The fun of frugality
Saturday, 26 January 2008
A combination of the need to be slightly more budget-conscious in the month following Christmas, a New Year's Resolution or two and a recent TV programme which alerted the nation to the hidden and horrid ingredients in all manner of foodstuffs has led me, during this past few weeks, to reassess how much I spend and on what I spend it. And a very interesting and though-provoking exercise it has been too.
Friends who work at Traidcraft , plus Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and his ilk, have totally convinced me that I should be buying organic and free-range meat and eggs wherever possible, and given that I'd rather eat better and more ethical produce less often, it hasn't made a huge difference in the weekly shopping bill although it is undoubtedly (and understandably) more expensive than the 'Value' equivalent (I use both terms loosely). Having been given a dinnertime seminar, by someone who knows her stuff, on the subject of how unethically most of the world's chocolate is produced, I've more or less broken my cheap chocolate habit as well; I formerly used it with gay abandon in my weekly baking sessions, and have now switched to Divine (it is!) and Green & Black's. Again, the net effect has been that better ingredients are used less often, so the bank balance hasn't gone down but my waist measurement has. How pleasing! But there is far, far more to be done before my kitchen can be called truly green, despite the recycling tub (our council hasn't seen fit to provide us with an official bin, so we bought a large green one with handles from B&Q) and Ecover washing-up liquid I've started buying.
The fabulous Good Housekeeping magazine, to which I am an enthusiastic subscriber (I'm currently loving Country Living as well) regularly publishes articles on such helpful subjects as ecologically sound washing machines and compost heaps. As our flat is finally in the process of selling, we may soon be living somewhere with a delightful little garden when I can deposit used teabags and carrot peelings, and I've filed away the column for future use. But the article which really got me thinking recently was about waste, and how much of it goes on in the average kitchen. A few housewives were interviewed and asked to keep track of how much they threw away in the average week, so I joined in with the fun, albeit less publicly. My results were poorer than hoped, however, when I realised how many half-loaves of bread had been allowed to go thoroughly mouldy rather than just a bit stale (we have a lovely bread-bin given to us by a friend, and out of sight often = out of mind), how many apples lingering at the bottom of the fruit bowl had gone completely rotten, taking the rest down with them more often than not (I dropped just such a specimen on the floor recently and was wiping mushy apple puree off the walls and cupboard doors for quite some time afterwards), and how many limp and unappetising half-bags of salad were to be found lingering in the plastic tray at the bottom of the fridge.
The other influencing factor over my revised Favourites list on www.asda.co.uk is a programme we watched recently; I forget its name but the gist was that two families (predictably, one was addicted to junk or "luxury" food and one was keen to eat healthily or economically - isn't it always the way with such shows?) swapped shopping for a week, had it delivered to their door and had to make the best of what they were given. Comparisons were then made between economy muesli and "The Best", organic sausages and ones that contained little more than floor sweepings and ground pigs' trotters, and economy hot chocolate and a delicious beverage boasting Belgian chocolate shavings and a creamy texture. The results were surprising, for whilst there is no getting away from the fact that something which was never very tasty in the first place because it was made or bred on a shoestring is going to be laden with sugar, salt and other nasty additives just to make it edible, the "luxury" version is often similarly augmented with secret and sinister ingredients in order to make it taste as marvellous as the name suggests. Have a peek at a "Finest" muesli packet next time you're in the cereal aisle, and marvel at the enormous sugar content! I've just scrutinised the tin holding my Twinings Luxury Chocolate Indulgence, and the amount of sugar has been carefully disguised because someone has cunningly spread it throughout a number of ingredients, but it's still there in fairly vast amounts. Having recently learned that white sugar is the crack cocaine of the food world, this does not fill me with delight.
Furthermore, when I was tidying the kitchen this morning, I happened upon a semi-empty bag of "Half Spoon", which is a compound of sugar and sweetener. The idea is that you have half a teaspoon of this clever substance, instead of one teaspoonful of regular sugar, but will notice no difference in your morning coffee; the implication follows that you are consuming less sugar as a result. This is all well and good until you realise that you're actually tipping aspartame down your throat along with the reduced amount of sugar, and that this is an evil chemical which causes cancer in rats. I'm pretty sure we bought it by accident rather than because we had been seduced by its promise of healthier teeth, but needless to say it went straight in the bin. And after reading India Knight and Neris Thomas's Idiot-Proof Diet, I'm learning that low-fat almost always means high-sugar. I know most people probably cottoned on to this a long while ago, but it really is true, and it's probably partly responsible for the weight problems of today.
The realisation that I have been both wasting good food and permitting bad in my kitchen prompted a thorough clean-out of the cupboards today, which doesn't sound like much of a fun thing to do with your Saturday; however, I have a nasty cold and it's raining profusely, and although I really wanted to go for a nice long walk, I have far much to do at school to risk catching pneumonia. It was surprisingly and deeply satisfying to throw out unhealthy items that had wormed their way into our lives, and also to discover tins of haricot beans and apricots that had been lurking at the back for months (and, in some cases, years) which can be used this week before a massive Asda order arrives on Thursday, thus freeing up a bit of room for the new intake of foodstuffs. The great thing about tinned food is it lasts for decades, and is always marked "best before" rather than "use by". Father Muir is always discovering ancient canned goods at the back of the cupboard at home and merrily using them in recipes; my parents are never a whit the worse, even if they have just eaten something a good five years out of date. A friend of mine has a similarly frugal father who was environmentally conscious long before David Cameron was even thought of, bicycling everywhere and eating jars of mincemeat that were three years past their best-before date but still scrumptious. It's so easy to sit at the laptop ordering things that you already have in stock, and replacing things that don't need replacing. I've been really lazy about this up until now, and in consequence have a kitchen overflowing with packets of cereal which won't fit in any of the cupboards because they're crammed full with the seven bags of open flour, eleven tins of kidney beans, sixty-three boxes of tea bags in varying flavours and a hundred and thirteen half-empty bags of pasta and rice among the different items I discovered this morning during my mammoth clearing session. And after Father Muir presented me with a couple of Tupperwares full of his delicious and healthy home-made muesli when we were home for Christmas, I've chucked out the aforementioned cereal boxes (which were virtually empty anyway, and getting a bit dusty) and followed his excellent example by making my own. And - guess what - the majority of the ingredients were helpfully to be found in the kitchen cupboards! It's far cheaper and far healthier, and I know exactly what has gone into it.
I'm the sort of person who always gets to crisis point before I deal with such things; at any given time, my wardrobe will be full of clothes but many will have fallen out of use and need to go to Oxfam, yet it's only when I can't see over the top of the ironing pile that I actually get into gear and sort through them in order to give some away. My intentions are good but I'm too forgetful and easily distracted by the details of life to actually do these important things. The recycling bin overflows for days, but it takes the threat of someone coming to stay, and the ensuing shame about my domestic failings, for one of us to take it all down to Sainsbury's Recycling Point. And the temptation to give myself an easy life and buy ready-made food seems useful and time-efficient for a while, until I remember precisely what it is I've just eaten and the effect it has had upon myself, the chicken or the Third World coffee-plantation owner from whence it came.
It feels so good to take the right, ethical and healthy route, and it's so worthwhile to devote a bit of extra time to searching for the best possible version of an item when shopping online, or to whizzing that stale half-loaf up in the blender so it can be converted into a herby crust for a salmon fillet, or to giving some thought to how I might best use those leftovers from dinner rather than slinging them wastefully into the bin and taking something new out of the freezer. Ben has spent years buying sandwiches that are both expensive and laden with mystery ingredients in the middle of the working day, and has now started making more dinner than we need and reheating the remains the following lunchtime. The thought that he is saving money and eating something wholesome into the bargain pleases me enormously. I know someone who makes the most delicious peach crumble using economy tinned peaches (cost: about 25p per tin) and homemade crumble topping (which provides a very good use for all those open bags of flour, so cost: very little extra). So why would I spend £3.99 on a ready-made version from Sainsbury's, which may be equally tasty but probably contains at least a couple of evil ingredients?
We're conned nowadays into thinking that we have to spend vast amounts of money in order to have a good quality of life. But usually the very opposite is true. A lovely (and completely free) run in the park with your dog is always going to be far better than forking out for gym membership. Buying secondhand books on Amazon means you almost always get something in great condition for a fraction of the original price, and also gives you a warm glow at the thought that you've just helped someone recycle something. How nice is it when someone bakes instead of buys you a birthday cake? Very! And it feels great to be able to turn off Jamie or Hugh's latest guilt-fest on the TV because it is no longer aimed at me, a former-but-no-longer buyer of gruesomely-farmed meat. At the end of the day, it's so much better to spend the majority of your money wisely and pass on or recycle what you no longer need, whether that's an empty milk bottle or a size 8 top from years ago that will never fit you again. I'm pretty sure that if I stand for an extra moment in front of every item I order or buy and ask myself "Is this worth it?", the result will be improved health and a clear conscience. Sounds worth it to me!
A word in defence of the Luddites
Monday, 31 December 2007
Ben and I returned from our Christmas Tour of England yesterday, having spent time with my family first in Liverpool and then his family in Derby. It was a gorgeously restful time and wonderful to catch up with a few friends who we hadn't seen for months. We arrived home in a mood of harmony and relaxation, only to find that some tiresome vandal had seen fit to yank our external phone line out of the wall, rendering us phoneless and broadbandless until after the New Year. Thank goodness for mobiles, that's all I can say, or we'd be practically cut off from the outside world for the next three days.
Ben initially ranted and paced up and down irately after this irksome discovery, since he'd hoped to devote some of his remaining holiday to researching C# (I always thought that anything connected with the concept of C# was my sole domain, and indicative of pieces of music that were in D major or similar, but it seems not. Evidently we have more in common than we realised), but has now calmed down and is perfectly happy to lie on the sofa with the cat on top of him watching Christmas TV and constructing a fantastic model of a mammoth which he received from his parents. And I have made myself a cup of herbal tea, in preparation for the New Year detox to which I shall shortly be subjecting myself (nothing extreme;I merely plan to cut out alcohol, caffeine and white sugar, which I read today is the “cocaine of the food world”. How very alarming!) and sat down at the laptop (offline for the first time in quite a while) to consider how the Merricks are destined to fare without the Internet until the nice gentleman from BT comes and reconnects us. For although the quip on the subject of mobiles and our reliance upon them was meant in jest, it's almost unthinkable these days that anyone living in the Western world might have to function for any length of time without Internet access. Having recently read a piece by Rory Cellan-Jones on the BBC website (!) which he wrote after conducting a self-enforced Webless experiment over the course of a weekend, I am interested to see how our lives are affected, for better or worse, without this facility which is, after all, only fairly recently available.
When I was at school and university in the Nineties, the Internet and email barely existed as it does today. Having read The Cuckoo's Egg in an attempt to understand my husband and his profession better, I know it was actually around in its infant form quite a long time before that, but suffice it to say that communicating by email was then not the universal norm as it is today, and furthermore Wikipedia did not make any contribution whatsoever towards the essays I wrote for my degree. I did not own a mobile phone until I was 22 and in my first year of teaching, and even then it was the size of a small brick and certainly had no photographic or MP3 facilities to speak of. I spent my university years writing to and telephoning friends and family, and although email became progressively more useful and convenient the longer I was there my habit of writing to people never ceased completely. I became accustomed to sharing 10 communal computers in the college Computer Suite or Music Library, and didn't have the pleasure of Internet access at home until I got married in 2003 and Ben insisted upon it. It's safe to say, therefore, that the Web didn't play a large part in my life until fairly recently. But now, having been seduced by technology and its sheer convenience, I email friends far more often than I write to them, I consult news websites to keep myself up-to-date with current affairs and read a newspaper only on Sundays, and (bizarrely, for someone who loves books as much as I do) instinctively go online to search for a muffin recipe or the definition of a word or directions to a new place or a postcode or information, rather than reaching for a cookery book or a road map or a history book. We don't possess a dictionary, but I suppose we don't actually need one, since the Internet is at our immediate fingertips, day or night. And why phone the Postcode Hotline when you can glean your information from www.royalmail.com in the time it would take for an employee to answer the phone? And of course, there's always Facebook if you want to look at a friend's festive photos, write a quick note to a pal or 'poke' someone. All of this can helpfully be achieved at any time of day, in the privacy of your own home and without ever having to interact with another human being. Splendid!
So, as all these conveniences have been temporarily wrested from my grasp, and as Ben has hogged the TV (thus also preventing me from spending the evening playing the piano, which occupation would drown out The Shadow In the North), I thought I'd reflect upon the day's progress, since it hasn't exactly been an entirely normal, technology-reliant 12 hours in the Merrick household. Has Ben's irritation been justified? Should I go and make him a calming herbal tea as well, or should I be crosser than I am at the loss of my link with the outside world? Will the Facebook withdrawal symptoms be too great to bear as I simultaneously contemplate giving up caffeine for New Year?
Apart from checking my email and Facebook wall briefly whilst at my parents' house between 23rd December and Boxing Day, I haven't made use of the Internet for the best part of a week anyway before returning home and discovering we had been summarily disconnected, and I can't say I missed it particularly. At both family homes there was an abundance of TV, food, reading material and interaction with relatives and friends on offer, which seemed to replace the instinct to check for new email or breaking news every half hour. It was blissful to sit and read the whole of Noel Streatfeild's Dancing Shoes during the course of a day whilst my brother played his new xylophone, or lie next to my little sister on the sofa and receive a luscious head massage from her whilst watching The Holiday (Jude Law...yum), or spend an afternoon with my lovely friend Danielle catching up on her recent news, sharing a fudge brownie and shopping together for shoes. Most of the time my mobile was left upstairs in our room, and although I seized my mother's newspaper every day with great enthusiasm and devoured its contents, this was not because I was longing for news of the outside world; it stemmed more from a simple desire to read anything just because I have the time to do so at the moment. And once I had ascertained the names of the songs we were to sing at church this morning for which I would be playing the keyboard, there was precious little else of immediate urgency that made email indispensable, and since all incoming calls have been redirected to Ben's mobile, neither of us will be missing out on any important phone calls regarding the sale of our flat. Ben can't play Xbox Live for the moment, but surely there are plenty of other things to do. Aren't there?
Well, last night, we both cleared away the bulk of the holiday carnage (which took quite a lot longer than you might expect) and, having successfully served up some delicious home-made pasta, Ben then settled down to watch movies (inexplicably until 5am) whilst Mandu the cat and I snuggled down into bed with a good book. Church took up the whole of this morning, after which we enjoyed a nice lunch and the Sunday papers. Normally, there would have been a fair amount of varied Internet activity during the remainder of the afternoon, so alternative forms of entertainment had to be devised in order to fill the forthcoming Webless hours. I had earlier bought India Knight and Neris Thomas's 'Idiot-Proof Diet' and reading it immediately seemed like an excellent way to spend a morsel or two of my spare time. It is a predictably fabulous book; hilarious, yet packed with insights into the problems of overeating and indulging in unhealthy foods, the psychology of being overweight, and tips for good and controlled eating. I read it cover to cover in more or less one sitting, and have made a couple of white-bread-related resolutions along the way. Next, unable to log on to Facebook and wish friends an early Happy New Year, I instead sat down at the dining-room table armed with a Bic, some stamps and my new notecards (courtesy of the delightful Fiona Smail – thankyou!) and wrote several letters to friends, some of whom aren't Facebookers and who I very probably would have otherwise neglected in my correspondence for a bit longer. After dinner I pottered around and reorganised the seagrass chests in the bathroom which are full of miscellaneous toiletries, rearranged a few shelves to make room for the new books we both acquired over Christmas, framed some photos (the sheer joy of digital photography!) then finally settled down with Ben to play Scene It?, which is a movie-themed board game given to us by my brother, who has a talent for choosing appropriate and well-thought-out gifts. After an hour or so of pitting our respective film knowledge against each other (Ben won, unsurprisingly) it was definitely time for bed. Tomorrow, which will very likely involve a bit of baking, may see me consulting the muffin book I received in my Christmas stocking instead of going straight to www.muffinrecipes.co.uk (which I do recommend if you are in the habit of baking muffins and haven't had your phone line severed). There are more people I could write to and a lot of books I could, and want to, read. I found Wuthering Heights in the bargain bin of the annoyingly apostropheless Morrisons whilst staying in Derby, and that sounds like the perfect movie to watch in bed on the laptop tomorrow morning whilst I drink Earl Grey and languish under my lovely feather duvet. The Idiot-Proof Diet has reminded me that going for regular walks is a really good idea, so perhaps we could drive to Northumberland and make the most of our last days of holiday. And maybe the piano will finally get the attention it deserves in the evening, before we celebrate New Year's Eve.
I didn't just describe the events of the last couple of days so I could congratulate myself upon my ability to disengage myself from the trappings of modern life. But it's interesting to consider how habit-forming the use of the Internet has become, for me and for so many other people. Had it been available, I would have spent at least some of this and yesterday evenings contacting friends on Facebook, reading the BBC news and Times Online websites and generally surfing the web, which I love to do when I unearth a curiosity for any subject and want to know more. Instead, I'm unexpectedly happy to have had the opportunity to write to a few friends and family members, to have played a game with Ben and read a good book all the way through; the flat has benefited no end, too, as I've had time to give it a good clean and tidy before the dawn of 2008. Without the distraction of the Internet, I've been 'forced' into doing things I really love doing (things I would have been doing anyway if I'd been born fifty years earlier than I was, given the lack of information technology available in the middle of the twentieth century). So, is the development of technology a good thing or not, given that is has seemingly been luring me away from other, more beloved, activities for the past few years? Ought I to turn off the wireless router every night and give myself and Ben a regular spell of Internet-free time during which we can indulge in other merry and worthwhile pursuits, or is this unnecessary and ridiculous self-deprivation given the modern times in which we live?
I recently read a thought-provoking column in the Sunday Times on a closely related subject: that of the demise of writing things by hand and its associated drawbacks, such as the fact that a lot of teenagers can apparently barely wield a pen or spell correctly nowadays, thanks to Microsoft Word and the increasing popularity of text messaging. In some cases, this is undoubtedly true, and is one of the disadvantages of everyone owning and using a computer for almost every possible purpose. You could also argue that the time and effort it takes to contact a friend using email, text or Facebook is far less than than if you had written a proper pen-and-paper letter, and since it's the thought that counts, it must follow that you are demonstrating greater affection for the friend by getting out the writing paper instead of the laptop. Although I can understand this way of thinking, and would personally rather receive a letter than an email, I realise that it's the latter or nothing with some of my more techologically-savvy (not to mention busy) friends, some of whom probably haven't handwritten anything in years apart from a shopping list. And clearly we'd all prefer an email over nothing at all. But equally I can hardly expect my 92-year-old grandfather or Ben's relations who belong to the same generation to keep in touch with us using the Internet. Mother Muir is just getting into Facebook, but I expect she will always write to or phone me given the choice, and I much prefer it that way. But, having said all that, I want to be able to shop and pay bills online most of the time because it saves time and makes my life easier. Ben and I had a rather heated 'discussion' about the relative merits of technology at the dinner table recently, and although we were debating on opposite teams we finally reached a compromise: that the romance and beauty of 'old fashioned' ways were worth keeping because of the pleasure they bring, even at the expense of convenience. A cutthroat razor doesn't do the job as well or as quickly as an up-to-the-minute Gillette, but there's something wonderful about using one every so often. A real birthday card may be less environmentally friendly than an e-card, but it's still lovely to receive and display in your home as a reminder of the friend who sent it. It's good to take the time every so often to go and feel the fabric of and try on a new poloneck jumper, holding it up against yourself to check the colour genuinely suits you, rather than ordering online every time just because you can always send it back if it's not right. Surely it's possible (and desirable) to maintain both a blog and a diary, handwritten in a gorgeous notebook. And wouldn't it be brilliant if you could phone up to pay your council tax or inform the TV licensing people of your change of address and be miraculously connected to a human being, instead of an automated response that can't cope with regional accents or the concept of houses that have been divided into flats, leaving you incandescent with rage at the lack of convenience this 'service' is supposed to be providing?
As far as I'm concerned, technology's good in its place, but it's essential to retain the human aspect of everyday interaction. For one thing, if you do everything online, you'll end up never talking to anyone. No wonder communities and neighbourhoods aren't what they once were. So I for one am going to keep recycling like mad, so no one can accuse me of contributing towards the planet's slow death with my romantic, paper-mad ways, but I won't be parted from my books and newspapers. And, although email and Facebook are fabulous inventions, they can't replace the joy of meeting up with, hugging and talking to a family member or old friend. Although I will need to consult Wikipedia if I want to learn a bit more about the Luddites...
Keeping in touch is for life, not just for Christmas
Monday, 17 December 2007
This morning I received a Round Robin letter. As I tore open the mail I was fooled briefly into thinking that I had in fact received two, but the second one had a picture of a crossed-out robin at the top; this gesture, I have just discovered, is supported by Wikipedia, who prefers the word 'circular' when describing letters sent to multiple recipients. So we'll leave the total number of RRs received at one for the time being. Anyway, I read it with pleasure, since it was good to hear news from a friend I have not seen for a while. Ben was languishing on the sofa at the time (we both began our Christmas holidays today) so I enquired of him, 'How do you feel about round robin letters, and why?' Averting his eyes momentarily from 'Whose Line Is It Anyway?', he immediately replied 'Hate them. They're completely impersonal, and they just say "I haven't got enough time to write to you individually, but here's a year's worth of my news anyway!" - I'd rather get a three-line letter addressed just to me than two sides of A4 which has been sent to the whole world as well.' My interest piqued by our differing opinions (not the first time this has happened in the Merrick household!), I eased 'The Cat That Could Open The Fridge' by Simon Hoggart (I've just realised that a sequel exists: 'The Hamster That Loved Puccini'. How glorious - I shall definitely be buying that as soon as possible!) off the bookshelf and sifted through it for more thoughts on the subject. There I was reminded that most people are divided into two opposing camps regarding RRs - those who love them and enjoy both writing and reading them, and those who detest them so much they feel the need to write to Simon Hoggart saying 'My wastepaper basket is too good for this!' (although I sense a third group creeping in and positioning themselves between the other two parties, consisting of those who send out circulars!!) So, now I'm on holiday and have time on my hands, I thought I'd devote some of it to thinking about why people send these things out in the first place, and why they go unappreciated - indeed, loathed in some cases - by so many of their recipients.
You may consider this a waste of a long-awaited break from school, but for a few years now I have been walking an uneasy tightrope between two people dear to me who belong firmly to the aforementioned opposing camps, and it's about time I made up my own mind on the subject. My problem is that while my husband hates them, my mother sends them out every year to many people of her acquaintance, complete with photos of our family and nuggets of news from the past year. Indeed, I provided Mother Muir with the required photos this year under cover of darkness, lest Ben found out and chastised me for frivolous usage of our shared technology and for contributing towards the furtherance of his pet hate (of course, he'll find out when our copy arrives in the mail, but it'll be too late by then). So the question is, should I be facilitating something which so many hate, or are the anti-RR brigade being both unreasonable and unseasonal?
Simon 'The Curmudgeon' Hoggart has a long list of gripes against RRs; he believes they allow the senders to boast about their children's brilliance and achievements ('Jemima got a distinction - of course! - for her Grade 8 Clarinet exam last term and will be taking her Grade 8 Piano next month - she has also somehow found time for her GCSEs, in which she achieved 10 A*s, and is playing hockey for the county squad too. Despite all this, she has managed to fit in a part-time job at Oxfam and runs the charities committee at school - we don't know how she does it!'); they can contain far too much information about the senders and their relatives / friends who are often not known to the reader ('We spent a fabulous week in Devon with Sue and Mike this summer - both have been plagued with health problems this year so it was important for them to have a break and a rest. Sue's sister and her husband were also able to join us for a weekend which was lovely.'); they are packed with holiday photos and anecdotes which show the authors up to be either crashingly dull or boastfully well-travelled ('Phoebe is currently halfway through her gap year in South America - she is backpacking with three of her friends from Sixth Form before she starts at Cambridge next September. Rupert has just got back from a month in New York; he was sent there to manage the Head Office for a short while, and is planning to spend the coming New Year in Australia with his girlfriend Lucy. We've loved receiving their news from various places around the world and have been sent hundreds of photos from them both - if you're interested we'll email you some of the highlights!'); they ramble on for far too long (sometimes for thousands of words and several pages); and, in general, Hoggart insists, they demonstrate smug self-congratulation with no consideration for the feelings of the reader, who may have had a comparatively difficult year and be in no mood to hear about someone else's kids' success, promotions and home improvements. Well, in fairness, I suppose you wouldn't be, if your eldest child had failed his A-Levels, your middle child had been arrested for shoplifting, your home had been flooded during the rainiest summer in living memory and your husband had been made redundant all in the space of twelve months, would you? Hoggart's book is hysterically funny, a characteristic which always encourages readers to see things from the author's point of view, and richly littered with a collection of extreme examples from the RR genre (sent in by RR-haters, and sometimes annotated or corrected in red pen where poor spelling or punctuation becomes the last straw for the unwilling recipient), many of which I do concede would be tiresome communications for anyone to receive during the festive period, for all the reasons listed above. But, at the same time, I really do enjoy getting them myself from my own friends, and I like reading the ones my parents receive when I go home for Christmas. So when does the sharing of news tip over into information overload, and why is a few personal lines in a Christmas card considered to be so very preferable to a typed A4 sheet that you know has also been printed out for the benefit of a couple of hundred other people? And is it simply the case that women love lots of news but men prefer the essential facts of a situation, which means 'Happy Christmas, with love from Fiona and Ben' is more than sufficient for them whilst their wives long for more?
I suppose one reason why I don't automatically hate RRs is because I've been raised by a mother who has sent them out for as long as I can remember; one possible consequence of this is, as with so much else in life, that I consider the sending of RRs to be normal and acceptable when others wouldn't because it's been modelled to me at home. But then again, casting my mind back over the past few annual RRs that Mother Muir has sent out as accompaniments to Christmas cards, I have to say she has never bragged about the 'achievements' of any of her three children (the most she would ever concede to my teachers at Parents' Evening about my involvement in extra-curricular music was that it 'kept me off the streets'), doesn't insert copious holiday snaps in between paragraphs (one of each family member is more than enough), keeps it brief (one side of A5, with generous margins and plenty of room for a personal PS at the bottom), refrains from littering her RRs with randomness or unnecessary references, and always scrupulously proof-reads. And here's the thing, as Rev Hugo Charteris is fond of saying: she is a good correspondent all year round, and doesn't simply save up loads of news between January and December and then unleash it on her unsuspecting circle of family and friends. The vast majority of people who receive Mother Muir's yearly offering are also phoned and written to on a fairly regular basis. However, she's acquired quite a few friends over the years, and it would be impossible for her to write personally and in any detail to all of them during the festive season, given the many other pressures on her time. And this, thinking back to Ben's comment earlier, seems to be at the very root of the problem that a lot of Simon Hoggart's contributors have with RRs - they rant about the fact that the senders have not made the effort to see or contact them personally at any point over the last two decades, yet still consider it acceptable to force a detailed description of their comings and goings on all and sundry every December. And I think this is the only valid reason for objecting to RRs as a method of communication, but a good one nonetheless.
Yes, it can be quite annoying to receive a printed sheet of news from someone you barely know and which refers in detail to people you have never met. It's a bit like logging on to Facebook and scanning down your homepage to find little else but videos and photos posted by distant acquaintances (who added you as a friend but who never actually contact you), when what you really want is a lovely long message or wall post from a friend with whom you are in regular touch. After all, contact with people should partly be about sharing your own news with others, but if the recipient doesn't feel at least a small glow of warmth upon reading a piece of mail because he or she has been personally remembered by the sender, it's a bit of a waste of the printer cartridge, is it not?
Christmas, irrespective of your religious beliefs or lack thereof, is a really good time to remind family and friends that you are thinking of them, hence the popularity of the Round Robin at this point in the year. But it shouldn't be the only time. I think those who keep in touch with their loved ones consistently and personally the rest of the time should be forgiven the yearly 'Christmas Letter' - if they're making the effort to maintain a relationship with you between January and November, let them send their communal greetings as the year draws to a close and don't complain about it. This is, after all, a frantically busy time of year for most people and trying to write the same length of letter individually to everyone on your Christmas card list would pose a challenge to the most faithful of correspondents. Having said that, there's always time to keep in some sort of proper personal contact with one's nearest and dearest, whether that's by email, phone, card, Facebook, text or - deepest bliss - a proper letter. It would be easy to proclaim that those who can't be bothered with that but can somehow find the time to put together a detailed summary of the year's successes to be sent impersonally to three hundred of their 'friends' should expect their Round Robin to be folded into a paper aeroplane and sent sailing into the recycling bin, but on the other hand the people who send them must surely be delighted to receive them from others. So I suppose the best conclusion to draw is this: a RR once a year is much better than no communication at all, and it shows you haven't been forgotten by the person who sent it. But if receiving them irritates you, either say so and save a tree in the process, or try to build up what you consider to be the right sort of contact with the RR senders - make it a New Year's Resolution to be a better correspondent yourself, and maybe the idea will catch on. If all else fails, Simon Hoggart would probably be pleased to hear from you as he prepares for Volume 3!
Can't we be a bit nicer to each other?
Sunday, 2 December 2007
One of the great pleasures of the weekend is having the time to sit down and read the Sunday papers from cover to cover, or linger at length over the latest edition of 'Good Housekeeping' (which I love, and I don't care if it's a magazine for 50-year-olds. Thank you for my subscription, Mummy!). Sunday just isn't Sunday without The Times, and in particular the News Review and Style Magazine. But although I turn eagerly every week to read columns and articles penned by intelligent, free-thinking and articulate female journalists, and often agree with much of what they say, there seems to be a rather unfortunate trend emerging: that of putting down other women for, well, absolutely everything from their weight to their decisions regarding procreation.
I'm not talking about those nasty, intrusive photos you see on the front page of 'Heat' and its ilk, the ones where large arrows helpfully alert you to the fact that some celebrity or other has sweat patches under her arms, a moustache that needs waxing off or an outbreak of pimples. These pictures are hardly kind or edifying, but at least the shamed young ladies can pop into Boots and invest in some Soft & Gentle or a tub of Jolen Creme Bleach in order to rectify the problem. And there's always the option of a nice layer of foundation if you're predisposed to bad skin. I'm referring more to the journalists who are making it increasingly impossible for women - ordinary and famous alike - to retain a decent amount of confidence about themselves because they are either getting slated in the media for being a) too fat b) too thin c) less good at dancing than someone else d) too posh e) too common etc. or because because they see or read about someone else who is being picked on for having some characteristic that they also have, ie being a) too fat b) too thin c) and so on and so on. And the crucial difference is that most of the time they can't do anything about whatever it is for which they are being criticised.
Nigella Lawson, of whom I happen to be a fan, has recently received rather a lot of adverse publicity. This is not so much because of the comedic value of her TV programme Nigella Express, where she waxes empathetic about the challenges and pressures of being a working mother and then spoils it all slightly by proceeding to serve up a lamb, olive and caramelised onion tagine (what is a tagine, I wonder? Must look it up on Wikipedia...) in her fabulous designer kitchen to her children Cosima, Bruno and Phoebe and multimillionaire husband, but because of her suddenly expanding girth. Suddenly, having enjoyed a lengthy spell as the third most beautiful woman in the world and as someone who men want and women want to be because of her gorgeous curves and lack of preoccupation with her size, she's been turned on. Too much cream for you, my girl! people are shouting at her. She's joined the ranks of the 'Fat Cows' which, according to Style Magazine, also includes Bootylicious Beyonce and JK Rowling. The likes of Keira Knightley (who is apparently a bad role model for those considering anorexia) and Nicole Richie (who has managed to save herself from further barbed comments by becoming pregnant, and for the first time in years has earned an approving compliment or two) are similarly hounded - but for being too thin.
The point isn't really whether Nigella is on the point of becoming obese, or whether Keira will fall down the next cattle grid she tries to cross, but instead whether or not any of the rest of us can have confidence in our own bodies if we constantly see famous women who are supposed to be beautiful being pulled to pieces in front of us. I recently saw a photo of a pregnant model in a newspaper, next to an article which gleefully emphasised how fat she was looking and how unflattering her outfit was. Well, she's hardly going to be looking skinny and sylphlike, is she? She's pregnant! And then the next week I read on the BBC website about how many women worry about the amount of weight they gain during pregnancy and how much pressure they feel under to regain their pre-baby weight and fit back into their old jeans within five minutes of giving birth. Only a fool would fail to notice this obvious link. And one of the many reasons why I prefer 'Good Housekeeping' to 'Closer' is that the former never seems to feel the need to publish exclusive interviews with the latest celeb mummy in which she smugly shares with the world her 'tips' for instantly losing three stone following the birth of her latest child. How can this achieve anything other than making the rest of us feel inadequate and encouraging us to panic?
And it's not just weight, either. Much as I think Trinny and Susannah have a point about differing body shapes and dressing appropriately, they are also insidiously training us to size up other women and find them wanting from a style point of view. I occasionally find myself mentally redressing people, treating them to a more flattering haircut and plucking their eyebrows, before remembering that I'm effectively judging them on appearance when actually they might have a perfectly good and time-consuming reason for not caring about the way they look, like having to care for an elderly parent. And although I think India Knight in The Times talks a huge amount of sense ninety-nine times out of a hundred, her column today on Pregnancy When You're Past It (ie over about 35) seemed a bit narrow-minded to me. Yes, there are hundreds of career women who deliberately postpone having children until their late thirties or early forties in order to climb the career ladder and buy a spectacular house, but there are plenty of other potentially wonderful mothers who have no choice but to leave it until then, because they haven't met the right man, can't afford it or are just struggling to conceive. Labelling such women as selfish will do nothing for their already fragile self-esteem. And, as I've said before, some of the things written about Kate McCann since the summer simply beggar belief.
Heather Mills famously ranted on GMTV last month that 4,400 abusive articles have been written about her. I'm not entirely keen on the woman, but even so that seems like enough to drive anyone to hit back at the world in general; I don't imagine an equivalent number of encouraging and supportive columns have appeared in the British media since she married Paul McCartney. And I haven't been watching the latest series of Strictly Come Dancing but it was impossible not to be aware of the vitrolic tirades that were launched at Kate Garraway in the media until she was voted off last week. She may not be Darcey Bussell, but at least she had a go, and it's hardly her fault that the public voted to keep her in week after week. So why all the criticism? Are we jealous, perchance?
Teachers are encouraged to say five positive things for every one negative to children in the classroom, and although this may seem to be rather a Pollyanna approach to education, wouldn't it be nice if the same applied in the adult world? I reckon if we all tried make a point of telling friends and colleagues if they're wearing a colour that really suits them, or if we notice something good that they've done or something nice about them, instead of doing as the Daily Mail does and pointing out the gorgeous mature model Twiggy's unairbrushed crow's feet and comparing pictures of her 'au naturel' with touched-up M&S advertisements and bemoaning how the mighty have fallen, we might - gasp! - end up with a nation of women in possession of a healthy level of self-regard. And wouldn't that be something?
Education, Education, Education
Wednesday, 14 November 2007
I spent today at a Coursework Standardising Meeting, which sounds very important and serious and intellectual, but is actually something you are forced to attend if the coursework marks you awarded last summer to your GCSE pupils are considered by some random external exam moderator to be a bit higher or lower than they should have been, in line with the frankly airy-fairy criteria set by the exam board. Having been sent there in the first place because a few of my marks were judged to have been too high, I have just spent a day practising my assessing skills on a sample of anonymous GCSE Music candidates and have somehow ended up marking them all more harshly than the aforementioned random moderator did, so I'm now far more confused than I was in the first place. But never mind. These meetings are a brilliant opportunity to meet other teachers of your subject who work in the same area, and you can compare notes, have a bit of a moan and share ideas with each other, so I had a really good day. The one problem I have with these jolly communal gatherings is that when you start talking to other teachers whom you haven't encountered before, one of the first questions you are inevitably asked is 'Where do you teach?'.
Now, despite having taught in an independent girls' school for three years, and having spent four years in the state sector before that, I still feel a twinge of shame and guilt when I admit to fellow teachers that I work on 'the dark side', and I'm having a bit of a hard time working out why this should be the case. When I made the decision to leave a very challenging state school in Gateshead to go and work in a girls' independent school, you'd have thought I'd announced my intention to become a member of Westboro Baptist Church from the reactions, veiled and otherwise, of some of my colleagues. My favourite line was 'Oh, come on, you're not in your new school yet!' when I wondered out loud at a meeting whether we might perhaps want to try and encourage a few more of our pupils to wear regulation black shoes instead of the scruffy trainers which so many of them understandably preferred and got away with wearing on a daily basis for no reason. The thinking behind my incredible suggestion was simply that the uniform rules dictated that the pupils wore black shoes and not trainers, which presumably had something to do with having pride in one's appearance and one's school. The colleague in question obviously had a huge problem with my imminent defection to the independent sector, and he wasn't the only one. An enormous number of teachers seem to be of the opinion that you are completely 'selling out' if you even entertain the thought of teaching in a private school, and despise those who do so, seeing them as traitors to the education system and perpetrators of the ever-divisive class system.
However, I also have both friends and colleagues in the teaching profession who refuse to so much as cross the threshold of a state school and intend to spend the rest of their working lives safely in the private sector. In fact, thinking about it, I can only call to mind the names of three friends at most who have spent a significant period of time in both types of school (and six months of teaching practice doesn't count, by the way), so as a result I am starting to wonder: Are private schools evil? Should I feel guilty about working in one (and even worse, enjoying it?) or can I hold my head up with pride next time I attend a Coursework Standardising Meeting and fall into conversation with someone who teaches at the roughest comp in Newcastle and gets her car tyres slashed there on a regular basis? And do state school teachers have any right to judge me for my career choices, or do we all get up in the morning to go off and do equally worthwhile jobs?
I've heard all sorts of arguments from all sorts of folk on this subject, and you can't always predict what different people's opinions will be, but they tend to be based on one's own background and experience. It seems that a lot of teachers who were themselves educated in the state sector end up working in a similar school, never countenancing any other possibility. Equally, many privately educated teachers sail straight onto the staff of their alma mater after completing their PGCEs and remain there for years, teaching Latin (which you'd be lucky to find taught in any state school nowadays) and coaching the rugby squad on which they once played as teenagers. So yes, there's something of a division there between the two sectors, perpetrated by both people. Of course this isn't a universal trend, but it's certainly discernable as a pattern in my experience. It's easy to think that the state school teachers just have more of a social conscience than their independent counterparts, but isn't it possible that some of them are just choosing to remain in their comfort zones, to which they are already used and in which they, personally, will flourish? I think it's quite likely that my own opinions about private education in general, which have ranged from total opposition (four years ago) to a feeling of uneasy misgiving (recently) are rooted in my years at a non-independent grammar school and the fact that no member of my family has ever paid to receive a secondary education. No doubt the idea of working in a private school sits more easily with those who went through the same system themselves. But that doesn't make one right and the other wrong.
A lot of people worry that the mere existence of the private sector reinforces the class-related divisions that unfortunately still exist in British society, whatever Tony Blair might have told us to the contrary whilst he was Prime Minister. Put simply, 'posh' or 'upper class' people apparently send their children to an independent school because they can afford to pay for it, whereas the rest are stuck with the free option because they can't afford it, and since you get what you pay for, the private school chaps are bound to come out the other end with a string of As and a place at Oxbridge, and at least a few of the state school lads will be kicked out aged 16 armed only with a well-established drug habit and scant possibility of a decent job. Private schools are exclusive, elitist and selective, creaming off the intelligentsia of society who will eventually become wealthy City bankers, live in fabulous houses and of course continue the cycle by sending their posh offspring to independent schools, where they will captain the First XI and learn how to be ghastly, braying, arrogant Conservative voters, just like Daddy. If only the independent sector didn't exist, we would all lead a far more equal existence, which is only fair, isn't it?
Well, I'm not sure about that. Of course, in an ideal world, we would all have the same brain capacity, number of opportunities, amount of money... except then we'd all be the same. Which we're not, are we? Let's face it. Everyone is born into a different set of circumstances, into a particular family, with a range of as yet untapped talents, personality traits and inherent difficulties. As a Christian, I believe we are all equal in the eyes of God, and should be treated and regarded as having the same level of value by others. This does not mean we are all destined to get the same GCSE results or do the same job or develop the same skills, does it? I think it's fair to say, in the light of that assumption, that one type of school is not going to suit every single person, which is why I and many others are dubious about the idea behind comprehensive education. It's a noble thought, and I've taught in two comprehensive schools myself, but it's incredibly hard to successfully draw out the potential of Gifted & Talented pupils, those with Special Educational Needs and kids of average ability when you're teaching them all at the same time and in the same way. My subject is not one that many schools (independent or state) are prepared to stream, so I end up teaching pupils who have attained Grade 6 Piano alongside others who think Music is a complete waste of time and would rather be kicking a football around outside, and so behave accordingly. Differentiation and especially tailored worksheets notwithstanding, the amount learned by everyone is reduced as a result, so I have not drawn out the full potential of anyone, so the net result for each child is less successful than it might otherwise have been. And, by the way, none of those children are fooled into thinking that because they are sitting in the same classroom that they must all be equally good at the subject, and they don't magically develop the same amount of self-esteem as a result - quite the opposite happens, in fact. I would happily volunteer to teach a class of the most disaffected, behaviourally-challenged Year 9s imaginable, if it meant I could set myself and them some achievable targets and deliver them the material in an enjoyable and accessible way, whilst the 'Music Geeks' (as such pupils are affectionately referred to by a friend of mine!) beavered away in a different classroom and learned to transpose and harmonise melodies. This doesn't mean I value the musically talented pupils more than the others, or wish to deliver them a 'better' standard of education. It just means I recognise the need to educate all pupils in an manner suitable and appropriate for them as individuals, given that they appear in front of me with an already-developed attitude towards and aptitude for my subject. I can and will do my very best to draw out the undiscovered potential of all children, but that's not an easy task when half your pupils are swinging from the ceiling and the other half are patiently waiting for you to explain the concept of key signatures to them. Since this does happen in schools all over the country, it seems to me that the only answer is to provide a full range of different schools which suit the equally diverse range of pupils which are in need of educating. One size does not, and never will, fit all, and there is no point in pretending otherwise. Class doesn't come into it, really. I don't have a clue what class I belong to, since I don't speak like the Queen, prefer to drink terracotta-coloured tea, say 'napkin' as opposed to 'serviette' and am in the habit of buying white rather than coloured toilet roll (see Kate Fox's 'Watching the English' for an apparently definitive list of guidelines, and prepare to be more confused than you were before you started!), so how can I be reinforcing the class system by dipping a toe into the independent sector?
The bottom line is, education has to be all about the needs of the children who are being served by the school they attend. I know a boy who has spent the last few years being fairly unhappy at a large comprehensive school, and has just been transferred by his parents to a comparatively small single-sex independent school. The fact that it is independent is largely irrelevant; the fact that it is small and pastorally very aware means it suits that particular child far better than did his previous school, and he is already flourishing in his new environment. Because he is happier, he is far more likely to develop a positive attitude towards the concept of school in general, which means he is more likely to fulfil his potential, which surely should be the whole point of any educational establishment. I myself teach a few girls who would probably end up becoming largely overlooked in an enormous mixed school simply because they are shy and quiet and wouldn't naturally wish to draw attention to themselves, but who can be encouraged and nurtured in an environment with smaller class sizes and given opportunities they wouldn't otherwise have the courage to take for themselves. They stand a greater chance of succeeding academically and socially because they are being educated in an appropriate environment for them. At the same time, it's important not to forget that Wayne Rooney went to a Liverpool comprehensive, and it doesn't seem to have done him any harm career-wise. His talent was obviously nurtured as he grew up, and he has succeeded without the 'advantage' of a private education. But at the same time, let's not dismiss David Cameron merely because he went to Eton, as so many seem to be doing - the thing to ask ourselves is whether or not he is potentially capable of running the country properly based upon his policy ideas; we should refrain from lingering on the notion that he can't possibly live in or understand the needs of 'the real world' just because his parents paid for him to go to school. Perhaps it was the best place for him at the time, given his own needs. Perhaps it has drawn out his potential sufficiently to create a very good Leader of the Opposition, and perhaps one day of the country. Whether or not this would have happened anyway had he attended his local comprehensive, we can never know. We have to take him as he is, with his sum total of merits, and not brand him a useless toff without listening to what he has to say for himself first.
Every school, irrespective of whether or not one has to pay to attend it, has its own individual priorities, strengths and challenges. Many state schools have behavioural issues with which to contend, but many others do not. Some private schools, it is true, produce the most appallingly arrogant young men and women, but plenty do not. Not all independent schools are academically selective, so their results are not necessarily better. Many state schools have far better facilities on offer than their private counterparts. I have seen examples of excellent and dreadful teachers in equal measure in both types of school. Generalising is not easy when it comes to highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of the two sectors, or even when discussing mixed versus single-sex education. Your daughter may learn more effectively if she's not in a class alongside a load of boys, but will she end up being unable to relate to men properly as a result? What's the 'right' solution? The simple answer is: there isn't one. You just have to trust yourself to make the best decision for your child, whatever his or her individual needs might be. And your older son may have very different needs to that of your younger daughter. Could you hold onto your left-wing principles in all conscience if your cherished child was deeply miserable in the enormous local comp and you knew she'd be far happier in a small girls' school? What are you going to do if there isn't a handy state version down the road?
It's true that a lot of parents send their children to independent schools simply because they wish them to benefit from small class sizes. Many of these parents stretch themselves financially because they believe they are investing in their child's future by paying for something that the government has so far failed to provide. I completely realise and appreciate that this is not an option to many parents who simply can't afford the thousands of pounds per year that it costs to educate even one child privately. But in the same way that the option private health care allows NHS patients to move to the front of a queue more quickly than they might otherwise have done, independent schools do at least help to keep class sizes lower than they might otherwise have been. If the government could find a way of providing many different types of school for the many different types of children that exist, instead of insisting upon throwing them all in together and hoping for the best whilst somehow failing to recognise that we're not all the same and should not be educated as such, perhaps there would be far less call for independent alternatives. And it is surely the responsibility of all teachers everywhere to try and impress upon their pupils that we all have the potential to contribute in a valuable and meaningful way to society, instilling them with the perfectly accurate notion that doctors and street-sweepers are equally important in life and should be regarded as such, rather than fostering the terrible and divisive attitudes of either self-importance or chip-on-the-shoulder defensiveness that you often perceive in undergraduates of Durham University and its ilk, where the fact that one person is state-educated and another is privately-educated can become a real social issue for the first time in their lives. Is this naivety on my part? Probably - but surely it is also possible if those responsible for educating the young people of today stand united instead of looking down their noses at those who are working in a slightly different environment with slightly different people. Every child needs educating, irrespective of whether or not their parents have chosen to pay for the privilege, so I think I can probably square it with my conscience for the time being.
The thing about Facebook
Sunday, 28 October 2007
We have had a couple of lovely friends staying with us this weekend, and as Nick and I are 'Facebook Friends', I have variously been able to send him directions to Hotel Merrick via Facebook, 'tag' him, his wife Hannah and Ben in a couple of photos I took whilst we explored the gorgeous city of Durham on Saturday, play 'Scrabulous' with him, and receive notification that they arrived home safely this evening. All of this could have been achieved without actually holding a conversation with him (although it wasn't - we spent more of this weekend talking and catching up than doing anything else), which seems to be the essence of a problem which many people of my age (and older) have with Facebook. Since the likes of Rory Cellan-Jones signed up to it and began writing and broadcasting about the concept of online social networking, with reference to Facebook in particular because it has become the place to be for people aged anywhere between 18 and 60 (younger people tend to stick with MySpace and Bebo), a long line of journalists have been scornfully dismissing this trend as the technological equivalent of mutton dressing as lamb. Stop using it as an excuse to check up on your teenagers! Leave it to the kids! they cry, listing several reasons why it is ridiculous and pathetic for any self-respecting adult to be going around collecting 'friends' (don't you have enough real friends already?), writing on 'walls' (wasn't that once known as graffiti?), joining 'groups' (why not join one for real, containing three-dimensional people - a choir, perhaps?) and taking part in movie quizzes (wouldn't going to the cinema or theatre be a better use of your time?). It's nothing more than self-indulgent ego-boosting and a waste of precious time, apparently.
Well, yes and no. It's true that 'Competitive Facebooking' does exist; it's quite clear to me that a fair few people who I know slightly only sent 'friend requests' in my direction with the intention of boosting their own number of 'friends', as these characters have never actually taken the time to write on my wall since I accepted their offer of 'friendship' or used Facebook to gain any sort of meaningful insight into my life - 'poking' doesn't count as profound social interaction, and nor does a quick browse through the endless photos that everyone displays in albums labelled 'Uni shizzle' or 'My Friends' (I'm a bit old for the former, but admit to having an album containing photos of the latter, including a mildly amusing one of a cartoon bat which I tagged using Nick's name, which I do realise is neither mature nor particularly funny to anyone except us, but given that my privacy settings are so high I don't show up on Facebook searches and therefore can't be located and 'poked' by any of my pupils at school, no one else needs to either see my photos or find them funny - I don't feel the need to share the details of my life with all and sundry, in common with plenty of other 'older' Facebookers). On this basis, I regularly carry out 'Facebook Friend Audits' during which I remove people from my list who don't actually use Facebook to contact me despite their initial tantalising offer of 'friendship'; this probably sounds rather unkind but is actually no worse than buying a new address book and failing to transfer the details of someone with whom you've mutually fallen out of contact, and should be seen as such by anyone whose 'friendship' I've 'removed' (assuming they've noticed, which I doubt!). What is the point of having 100 'friends' (or, more importantly, being one of someone's 386 'friends') if you only maintain any sort of meaningful contact with 10 of them? Presumably the idea is that people can look at your list and be impressed by your overwhelming popularity. Well, I'm not going to act as a boost to someone's ego by doing nothing more than sitting mutely on a list! And in the same way that I am incredibly tired of seeing Amy Winehouse stumbling, stoned, out of some hotel room, beehived and kohled to the max, on the front page of at least one newspaper per week, or Kerry Katona or the front page of every single magazine every single week, I am not riveted by the exclusive news that someone I hardly know and never speak to has posted a new video or updated their 'status'.
Having said that, the majority of the people on my 'friends' list are actually my friends - people I care about and who (I believe) genuinely want to hear my news and see my photos. So I keep them on my list and keep Facebooking, because I like the way Facebook allows me to say hello to them when they live hundreds of miles away, write them a long letter which they can read quickly even when there's a postal strike on (although I will always prefer the experiences of writing and receiving a proper, ink-on-paper letter), play Scrabble with them (I love it, but my husband doesn't, so it's great to have the opportunity to play 8 simultaneous games with other word enthusiasts, rather than unfairly prising him away from the Nintendo DS to play with me), show them photos of things I've been doing and of people they know in an environmentally-friendly manner, and hear their own news in a variety of different ways with a greater degree of ease than is naturally possible nowadays. For example, I have an old friend from my schooldays who is now a tremendously busy musician in London. He is important to me, and I very much want to remain in proper contact with him, but if it wasn't for Facebook (or, at the least, email) the only time I would stand a chance of laying eyes on him or hearing him speak would be when he appears on Songs of Praise or finds time to meet up with me for coffee when we're both home at Christmastime; neither of these options are entirely satisfactory when you're trying to maintain a friendship, and I don't exactly have hours of spare time hanging heavily on my own hands. Now I'm certainly not using Facebook as a way to say 'Look at me! I'm so busy and spend so much time doing other things, it's a miracle I can squeeze in something so time-consuming as having a friendship with you! Be grateful!' but surely it's not much different from using a washing machine instead of a mangle to launder your clothes when you have a full-time job and a house to run and any sort of involvement in, for example, a church or a football team. At university, being a music student with a sparse working week, I had loads of time during which I could (and did) write to friends at great length and spend whole evenings on the phone to them. Now, in my thirties, I have many other ways I need to spend my time but my desire to keep my friends remains undiluted. Facebook means I can not only hear all about my friend's recent visit to the States, but can play Scrabble with him (which may be bizarre, given that neither the board nor the tiles actually exist and we are not sitting opposite each other as we play, but it's still fun) and see photos of the choir he conducts, which genuinely interests me since it is something to which he chooses to devote his time.
Facebook is also useful, in all sorts of ways. Another musician friend of mine recently organised a concert in Durham, and realised to his consternation that his orchestra was several instrumentalists short with only a week to go before the performance. A group called 'Help Needed!' was promptly set up, those of us who played the required instruments were invited to join and to commit to playing in his concert, and before he knew it my friend was inundated with offers not only from his own friends, but friends of theirs who had been contacted by those in the group and who also met the criteria he had specified. The concert was a success, and Nik was spared the tiresome nuisance of having to 'phone round every musician he knew in the area and implore them to pass on a message to every violinist they knew within a twenty-mile radius who might be free that evening and prepared to attend an afternoon rehearsal beforehand, and then phone him back to pledge their support. Another friend of mine has been able to get in touch with other Christians who suffer from bipolar disorder; on a far more frivolous note, my brother has set up a group dedicated to the fantastic Brian Thompson, former deputy head of Wirral Grammar School for Boys; it has almost 200 members who have all shared hilarious anecdotes from their schooldays and made me, for one, laugh an enormous number of times in the same way I used to laugh fifteen years ago when my brother would impersonate Thommo at the dinner table.
One of the many criticisms levelled at social networking is that it is all so public, reducing friendship to a spectator sport and therefore diminishing its significance. On the contrary, Facebook has a 'messaging' option which is a way of communicating privately, and I use that when I'm sharing personal or sensitive information or asking my friends about something important or difficult that they may be experiencing. Equally, the 'writing on wall' option means I can say a quick hello or join in a communal 'conversation' with other people or other friends - the equivalent of a gathering of friends. Given that the vast majority of my friends, and all of my family, live miles away, Facebook means I can keep in touch as closely as we would all like and, in some cases, maintain a community that may, for reasons of distance and lack of time, have lapsed.
I completely agree that Facebook and its ilk should not be used as a way of communicating without actually talking to each other, or as a way of showing off one's vast and artificially increasing social circle, and can become a colossal waste of time if you end up sitting next to the laptop all night, constantly checking for new messages and Scrabulous moves and not doing much else. For a while I fell into that trap myself, but have now wised up and realised that I could be, for example, a much better pianist if I devoted more time to practising and less to Facebooking. It shall henceforth be thus, since I do want to be a better pianist. But if you see Facebook not as a fishing net or a screen on which to project your life to everyone with whom you've ever come into contact, but as a quick and convenient way to reach out to people you love but who you can't always manage to get on the phone in these times of 10-hour working days and extra-curricular activities, it could be the saviour, or at least improver, of a friendship or two. In my humble opinion, it's worth it just for that. So before I make dinner, I'm just going to go and log on so I can wish one or two of my friends a happy week, but I won't be frittering away the last four hours of my half-term holiday wading through endless drunken photos of near-strangers or seeing which of my friends have written on who else's wall and getting insecure about why they haven't written on mine. That really is a waste of time!
Autumn Soup
Monday, 1 October 2007
I have always been an admirer of Nigella's, both because she has a luscious attitude to the current and tiresome size-zero trend and because we share a love of preparing and eating food. I am particularly impressed by her fearless disregard for measuring, weighing or indeed using any specific ingredients when cooking. Her attitude seems to be 'throw in anything you like, use any amount of this you fancy, and don't worry if you don't have any of that'. This seems a very sensible and liberating approach, for who wishes to spend their time completing an online grocery order whilst cross-referencing every single item with 'Feast' or 'How to be a Domestic Goddess'? Whilst I concede that my cake may not be a complete success if I omit the self-raising flour, I think a bit of relaxed making-it-up-as-you-go-along can have delightful results. So, in the spirit of sharing, here's my new recipe for carrot and apple soup. Ben was initially dubious, but practically licked his bowl clean once he'd sampled the first attempt.
Some carrots
Some apples
A panful of water
A bit of salt
Throw it all in a pan, boil until the carrots and fruit go softish, add more water if necessary and blend until smooth. Serve hot with bread and a glass of red wine. Yum!
