewarded with high salaries. In some ways, some of that is still true but I do think the boundaries between the two sides have blurred.

Nor would they have suffered from the motives that push us on - mortgages, rampant consumerism (not all of you reading this will suffer from all of these, and nor do I, but many do) and keeping up with the Jones's (whoever they are), plus the availability of credit cards and loans causes many of us to fall into an enormous financial black hole without even noticing. Whilst they were poorer, they were certainly less stressed and happier.

However we are where we are. A domestic council of war in the new year about money (already had two years of no pay rise, and only 1% due this year despite inflation running at 5% ish for the last three years means we're VERY skint), plus resolutions (already propounded on this blog) will keep me busy. I am resolved to go forward in a spirit of optimism no matter what is thrown at me. I wonder how long it'll last?

New Year's Day

Happy New Year everyone!

Having had a superb new year's eve evening with good friends, have felt somewhat below my best today. I didn't drink that much, but I didn't eat much either, so serves me right.

However we have had a day to ourselves today; in fact because of the way Christmas and new year have fallen this year, we have had a nice long break and lots of wonderful time together, instead of the usual situation of being apart (ie we're not at work or doing chores). It has reminded me of what is important in life, of what we need to make the most of and maximise, instead of what demands our attention and exhausts us, which should be minimised and put into perspective.

Him Indoors and I have had lots of discussions about 'balance' in life during 2011, and both of us have singularly failed to have any sort of positive influence on things or change them. Our jobs, demanding and time consuming as they are, have solved some financial dilemmas and hopefully will continue to do so for a considerable period to come but have levied a considerable cost in many other ways. So time together, particularly time which is over a special time of year (Christmas, our wedding anniversary, new year) is very valuable.

Today has been nothing special. We went to Homebase, put up some new shelves (how domestic) and did some long overdue tidying. But it was just us, our timetable, and no one and nothing else. We bodged around, joked, laughed and got things done. And remembered why we love each other - we approach life in the same way, share the same values, and appreciate the way each other does things (very differently to each other, but it seems to work all the same).

So we intend to try, in 2012, to find some  better 'quality time' (awful phrase) for each other in the busyness of life. We will make some time at weekends, and try not to be too late or too committed to other things in the week. We will revisit some of the simpler things we both like (gardening, walking, cinema) and stop spending money on things we don't need to spend it on and which we have done because we have been lazy.

2012 is shaping up to be a year of resolutions. Health, fitness and valuing our relationship. Oh, and if I just could win that lottery and this time next year be a millionaire, that would be good too!