The Green Man

Hello, readers.

I hope you are having lovely weeks. I am. I’m back home for a while. I survived the four and a half hour drive home, although my old room looks like a bomb has hit it.

This week, we shall examine crossing the road, something we do every day, without really thinking (but look, listen, live, kids, OK?).

Well, I find it irritating when the little Green Man steals my thunder.

Let us set the scene. You approach a busy road and stare across the abyss streaming with colourful, wheeled articles of death, hooting and changing lanes, with their haughty controllers in their warm, effortless transporters, while you heave your rucksack and stand freezing in (please select) rain/snow/desert sandstorm. You eyeball that little Red Man standing resolute, legs apart, army stance, firm and unbending. ‘I can beat you’, you mutter inwardly, ‘You smug little pixelated jellybean… with your firm stance, daring me to disobey…’

And in that instant a hiatus, a temporary drought in the stream of cars, and you frantically check one way and another and back again, and no, you’re clear and by your reckoning you could jog comfortably (although not too complacently) to the other side of the road before the next angry vehicle swerves by and turns you into an unpleasant adornment to the pitted tarmac… And so you leap, joyfully, into the road and take to your heels in an awkward lumpy fashion whilst staring around apologetically at any bystanders, smearing a counterfeit smile across your flushed features as if to say ‘No, don’t worry, I don’t normally run like an elderly inebriate…” And then you are halfway over, your foot proudly straddling the white line down the centre of the road, when that smug little Red Man you were so eager to humiliate turns the tables most effectively.

Yes, while you were taking your life in your hands and injecting some excitement into your day, a small congregation – an audience even –  to your strategic gamble had gathered. But within this crowd, a renegade has appeared to sabotage your courageous attempt to defeat not only the Red Man, but the oncoming swarm of agitated automobiles, by daring to place his finger upon the grimy button demanding respite from the roaring horde of fossil-fuelled fury. And although you know the Green Man would never have obliged you so quickly, the perfidious pea-green popinjay is all too quick to leap to the aid of the Red Man’s plant, and ambushes you midway through your dash for freedom. Suddenly the whine of the safe-crossing cries out, and the Green Man winks at you while old ladies with tartan shopping trolleys surround you, chattering. Sourly, you slow to a walk and scowl angrily as you set foot safely on the pavement. The one time in your day when you can inject a little bit of risk into your life is hijacked by the traffic-sentry safety-police, who bleed all the fun out of life, when you could make a dash to the bakery life-enhancing and heart-beating (or, admittedly, life-endangering or heart-stopping if you choose the wrong moment – but that is part of the attraction), and you can make-believe you are a Stone Age hunter while you carry your Primark bags, avoiding a herd of stampeding buffalo rather than your Nissans and Pergeots and Fords, reawakening some primal instinct for survival and risk…

But no. You just tried to run the road like a naughty child, and the Green Man appeared and said it was all right anyway and stole all your fun, like stealing a slice of someone’s cake just as they say, ‘Please help yourself, there is far too much for me to eat and anyway, I’m on a diet…’ So you skulk away with an ‘I meant to do that’ expression before inevitably tripping over the dimpled tiling on the other side. Keep going, you meant to do that. A last glance back and the Red Man gives you a smug wave goodbye by leaping back into his small round frame, his splayed legs like an upturned two-fingered salute to your pride.

I probably overthink these things sometimes.

Thank you readers. Until next time.

Georgie

In Other News: Last Work Anecdotes

I miss work already! I only finished on Friday!

At one site, we wandered around looking at plants and ‘mammal clues’, i.e. poop. We had a map, and every time we found some poo, we would identify it and then mark where we found it on the map. It can be pretty gross sometimes. My colleague chose the marking over the sniffing (thanks mate), and when I got the map back, where we’d found the rabbit poo he’d drawn little turds with long fluffy ears.

The BBC turned up at work to film a little slot for local news a couple of weeks back. They requested I be in it – not talking, thank goodness, but working. Now, this would have been fine, ordinarily, or even exciting. But as the cameraman walked away, I whispered to my colleague, “I have not a scrap of make-up on … And I haven’t washed my hair for four days.” Yum.

Tea

Hello dear readers,

Here we are again, and this week, a rather lighter subject.

So, tea. The national obsession. Now, I’m going to admit something here that usually elicits a response bordering on the horrified. Don’t look at me like some heathen criminal, but I hate tea. And coffee, and hot chocolate. And when these are offered to me, everywhere, in that order, eyebrows will disappear further and further up foreheads until they come crashing back down in an accusatory glare, accompanied by the demand, “So, what do you drink, then?”

I actually find this national treasure kind of creepy. As an outsider, I see it as an actual addiction. People who can’t function in the morning without a cuppa? – yup, that’s a dependency, folks.

Sure, a little bit never hurt anyone. Well, except that a previous employer kindly informed me that I’d never have any friends if I didn’t drink tea. And while you lot are off on your endless tea breaks – the boiling, the chatting, the brewing, the chatting, the drinking, the chatting – I have no excuse. And you get away with it, because all you have to do is offer a cuppa to your boss too, and they will leap at the chance, thus giving you permission by default. No such luck for the non-tea-drinker.

Also, what is it with this leafy milky water? Gross. And all your individual little preferences over leaves or teabags, which teabags, the exact amount of milk (whether red, blue or green) down to the drop, the addition of sugar or no, when you put the darned milk in, or even warming the mug first. Who has time for that? My Gran once nearly had a fit when I put milk in before the water. Granddad takes his with three sugars, but he will send it back if it isn’t perfect. Grandma has hers  lukewarm. My brother has his without milk. My Godmother has to have boiling water in her mug first to make sure it’s warm, before you can even think about pouring tea into it.

When did you first start drinking tea? At what age did it become acceptable to drink it? When did you want to? Why? I’m a firm believer that prevention is better than cure – I never started at all. And I can’t even bear the smell. My Mum tried to get me to try coffee recently but I couldn’t even take a sip because the smell repulsed me so much.

I don’t have quite the same violent reaction to tea. I don’t mind the smell, because my parents don’t very often drink tea, but my grandparents drank it constantly (Gran still does). So the smell of tea reminds me of exciting times when my brother and I got to stay with Granny and Grandpa when we were little. When we woke up, we would go and snuggle up in bed with them, and they would each have a steaming cup of tea, and Granny would read us those ‘A Day in the Life of…’ stories, about a little hedgehog in green wellies – Edward Hedgehog, that was it. And Tom Mouse and Badger (by Kate Veale). So the smell of tea takes me right back there. But drink it?! Nope!! It’s an addictive diuretic containing caffeine and tannin. Made of leaves. And you say I’m the weird one!

Well, after all that hard work reading, you probably need a tea break. Personally, I’m going to go and have a great big glass of skimmed UHT milk, that stuff you get in cardboard cartons and keep for emergencies only, and that will only make an appearance during a nuclear apocalypse for most people. That’s my favourite. Because, well, each to their own, I suppose.

Happy tea-drinking,

Georgie

In Other News – That Phone Again

I said a while back that the screen on my phone wasn’t working. This is still the case. This is awkward for a supposedly touch-screen phone. This is the exact text I sent my Dad today:

‘hi im good thank you, are you -.dded mg oh I give uqded0 id GIVE UP the backspace isn’t working! sorry for the gobblebddddgook AAARGH jmtd de.’

His reply: ‘Have you been drinking?’ Grrr.

The Safety Gap

Hello friends.

Another feminist post this week – about the safety gap. I hope you enjoy.

There’s always been a certain awareness of things I can’t do because I’m a girl. The earliest clear recollection I have of this is my dad telling me about when he used to go camping up in Derbyshire when he was a teenager, armed with nothing more than a penknife and a can of beans, flanked by a couple of mates. They would spend a few days alone up there, roaming the countryside, carving their names into the rocks and probably causing all sorts of havoc that I don’t know about.

I thought that this sounded the most exciting thing ever. I’d be around seven or eight.

“Please, please can I do that, Dad?”

“No, no you can’t.”

“When I’m older?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Not even with J and A?”

“No.”

At this point I pouted. “Would you let D go?” (That’s my brother.)

And here my dad considered. “Hm. Maybe. Yeah, probably.”

“But whyyyyyyyyy?” I whined.

And then my dad came straight out with it. “Because he’s a boy.”

I just thought my Dad was being pointlessly sexist at the time, believing my brother to be more competent than me in the great outdoors because of his gender (and nothing could be further from the truth; I’ve made the environment my career, while my brother works in wedding planning). I never really thought much about it until now, when, in perusing the internet, I found that the ‘safety gap’ is a thing, it has a name, it is known and recognised and universally accepted, without anybody paying the slightest bit of attention to this fact. How strange. We just sort of… deal with it. Accept it as normal and carry on, without it even registering.

You see, when I was small, all I could think of was that the worst that could happen was falling off rocks or broken bones, on a camping adventure in the middle of nowhere. And with my brother, this isn’t as unlikely as you might think – he has such a talent for accidents, combined with a love of adventure sports, that the nurses at the local A&E know him by name. But I was sensible and never had any accidents – why couldn’t I go?

But, put plainly, the reality was that I was more at risk of attack than my brother.

It’s things that women do on automatic, that probably wouldn’t occur to a man, or certainly wouldn’t put him out. Things like listening for footsteps when walking at night, analysing their distance and speed, crossing the road to make sure you aren’t being followed, making sure your timing and route isn’t too regular. Things like watching the shadows on the ground so you can see if someone is approaching without turning around. Not walking alone after dark, or if you are forced to, being on the phone to somebody or doing check-up ‘Home safe’ texts with a friend, and only walking in streetlit areas. When I get in my car, I always press the lock button down. At my martial arts classes, situations like being grabbed from behind were always tailored to the women, with a man mock-attacking the girls. The way you carry your handbag. The way you walk. Where you exercise. Where you park your car. I could go on.

The thing is, these safety arrangements cost us time and money and worry. And it’s no good saying, “It will never happen to me!” Because statistically, women are more likely to be attacked, and men more likely to be attackers; and when you hear those news stories, it did happen to someone, and they probably thought the same. And there is always the ‘what-if’ factor, ready to leap in and seize you to make you nervous.

Isn’t it all sort of weird? And sad?

I’m finding it hard to express how strange it was when it struck me that I actually take these precautions over my safety; I had honestly never thought of it before. It was just automatic, just things you do when you go out, as necessary as locking the front door behind you.

But not everyone does these things. Not everyone has to think about them.

I wish nobody had to, but wishing isn’t enough.

Georgie

In Other News, Friends Real and Imaginary

This is a quote from my friend Molley Scoble. I just love it. ‘There seems to be a current trend within the media, in regards to self esteem, that revolves around the idea of placing your body type above everyone else’s in terms of desirability. Being body positive isn’t only about loving your own body, its about embracing every body type and being supportive to each other. I can’t help but feel that if you have to shame another body type in order to feel good about your own, then perhaps you’re not actually that happy at all.’ Ooh, I think she got it so spot on right there.

And the day’s giggles. I was in a shop with my friend P at the weekend, and I found a stand of greetings cards. I was perusing those ones with the old fashioned photos, and I found one that said ‘You’ll always be my friend, you know too much!’ I picked it up and read it out and said “Hey, that’s us! You’ll always be my friend for this reason!” only to turn around – and nobody was there. P had gone. Instead, an old man was looking at me in some consternation, apparently under the impression I was talking to my imaginary friend…

I am a Feminist

Hey hey readers, I hope you’ve been having lovely weeks. They seem to be going too quickly for me.

Are you ready for a slightly heavier topic this week? Here it is: why I’m a feminist. This is not an all-encompassing argument – I could go on for many pages. I’ve missed a lot out, especially men’s role in feminism and the damage of singular images of masculinity. Ah well, one for another day, eh?

I am a feminist. I believe men and women are equal. I don’t feel equal sometimes. I mean, it’s not like I’m a child bride, or banned from school, or paid for with a dowry, or seen as my husband’s property. But these are still things that happen all over the world – including here. We just don’t like to think about them so much. But they happen.

My personal choices don’t mean I can or can’t be a feminist. There is no box in which all feminists will sit – indeed, we don’t like being put in boxes, that’s why we’re here. Our forebears tore that box up, the one they were forced to sit in – they fought their way out and then sat proudly atop it, daring the hecklers to push them back in, because each time they were pushed back, they would fight harder than before, and stand taller, and shout louder.

This spirit remains in feminism. It’s the shout for equality.

I didn’t understand what feminism was, until recently. And then I discovered that awful buzzword – ‘society’s expectations’ – and realised that’s exactly what they are. Expectations. Judgements. On women, not men. The regulation of women’s bodies, not men’s. The female dress code. The prizing of female virginity. The concept of slut-shaming, versus, I suppose, stud-congratulating.

I am a feminist because when I helped tidy the dojang after a martial arts lesson, my instructor told me I would ‘make somebody a good housewife one day.’

I am a feminist because of all of those cat-calls and whistled shot after me in the street. I’ve never seen that happen to someone male-identified. And it’s far less likely to happen if you are with a man.

I am a feminist because a harasser is more likely to leave you alone if you tell him you have a boyfriend. Not because they respect you as a person, and your wish to be left alone, but because they respect another man far more than they respect you. This is an implication that you are seen as property. I don’t want a man’s actions blamed on what I wear. I want consent to be given, not assumed. I want to have the choice between being a stay-at-home mother or having a career, and not judged as ‘weak’ or ‘career bitch’, when the same choices for men are acceptable (although equally a stay-at-home father is new; another advance in equality, or in what feminism stands for). I don’t want to be made to feel ashamed for the way I look – the hair that grows naturally on my body. This is my choice, and whether or not I choose to be influenced by today’s expensive and unnatural standards, that is my choice. I am a feminist because the unrealistic body images that torment the minds of young girls are a cold ploy of advertising; nobody has flawless skin, that perfect airbrushed body. Cellulite is paraded as disgusting when almost every woman has it due to the configuration of her muscle cells; wobbly bits are banned because nobody wants to see. Breastfeeding is taboo, while breasts are used to sell products such as perfume and cars. I mean, come on! Who wants to see a breast being used for the purpose it was designed for, hey? That’s disgusting!

In the double standards, it seems a woman can’t win. If she gives up work for her children, she’s weak or lazy. If she goes back, she’s heartless and selfish. If she enjoys sex, she is a slut. If she doesn’t want to have sex, she’s frigid. A low-cut top makes her a slag but a turtleneck makes her a prude. Wearing make-up is for air-heads and bimbos, but going without implies carelessness and being ‘unshaggable’. Shaving her body hair makes her a conformist, but keeping it makes her disgusting. If the man was drunk, he couldn’t help it. If the woman is drunk, it’s her fault. Long hair means girlie and vain, while short hair means masculine and lesbian.

Sometimes these also apply to men, which can be equally harmful. A man who waits for sex is in some way deficient, as though all men must be desperate for sex otherwise they can’t really be manly. A man who attempts to buck the gender trends in terms of childcare, chores, or anything else, is considered a ‘pussy’ (feminine insult) or a ‘puff’ or something intended to be equally as insulting.

Women are told from media that all they are good for is sex, fashion and being mothers, but are considered sluts, air-heads, or weak for actually being interested in these things.

I am a feminist because, when I was twelve, I was harassed at a bus stop. I’m a feminist because when I was fifteen, a man tried to persuade me that my mum was inside his house and I should come inside with him. I am a feminist because I don’t feel able to walk the streets alone in the dark. I am a feminist because aged seventeen, I was followed through town by a man who asked me who I was meeting, when, and if I had a boyfriend. I am a feminist because people assume I can’t parallel park – because I am a girl. I am a feminist because I am sick of being told I ‘hit like a girl’ – newsflash: I am a girl. Another newsflash: why is being a girl the worst insult you can throw at me? I am a feminist because I am very, very bored of people asking me whether I have a boyfriend yet, as though I need a man to complete me. I am a feminist because so many insults specifically refer to the feminine: Pussy. Bitch. Slag. Slut. Whore. Bint. C***. Girl.

These are not generally echoed towards the male quarter.

This doesn’t even account for education levels or the pay gap or the division of household chores; we still aren’t equal. In fact, influenced, I think, by social media, there has actually been a recent revival of misogyny. The ‘banter’ type; the ‘go and make me a sandwich’ type; the ‘this is my bitch’ type.

Misogyny is also harmful to men, giving them unrealistic hyper-macho images to live up to. Not every man is the muscle-bound martial artist businessman with a silk tie and a scantily-clad girl at home. Not every woman is the scantily-clad type, in the kitchen making dinner for her masculine executive weightlifter.

Feminism is also a voice for the sidelined – the LGBT community, for example. Others who tore up their boxes before climbing on top of them to shout out their existence, demand their rights.

We need feminism. Feminism is revolutionary. Feminism is necessary. Everyone should be a feminist – feminism is everyone. Feminism is equal.

Georgie

In Other News, I nearly forgot In Other News

Today I have partaken in my favourite sport of Tussock-Hopping. I work on the moors or heathland or culm, and on the really good bits where it’s completely waterlogged and just basically a giant puddle interspersed with huge moorgrass tussocks, my colleagues and I compete in the Tussock-Hopping stakes. Three strikes and you’re out, and there is a significant element of danger in twisted ankles, but it’s great fun. You get trick tussocks and trick puddles and it is all a game of chance. If you miss your chosen tussock you can end up doing an impression of Atreyu in the Neverending Story – that swampy bit with the giant turtle. I won today’s round – happy days.

In Other News

Hey hey readers,

It’s been just over a week, and here is something that struck me last week when I wrote this… We are so detached from world events that it scares me a little bit. So here we are.

BBC news. Item one. Mistake blamed for US ebola spread.

I am examining my fingernails. Why do they grow sort of wonky like that? Huh.

BBC news. Item two. Plans to counter NHS strike.

I’m kinda hungry. Wonder if there are any roasties left? Be right back.

BBC news. Item three. Donors pledge $5.4bn in Gaza aid.

I can’t believe Downton Abbey has so many adverts, get on with it already!!

BBC news. Item four. Cyclone Hudhud pounds India.

Ugh, I hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow.

Police chief killed in Iraq’s Anbar. Election setback for Brazil’s Dilma. ‘Bike thief’ body found in harbour. Will Obama’s anti-ISIS strategy work? Iraq ten years on. Iraqi Kurds in weapons call. Baghdad car bombs kill dozens. UN chief in Libya to make peace plea. Yemen suicide bombings kill dozens. Syria declares new chemical sites. Nine die in Guinea boat sinking. Tanzania arrests for ‘witch’ deaths. UN peacekeeper killed in CAR ambush. The Hong Kong protests. China’s disappearing pro-HK activists. Death penalty for China cult killers. Seven die at Pakistan rally. Koreas exchange land border fire. Bosnians vote as discontent grows. Ukraine city readies for rebel advance. Shelling shatters first day of school. Five hundred killed in fight for Kurdish town. Torture ‘rife’ in Mexico. Drought hits Brazil’s biggest city.

In other news: True love tested in wife-carrying race. See Strictly winner take on Indian dance challenge. How much do you really know about Simon Cowell? EastEnders’ Martin Fowler to return. Estonia 0-1 England. Minaj fails to snatch UK number one.

Ooh, isn’t the news depressing? I’m going to bed. Night. Hey, make sure you set your alarm in the morning, I want to be up in time to make packed lunches and have a shower and everything. Ooh, this new pillow is just what I needed for a good night’s sleep, honestly, hardly slept a wink with that other one. Pass me my moisturiser. Is the radiator off? I don’t want to wake up too hot in the night. Could do with some new curtains in here, couldn’t we? We’ll have to see about that at the weekend, how to you fancy a trip to Dunelm? Yeah, we’ll drive, the bus is always full of screaming kids on a Saturday. I know it’s not far… Ooh I must ring Mum in the morning, make sure she’s all right for the builder coming round to do her new roof. I worry about him trying to fleece her because she’s an old lady. Let’s go for a nice walk somewhere tomorrow… Get away from it all…

Ooh, ooh, the next day. My personal favourite in the Daily Mail. ‘Ebola outbreak is set to make the price of chocolate soar after huge rise in cost of cocoa beans…amid fears that the killer disease could spread to Ivory Coast and Ghana – where 60 per cent of the world’s cocoa is farmed.’

Well, that really would be awful. I mean, chocolate is expensive enough as it is, right?

Sadly, your friend Georgie

In Other News, In Other News

This week I visited Port Isaac, where they film Doc Martin. Clearly they have a different class of vandal on the Cornish coast. Someone had carved an apostrophe into the ‘Doc Martins House’ sign.

Overheard: “What bird is that?”

“I dunno? A penguin?”

“Penguins don’t fly. It was a crow or something.”

“Is that a thing? Aren’t all birds the same?”

Help us all.