Why I'm all for the Elf on the Shelf

I have just read Stuart Heritage’s take on that phenomenon, the Elf on the Shelf, (Guardian Newspaper) and all I can say – with due respect – is, Stuart, come off of it! I will paraphrase a few of his soundbites: “the most violently dreadful thing to happen in 2016” – (and I thought that was the triumph of the great Orange Gnome!) – “nightmarish, murderer-looking totalitarian snitch”, “terrifying and cynical”, and “a post-truth doll for a post-truth age”…really, Stuart? What else is the elf but a modern take on the eye in the sky, and on all of the supernatural helpmeets that throughout the ages, parents have called in to help supervise wayward children? I haven’t got my James Frazer to hand just now – curses! – but I do remember reading that in certain European cultures, on the days in advance of the festive season, a fairy in the guise of an old woman goes from house to house, looking in windows and down chimneys to see who’s being naughty or nice. I find that scary, and I do know that at least as many children are as afraid of Santa Claus as of other supernatural creatures. Surely at this time of year, harassed parents are entitled to call in a little extraneous assistance while pulling through the marathon of preparations that define the modern, family Christmas? And as for the parents who move the elf around the house in the dark hours to make it seem to the little ‘uns that said elf is actually alive, well, such people are bound to show scheming and devious behaviour in other matters – and they won’t need any elf in being so. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/18/elf-on-the-shelf-isnt-real-christmas-tradition-post-truth-doll-intimidation

Sweet Dreams!

You’re not exactly unaware of Health & Safety and as the season of goodwill approaches, your defences go up even further. You have read all the warnings about unfused fairy lights and dangerously mobile festive trees. You know better than to undercook the turkey and you take care not to set the house alight along with the plum pudding. Carving knives are kept out of reach of little fingers and none of your guests are overfilled with the Christmas spirit before driving home. Every year you manage to reach the evening of 25/12 without having succumbed to any of the hazards lying in wait for the less aware. You fall asleep that night, the Christmas fairy smiling benevolently upon you and yours. Once again you have bypassed the terrors of the season, haven’t you?

On Boxing Day you visit Aunt Kate, a sprightly, feisty lady who scrimped coupons to keep her family in white flour and treacle during the war. You present your gift and sit down to a sumptuous Christmas tea before returning home. It is all there; the heaped cold turkey and ham, the cranberry sauce and Branston pickle, the bread and butter, the mince pies and slabs of cold plum pudding. The tea is over and you have done yourself proud. You’ve tasted everything on the table and, pleading gastronomic exhaustion, prepare to leave. But Aunt Kate has a wicked gleam in her eye and though you have done everything to avoid it, you know you will not escape tasting her special Rich Dark Fruit Cake. The recipe was in her mother’s family, and her mother’s family before that. Really, how can you not..? Smelling of liquor and boasting a thousand calories per cubic centimetre, raisins winking malevolently beside bleary yellow almond paste and rock-hard white icing, you can hear the theme music of Jaws, the movie, as the dark-brown danger approaches. Aunt Kate urges you on, and on. Finally, determinedly, you bite into a slab. Your tongue curls in loathing, your teeth blench in fear, but it is too late. A myriad of sweet-stuffs descend to your stomach and invades your pitifully pleading cells. You fall into a half-faint… In your diabetic coma the Christmas fairy waves her sparkling wand over a vision of days of yore when fruit picked and preserved during summer months brought welcome sweetness to bleak mid-winters. For older people with memories of wartime rationing Rich Dark Fruit Cake undoubtedly evokes a certain nostalgia. For someone about to expire from cold and hunger on a frozen Arctic waste, it just might be a life-saver. But for a well-fed modern palate and stomach, in overheated surroundings, it is nothing short of medieval torture. Slowly your sugar rush subsides and the world once more slides into focus. But your ordeal is far from over. The gastronomic terrorist is standing in front of you, smiling sweetly, unaware of her assault on your digestive tract. ‘Will you have another piece?’ she asks, moving the plate forward. The Christmas fairy waves her wand manically as your hand reaches out…

It's happened AGAIN...

Talk about hope triumphing over experience: another bunch of eager parents have paid £7 a pop for the greater seasonal enjoyment of themselves and their little ‘uns. And yet another clutch of puzzled, disappointed children find themselves in a sea of mud and chaos with about as much Christmas cheer as a derelict seaside town. This time, the culprit is the Bakewell Winter (so-called) Wonderland in Derbyshire. Apparently, even Santa didn’t show up and among the reasons trotted out by the purveyors for the lack of festive brio was that “the reindeers had gone to bed”. Hmmmm… Once more, I take pains to explain that Christmas – as we know it – is but a consumerist construct, one that cannot be created in the wilderness. And once again, I explain that the best place to find Christmas is – on the high street. It’s an unfair transaction but a valid one that the store-owners are best qualified to construct this annual festival of consumption. They have the venues, the props and the personnel, the years upon years of experience of selling luxury goods, of creating atmosphere with artificial greenery, glittering baubles and piped carols a-singing, electronic bells a-ringing, cash tills a-bleeping, many lords a-leaping, five thousand gold rings in the jewellery department, French perfumes in cosmetics & toiletries, and roast partridge and pear tart on offer in the store restaurant. In the grotto, the on-duty elves point in the direction of the mechanical, nodding reindeer and the talent-agency Santa, who patiently asks every transfixed little ‘un what he or she wants for Christmas – aaaaaaaah, what’s not to love? Perhaps it’s all too easy for certain people, just hopping on a bus and going to a place that you can visit any day of the week all year round – and all free of charge? But the seasonal, magical transformation of these colloquial emporia never ceases to fill me with wonder; I’ll be celebrating Christmas in the high street this year – how about you?

Lighten up!

Chuck out the chintz, they said, and so I did. I threw out all frills and florals, furbelows and fancies. If I did not have a use for it (cooking, cleaning, lounging, leaning, etc), out it went with the rest of the trash. Modernism eschews pattern and colour in favour of functional form and the muted tones and textures of fabrics like Hessian and undyed wool, natural wood and leather. Ah, by the aroma of tanning shall ye know the fellow sophisticates. And I was one of the initiates - until a wonderful light-shade in the Argos catalogue caught my eye, a dangly, jangly confection of cascading, crystalline beads and pendants. Mine is pale pink, and it is also available blue, clear and champagne. At £9.99, it won’t break the bank; it will send sparkles of light and joy scudding to all corners of your living space. To modern miserablists and miserable modernists, I say – time to lighten up!

They laughed as I howled at the moon...

Make no mistake; I can take anything that the vampire world has to offer. Bring on crucifixes and coffins, and juicy garlic necklaces adorning Ruritanian cottages. I thrill to rising mists in overgrown graveyards, bats a-flapping against church roofs, and wolves howling as a black-clad count lauds his cheel-dren of the naaaaa-ightt….aaaaaaah! What’s not to love and when I saw the jaw-dropping, heart-stopping, head-spinning, sense-dimming Vampire roller coaster wheeling across the mock-Transylvanian town at, er, Chessington World of Adventures, I was sold.
It began well; queuing in the atmospheric forest with snippets of bat lore posted along the way, cartloads of screaming rollers coasting overhead at intervals. I simply couldn’t wait to get up there and experience a gentle fantasy of flying bat-like over rooftops and about the trees. Presently, we entered a darkened tunnel and descended to a subterranean terminal bathed in red light, a grey-haired automaton drawing subsonic sounds from the mock-organ – cool, oh so cool… At last, Elder Niece and I attained our carriage. Secured in our seats by plastic cages, the ride began - and my gentle fantasies blew away in the giddying, nauseating and utterly terrifying experience that followed. As the ground yawned underneath and trees and rooftops veered ever closer, I lost it. I wept and howled, shut mine eyes and prepared to die. Once, I opened them, only to see a pine trunk moving ever closer.
It’s all over, I sobbed.
My life was about to end in an ignominious splat on the side of a tree in a hokum, amusement-park forest. I wept and howled and wept and howled again, and waited for the smash. Every moment turned to infinity, my only connection with the real world being the reassuring grip of Elder Niece on my hand, like a nurse bringing a psychiatric patient through a bad dream. Eventually the whirling stopped and the carriage came to a halt.
Are we alive? I whispered, as we arrived in the subterranean terminal. We climbed out of the shadows and into the sunlight, my jelly legs aided and abetted by the staircase railings and indeed, terra firma had never looked so beautiful. Sitting outside and recovering, the overhead hollering alerted me to a cartload of screaming rollers coasting overhead…oh, my gosh…I want to go up again....

BHS and the marvellous £10 maillot

I have in my possession a lilac swimsuit, purchased c. 2007, size 14, long body, scoop necked, high-cut leg – a real classic, you could say. It is the remaining one of a succession of suits, identical apart from their various colours, which I owned at the crest of a watery phase in my career. In my inward eye, I can see the late line-up in my wardrobe; fuchsia pink, bright blue, navy, black and exotic orange in addition to said lilac. I purchased all of them from BHS and, at £10 a pop, no better value existed for a water babe who had not yet earned the right to wear a suit marked speedo – and very appropriate merchandising for an erstwhile store owner who spends much of his time larking around on a luxury yacht. Certain of the suits were replaced a few times over; I got through three black suits and two pink ones, I think.
When I wanted a new suit, I simply went to the BHS swim shop with the product tag from off the previous suit, matched it and purchased accordingly. I can’t remember exactly when matters began to change, but change they did. I still have impressions of wandering confusedly around the swim shop, trying to match my product tag with luxury striped maillots and suits sprouting exotic blossoms – and all with at least a 50% price mark-up on the plain, classic suit. Was it a coincidence that my life’s circumstances began to change around the same time, leaving less time for going to the pool? It’s a moot point and one to ponder as I wander around the now ghostly BHS, customer voices echoing as the last bits and pieces leave the rails. My sadness at its demise is tinged with satisfaction at having supported the store in its heyday, and anger at the forces that have brought it down – and I’ll ever treasure my £10 lilac maillot.

Ecco Fara

Ecco Fara – no; it’s not the name of an exotic dessert or that of a Narcissus – defying nymph, but the make and model of a walking shoe for women. – and do they look good!
Made in black, shadow white, moon grey and petal pink, Fara has white laces and white soles while the stitching and perforations on the uppers add that indefinable Ecco touch. Ecco Fara has every hi-tech foot feature that you can imagine; ridged soles for perfect ground grip, raised insteps and interior heel padding for comfortable walking. The shoes are sleek and streamlined with no fobs, fancies or silly-frilly hanging bits designed to trip your light fantastic in every direction. What you get for your money – around £80 - is a pair of high-quality shoes to see you through urban treks, country walks and beachside picnics. To date, my EFs have not chafed, pinched, cramped, hobbled or crippled. So, ladies who value their plates of meat and want to lead an active summer, get on down to your nearest Ecco stockist and look for Fara..

Midsummer Magic with Fairy Dust

It is but a year since I discovered Fairy Dust nightwear – how appropriate for midsummer – a confection of gossamer-fine embroidered cotton, pin tucked and trimmed with satin ribbon and lace. My nightie is so magical, I feel out of this world when I wear it. Now that the globe has spun around again, inspiration has struck in this

Paean to Midsummer
All winter long for this we’ve waited
Now our appetites are sated
Trees are clad in summer dress
Grass is green and soft and fresh
Days are long and hot and bright
Meadow flowers are jewel bright
At length, the sun, she tires and sinks
The moon rises, the north star winks
Magical midsummer night is nigh
Let’s to the wood where fairies fly
Spirits of the earth and air
Fire and water linger there
Through the moonlight and the shade
Walk until you find a glade
With reeds and bush and pretty flower
It doth make a splendid bower
Lie down, be still and feign to sleep
And if into the grass you peep
With faithful mind and sincere eyes
The sight will fill you with surprise
Tiny, pretty, winged and sparkly
Mischievous and enchanting darkly
A fairy being you will behold
But be careful; truth be told
Cobweb, moth or mustard seed
To raise their ire, you do not need
As spells can bad as good may be
You’re advised contentedly
To watch the fairy ballet play
Till sunrise herald the break of day
The fairies vanish in the light
They sleep by day and dance by night
Tis’ opposite to man, I know
But that’s the way the sprite doth go
When fairies vanish you’ll feel sad
And wonder if a dream you had
Do not be down, do not fear
Though unseen, the sprites are near
And if to see again you must
Don your nightwear by Fairy Dust ®.

Racks and wrecks: why I am off my trolley with buses.

Will transport companies EVER put in place buses that are designed for passengers AND their shopping, luggage, buggies, children, wheelchairs and so on, to travel comfortably together - I do stress the comfortable bit. Recently, I endured a nightmare journey from Heathrow to the suburbs, on an airport designated bus. Quite simply, I was trying to look after my trolley suitcase, computer bag and handbag. Ravenous, I wanted to consume a sandwich while travelling in comfort. A not impossible feat, you would imagine, but the very few luggage spaces were already occupied when I got on the bus - at the airport, I stress - the craft being no different from a central London bus. I had no choice but to occupy a "normal" passenger seat while holding onto my computer bag and handbag with one hand, and clutching my roving-inclined trolley with the other. Every time the bus turned, lurched or even swayed slightly, I was obliged to become a human octopus, struggling to prevent my possessions from clobbering other passengers. Eventually, another "baggage" passenger disembarked and I was able to occupy his space, but not before I had become an enraged, sweating, humiliated wreck. The irony is - it does not have to be like this. When I lived in central Europe, even "town centre" buses were long, elegant transport cabins, with one or two seats abreast at one side, a wide aisle for walking up and down, and a floor-level rack along the other side. Suitcases leaved singly into this rack, while the smaller top rack was for lighter baggage. Sways, turns and lurches made no difference; the luggage stayed in place throughout the journey. When whatever passenger disembarked, he could simply retrieve his suitcase without disturbing that of anyone else. Best of all, the rack was bayed at intervals, leaving space for buggies, wheelchairs, walking aids, whatever. This seating arrangement enables the passenger to sit alongside his or her secured luggage or child or invalid companion, and allows him or her to eat, read, listen to music and actually enjoy the urban voyage. Of course, I am aware that in chilly, old Great Britain, any sucker unable or unwilling to pay £50 or so for a taxi deserves every discomfort and humiliation that the system can throw at him. If we have to haul luggage onto those boxy, rack-free "passenger" buses, all I ask is that designers leave enough room - in the downstairs deck, at least - between and underneath seats, for suitcases - please.

War on terra: why does the female foot maintain its battle-zone status?

First, congratulations to Nicola Thorp for her stance in wearing flat heels to work. Over the years, I have waxed much lyrical on the eternal tussle between fantasy and reality that is the female foot zone. With the coming of age of Birkenstock and Fit-flops, Ecco and Josef Siebel, I thought that comfort and rationality had finally triumphed. But in the past decade, the fictional Miranda Priestly waved a pair of stilettos under the nose of sensibly-dressed secretary Andie in The Devil Wears Prada (David Frankel, 2006) while only last year, actual movie stars stood firmly in jewelled flatties on the red carpet in Cannes, deaf to howls of media derision. This year, the spat between receptionist Nicola and her bosses has proved that this sartorial war on terra is alive and kicking. When will men/bosses/people in authority generally learn that high-heeled feminine shoes are not workaday items of dress? Stiletto heels do not lend themselves to eight-hour work shifts, book-ended by fraught, commuter commutes. They are for parties, first dates and award ceremonies – a trope that even the canny ladies of Cannes eschewed. Stiletto shoes fulfill a yearning, a daydream, an aspiration, being the sartorial equivalent of gothic vaults, gleaming skyscrapers and a soaring FTSE index. That is the fantasy; the reality is aching toes and ankles during active hours, with the long-term price of trudging into middle and old age with damaged knees and spinal cords, and corned, calloused and bunioned feet. Ladies, refuse to pay – today.

Remembering Aqua Manda

Now that the long, hot days are upon us once again, the whiff of an orange cocktail the other evening sent me on a Proustian trip, a heady recollection of a scent from the Seventies called Aqua Manda, made by a company called Goya – ah! Aqua Manda was a sublime concoction of orange and flowers, of spices and other, more mysterious ingredients contained within a dark glass bottle, trimmed with gold and topped with stopper decorated with a fruity relief. The Aqua Manda experience was a pleasure from start to finish, from running a finger over the said relief to the opening of the gold-trimmed flask and applying the cologne, to spending the day in a cloud of the glorious aroma. Then, I discovered the accompanying products, including talc, soap and a foamy Aqua Manda bath lotion, a long soak in which was akin to spending a thousand nights in a floral bower. Never did I scratch my head when asked about a birthday or Christmas gift; I had but one mantra on my tongue: Aqua Manda. Challenges were not for me; any lass who longed for a vial of Charlie or Rebel or Tramp could stick it in her backpack and go hike – this teenager wanted to wallow in Scherezade-type fantasies of oriental palaces and adoring oil millionaires queuing up to do my bidding. Time changes everything and one birthday brought not Aqua Manda, but lemon-based Aqua Citra. Just for a change, Mum said. Talk about striking a sour note in a girl’s dreams – what was Goya thinking of? I went off the scent after that and on discovering that life brings bills rather than mills, it faded from memory. But I do have my Proustian moments and following the most recent one, a quick Google revealed that the Aqua Manda Perfume Company relaunched the products in 2013. The Seventies are back...

Can you believe this sticky, Lidl situation?

In writing this, I am apologizing to everyone who was behind me in a recent Lidl queue when I was trying to buy a box of butter. You know, I actually like my local Lidl, it being yet free of those direful automated checkouts and their robot voices. Instead, I had the pleasure of a nice young gent serving me. All good, but when the nice young gent tried to run the 500g box of Olive ® spread past the barcode reader, the reader would not, well, read. ‘Afraid I can’t sell you this, Madam,’ he said, ‘the butter is not on the stock database.’ ‘Eh?’ The nice young gent then offered to run and fetch a box of Clover® or Utterly Butterly®? I jumped at the latter product. The nice young gent ran away and returned two minutes later with a box of Utterly Butterly® and – same result – the barcode reader would not acknowledge the product was in the store. The nice young gent ran away again to seek another product. By now, dark and mutinous mutterings were emanating from the checkout queue, and more than a few desertions happened. Advise me: what do you do when in a situation like this? Who do you apologise to and who – if anyone - is to blame? The store? The manufacturer? The shelf stacker? The bad luck fairies? Not the nice young gent certainly, who was doing his best for me. Sure, I could have paid for the remaining items and found my butter elsewhere, but I was anxious to witness the conclusion to the rather weird scenario. My nice young gent returned presently, this time with a selection of products. He ran a box of I can’t believe it’s not butter® past the reader and – presto! – a price flashed on the monitor. ‘I can’t believe it’s worked,’ I said. The nice young gent didn’t think it funny, either. Has anything like this happened to anyone else, anywhere, ever?

Rock of Ages

When I heard that Tracey Emin had been the other half in a nuptial ceremony, my first thought was oh, no, not another independent, intelligent woman intent on sacrificing herself upon Hymen's altar; but then I learned the truth. Ms Emin has pledged her troth to a rock in the garden of her home. This knowledge has modified my emotions somewhat. After all, what partner could be more perfect than one who is always there, in all weathers, strong, silent and dependable? According to Wikipedia: "a rock or stone is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of one or more minerals...granite is a combination of quartz, feldspar and biotite minerals." I doubt if Ms Emin has had the geological composition of her spouse analysed - but really, who else knows the exact constitution of their life's partner - and does it matter? Rocks are the children of the stars, born in a cosmic cataclysm and tempered into planets, thus establishing gravity and time. Aeons down the line, the mineral fallout from rocks became me, you and other animals. I resume quoting Wiki: "The minerals and metals found in rocks have been essential to human civilization." Quite; without rock formation, we would not have had the ores and oxides essential for the making of a myriad pigments, marble slabs for Michelangelo's sculptings, and countless other treasures. In summary, we have the geological world to thank for the entire trajectory of art history - what a metaphor for Ms Emin! We wish her and her steady partner every happiness.