tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57077303705646144802024-03-11T21:52:16.061-07:00HELLO MUMFemale monkey in a fez bashes wildly away at a typewriter while baby monkey wipes squished banana onto the keyboardLucy Sweethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06946371016154788910noreply@blogger.comBlogger48125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707730370564614480.post-91662191159943725212013-10-10T09:36:00.000-07:002013-10-10T09:36:47.896-07:00This blog, and other things I never get round to doingHmm. I haven't updated this blog since MARCH, which is such a long time that it's a bit like being dead, really. Maybe you thought I was dead, unless you follow me on Twitter, (@lucytweet1 if you like idiocy!). If you do follow me, you might have either wished me dead, or at the very least quietly muted me and browsed the Guardian for recipes for plum cobbler.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I'm not dead, not yet, but sometimes I wonder about all the things I'll never get round to doing before I die. All that unaddressed stuff that everyone says they'll do but won't. Don't worry, I'm not talking about a Bucket List. It's much more stupid than that. Because these things are silly to even think about. You can't honestly say this stuff is left undone because of procastination, because that would suggest that you've attempted to do something about it. No, this is stuff that I will never get done, not in a million years, but I've still managed to convince myself that one day I will do them. These things form a layer of pointless, dormant ambition sitting on top of my brain, like skin on a custard. (Mmm, brain custard, a perfect accompaniment to Brain Cobbler.)<br />
<br />
<b>5 Things I Won't Do Ever</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>1. Become a captivating singer songwriter</b><br />
Ok, so I made a record once, before my child came and RUINED EVERYTHING by asking for water and food and hugs and stuff. Actually, I made two! But the thing was, it was with people who did things like book the rehearsals and the recordings while I swanned in holding a takeaway coffee and complaining about being a bit chilly. On my own, I am A Person Who Owns A Guitar. I'm not even Annoying Git Who Plays Guitar At Parties, because my unique take on grumbling ovary alt-folk can clear a room. So, Laura Marling, don't worry, love, you're safe.<br />
<br />
<b>2. Write a sitcom</b><br />
Since I was about 15, I've made about 3000 frankly pathetic attempts to write a sitcom. They're all crap. I will never write a Seinfeld, or a Curb Your Enthusiasm. I won't even write a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lNiCdPeR7k">'Yus My Dear' </a>with me in the role of Arthur Mullard. It distresses me that I will never be Tina Fey or Lena Dunham or Mindy Kaling - or Arthur Mullard - but it's probably for the best.<br />
<br />
<b>3. Reading Great Books</b><br />
Yeah, I'll just casually drop some reference to Anna Karenina into conversation while we're having a latte at literary festival. Or I'll whip out A La Recherche Des Temps Perdu on the bus. Ah, who am I kidding? I read Middlemarch last year and it nearly fucking killed me. There was hardly any shagging in it at all and not one single cameo by Kiri Te Kanawa or Nigel Havers. <br />
<br />
<b>4. Skiing</b><br />
I once went to a ski resort and I didn't ski. Even though I think skiing is dangerous and unpleasant, annoyingly, this is one of my big regrets. When my life flashes before my eyes, there'll just be a big film of me not going on a ski lift and not crowbarring my arse into any salopettes. I tell myself if I try to ski, then my life will come full circle and I will have faced my deepest fears. But there is NO FUCKING WAY I WILL EVER GO SKIING BECAUSE IT WILL KILL ME. <br />
<br />
<b>5. Helping the needy</b><br />
In my mind's eye I have always been a pale, noble, almost saintly figure, running a hospital in Africa. Or someone who gives up my Christmasses to trade fruity banter and lukewarm gravy with the homeless. Sorry, poor people, but I can't be arsed. However I will sometimes send £5 if you grow a moustache/stop drinking/run a 10k on a Sunday morning - if I remember.<br />
<br />
There are loads more other things I'll never do, like watching the Sopranos and Nurse Jackie, and finding the perfect red lipstick, and making a brilliant pavlova. I will probably never go to Australia. (It's far.) But 5 things is probably enough, and you're probably dealing with your own top five stupid things you'll never do, too. So I'll leave you to not do them while I get on with not doing any of my stuff. See you in March. xx<br />
<br />Lucy Sweethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06946371016154788910noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707730370564614480.post-2867516461008553422013-03-08T08:37:00.002-08:002013-03-08T08:37:39.774-08:00I AM A POUND SHOP PRINCESS
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Apart from the fact
that they don’t pay their workers and you know, child labour and stuff, I can’t
tell you how much I love a pound shop. My heart starts hammering as soon as I
see a giant pack of batteries, or a bumper sack of off-brand Mini Cheezers, or
a discounted Cheeky Girls autobiography. Mops, pegs, brushes, magic expanding
socks, diaries made of thin toilet paper – I love it all.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I also love that,
unlike the shiny doodads and pointless reactionary trinkets of John Lewis, it
all comes with a moving whiff of Chinese warehouse. You’ve got to admire these
shitty products. Unloved, piled high and viciously discounted, they’ve
travelled the world trying to find a home. If that imported deodorant could
speak, it would say: ‘Me and my family of lavender roll ons have been in a shipping
crate in Shanghai for 6 months, wondering whether we will see an armpit again. But
for just £1 you can adopt me and apply me gently into your crevices.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And as a parent, pound
shops are worth their weight in gold. Toys for other people’s children who you
don’t know or particularly like? Check. Watery paint and newsprint colouring
books? Check. And here’s a secret I only just found out myself. Poundland sell
MIDDLE CLASS FRUIT SNACKS.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You
don’t have to send Boudicca and Rafferty to school with cold chips and a
biscuit any more! For one British pound you can throw in some Fruit Factory
stringy things and give them one of their five a day like a BOSS. I even found
some Dorset muesli in there the other day – admittedly the packet was thumbnail
sized, but it was only a fucking quid. Suck on that, Mumford and Sons and Jamie
Oliver and all you pork pulling artisan idiots. I
might sleep under a motorway off ramp, but I know how to live!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Anyway, it’s a good
job I have learned to treasure crap things, because they’re the only things I
can afford. I can’t remember the last time I paid full price for anything. The
combination of the financial crisis, a terrible government and working part time means
I’ve become a bargain betty, a sales slut, a made in Taiwan fan. You wouldn’t
catch me wearing Marni and Louboutins, because I am dressed head to toe in a
massive bin bag from B&M. The best conversations I have involve money off coupons
and 3 for 2s on jam.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Like the women who
lived through WW2, who were still making cups of tea with powdered egg and
making earrings out of potato peelings well into the 70s, I don’t think I’ll
ever get over my modern day penny pinching. I will always be a Pound Shop Princess. You could give me a black Amex and
Kanye’s pin number and I would still gravitate towards Poundland to fondle the
washing baskets. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Cheap? Yes - but I’ll have the last laugh. </span>And I will also be the proud owner of SEVEN
MILLION packets of Jammy Bodgers. Screw you, recession. </div>
<!--EndFragment-->Lucy Sweethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06946371016154788910noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707730370564614480.post-78479429023869942182012-12-18T08:57:00.003-08:002012-12-18T08:57:54.664-08:00WHAT TO DO WHEN YOUR CHILD IS ILLWaiting for a kid to get over an illness is a bit like waiting for a BT engineer who said he would come at 8am but actually comes at 5.30pm the following day. You take the day off, you pace, you worry, you get frustrated, you watch TV, you flick through magazines and you look out of the window and think 'GOSH I REALLY WISH I COULD GET OUT OF THE FUCKING HOUSE BEFORE I DIE.'<br />
<br />
My child isn't very well. Nothing serious - just a non-specific and nasty winter virus of the kind most people get just before Christmas, the kind that makes mince pies and stuffing look as appetising as poo. As I write this, he's watching a Bugs Bunny cartoon and looking woeful. At 4 am he needed water, at 5 am he needed water, and at 6 am he woke up crying and dizzy with a temperature similar to the Earth's Core. Then we watched a Japanese cartoon called Monsuno, which is the shittiest programme EVER. After that there's been more telly, books, writing, a nap and some DS. Lots of moaning and wet flannels and untouched toast. We've been housebound so long I'm starting to feel like Grandma Bucket from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. What is the world like out there? Does it have many shiny things? <br />
<br />
Of course, it could be a lot worse, and for many families it really is. This is just a standard issue ailment, so I can't imagine what it's like to contend with a long term illness. When your kid is ill, even with something boring, it feels horrible. I hate it. It's like you're hanging around waiting for an unpleasant invasive procedure sometime in in the not-too-distant future, like a colonoscopy or a smear test. You feel a nagging stress that no number of magazines about Anne Hathaway's vagina can quell. You can't relax, day or night, for fear of being woken up by a crying, overheating lump of unassailable distress. You can't detach yourself, because they are you, except you feel perfectly healthy, and you'd quite like to do something other than offer hugs and dispense Calpol, like go to the pub, or do a human pyramid, or ride a motorbike through a circle of fire. You are the opposite of Monsuno. You don't have monster power in your hand, and you don't control the battle. You have no power, and you can't even convert into a tarantula/wasp/turtle at the touch of a button, which quite frankly sucks. <br />
<br />
All you can do is wait. Wait for them to get well, and go back to normal, so you can shout at them about leaving things on the floor and tear your hair out and write moany arsed blogs about how they don't behave themselves. I cannot wait. In the meantime, could someone go out and get me a Dominos? Ta. <br />
<br />
<br />
Lucy Sweethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06946371016154788910noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707730370564614480.post-65078253219238965712012-10-11T05:14:00.000-07:002012-10-15T08:44:13.492-07:00I FANCY YOU WARREN EVANSLet me tell you a story about my mattress. (Hey, where are you going?). My mattress is vile. It's like sleeping in Spongebob's square pants. And when you breathe, you can hear the springs boing deep within, like distant bongos in the Congo. When I wake up, my neck feels like I've been attacked by bears. If I could afford to get rid of this mattress, I would stamp on it and take it to its orthapedic grave with a flame thrower, then I would call an independent inquiry into its reprehensible behaviour between 2009 and 2012.<br />
<br />
Now I don't normally do promotional blogging things, but I NEED A NEW BED. I don't just want one. I mean, I want a spacious Victorian house in a leafy area and to be next Tina Fey and have the skin of a baby antelope and to be able to fit 20 Jaffa cakes into my mouth. But I'm OK if that doesn't happen. But this bed, I actually need it - like flowers need rain and Nigella needs Spanx.<br />
<br />
So I'm going to use my blog to enter a competition to win a new bed from Warren Evans, and you my dear readers, are just going to have to deal with it. Warren, I've always imagined you to be a handsome devil with strong forearms and a checked shirt, who can fashion a comfortable resting place from a large tree trunk. A bit like that guy from Sex in The City with the dog, but with a more intimate knowledge of ticking and pocket springs. Please give me a new bed, Warren. My back hurts. Did I mention you have lovely forearms?<br />
<br />
Anyway, Warren Evans wants bloggers to blog about you or your child's favourite toy that guards your bedroom at night. The one that keeps the monsters at bay. <a href="http://www.warrenevans.com/blog/who-fights-the-monster-under-your-bed/?id=10">You can do it too! </a><http: blog="blog" id="10" who-fights-the-monster-under-your-bed="who-fights-the-monster-under-your-bed" www.warrenevans.com="www.warrenevans.com"></http:><br />
<http: blog="blog" id="10" who-fights-the-monster-under-your-bed="who-fights-the-monster-under-your-bed" www.warrenevans.com="www.warrenevans.com"></http:><br />
My child sleeps with an army of toys of all different sizes, plus a machine that plays music and a light saber. But I believe I have the most effective deterrent against things that go bump in the night. I've slept with his toy for about 17 years now. He's called 'Ian' and he's 36 years old. Sometimes he rolls over and kicks me and farts, and good luck asking him to get up in the night to feed a baby. When he's awake, he's always talking and he could take the recycling out a bit more often, if you ask me. But when it comes to making me feel safe, Ian is the best toy in the world. He sleeps by the door, in case of burglars, and will always investigate imaginary noises if you scream loud enough. And when I snore (the scariest, most monstrous sound of all) he gives me a swift knee in the back and tells me to shut up. Bless him. Here's Ian, primed for action, like a tiger. (An unconscious tiger.)<br />
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So thank you Ian, for looking after me for all these years, and protecting me from the imaginary burglars. Thank you for being my bed companion and a nice warm person to snuggle up to. And just think, if we had a lovely new bed from WARREN EVANS, maybe you wouldn't sleep diagonally and push me into the pointy corner of the bedside table every night.<br />
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<br />Lucy Sweethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06946371016154788910noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707730370564614480.post-49512053337136143192012-09-13T06:38:00.001-07:002012-09-13T06:38:08.545-07:00If I was Chris Brown's Mum: A short playInt. Day. A suburban living room. Chris Brown lies on a DFS recliner listening to his Skullcandy headphones and eating a packet of Mini Cheddars. Enter me, brandishing a large stick.<br />
<br />
Chris! STOP LISTENING TO THAT RAPPY MUSIC AND COME 'ERE<br />
<br />
Chris: What, ma?<br />
<br />
Me: I said, come here - and wipe that smirk off your face you suppurating little turd. No, c'mere a minute. *waves stick threateningly*<br />
<br />
Chris: Don't do it, ma.<br />
<br />
Me: I won't, Christopher. Because I believe in love and tolerance and equal rights, unlike you. I wish you were more like your father, <a href="http://www.tmcentertainment.co.uk/images/speaker-index/SpeakOutArnoldBrown.jpg">Arnold Brown</a>, the famous Scottish comedian.<br />
<br />
Chris: Don't be hatin' on me, bitch.<br />
<br />
Me: DON'T YOU DARE CALL ME A B**** OR I WILL TAKE AWAY YOUR BEANO ANNUAL!<br />
<br />
Chris: Sorry, ma.<br />
<br />
Me: Now I want a word with you about all these tattoos you've been getting. Firstly, they look like a 13 year old boy has been drawing wonky pictures on you with a leaky biro. Secondly, is that a poorly rendered image of Rihanna's beaten and bloody face on your neck?<br />
<br />
Chris: No, it's just some random woman.<br />
<br />
Me: I can tell when you're lying, Christopher. Your lip wobbles and you get a squeaky bottom. Remember that time you stole a pencil from the pencil museum in Keswick and you followed through?<br />
<br />
Chris: I didn't!<br />
<br />
Me: IS IT RIHANNA? If you lie, there'll be no CITV FOR A WEEK!<br />
<br />
Chris: OK, OK, yes.<br />
<br />
Me: That's disgusting. I am ashamed of you. RiRi should have you murdered by a hitman and the crime scene made to look like a suicide *just a little hint for you there, love*<br />
<br />
Chris: I'm sorry, Ma.<br />
<br />
Me: Oh, you will be. Because until you get that monstrosity lasered from your neck, and apologise for your vile attitude towards women, you will be wearing <a href="http://cdni.condenast.co.uk/642x390/d_f/French-Connection-642.jpg">THIS jumper</a>. And you won't be able to go on the swings with Bazzo and Dobber from school for an entire month! Do you understand?<br />
<br />
Chris: But muuuum!<br />
<br />
Me: Enough! Now go to your room and think about what you've done. I have replaced all your offensive posters of naked ladies with pictures of leading feminists. So next time you have a hand shandy - and DON'T TELL ME YOU DON'T - you'll have to look at Andrea Dworkin and Camille Paglia with flecks of spit in the corner of their mouths, arguing about the third wave!<br />
<br />
Chris: WAAAA! *slam!*<br />
<br />
ENDS<br />
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<br />Lucy Sweethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06946371016154788910noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707730370564614480.post-62009073588394272632012-08-23T03:28:00.001-07:002012-08-23T03:28:52.979-07:00BACK TO SCHOOLI have been led to believe by other mothers - including my own mother - that when your kids go to school, life gets easier. 'Oh, it'll be fine when he's at school!' they say, cheerily, when I complain about my stuttering, collapsing clown car of a career. 'Don't worry, he'll knuckle down and grow up when he goes to school!', they say, when I catch him sticking a pencil in his ear. 'You'll have all the time in the world - you can write novels and paint delicate watercolours and ride a dappled horse on a moonlit beach when he's at school'. And so on and so on. But since he started his first half-day sessions on Wednesday, I am alternating between being busy, overwhelmed, bored, depressed, proud, happy, frustrated and having no idea what I'm doing. Here is a list of things that are freaking me out, in real time, right now.<br />
<br />
THINGS I AM FINDING OUT ABOUT SCHOOL<br />
<br />
1. First off, you've got to get up early EVERY DAY. No more putting on a Spongebob DVD and then returning to that brilliant sexy dream you were having about Paul Rudd. Did I say Paul Rudd? I meant, my husband* (*my husband, Paul Rudd). By the way, here's a<a href="http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/f82f71c80d/paul-rudd-talks-dirty"> clip</a> of him and me, earlier.<br />
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2. My son's school appears to be obsessed with making them wear shirts and ties and smart trousers and having their picture taken constantly. Oh, the ironing, the sorting, the name tagging, the straightening and the fussing. I feel like a wardrobe assistant on Newsnight. ('Get me Clegg's trousers. No, not the grey ones - the GREY ones!')<br />
<br />
3. It requires social interaction with adults in the morning! When you haven't even had your second cup of tea! Attempting to be funny! Making small talk! Asking after people! Remembering what they say! Gaaaaah! What am I? Graham Norton?<br />
<br />
4. Where I live, there is a settling-in period at school, which means half days for 2 and a half godforsaken weeks. Half days of pain. Of teeny weeny rushed mornings, followed by tired tantrummy trauma and long, long afternoons. God knows how I find the time to write rubbish moany-arsed lists like this.<br />
<br />
5. The trauma of change. I didn't cry in the playground, and I managed not to have a total meltdown in the school outfitters shop, or in the hairdressers, and I didn't even blub when I saw him for the first time in a pair of school shorts and his shiny new school shoes. But that doesn't mean I'm not deeply traumatised. I don't like change. I don't even like it when someone moves a piece of furniture, or I don't have my special pizza in Pizza Express, or they've run out of Frubes at the Co-op.<br />
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6. My child has started pretending he's a teacher. That means when I'm writing anything he asks me: 'do you do it this way?' *penetrating look* 'Or this way?' 'Do you start from the top, or from the side?' 'Very good!' It's weirdly instructional, like a junior Christian Grey. 'Would you like to come into my red room of Jollyphonics?'<br />
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7. Oh yeah, they do Jollyphonics. I will jollyphonics yo ass. That's A (apple, ant) S S (snake movements). My kid doesn't know whether he's learning to read or whether he's a reptile.</div>
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8. Then there's the letters to the parents. So many letters, all in COMIC SANS. Oh, my eyes. I am font sensitive, people. I'm going to lobby the parent council to get them to switch it Arial as a matter of the utmost urgency.</div>
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9. I have a problem with authority. In that I'm obsessed with pleasing authority and not getting into trouble. This leads to much stressful faffing, trying to please a teacher who is about ten years younger than me and probably couldn't even beat me at a cut-throat game of Connect 4.</div>
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10. Did I mention the Comic Sans? </div>
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Anyway, I'm sure it'll all be fine. I am in a period of flux. I'm sure I will get used to the rushing and the fretting and the letters and the homework, and when he gets to do full days, I will be on easy street, hanging out with the other mums, drinking Lambrini at the gates. Make it happen soon, though - I can stand any more worrying about creases in all those identical grey pairs of trousers... </div>
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Lucy Sweethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06946371016154788910noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707730370564614480.post-58425639364653935552012-08-07T07:40:00.001-07:002012-08-07T07:40:34.923-07:00INSPIRING A GENERATIONNow we're full on OlympicaddicksTM, there's never been a better time to feel shit about yourself because you've not spent the last 4 years running 150 miles a day in the rain with torn ligaments and tears of pain in your eyes. You don't have a xylophone midriff, you will never know glory, and the closest you'll get to gold is a box of Terry's All Gold from your Aunty Pat at Christmas (if you don't like the strawberry creams, I'll have them - ta).<br />
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As a result of the sheer emotional drama of the Olympics - which according to my Olympic Emocalculator outnumbers Cowell's singing dogs and the tearful journeys of X-Factor contestants by about 18,000 to one - I've noticed a seismic shift. A large amount of impressionable people have started Ostentatious Running. Whereas two weeks ago they were just running to tick off a lifestyle box and make themselves feel better about eating a large pie, joggers everywhere are pushing themselves, aping The Ennis and getting arse cramp. People with no previous interest in sport are throwing themselves over sandpits willy nilly. My own husband has taken up tennis, which is HILARIOUS. It's like the 'before' bit at the beginning of Casualty featuring cheerful builders putting up dangerous scaffolding as a baby goes by in its pram. It's like an Eastenders party. 'Bad Idea' is written through it like a stick of dangerous pointy rock.<br />
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Of course, by extension, the Olympics will also influence parents to force their useless, talentless children to practice a variety of sports against their will. This 'inspire a generation' line, cooked up by copywriters (who do nothing but sit in front of Macbook Pros listening to 'Tea Time Theme Time' on BBC 6 music and making up Lolcats captions) has put ideas into the nation's heads. Soon, children will be marched to velodromes and forced to train for hours going round and round on little Thomas the Tank Engine bikes, to the booming accompaniment of 'The Boys Are Back In Town' - while Paul McCartney waves a Union Jack and gives two thumbs up.<br />
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Perhaps before we embrace this whole idea of Inspiring a Generation, we should have a good look at ourselves. We might like pretending to be an athlete when we go running, but we will never possess the skills and commitment to be one. It's a fantasy, a happy fantasy that might create a few good health benefits - or bad ones - but a fantasy nonetheless. I used to pretend to be Tracy Austin by batting a tennis ball against the back of the house because I LIKED HER EARRINGS - does that make me an athlete? No, sir, it does not. (Her earrings were totally awesome diamond ones, by the way, and they went really nicely with her tan). What we really need is more realism. Why don't we just set ourselves a goal we can stick to? How about 'Inspiring a Generation To Do A Tiny Bit More Exercise Before They Go To Greggs.'?<br />
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Equally, we really shouldn't get carried away and push our children towards disappointment. Not before we ask them what they think, anyway. My child is by no means swept away by the emotional and physical dramas of the Olympics. His attitude is both world-weary ('not watching the lympics AGAAAAAAIN') and slightly arrogant ( 'I can do that' he shrugged, as he watched Usain Bolt run faster than a comet). Occasionally, I can see a glimmer of inspiration, like when he pretends to go up on starting blocks and runs wildly out of the room and into a chest of drawers. But I'm not going to kid myself I have a Little Mo Farah. Like his Ma, he prefers to watch the telly and make sarcastic comments. It might not win him any medals, but we can still have a good time. As long as he keeps his hands off the strawberry creams.<br />
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<br />Lucy Sweethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06946371016154788910noreply@blogger.com38tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707730370564614480.post-37790111477620484202012-07-13T03:46:00.004-07:002012-07-13T05:11:56.314-07:0010 Tips for Freelance Writers (with children)This week marks the first week of my transition from part-time real-life job to being a freelance arse-scratching writer who looks down the back of the fridge for coins. And what a week it's been!<br />
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I know that freelance working mothers everywhere have the same mantra. 'It's so hard juggling childcare with watching Loose Women.' And it is. For some reason kids don't want to stare at dessicated daytime TV cadavers held together by Touche Elcat and this season's Simply Be catalogue, making yawnsome 'observations' about women's 'issues'! They want to watch 80 back to back episodes of Pingu and eat a metre long packet of Maoam chews, and then demand to be taken to a far flung park in the pissing rain.<br />
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I thought getting back into the freelance game would be easy. Before children, I miraculously got writing jobs, went for lunch a lot and pretended to be Julie Burchill. Oh, the fabulousness. Sometimes, I could even afford cheese! But since I opened my legs and got up the duff, life has been a complex tangle of logistics that would make Prof Brian 'Big' Cox reach for a paper and pen and scribble down calculations with his tongue sticking out in concentration. Things just don't work out how you'd hoped. If Dorothy Parker was around now and had had kids, she would have been slumped in front of Ben 10, suffering from stultifying writer's block, phoning the editor of the New Yorker to say that her deadline needs to be put forward because Parker Junior (let's call him Ray) needs some new school trousers from BHS.<br />
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So it's the usual mad scramble to do anything, punctuated by long periods of nothing. One week in, I've done a bit of work, a lot of childcare, and shitloads of housework. There is no work lined up for next week. AND I AM STILL NOT AS FAMOUS AS KIM KARDASHIAN. So to make my life easier, and to reach out to freelance parents who are more successful than me and might lend me a fiver, I'm giving you some survival tips. Please feel free to suggest your own.<br />
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10 Tips For Successful Freelancing (and parenting)<br />
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1. God invented the DS for a reason, and that's so you can quickly knock out 500 words on John Terry being a nasty man for Bumhole magazine. To subdue your child further you can also use telly, the CBeebies website, or a crusty old bottle of Medised.<br />
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2. Your ideas are your currency, but how do you have them when you're knee deep in a ball pool in Fruity McGumbo's Soft Play Palace? Instead, work with what you've got, and phone the editor of the Independent with the words: 'Could you use a funny thinkpiece about ball pools?'<br />
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3. If your child is at school or nursery, focus your wandering mind by reading the Mail Online showbiz sidebar and incessantly tweeting about it.<br />
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4. Even though you're writing on a table covered in Moshi Monsters magazines, Bakugans and snot, remember that you are supposed to be a professional. Do not have a brain fart and accidentally attach a photo of Nicolas Cage to your job application, like this <a href="http://www.uproxx.com/webculture/2012/07/girl-accidentally-emails-prospective-employer-pic-of-nic-cage-is-awesome/">woman</a>. <br />
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5. Don't bring your work home with you. Your 2 year old doesn't give a fuck what your take is on 50 Shades of Grey.<br />
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6. Dreaming of that regular freelance gig? Ha! You idiot. Even so, keep yourself hungry for it by growling at Grace Dent's Twitter avatar and saying 'THAT COULD BE ME - IF I WAS BETTER AT WRITING'<br />
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7. Sometimes it's hard to keep up all that aimless internet searching, fruitless pitching and self loathing. Step away from your empty inbox and take a break by climbing on the roof of a multi-storey car park and threatening suicide.<br />
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8. Kids love to help! If your child is a rudimentary reader, ask him or her to skim through The Sun in case there are any features you can re-write in a wry, post modern way and sell to the broadsheets.<br />
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9. Building up contacts is a tough job. Always be polite when contacting someone called Sarah-Jane/Emilia/Jacinta who went to Oxford (Polytechnic) and accidentally ended up in the media/publishing industry because of something to do with her rich dad. If you're super lovely maybe they'll remember you and give you a job one day! (They won't).<br />
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10. Get a proper job. It makes life so much easier, even if it is cleaning the bogs at Nandos. And you can steal some piri-piri sauce from the kitchen so your children won't starve.<br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Lucy Sweet is a freelance writer for hire. She has contributed to the Sunday Express, The Guardian, Glamour, London Look, Nickmom, Brides, Radio Times, FHM, Sabotage Times and the Daily Record, and is the author of 2 novels published by Black Swan. She's available for work on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday when she's not shouting at her child to stop climbing all over her and elbowing her in the boob. </span>Lucy Sweethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06946371016154788910noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707730370564614480.post-44081724355224669842012-05-24T05:34:00.004-07:002012-05-24T05:34:40.475-07:00BURN, BABY, BURNBall! Ball of fire in sky! *beats chest* Come, Ug, look at ball! Worship ball! Ball is good!<br />
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This is my usual response when I see the sun in Scotland, an event that takes place once every 3,000 years when the moon is in the seventh house and the mongoose of Aragon doth rise from the swamps of Tylenolle. (Sorry, my husband is reading Game of Thrones and some of it has leaked out of the sides). <br />
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Sunny days are also a chance for me to be a total PARANOID LUNATIC when it comes to my child's skin. Never mind that I have a peeling, sun scorched neck that would make Dennis Potter reach for the celestial aqueous cream. Like the worst kind of hippy, overprotective parent, I dread my kid getting sunburn. However unrealistic it is, I want his lovely smooth skin to stay unblemished by sun damage forever. But it's also because I fear terrible consequences - never mind that sunburn can happen in the blink of an eye, somewhere in between hoiking your sandy knickers out of your crack and searching for your sanity in the cool bag. These days, if you let your child burn, you're a terrible parent. <br />
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I remember getting sunburn when I was about 4- screeching as my mum tried to cover my shoulders in Germolene. Of course, back then, nobody knew much about the risks, and in summer everyone had skin like a flayed chorizo. The only sun protection a family needed was a slimy brown bottle of Coppertone factor 1, carelessly sealed with a piece of cling film. Sun tan lotion was considered the reserve of international jetsetters, women in Campari adverts and some mysterious bloke called Piz Buin. Not for the likes of us, with our terry towelling and windbreakers, gurning on the beach in Scarborough. You just had a fag and got on with it.<br />
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But these days, you must slather your deeply annoyed, wriggling, complaining kid
from head to toe in bright blue 'fun' sun block every 10 minutes. If you don't follow this tedious process, you may as well give them a packet of B&H and a plutonium rod and tell them get down to Tan Canaria for a quick sizzle on
the hi-definition Burn-o-tron 3000. Why not leave them in the road? Give them a crack pipe? Enter them into a
beauty pageant and make them sing 'Happy Birthday, Mr President' in a
sexy voice? Such is our fear of the sun's dangers, our kids are sent out wearing weird caps with flaps on the back, looking like ghostly white pharaohs, unable to move and sweating cobs in full body lycra. <br />
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The problem is, protecting children from the sun involves a combination of pain, anxiety and extreme helplessness. Monitoring the possibility of sunburn is a whole lot of hand wringing
and squinting with the voice of Lynn Faulds-Wood in your head
reeling off cancer statistics and saying 'look at that, it's a death
trap.' Putting suncream on them is even worse. I would rather climb in a vat of tripe and have a saucy wrestle with Eric Pickles than put factor 50 on a screaming 2 year old, or have a 10 minute 'conversation' about how they need to wear a hat no-it's-not-too-hot-it'll keep-you-cool-just-put-on-the-FUCKING HAT. <br />
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Something has to be done about this dermatological stress. Someone needs to invent a sheep dip style sun-tan lotion dunking system you can take to the beach - in, out, done. One application covers all. No more greasy struggling and indignant tears, no more guilt ridden cold baths. That way Mummy can get on with something more important than worrying about her parenting. Like reading middle aged lady porn and slurping her way through a litre bottle of Asda rose while the kids disappear into the sea. <br />
<br />Lucy Sweethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06946371016154788910noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707730370564614480.post-42920852662265626112012-04-20T08:26:00.003-07:002012-04-20T13:28:13.618-07:00SWIMSUIT ISSUEI've never been skinny. In fact, since the age of about 3 I've had a belly that seems to think it's attached to <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article772185.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/Jocky+Wilson+">Jocky Wilson</a>. Somewhere there's a photo of me standing in the garden aged 5 in a pair of awful brown flares with a gut similar to a truck driver who drinks 10 pints of Watney's Red Barrel a day. My vicious rabbit, Flopsy, is next to me on the grass, but you can barely see the little shit because my belly is BLOCKING OUT THE SUN.<br /><br />The thing is, I'm taking it on holiday in a couple of months, and for once in my life I'd like to wear a bikini. In theory, that should be fine. My bum is still OK and my boobs are alright, as long as they're supported and lashed to the upper half of my body with a series of wires, bows and buckles. But I can't vouch for my jelly belly. It has a mind of its own. Give it French bread and butter and cheese and wine and it will spread, until one day I will find woodland creatures sheltering under it from the rain. I can't be responsible for it.<br /><br />Now I've had a child, it's got even worse. Now I have the 'roll'. I'm not one of those women who loves their floppy bits and their episotomy scar because they 'tell the beautiful story of childbirth'. I hate my conjoined lard twin. I want it gone. The roll (let's call him Roland) conspires to push down every pair of jeans and trousers I own. He makes skirts ride up so I end up inadvertently flashing my pie at people when I bend over. Roland sits there, directly on my waistband, and no matter how much weight I might lose from other parts of my body, the malevolent bastard lives on, quietly chuckling to himself like the pigs in Angry Birds.<br /><br />OK, so I could stop eating so many Gregg's toffee popcorn doughnuts, or I could do sit ups (ugh) or I could have a wheatgrass enema, but I refuse to have anything to do with the idea of getting 'beach ready'. I will not starve on rice cakes and water for a month just so I can look good on a beach full of fat people on lilos. I particularly hate the word 'de-fuzz' (which is such a quaint term for 'having hairs manually torn out of your vagina with a piece of glorified fly paper'). I will not change my lifestyle just to wear a bikini. Fuck you, THE MAN.<br /><br />So as far as I can see I have three options:<br /><br />a) Wear a full length burkini, like Nigella<br />b) Hide my gut at all times with a large print copy of Jo Nesbo's The Snowman<br />c) Embrace the lard and make Roland into a feature, like this <a href="http://www.askamum.co.uk/ImgGalleryTn/48/159248/40881_112533.jpg">guy</a><br /><br />I think I'm going to choose c. I'm going to be a man about this. I'm going to let it all hang out. It'll take guts, but I got plenty of those.<br /><br />Just don't lie near me if you want to see the sun.Lucy Sweethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06946371016154788910noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707730370564614480.post-61344482623029393052012-03-01T13:13:00.003-08:002012-03-01T13:58:15.013-08:00CELEBRITY KID'S NAMES: A PILE OF SHILOH<style> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Times; mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:35.4pt; mso-footer-margin:35.4pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --></style>Celebrities are just like you or me - if we were self-absorbed midgets with big heads and tiny bodies who are trying to impress an absent parent. And in the world of celebrity, there are several rules to be obeyed, including smiling vacantly on a red carpet, frequenting Starbucks, and calling your kids terrible made-up names. Yes, I’m looking at you, Robert Downey Jnr. Having coke holes in your brain is still no excuse for naming your child EXTON, which makes the poor lad sound like a cross between an abandoned petrol station and a financial services company. <p class="MsoNormal">Being the muppets that we are, the general public tend to follow their lead, filling provincial primary schools with outlandishly named kids called Optrexia, Norovirus and Spicée-Nik-Nak. But we must resist. After all, celebrities are idiots, and that's a fact that can probably be proved scientifically by this top 5 list of vile non-names: </p><p class="MsoNormal">BLUE IVY<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Perhaps blue is Jay-Z’s favourite colour, and Beyonce was watching old episodes of Corrie and found the drunken acting of Ivy Tilsley unbearably moving. Unfortunately, Blue Ivy could also be the name of a shit nightclub in Stockport. Or a Dulux paint colour you can make in that juddery machine at B&Q. Mind you, I bet she’d look good in the lounge, on an accent wall next to the telly. </p><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span> <p class="MsoNormal">BLANKET<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Here’s the conversation I imagine took place between Michael Jackson and Michael Jackson when naming his progeny. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Michael: Hey Michael, what am I going to call my son?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Debbie the surrogate: well, I thought…</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Michael: SILENCE, EARTHLING!</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Michael: Well, Michael, how about naming it after the thing closest to you.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Michael: Liz?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Michael: No, just the actual thing closest to you.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Michael: I don’t know Michael. I mean, Propofol is a registered trademark.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Michael: Ok then, how about that blanket you’re crying and wanking into?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Michael: OK. Blanket it is. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Michael: Shamone!</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Michael: Shall we get the robot butler to take us to Space Mountain for ice cream?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Michael: Wooo-hooo! I'm BAD! etc.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">SURI<br /></p>Suri is Scientology-speak for ‘the chosen child alien who knoweth about shoes.' Probably. Maybe it's the fact that I've seen this kid coming out of Prada holding a vente latte and trash talking the nanny, but I think there's something mean about the name Suri. It's a sneer of a name, made worse by the fact that Tom and Katie dress her up like a f-row bitch from hell and indulge her when she has a tantrum because her Marc Jacobs peplum is stopping her from getting on the see-saw. Also, Suri sounds just a little bit like 'urine'.<br /><br />PILOT INSPEKTOR<br /><br />Jason Lee, you know that moment when you've taken your gazillionth hit of the bong and you see God's face? That's not the best time to name your kid.<br /><br /><p class="MsoNormal">SHILOH<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Brangelina's offspring may be many and varied, but they have uniformly terrible names. Maddox and Pax sound like vending machines, whereas Zahara could be a little-used search engine. Meanwhile, international cat-burgling duo Vivienne and Knox are busy infiltrating the air conditioning system of a Vegas casino using Sat Navs and razor wire. But the cherry on top of this inedible name cake is poor little Shiloh, who is so traumatised by her ghastly moniker that she has TURNED INTO A BOY. Sadly, nobody knows whether Shiloh is a boy's name, a girl's name or Hebrew for 'blessed turd'.<br /></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal">Anyway, it's not right, and it needs to stop. It's time to ditch the stupid names and bring forth a new generation of children who can hold their heads high when the morning register is called. Bring back the Colins and the Johns and Brians and the Shirleys! In fact, let's have a celebrity kid called ROGER. Go on, Brad and Ange - I dare you.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p>Lucy Sweethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06946371016154788910noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707730370564614480.post-11975960770183649852012-01-27T02:22:00.000-08:002012-01-27T04:40:29.537-08:00LET THEM EAT TWIXESClass differences are rife in parenting. For a start, you only call it 'parenting' if you earn over £20 grand a year and have money to invest in Keep Calm and Eat A Cupcake signs. Middle class mums pander to the every need of Millie, Francois and Hericlitus, following them about as they reach 'developmental milestones'. Meanwhile, the rest of the world drag their children around behind them while they argue into their Nokias, occasionally stopping to give them a well-deserved kick up the arse.<br /><br />It's typically superior of the middle class to imagine they're doing things right and the underclass are ill-bred swines who create the devil's spawn. The middle-class mothering mafia might think they've got the edge with their tupperware and Ugg Boots, but just look at their progeny - flinging babyccinos around and running amok in art galleries, wiping snot on the Rothkos. Just because they have tangled hair and applique Boden tops with cute pirates on them doesn't mean they're not odious little shits. Meanwhile, if you're called Jayden and have a mini Celtic strip and an alcoholic Dad who owns a samurai sword, you're a menace to society. It's not fair.<br /><br />It's time we stopped vilifying working-class children. Remember when David Cameron made all those speeches about Britain's families opening their curtains and going to work? Forget it. There's a lot to be said about not having a job and being around to look after your kids. Big families, lots of support, time to go to the park. So what if the baby's eating a Twix?<br /><br />I think the middle-class and the working class need to work together and form a new wave of tolerant, enlightened parenting, which gets the balance right between over-attentive fawning and outright neglect. Working class people can teach the middle class to give their kids loads of sweets, put them on the bouncy castle and stop worrying so much. In turn, the middle class can teach them about dental health, Twitter and amusing Emma Bridgewater tea towels.<br /><br />When this cross-cultural parenting is done right it's a joy. One of my heroes is a mother who wouldn't be seen dead fondling the heart-shaped silicon bakeware at John Lewis. My son has a friend at nursery who we'll call Lee. I invited him to my son's birthday party, and because I'm so hopelessly middle class I thought maybe she'd show up with him and hang around for a glass of wine. But no. Instead he turned up with his granny, who gave me a Toy Story bag, said: 'if he has any accidents, here's a spare pair of pants,' and fucked off. Three hours later, Lee's ma rocked up, hungover to buggery, with a lovebite the size of Canada.<br /><br />And do you know what? Her son was the most charming and well-behaved boy at the party. Now THAT'S the way you do it.Lucy Sweethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06946371016154788910noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707730370564614480.post-25756192042755961542012-01-19T07:48:00.001-08:002012-01-19T09:27:58.430-08:00Occupation: Piss ArtistIt might surprise people who read this blog, but I am a writer by trade. 'By trade' makes it sound like I have a van, or at the very least a dungaree pocket containing a spanner, but no. (Actually, perhaps writers should have vans, and take out adverts in the Yellow Pages. 'Sebastian Faulks- Complex Plot Devices While U Wait'. 'Joanna Trollope - Gas Safe Registered Aga Technician' etc).<br /><br />Anyway, I wish there was a degree of legitimacy to being a writer but there isn't. Unless you're famous or you stand about all day waving a big fucking quill, nobody knows. So you'll just have to take my word for it that I once wrote some books that are at #19,567,984 on the Amazon list. Also, once, in 1997, the Independent on Sunday proclaimed that I was genius. I had the clipping, but NOW I CAN'T FIND IT. Oh well. If you're one of those people *Dennis Norden face* who likes to spot writers in the street, look out for the unkempt fat people who are crying on a park bench. That's us. Or it might be a tramp.<br /><br />Being a (not very successful) writer is weird, and a source of endless strife. Really, we should get proper jobs and just give up, but we don't. I scrape a living from words, but nobody can really call themselves a writer in casual conversation, even if they've been published, without sounding like a pretentious, cretinous turd. This leads to a perverse state of embarrassment, to the point that you may as well work in an abbatoir. You almost talk yourself out of it. When I was stressing out a couple of months ago, my own mother suggested I get a job at a cheese shop. 'But I'm...a writer,' I stammered. Even <span style="font-style: italic;">I</span> didn't believe it when I said it.<br /><br />When you've got kids, writing becomes an impossible dream, unless you have an understanding spouse with an inheritance, a large family or an army of helpers. There's no way you can write a synopsis for that elusive bestseller when you've got a chimp hanging off you bollocking on about Balamory. Sitting around making things up seems like a ridiculous indulgence, especially if there's no cash guaranteed at the end of it. You also need time. Lots and lots of time. Time to examine your metaphorical belly button fluff. Time to let your mind unspool, like the multicoloured wheel of doom on your laptop. Time to sit on a park bench and cry and share a bottle of White Lightning with a man called Nobby.<br /><br />But maybe time's on my side. The other day I registered my son for school. It was a weird feeling. Part of me was sad. Part of me was yelling 'YEAH! BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 9 AND 3 I CAN DO ONLINE GAMBLING AND WATCH REPEATS OF COACH TRIP!'. One thing's for sure - once he's at school I'm going to have to either write myself out of poverty, or get that job at Cheeseworld. (Or both.) So I've had some ideas and I'm writing them down and I'm going to get back to number #19,567,983 on Amazon if it kills me. And if that doesn't work, I'm going to become a plumber.Lucy Sweethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06946371016154788910noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707730370564614480.post-28776150404377030752012-01-10T06:49:00.000-08:002012-01-10T08:41:51.430-08:00In 2012, I will drive my family into a wall.Is it 2012? *checks Busy Mum Calendar with laminated pockets, cutesy font and the inevitable bird on it*. Yes, it is. In that case, my new year's resolutions are as follows:<br /><br />1. Be the best I can be. At eating.<br />2. Get more sleep.<br />3. Write a novel.<br />4. Learn to drive.<br />5. Learn basic Romanian in order to converse with husband's family<br />6. Become a rock star, finally.<br /><br />Although learning basic Romanian will not be easy (Este ca o rapita in buzunar sau esti multumit doar sa ma vada?*) the thing that scares me most on this list is learning to drive. I'm 40 this year and my inability to drive is becoming more and more shameful. If I'm going to be a fully functioning mother, then surely I have to be able to command a large vehicle and park it on the ziggzaggy bit outside school, narrowly avoiding the shins of the lollipop lady. I'm going to have to drive to the houses of my son's friends to pick him up after an evening of looking at www.bigjugz.com. And I need to take my tank to the supermarket, load it up with huge packs of toilet roll and crates of wine, then crash it into a bollard. To be a grown up mum - a proper capable mum - I need to know how to drive. I will also require two bumper stickers - one with 'Mum's Taxi' on it, and the other bearing the legend: 'MY OTHER CAR IS A BROOMSTICK'. Isn't that the idea?<br /><br />But the whole thing gives me sweaty palms and a mouth like furry dice. By learning to drive, I believe that I'm technically signing up to murder my family in the grizzliest manner possible. I have no spatial awareness and I get my jumper caught on door handles. I've never had any sense of left and right. And I'm very easily <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY0MSuyaKMk">distracted</a>. To sign my name on a provisional licence may be akin to signing my own death sentence.<br /><br />Then again, you see some major eejits driving cars - people who need a lie down after choosing their lottery numbers. That should make me feel better, but it only makes it all worse. Even if I'm the best driver in the world, the Jensen Button of Sainsbury's car park, I still might bump into a four wheeled lunatic. This seems like too much of a risk to take, especially as I will be one of those drivers who has to switch off Ken Bruce's Popmaster in case a particularly tricky question about ELO sends me careening into the central reservation.<br /><br />The other thing I've failed to tell my husband, who is ever hopeful that I'll drive his sorry arse home after a night on the booze, is that I have absolutely no interest in it. I would rather learn how tripe is made, or visit a factory that makes paperclips. Hell, I would rather learn Romanian. And as they say in the motherland, 'Nu ti-a pus lingura intr-un cazan care nu se fierbe ai.'**<br /><br />* Is that a turnip in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?<br />** do not put your spoon into the pot which does not boil for youLucy Sweethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06946371016154788910noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707730370564614480.post-68322214543254117882011-12-01T04:54:00.000-08:002011-12-01T09:16:38.734-08:00My Dream Soft PlayLike most mothers of young children, I spend an inordinate amount of time in draughty, overlit play hangars, cursing God and drinking overpriced coffee that tastes like goose piss. If you've never been to one, think of soft play centres as an <span style="font-style: italic;">amuse bouche</span> for eternal damnation. They are genuinely hellish. In fact, rumour has it that Satan is planning to rebrand Hell as 'Lucifer's Play Barn' and locate it in a hard-to-find industrial estate in East Kilbride.<br /><br />The frustrating thing about soft plays is that they cost a fortune and are almost always pish - but it would be so easy to make them more bearable. How about some nice lighting? A bar? Some chairs that don't remind you of the interrogation rooms in Red Riding? While you're at it, why not employ staff that don't treat you like a curly dog turd? Yes, it would be simple.<br /><br />So while I sit there on my plastic Peter Sutcliffe chair, nursing my £5 crappucino and watching my kid helplessly dangling off a 300ft padded ledge, I like to let my mind wander. What would my dream soft play be like? Here are some of my personal fantasy favourites:<br /><br />CHEEKY MONKEY'S RETRO DISCO BOOZE BARN<br /><br />Picture this. A large warehouse, just like any other. One side is a fully supervised mega play cage. But the other has a neon sign saying: 'DISCO'. Go behind the velvet curtain and boom - you're in Studio 54 in 1978. Bianca Jagger is riding a white stallion, Salvador Dali is balancing a tangerine on his head, and Andy Warhol looks on, bored to tears. You enter the VIP section, where fashion designer Halston dresses you in a bespoke playsuit with directional shoulders. Cue an afternoon of fabulous excess and hedonism - first one to have a whitey has to get off with<br />Woody Allen.<br /><br />LITTLE SNOOZEES<br /><br />Pay to have your child safely and temporarily 'put to sleep' for 2 hours while you read the papers, catch up on your Poirrot box set or sit in a Windsor chair doing a 500 piece jigsaw of a cottage. Occasionally someone will bring you a cup of tea and adjust your cushions, asking 'do you need anything else?' in a soft, soothing voice.<br /><br />BILLY BABOONS FLOATATION WORLD<br /><br />Sometimes the sounds of shrieking kids continually asking if they can have a Ben 10 watch and a Super Mario DS game and the moon on a stick with extra marshmallows can grind you down. At Billy Baboons, your children will be entertained while you indulge in a bit of well-earned sensory deprivation. Go back to the womb in a floatation tank and forget all about the endless responsibility marathon that is now your everyday life. When you get out, you will be wrapped in a fluffy towel and someone will read you a nice story about rabbits.<br /><br />ROUGH AND FUMBLE<br /><br />Rough and Fumble does what it says on the tin. It is staffed entirely by attractive men, who will happily offer their services to stressed out mums without even the merest hint of suppressed horror. Not even a massive expanse of bum crack appearing from the waistband of a pair of Asda jeans can dampen their ardour. You can opt for a relaxing shoulder massage if you're not really in the mood, or go all out for a happy finish. They won't even mind if you cry with gratitude afterwards.<br /><br /><br />So Duncan Bannatyne, are you up for this? I will need ONE MILLION POUNDS. Call me.Lucy Sweethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06946371016154788910noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707730370564614480.post-19289159056236355362011-11-24T14:06:00.000-08:002011-11-25T02:04:15.732-08:00DECAY. Moral, physical, toothWOOP! I always like to start the day with a bit of chat about DECAY, don't you? Would you like some slow inexorable decline on that toast? No? How about a cup of IMMINENT DEATH? Go on, you know you want to! Hey, where are you going? What do you mean Daybreak's on and you want to see whether Christine Bleakley has tears of despair in her eyes? HEY!!! Your death's going cold!<br /><br />I don't want to get all Liz Jones on yo ass, but last weekend I had what could only be described as bit of 'rough and tumble' with my husband. Not in front of the children, all very above board, nothing wrong with that. Except beforehand, while I was out, some barman had convinced me to sample a whisky called Glenkinchie, which tasted like it had been strained through the seat covers of the Glasgow to Aberdeen megabus. I don't tend to drink whisky, on account that I cannot fucking stand it, but it had the effect of making our conjugal relations slightly more enthusiastic than normal - (normal being 'lying on back thinking about getting a new table lamp'.)<br /><br />Now I don't know whether it was the shock of this unaccustomed nocturnal activity or just the fact that I was drunk and pushing 4o, but in the night I took a turn. Being the best mother ever (or so I imagined), I stumbled to the kitchen at 3 am to get my coughing child some Calpol, but then started to feel pretty weird and fainted. I came to underneath my husband's bike with a massive streak of oil and a tyre mark across my belly. Somewhere far away, I could hear Lance Armstrong tutting. My husband hauled me into the bed, checked my pulse, asked me my name, and satisfied that I was still alive, let me go to sleep.<br /><br />'Mummy, why did you fall down in the night?' my innocent boy asked in the morning. 'Mummy got up too quickly,' said Mummy, cursing the Laird of Glenkinchie and his evil minions. But I knew the truth. 'I am a lush,' I said to myself. 'I am no better than a randy Hogarthian crone begging for change outside the gin palace. I need to get my shit together and do something boring with my life, like yoga.'<br /><br />Since then, there have been other depressing indicators of my moral and physical decay. My teeth look knackered. My hair is dry. My hormones are doing a horrible dance around the kitchen. My legs are dim, my nose is knackered etc. Everything is falling apart and with it comes an anxious realisation that I am getting old and will one day DIE. I either need a trip to A&E or one hell of a Groupon spa deal.<br /><br />Then the other day, my child came back from the dentist and was told not to have any juice, or jam or anything children like EVER because he had some decay forming on his teeth. So not only am I sliding into decay, but he is too. More guilt! More self loathing! Since then I've been hovering over him with toothpaste, snatching biscuits out of his hand and trying to keep him away from Haribo. I'm a bad mother! I'm a drunk and my wean's teeth are like toffee! The shame! The shame!<br /><br />God, it's so stressful. In fact, it's enough to drive you to drink.<br /><br />Glenkinchie?Lucy Sweethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06946371016154788910noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707730370564614480.post-15866949313444886732011-11-03T05:16:00.000-07:002011-11-03T07:40:16.145-07:00SQUARE EYESMy child was born to look at screens. Present him with a glowing square of any size and he'll stare at it for hours, with his expression slowly changing from gormless to animated to gormless again. When Louis is looking at a screen you could tattoo a Numberjack on his arse or audition him for Toddlers and Tiaras dressed as a prostitute and he wouldn't even notice.<br /><br />For that reason I admit I use the TV or computers quite a lot when a) I'm making dinner b) drinking wine with other harrassed mothers and c) hiding in a corner suffering from exhaustion. It helps me to do important things, like not go mental. So when you're with my child for any length of time, he may sing the theme tune to Hotel Trubble, or exhort you to visit 'www.bbc.co.uk forward slash cBeebies.' He's like a little animated TV channel in his own right. LOUIS TV (Sky digital 6715) is a singing, dancing loony station that shows Tweety Pie/Snoopy/Gigglebiz mash ups, interspersed with him trying to describe what happened in Deadly 60 and then having a giant tantrum at 2pm.<br /><br />I can't pretend I'm completely OK with this. According to the great accepted wisdom of parenting, (ie the Daily Mail) too much screen time is deemed bad. It delays speech, it does something to their neural pathways, it makes them think that Mr Tumble is their Dad - that sort of thing. You hear about iPhone obsessed babies who swipe their parent's faces with a little finger, hoping to change their Mum's miserable chops for a picture of a zebra or something. Instead, kids should be outside, experiencing nature and making forts from cardboard boxes, right? Even though<span style="font-style: italic;"> I </span>didn't enjoy doing any of those things as a child, MY child should be doing that, RIGHT?<br /><br />Now Louis is old enough to play his friend's Super Mario Kart racing game, the amount of time he spends staring at screens is becoming one of my biggest neuroses. Of course, I forget that looking at screens is all everyone does. I check my phone 879 million times a day with my gob hanging open. I'm staring at my laptop now. I watch TV in the evenings, while live tweeting and ebaying and texting. Screens are everywhere! (Charlie Brooker once a very funny article about that <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/24/charlie-brooker-screens-invasion">here</a>.)<br /><br />And while being outside and playing with pebbles is OK, a 4 year old is awake for about 13 hours a day with no nap. So they're going to have to be magic fucking glowing pebbles with the voice of Michael Gambon if they're going to entertain them all day. Anyway, mothers can't always be doing imaginative play and swimming lessons and making faces out of peas and mashed potato. Life is boring sometimes. Let them relax, let them veg out, leave them to it. Let's face it, YOU wouldn't want some berk with a timer coming in and yelling 'COME ON! TIME TO SWITCH OFF THE X-FACTOR AND MAKE A CHARMING ROBOT OUT OF EGG BOXES!'<br /><br />So I'm trying not to worry about it or feel guilty if I feel like cranking up the cBeebies website or sticking on the telly. He's not going to grow up to be an emotionally disconnected, unfeeling potato whose best friend is Pippin from Come Outside, is he? No.<br /><br />Mind you, at my Nana's funeral the other week, he did look at me with big eyes and say 'Mummy? Can I play Angry Birds?'<br /><br />Fuck.Lucy Sweethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06946371016154788910noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707730370564614480.post-65771074947816381212011-08-04T07:30:00.001-07:002011-08-04T08:57:47.478-07:00JUST A ROADIEApologies for my conspicuous absence from this blog - it's starting to look a bit dusty and unloved in here - like myspace. My excuse is I have been busy rearing my baffling, ever-moving, testosterone-fuelled child, who DOESN'T WANT TO and then WANTS TO DO IT MYSELF and then MUMMY I NEED HELP every five minutes until a new circle of hell is formed with me at the centre of it, crying and eating Tunnock's tea cakes.<br /><br />When it comes to demanding, unreasonable behaviour, it's a truth universally acknowledged that children are worse than any rock star. They want this colour plate, they want that colour grand piano, they won't perform (ie. put their socks on) unless the room is 21ºC and filled with Diptyque candles. My friend, who works for an events company, recently met Beyonce, whose entourage consisted of her Mum, bodyguards, and a person who went by the title 'Ambience Coordinator.' This person's job was presumably to ensure flattering lighting, plug in the odd Ambi-Pur and make sure nobody drops a stinky 'Sacha Fierce' in her vicinity, which when you're a billionaire megastar is probably par for the course.<br /><br />But Beyonce is a breeze compared to any child under 5. They don't just want an ambience coordinator. They want a PR, a manager, a bodyguard, a photographer and an intimate wiper. Someone to carry their stuff, someone to clean up after them, someone to fix their stabilizers, someone to pay for the bouncy castle and someone to read them a story after a day of unforgivable excess and frankly embarrassing behaviour at a family fun day. They demand pink milk like Charlie and Lola, then leave it festering by the telly. They treat you like crap and hit you and stick their hands up your skirt. They even bother you in the night, coughing and spluttering, demanding room service and Calpol cocktails and asking you to leave the light on. ANIMALS.<br /><br />The other day I read an <a href="http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/2008/09/interview_julia_1.php">interview</a> with a woman called Julie Cafritz, who in the late 80s was a member of seminal New York punk band Pussy Galore. This is a woman who has seen it all, then gave it up to bring up her kids. Here's what she had to say:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">'One of the things I could never fathom is why anyone would be a roadie. The pay was no good, and you spent your time doing other people's shit. With children, it's like a lifetime of being a roadie. Sippie cups. If you don't have that shit, they yell at you. And you don't get paid. And you try to plan for every variable in as small a package as you can. I got everything in this little bag, and if you don't have something, it's trouble. In between being a roadie for my kid, real work--being a real person--becomes hidden. Because your children have no interest.</span>'<br /><br />Spot on, Julie. That's what I am. That's what we all are. Whether we're rock stars or rocket scientists in our own lives, to our kids we will forever be humble roadies. Right down to the over-dependence on alcohol and exposed bum cracks.<br /><br />Anyway, I'd better go. Beyonce - I mean, Louis - needs his baked potato carved into the shape of a swan.Lucy Sweethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06946371016154788910noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707730370564614480.post-735494681643213632011-05-15T12:46:00.000-07:002011-05-15T13:10:23.291-07:00Amen to that<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">A few weeks ago <a href="http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=203010459733412">Tina Fey's Prayer for My Daughter</a> was all over the internet. This elegantly conceived wish list echoed the hopes and fears parents have for their children. In fact, it struck such a universal chord that it's probably being turned into a fridge magnet right now.</p><p class="MsoNormal">So here's my heartfelt version for sons, which may, if it's lucky, manage one re-tweet from @Gazbot23 of Slough. Enjoy.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">A PRAYER FOR MY SON, AGED 4</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">May a tattoo of Tweety Pie smoking a joint never grace his drinking arm. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Lord, may he never snap after playing Grand Theft Auto 247 and shoot a prostitute outside an off-licence. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">When he is asked if he wants to buzz deodorant/graze magic mushrooms in a park in Paisley/ smoke a bifter with cocaine in it on the way to school, may he look upon his father, who has a brain like Swiss cheese, and say no.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Guide him and protect him and lead him away from being a sex pest. Please let him grow out of sticking his hand down my cleavage and smelling it because he thinks it’s like a bum. And, also, stop him from trying to molest shop dummies in New Look, for it embarrasses his mother when she is shopping for £3.99 espadrilles.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Let him get a job which doesn’t include any of the following: fire juggler, painter of Celtic-themed pavement art, accountant, bomb disposal expert, aerobics instructor, roofer, Farmfoods ambient replenisher, bounty hunter, tabard-wearing charity representative, lion tamer, didgeridoo player, unsuccessful writer of ‘funny’ articles.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">If he decides to join a band, may he be the sober(ish), shy, self-effacing bass player and not the twatty lead singer with the warty genitals and coke bogeys.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">When he gets a girlfriend, please let her be a nice sensible type, and not a thick-as-mince 25 stone McFlurry-scoffing VD-riddled skank with a neon thong and a penchant for wild unprotected sex in car parks. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">If he is gay, may he take his Mama out all night, get her jacked up on cheap champagne and show her what it's all about.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Please Lord, if he is successful, lead him not into the temptation to say the phrases 'going forward', 'PDF that to me' and 'get that to me for close of play.'</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span>If he does get his skanky girlfriend pregnant, let him not choose the names Maldives, Ibrox or Aldi. </span></p><div>And finally, if he is insane enough to have children of his own, may he not expect me to help, because I plan to be on a cruise ship in the Aegean, lying insensibly under the All You Can Eat buffet as a swarthy deck hand called Spiro mops the hummus off my orthopaedic shoes.</div><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Lucy Sweethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06946371016154788910noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707730370564614480.post-36197705061892935742011-03-13T15:52:00.001-07:002011-03-13T15:55:26.523-07:00How To Throw A Kid's Party<div><br /></div><div>I went to a children's party yesterday, which is why I look like<a href="http://horror.about.com/od/horrorthemelists/ig/2010-Horror-Movie-Costumes/Shutter-Island-19.htm"> this</a>. This time, the hosts got it right - lots of adults, abundant booze, children of similar ages, and a raffle in which I won a bottle of home-brewed gin which could remove a stubborn Ben 10 sticker from a wardrobe door. But oh, it could have so easily gone the other way. That's why before you throw a kids party, you need to observe these simple rules.<div><br /></div><div>1. DON'T DO IT FOR THE KIDS</div><div><br /></div><div>Children's parties are not about kids. They're about parents needing to Get Out Of The House. (Unless you hold the party, in which case they're about Totally Destroying Your House). When you're a parent, you'll do ANYTHING to get out of the house. ANYTHING to avoid that deadening, crushing feeling of being inside at 2 in the afternoon doing a Zingzillas jigsaw. So don't expend too much energy on entertaining the kids. Pass the Parcel is genocide with added sellotape, musical statues are boring as fuck (oh, look, Finn moved! Zzzz) and nobody gives a flying one about where the donkey's tail is. We just want our kids to go and play in another room so we can strap the wine box to our faces like a horse's nosebag.</div><div><br /></div><div>2. SAY NO TO SELF CONSCIOUS HOMESPUN BUFFETS</div><div><br /></div><div>Did you make these biscuits? They're delicious...where did you get the recipe? Oh, I just found it on the internet. Really? Wow, I just made Nigella's Scrummy Yumptious Smuggle cake - hope I don't poison anyone- HAR! Oh, I'm sure it's wonderful. Everyone's made such an effort. Have you seen this swan carved out of aspic and these cupcakes decorated with angel spit and this homemade vegan onion bhaji in the shape of the birthday girl's face?</div><div>Remember, party thrower - before you get all red in the face and start 'making' the buffet - it's not 1953 anymore. Nobody has time for this shit. Go to Asda, buy 60 packs of salt and vinegar cartwheels and stick em in a bucket. Job's a good un.</div><div><br /></div><div>3. GET THE GUEST LIST RIGHT</div><div><br /></div><div>Remember that dreary cow at your NCT class? Don't invite her. Or anyone who says things like 'Oh, Mordecai can't have anything with eggs, chocolate or joy in it.' Instead, invite loads of hot dads and drunken mums with low self esteem, and maybe the guy in the Co-Op, just to mix things up a bit.</div><div style="text-align: center; "><br /></div><div>4. DON'T TALK ABOUT PARENTING</div><div><br /></div><div>Whenever someone starts to say 'Amelie has been teething' or 'We're having a terrible time with Amstrad - his tantrums are awful', get an air horn and let it off inches from their face. Then, pass around conversation flash cards with the words 'Sex', 'What I Really Think of The Father Of My Child' and 'Weird Perversions' written on them. Pour vodka shots into their eyes and then watch the fun begin.</div><div style="text-align: center; "><br /></div><div>5. IT'S CALLED A 'GOODIE' BAG FOR A REASON</div><div><br /></div><div>Goodie bags need to be packed to the gills with a) dangerously bouncy rubber balls b) arse-achingly annoying squeaky things and c) enough sweets to cause diabetes in rats. There also needs to be a warm, squashy shop-bought piece of cake in there, wrapped within an inch of its life in cling film - a piece of dirty, dirty cake you can steal from your child while he/she is getting busy with a packet of Haribo. The goodie bag is no place for rice cakes, Organix snacks, Ella's smoothies or FRUIT. Put fruit in my (I mean, my son's) goodie bag and I will punch you in the canteloupe. OK? OK.</div><div style="text-align: center; "><br /></div><div>MOST MISGUIDED FAKE TV SPIN OFF MERCHANDISE EVER</div><div><br /></div><div>I was passing dusty old lady department store Watt Brothers in Glasgow last week, when I chanced upon this.</div><div><br /></div><div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcdqqlP2QQ3dhqzwIZq93U9LBuH0XKje07sKe27G292r3-1UvBcoLrT_kYTy4gaqXH5TXyGBLHrRq2R_srzIPRZBxIK4XixUzLhBb3FmIaldIorXdE2f4rIbuE804u-yPdG75sBn4XaK11/s320/snuggle+blanket.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583697204790439986" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px; " /></div><div><br /></div><div>I mean, where do I start? Perhaps 'Sex 'IN' The City' is the tale of Kerry Bagshaw, who lives on a council estate in Rotherham and is really looking forward to watching Dancing On Ice on her cheap brown dralon sofa. What other deeply inappropriate merchandise lurks out there? The Sex On The City Haemorrhoid cushion? The Sex Of The City Walk In-Bath? The Carrie Breadshaw Bread Maker? (Actually, the amount of yeast infections she probably got, that's maybe not so outlandish.) Proof, if needed, that Sex And The City has jumped the shark, while wearing a faux Slanket.</div></div>Lucy Sweethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06946371016154788910noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707730370564614480.post-30802846350947926382011-01-20T11:43:00.000-08:002011-01-20T12:01:47.558-08:00hsgssssss vsgsggj;\jdjffmfhjnnjdjshyjkllllllkefjhdjhhhwwwvvxvvbxbbbbbbbbHJJDNFFKGKKLTKKKLKKUILFJMJFHHFHUGYEHHDBKK44444JGHJTKGJJJGJTJTHV BBBBBBBBBBBY7BWTWTWUHBVJ GBBBBBBVVVBBBGFBBBVVVVVBVVVBHGBBBBHHHHHHFDGHHNNIBVJTIBJIJIHJIJOJIJIOJJJOOOOOJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFDDGSGDHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJFDDGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF.................HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHB GGDDSGGGHHCHHJJCKJYGFR VXXVXVXVVXBXBXXXBXX XBBBBBXBXBXHWAHyyzzb5gg555555zmmbb b bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb<span><span></span></span>bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbnhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhvgsgsgsbbbbbxnxnnxnnmnhhsshshshshhabbgavvggggsgssshdsejhgghbhhdhdhhhd<span><span></span></span>Lucy Sweethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06946371016154788910noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707730370564614480.post-32821499736844055882011-01-13T02:03:00.000-08:002011-01-13T02:18:57.268-08:00The Neverending TidyDo you want to hear my personal theory on why Sylvia Plath stuck her head in the gas oven? Because I bet Ted Hughes never did the washing up. Bet he was always wandering around in his chunky knit jumpers, thinking up eerie metaphors about hawks, putting out his fags in the butter, and one day she just went apeshit. You want some dinner, Ted? Want some fucking dinner? Here you go. If only she'd had cBeebies and £3.99 Pinot Grigio, she'd still be alive today. <div><br /></div><div>But even if that wasn't the reason - and let's say, to avoid being sued by Ted Hughes' estate, that it wasn't - I'm definitely beginning to understand a little better why Sylv so pointedly chose a domestic labour-saving device to end it all. Surely her depression must have been exacerbated by what I like to call 'The Neverending Tidy'. The daily, grinding, eternal odyssey of crap jobs that need doing all the time, the picking up and straightening up, the mountain of washing, the fluff under the sofa, the jam on the telly, the perpetually full sink of jolly plastic dishes with congealed tomato-based shit on them. When a woman first embarks on the Neverending Tidy, fresh faced and wet behind the ears, she foolishly thinks that she is 'getting things done'. Ha! Then, she sets off on her long, lonely journey, which takes in such fantastical places as Cillit Mountain, Swiffer Island and The Scary Drawer of Doom. She grows older. Her faces gets vinegary and resentful. Her tights go baggy at the ankles like Nora Batty.</div><div><br /></div><div>The strange thing is, throughout her lifelong trek, there are no men to be seen. Just odd socks, stray toys and spillage upon spillage. When she becomes weary she drinks from the Blossom Hill Waterfall and smokes the mysterious herb of Silk Cut. Occasionally, she may meet a wise old crone who will look after the kids for 5 minutes while she goes to the shops. But her bunioned feet will keep taking her on the pointless, circuitous route around the house, tidying and tidying until the carpet is as worn out as she is. After years of this, she may one day request that her husband takes the rubbish out and will attain official 'Nag' status, a position that will render her unlovable and the butt of 'her indoors' jokes for the rest of her life. The children will grow older and leave home, but still she'll carry on her endless quest, picking things up and wiping things off. Then, one day, she'll bend down to get some annoying crumbs just out of reach of her J-cloth and....DARKNESS.</div><div><br /></div><div>Fucking hell, I need a cleaner. It's either that or Gas Mark 6.</div><div><br /></div>Lucy Sweethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06946371016154788910noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707730370564614480.post-66706658717862014772010-12-05T09:00:00.000-08:002010-12-10T06:13:32.033-08:00Weekend at Bernie'sEven if you work in an insurance office eating biscuits and chatting to people called Pat about their grumbling ovary, you get 4 weeks holiday a year. So why shouldn't it be the same with motherhood? When my amazing free press trip from Gatwick to Barbados was cancelled this week (don't fucking ever ask about it or ever say anything nice about fucking snow ever again or I will poke your eye out with a biro) I decided I needed a rest from the grind of waking up too early and constantly wiping up shite. So husband and child were packed off to see my brother in London for a few days, leaving me to take a long swim in Lake Me. <div><br /></div><div>Turns out Lake Me is a polluted swamp of drink, debauchery, bad food, bad TV and sitting around for long periods in a pair of manky bed socks tweeting about Homes Under the Hammer. ('The fireplace needs to be replaced and the carpet is damp!! LOLZ :)'). Without my responsibilities I have no moral compass. I'm lazy and I'm greedy and I leer at 18 year old boys on the bus. I very rarely bother to brush my hair. I am a monster.</div><div><br /></div><div>On day 1, I emerged from my scratcher at 10am, fiddled with my new phone, wrote a few choice words about vaginas for a magazine, watched 8 solid hours of daytime TV (including back to back episodes of Coach Trip from 2001) and went to the pub. </div><div><br /></div><div>Day 2, I got up at 11, interviewed Katie Price's fanny waxer, went for a coffee with a friend, ate an entire packet of ham, went to a friend's house, scoffed 2 pizzas the size of my head, and tipsily fell over on the ice. </div><div><br /></div><div>Day 3, I got up at 11.30, wallowed in the bath for an hour, met a friend for lunch, went shopping, got dressed up to the nines, got absolutely hammered on vodka and lemonade, went to a club and got propositioned for a threesome by a mortally drunk Swedish man. Refused this request for some bizarre reason, and fell into bed at 4.30am, too drunk to find my pyjamas. </div><div><br /></div><div>Day 4, I got up at midday, found myself in a hole of post-debauchery despair, had some toast, watched a Lindsay Lohan film, ordered a massive curry for one and worried that I would die alone with Come Dine With Me still playing as my corpse festered on the sofa. </div><div><br /></div><div>Bloody hell, it was brilliant. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Lucy Sweethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06946371016154788910noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707730370564614480.post-2863979239184924592010-11-04T08:38:00.000-07:002010-11-04T09:38:27.485-07:00OH MY GOURD<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWeKg0TKp81QW1CDQU-MlySiJ2IY_M1-iBSscxex3i7WJ6Vm6wfBXmw_cC26BUr-0TyxDQQYTP6VRsh7Fd3y0ev_ChHChhfb88Kv8uWR7wlqhFMRqPllJkkXVSNLBGJZJOqdzodUcsuDDk/s320/gourdon.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5535719634094636578" /><br /><div>This is Gourdon, the very flat headed pumpkin I hacked into existence the other day, which received zero interest from my child whatsoever. Louis couldn't give a shiny shite about pumpkins, probably because they're vegetables. Come to think of it, I would probably have had more enthusiasm from him if I'd carved a giant Laughing Cow triangle into a ghost, or whittled a bag of oven chips to create McCain's Haunted Home Fried Castle.<div><div><div><br /></div><div>As I was scraping the stringy, genetically modified guts out, never had parenting felt like a more perverse and thankless task. But I'm getting quite attached to old Gourd. I like his lopsided, pointed teeth and his deep, mournful eyes. In fact, he's the only root vegetable who listens to me round here. I tell him everything - my deepest desires, random thoughts. I suppose you could say he's my sounding gourd. (sorry). The problem is he's going mouldy, and has developed a coat of rather dashing ermine fluff, so I'm going to have to put him in the compost before he starts to stink. It's a shame, really, but I'm thinking maybe I could strike up a meaningful relationship with this guy instead:</div><div><br /></div><div><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0-HChcyKVlrKwcFMfCaaUsyH2TQwlILqFllVo4DVW6qVbO3aZQz_5RAb-hX1Emj8PrhlFCJSz2wvK_B1RpmDVD4rU77Xr1qr8tec8Z60v_D8epacKCQdE_MnnNrIvR9TyeYikejATD5Qg/s320/coconut.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5535719827959446402" /></div><div><br /></div><div> He's a bit of a hard nut, and pretty hairy, but....phworrgh.</div><div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>MOST DRAMATIC BUS DRIVER IN THE WORLD</div><div><br /></div><div>The other day I crossed the road with Louis, in front of a bus sitting at the stop. We got on, all smiles, unmaimed.</div><div><br /></div><div>Driver: So is that how you teach your kid to cross the road?</div><div><br /></div><div>Me: Pardon?</div><div><br /></div><div>Driver: What kind of a way is that to cross the road? I could have hit you!</div><div><br /></div><div>Me: Well you've got eyes. Don't you look out of the windscreen before you set off?</div><div><br /></div><div>Driver: Aye! But that's not the way you teach your child to cross the road IS IT?</div><div><br /></div><div>Me: (getting angry) Don't you tell me what to teach my child.</div><div><br /></div><div>Driver: I JUST WANT HIM TO LIVE!</div><div><br /></div><div>Eh? I got off in disgust and stood there patiently waiting for Judgy McBusfuck to depart - then got Louis to give him a little wave, just to show that despite risking his life in front of a stationary vehicle, at least my child had manners. Still, you've got to admire this guy's zeal. He could have a sideline doing parenting classes from the cab of the bus, shouting 'DON'T GIE THE BABY BUCKFAST!' and 'STOP SMACKIN THAT WEAN ITS EARS ARE BLEEDIN' through the little holes in the plexiglass. Supernanny, looks like your days are numbered... </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><div><div><br /></div><div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Lucy Sweethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06946371016154788910noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707730370564614480.post-42312109170439518752010-10-21T01:55:00.000-07:002010-10-21T10:08:27.263-07:00The Wanker Who Came To TeaI'm no stranger to frugality. I once lived in a bedsit and couldn't afford a new light bulb so I had to sit in the dark until my dole money came through. Ah, those were the days. I did have a 2 litre bottle of White Lightning and a torch, though, so it wasn't that bad. It was a bit of an adventure, really - like being in the Famous Five (if there was only one of them and they were an alcoholic). <div><br /></div><div>Thanks to the Tory cuts, being a mother puts you in a similar situation. If your job allows you to afford the cost of childcare in the first place, you will probably lose that job - and after that, your tax credits and your housing benefit. What's even worse is that for the Sam Cams and Mrs Cleggs, the chill breeze of poverty won't even knock the froth off their cappuccinos. And their Bugaboos will be in your way while you're trying to shoplift Tampax. </div><div><br /></div><div>It feels like we've all had a visit from The Wanker Who Came To Tea, an unwelcome beast called George who drinks all the water in the tap, and all Daddy's beer, and eats all the food in the fridge. You won't even be able to go to a cafe, because the cafe will have gone bust and you'll just have to huddle in front of a pile of burning tyres, eating your own hair. </div><div><br /></div><div>Now yummy mummyhood has become a luxury only about 10 people in the UK can afford, the average mother is nothing more than a fragrant tramp, who saves up her coppers to buy chocolate buttons, rather than cider. (well, maybe a bit of cider.) And just because we're skint doesn't mean that motherhood is going to get any less shockingly expensive. People don't understand just how many Percy Pigs and cartons of juice these little monsters can get through. And that's not including pants, socks, haircuts, shoes and essential items for the mother herself, like Tunnocks tea cakes and fags. </div><div><br /></div><div>To put things in perspective a little, here's a list of what mothers really spend to get through the average week:</div><div><div><br /></div><div>THE TRUE COST OF MOTHERHOOD</div><div><br /></div><div>Freddo bars- £15</div><div>Emergency coffee - £50 </div></div><div>Food (from a carefully budgeted list) £80</div><div>Food (too busy to make a fucking boring list) add £50 extra</div><div>Soft play entrance fees - £10</div><div>Informal compensation payment to the parents of the child your kid injured with a large padded rectangle - £100</div><div>Haircut after child glues his own head to the table - £10</div><div>Unnecessary nursery trip to Bollocks Country Park - £20</div><div>Birthday present for some kid you've never heard of - £10</div><div>Emergency dash to the pub to talk to friends about useless husband - £20</div><div>Wine for Mummy - £40</div><div>Pornography for Daddy - £4.99</div><div><br /></div><div>TOTAL: £500.99</div><div><br /></div><div>A lot, isn't it? Now I know you could say that your child doesn't need to go on that nursery trip or have their hair cut (it's only a bit of glue, after all). But the rest is so essential that I don't think even the sharpest axe could find room to make cuts. Over to you George - but remember - if you touch my Freddo bar, I will hunt you down and destroy you. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Lucy Sweethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06946371016154788910noreply@blogger.com0