Well, I never imagined that I’d get excited by a Portaloo – but excited is precisely what I was when I went to Nostell Priory today (or Nostril Priory, as my four-year-old daughter thought it was called). Oh yes: not only was there a seat on the loo, but there was also a hand basin with soap and – oh, miracle of miracles – water.
I have never been a great fan of loos in fields, but our recent holiday in France has finally taught me to count my toiletary blessings. Persuaded by my husband and his even more persuasive French-dwelling friend to venture out of Yorkshire and into the French Pyrenees for a week, I had been full of reservations (would we all die in an air crash? Even worse: would the children die in an air-crash that we survived? Would we have to eat frogs’ legs and wear onions round our necks?) Some of my anxieties had been quelled by the large box of Yorkshire Tea and jar of Marmite which almost cost me a fortune in excess baggage – but nothing had prepared me for the really big problem.
I was lulled into a false sense of security at Perpignan airport, where the loos were really quite civilised (i.e. similar to ones at home), give or take a few thousand resident flies. This generally positive effect continued at our friends’ house, where the main oddity was a malfunctioning pull-flush. And so I was not in the slightest bit concerned when my daughter declared “I need a poo” as we made our way through a cathedral cloister: I had already noticed the handy “WC” at the entrance to the garden. But what a sight met our eyes: right behind the door was a noxious porcelain tray-thing with a hole in the middle. Daughter looked as horrified as I felt. “I don’t really need a poo,” she declared, as we tumbled out backwards.
“It’s a hole in the ground!” I told my husband once I’d regained my breath (which I had been holding, lest the stink knock me unconscious). “Ah yes,” he said. “Didn’t I tell you about French toilets?”
“I still don’t need a poo,” said Daughter, hopping around and clutching herself madly. “I don’t need a wee either.”
Meanwhile, our six-year-old son had pricked up his revolting ears. A hole in the ground? Now that really was of interest to a boy. “I need a poo,” he declared gleefully.
“No you don’t,” I replied.
“No you don’t,” my husband replied.
“I’m bursting for a poo,” he countered.
Grrrrrr.
Well, even if you don’t believe them, it never pays to ignore children’s purported lavatorial urges, and so back we went to the dreaded hole in the ground. Mission accomplished, to his delight (not least because he had proved me wrong about his needs), we faced the next challenge: flushing the pesky thing. Yes, there was a flush – but where exactly did the water go? Were we in for an unexpected shower? We pressed the flush – and ran, fast. No need to worry about hand-washing, as there was no wash-basin. Thank goodness for my Wilko antibacterial hand-wipes.
Sadly, this was not a one-off experience. The following day at the beach offered civilisation in the form of a loo-pan and a hand-basin – but the water supply didn’t seem to stretch to either of them (and my thigh-muscles don’t stretch to prolonged crouching). I soon worked out that the easiest option was not to drink all day, in the hope that severe dehydration would reduce the need to encounter les WCs francaises. All I can think is that French women do not have periods.
Why, when the French can do so many things so well (peaches, tomatoes, sunny weather), do they fail so spectacularly to provide usable toilets? I strongly suspect there is some secret parallel toiletary universe which only the French know about, where they sit on their de-luxe loos and giggle at the thought of the English tourists weeing on their Crocs.
What I do know for a fact is that I will never, ever complain about an English toilet again. Mr. Portaloo, I salute you.
Thursday 10 July 2008
Tuesday 8 July 2008
Barbie girl
I was a teenage runaway, a joyrider, a drug dealer, a terrorist and a murderer. I had sex with scores of men (including all of Duran Duran - simultaneously) whilst never having spoken to a man who wasn’t my father; I turned a gay man straight and a straight man gay; I was detained in mental institutions; I had organ transplants; I was buried in a sand-pit; I was reincarnated as my own twin sister; I performed a strip act in a nightclub; and I lost my head when it was flushed down the toilet. I have even died of ignorance (as in that ’80s advertising campaign). And all this before my eighteenth birthday.
So how did I manage to perform these amazing feats? Well, it was all thanks to Barbie. Yes, Barbie. The glittery pink creation that all sensible modern women detest.
Whenever anyone talks about Barbie nowadays, their tone is peculiarly apologetic. It’s always the same: they tried so terribly hard to avoid it, but their daughters have simply inherited a Barbie-loving “pink gene”. These women talk earnestly about gender stereotyping and act as if Barbie were single-handedly responsible for anorexia and unnecessary boob-jobs. Germaine Greer, for one, claimed that Barbie has taught any woman whose vital statistics aren’t 38-18-34 to “despise her body”.
But such criticisms are missing the point. For Barbie isn’t just a pink’n’blonde monstrosity who teaches girls to shop and starve: on the contrary, she can teach us everything we need to know about life and love.
My sister and I had, between us, probably the national average of Barbies (around eight apiece). But our Barbies didn’t hang around looking pretty and having tea parties. Oh no. We chopped their hair off and dyed their stubble with felt-tip pens (and were disappointed to discover that Domestos didn’t bleach polyester hair). We pierced their ears with dressmaking pins, gave them chains from their ears to their noses, and added nail-varnish nipples for good measure – to the horror of our mother, who first spotted said nipples as we undressed our Barbies while playing nicely at Great Auntie Joan’s house. One had polio (caught from a too-close encounter with Ian Drury – as in the Blockheads) – and a Swizzles sweet wrapper, an elastic band, and a bit of plastic from dad’s tool-box became a calliper. Another had cholera (thanks to my reading The Secret Garden and never getting beyond the scary cholera bit). When we got really fed up with them, we resorted to crashing a Weebles aeroplane into their house (oh, we were so ahead of our time). A number of them went mad; one had her hat run over by a London taxi, and subsequently developed a fetish about exposing her bottom. Only one retained all her (long, blonde, curly) hair and limbs, and she, “Sheri”, was the token looks-obsessed bimbo who was on a permanent diet of cocaine and vodka.
Had they known what I got up to at home, my school friends would probably have thought that I was suffering from some weirdo form of arrested development. To my mind, though, what I was doing was learning about who I was and what I wanted – without any of the hideous consequences. Other girls snogged horrid teenage boys, had secret abortions, drank themselves sick, and dabbled in drugs – but I didn’t need to do any of that, because I had Barbie. She showed me how demeaning it was to have sordid liaisons in alleyways, how boring people are when they’re drunk, how wonderful it is to be in love, and how heart-wrenchingly miserable it is to be dumped by your (married or gay) boyfriend. I was testing out those different identities that the other girls – whose politically correct mothers had banned Barbie – were trying out on their own minds and bodies the minute they had the chance. “Be who you want to be”, said one rather sickly Barbie advertising campaign. But I’d say that Barbie lets you be who you don’t want to be – without any of the consequences.
I never went down the sex-with-random-strangers path, unlike many of my Barbie-free friends. I don’t go in for body piercing; binge-drinking somehow passed me by; and I’m not unduly concerned with my looks. I have no desire for an eighteen-inch waist or breast implants (and if anyone could ever do with them, it would be me). I have a splendid marriage, two lovely children, and am even considering getting an Afghan hound (well, Barbie had one). And while some might credit my parents with having brought up a happy and well rounded individual, I’d say it was all thanks to Barbie. For she let me try out every possible relationship and mode of existence, all in the safety of my own home. And for that, I shall be forever grateful to her.
So how did I manage to perform these amazing feats? Well, it was all thanks to Barbie. Yes, Barbie. The glittery pink creation that all sensible modern women detest.
Whenever anyone talks about Barbie nowadays, their tone is peculiarly apologetic. It’s always the same: they tried so terribly hard to avoid it, but their daughters have simply inherited a Barbie-loving “pink gene”. These women talk earnestly about gender stereotyping and act as if Barbie were single-handedly responsible for anorexia and unnecessary boob-jobs. Germaine Greer, for one, claimed that Barbie has taught any woman whose vital statistics aren’t 38-18-34 to “despise her body”.
But such criticisms are missing the point. For Barbie isn’t just a pink’n’blonde monstrosity who teaches girls to shop and starve: on the contrary, she can teach us everything we need to know about life and love.
My sister and I had, between us, probably the national average of Barbies (around eight apiece). But our Barbies didn’t hang around looking pretty and having tea parties. Oh no. We chopped their hair off and dyed their stubble with felt-tip pens (and were disappointed to discover that Domestos didn’t bleach polyester hair). We pierced their ears with dressmaking pins, gave them chains from their ears to their noses, and added nail-varnish nipples for good measure – to the horror of our mother, who first spotted said nipples as we undressed our Barbies while playing nicely at Great Auntie Joan’s house. One had polio (caught from a too-close encounter with Ian Drury – as in the Blockheads) – and a Swizzles sweet wrapper, an elastic band, and a bit of plastic from dad’s tool-box became a calliper. Another had cholera (thanks to my reading The Secret Garden and never getting beyond the scary cholera bit). When we got really fed up with them, we resorted to crashing a Weebles aeroplane into their house (oh, we were so ahead of our time). A number of them went mad; one had her hat run over by a London taxi, and subsequently developed a fetish about exposing her bottom. Only one retained all her (long, blonde, curly) hair and limbs, and she, “Sheri”, was the token looks-obsessed bimbo who was on a permanent diet of cocaine and vodka.
Had they known what I got up to at home, my school friends would probably have thought that I was suffering from some weirdo form of arrested development. To my mind, though, what I was doing was learning about who I was and what I wanted – without any of the hideous consequences. Other girls snogged horrid teenage boys, had secret abortions, drank themselves sick, and dabbled in drugs – but I didn’t need to do any of that, because I had Barbie. She showed me how demeaning it was to have sordid liaisons in alleyways, how boring people are when they’re drunk, how wonderful it is to be in love, and how heart-wrenchingly miserable it is to be dumped by your (married or gay) boyfriend. I was testing out those different identities that the other girls – whose politically correct mothers had banned Barbie – were trying out on their own minds and bodies the minute they had the chance. “Be who you want to be”, said one rather sickly Barbie advertising campaign. But I’d say that Barbie lets you be who you don’t want to be – without any of the consequences.
I never went down the sex-with-random-strangers path, unlike many of my Barbie-free friends. I don’t go in for body piercing; binge-drinking somehow passed me by; and I’m not unduly concerned with my looks. I have no desire for an eighteen-inch waist or breast implants (and if anyone could ever do with them, it would be me). I have a splendid marriage, two lovely children, and am even considering getting an Afghan hound (well, Barbie had one). And while some might credit my parents with having brought up a happy and well rounded individual, I’d say it was all thanks to Barbie. For she let me try out every possible relationship and mode of existence, all in the safety of my own home. And for that, I shall be forever grateful to her.
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