Spit or Swallow?

I spent hours deciding what to wear for a romantic dinner for two at a local restaurant. I finally plumped for my invisibility cloak - poor decision!

I actually earn more than my other half and am inevitably the one who chooses the wine on the wine list and yet every fucking time when the waiter brings over the wine they ask:

"Would you like to try the wine sir?"

Now i'm no bra burning feminist (matter of fact those dirty lezzers rub me up the wrong way) but I do wonder why my female pallet is not good enough to 'test' the wine.

At the end of the day, let's be honest, neither of us have a fucking clue about wine - we just want to get pissed! but that's not the point. How do slaves...I mean waiters...KNOW that I am not capable of distinguishing good wine from bad wine? Ok so I have slightly bucker than average teeth and a cough belies the fact that two of my senses are a little the worse for wear, but FUCKING HELL let me taste your shit wine!

Anyway, having had a glass of pimms, a bottle of wine and a complementary brandy it's time for me to go.

PS: Have been reliably informed by someone who wasn't dragged up like me that We are not required to taste the wine to see if we like it but rather to see if it's been corked.

Wife Swap anyone?

Let's all laugh at poor people and their funny little ways. Yep! Wife Swap is back. We (the 'one up from house' resolutely middle class brigade) watch this and other programmes like it and kid ourselves that we are fascinated by them as intriguing social experiments. We observe that maybe we will learn something about our own prejudices, reflect on them and change for the better.

Change my arse ... WE don't need to change. It's THEM who need to change. We watch it in the faint hope that these people will also be sitting in watching it and thinking 'How could I have said that'. But we know that they will actually be cheering so loudly in support of their own meaningless twaddle and ludicrous behaviour that they won't actually hear anything they said at all.

We despair as they grapple desperatly to find the words to articulate how they feel and somehow end up finding the word 'fuck' every time. We sigh as their 'urchin' offspring desribe mum as 'more like a friend than a parent' and reel in horror as they support their incredulously weak arguments with 'I read it in the daily mail'.

Like most in the middle class I consider myself better than these people, more tolerant, more open minded, more intelligent, more articulate. Am I? well....no...we both see the world in terms of 'them' and 'us' only for me, they are 'them' and for them 'they' are....well...maybe us, but then again maybe just anyone born outside the shores of 'our' green and pleasent land!

In the words of George Orwell "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others" (I read that in a book)
Channel 4 Tuesday 9pm - watch, laugh and feel good about yourself....after all, your accident of birth earned you that right...right!

Cold Comfort Hotel

I'm slowly realising that when I say "Do you remember when we were young we used to....." no one actually remembers doing any of the things I say. So I may be alone, but, do you remember when we were young we used to ask 'What would you rather die of, being too hot or being too cold?' I think I always said cold because I had heard of cryogenic freezing.

I'm trying to embrace the weather at the moment, in whatever form it takes. I have always wanted to go and stay in one of those Scandanavian ice hotels. I like the romantic image of keeping warm by curling up with someone on reindeer skin while slaves bring piping hot loganberry drinks to our bedsides, then up we would get, jump on a couple of huskies, ask them to take us down to the local ice mall for a spot of shopping before getting riotously drunk in bar ice. Then nightfalls and it's back on the dogs and home sweet -9 degrees home. The problem is, I have the same romantic image about holidays in the sun (minus huskies, plus donkeys) and when I get there all I do is moan about the heat!

I don't want to waste my cold holiday of a lifetime (not yet booked but in it's 9th year of being discussed) moaning, so today I decided it's time to start training in order to be fully prepared. I chose the moment when I thought the rain had reached it's heaviest and stood out in it. (ok so summer rain in St Albans isn't exactly a night in a glorified igloo but it's a start). Result? I liked it, I actually did enjoy it. I was cold and wet and I suppose uncomfortable as the rain filled my pants and shoes but I looked up, embraced it and felt all the better for it. Next stop a night in someone's freezer (we only have an icebox).
NB: If I do actually turn up in someones freezer it was NON CONSENSUAL unless it was my friend Cath who did it under test conditions.

SOUL SOLD to look like BEAUTY SCHOOL DROPOUT

Q) Who is the odd one out:
Bob Dylan,
Liz Taylor,
that woman who played 'Frenchie' in Grease
or
Marlon Brando?

A) That woman who played 'Frenchie' in Grease, and not just because I have no idea who the hell she is but because all the others have aged badly (like that poor little blighter with that "I'm 7 but look 70" disorder - that's not ageist or disablist. My dads old and in a wheelchair...and in a home...which is fucking expensive by the way and I pay the bill) but frenchie clearly sold her soul to the devil in return for looking exactly the same in 2004 as she did in 1972, unfortunatly for her she looked like a dog in 1972...still at least she gets to enjoy eternal damnation with the big guy downstairs (not sloth from 'The Goonies')