I am a feminist, OK?

Last night, I unfollowed someone on Twitter. She's pretty dull and self-obsessed, but the main reason is because she used the phrase 'I think it's safe to say I'm no feminist'. This royally pissed me off and ruined my Saturday evening (even more so than watching X-Factor had already done)

Why? I'll tell you why. This woman used to be a barrister, and now runs her own tech company (doing what I'm not sure) and has succeeded in two very male dominated areas.Without feminism, those opportunities just would not have been afforded to her. Feminism is, quite simply, the belief that women have the right to equality of opportunity, and not to be held back or looked over simply beause of their gender. Nothing more, nothing less. Any woman who declares themselves not to be a feminist is missing the point entirely. You might as well say, "actually I have no problem with earning less than my male colleagues for doing the same job, because, well, I'm only a girl!"

Feminism isn't about saying 'women can do any given thing as well as a man' as this simply isn't true. Pissing standing up is really messy if you're a girl, for one, and it's an undeniable fact of nature that men, in general terms, are physically stronger than women, so therefore better suited to certain tasks and occupations. The idea that feminism means wanting to work on a building, or getting offended at having the door held open for you is just total arsewipe, yet this is the opinion that a lot of women seem to have. You can be a stay at home mum and a feminist! You can enjoy being bought flowers and be a feminist! You can even wear dresses and look purdy and be a feminist! Hearing women slag off feminism just makes me sad, and far too many people take for granted what feminism has done for every woman and girl in the western world.

End of rant.

Who Am I?

Sounds like a daft question, but it's one I've been asking myself a lot lately.

I think it's something that the majority of mothers go through within the first few months and years of parenthood. All of a sudden, the entire focus of your life changes. You find yourself in a world where you'll leave the house with no make-up on, dried weetabix in your hair, and stained clothing. And that's to go to work. In truth, I'm finding it hard to have an identity other than that of 'Mummy'.'

There's a number of reasons for this, other than the appearance in the world of someone who takes precedence over all else in my life. The first few months of Flo's life were stressful, for reasons still too raw to really dwell on, let alone write about. I felt like a failure as a mother, and wondered if I was actually going insane. Consequently, I ate. A lot. I put on more in the first 6 months of Flo's life than I did in 9 months of pregnancy. Her first xmas, I weighed the same as I did 5 days before giving birth. So I look in the mirror and see a swollen, saggy version of the person I still am in my head. Which doesn't help matters.

Also, I have zero social life. Not even with my darling husband. We live too far away from any potential babysitters, or indeed, anywhere you'd want to go out to. In truth, I'm glad of the excuse not to have to go out and leave Flo in the care of someone else. During the day is no problem, but leaving her at night... I don't know, it just feels like a step I'm not ready for. She's 26 months old! I need to get a grip. I don't want my own 'abandonment issues', to give them their wank-speak moniker, to turn me into an overprotective parent though, so I need to address this sooner rather than later. Hopefully this will change soon, as we are moving back to civilisation. I can't wait.

But rediscovering myself isn't going to be easy. I don't know where to look. I was never particularly self-assured in the first place, and part of me probably likes being able to give myself a narrow definition; a set role to play. I just want to look in the mirror and recognise myself again.

Here ends the pointless waffle. As you were.

Why does proud = smug?

I have a clever child.

There, I've said it. Cue metaphorical tumbleweed rolling across the blogosphere. It feels like an admission. Owning up to some kind of dirty secret; because for some reason, it is just not the done thing to say you have uncommonly bright offspring, let alone be proud of it. This makes me sad. It seems we can only be overtly proud of our kids when it comes to how much they eat or how well they sleep - anything more and you run the risk of being labelled 'smug' or worse, 'pushy'.

The latter was the accusation thrown at me a while ago. Not directly of course; oh no, behind my back. Our daughter, now aged 26 months, has shown an interest in 'knowing stuff' since she was old enough to support her own head and point at things. Before she could talk, her days consisted largely of pointing at things and going 'gah', then looking at you expectantly until you told her what it was. Words and letters have always been a favourite, and by the age of 20 months she recognised the entire alphabet, and could recite it by 22 months. It is almost impossible to quench her thirst for knowledge. By 12 months, asking her to point at things in a book ('where's the red car?' that kind of thing) was an easy peasy task for her, and by 15 months she could recognise and point out nearly 30 different species of bird (this now extends to umpteen species of dinosaur, more than I even knew existed, as well as insects, mammals and reptiles)

Apparently, 'not letting kids be kids' and 'forcing them to read text books', as we were so accused of doing is little short of child cruelty in some peoples minds, it seems. Just for the record, we have done neither of these things; we have only ever taken her lead and responded to her interests. Since a young age, I've been aware that Flo is going to be pretty intelligent, and have never really spoken much about her development, other than to her doting grandparents and uncles. But sometimes you're so proud of your little person, you can't help but share your awe. So to then hear that THAT is what folks have said about you is upsetting.

So, I rarely speak about her achievements any more. I have to keep my pride in check, and this saddens me. I take no credit for who she is and the aptitudes she has. She is her own person; I have merely passed on 50% or so of my genes to her; so when I want to tell the world how amazing I think she is, I'm not saying "hey, look at me, what  GREAT parent I am!" I'm saying "How amazing is this little human being! I love her SO much!" All we have done as parents, is respond to that in which she had shown an interest, and 'knowing everything there is to know, as soon as is humanly possible' appears to be her aim. She is currently teaching herself to read (she already recognises quite a few logos and her own name) and will sit with a book whispering the letters in each word to herself, totally unaided by either of us. She can do basic subtraction too (she is VERY proud of herself when she does this!) yet despite this love for 'academic' pastimes, she is equally happy running, throwing, kicking, climbing, painting, drawing and pretend playing. We are letting her be a kid. The kid she wants to be; and if that means letting her be clever, then so be it.

Oh, and she's a great eater. And a pretty decent sleeper nowadays too, just in case you're interested in what really matters.

New Look Blog

And here it is. Well, it's different from how it was, if a little fussy. I doubt any web designers are losing any sleep tonight, put it that way.

Normal blogging will resume imminently.

Work In Progress

My blog looks a bit odd at the moment (by 'odd' I mean 'rubbish') as I fancied a change.

However, I am rubbish with this kind of thing, so it's going to take a while to make it look pretty again. Sorry about that.

Once it's done though, I will be blogging more regularly - I average about 2 posts a year at the moment so that won't be difficult - but I mean properly, actually regularly. Ish.

I Pandered to Male Stereotypes of Women and I Liked It

The following is a bit of a rant about Katy Perry.

Now, don't get me wrong, I've nothing against the girl. She's attractive, talented and very good at what she does. It's the 'what she does' I'm not too keen on though. I'm not, and never have been, a bra-burning advocate of wimmin's rights and feminism - indeed, I think the Millie Tant stereotype of a feminist is a total and utter fabrication invented by those who feel threatened by or uncomfortable with women being assertive for whatever reason.

Which is where Ms Perry comes in. She's the sort of artist tabloids like to refer to using adjectives such as 'feisty', implying she's some kind of 'no-nonsense, don't mess with me' type laydee. Yet the lyrics to some of her songs are the biggest load of misogynist arsewipe I've ever had the misfortune to hear spill from the lips of a woman. All that 'I kissed a girl and I liked it, oooh aren't I sooooo naughty?? Bet you boys would like to give me a right good telling off for that sort of display of sexuality, know what I mean, nudge nudge, wink wink' crap just annoyed me at first. I'm not doubting she did kiss a girl and like it, but it just plays up to the almost universal male girl-on-girl fantasy, whilst set to a tune that means 10 year old girls will like it.

And then there's her current release, praising 'California Girls' as if they were some kind of separate race from the rest of womankind. They were little shorts! And bikinis! They're hot, hot, hot! You KNOW you wanna be one or with one! This kind of crap is bad enough from male artists, but from a woman it just plain vexes me. Kids are impressionable wee creatures, and this kind of anti-feminist crud being shat out of the airwaves worries me. Her 'feisty' image just makes it even worse - she's either a record company puppet doing whatever she can to make her 15 minutes last as long as possible, or even worse, she actually buys into the crap she peddles and really DOES think that women are here solely for the titillation of the opposite sex. I know it's only music, but it saddens me that in this day and age, it's still not only acceptable to portray women in this light, but that the majority of people don't even bat an eyelid.

*sighs*

Mabel has Arrived!

And I love her already!

Yes, we finally collected our new muppetamobile on Friday, and I'm smitten. Flump adores riding upfront with Mama & Papa, pointing at all and sundry, playing kick the driver's arm when they change gear, and generally enjoying not having to look at the rear of a Mondeo's passenger seat anymore.

And after only two whole days of ownership, we have already taken her to London and back, filled her capacious boot (sans rear seats) with stock for our Emporium of Lovely Things, pootled Flump to our local RSPB reserve and had a picnic in the back due to the inevitable dampness of a June day in Yorkshire, and visited the Grandparents, who made suitably impressed 'oohing and aahing' noises at her. And on top of being practical and economical, she's also ace fun to drive!

So welcome to the family, Mabel Multipla :).

Farewell, Lovely Lottie

Today was supposed to be the day that we bade a fond farewell to our lovely little SportKa, Lottie, however, the new Muppetamobile for which we are swapping her requires a part that has to be ordered (don't they all? I wasn't aware of any mechanical components that just materialised when you click your heels together three times... aaaaaanyway...).

So, we have Lottie for a few more days yet, until the part-fairies pay a visit to the dealer. Much as I try not to get attached to lumps of metal and mechanical doings, I am rather fond of this car. Not only is she cute, but she's dead fun to drive, and goes faster than dickheads in BMWs think she can, which is always amusing when you overtake one on the motorway which then IMMEDIATELY revs past you angrily, as if you have somehow suggested the driver has a small penis by having the audacity to a)drive faster than them b) in an ickle car and c) when you're a a mere female.

But, as we are now three, Lottie no longer meets our needs. As fun as she is, it's time for her to make way for an as yet un-named Fiat Multipla. Yes, you're right, that is one of those fugly ones that look like metal aliens. When I first got pregnant, Mr M joked that he would divorce me if we had triplets and therefore had to buy a car such as a 'pla. Now, nearly 2 years on from those two pink lines that changed our life forever, here we are bursting with excitement at the prospect of owning one. Why, I imagine I can hear you ask? Well, firstly, Flump will be able to ride up front inbetween Mama & Papa, something she very much enjoyed on the test drive, as it has 3 front seats. Which, secondly, leaves the whole of the back free for loading up full of camping goodies and bikes (or Ikea goodies!). Thirdly, it's a diesel - the same engine as Mr M's late lamented Alfa Romeo, and so solid it will clock up 250K no bother, not to mention doing in the region of 10 MPG more than Lottie. And last, but by no means least, the 'pla will run on biodiesel! Our local BD producer makes it entirely from waste provided by local restaurants, making it totally carbon neutral, as well as costing significantly less than normal diesel - yay for environmentally friendly car ownership!

Where Have You Been?

So, let me sum up the last four years as briefly as I can - started business with other half, got pregnant, got married, had the gorgeous, amazing, incomparable, adorable bundle of madness that is our daughter Florence, gave up all hope of ever sleeping properly ever again, re-started blogging. Brief enough? Excellent! Now that's over with, let the blogging commence...

The Return of Muppeta!

Wow - it's been the best part of four years since this blog last saw the light of day - and given the kerfuffle I've had to endure in order to reactive el mundo de muppeta, I'm beginning to understand why. A hard drive incident way back when, saw many long-forgotten-but-stored-in-my-keychain login details, resigned to the place in the world known as 'I can't be arsed to try and recover those'. But my life has moved on apace since last we met, and I am once again seized by the writing urge, and so recover the login details for a) my gmail account, b) the recovery email account for my gmail account and c) this blog, I have indeed done.

Still with me? Well done!

Anyway, hello again, blogosphere!

The curious Hoff phenomenon

I just don't get it. As if paying Chris Moyles to use his ghastly vocal chords wasn't bad enough, Radio 1 has launched a campaign to get David 'The Hoff' Hasselhoff to number one in the musical hit parade. Or rather one of it's DJ's has - as far as I'm aware it's not actually part of the station's charter or anything.

OK, so it's vaguely amusing that in this day and age a record company has paid David Hasselhoff to sing the dirge-fest that is his new single 'Jump In My Car' AND has seen fit to unleash it on the unsuspecting British public, but getting it to number one?? It's neither a) big, or b) clever. Why is it cool to like shit things all of a sudden? 10 years ago no-one in their right mind would have bought a record by the has-been permed hunk that is The Hoff (except Germans of course) and it was as rubbish then as it is now (I expect). What next - William Shatner doing Pulp covers? Oh...

For the love of god...

As if the Daily Mail's Diana non-story wasn't annoying enough, it would appear that on the anniversary of one of the worst terrorist attacks in history, as conflict rages in the middle east and people are killed in suicide bomb attacks in Iraq, the Express saw fit to cover the entire front page of today's paper with...you've guessed it, a story about Princess fecking Diana. 'Diana was so much in love', it screams at us, with one of the umpteen archive photos they have of her looking gormless beneath it.

Apparently, she and Dodi were going to get engaged that fateful night in Paris, and Paul Burrell is horrible evil man who drowns kittens for fun. THIS IS NOT NEWS, PEOPLE!! Why do people waste 70p a day on this shit? This paper pays 'journalists' to peddle this bollocks - how can any one of them sleep at night? Do they all dream one day of working on a publication that tells real news stories - like Heat or Bella for example, or maybe even TV Quick magazine. There's more journalistic integrity on the 'Celebrity Style Secrets' page of Heat than there is in one column inch of these bog-roll worthy heaps of rubbish, yet the morons who buy it swallow every ill-informed sound bite that's thrown at them. AAAGGHH!!

Nine years on and she's still dead

It baffles me, truly it does. To be fair, even when she was alive I struggled to understand the media's obsession with Diana, Princess of Wales - nine years after she started pushing up daisies in the middle of a lake in the Midlands, I understand it even less.

OK so, it's around the anniversary of her untimely death, but barely a week passes when one of the so-called 'quality' tabloids, The Daily Express & The Daily Nazi - sorry, Daily Mail, feature some kind of article perpetrating the ridiculous conspiracy theories that surround the death of one of the thickest worldwide megastars of the 20th century. Today the Mail featured this piece raging on about Paul Burrell, Diana's ex-butler/the devil incarnate. Whilst I find it slightly distasteful that his entire 'celebrity' status came about purely as a result of her death, he has to make a living somehow, what with him having no-one to butle for any more. By featuring him in their paper at all, the Mail make sure he remains in the public eye - there's no such thing as bad publicity, after all.

If they really gave a flying toss about the sacred memory of someone they themselves re-characterised from treasonous slut to angelic deity overnight following her death, they would do what her sons seemingly do - rise above it all and refuse to be drawn into the endless media circus. Diana died because she wasn't wearing a seatbelt in the back of a speeding car that crashed because the driver was drunk - and that's that. Even if the Queen had strangled her with her bare hands, nothing can change that fact that she is dead, and will remain so for eternity. So can everybody please stop bloody well going on about her!

Scary sights in Doncaster

Whilst on an emergency pizza run to Donny the other week (that's how much of an emergency it was) my boyfriend and I happened upon one of the most genuinely blood-curdlingly scary things I've ever seen - an extremely fragile looking old man driving a Citroen AX round a roundabout - wearing an oxygen mask! Don't ask me why I found this such a distressing sight, but believe me, it's not an experience I'd wish to repeat. I mean, surely if you need a bit of assistance in the simple matter of breathing in and out, driving is one of the last things one should be considering. And he had a passenger as well!

I was reminded of this occurrence today after reading this brilliant story.

Nice to see our police force are as vigilant and infallible as ever - 'Pc Edge said: "I asked him if he could see me. He removed the dark-coloured sunglasses he was wearing and I could clearly see he was blind as he had no eyes."' Good work PC Edge, there's bound to a promotion in this for you after that cracking bit of detective work...

Glamping Queen

For those of you unfamiliar with the term 'glamping', it's a word I first came across in one of the Sunday supplements, used to describe the recent phenomenon that can best be summed up by the fact that you can now buy tents and sleeping bags with pink flowers on them - the idea that camping is very hip, very fashionable, and SO now. Well, I've just returned from a week in various fields in and around the Scottish Highlands, and believe me, there is nothing glamourous about sleeping with only two layers of vinyl between you and torrential rain, having to wrestle yourself into two layers of fleece, walking boots and a wooly hat to tramp half a mile to the lav if you need to pee in the middle of the night, or having no access to a hairdryer for six days.

Which is exactly why camping is so brilliant - the kind of people who look at a Cath Kidston tent and think "Ooh, how delicious! Wouldn't it be fun to go camping in one of those!" are just the kind of people who find the thought of a week without hair straighteners and eyeliner something akin to a living hell, so therefore never do it. I'll admit, I'm hardly the hardy outdoor, fell running type myself, but that's not the point. Camping is wondrous - especially in the breathtaking beauty of Scotland - enjoying the fresh air, eating cold beans out of tin, contemplating a night sky seemingly fit to burst with stars - but unless you're Kate Moss at Glastonbury and actually staying in a big fuck off trailer with a wardrobe the size of small house and an annexe housing your stylist and hairdresser, camping is not, and never will be, glamourous.

Best Intentions...

OK, so it's (well) over a month since my last post, full of good, regular-blogging type intentions - but it has been a fairly busy few weeks, what with weddings, holidays and house moves to contend with. So, excuses over with nice and early...

Well, today my boyfriend and I embarked upon a week of detoxification from the lard rich excesses we have been indulging ourselves in over the first few weeks of our co-habitation. Initially we had a fairly passable excuse - no cooker on which to cook healthy, virtuous vegetable-heavy feasts, so naturally the chippy or domino's pizza was our only possible source of nutrition (I think domino's put heroin on their 'football frenzy' pizza or whatever it's called. They couldn't sue me for that could they?) However, despite having had a cooker for well over four weeks now, we have no excuse but laziness and a deep affection for shit food for our continuing diet of questionable healthiness.

It started well - I decided early on (about ten minutes after arriving at the office at 8am) that coffee was actually quite good for you, and was acceptable refreshment for any self-respecting detox-er, especially given that the latte machine in the office canteen uses skimmed milk. Lunch was a very virtuous salad (coleslaw given much the same detox-friendly rating as coffee at this point. And cheese) and if you disregard any kind of cheese and onion pasty eating type incidents, the rest of the day was also an unprecedented success for both of us - so much so, we treated ourselves to a little midnight snack of cheese and biscuits. It's a piece of piss this detox lark!

The Joys of Home Ownership

When I started this blog, I was determined not to lose interest after three posts and stop bothering...given that I haven't posted anything for nearly a month, you'd be forgiven for thinking that losing interest after three posts and stopping bothering is exactly what I've done, but I've just been far too stressed to write anything. (And yes, stopping bothering is perfectly grammatically correct, in case you were wondering)

The cause of this stress? Moving house. Or rather not moving house to be precise. The plan was, we would complete on June 23rd, but the solicitor of the woman I'm buying from at one stage seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth, making me extremely nervous indeed. June 23rd came and went with solicitor still AWOL, taking my nerves with it. At one point last week I was lying in bed and clocked my heart rate at 89 bpm, the discovery of which served only to increase it still further. However, the solicitor reappeared last Thursday (with no explanation for his three week wall of silence mind) and completion has now been set for July 10th. Heart rate is now a much more healthy 62 bpm, and I have ceased incessantly gnawing at my fingernails, or what little remains of them. I'm now actually quite excited about the move - even though I appear to be moving in with someone who has two whole boxes full of cables (well, you never know when you might need them...) three times the necessary number of PDAs, and a Betty Boo album he's not even slightly ashamed of. And I'm off to Prague for four days tomorrow - yay! Watch this space for updates - my good blogging habits start here...

Everybody needs good neighbours

The street on which I live is a public road with no parking restrictions. Most houses have garages and/or drives for cars to be parked on, but as I live in a basement flat, my only parking is on the street outside the house. Sometimes I can't get parked right outside. This is a fact of life, and a bit of a pain, but ultimately, walking a few yards extra when I come home of an evening is hardly an inconvenience for me.

When I arrived home on Friday night, there was a car parked outside my house, so I parked as close as I could get, about three houses away. I didn't use my car again until yesterday evening, when I found a little note tucked under the windscreen. The note was from the woman whose house I was parked in front of, kindly requesting that I desist from parking outside her property for 'days at a time' as it is inconvenient for people visiting her. Now, my initial reaction to this was to set fire to the note and put it through her letterbox - I didn't do this of course, but the sheer petty mindedness of the whole thing riled me beyond belief. Firstly, my car is always parked near or outside her house, so she knows I obviously live nearby. Secondly, every time I left my house over the weekend, my car was either the only one or one of two or three parked on our run of spaces, so her friends are either very lazy or too stupid to be able to park in a space smaller than about six car lengths (my guess is both).

So I am now considering two courses of action - 1) Ignore the note and park outside her house every day, even if there's space outside mine 2) Send a polite reply pointing out that if she doesn't like people parking outside her house she should move to one that isn't on a public road, and I'll park wherever the fuck I want to thanks very much, you poisonous, uptight, Daily Mail reading old bitch (you can just tell from her handwriting). And park outside her house every day, even if there's space outside mine.

I'd like to think I'm mature enough to go for option 1, but the fact that she was bothered enough about something so stupid to write an arsey note about it without thinking for one moment that she had no right whatsoever to be bothered about it pisses me right off. She needs to learn. But would sending her a note make me just as bad as her? No, it wouldn't, because I'm right and she's wrong!

When Cows Go Bad...Update

For the love of god! It seems I might of been right about the cow uprising after all...check out these further examples of bovine field rage. Seems I had a lucky escape!

Cow vs Car

Cow vs The Elderly

Cow Induced Coma

"I shouted for help and shouted at the cow, but it was unrelenting"

I'll never feel bad about eating burgers again...

When Cows Attack

Hello there...welcome to Muppeta's world!

We'll begin with a mirthful tale of mardy farm animals. Whilst out walking yesterday in the wonderfully dramatic Leicestershire countryside (and by wonderfully dramatic I mean prosaically pastoral), my boyfriend and I began meandering across a field that had a smattering of adolescent bovines in the far corner. Nothing remarkable in that - indeed, we had passed through two almost identically populated fields only minutes previously...but there was something different about these particular herbivorous ruminants. Maybe they were just bored - being a cow can't be the most action-packed existence on earth - maybe it was just the bovine equivalent of teenage angst, or maybe they were just plain nails, who knows, but what began as a seemingly harmless inquisitive look in our direction soon became, well, frankly bordering on terrifying. I don't know if you've ever seen a herd of 12 cows start to run at you, but take it from me, it's at once hilarious and bleeding scary.

I don't think my brain knew at all how to cope with this bizarre turn of events - the ringleader of these ASBO worthy quadrupeds (I know, I'm running out of cow analogies now) was heading straight for me at quite a pace, yet all I could think was 'but it's a cow for Christs' sake!' 'Yes - a cow - heavy and hoofy - run like f*ck!' Is what I should have been thinking. Fortunately, my boyfriend had the presence of mind to give the cows a taste of their own medicine, and advanced menacingly on the cows with his best Manc swagger...and then we both ran like f*ck from whence we came, over the stile and in to the safety of the neighbouring field (also full of cows, but the benign, friendly kind - thank god). By the time we had crossed that field, I had just about stopped laughing at our cow-related near mishap, and the sinister f*ckers were still staring at us, bunched around the stile over which we had made our hasty retreat.

I like to think that maybe they just thought we were bringing them food (even though cows eat grass...I think) and didn't really mean us any harm - but then I remember the icy expression behind those long, unblinking eyelashes; cold and confrontational - and wonder if maybe it's the start of some kind of sinister cow uprising. Either way, if you learn one thing today, make it this - cows: they're not clever, but they are quite big - and I reckon a misplaced hoof could do a lot of damage. Respect our beef giving countryside compatriots, and give them as wide a berth as possible.