On Bathtime Battles and Being Cleopatra

It haunts my dreams both when I’m asleep and awake. It fills me with both rage and purpose, as I constantly seek chemical formulae to keep it at bay. I am talking of the purity of my bathroom enamel despoiled by that ring of dirt that will not go away. This is in spite of the friends and relatives who have given advice on how to vanquish it forever. Apparently, the only way never to have that ring around the bathtub is to wipe the scummy ring off the enamel with a cloth the moment you are finished bathing. Fine, if you are a practical creature who (a) prefers to shower anyway and (b) who has never entertained bath-time fantasies born of scented water, good soap and other ablutional indulgences. My favourite daydream is of being Cleopatra as I step from the tub and don my dressing robe – what better way to shatter it than wielding a scouring cloth doused with a dollop of elbow grease? I do not leave behind a colloquial tub of tepid water but a golden, Jacuzzi-like receptacle of asses’ milk or sparkling wine or some such exotic liquid. My fantasy lasts while I massage oil of roses (ergo body cream) into my poor, tired pelt, don clothing and breakfast on grapes and nectar (tea and toast, actually). Later, I do become more practical and focused as the mind switches into daytime mode – but by then it is too late. The ring has hardened into the familiar and stubborn beast, and the battle of the bath resumes.

Made in UK - yes, really.

Many years ago, I bought two rose-pink vest tops at a now closed branch of Miss Selfridge. Actually, they were/are more like bodices with front and back “shaping" darts that allow the garment to “bloom” into a nice, female shape on top. Friend, I still have the tops, not as museum pieces but as good, wearable garments. They have lasted through countless wears and washes, and have never lost their stretch. The seams and darts have never pulled apart and the fine, looped trimming is still in place about the neck. The deep pink colour has barely faded and the labels are still readable, bearing the legend Made in UK. The condition of these vests cannot be a fluke because I have a pair of Miss Selfridge leggings bought a decade earlier still. Made of black lycra with a crushed-velvety pile, they have faded to dark purple over twenty years but are still wearable, never having lost their elasticity or ripped or torn. Again, they were Made in UK. To all of those folks who claim that British manufacturers cannot hold it together, that all of our manufacturing, machining and assembling is best done overseas, I join with the other MP (Mary Portas) in saying natch…unless “UK” means Upper Kazakhstan, of course.

Why are blue badges blue?

Last night, I watched a sliver of a BBC programme Parking Mad, documenting the endless angst experienced by the denizens of the capital in their quest to find parking spaces that don’t come with a health warning. In the main, the doc was good, attempting to show the story from all points of view; those of the drivers, wardens and adjudicators when fines are in question. However, I was left with the feeling that design issues could be making life difficult for all involved. There was one nice old gentleman who found himself with a £70 ticket when a traffic warden failed to spot a “blue badge” on his dashboard. Photographs taken of the car by the warden were indistinct, failing to reveal that the driver’s blue badge was not on display. For this reason, the adjudicator waived his fine and he went away happy. A numbskull, non-driver like me has a question: why does the blue badge have to be blue? After all, blue is a difficult colour to see through glass, even on the finest of days – what happens when it is raining or foggy? Why cannot the blue badge be red, or pink, or yellow, or even fluorescent orange? Authorities, over to you.

All I ever wanted to be.....

A week and a half ago, Lucy Mangan wrote volubly in the Guardian about a Christmas incident when she was a teenager where her father presented her and her sister each with a slice of hick chic all the way from Carolina when he was posted there for work. All in all, her description of the dressed-up lumber shirts had me in stitches (sic). However, funny as her column was, I could not touch base with Lucy – no one has ever presented me with a slice of backwoods’ bling. Next weekend, however, I squealed in empathy with Victoria Coren’s column in the Observer . Victoria gripes over how us women are supposed to appear at our most glamorous at the darkest, coldest, wettest or frostiest time of year, while the boys are permitted to stay snug as rug bugs in sensible suits and boots. Even as a child, I puzzled over the fashion spreads in December magazines; painted females in trip-me-up shoes and gold foil dresses that began somewhere just above the bosom and ended halfway down the thigh. In the time and place I spent my formative years, not even the average winter ensemble of wools and furry cottons prevented me from sporting the glorious accessory of a snuffly head cold on 25/12. No, I never was the fairy on top of the Christmas tree.

In memory of Jacintha Saldanha

When I heard of the telephone prank on the nurses at the King Edward VII hospital, I did not punch the air and laugh at the royals – no. Apparently, two well-paid broadcasters “down unda” had nothing better to do but attack hard-working, working-class people. In light of the latest news, I hope that they are proud of themselves and their fools’ project. Let me make one thing clear, I have no personal agenda in writing this. I have no ties with the medical profession, apart from having once had to spend a few days in hospital where I was very well cared for by the staff. They put up with my post-op groaning and moaning, grumbling and whingeing. Multiply that many times over, and I wonder why anyone, anywhere wants to nurse for a living. But still they do it. They put up with the hard labour and the low pay, the grumbling and groaning from people like me, the lifting and carrying, the phials of blood and other bodily fluids. In return, they are lampooned and trivialised, humbled and sent up in every possible way. A quick spot of Googling, and you can access millions of “naughty nurse” and “sexy nurse” outfits – yes, they are presented as sex maniacs, as well. How long will it take for us to see the truth, that the nurse is a highly-trained, hard-working professional? All I can do is extend my deepest sympathy to the family, friends and colleagues of the late Jacintha Saldanha.

Shocks, Chocs and Academics...

From the earliest age, my favourite television advertisements have always been that series where this good-looking guy risks life and limb (scaling walls, jumping out of helicopters, and so on) to bring a box of chocolates to his elegant girlfriend. When he finally does so, a voiceover says all because the lady loves Milk Tray… And that is the core of my valedictory speech when I finally stand on stage at the Swedish Academy. A study by Franz Mezzerli of Columbia University has established a link between high intelligence and commensurate chocolate consumption…OMG! There was I, pouring late o’nights over books and manuscripts, scribbling copy copiously when all I had to do was wolf the walnut whirls and make light of the lime barrels. Gone are all those agonies of guilt I suffered over my passion for praline and cravings for c-covered caramels…ah, me! If only Mezzerli had released his results sooner, I might have gotten the Famous Phone Call before now. But it’s never too late. Forget the Omega-3 and watch out for my forthcoming brand of Academic Chocolates; Nobel nougats, egghead orange creams and nutty professors….

Trouble in Utopia

Last night, between 11 pm and midnight, I watched the TV programme unfold. It was eerie to hear the words of the late Robert Hughes, remembering them as if he had spoken the day before and not three decades earlier. The shock that was new then still resonates today. Since, I have read much and written much more about the International Style and the Bauhaus, Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe, the Villa Savoie and the Unite d’Habitation. Maybe I have read the wrong books, but I have never since read a word about the architectural embarrassment that was La Defense. Little did I understand then of Hughes’s courage in airing the subject. The sight of those candy-coloured towers and the plight of those people staring out at the dismal concrete spaces in between, are still as moving now as they were then. If I remember, the dog whimpered and ran under the table. My late father covered his head with his hands and muttered an imprecation. Uncharacteristically, I silently thanked the Above (for the first and only time) for my having grown up in a “normal” suburban house. That sentiment didn’t last, but I have never forgotten the lesson learned; the difference between “stunning architecture” and basic, good housing. Since then, I have written much on the consequences of planners neglecting to turn space into place. I have lampooned the notion of building-as-lifestyle, the theme park, and the danger of erecting a habitation to express ideas rather than serve human needs. You can take man from the organic, but you can’t take the organic from the man. All this could not help the residents of La Defense, of course. I have every respect for Robert Hughes but as The Shock of the New drew to a close, then as now I felt regret that he didn’t talk to, didn’t talk onscreen to at least one of the humans caught in that modernist nightmare.