Being Me

I sent the following short 'Rant' article to The Oldie magazine, which is one of those publications that has lots of adverts in it for Tena pads and stairlifts.  You know the ones.  And if you don't, you will, one day. Anyway, they sent it straight back, saying it wasn't quite right for them, and they wished me luck with placing it elsewhere. So, rather than suffer further rejection, I am taking the easy way out, and placing it here, which is called 'making your own luck'.  It doesn't pay as well, but it means you get instant publication.  Why are ladies' hairdressers so young? Next year, I’m booking a holiday in Ibiza.  Do I know what Ibiza's like?  No.  Do I really want to go?  Not at all.  In fact, I want a holiday in Ibiza like I want to bathe in a tub of mealworm.  But I have to do something so I don’t feel so Biblically old in the hair salon while a twelve year old cuts my greying hair and asks, ‘Doing anything nice for

I received a catalogue in the junk mail this morning. There used to be a fabulous catalogue called 'Innovations' which offered must-have products such as nose hair clippers, pegs to keep your wellies together, triangles of cloth to hide a cleavage with, and bits of elastic in case your bra has got too small and you need to extend the strap.  I'd love to be the copywriter who has to make these products sound like The Thing You Needed But Just Didn't Know It.  I suspect it takes a certain skill.  Maybe it's the kind of job spin doctors could do in retirement, as they'll have had plenty of practice with the silk-purse-sow's ear dilemma. Now available!  Our new 'Toe-Counting Stick'.  You know how, when you wake up in the morning, the first thing you think is, 'I hope none of my toes have disappeared in the night!' How tiresome it is to have to stretch down to count them with your fingers, just to make sure! Well, with our handy, long, ergo

This is the story called 'Fishing' which I entered into the Writing Magazine's New Subscribers' Competition. I got the first prize of £150, which I'm putting towards printing a collection of some funny stuff.  Watch this space. 'Pieces of Me' will be available soon, if that's not more of a threat than a promise ... They say 'write about what you know' and I broke that rule in this story, because I've never been fishing and don't intend to start, but don't carp on about it.   Anyway, to save you the £3.75 that the magazine costs, here's the story, if you'd like to read it.  It's more about jealousy, and childhood, and wanting approval, than it is about fishing, to be fair. Fishing He just wouldn't learn, see.  I thought he was pretending, at first, to get me riled.  But whatever I said (‘try to relax, feel the water holding you up, don’t bend your knees’) he wouldn't learn.  He just thrashed about and th

I've never been more coordinated than I was on Tuesday morning when I went back to school for the first day's teaching of the Autumn Term. I had four purple things with me.  Here they are: 1.  A purple teacher's planner (meaning, a purple planner for a teacher to use, not a planner for a purple teacher, although read on and you'll see that's not as stupid as it sounds). They do give out planners at school to each teacher, but none of them are purple.  I think the choice is white or white.  (Wild!)  So, because I think some things in life can't be compromised on, I buy myself a purple planner out of my own money, which leaves me just enough cash left for the month for some small cakes and a packet of Revels, but who needs meat and vegetables anyway? 2. A purple pen. It's not de rigeur these days to mark in red.  Don't get me started on that topic. I mark in purple.  This means you can write 'This is TERRIBLE.  Please re-do IMMEDI