And another thing. Again.

Joella is nearly two years old, and I notice, as I browse the archives from time to time attempting to fill gaps in my consciousness, that she occasionally repeats herself. Hmmm. Maybe people only have a limited number of things to say. Her third year may be like a rock band's 'difficult third album'.

So forgive me if you've heard this before, but I have long held that everyone, as part of becoming a fully fledged member of society (citizenship training? national service?), should have to spend time working in menial jobs in a restaurant, a factory, a pub and a shop. I nominate these workplaces because they are places I have worked, and where people (some people, not all people) treated me like shit. There are other workplaces (hospitals, hotels, building sites [though I have worked on one of those, albeit briefly], lap dancing bars?) which could easily be substituted.

If everyone knew what these jobs were like to do, on a bad day, when you've been dumped, someone's thrown a sickie so you're understaffed, you've got period pain and you *still* have to smile at people and do as you're told, then people would, my argument goes, treat people doing these jobs much better. They would understand, because they had been there. No longer would you get people working on poverty issues (who, for example, insist on referring to 'poor people' rather than 'the poor') treating minimum wage workers as if they have a bit missing.

(Although if everyone had to do them, these jobs would largely be filled by people serving their time rather than those doing them for life. A bit like the Israel Defence Force, now I think about it. Woah, let's not go there.)

But my *new* point is, I would now add a professional development angle to this agenda. Specifically, if you are going to be a bus driver in Oxford, you should be made to cycle every route you are going to be driving, as part of your training. Several times -- including at rush hour, late at night, and in the rain. Maybe the drivers of the Oxford Tube and CityLink buses (and their airport equivalents) should be allowed to cycle just to the Park and Ride, rather than all the way to London, but otherwise there should be no exceptions. I am convinced that with such a regime they would not hurtle past me in such blase fashion. They may remain uninterested, but they would no longer be disinterested. Ha.

To stop myself disappearing up my own arse, I should add that I loved Tracey Emin on Room 101 last night. She's almost certainly been rude to waitpersons (as they are called in the US), and she confessed to having strafed the back of a taxi driver's neck while projectile vomiting, which would have pissed me off TILL THE END OF TIME. But alongside that, she has managed to go on television *and not remember till she saw the newspapers the next morning*, as, already shitfaced, she walked off the show in a huff to go drinking with her friends.

I do like her style.

joella