Never judge - next time it might be you!

I’ve just had a bit of a rant on Facebook about judgemental people. A friend responded by asking what had prompted my rant, and the answer is nothing in particular, at least not one single event. It really is the case of the straw that breaks the camel’s back being insignificant in itself, but cumulatively being too much. If I were to write here what has caused my rant today, it would seem insignificant and pathetic. But it has pushed me over the edge.

Despite some brilliant things happening recently (a fabulous panto with a great cast and crew, Christmas and being spoiled by The Hubby, a nice New Year’s Eve dinner with good friends and so on) the last few months, in fact the last eighteen months, have been a catalogue of difficult situations and people, and one crisis after another. Little niggle has piled on top of little niggle and a very small number of people have been quite cruel and unkind. Even the most stoic person would eventually buckle. And despite some very difficult situations being resolved, lots of extra effort being expended on my part and some great achievements, not one single person has had the grace to say ‘thank you’.

I am not renowned for my patience, and have never suffered fools, but one thing that my somewhat chequered life has taught me is that you should never judge others without knowing the facts, because you just don’t know what happens behind their front doors and in their lives. Also going through two divorces, several job changes and challenges, dealing with acrimonious ex's, children and step children and forging a comfortable home for them all in reasonable harmony, financial ups and downs (very much ‘down’ at the moment) and coping with a parent who completely failed to love, understand and support me has taught me compromise and also which are the battles it is worth fighting. I have never had counselling, because I am unconvinced of its benefits (and if you need to have it for years then clearly it doesn't work, does it?) but that doesn't mean I don't feel bad about things.

This week there have been one or two things which have been those final straws. It hasn’t been helped by the fact that I haven’t felt very well (I always get ill after panto), the weather has been rubbish and there is a very stressful reorganisation going on at work as a result of which I am forced into making people who do not deserve it, redundant.

I have been judged all my life. Because I speak plainly (a trait which I get from my Dad and which is both a blessing and a curse) I tell people unpalatable truths. Very few people can cope with such things, preferring to live in a little bubble of niceness where no one says what they think or tells them what they ought to hear, instead telling them what they want to hear and dressing things up.

Another trait I get from my parents is I don’t make friends easily; having been let down by so many people throughout my life in different ways I automatically put up a brittle barrier which deflects approaches and stops people getting close. That can, I know, come across as harshness and people that don’t bother to find their way through slag me off behind my back. People have done just that over the years and smiled to my face. If they think I don’t know, or that it doesn’t hurt, then they’re wrong. I know who you are, I will never trust you, and it hurts very much.

Definitely, my few months ‘out’ is now long overdue. For the immediate future, I have a small, close circle of friends whom I trust and a wonderful man who cares for me and gives me the odd reality check. It’s time I focussed on them instead of trying to split myself in too many directions and at least for now I ought to stop worrying about the opinions and views of others. Due to our circumstances the future might look very different soon, and I need to be prepared. There are new things I want to do, and existing things and acquaintances I need to think hard about.

That won’t be a panacea, but it will be a step in the right direction.

Clever Clogs, but what for?

At the weekend, my very clever Daughter Two obtained her degree (as in, went to the ceremony and put on a silly hat and collected her certificate).

I’m sure she won’t mind me saying this, but a few years back none of us really thought she would go to Uni because she just wasn’t interested in being part of extended academia. Daughter One was the one that got nine ‘A’s and a couple of ‘A*’s at her GCSEs and went on to do the academic ‘A’ levels, and The Hubby’s Son One and Son Two were the ones who went to the posh Reigate Grammar School, so we thought our two eldest would get there first and Daughter Two would do some good job instead.

But to her credit, D2 stuck at it, studied hard and got her Degree in Business in the autumn, the first of our five children. This weekend was just the shindig and palaver which goes with it. As regards the others, D1 passed her vocational professional qualification in the autumn too, but that doesn’t have any ceremony attached to it, and S1 is now in the Metropolitan Police dealing the with miscreants and villains in Westminster. S2 is at university in Cardiff doing something clever with IT (although actually, from what he says, he spends much of his time DJ-ing and drinking), and S3 is just about to take ‘A’ levels then wants to go travelling before starting work.

Goodness knows what D2 is going to do now. She has a permanent job, in Morrisons in Oxted, and she is desperate to advance through the ranks to management where she can actually use some of the knowledge and skills that three years at university (and the associated debt) has bought her. They didn’t want her on their graduate programme last year, so she is trying to do it the hard way. But you can’t magic up vacancies, and competition is fierce. Maybe she’ll try for the graduate programme again this year, we’ll see.

D1 and S1 are already in work and both doing OK, although D1 struggles managing on her own with my grand daughter. Her employer reasonably understands, but Ruby starts school this year and that means shorter working hours to accommodate school hours, and less money. It’ll be hard, and she will need us all there to support her.

As for the others, well it’ll be a year or two before we have to worry, and they say employment prospects are improving, but I can’t say I see any real evidence for that. The Hubby has now been out of work and actively looking for another job for almost five months, and there is virtually nothing out there even if we set our sights lower than we really need. I feel some difficult times and tough decisions coming.

We all know things will get better eventually, and it is much better that our children have spent time doing something meaningful in academia which may give them an edge in the future rather than sitting around watching daytime TV because they can’t get any work, but it will take time to come back from the precipice we have all been teetering on and we are in for a few lean years. There is much talk on the TV of ‘the bank of Mum and Dad’ but in this direction the bank is already run dry, so they will have to manage on their own (or tap up their other parents, of course).

Let’s just hope that we can make it through the next year or two without anything disastrous, then that villa in the sun beckons. Roll on!

All over for another year (oh no, it isn't)!

The most exhausting production of the am-dram year is over.

The pantomime played to ten full houses (well, I think there were a couple of empty seats on Wednesday but that’s it, so occupancy, must be 99.5% plus) who all received it with raucous laughter and rapturous applause. Cast and crew acquitted themselves with honours and should be very proud. The sight of several three year olds doing ‘Gangnam Style’ on the stage was mind blowing.

The standard was indeed very high. We had a new Musical Director this year and a new Choreographer and both have challenged the cast far more than in previous years. And the cast rose to that challenge, although as always at the last minute.  The standard of singing and dancing was superb.

This year was my thirty fifth panto, in some capacity or another, without a break. I have been either a member of the company, had a principal role, been on the crew or directed in every panto since 1978. That’s quite an achievement; maybe I should get a plaque or something. This year was my fifth as Director.

I have always loved silly humour and visual gags, both of which traditional panto excels in. Slapstick never fails to make me laugh, and someone getting a bop on the nose or smack in the face is one of the funniest things ever, in my opinion. But then I love Carry On movies, and was a huge fan of Benny Hill, who was one of the funniest comic actors that ever lived alongside Ronnie Barker. It is significant that Benny Hill, who the UK lambasted as sexist and a dirty old man, made huge money in America (which is the most prudish nation on earth) with his silly humour, where at that time they didn’t go all politically correct about it.

The benefit of writing your own scripts as I did this year is that you can change them if you want to and you can pack them full of the silliest jokes, visual stupidity and mess you want. We had a slapstick scene with the Dame getting the custard pie in the face, a rip off of a popular talent show (which shall remain nameless but has the letter ‘X’ in its title), a performing animal (a real one, not a child dressed up) and all the silly ‘behind you’ and ’oh no he isn’t’ you could possibly want. And the audience have loved it.

Lots of people have kindly said to me that this year has been one of the best pantos they can ever remember, and that is saying a lot because there have been some crackers. But that’s because it has gone back to its roots and not been messed about with.  As an art form it is so deeply rooted in tradition that you change or mess about with it at your peril. The audience has certain expectations – the stereotypical characters with all that cross dressing, chasing about, old jokes we all know, booing and hissing, mess and above all boy meets girl and a happy ending. It doesn’t matter where you set it – China, Arabia, an English village or even in the Wild West, as long as it has those ingredients it will succeed.

I’m not Directing next year and I’m seriously considering having a season off (after all this time I think I deserve it) and there is a certain appeal about having a Christmas holiday without any commitments to a show, but I honestly am not sure whether I will be able to keep away. I’ll go along to the read through and see whether there is a part for me, and then decide.

But if I don’t do it, much as I’ll enjoy the time off I know that come this time in 2014 I’ll wish I had!

Panic, panic!!

My daughter, who works in Morrisons, tells me that when she got into work today at 9.30am there were queues all the way down the aisles and the store was as busy as just before Christmas.

Now why would that be, I wonder? Oh yes, there are a few flakes of snow coming down so regardless of the fact that we all have freezers choc full of food (and probably at this time of year full with Christmas left-overs) and amply full cupboards, the UK populace thinks there is a strong possibility it may starve over the weekend, so is stocking up.

I never understand this seige mentality. For goodness sake they can't all have bottle feeding babies who can't have anything but milk, and so be needing to top up on formula and nappies! Most of them are bog standard normal families.

If I really put my mind to it here, we could live for a fortnight or more without having to go shopping for anything at all. Yes we might have to drink black tea if we run out of milk, toast may be in short supply and meals might have a few unusual combinations of ingredients, but by and large we'd get a balance of carbs, protein and the full balance of nutrition we need. Most of us in the Western world, despite our varying incomes, are pretty well nourished and could survive for quite a while on less food without any major detrimental effect upon our health. And we all eat too much most of the time, anyway. It would do us good to have a few days off the snacks and junk food.

And anyway, although supplies might be disrupted for a day or so if the snow really comes down and the main arterial routes become difficult, by Monday they'll be back to normal. There is too much profit involved for suppliers, distributers and retailers for them to allow anything else to happen.

These panic buying people need a dose of common sense, ideally administered anally! In their greed they are buying up supplies of basic food like bread, potatoes and milk thereby denying others their fair share which under normal circumstances they would get, because there's enough for everyone if we all just buy what we need. And I bet loads of it is wasted.

Personally, I have just taken delivery of my normal Tesco order, which was made at the beginning of the week before the snow forecast. It contains the normal amount of food we would need for dinner in the evening, packed lunches and breakfast whenever we are at home. I haven't supplemented it with an extra few pints of milk 'just in case' nor have I ordered extra of anything, because I know in my freezer I have joints of beef, fish, ready meals and frozen veg as well as rolls and crumpets (looking forward to toasting them in front of a log fire!). We'll be fine, in fact more than fine.

Perhaps I should add a law outlawing panic buying to my 'things I would do in 2013 if I were in charge' list. Trouble is, it's getting rather long!

His Master's Voice no longer.

So HMV has gone under. I guessed as much a couple of weeks ago when the little branch at Victoria Station didn’t open after Christmas, and it’s no real surprise.

I haven’t bought anything in HMV for years. The Hubby has occasionally succumbed to their ‘three DVDs for £20’ offers but even they weren’t a bargain, usually being rubbish straight to DVD movies or box office flops which no one in their right mind would pay full price for. The simple facts are that HMV were too expensive, and failed to notice changing consumer habits.

They have been undercut by the supermarkets and by online retailers such as Amazon for years. Why on earth would you pay £15.99 for a DVD on new release when you could pre-order it online with free delivery (and often it arrives before the official release date) or nip into a supermarket and get it for a tenner or less? Why would you pay the same £15.99 for a CD when you can download it for £7.99 or again, buy it for about 33% less in the supermarket? The law of evolution clearly also applies to retailers – adapt or face extinction!

I remain convinced there is a place for high street music chain, but not in the old format. There will always be a market for ‘hard copy’ music (like there will always be a market for nice books), even stretching back to the old fashioned vinyl for classic albums (I don’t think videos will ever make a come back though).  Sell them alongside electronics such as CD players and MP3s, together with other music or entertainment associated products, and you might survive. Reasonable pricing is also important, no one will pay more than they have to for a non essential product, particularly in these straitened times.

HMV is, of course, only the latest in a long line of high street failures and it won’t be the last. The worry is that as the small companies, or those which have been poorly managed or have insufficient capital fail, then the larger ones become more dominant and take advantage of their increasing market share by exploiting consumers. There must be a real danger that companies such as Tesco or Amazon, both fast becoming leviathans of the retail sector, start to create a virtual monopoly and slowly but surely increase their prices for the benefit of their shareholders but to the detriment of the consumer.

Recently Jessops also folded, a shop where I have bought cameras and used their expertise a number of times and have never had poor service from. Now, if you want a camera of any sort, you have to go either to Currys and ask a spotty youth for their advice (never to be relied upon) or buy online and take your chances.

It wasn’t before time that the high streets had a shake up and retailers that took advantage or gave poor service probably deserve to go. But they must be replaced by something that has quality and service at its heart and not purely profit (although profit is necessary of course, not only as an incentive to do business but to improve). To encourage that, restrictions on both lending requirements to small businesses and health and safety bureaucracy must be removed or loosened to allow those with an entrepreneurial spirit to not only start up in business in the first place, but to grow once there.

A high street full of Tesco and the Pound Shop will do none of us any favours.

Snow! Whoopee !!!

Yet again, my favourite thing has happened. Yes, it snowed.

Fortunately, it wasn’t much and didn’t settle, at least not on the roads, and disappeared as quickly as it came. It had been expected and local authorities and transport companies were prepared. But more is promised.

It never ceases to amaze me how much I stress about snow. It is the only form of weather that really upsets me, for two reasons:-

1.    It disrupts my life so much

2.    I am scared of falling with my dodgy knees and bad back

I dislike being cold and I hate being wet, but I can live with both because they don’t really interfere with how I live my life and I’m not scared of them. But snow gets me every time.

I never liked it even when I was a kid. My friends would go out into the snow with gay abandon (that’s before the word ‘gay’ became distorted in its meaning and was a trigger for sniggering) chucking snowballs about, making snow angels by lying flat on their backs in the stuff and making hazardous slides on the pavement so they could slither along the street then fall flat on their arses (and so, by the way, could most of the old ladies who lived there too, although for them not intentionally). They did all this and laughed all the way to their hot chocolate at the end of it.

I never joined in. If at all possible I’d stay inside, cocooned in my warm lounge, watching out of the window. If absolutely forced to go outside in the cold, I’d sit miserably  on a bench occasionally getting pelted with snowballs and being called a sissy.

But it wasn’t lack of adventurousness which put me off; I’m not a wimp, although now I am older and wiser I won’t put myself in a potentially hazardous situation if I don’t have to. I used to ride my bike (which didn’t have any brakes) down Chalkpit Lane in the early 1970s racing several others. We fortunately never met a car coming the other way, and we had some spectacular crashes at the bottom, but I was never scared doing it although it was, arguably, much more dangerous. I just don’t like snow – simple as that.

I am, as those of you who know me well understand, much happier in a warm climate. Being able to spend your life outdoors for most months of the year, not being cold or worrying about whether it will chill later so should you take a cardie is the way I want to live. Being able to walk around and drive without worrying about black ice, poor visibility because of snow, or having to make sure I have a shovel, blanket or bar of chocolate in the car for emergencies is my ideal situation.

My oldest daughter has taken my granddaughter skiing this week, and little Ruby will be going into the nursery class with all those four year old French children who are practically born wearing skis. My daughter enjoys skiing too, although why you would go to all that effort to get up a mountain, just to slide down it on pieces of Perspex is beyond me. But each to his own, and its just as well we don’t all like the same thing.

If we did, there’d never be room on my favourite beach!

More things I'd do if I were in charge in 2013...

The year may not be long enough. But here are a few more things I'd do if I were in charge this year, in no particular order...

• Legislate to ensure that banks plough back at least 50% of their profits into schemes to help the communities they serve, instead of being allowed to retain their extortionate billions and share it amongst an elite and undeserving few. And no, they wouldn't relocate, because the UK is still a massively profitable market for them and if they do, well who cares?
• Leave the EU, which we seem to get no discernable benefit from and pay a massive amount into. It might temporarily dint our exports, but they'd bounce back. What do the rest of the EU (besides Germany) do which is of any notable economic benefit?
• Stop international aid to other countries until we have put our own house in order, by investing in our infrastructure including repairing our roads, building proper flood defences, putting the hospitals and schools into a state of good repair and keeping our streets properly clean.
• Put a cap on executive pay at a reasonable level (which might be quite high) and instead share the money out amongst the people that do the real work.
• Make it compulsory for the telly to show at least one 'Carry On....' movie each week.
• Teach citizenship much more in schools, educating our children to make a meaningful contribution to the world they live in and instill in them that sponging off the state is a bad thing.
• Ban Eastenders, Corrie and Emmerdale (and possibly some other dreadful soaps) which are not representative of real life and teach our children that 'soap style behaviour' is an acceptable way to carry on.
• Bring in proper punishment for criminal activity and change the law to be on the side of the police and public, and not the perpetrator.
• Knock down high rise flats and allow people to live in proper houses with little gardens and some sense of civic pride.  And make it compulsory that they look after them in good repair.
• Teach men it's not a bad thing to cry, nor is it shameful. Repressed emotion is responsible for so much unhappiness.

Better get started.