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?
