Reasons why it's best not to start a relationship with a crisp packet

It was as I was marking script after script after script after flamin' script that I thought, 'I know! Why not liven life up and write a blog post about a crisp packet?'

So now the marking is finished, CUE THE HALLELUJAH CHORUS AND PASS ME THE CHARDONNAY, I'm here to inflict my crisp packet story on you.

It just shows how bored I was, because I'm sure I remember saying to myself once, 'Fran, if you ever find yourself writing about a crisp packet, that's the time to pursue a different hobby.'
But, as you all know, taking my own advice was never my best skill.

Anyway, you can't say I didn't warn you that this post wasn't going to be exactly Dostoyoevsky-(I-had-to-check-my-bookshelf-for-the-spelling)-esque.

So now's your moment. Crime and Punishment, or Fran's crisp packet story?





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Thank you, dear reader, for staying. Just for you, then ...


So, there I was, the other morning, standing at the bus stop. The bus stop is, after all, the place where most epic tales begin. Dostoyoevsky (flip, had to scroll back up to check the spelling AGAIN) didn't seem to know this. Well, stuff Russia as a setting, that's what I say. You can have one too many Russian ballrooms and fields full of bent-backed peasants.

Back to the story.

There was this crisp packet, from henceforth the main character in this tale, lying near the bus stop. I think I'll call him Crispovichovsky. The bus stop is by someone's front garden, and the crisp packet had been discarded in the bushes, right there by my feet. It looked pretty incongruous, a bright pink 'prawn cocktail flavour' packet, nestled in amongst the shrubbery with its pinkness, like a flasher awaiting an opportunity.


Crispovichovsky (shoot, now I'm having to even check how I spelled THAT, too) and I were old friends. I say old; I mean we'd been eyeing each other up for three consecutive days, and in the life of a crisp packet and a 48 year old near-menopausal woman, that's quite a relationship. Crispovichovsky (I jolly well wish I hadn't started this) had caused me some consternation. The first day I'd spotted him, I'd just thought, 'Stupid litter-droppers - why do they have to spoil the environment?', but had instantly looked away, as it was fairly windy, and I thought I could be sure that Crispovichovsky would be blown away somewhere else well before I got there again the following morning. There was no need for me to do anything about it, then ...

The following morning, Crispovichovsky was still there, as pink as ever. He had obviously got lodged in those bushes. His whole body language said, 'I'm going to be stuck here until someone picks me up and puts me in the rubbish bin.' I tried not to look. I thought, 'why should I pick up someone else's dirty crisp packet? There isn't even a bin here. I'd have to put it in my bag. The crisp packet is dirty. My bag is clean.' I stared really hard in the direction from which I was expecting the bus to arrive. A breeze rustled Crispovichovsky and now he had a voice. 'Pick me up,' he seemed to whisper, and although it's been so long since someone said that to me, and therefore tempting as an offer even though he was just a potato crisp receptacle, I shut my ears to his pleas. The bus came, by now the metaphorical equivalent of a lance-bearing knight on a white charger, and on I got. I didn't look back.

On the third day (and you know what happens on Third Days), Crispovichovsky looked brighter and more garish and more obvious than ever. I'm sure he was bigger. As I glared at him, cross that he had survived yet another night, I remembered that, on Jesus' Third Day, the power of God had rolled a giant stone away from the tomb so that Jesus could get out. Well, I was very tempted to do the opposite and push a large boulder right on top of Crispovichovsky so that he couldn't.

But I knew, deep down, that I wasn't going to. I couldn't ignore the signs any longer. I was beginning to think this was all meant to be. Yes, Crispovichovsky and I were meant for each other. After all, there'd been storms, high winds and heavy rain - plenty of chance for him to get whisked away and out of my life - and still Crispo (it's no good, he's getting a diminuitive) had survived to meet me again.

No, Crispo needed rescuing. And I was The Chosen One.

So now all I had to do was work out how it was going to happen. Crispo was wet, slimy and had leaves attached to him. (As you can see, the divine analogy breaks down a bit here.) And yet, there was no bin at the bus stop. My school bag had kids' homework in it. I didn't want to carry Cris (sorry, chum) in one hand onto the bus. ('Hey, there's that woman again, the one who's always doing strange things on the bus. Now she's carrying empty crisp packets around. Someone tell the driver before she starts eating olives or pressing the bell with her bosoms.')

Then I remembered my school bag had a front zip compartment with nothing in it. I'd have to put him in there.

So I bent down to pick him up.

URRRGGHHH! There was something INSIDE!

I dropped him back into the bush. (Oh, brother, now anyone passing in a car would be thinking, 'Look at that awful woman, throwing her crisp packet into the bushes. Some people. Hey, doesn't she teach our Amelia?')

What could it be? A slug? A snail? More wet leaves? What else gets thrown in bushes. Oh no! Could it be a ... a ... a ... condom? Eeeuurgghh.

But now, I was committed. Whatever was in that packet, C.R. and I were now soulmates, and whatever he was carrying, it was now my burden too. (He ain't heavy, he's my crisp packet ... la la la.)

I bent and picked him up again, quickly turned him upside down, and out fell ....

yes, out fell ....

yes, out fell ....

prawn cocktail crisps.

Yes, yes, I know. It just wasn't what I was expecting. Who would, from a prawn cocktail crisp packet? Can you blame me?

And, of course, they were wet crisps, which is what made them so weighty.

But now, instead of a pink packet lying in the dirt, there was a rather forlorn pile of crisps. But at least they would be blow-away-able or biodegradable, which are big words, and labels I'd be proud of if I were a slice of fried potato.

I placed C carefully in the front packet of my bag ready for when I got to work and found a bin. We were both pretty happy, to tell the truth. After all, he'd been sitting there in someone's bush for three days being ignored by passers-by, the packaging world's equivalent of a hobo, and I'd been doing my best not to see him, so that I didn't have to do anything about him. And now my conscience was clear.

When I got to work, I placed him carefully in the bin. I wasn't sure how to say goodbye to c. After all, we had shared a lot together. But there was always the risk that, if I did the big emotional parting thing, someone would walk in and wonder why I was talking to a crisp packet.

Then again, bearing in mind what my work colleagues already know about me, maybe they wouldn't have turned a hair.

I just stood by the bin for a while, crossed myself, thought of singing a hymn, thought better of it, and whispered, 'RIP Crispovichovsky'.

(Damn and blast it, that was a long scroll-up, but respect is respect, I suppose.)

Reasons why I will never, ever, ever agree to be an external examiner again

I need to explain why I haven't been commenting on your blogs or writing any of my own. You may well have been grateful for this ... anyway, here is the reason:

A monologue

Right, so that's three hundred and twenty exam scripts I have to mark by ... er ... ah ... I have two weeks. And, in a miracle of brilliant timing, it all coincides with my being back at work after sick leave. So, that was a REALLY GOOD DECISION of mine to apply to do exam marking, then. Thousand quid, or no thousand quid, somehow I wonder whether it's going to be worth it. Still, some chocolate should help. I know. I'll put this box of chocolates near my marking pile and every time I've done 20 scripts, I'll reward myself with one.

(Mark, mark, mark.)

Good, that's the first 20. Chocolate! Pop it in! Yum! Now, let's get going again.

(Mark, mark, mark.)

Sigh. This is going slowly. Only 10 done. Oh well, that's a round number. Have a chocolate. Pop it in! Yum! Now, come on, Fran. Don't start slacking.

(Mark, mark, mark.) Damn. Have I really only done three? This is really dragging. Oh well, three is a nice number - surely it means perfection in the Bible or something? - so I'll have another chocolate. Pop it in! Yum!

(Mark, mark, mark.) Another one done. And this is getting so tedious. Maybe I should go and check a few blogs out and ... NO! Come on! You have to get these done in a very short amount of time! I know. Why don't I have a chocolate after every script? That's bound to motivate me. Okay, pop it in! Yum!

(Mark, mark.) Look, there are two essays in each script. Maybe, to keep myself going, I should have a chocolate after each essay. Okay, I've done one essay. Pop it in! Yum!

(Mark.) Heavy sigh. My shoulders do ache. I need rewarding for all this hard work. Perhaps every time I write a comment in the margin, I could have a chocolate. Yes, that's a good idea. Okay, one comment written. Pop it in! Yum!

(Tick.) I am SO BORED and TIRED. Why did I apply to do this? What an idiot I am. And everyone else is out and about, enjoying life. I think I'll have a chocolate every time I put a tick on a script. I've done four in this essay. Okay, pop them in! Yum, yum, yum, yum.

(Ti ...) There's only one way I can keep this marking up, and that is to continually eat chocolate, and then in between each chocolate, I'll read another point in the essay.

(Chomp, chomp, tick, chomp, chomp, tick, chomp, chomp, tick.)

Things I learned while walking in the rain

I went for a half-hour walk in the pouring rain tonight. And I learned some things along the .....

No, DON'T ask me why I walked in the pouring rain. No, DON'T. DON'T.

Oh! You are so demanding. Can't a woman just tell a story without having to give all the detail?

Alright, then. If you get bored before you even get to the main event, on your own head be it.

Here's the reason I was walking in the rain (for those who just HAVE to know EVERYTHING) ...

I was meeting a friend at the theatre to watch a show. And I had to take the bus. (Don't get excited, Amanda - this is not another bus story - this is the first in a thrilling series of 'damp pedestrian' posts.)

I was due to meet my friend at the theatre at 7pm. But the bus timetable just didn't work out like that which means I got off the bus at 6.30pm, right there, right outside the theatre. So I could have gone in and sat there on my own, waiting.

But you feel such an eejit, don't you, just sitting in a foyer, pretending to be happy alone? It takes so much effort, getting the facial expressions right, and crossing your legs just so, and trying to look like you're thinking, 'Yes, I do have a watch, but I don't need to look at it, because I feel totally secure' and texting people with banalities, interrupting their evening meal and causing them to say, 'Fran must be waiting alone somewhere - she always texts from foyers' and reading your book but then getting to the last page and having to pretend to read the last three chapters again because the only other thing you have in your bag is a letter from the doctor about a gynaecological procedure. All so tedious.

I couldn't face it.

So I walked for half an hour in the rain. The theatre is on a long main road. I decided that if I walked down the road for 15 minutes, crossed the road, and then walked back the other way for 15 minutes, that would be .. that would be ... 15 + 15 = 30, so ... that would take me exactly half an hour. Excuse me while I just take a call from the Mathematics Faculty at Oxford University ... 'Hello? Hello? Yes, Fran Hill. No, no, sorry, not available for any lecturing this week ... yes, I know, it's a shame, but I'm sure you'll get someone .... no? no one as good as I am? sorry, sorry, no can do.'

Sorry about that. They keep ringing! Where was I? Oh yes ...

... And while I walked in the dark as rain lashed down, pleased that I wasn't in a dry foyer feeling like a loser, I learned some stuff.

What I meant to write in the first place

Lessons learned while walking in the rain.

1. There is a direct correlation between the vigour with which you protest to your husband, 'Of course they're waterproof' about your boots and the amount of water that seeps into your socks within the first three minutes of walking.

2. Broken umbrellas by the roadside may well look as tragic as homeless waifs or injured dogs. But bending down and examining them as though you were going to offer them a pound or a cheese roll makes you look very silly.

3. Puddles are less easily seen in the dark, but just as deep.

4. When both your trouser legs are fully soaked from below the knee downwards and flap against your shins like escaped tarpaulins, you will suddenly feel as though being lonely in a foyer is a good thing.

5. One reason why walking in one direction seems easy and walking in the other direction seems much more difficult is wind speed. It is better to make the journey back the one where the wind is with you.

6. Houses along the side of the road, when you're walking in the wind and rain, all have soft yellow lighting in their living rooms, the murmur of a TV coming from a downstairs window, cars in the drive and a pizza delivery man just approaching the porch.

7. There is one main reason why you don't meet anyone on this kind of walk.

8. When the wind is coming towards you and you hold the umbrella in front to shield you from it, you will see the approaching bicycle just too late.

9. If the pavement is flooded and impassable, you have two choices: grass-verge mudbath at one edge of the pavement, or road with speeding cars at the other. Take the mud - it's unpleasant, but less likely to result in a near death experience.

10. Watching a sensitive and poignant play will have the edge taken off it when your legs are wrapped in what feels like seaweed, you have nowhere to put your umbrella except between your knees, and the coat laid on your lap is masquerading as a dishcloth.

How not to get satire published

You may have noticed that, here and there, in amongst the gravely intellectual posts I usually write, I do some less serious stuff. 'Essential Writers', a writers' blog, has published an article by me about how to write satire, or, more accurately, how not to ... Check it out if you're interested.


http://essentialwriters.com/writing-satire-4576.htm

Why women poets should never bring a pen and paper to bed

I performed the following poem at a poetry slam which I turned up to without knowing the rules of poetry slams: you have to have more than one poem in case you get through more than one round. (Dur! Loser!) They laughed at the poem when I performed it, but bearing in mind that it was all I had to offer, I had to be thrown out after Round 1 anyway. Sigh. That was a hundred quid I could have won.

Anyway, hope you enjoy my tale of Doreen and Jack and the way Doreen's passion for art intrudes somewhat into other passions ... I suppose it's a tale about poetus interruptus.


Doreen was a poet, a wannabe writer
Whose husband had just upped and left her, the blighter.
He’d said, at the door, where he stood with the cases,
‘You kept making rhymes in the most awkward places.
You kept making rhymes
At inappropriate times
Like that moment in bed
When – mid-you-know – you said,
That’s it, Jack, oh yes!
And I thought it was passion
But you were thinking of rhymes
And it mucked up my scansion.

Doreen wasn’t sure if she would really miss him.
She’d much rather run up a lyric than kiss him.
She loved to write sonnets, but not about Hubby.
He was not a good Muse; he was too bald and tubby.
He’d said, ‘I’d still like you
If it weren’t for the haiku
You write while we’re just
At the height of our lust.’
(She did not say, A haiku?!
I was hoping for more,
But a haiku was all that
You gave me time for.)

Doreen watched him go, then she fixed herself salad
Which she ate with a fork while she toyed with a ballad,
But somehow she just couldn’t get that inspired
So she stopped at line three and presumed she was tired.
She sat in reflection:
I’ve had lots of rejection.
Fifty-three to this day,
So … does Jack feel this way?
Be it narrative or epic
Or just free verse – it’s tough
When again and again
They reject all my stuff.

Doreen felt a pang – So, his skills as a mate
Weren’t like Clooney’s, but – her villanelles weren’t that great!
Was she right to have murmured, ‘Oh, Jack, I love rhyming.’
No wonder he’d had a few problems with timing ...
Then a voice came … ‘Doreen,
How desolate I have been.
I have wander’d o’er streets.
Now I'm here. At your feet. Feets.'
He had gone all poetic
In his grief and despair!
It was crass. And pathetic.
But did Doreen care?

Just for once, just for once, he had timed things just right.
‘How I love thee!’ he cried. It was false. It was shite.
But she fell in his arms – said, ‘Jack, make me your Muse!
Shall we make love, my sweet? Or write poems? You choose!’
This was not very wise.
Doreen got a surprise
When he left her arms then
To fetch paper and pen …

It was only months later
And out came ‘Volume Three’.
Doreen muttered, ‘He always was
Quicker than me.'

Why it's a good idea just to forget the birthdays

I don't know what it is about middle age, but every time I think I'm just about to reach it, it moves on a few years. When I was a teenager, I thought middle age was about twenty-three. Then, in my 20s, I decided it was thirty-five, as that was half-way to seventy, and didn't it say somewhere about three score years and ten?, although that still did seem incredibly old, and it was actually written in the Old Testament of the Bible, and they all lived to four hundred and ninety, so how did that work? That would make middle-age two-hundred and forty-five and that's a hell of a long time to wait for your pension.

When I got to my 30s, middle-age moved again, to the 40s. Now I'm in my late 40s, and I still haven't got to middle age. I've revised it to 50, which is half way to a hundred, because don't you get a card from the Queen when you hit a hundred? In fact, they're thinking about pushing this on to 105, I hear, as so many people reach their century, and the Queen is running out of things to say, I guess. 'It's incredible that you're doing so well at a hundred' sounds a bit thin when someone's taking three cruises a year, jogging round the park each day and running their own beauty salon. So that's royal assent, more or less, for saying 50 is middle age, or maybe even later? My husband is 53, and so I'll make middle-age 55, as I'd hate to think a spring chicken like me was married to an old codger.

I remember sitting on my bed when I was fourteen, surrounded by posters of the Osmonds and David Cassidy and Showaddywaddy and Elvis, and working out how old I'd be when we hit the Millennium. I figured I would have got to thirty-eight. Thirty-eight?!!! I distinctly recall saying to myself, 'But I'll be dead!'

This all makes me well aware that, to the pupils at school, I am very, very old. In fact, this may account for the surprise on their faces when I make it into school, day by day, virtually upright. And, because I can remember feeling just the same about my teachers, I don't get offended when they show amusement that I've heard of Kanye West, or they hear me say something's 'cool'. I would have felt the same and as long as they don't express it rudely ('Miss, how can you know about Kanye West? Don't you need your hearing for that? or 'How do you know the word 'cool'? Is it because you were born in the Ice Age?') I'm not going to slam them into detention or make them write, 'I will not imply that the only thing Miss would look good in now is a shroud' a thousand times in their best script.

The problem is, however much I push on the day when I become middle-aged, the signs aren't good. I seem to have this pre-(please note)-pre middle-age spread around my waist, and a few pre-middle age wrinkles and a pre-middle age saggy chin.

Hm.

Another letter from Santa

This morning's post brought another letter from Santa.



This was today's letter.

Dear Fran
Thank you for your recent letter. At first sight, seeing that it was merely a list of books, I allowed myself to think that, at last, you had come to your senses and were now making reasonable requests. However, this turns out not to be the case.

I would therefore like to confirm that I can locate no copies of the following books:

Exercising without Much Effort

Healthy Innovative Recipes with Three-Week-Old Fridge Leftovers

Speak Swahili in a Day

Buy Something Different This Christmas for your Male Relatives

Train your In-laws The Way You Want Them

Look Alluring in Tartan Pyjamas

Exercising without Any Effort

The 'Drink Liquid Chocolate' Diet

Tchaikovsky for Dummies

Slippers with Sex Appeal

DIY Liposuction on a Budget

How to Guarantee a Date with Clooney

Exercising without Exercising

I do have a spare copy of a book entitled 'How to Make Sure Santa Does Not Hurl Reindeer Dung Down Your Chimney' and I have enclosed this as you may find it useful.

Regards

Santa

Why eating chocolate penguins is bad for the conscience

It's true. There isn't a comfortable way to eat a chocolate penguin. You're going to feel like a murderer whichever way you go about it. Chocolates from a box don't have a personality, so can be scoffed any which way - sideways, frontways, nibbled round the edges - without a twinge of the conscience. Chocolate penguins? They have that 'make friends with me' look about them, which makes any eye contact awkward, especially if you're already salivating.

But when a friend brings you a chocolate penguin to say 'Get Well Soon', you don't abuse their kindness by not eating it. You abuse the penguin.

I started with the beak. At least this protruded from the face, and seemed like an obvious bite-hold. But this meant me putting his face against my lips so that I could snap my teeth round his beak; this felt so intimate, and so like betrayal. It was an 'Ate too, Brute?' moment.

Now he was without the beak, my task seemed more manageable. At least he couldn't complain, although the hole in the middle of his face was a shock.

I turned him round, so that he was facing the other way. Facing, that is, as well as one can, without a face.

I snapped off both his feet with my fingers. This seemed kinder than the direct approach with the teeth. I didn't feel so bad about the feet as about the beak at first, but then I realised he now looked like one of those ancient Greek statues whose base has deteriorated over the years and is now without three toes and a bit of the right forefoot. I felt like a Victorian explorer, breaking bits off the Parthenon to take home to Mother for the mantelpiece.

Eating the rest of him was made much more difficult now he was properly disabled. But, having made him disabled, I now felt I had to finish the job. What was I going to do? Put him back in the plastic bag with the little red ribbon and the polka dot bow and the 'Get Well Soon' label?

So, next, I punched him in the stomach. This sounds violent, I know, but to punch a chocolate penguin in the stomach, you only need a knuckle, not a knuckle-duster. His tummy fell in, and lots of chocolate bits landed inside his cavity, which I then had to shake out. Eating these remnants piece by piece, I couldn't get the word 'intestines' out of my mind, and it rather spoiled things, especially as I don't eat meat.

I went for the rest of his head next. This did feel odd, including, as it did, his eyes. It's never good to eat eyes. I do sometimes eat fish, but I can't eat fish unless it's been de-eyed. Fish eyes are on the side of their heads, which means that when they're lying on the plate, the fish has a jolly good view of you while you attack its belly with a fork. One can eat blindfold, or one can blindfold the fish. Either way, in the top restaurants, you get laughed at.

Still, now the head was dealt with, down to the neck. I only had the trunk left, and this was already damaged. By now, the chocolate penguin had well and truly lost its identity as a penguin. He had originally been called 'Pablo Penguin' on the label, although I had never breathed this name out loud prior to eating it. It doesn't do to cement a relationship with a snack by using fondly alliterative terms of address. Still, it didn't yet look like 'just a bit of chocolate', having, as it did, still a recognisable body. What to do?

One reason for my dilemma about what to do with the trunk was that I was feeling sick. The chocolate penguin had not been a small one. In fact, I think it had probably been a Daddy. This thought, when it came, was not comforting, because this presumably meant there was a Wife and Child somewhere, wondering what had happened to Pater Penguin and who was going to read that evening's Scripture and carve the meat?

But, sick or not sick, there was no way I was going to leave the rest of that penguin for another day. A woman recovering from an operation needs guilt-free sleep.

I broke the rest of the penguin into bits and put them back into the bag. I shook them around, trying not to think of the bag of pieces as the penguin's personal effects. I then tipped my head back and slid all the pieces into my mouth, like you do with the bits at the bottom of the crisp packet.

Done.

It was a relief. But it was only the relief that the serial killer feels when he has finally chopped up the body and stashed it in the freezer in bags labelled 'Spare Ribs, Summer 2009'. Like him, I know I will not be able to forget what I've done. Next time anyone gives me a chocolate penguin, I will ask someone else to dismember it (in the same way as one of my daughters always asked for her chicken to be de-boned), and I will ask them to remove anything (beak, feet) that doesn't just look like bits of chocolate.

Five minutes after I'd finished the penguin, I spotted a blob of something dark on my arm. Oh no! More of the penguin! Evidence of its demise stuck to my arm! Out, out, damned spot.

I licked it. It tasted like arm. This was because it was just a freckle.

I heard laughter. Cold, revengeful laughter. I swear.

What the emoticons really really mean

I thought it was a good idea to marry a dressmaker. What I didn't know is that she'd have innovative ways of shutting me up when I asked about her shopping trips.

Mummy, don't fuss. Sitting at the computer for hours is doing me no damage at all.

So I was at the vegetable counter and the assistant said, 'Look, you owe eight pounds, okay, and if you don't pay up, I'll shove this jalapeno pepper right in your gob.' And I said, 'Look here, young man, do you know who you're spPHLUMPH ...'

There I was, at the dentist, and he says to me, 'You want teeth like Simon Cowell?' and I says to him, 'Yeah, go on then!' and so he did all this work for me. I just didn't realise the grin would be permanent, though. I'm having real difficulty being taken seriously at my business meetings. And my jaw ACHES, man!

Yep, I know. Never trust a plastic surgeon when he says he'll do all the operations at once. And where are my ears? I said I wanted 'flat' but this is too much. Eh? What was that you said?

Oh my. One minute I'm walking out in the forest. The next, I have two caterpillars, fallen off a twig and now balancing on my forehead. Now what?

Right, that's it! If the loser who didn't put the cap on the ketchup properly doesn't own up ...

Hey, sweetheart. You know that new computer I got? The one with the megabyting doublewhammy extraneficular RAM automagnifier? You wanna come and see it? Hey, babe! Where're you going?

I know, I know. But all my friends - at least, I think they're my friends - told me that the pale and interesting look was so last season.

Evidence that I have lost an ovary but gained an addiction

That's it. I can't go back to my teaching job. I've got myself addicted to watching DVDs while I've been on sick leave after my operation, and now I don't have time for a career.

First, a friend at work gave me a film called 'Sideways' about two guys who go on holiday together as a last fling before one of them gets married. I won't go into what kind of flinging they get up to but it involves other people. This is a family blog, or it would be if any families would sign up as followers and send my follower rate to 390 - families with octuplets, listen up. The friend slipped a little note inside the DVD saying, 'You'll need to have a glass of wine while you're watching this'. I wasn't sure what he meant. Was the film really that bad? In which case, why lend it? Not a very nice 'get well soon' gesture, then, dumbo, eh? In the end, it turned out that the holiday the guys go on is a wine-tasting trip. Ah. Get you. Actually, it was quite a long film, so I had three glasses, but that still wasn't as many as the characters in the story drank before they got up to their flinging. I still haven't worked out why it was called 'Sideways', although they weren't exactly vertical much of the time, and after my three glasses, neither was I, but not for the same reason as them.

Second, my sister lent me an 11-DVD set of 'Brideshead Revisited', an Evelyn Waugh novel about upper-class English country house life and all the tragedy, broken hearts and disappointed lovers underneath the linen-clad tables and the glasses of champagne and the butlers with the white cloths over their arms and the 'Dahling, you look marvellous'es. It was pretty fab, and the music was great, too - all violins and music-to-cry-by. But ELEVEN? I never thought I'd get through it. Each one was an hour long. I mean, I know I'm on sick leave, but I didn't think I could justify 11 hours of sitting on my backside watching just one long story. That's just asking too much.

So, for 11 hours, I sat on my backside watching just one long story. Not 11 hours back to back - I stopped to use the phone at least once to call downstairs and ask my husband to bring up another plate of biscuits and a mug of tea, although I felt like I was drinking from a bucket and eating pizza bases, watching the English aristocracy drinking out of thimbles with their little fingers in the air and nibbling on the odd fish egg. By episode 8, although I was enjoying the story, it was like being in a restaurant and having ordered a fantastic meal but which turns out to be five times what you'd normally eat, and you just plough through it, determined to get your money's worth even if you do have to vomit into a hanky and leave it under the leftover vegetables. When it was all over, I went downstairs and said to the Husband, 'I feel like a great burden has been lifted; now I can get on with my life'. And in some ways it had been annoying to watch, because the country house was the size of Africa, and made me feel as though I lived in a shed, and all that dressing for dinner in ivory silks and L'Oreal brushing of the glossy manes before the mirror made me look like I'd slept rough for a week, in my elasticated waist trousers and old sweater with my hair like a gorse bush. I've lost a body part; I don't need to lose my dignity too.

Finally, today, I've been watching Elizabeth Gaskell's 'Wives and Daughters', a mere snip at 4 episodes. Hah. Lightweight, then. It's one of those costume dramas in which there's always someone with that little 'ahem, ahem' cough that says CONSUMPTIVE CONSUMPTIVE - WILL DIE SOON. The ladies are dressed in family tents overlaid with lace and silk and the men are dressed in the strangest trousers with a front panel that looks like a door, shoes with bows (?) and collars starched so stiff that if they look to the left they get poked in the eye. One of the men always gets wet, either rescuing a silly girl who's wandered out in the storm because of a row with Mother (rows with Mother always happen just before storms) or More Sensible Sister/Friend (rows with Sisters/Friends ditto ditto), or emerging from a lake fully-dressed, or chopping logs in the rain to get rid of anger/lust/the starch in the collar. Every time anyone goes shopping in the village, the same two or three ladies are standing by the bread shop, gossipping, and if their bonnets get any more intertwined, they might never be separated. There are always at least twenty misunderstandings in love, despite soulful gazing and hints the size of barges, and you think, 'were they all thick in the nineteenth century or what?' In 'Wives and Daughters' there are some shots of Africa, to which one of the male characters travels, and at one point, because it's hot, he has his shirt off, which is a high point, but not for very long, as this is meant to be a costume drama, and generally the costumes stay on, leading to a lack of drama, but hey. If you want something in which the costumes come off, watch 'Sideways'.

The bad news is, I have a whole collection of about forty of these costume dramas, something I collected with a magazine called 'Classic Drama' a couple of years ago. This has been my first chance to watch them. And now I want to watch them all.

Ooh, I do feel ill. Ooh, I don't think I'm recovering very quickly after all. Ooh, what's that stabbing pain? Ooh, I think I might need at least till Christmas ...