Tête à claques XII

The heat wave is apparently over. Phew! I couldn’t stand it! No, not the heat – the moaning, the whingeing, the grumbling, the millions of newspaper articles with dire warnings about heat strokes and other various illnesses caused by the hot weather.

I know a 76-year-old woman, in good health, who lives in a lovely, airy house, with a gorgeous garden, and who, after reading all those doom-laden articles, was convinced she wouldn’t survive – like those very frail old people who were left alone in deserted French towns a couple of years ago and who died because no one thought of checking up on them.

I had heat stroke once, years ago – in Israel, in the middle of August. I was staying with Polish relatives of my mother’s who had recently arrived in the country, complete with goose-down mattresses, duvets and pillows. I was sleeping in a kind of meringue during the night and being fed incredibly stodgy food during the day. I collapsed. I was put to bed sans duvet, and given sweet and salty drinks. All I had was a slight fever and a headache. I didn’t die.

Who’d have thought the Brits were such wimps?! There won’t be any more complaining, I hope. I’d be very glad not to see such a lot of yucky white flesh on show as well. Not a chance of that, though, the Brits strip down to their knickers as soon as the sun comes out for a second. Ugh!

They never stop talking about the weather, yet they’re always taken by surprise by it. The whole of the UK comes to a standstill whenever the place isn’t grey and chilly. We’ve just had ‘the wrong kind of heat’, very soon – too soon for my taste – it’ll be ‘the wrong kind of snow’ again.

Slap!

I was right

It's not happening: Now What?

Worried, angry and frustrated

Maps from www.iris.org.il

This will tell you why I can't write just now: This Ongoing War

Just read it! It's updated every day so go back if you want the latest news.

Slapping the biased media!

Updates (Wednesday 19 July): For the first time in days, on the World at One (BBC Radio 4) today, the war in the Middle East was replaced by an item of domestic news. Are the media already getting bored? Is Israel getting too long to get wiped off the map? That’s what they’re waiting for, aren’t they?

Every day I’ve turned on the radio or the television and switched it off again within a minute, after hearing the word ‘Israel’ followed by a verb signifying aggression. “Israel attacked...”, “Israel bombed...”, etc. Even when whatever Israel did was in direct response to rockets fired by Hezbollah, this wasn’t made clear in the reporting and the lasting impression was that Israel was the aggressor.

So what else is new?

Two of the very first words I learned as a small child were ‘propoganda’ and ‘demagogia’. That’s how my Russian father pronounced them. He said them often, usually at the television. I used to laugh at him and think he was slightly paranoid, but I see now he was right. He knew the meanings of those words first-hand. As teenager, he had lived through the Revolution, then through the 30s and beyond in France, where propoganda and demagogia were also common currency. Nothing has changed: these days, as always, if you want to be liked (or get a huge round of applause on BBC programmes like Any Questions?) all you have to do is to tell lies about Israel. I should be used to it by now, but I’m not. I carry on being dismayed.

And I wonder.

I wonder why anyone would want to ally themselves with people who don’t value their own lives nor those of others. The answer is very simple: anti-Semitism. Some people would rather support murderers than be on the side of the Jews. They should be careful not to back the wrong horse, though: history might remember them as those who tried to carry on Hitler’s work.

(Saturday 22 July): Apparently, there are still some people out there who, although Israel has been in the news for years, still haven't got a clue how tiny that country is. The maps above are meant for them.

(Thursday 27 July): And this map is for those who still think that size doesn't matter.

Ta da!

Guess what!

I've done it!

Me. Myself. On my own. Thank you Tina, Craig, Wayne, Nicholas and those lovely people at PC World. Didn't need you in the end.

I won't bore you with the technical details. Let's just say it involved downloading drivers from the Internet, unzipping files, moving folders about, telling the computer to get off its butt and go and look for stuff and install it now, this instant, otherwise I'm going to have a fit, etc. etc.

*grin*

Update (Friday): The replacement disk, which arrived this morning and which I thought of using to install broadband on my laptop instead of downloading the whole thing again, is also missing an essential driver and miscellaneous bits of info. Wonder what the techies would have suggested I do today if I'd waited for them to solve my problem.

Ta da!

That’s what I was going to say today, after successfully installing broadband on my computer.

Except it didn’t happen.

I spent the entire day trying to coax my computer into recognizing the modem supplied by my ISP. But it wouldn’t. I had a wonderful team of helpers – Tina, Craig, Wayne and Nicholas. It cost me 25p a minute to speak to them, but Nicholas was very nice: he called me back after 20 minutes…

In the end, after trying everything, I suggested they send me another installation disk. So I can spend another day being frustrated and aggravated.

My ISP has already started to charge me for broadband; no one actually said what would happen if my computer absolutely refused to communicate with the modem. “No, I don’t want to work with you: you’re a nasty little dark grey box. Blech!” Am I condemned to carry on paying as I go for ever and ever now?

Slapping my ISP again –because it’s been making my life more difficult than it already is for the past month and because there doesn’t seem to be any light at the end of this particular tunnel.

Last year… in London

There is a very old story on the theme of Death that goes like this:

One morning, the caliph of Baghdad’s vizier ran to his master and fell to his knees, pale and shaking with fear, “I beg of you, my Lord,” he panted, “permit me to leave the city today!” “Why?” said the caliph. “This morning, while I was crossing the square, a man bumped into me in the crowd. I turned around and recognized Death. He was staring at me in a threatening way. My Lord, he’s looking for me.” “Are you sure it was Death?” “Yes, my Lord, he was dressed in black from head to toe and had a red scarf round his neck. Please, my Lord, he’s looking for me; let me leave this instant; I will saddle my fastest steed and, if I don’t stop on the way, I can be in Samarkand by the evening.” The caliph was very fond of his vizier so he let him go immediately. A little later, he went out of the palace, disguised, as he often did, to mingle with his subjects in town. On the square, he noticed Death and went up to him. “I’d like to ask you a question: my vizier is a young man in good health; why did you scare him this morning by staring at him in such a threatening way?” “It wasn’t a threatening look; it was a look of surprise. I wasn’t expecting to see him here, in Baghdad. I have an appointment with him this evening… in Samarkand!”

On a sunny morning, last year, in London, innocent people met Death at the hands of murderers (not ‘martyrs’). A lot was said about the victims at the time and they are in the news again on this first anniversary of the atrocity. I felt very sorry for all of them, but particularly for those who died thinking they had cheated death a little while earlier – those who escaped from the hellish underground only to board the bus that was blown up in Tavistock Square.

Again I’m slapping everyone who condones those kinds of terrorist acts – wherever they are perpetrated.

I’m not sure if I’m also allowed to slap someone who is a survivor of 7/7… ok then, I will: in an interview in the Evening Standard, this man said, “Terrorist bombs are a daily routine in Iraq, but they also happen in Afghanistan, Egypt, Turkey, Bali, Madrid and so on…” One country is missing from that list; a country that should have been mentioned by name, not vaguely included in a general ‘and so on…’ I’ll give you a clue: it begins with the letter ‘I’ and suicide bombers have perfected their technique there over a great many years. Is it a memory lapse or is it perhaps that, like someone who was grilled by Melanie Phillips the other night on The Moral Maze, he believes that that particular country deserves it? One can have been through a terrible ordeal and still say objectionable things.

Guest Slapper of the Month VI

Red Queen of She'll be feverish after so much thinking and I have been cyber-friends for several years: we usually laugh at and get annoyed by the same things. She has a lot of common sense and a light touch. She radiates kindness, but when something gets her goat...



Mad enough to slap someone? It’s not your fault.

Yes, fellow slappers, finally, a plausible defense for our inordinate rage – we may be suffering from Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED).

IED has been described in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, that bible of mental health professionals, since its 1980 edition. It is classified as an impulse control disorder, along with kleptomania, pyromania and pathological gambling. However, IED is in the news lately because a team of researchers from Harvard Medical School and The University of Chicago have found the “disease” to be far more prevalent than was previously thought, afflicting as many as 16 million Americans. They are saying IED may be to blame for the rise in “road rage” plaguing our culture.

Huh. Aren’t we all angry from time to time with the stressors of modern life? I have been known to curse at other drivers (within the confines of my own vehicle), give my PC a good whack upside when it’s acting hinky, engage in a primal scream in response to endless automated phone menus. But we’re not talking about plain old losing one’s temper. IED anger is “grossly out of proportion to any precipitating psychosocial stressors.”

Persons with IED exhibit “several discrete episodes of failure to resist aggressive impulses that result in serious acts of assault or destruction of property” over the course of a lifetime. According to the Harvard and UC researchers, IED costs sufferers an average of $1359 in property damage. That’s not much. Heck, I only need to toss my bleeping computer out the window one time to meet that figure.

Anybody buying this theory yet? The researchers have linked IED to low serotonin levels. (Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that helps mediate the body’s production of adrenaline – think “fight or flight” response.) So if IED is a disease caused by a discrete neurochemical deficit, it can be treated with – you guessed it – medication!

I’ll admit I’m frustrated with my own “industry” of mental health professionals for making it all too easy for people to avoid taking responsibility for their behavior. Such disease-mongering has been an identifiable problem for at least three decades. They doubtless deserve a slap. But my experience is that these individuals are well-meaning. I believe they as much misled as misguided. So let’s dig a little deeper and ask, Qui bono?

The study I mention was funded by the National Institutes of Mental Health, a US government agency. Sounds like it might be legit. But keep in mind that pharmaceutical companies comprise the most powerful lobby in Washington DC, with enormous influence on how government research dollars are spent. (EU members, don’t pat yourselves on the back too vigorously – roughly half of the largest drug companies are European, so this is a global problem.) According to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, in 1990 the big pharmaceutical companies allotted approximately 11 percent of sales revenues to research and development of new drugs, while more than three times that much – 36 percent – went toward “marketing and administration.” The investment is certainly paying off for them: From 1960 to 1980, prescription drug sales were fairly static as a percent of US gross domestic product, but from 1980 to 2000, they tripled. They now stand at more than $200 billion a year, with by far the largest increase being among neuropsychological medications.

Are you good and mad now? It’s not your fault. You’ve been provoked – 200 billion dollars’ worth. SLAP! Take that, drug companies!

Tête à claques XI

Told you the mellowness wouldn’t last long.

Before you go on reading, please answer this question: did you enjoy Truly Madly Deeply? If you’ve answered, “Oh my god, it’s my favourite movie; I’ve seen it 25 times and cried soooo much each time,” you can stop reading now because this post will upset you.

If, on the other hand, you’ve answered, “Ugh! That movie made me want to throw up: it was so syrupy and fake and the acting was disgusting,” then please carry on.

Juliet Stevenson was the main culprit and I wanted to slap her very hard for it when the film came out, all those years ago, and I can’t wait one minute longer.

I used to adore her. I saw her in her very first part at the RSC in 1978. She was 20 years old, I think, and fresh from drama school. She’d got the part of a servant in a marvellous production of The Taming of the Shrew because the actress who should have been playing that part had broken her leg or something, and she made a great impact in that small part. I got to know her and the following year she even stayed in my flat in Paris, while I spent the summer in Stratford. I saw everything she was in and was never disappointed. She had a superb, distinctive, grown-up voice and she was always good. She was also very serious and dedicated and had unbelievable self-discipline.

And then Truly Madly Deeply happened and that was it. She became the most mannered actress ever – a kind of caricature. My partner’s theory is that she was praised so much for her performance in that film that she must have thought that was what the public wanted from her so she gave it more of the same. And she started playing fluffy (she doesn’t have the physique for fluffiness) and scatty women because she was offered other parts like that after that landmark film. Her voice got shriller too.

I stopped being able to watch her, but I don’t give up easily on people and I’ve seen her in other things since then – just because I keep hoping that one day she will be the powerful performer she was when she was young. Tonight my partner and I saw her in a terrible production of The Seagull, directed by the perverse Katie Mitchell. Perverse because she decided to go against the text all through, without any reason whatsoever. Perhaps tomorrow’s reviews will reveal that the nonsense we saw on the stage had some profound meaning, but I doubt it. Juliet wasn’t bad, but she couldn’t be good in such a preposterous production. I’m afraid I hid from her, when she walked by in the foyer after the show. “Darling, you were wonderful!” I couldn’t possibly have said that to her – no way.

I’m slapping Dame Juliet (it’s only a question of time…) for being such a disappointment.

Stay tuned...

I’ve just finished my work (four days before the deadline, hooray!) and I’m feeling all mellow and incredibly well-disposed towards everyone (hmm, almost everyone).

I don’t think it’s going to last, though... so don’t go away.

Let me explain...

Every so often I tell myself I must cut down on the time I spend on the Net. I never do, of course: it’s too much fun and I would miss it. However, British Telecom must have heard me and decided to help because four days ago it cancelled the number my ISP uses to allow me unlimited access to the Net for a reasonable sum of money every month.

Just like that. Without any warning.

You put on your computer in the morning (or rather, in my case, in the middle of the afternoon), you click on the cute icon and then, instead of that infuriating series of beeps and funny sounds, you get a different infuriating noise, a voice saying, “This number has not been recognized.” Qué? You try again and again and then you get on to your ISP and then to BT and you spend the entire day trying to find out what the f*** is happening, or, in my case, your partner does it because they have a little more free time to devote to such nonsense than you do at this particular point. The ISP and BT give you differing versions of what they think is happening and every time you have to tell your entire life story to the new person with an impenetrable accent that answers the phone. Finally, it does appear that BT has cancelled that number.

Ok, ok, I should have broadband. I could have broadband for a little bit more money, but I have a geriatric computer (i.e. a 3-year-old one) and broadband might make it give up the ghost completely and I can’t afford to buy a new one and anyway why should I be forced to have broadband when that other system worked very well for me?

My ISP says they are doing their best to obtain a new number from BT, but I reckon it’s not really in their interest since they know that everyone who’s lost that connection will now get broadband with them and not stick with pay-as-you-go, which costs an arm and a leg (that expression reminds me of a very funny incident, but I haven’t got the time to tell it to you, sorry). They say we should have more info by Tuesday.

So, if you have a blog and if, in the past few days, I haven’t commented on it as often as I used to, it’s not that I'm on a deadline (which I am) or that I've gone off you, but it’s because every second I spend on line is costing me masses of dosh.

If I still get that stupid message on Tuesday I’m applying for broadband. I bet my ISP and BT are in it together. I’m not very fond of conspiracy theories – you know, Diana died because of a drunk driver; Serge Lutens has nothing against the Americans; J F Kennedy was killed by… etc. etc. – but, in this case, I could very well believe those two big corporations are in league against us. I think I can hear them laughing...

Slaps all around!

Football or Big Brother

That’s the choice on TV at the moment.

Blech! Blech!

Slap! Slap!

Now what?

In my first post on this blog Oh, to be a freelancer! (the previous ones came from my weekly thread on MUA) I wrote about my relationship with the agency that supplied me with work for 18 years and what used to happen with the one piece of work I was still doing for them. This year it’s been different. No early phone call. No threat. No warning that it might be more difficult than usual or that the deadline might be shorter and do I really want to do it, anyway? Nothing.

So I emailed the woman the other day. Today there are two messages on my answerphone and an email saying she’d like to tell me about ‘what’s happening’ over the phone. I’ve emailed back to say I’d rather read about it. (She’s always wrong-footed me that way: forcing me to react to bad news there and then, and I don’t react well to bad news).

I know what’s coming. I know there will be no British Tourist Authority brochure this year, or any other year. That’s one third of my very small income gone. The surprise will be the reason why. Did she decide it wasn’t worth her while giving me work this year – after 18 years of bons et loyaux services? Did the British Tourist Authority refuse to pay for the proofreading again and did she tell them – on my behalf – to go jump in the lake? Whatever the reason, since the work should have started in three weeks’ time, I would have expected to be told long before now. I think after 18 years of etc. etc. I deserved that courtesy. I never missed a deadline in all those years. Because I never went on holiday in the summer, like all the other French translators, I was always there to answer questions – at any time of the day. (It very often seemed to me I wasn’t a freelancer, but a tele-worker.) Before the advent of email, I used to deliver the work personally (the agency is at the other end of London) whenever a deadline was especially short. Oh, I don’t know what else I used to do to make her work easier. Now this.

But I'm a freelancer so who cares.

Updates (14 June): I now know ‘what’s happening’ with the brochure: it’s not good but it’s not as bad as I feared. The BTA has decided to just update last year’s copy, which involves spending an awful lot of time fiddling about with PDFs and stuff. At least I won’t be totally idle in July, but how do you cost adding 23 words here, seven there? The woman knew about it a little while ago, but she was about to go on holiday so she decided to tell me on her return.

I decided to leave this Slap up because, although I may have been a bit unfair to my employer, I know she wouldn’t think twice about doing what I thought she had already done and if not this time then maybe next year.

‘Paying it forward’, isn’t that what it’s called? LOL!

(26 July): Just heard from the agency that the brochure has been cancelled. The English copy to translate should have landed on my desk over two weeks ago. As it happens, because I don't work full-time any longer, I didn't turn down any other translating jobs in order to stay available during that time and for the next four weeks, but someone else might have. All they said was “Sorry!” ‘Sorry’ doesn’t do it when you’ve lost a third of your income with no hope of making up the loss.

With women like these…

I couldn’t believe my ears the other day: I was happily listening to a short story on BBC Radio 4, when I heard something that made me jump: something I’m used to reading from time to time on the message board I belong to. That moronic comment about old ladies’ smell. The latest one read, “X on me smells like an old lady. You know those elderly women who don't bathe for days?”

Well, I don’t, actually. When I think of a bad body odour, I think mostly of men who are too macho to use antiperspirant, for instance, not of women – old or young.

A woman wrote that otherwise good short story; a woman posted that idiotic, offensive comment. There are lots of things that annoy me, but one thing that annoys – and distresses – me more than any other is when women are being misogynistic. Some women internalise men’s clichéd opinions of them and spout them out without stopping to think about what they’re actually saying. They're the ones who usually proclaim loudly that they're not feminists. I believe such women are trying – subconsciously maybe – to suck up to men. Silly, short-sighted and misguided!

Slap!

Guest Slapper of the Month V

Still Life of dancing in place is one of the most exciting people I’ve had the privilege of ‘meeting’ in cyberspace. She may be stiller than she used to be physically (I gather she led a very active life before her accident) but mentally… wow! She writes beautifully about her new life. Here she is – in slapping mode:


Reserved

Last week I received a parcel surprise. A t-shirt sent from my friend Alice, catering to my slightly bent sense of humor. Its color was an ice cream swirl of pinks and cranberry, and in the center was the universal symbol of accessibility flanked by the message...
I'M ONLY IN IT FOR THE PARKING. Lovely!

However we all know that within every bite of sarcasm, there is sure to be a smidgen of truth -- and apparently Dateline felt the same.

The other evening I took much vengeful pleasure in watching a segment which exposed able-bodied drivers taking advantage in the use of handicapped parking spaces at a local Walmart. As each driver exited their vehicle and began WALKING to their locations, the field reporter approached and asked (ever so nicely), excuse me, but what type of disability do you have which allows you to park in that reserved space? I wooped. Responses ran the gamut: from jacket shielding of the face and running from camera view to adamant claims of entitlement (chronic leg pain, night blindness (it was midday), partial hearing, etc.). Some even went as far as to produce counterfeit or expired temporary placards (disabled parking identifications cards) -- Shameful.

According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, businesses are required to provide at least one handicapped parking spot per every 25 spaces. This particular establishment had seven accessible spots, so I can safely assume that the lot's entirety was that of at least 168 other available options. One offender, with identity protected, summed it up by admitting to the pros (proximity and availability) outweighing the cons ($110 penalties and social tsk-tsks). And to me, for once, the words spoke louder than the actions.

I understood clearly this person's attitude of disregard to my or any other physically challenged person's human needs and rights. It is also the unspoken evidence each time a person causes me to wait outside of five empty bathroom stalls because they prefer the spaciousness and private mirror afforded in "mine". Or when I am not able to maneuver my chair up an accessible ramp because someone on foot is blocking my path, self-righteous and unapologetic, they silently tell me --"I don't really care". So, to all of those making less of my greater needs: those who use my parking space, my bathroom stall, my water fountains, my ATMs, my public phones...if you don't want to sit in the chair, then stay off the ramp!

SMACK AND A ROLL OVER YOUR TOES!

Off with their heads!

The French Revolution has always been my favourite historical period. After years of learning about the Merovingians (oh, yes!) and about this or that war mostly against la perfide Albion, I remember it as a refreshing change to be taught about exciting events actually taking place in France and not involving military strategy (I could have told soldiers what to do – in Latin and French – at the age of 15). It became even more fascinating when, after we all took the Gaston Berger personality test in class, I discovered I was Robespierre’s alter ego. His nickname was L’Incorruptible so he was a hard act to follow (as if!). And I don’t have the time right now to even hint at the influence Marat has had on my life.

Anyway, however flawed those revolutionaries may have been, they were instrumental in having Marie-Antoinette guillotined. And for that I have to applaud them. Although, I suppose, she and that ninny of a husband of hers, could have been sent away into exile somewhere, if they hadn’t had so many supporters abroad. They did try to escape, but were caught and brought back to face the music.

Marie-Antoinette was a silly woman. She was sent to France from Austria as a very young girl and did nothing but spend spend spend. She was the Queen and it wasn’t in her remit to bother about her subjects’ welfare so she didn’t. The people got fed up with her and with all the other freeloaders who were making their lives a misery, and executed them all. End of story.

Unfortunately, that airhead pops up again and again, and now there’s a new film about her. There’s also a new book about the perfumes she used. I love perfume but I couldn’t care less about her tastes in that respect. I want to know about truly great women. Women who have achieved something; who have done something for humanity; who are role models; whose lives are uplifting. Spare me the aristocrats and the courtesans: they have nothing to teach us.

I don’t know why Sofia Coppola’s film was booed at Cannes. Let’s hope it’s because it’s a bad film not because the tide is turning and the French are getting all misty-eyed about Marie-Antoinette again and resent anything disparaging said against her. I don’t keep up with those things but I expect there still is a Comte de Paris (the so-called heir to the throne) waiting for the monarchy to be restored in France. So far, luckily, he’s been a figure of fun, but who knows?

The Tsar and his family had a similar fate. Tough. The Romanovs never showed any mercy towards anyone, why should they have been spared? (Even today I can hardly bring myself to call St Petersburg by its old name: it conjures up so many horrific pictures).

Forgive me for not shedding tears over tyrants. Those people were bad. And the fact that they died in terrible circumstances does not make them better. Given half a chance they would have become even worse and their heirs would have followed in their footsteps.

A slap to anyone who romanticizes and mythologizes oppressors!

In my next life…

I will get a menial job, marry a multimillionaire, remain a trophy wife for a few years, then divorce my husband and claim what’s ‘rightly’ mine. Because I have now an ‘expected standard of living’ I will be awarded £5m.

Or… I will have the ‘promise’ of a very good career, marry a multimillionaire, raise children, then divorce after a long time and get £250,000 every year for the rest of my life.

Wonder what the better deal is. Where’s my calculator?

On a smaller scale, I could just be an ordinary woman, marry an ordinary man working all his life for a caring company, raise one quiet daughter, have plenty of time to pursue my hobbies, become widowed around the age of 75 and live on my husband’s very good pension for many years.

I got it all wrong.

Slapping myself!

Tête à claques X

I’m sure everyone’s been asking themselves why I haven’t nominated Scarlett Johansson as a Tête à claques before. What was I thinking? Look at her!

I'm slapping her for keeping her big mouth open all the time. It’s supposed to make her look sexy, right? Wrong! It makes her look gormless.

Obviously, she’s been told she's the new Marilyn Monroe. Not a chance! The big difference between Marilyn and Scarlett is that even at her most tarty Marilyn looked innocent, whereas even at her most innocent Scarlett looks like a tart.

She’s not a bad actress but she’s not all that. And being Woody Allen’s pet these days isn’t such a great recommendation, is it?

Slap slap!

Just because you don't know...

I was listening to Matthew Parris’s programme Great Lives on Radio 4 yesterday. He began like this: “I don’t choose whose great life to explore, I only choose my guest, and when she told me this week she’d nominated an obscure Hungarian doctor of the mid-nineteenth century, whom you’ve probably never heard of and I certainly hadn’t, I did wonder whether it might have my listeners lunging for the off switch….”

I guessed who he was talking about and mouthed ‘Semmelweis’* and then slapped this supposedly educated man for not being familiar with the name and for assuming that no one else would be either. I thought for a moment he was just being ‘British’, i.e. he didn’t want to appear to know too much, but he genuinely didn’t have a clue and I'm sure the word ‘obscure’ was his, not his guest’s.

If you’re ignorant, it’s not such a good idea to assume that everyone else is too – especially on a supposedly ‘intellectual’ radio station. It makes you look stupid and patronizing.

It’s not a good idea to do that in writing either. A little while ago, someone who discusses translation on his blog wrote an excited post about how he’d discovered – after over ten years in the UK – the meaning of a fairly common word. It made him sound so silly!

It’s always better to overestimate the knowledge and intelligence of your listeners/viewers/readers. It makes you look generous and it makes them feel good.

Slap!

*If, by any chance, you don’t know who Semmelweis was, look him up: his story is absolutely fascinating. Women owe him an awful lot.

Condemned to live

So the Lords, who are not elected by us, have rejected a Bill that would have legalised voluntary euthanasia – under strict conditions.

I would have voted ‘yes’. If, god forbid*, I become terminally ill and in unbearable pain, I want the right to be helped to die by a doctor. A couple of months ago, the vet who gave my pussycat a lethal injection, less than half an hour after it was revealed she was hopelessly ill and in pain, said he considered it a ‘privilege’ to spare her more suffering. I want to be treated with the same compassion we show animals at the end of their lives. If they could speak, they would thank us, I’m sure.

Some of the most vocal opponents of the Bill were, of course, religious groups. I’m not a believer; I don’t thank god everyday for my being alive. I don’t see life as the best thing since sliced bread, as it were. Not being alive wouldn’t bother me. I just hope I won’t have to travel to Switzerland any time soon…

On a related subject: interviewed the other day about that 63-year-old pregnant woman, a medic said that this was not the time to fulfil everyone’s desire for a child; that the Earth’s resources were already getting scarce. Pressed further, he even agreed that the number of resuscitations would probably have to be restricted too. Especially since they are so seldom completely successful. Someone else said, a little while ago, they only knew of one successful resuscitation in 25 years. It was, he said, the fault of programmes like ER, where people are routinely brought back to life and assumed to go on living totally unscathed by the experience, when, in fact, they suffer all sorts of indignities afterwards. He – a professional – said he wished for a fast and painless death. A fatal heart attack was the best, he said. That’s what I would wish for me and mine.

If I am ever hospitalised with any kind of serious illness, my chart will have a big DNR on it.

I think we need a referendum on euthanasia. I believe the majority of reasonable people would be in favour of it. I’d like to slap the Lords for bowing to minority pressure groups. Slap!

*not a believer, but superstitious nonetheless.

Small pleasures from small favours

Since I’ve already denied women the right to make fools of themselves by taking up pole dancing as exercise and learning it at public classes, and thereby contributing to the backlash against feminism, I thought I would now deny women the right to have children at an age when they should be playing with their children’s children or enjoying retirement. But too much has been said about that 63-year-old mother-to-be and the subject has gone stale on me.

Instead, I want to slap people who, having acquired a little bit of power, suddenly take themselves seriously and refuse to do other people small favours, when it’s no skin off their noses.

My partner and I went to Stratford-upon-Avon for Shakespeare’s Birthday (April 23rd, in case you’ve forgotten when it was): the Royal Shakespeare Company had planned masses of events and we thought it would be good fun.

We hadn’t booked for anything (we’d learned about it too late), but we managed to attend two very interesting events (one about playing Cleopatra – with Harriet Walter and Janet Suzman; the other about the Sonnets – with Patrick Stewart and my beloved John Barton). There had been a few tickets left for the first talk, but the second one was booked up. Nevertheless we thought there might be some returns so we queued anyway. There weren’t, but just before the start we were let in, together with four or five other people, because there was space and because they took pity on us. We stood, or sat on the floor, at the back of the room, and spent a wonderful, stimulating two hours.

There was one more event we ‘didn’t mind’ attending: an interview with Judi Dench. It was to take place in the big marquee that had been erected in one of the theatre gardens (and where we’d heard the two Cleopatras earlier that day). For this too tickets were unnumbered and the queue to go in was unbelievable: it went round and round and round… We, and a very small group of other unfortunate, ticket-less people, waited for everyone to be seated. We had money in our hands; there was plenty of standing room on the side of the seating area and there didn’t seem to be any reason why we couldn’t be let in. That’s when I noticed her – Bronwyn Robertson, the most officious woman ever, and I more or less knew we were waiting in vain.

She could have said to us, “You’ve been waiting so patiently; there’s only a few of you; this is the last event of the day; I cannot deprive you of the pleasure of listening to Dame Judi, who’s come specially today – a Sunday – to give this interview. Please come in!” But she didn’t say it and everyone wandered off (one person was in a wheelchair – you’d think she would have allowed them in), disappointed. We did hear the interview for a while, because we discovered that, if we positioned ourselves in a special spot, behind the marquee, and listened closely, we could hear every word. Unfortunately, the questions were so lame and banal and so unworthy of her talent that we gave up halfway through. But that's not the point.

It would have been so easy for Bronwyn to make us all happy. But, no, it was in her power to deny us and she did. I wonder if she got any satisfaction out of it.

I first met Bronwyn in 1974, when I lived in Stratford and needed a job. She was secretary to one of the directors; she was obstructive and annoying. She was then put in charge of something or other and she carried on being unhelpful. I must have been introduced to her a dozen times. She always forgot who I was. It requires a special kind of person to ‘forget’ completely someone they see practically every day.

While I’m slapping people who deserved it in the past but who only got the utmost courtesy from me because I was still hoping to have a career with the RSC at the time I might as well mention Diana Minchall. We met in 1977, when we were both attending the Summer School and were staying in the same B&B. She knew no one; I knew everyone. By the time she went back to London she knew everyone too. Two years later, when she got a job with the RSC (in the Publicity Department), she had a head start. I had told her about the vacancy so she could apply for it and when she got the job she promised to return the favour. Yeah right!

Not only did she not help me in any way but, within a few weeks of her taking up her new post, one might have thought she was the RSC’s Artistic Director, judging from the way she started behaving. I stopped being in the secret of the gods because my contacts assumed she was giving me lots of info and I didn’t need to be told anything.

She was there for about ten years and I never got another chance to get a job with the RSC. Instead of being a help she was an obstruction. I’ve been wanting to slap her smug face for a very long time. There!

When I used to work at Penhaligon’s I had access to perfumes that everyone valued immensely. I was in a position to give my friends a few samples from time to time. And why not? My mistake is that I’ve always expected others to derive as much pleasure from doing (or returning) favours as I have.

I’m sure Judi Dench would have been very sad to know that half a dozen people were turned away that day – for no good reason whatsoever – because of some self-important official.

Slap!