Fifty Shades of Purple

Fifty Shades of Purple …

On Friday night I went out – and that should be subject enough for a blog on its own – and the conversation around the (admittedly all female) table for a while was Fifty Shades of Grey, the book that has swept the country, selling ten million copies.

Three of the five other women had read at least one of the series and were waiting for the other sticky copies to be passed around town.  To me, it was reminiscent of being 14 and being handed Lace, which fell open in twenty-five different places.

Apparently Kindle has made it possible to sit in a public place and read about willies, and with a bit of front, one can make comments about Mr Darcy and passers-by will be impressed by the reader’s cleverness.

Being an author, the conversation obviously changed as to why I haven’t filled my books with soft porn and considering the sales, maybe I should rethink and get on with it. My reply was that I’d always felt that we don’t need to read the nitty gritty and that allusion is usually better than stating the bleeding obvious.  

I also had to add that when my turn comes to go on Have I Got News For You I couldn’t bear the thought of Ian Hislop reading out the grubby bits.

Plus my mum proof-reads my books and even for ten million sales, I couldn’t have her thinking that I’ve done all those things – it’s bad enough her thinking that I must have been taken over a car bonnet at a young farmer’s do whilst hanging on to a burger* (Chocolate Mousse and Two Spoons) or taken over someone’s holiday home and used it as my own ** (Eating Blackbirds).

I shall await my turn with interest.

*I haven’t. Honestly.  

** I did.

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Jubilee! Jubilee!

Jubilee, Jubilee!

I never used to be a Royalist, thinking that it was wrong for people to have publically bestowed / funded privileges above others simply by luck / bad luck (depending how you look at it) of their birth. But then I went to London…

Yes, I’d been to London before – I fed the pigeons aged about eight and had a fantastic ice cream. I think I went with a school trip to the war museum as a mid-teenager, and had a great time arsing about on the underground, but then I went as a grown-up.

I walked around the sights, and finally worked out how it all fitted together. I walked from Buckingham Palace, past the horse guards, along the river and to the Tower, and was completely blown away by it all. I finally realised how lucky we are in Britain to have such a fantastic heritage and I was willing to sacrifice a few million of my personal hard-earned taxes to pay for it.

I went to New Zealand not long after and was advised by an enthusiastic Kiwi that I simply had to go and see New Zealand’s oldest house. It had been built circa 1875 and was wrapped up in cotton wool, so important was it to the inhabitants. I brushed off the offer (a little brusquely in hind-sight now that I appreciate more how important it was for them) telling them that my own pad was about twenty-five years older and that the oldest house I’d been in was one in darkest Radnorshire that had parts (the wallpaper for certain) dating back to the 1400s.

So although I like to be scathing about many things requiring national enjoyment, I am going to embrace the Jubilee!  I am going to dress like the queen for the Dress Like the Queen Competition, I will have my photo taken next to her cardboard cut-out, I am going to scoff Victoria Sandwiches as if they are going out of fashion, and I will swig lager with a dash of gin just to get myself into character.

Most people would be jacked off with a job that they’d done for 60 years -try working in a local government planning department for that amount of time, for example.

So have a good Jubilee celebration all! Throw that wellie, tug that tug of war, bake that cake and have a fight round the back of the beer tent: it’s just what we Brits do best.

If you liked this blog, why not buy the books!
Visit http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lorraine-Jenkin/e/B0034PL5LG/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
Available on e-book!

Traffic Calming and Other Fallacies

Traffic Calming and other fallacies…

Since our village had the grand road-widening of the A470, the law of unintended consequences has been at work. Instead of east / west traffic going on the east / west road, it now travels on the south / north road which is quicker and then it zips off past our bloody house.

As a town planner by trade, I know that NIMBYism is a bad thing, but I am miffed that my kids are having to walk along a three foot pavement bordered by brambles on one side and massive lumber wagons going 50mph on the other. It just doesn’t allow for any errors: a moment’s lack of concentration as a one stops to admire a slug, and things could go horribly wrong.

However, the powers that be are on to it and have stuck a sign that flashes up “30” if you approach it faster than 30mph. Great, I thought. It’s too far within the 30mph limit and on the wrong side of the road as far as I’m concerned, but nevertheless, it’s a start. But after a few days, it was clear that something else seemed to be happening: cars seemed to be approaching even faster. Finally I twigged that it was the fun of blasting as far as the sign and making it beam its, “OY! 30, I said!”.After cars have triggered the light, then then start to slow down and I can just imagine the drivers chuckling to themselves and feeling all young and wreckless for those precious few seconds.

Sitting in our kitchen at night now is like sitting in a post-modern art gallery. The place is dressed like Tracy Emin’s teenage kitchen with rotten food tumbling out of a bin in the corner and dirty tea-towels on the floor, and at annoyingly irregular intervals, a bright light flashes, “30” across the walls.

If you liked this blog, why not buy the books!
Visit http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lorraine-Jenkin/e/B0034PL5LG/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
Available as E-books