The daughter, who was also a mate, told me of this time at Uni when she went out on Saturday night with her new housemates. Typically, the girls got sloshed to the gills and except for my sensible mate, none of the inebriated had a penny to spare between them. So Sensible Mate called for a taxi and bundled all of them into it and they all made their way safely home – thanks to her emergency money of £5 tucked away in her purse.

It may seem like a matter of trivial importance but after following my colleague’s advice, I know personally the number of times the £5 had come to my rescue. Whether a teen out for a night out on the tiles or a young mum with a cranky child, safety is paramount and anything that helps you be on your way is worth it.

Why am I talking about it now? I just finished reading Deepti Lamba’s well-written article on the responsibility of parents, with special regard to the Scarlett Keeling case and thought of my old colleague.  It  isn’t easy being a parent and some people do a better job of it than  others. But what sets apart a good parent from a not so good one is the fear – fear for their children’s safety. It is with your heart in your mouths that you let your child go into the world.

But that don’t mean that you hold on to them and stifle the life off them. The trick is in finding the middle ground. In Fiona MacKeown’s case, trusting your 15 year old daughter would be safe in the company of people you have known for a scant few months is nothing short of colossal stupidity. Her argument, that the Aunt who was to have kept an eye on Scarlett, was a church-going Catholic. That endorsement aside, I wonder if Ma MacKeown paused to think of the 25 year old red-blooded male, the nephew of the devout Auntie, who was also in the same house.

In Tamil, there’s a saying, “never put cotton and fire next to each other”. A simple sentiment and one the mum never thought of but 100% valid, nonetheless. You put a sexually active teen next to a man who probably thought of himself as a bit of a stud, with only an aged female as a chaperone, you are just begging for trouble. 

I have heard many a time arguments from otherwise sound people who deride the Western society and flatly say that Western parents, as a rule, are a dead loss at this parenting lark. While the Eastern ones, especially Indians (as most of these loud mouths are, more often than not, our fellow brethren, sadly) are stellar examples of parenthood. Well, I don’t think that good parenting genes are passed into our bloodstream along with the smog and grime from the Indian atmosphere. As Amrita shows clearly, bad examples of parenthood can be found everywhere – even *gasp* in India. Maybe that mother thought she was being the perfect parent by devoting so much of herself to her daughter and her daughter’s education. But did she pause to think of what sort of future she was condemning the same daughter to, when she took her life so cheaply? I don’t think so.

Good parents, bad parents, examples can be found everywhere. Geography has nothing to do with it. At the end of the day, all we can do as parents is be there for our children – in every sense of the world. Everything else, as they say, is in the lap of the Gods.

In the meantime, rest in peace all you young ‘uns who have had your life snatched away cruelly. I dedicate this poem of Dylan Thomas’ to you all:

Let me state at the outset: I love Jeremy Clarkson and his sense of humour. When British television is full of gay comedians pulling everyone’s legs in the hope of getting a few laughs or stand ups mouthing lines well thought out backstage to canned laughter, this guys is rip roaringly funny purely for being himself. One wouldn’t expect to be rolling along the aisles while watching a motoring show but that is what I seem to do most Sunday nights, when Top Gear is aired. Even my son loves his quirky sense of humour!

Jeremy has never been one to shy away from a controversy or air his views, however non-PC they may be. He just shoots from the hip, no holds barred.

But even I was concerned when he rubbished the public’s fears over their monetary and identity safety after the loss of the HMRC discs. He pooh-poohed claims that any nutter could now do away with their money and being Jeremy, went one step further and made his bank details public, in the column he writes for a National daily.

And one bright johnny decided to let Clarkson know what happens when you shoot yourself in the foot. Said johnny set up a direct debit to transfer £500 every month to a charity. When Jeremy found that £500 of his hard earned cash had gone walkies, he looked in and unearthed this. Arguing with the bank, Jeremy-style, didn’t help him a bit.

So he ate a stringy morsel of crow and admitted the error of his ways in his recent column. At least it is for a good cause, Jeremy and not to fund someone who has a penchant for bathing in quality Moet, like they show in that lovely ad on the telly. And next time, please stick to ribbing Hammond about his hairstyle and James May about everything under the sun.

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I was ashamed to admit I did not know. But the truth was, I hadn’t a clue. While I kidded ‘this is the day we box’ and proceeded to have a jokey ‘boxing’ session with him, the question remained in my mind. So we decided to make a game of it and played ‘Let’s Google For It!’. According to my trusty Google search, the day after Christmas Day is known as ‘Boxing Day’ in UK and the rest of the commonwealth because:

“it was the day when people would give a present or Christmas box to those who had worked for them throughout the year.” (Wikipedia)

Check out Elaine’s Boxing day page to know more about the day and its age-old customs.

Happy Holidays!   

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As you can see from the above vid, there were cars, autos and other vehicles patiently waiting for the road to clear. The decibel level is pretty high too. This was taken at around 9 am in the morning. The same event occurred at 3.00 am that morning (or night – whichever way you look at it!). Understandably, I shot out of bed wondering what the racket was about.

Through bleary eyes, I noticed the devoted mass dancing in the streets. Whilst I do give it to them that they have every right to show their devotion in every which way that pleases them, should it encroach on others’ lives? At 3.00 am, is it too much to expect to get some undisturbed sleep?

Or is it blasphemy?

Easy answer, right? Maybe that point struck this blogger AFTER he posted the following piece of text.

Puke of the Day
December 4th, 2007
Someone must tell this woman. That, the probability of a random set of verbs, nouns, adjectives and gerunds magically falling in perfect order to form a ‘meaningful’ sentence is 10^(-78).

Else, one could just tell her — I masturbated looking at your kid’s photo. Thanks.

In case anyone missed that great line, here it is again: I masturbated looking at your kid’s photo.

The ‘kid‘ in question is barely three! How sick can you be? Deleting such offensive text isn’t enough – people who spew such crap just because they can deserve some seriously harsh punishment.

What’s the latest punishment due to someone who’s attracted to young children?

Me, I have a whole soundtrack to my life. Let it not be said I do anything by halves!

This is highly unintentional though. For the past week or so, my ears have been constantly assautled by Channel Five, day and night. I am not hearing things – well, I am but not in that way. My neighbour upstairs has, for some strange reason, been watching the telly with the volume on FULL and nothing I do has made him change his mind about the decibel level.

I can hear the programmes perfectly when I am in my lounge, kitchen, bedroom, loo – you get the pic. Before anyone asks, we have tried to tell him of our displeasure at this radio effect we are being subjected to, willy nilly. But no amount of banging on the door, and of late, the ceiling, has had much of an effect. I wake up at 6.00 AM everyday to the tune of ‘Milkshake……’. (well, going to sleep in the first case has become well nigh impossible!)

S if of the mind that the chap has died and left the telly on. I disagree. It has been almost a week now and our noses haven’t been assaulted with a ‘bad smell’ – yet. The bloke has pulled similar stunts before but every time, furious banging on his door has brought him, along with the plaster on the ceiling, down and he had sheepishly complied.

But not this time.

I still think the chap might have gone on a bender last weekend and hasn’t come out of the other end yet. But my only question is, why Channel 5?

So, who has any bright ideas about how to shut this bloke up? First decent suggestion gets a Freeview box!

I could do what any regular Joe does – slam the door in their faces and carry on with my life. But it was cold out and these two dears looked so earnest that I did not have the heart. So I stood, with my listening cap on, telling myself to keep it zipped if I wanted to get off lightly.

Of course, that is easier said that done. They started off with the usual ‘oooh, we have never seen this design before, what is it?’ ploy, pointing to the picture of Ganesha I had stuck onto our front door. If I had thought that would deter their lot, the past five years had taught me otherwise. I have now learnt that nothing does and these actually help them get their spiel going.

After prattling about various things for about 20 mins, the lady came to the crux of her show:
‘I fully believe in redemption and that, soon we could be called upon to answer for our sins. On that day, we will have to follow the One True God if we are to get salvation. Don’t you think it is better we get started on reading the Bible now, to be better prepared for That Day?’

Now that riled me. I knew it was a mistake unzipping my gob but the calm statement that ‘Christ would save us and you better start brushing up on your gospels’ generally gets my back up. How insulting is that to the dozens of other religions out there! Not to mention the atheists, who are perfectly happy going in their merry own way. What gives them the right to say their way *is* the way and chop, chop now if we want to be redeemed?

So I asked her:

‘Who’s to say that Christianity is the way towards salvation? Isn’t that awfully presumptuous of you to say so? How can you blithely suggest to someone to let go of their beliefs and jump on board with yours? How would you feel if I turned up tomorrow at your doorstep and said ‘Here’s a Koran – start cramming now if you want to be saved!’ Would you be willing?’

Of course they wouldn’t. They politely bobbed their heads up and down, left some leaflets with me to make me ‘see’ and soon went on their way.

Now I really would like to know the answer to my questions. Who’s to say who / what to believe in? Isn’t it your very belief in something that gives it the magic? What right does one have to say ‘no, yours is not the correct belief – follow my path instead’?

I think it is this short-sightedness that is making people rise up in arms. It is all very well for one to assume that one fine day, God is going to land up and make us pay for our sins but stating that boning up on the Bible (or the Gita or whatever) would rescue one from His wrath is a few degrees beyond presumptousness. It is downright smug. When there is so much hoopla about whose God is better and whose sucks, this ‘my way or highway’ attitude can really push people’s buttons the wrong way.

I always thought that no matter what name we call it – God, our Belief, Self – it has power only because we feel so. That being the case, why force the next person to call it by what name it means something to you? Why force him to see your way? Why does the path matter, as long as the destination is the same?

Who has the answers?

Now, I do not think this was a woman going about her business and was just there by accident. Even someone as thick as a ‘Spice Girl’ would know that something serious is going on in the Ritz area and if this woman chose to show her mug there, then it was nothing but design. After all, what better way to get a few vital column inches than show up at a place where you know for sure the press would be about? Isn’t that the very reason behind her living?

I will admit to not being a Spice girl fan. They made me gag then – and now, to see grown women of whatever age parading under the name ‘Baby’ and ‘Scary’ and ‘Ginger’, shouting ‘ha-see-kha’ or whatever nonsense they are going to spout this time around, is scaling new heights of ridiculousness. I mean, none of them could hold a tune in a bucket. Least of all Victoria, who was always given the least lines to sing and just hung about in the background, wafting in the breeze. They took ‘manufactured’ to a new level. And girl power, my ass! They single-handedly (okay – five-handedly) brought feminism down and all it stood for to a cheap and cheesy level.

And now, they are coming back!

Why does it bother me this much? Why should I care if a bunch of plastic non-hags are going to be making millions for themselves and everyone else in their marketing circle? Well, unless I choose to retreat to a little known cave halfway up the Himalayas for the next decade, I will not be able to miss the oncoming invasion and the thought of being subject to pukey songs like ‘Wannabe’ and ‘Mama’ (blech!) is more than my little heart can bear. It was bad enough to watch Vic’s beaky face sticking out of every stray photo and TV shot; no one cheered louder when her hubby won the deal with L.A.Galaxy – at least she would be on the other side of the pond, I thought so naively. Now, she’s back – along with the rest of them!

Help.

Everything about them sets my teeth on an edge. If I hate the whole Spice Girls band and all their airheadedness, then compared to what I feel for Victoria Beckham, then the rest are my bosom buddies and my life would not be complete without being at their feet all day, every day. There is something about the permanently pouted mouth and the reedy body and above all, the insatiable desire to be ‘famous’ that puts me off her. Why can’t people like her, Jade Goody etc get off their backsides and actually do proper work, instead of making a career out of being a ‘celebrity’? What has the society come to when we have ‘professional celebrities’ such as these? I still remember Jade bleating to a tabloid, post Celebrity Big Brother race row: “I don’t want to keep appearing on the front cover of magazines, but I’ve got to keep a roof over my head”. Well, you and the rest of humanity! Only, we actually try to work for it, rather than relying on being tabloid fodder to bring in the moolah.

As a mere mortal, I cannot understand what would make people *want* to be famous; famous and nothing else. But apparently, it is the drug that keeps such people going. I found this article by Wendy on SnarkyGossip highly amusing. ’Posh’ is going to have her own show in America. Even we weren’t subjected to that! Good luck to them poor souls, I say.

Anyone has any ideas on how to get kooks like her off public eye for good? Send her to Mars? Too close. Expedition to Jurassic Park? Nah, Maneka Gandhi would protest – cruelty to dinosaurs and all that. How about singing lessons? Maybe that will nix her proper! Oh and while we are at it, can we chuck the other four ninnies along as well – I’ll even throw Jade Goody as a freebie. Just lock them all up and melt the key.

1. I get irked when one is forced to choose between family and friends – as in, ‘after all, they are family, why do you put your friends ahead of them?’ Well, I do get it that family deserves certain carte blanche rights where certain things are considered but friends, in my opinion, are the family we choose. As such, they deserve the same courtesy and I do not take kindly to being told otherwise.

2. What irks me super most about our folks is how they feel they can butt into my affairs and generally pass comments, give suggestions and then have the gall to be pissed when I ignore it. What will it take for them to get that if I want their advice / suggestions  etc I will ask for it myself so can they pls save it till then?

3. My favourite statement to S about so-and-so is: ‘when they die and come back as Ms (or Mr) Perfect, I will swallow everything they say. Till then, can they please zip it?’ Anything wrong with that?

4. Personal hygiene (or lack of) and/or not bothering to get reasonably spruced up are big time annoying factors.

5. But the one that absoloutely takes the cake is when someone spoils my day / time out by constantly doing a Johnny Bravo (‘enough about you, let’s talk about me’) on me. I have met loads of people who do it in varying degrees. What will it take for them to understand that when I am out, I would like to have a nice time too and that doesn’t necessarily include being their / their brood’s own personal cheerleader? Sweepea has done the impossible and has walked on water? Well, hell crack open that champagne but can I be on my way now?

Now that I have ended up getting everyone’s backs up, can I stop MM?