Breaking the McDonald's seal

Christmas 2003, we went to India for a month. It was one of the best resettings I've ever had, and not just because it was a long one. We did a small group tour with Intrepid Travel, which was organised in partnership with Oxfam Australia, and we visited a bunch of NGO and community projects, including spending a full five days in rural Orissa with Gram Vikas, whose work tilted my world on its axis a little.

Intrepid are an Australian company, and our group included quite a few solo Australians, including three women who bonded with each other pretty quickly and were excellent life and soul value. I generally love the Australian women I have met on my travels. They are hilarious while remaining humane. They don't give a shit, while managing not to be dicks. They drink a lot of beer, and they taught me the phrase 'breaking the seal': it's the first time you go for a wee in a drinking session. Once that's happened, you'll be running to the loo all the time, like a proper girl. It resonated hard. My bladder control is on the excellent side, but only till it's not. Oh mate, they'd say, you're breaking the seal. They'd hold on waaaayyyy longer. But everyone's seal breaks in the end.

I have found it to be an adaptable concept. I didn't eat meat for 30 years, with hardly any breaches - and those were mainly politeness-based. Eventually I was someone who didn't eat meat because she didn't eat meat, even though my reasons for not eating any meat didn't fully hold anymore. I used to argue that the people who don't do something because they don't are important - you have to stand for something or you'll fall for anything etc. And I still think that's true - you need the unbenders in lots of situations, to keep you thinking and keep you honest. But I came up against some of the truly unbending, and my contrary self broke the seal.

And I'd like to tell you that every bit of meat I have eaten since has been pasture-fed and out-door reared and organic and free range, but while a lot of it has, you know and I know that would be a big fat lie. I have had an American Hot. I have had a Steak Bake. I have had a gala pie. But till t'other week, I had gone the entirety of the 21st century without a Big Mac.

Till December 2019, I had, in fact, only once been to a McDonald's in the 2000s. It was at 6.30am in January 2002 in Huehuetenango, Guatemala. I was there on a work trip, it was freezing cold, it was literally the only open place in town, and the project officer accompanying us had no idea why two of us hovered on the threshold, wondering what the Spanish for 'we don't visit McDonald's on principle' was. We quite quickly got over ourselves and had a coffee and an Egg McMuffin, but it felt, even in the circs, unpleasantly transgressive. These guys, these guys are part of the problem, we felt.

But there's problems and problems. I mean, look at the Labour Party. And about a month ago, we seemed to be at it again here in Ecoville. It's a long story, and it's been going on a long time. I have written about it before*, but not for a while, not for years. Mainly this is because I know there are people who don't like me writing about it. Or, possibly, anyone writing about it. Which is a challenge, as it's such good material - so good that we actually got covered by a real magazine this year. Which is a good read, I think. But it might have stirred something. Something did, at any rate, as a little bomb went off.

The timing was unfortunate. To live successfully in a place like this you have to work out how to play the long game. You get knocked down, and you get up again, but it can take a while. It's always been important to me to be making a contribution, and I've always found a way to do that. There are low-exposure and high-exposure jobs (which broadly, but not perfectly, equate to low stress and high stress) and there are jobs that anyone can do, and jobs that only some people can do. A few years ago, while I was still very much licking my Food Wars wounds, I found myself a low-exposure job that needed specific skills (treasurer of the co-op that buys stuff for our on-site food and household goods store). This role is actually Quite Hard, but also Mostly Appreciated, and can, if necessary, be done anywhere there's an internet connection. It was a good fit, but I was getting a bit tired of it: sometimes it involves chasing people for money, and I hate that part; there are some bits that are wildly inefficient, by design; and also I just felt it was all a bit staid. A bit wholemeal. I wanted to be a bit more creative with what we bought and where we bought it from. But no one else was interested, not really. You have to pay attention to that, in the long game. Pick your battles, Jo.

So I was thinking well, things feel quite stable at the moment, we're doing ok. M is currently well, my job is going great, my dad's not been in an ambulance for a bit. Maybe I should be offering a bit more. We are, as one of my neighbours beautifully put it, all crew.

We elect company directors every year - lots of people have done the job (it's a two year term) but it's very much at the high exposure end of things. There are never quite enough people willing to stand - certainly not in recent years. I think we could have up to 12, and there are currently five. So if you decide it's a thing you can do, you're pretty much guaranteed to get the job. So. Hey, I'm a company director! Go me. So is M. Go us. We thought about it a lot, and figured it was our turn to take some of that stuff for the team. He's done it before, I haven't, but when he did, it was all in the house anyway, whatever he was dealing with, so I figured it was worth doing it together. Deep breaths, I thought. We're growing up and growing past and growing on.

BLAM!

(Actually, maybe it was that that was the trigger? It's fine to do the books but not to make decisions about [checks agenda] firewood and trampolines? I don't know).

Also - and this has happened several times - like a lot of people, we're supposed to do a lot more communal meal cooking than we actually do, and it's a point of some contention in our house. I know I should try harder, but how we eat together, or don't, is at the absolute heart of a lot of my own sadness, anger and frustration about living here. It's the main thing I am trying to grow past, so I can focus on the joyful, creative, productive parts. But it takes me actual months to build up the energy and the enthusiasm. And then... just when I do, (and I try, I really do - this time I'd sourced a special ingredient from a kosher deli, ffs), BLAM! Someone says something, someone does something, and I think oh fuck it, I am not giving this a day of my life, and we invite people we like around for sausage pasta** instead.

Instead (and I do get the inherent tension here, so don't even think about explaining it to me, I'm not in the mood, I'll never be in the mood even when I'm in my best mood) there was a proposal for a Saturday morning conversation whose framing included the question "Do you think that a public blog is a useful way to initiate discussion and facilitate change in a community?" No. Of course it's not a useful way to initiate discussion and facilitate change in a community. But hey fellas, neither is a lot of the other stuff that's happened around here, a lot of it more in your face and screamy than that, and some of it pretty gangy-uppy, at least in my experience. Specifically, men claiming exclusive knowledge of the concept of inclusivity really. pushes. my. buttons.

And I have buttons. Your correspondent tried to do all the things she was supposed to do. She joined the teams. She turned up for the discussions. She explained why she was unhappy with the things she was unhappy with. She engaged with every single process at every single point. The above things happened anyway (most of them before she wrote a single blog post about them).

And this time she tried again. She lost a lot of sleep in the build up to the conversation, and did not practise her best self care. She may have drunk too much wine, stridden around the house ranting about 'this fucking place', done some sobbing and wailing and gnashing of teeth and rending of garments, but she got some wise counsel, she calmed the fuck down and she showed the fuck up.

As did around 20 other people, which is pretty impressive for a Saturday in December. She proposed a reframing of the questions, because she thought they were the wrong ones. We need to be talking about how to deal with conflict before it becomes a cold stale deposit in our arteries, congestion in our lungs. We've unpacked the shit out of this, years after the events, and it hasn't really helped, so why dwell?

And we took that forward, the kind, thoughtful people who'd shown up wanting to move this on, and we had four separate conversations about different aspects of the challenges ahead, and it was hopeful and energising and actually, maybe, worth the angst. (Jury's out on that one, I was planning a calm December and did not get one, but whatevs.)

Two hours we were there, and then four of us went to McDonald's. I had a Big Mac Meal with a full fat Coke, and I enjoyed every inch of it. The following week, I went to London for work, and thanked my colleagues for helping me learn more about systems and how they work, and how important it is to ask the right question, diagnose the problem whose addressing will have actual impact.

The last night I was there, I left the pub four pints deep and made my way back to the YHA. I got off the bus outside the Oxford St McDonald's. Yes! I thought, and I ordered a Filet-O-Fish from a machine. It arrived, about 45 seconds later, and I ate it, surrounded by girls from many nations and women of all classes. It tasted like very heaven.

Another seal done gone.

joella

* Links available on request
** One of our very favourite comfort dinners. It's by Jamie Oliver, and the recipe is here. It's not vegan, vegetarian, kosher or gluten free and it has wine in it for extra points.

I'll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours

I have this rumbling fear that the country is sinking into right wing bigoted quicksand, and over the next decade we will all be suffocated slowly by our own fear and intolerance. It will be bad for lots of people, and lots of those people will be women.

Example 1: Female journalist is pilloried on CiF for suggesting, actually quite apologetically, that the students at St Annes College Oxford who elected a "white heterosexual male officer" were fuckwits and worse. Whereas anyone who has had to walk into a party full of shitfaced six foot rugby players to retrieve their stolen underwear from someone's head could tell you that whatever white heterosexual Oxbridge males need, it's not more representation.

Example 2: Successful-and-thin Liz Jones writes about how appalling it was to actually eat (her version of) normally for three whole weeks. This article made me feel very, very weird. I don't think I know a woman who has a relationship with food that is completely free of complications, and really, the last thing any of us needs is 'I know I am so wrong to basically starve myself but it is the only thing that validates me and I can't wait to get back to it' shit like this.

Example 3: A bad habit of mine is playing online puzzle games when I'm bored. Which is how I came by BubbleBox.com. The game types: Action, Adventure, Puzzle, Skill, Sport, Sandbox and... Girls. The top Girls ones include Cake Mania, Beauty Resort, Personal Shopper, and My New Room. On the one hand there is stuff, and on the other there is stuff - pink, sparkly stuff - for girls. A trivial concern, maybe. Or maybe not.

There is the odd glimmer of light. For a couple of years now I have been following I Blame The Patriarchy - beautifully written (the posts - one can't always say the same for the comments), furious radical feminism mixed with heartwarming nature crap. Google Reader suggested I might like it, and I do. Even though I, you know, live with a dude.

It was IBTP which pointed me at Sarah Haskins. And also taught me the word 'cuntalina', though that didn't go down so well with the radfems. Anyway, this is one of the things I read in my spare time. I don't share every sentiment, but it goes a long way to reminding me that Femail (and, let's face it, Observer Woman) are, basically, part of the problem.

But I don't see it getting better anytime soon. I think the solution might involve moving to a log cabin by a lake and listening to nothing but birdsong till we sort this shit out. Anyone want to come along?

This post was brought to you by Talking World War III Blues - Bob Dylan.

joella

While You Were Out...

Today I have been mostly sleeping, and catching up on the things that happened while I was in the Hot Place. It wasn't that I didn't have internet access, I did... it was just that these things all seemed irrelevant. And probably were.

But they don't feel so here. And so we have:

1. The return of the students.

The neighbourhood is again full of badly parked cars and badly sorted rubbish (I'm thinking of offering lessons in both), and Tesco is again full of young people sporting tiny iPods and huge hair and buying Taboo and Doritos. One lot of our neighbours are mostly the same as last year's, and they were generally ok, but the other side are new. We hated their predecessors, but one ought to show willing, so we went round to introduce ourselves. They assured us that they were 'just five girls', were quiet and hard working, and will be sure to let us know if they have any parties. Splendid, we said. We'll get on fine then. And I hope it's true. In my mind they are already Posh Caroline, Ginger Caroline, Sporty Caroline, Scary Caroline and Baby Caroline.

2. Google Chrome.

I was quite excited about this for a while, as the work laptop I was using only had IE 6 on it (oh, the joys of a 'trailing edge' IT strategy) and I couldn't bear it. So I downloaded it, but gave up on it after a couple of days... a bit like early Gmail and its lack of a Delete option, I found its lack of a 'home' button annoying (I liked that there is no 'homepage' as such, I liked that a lot, but I wanted to be able to get back to that from another page without opening a new tab, and I didn't find a way to do that). The clincher though was that a lot of pages didn't work -- and didn't work in an ugly, flickery, jumpy sort of way -- because I didn't have the "right plug-ins installed". And I couldn't install them without downloading them over my shitty connection and then logging in as an administrator. As these pages worked just fine in IE I didn't *quite* understand what the problem was -- maybe GC doesn't do backwards compatibility -- but I also couldn't be arsed to find out. So I uninstalled it. I thought I might try again when I got home, but then I discovered that Firefox 3 had also happened while I was away, and its Most Visited and site tagging give me some nice new things to play with. So I can't see the 'value added', as they say in local government, of getting my head round GC for the time being. I'll watch this space though.

3. Sarah Palin.

Wow. She's a whole new kind of woman, and I am Very Afraid. I'm not sure what she *is*, but she is *not* a feminist, and I really don't see how she or anyone else can claim otherwise. Having a woman running for high office means there has been feminism, and that that woman has benefited from the achievements of feminism. It does not mean she embodies those values or will promote or even protect them. We had a million years of Thatcher, we should know that by now.

Now, personally, I also don't buy the 'Feminists For Life' thing. I don't think you can be a feminist and not support a woman's right to choose to have an abortion. Not in a world where women don't have the right to choose not to get pregnant, or even in a world where they do, but they don't exercise it, or something goes wrong, or they thought it would be ok, or they don't want to make a fuss, or they didn't or couldn't care about themselves enough to stop it happening. We need to work on all that, for sure, and the best case scenario is a world where no one gets up the stick without wanting to be there. I support all moves in that direction, and if we got there, then abortion, like the Marxist state, would wither away. But while we're, you know, waiting for utopia, any move to outlaw abortion is a misogynist move. In my opinion.

But that's far from my only beef with Ms Moose Hunter. The thing that really sets my teeth on edge is her claim to be "just your average hockey mom". I'm not quite sure what a hockey mom is, but I'm always uncomfortable when women go round defining themselves by their relationships to other people. Especially when, like the Carolines, they use the word 'just'. Feminist it ain't, either, but I think I should move on from that -- my discomfort is more about the passive-aggressive pressure that is put on children when their mother (or father) has a deal of her own identity or self-esteem invested in their prowess.

I think my own mother did me proud in this regard -- though if she *had* had the desire to be a hockey mom she would have been sadly disappointed -- most of the time I was supposed to be playing hockey at school I actually spent hiding in the toilets, and when I couldn't manage to hide I always tried to be Left Half (or is that netball?) as that seemed to be the position where it was easiest to do nothing without getting shouted at. The only time my games teacher noticed me was when she was comparing me to a dead body.

She did me proud in other regards too though: when I was the same age as Bristol Palin (and a year younger than the "young man she will marry"), she walked into the room where I was doing my chemistry homework, closed the door and leaned back against it, and said 'I think you should get fitted for a diaphragm'. I remember looking down at the long carbon-based equation I was drawing out on my narrow-lined page, putting down my pencil, and saying 'I do know about Durex you know'. (We didn't call them condoms in those days, that all came with AIDS).

No, she said, you need something you take care of yourself. I'm not sure she'd call herself a feminist even now, but that was a remarkable thing to say to your 17 year old daughter. And so I went off on my own (I don't think I asked her to come with me, and I don't think she offered) to the anachronistically named Family Planning Clinic, to have an Amazonian woman in a white coat stick half her hand up me and say 'oooh, more room than I thought, let's try a 70!'. I emerged feeling small and invaded, bearing a large plastic box with my new diaphragm and a large tube of spermicidal gel which I would, in time, come to work out that I was allergic to.

But that box was as important to me as my first car. Thanks, non-hockey mom.

God, I take myself seriously at the moment, don't I? Let me get my alcohol intake back up and I'm sure normal service will be resumed shortly.

joella

For those about to rant, we salute you

I've been too ill to do any ranting of late, though as soon as I get to post 'Jo woke up and smelt the coffee' as my Facebook status I intend to get straight back to it. It can only be a matter of days now, I got a hint of Vicks Vaporub last night and a tiny burst of sandalwood this morning. The second course of antibiotics is maybe taking hold. Either that or my sinuses have been served with an Asbo and decided to turn themselves around.

Meanwhile, may I recommend Jeremy on the Guardian on wasting food, and Ben on various Christian factions on women bishops. I was hoping for a good one on this pile of wank, though he's done a fairly good job of digging his own hole.

joella

Bright and not so bright young things

On the one hand, there was the young man who works in Jessops camera shop. My four year old IXUS 400 packed up recently, and while it doesn't have the bin-with-a-line through it mark on it, its replacement does. So I thought I would take it back to the place where I got it and see if they knew what to do with it.

The young man who works in Jessops camera shop said he was sorry, but this branch of Jessops wasn't able to take cameras for recycling. But, he said, he was going to London soon and he knew a shop there that would take them, so he'd take it there for me if I wanted.

I wanted. I thanked him very much indeed, and left the shop feeling warm inside. A little goodwill goes a long way, and his took me very nearly all the way home.

But then on the other hand there are my braying, gormless, charmless student neighbours. Just after they left for Christmas, I found our wheelie bin stuffed with what I presumed was their surplus rubbish, as theirs was overflowing. I took it all out and chucked it into their front garden (for the very good reason that the bin wouldn't be emptied for nearly a fortnight, and where the fuck were we supposed to put *our* rubbish in the meantime?) but did feel slightly guilty in case it wasn't them.

When I got home today, our wheelie bin had two black binliners jammed into it, neither of which was ours. I hauled one of them into the house and we poked gingerly through the detritus, at least 50% of which should have been in a green or blue box rather than the bin anyway, until I found half a bank statement, which proved conclusively that it was indeed Caroline (or one of her charming housemates) who had decided again that our bin was at their disposal.

We wrote them a note, asking them to cease and desist, pointing out that a) they can order a bigger bin if they want one and b) they could always try recycling a bit more, and dumped their bags on their doorstep.

I hate them. I know it's a waste of hatred, but I can't help it. They should have enough A-levels between them to work out what goes in which bin and when it's going to be collected. Guidance is freely available in Simple English and any other language you care to mention.

Meanwhile, I now have Caroline's home address (her house has a name, not a number, naturally), sort code and bank account number. As she dumped it in my bin on my property, I probably didn't break any laws obtaining it. It's very tempting to set up a chunky standing order to Friends of the Earth, a la Jeremy Clarkson. It is so tempting that I'm blogging it to stop me doing it. But if anyone's feeling similarly malevolent, be my guest.

joella

This isn't very sisterly but it needs to come off my chest

Dear Jessica / Camilla / Charlotte / Phoebe (delete as applicable)

Congratulations on getting into Oxford Brookes! Your parents must be delighted with this return on their investment in your education.

The chances are high that you will, in later life, get away with telling people that you went to university in Oxford. But while you are here we need to make sure that you are clearly identifiable as actually quite thick.

You must therefore wear the following uniform at all times:

Giant sunglasses
Hip-skimming, violently patterned top of your choice, cut to display maximum cleavage and cling to puppy fat
Belt of 4" width or greater serving no discernible purpose
Flippy miniskirt just a little shorter than you have the legs to carry off
Leggings
Flip flops

If you get cold, you may add a pashmina and swap your flip flops for Uggs. If your breasts are not sufficiently wobbly (ideally they should look like a pair of orange blancmanges), proceed to Subway and eat meatball torpedos until they are.

Please note that failure to comply with this directive will result in the impounding of your Renault Clit.

Regards
Brookes Admissions

joella

Godless harlots of the world unite

Reading The Sacred And Profane Love Machine with a temperature of 104
Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

Another photo from the joella archive... I am just turned 23, and as sick as I've ever been. My Significant Ex and I were in Kota Bharu, Malaysia, and I woke up with a temperature. Which rose, and rose, and rose, until it hit 104 degrees. I nearly popped the thermometer. We were fortunate enough to be staying in the lovely, family-run Town Guest House, and the landlady reassured us that temperatures of this magnitude were nothing to worry about in this latitude. She bathed my armpits and forehead in iced water, my SE managed to find the only bottle of Ribena in the country, and I tried to manage my panic by reading Iris Murdoch. Some books work when you're feverish, and this was one of them.

A week later, I'd been to several doctors and had several blood tests. I couldn't keep anything down, but no one knew what was wrong. Eventually they took me to hospital, where they put me on a saline drip and gave me IV antibiotics.

Malaysia is fairly ethnically diverse, but is predominantly Muslim, and Kota Bharu felt more Muslim than other places. I think there was some rule in the hospital that Muslim women could only be examined by Muslim doctors, so every Chinese / Indian / other medical student in the place came by my bed on a regular basis. I was a grade A exhibit.

They thought I might have dengue fever, one of the symptoms of which is a rash on the chest. Every morning, a steady stream of young men would whisk the curtains round my bed and ask me to open my pyjama top. There's no rash, I would say, your colleague checked just recently, but they would want to just make sure. Still no rash, I would say to the next one. Trust me, I've seen my breasts this morning, they are as spot-free as they were yesterday. But, you know, be my guest.

In the afternoon, it was visiting time. As the hour approached, the woman in the bed opposite would put her headscarf on. Her husband would come and see her, and my SE would come and see me. A couple of days in, her husband beckoned my SE over, and muttered something into his ear.

What did he say? I asked. Er, said my SE, he said 'tell your wife she is exposing herself'. Apparently, he could see my pants.

Mad? I was livid. So, I said (but quietly), half you lot want me to get my tits out, and the other half object to me wearing a *hospital-issue* sarong in a *hospital bed*. SORT IT OUT. And while I think about it, this is a women's ward. You are visiting. If you don't like it, don't fucking look, all right? My legs, my choice. Oh, and I'm not his wife. Oh, and I speak English my very own self, you can talk to me directly if you've got anything to say.

I think, said my SE, it would be more politic if I just brought you some trousers in. And bless him, he did. Some purple tie-dye trousers. The next night, I waved my purple legs in the air with impunity. But I still think they had it all fucked up.

And bugger me sideways if some of them still don't. What a revolting man. I wonder if he'd join the non-Muslim breast examination queue in a parallel universe.

But in the interests of balance (I was once a journalist you know) I should highlight that misogynist madness lurks in the corners of other major world religions. Hey, says the Archbishop of Mozambique, those wanton Europeans are infecting condoms with HIV "in order to finish quickly the African people". To any of the African people reading this I say A: it is literally not possible to do this, so the Archbishop is a chump, and B: you will be finished far quicker if you listen to nutjobs like him than by using any number of condoms. Put it this way, I used them for years, and I'm still here.

Oh, and I did get better. This one was taken the night before I left hospital, when they'd taken the drip out. I walked out onto the balcony (the ward was kind of open to the air, with slatted walls) as the sun went down that night, listened to Suzanne Vega's 99.9 F on my Walkman, and thought about heat and blood.

joella

Burning issues

Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.

We went to Luminox last night. Oxford's Broad Street, normally one of the world's most picturesque car parks, was for three nights turned into a part medieval part post-apocalyptic scene featuring fire tubes made of metal stencilled with hieroglyphics, spotlit steam pumps, street lighting made from flaming buckets, and a smell reminiscent of places far, far away in time or space where fire is the only source of heat and light.

It was great. Everyone was hyper and happy, and although the only thing standing between the public and red hot metal was rings of sand and volunteer stewards in fluorescent tabards, all the St John's Ambulance teams had to deal with was a few cases of over excitement. As we left I wanted to have a big button to press which said 'More Public Art Like This Please'.

They are saying, however, that the money pit of the Olympics will drain the provincial left-field art installation pool bone dry. There will be Less Public Art Like This if we are to provide the world's athletes with cutting-edge table tennis facilities for two weeks in 2012. If this is indeed the case, it will be a great shame, and even if it isn't I am beginning to suspect that the whole thing is going to turn out to be a colossal waste of our hard-earned cash.

Spend more on large-scale ephemera, I say. It might not make the world a better place, but it will sure make it feel like it, and isn't that a good enough reason?

But before you do that, oh once brave new government of mine, spend it on food for the destitute. Asylum Welcome, our local organisation supporting asylum seekers and refugees emailed out an appeal this week for food donations* for asylum seekers who have had government support withdrawn and yet are not allowed to work.

I know budgeting is complicated, but it is morally incomprehensible to me that in modern Britain we can have a situation where all that stands between human beings and starvation is the goodwill of small charities and private individuals.

I am reminded of Princess Diana's famous comment when someone said to her that she needed to be aware of all the complicated political issues surrounding landmine laying and clearance. She apparently replied 'I don't see what's so complicated about children getting their limbs blown off'. I wasn't a huge fan of hers, but that was a genius statement. SORT IT OUT. That's what we pay you for.

joella

*For those local enough to do something about it, they are asking for tea and coffee, tinned fruit, tinned vegetables, pasta, rice, couscous, tinned fish, tinned meat, UHT milk, tinned soups, lentils and fruit cake. They can't take fresh food as they have no storage facilities, but working tin openers that you don't need would be very welcome.

Adult in need

I wrote this last night after too much sherry. Consequently it's at least half bollocks, but it's such a splendid rant I thought I would publish it after all.

There are no words to express how much I hate the annual do-gooder car crash sick bucket that is Children in Need. Contrary to popular belief, I do not hate children - I experience mild to moderate misanthropy some to most of the time, but I don't believe this extends to children any more than to people in general.

But nor do I think children are that special, wonderful or likable simply because they are children. They are vulnerable and relatively powerless, and both government and society should do their best to look after them and help them grow up safe and unexploited, but I get angry when damaged children grow into damaged adults and suddenly become part of the problem. There are at least as many adults in need as there are children, but they don't make such good television.

So every year gak-snorting, minion-abusing, eating-disordered adulterous fuck-ups (among others) get to take the stage and do low-rent cabaret for the great British television-watching public, who in return dig themselves a little deeper into debt. But it's all for the kids, as the people round here say when they advocate speed bumps, SUVs, armed response units, prep schools and other forms of middle class isolationism. And today (which is what catalysed this rant) we discover that Terry Wogan, cauliflower-eared Blarneyist extraordinaire, gets paid hard cash from our licence fees to curate this lowest common denominator bollocks. OK, not that much, in his scheme of things, but surely there's a law against getting paid for this kind of mawkish cack.

I feel for everyone who hits 20 feeling as lost as they did when they were 10. Which is most of us, but if you are unlucky (or lucky) enough to get classed as a child in need it's surely going to be worse coming of age to find that you're on your own now. Build me a path from cradle to... oh.

joella

All that glisters is not gold

I haven't started my plumbing sunlighting yet, so I have Mondays and Tuesdays to myself. People keep asking me what I am doing with all this extra time.

Trying hard not to spend any money, obviously, as annoyingly if you only work three days a week they only pay you for three days a week. I haven't been this skint for years. But, you know, potatoes don't cost much.

And I've been thinking a lot. Not getting up on Monday morning is *great*, you can listen to all of Start the Week without having to start the week. I could have done without Hanif Kureishi, obviously, a man's man if ever there was one, but it was interesting to hear Ed Zwick about talking about Blood Diamond.

A week or so ago we sat in a little shop in Mamallapuram while a young Kashmiri guy offered us rubies and sapphires. I rolled my eyes at M. 'One of the things I like best about you,' he said with the air of a man who has not always been so blessed, 'is that you don't want me to buy you expensive jewellery'.

It's true. I have a gold ring, which was made by melting down an identity bracelet; a gold bracelet, which used to be half my great-grandfather's watch chain; and a pair of diamond earrings, whose stones were originally set in an engagement ring (not mine). But not much else.

Partly, this is for all the right reasons. There's the issue of dirty gold and blood diamonds, but there's also just the miserable, miserable, miserable conditions that many mineworkers live and work in. I read some stuff about gold mining when I was in South Africa that will never leave me.

But you can get ethically sourced / environmentally friendly precious metals and gemstones if you really want to, like you can get Fairtrade cut flowers and organic tiger prawns. Thing is, I don't. Because my genuinely favourite ever piece of jewellery cost £45. It turns my neck green, but that just reminds me not to wear it every day. Essentially, I'm a cheap date. Everyone's a winner.

joella

Must try harder

I didn't see a single British news story in the Indian newspapers the whole time we were there. The only international story that made any impact at all was the hanging of Saddam Hussein, which caused buses, ferries and rickshaws to go on strike in the city we were staying in, and various political factions to march through the streets shouting and burning effigies. We wandered through it all unsure if they were celebrating or protesting (the effigies didn't resemble anyone in particular), and waving at them when they shouted at us. We realised when we got back to our hotel and discovered that it had put up the riot shutters that this was possibly not the safest thing to do, but I'm guessing it must have been fairly clear that we were not warmongering Americans.

Less than a month later, chav munter queen Jade Goody has singlehandedly changed all that. I didn't watch any of the footage in question, but I vicariously followed the 'is this racist bullying or just cat fighting' debate online, and couldn't manage not to tune in to Jade's silent eviction this evening, though I felt slightly ashamed of myself for doing so.

FWIW, yes, I think Shilpa was subjected to bullying behaviour, and that this had a racist element as well as a class and a beauty envy one. As Ani DiFranco once said, everyone harbours a secret hatred for the prettiest girl in the room, and it seems that if she's a different colour as well it's going to be worse for her. But I also think that if you'd stuck Keira Knightley in a house with a bunch of rough-as-knackers Indians, she'd have had a grim old time as well.

But that doesn't mean I think it's okay, and it's not enough to do it and then say, as she did, 'well yes, it looks awful doesn't it, I can't defend my behaviour and I apologise'.

When I worked for the little publishing company in the house on the hill I vividly remember being steamrollered in a meeting by the marketing director. Later, we passed in the corridor and she said 'sorry if I was a bit aggressive in there'. I said 'actually, you can't behave aggressively in public, where decisions are made, and then apologise later, when nobody's watching. It might make you feel better, but it doesn't make it all right'.

In fact, several people *were* watching, and they flattened themselves against the wall in anticipation of a row that didn't materialise, and I like to think that I gave her pause for thought. But I have been bullied since, and no amount of candid feedback worked there. Some people take responsibility for their character failings and consequent bad behaviour, and use what they learn from others to help them be generally less of a dickshit over their lifetime. I like to think I generally fall into this category, though I do have a tendency to hold a grudge for longer than is healthy, including (at times) against entire genders and nationalities.

But others have bad intentions and skins of leather, and if you're thick as a brick with it, as I fear Ms Goody must be, well it's going to be ugly.

Essentially, I'm, making like Chumbawamba and saying our apologies count for nothing. You need to own your own mouthful of shit and do something about it. At the end of the day, you can't help the hand you're dealt, but you can help how you play it. End of.

joella