Month: March 2019

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Stand By Me

nataliegist
Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com

As I type our MPs are debating the latest Meaningless Vote to be put to them by Dictator May.  I would say the government, but it seems that even they can’t agree with each other, with the latest Brexit Secretary standing up to commend a motion to the House one minute and then marching through the door to vote against it the next.  Asked what was going on, one Cabinet Minister has been reported in the Press as saying “Fuck knows.  I’m past caring.  It’s like the living dead in here.”  Of course, whilst I suspect we all may have some sympathy with that position, I have been observing our politicians for the past few weeks, for observe it seems is all we are permitted to do. 

I commenced my observation from the comfort of my sofa with a cup of tea and some biscuits, shouting at the television.  I then moved a cushion in front of me and stopped shouting.  I muted the sound at one point – it made no difference to my understanding of what was going on with an endless stream of (mainly) male (mainly) white politicians standing up to speak.  The Speaker had confined each of them to seven minutes – seven whole minutes– of talking each.  Geez. I put my cushion over my face for the really scary bits.  That was insufficient and I eventually got behind the sofa because I couldn’t watch anymore.  I am now frantically trying to exit the cinema but all of the doors are currently locked. 

So as the government, whoever the hell they are at the moment, try to browbeat their agreement through Parliament for the third time, but Parliament is making them comply with the constitution to do so, I cannot help but wonder what is unconstitutional about following the constitution.  I would also like someone to explain to me, in short words if necessary, why the Meaningless Vote being put forward three times and the Conservative Party doing some sort of dodgy deal as to who will be the next (unelected) Prime Minister of this country is apparently entirely democratic, and yet it is undemocratic to ask what we, the Electorate, think of any of it now the cards are on the table.

Those of you who read my blog regularly know that I voted Remain.  I am deeply upset at the prospect of leaving the European Union.  Some of you hold entirely the opposite view as is your democratic right in a free country, and I respect that, even if I don’t understand it.  However, I was not sure why I was so very upset, and this morning as I stomped through the fields with the Hound, I finally worked out why.

Since the result of the referendum, the daughter of a friend has been shouted at in the street to “Fuck off back to Poland.”  She’s British.  She happens to have dark skin and hair. I am sure that Poland is a beautiful country but as of yet she hasn’t visited.  Another European posted on Facebook apologising for taking jobs from British people – they were doing a job that very few British people would get out of bed for.  Another woman I spoke to said that her mother took extreme offence at a group of students speaking (within her earshot, not in a conversation she was part of) in their own language which is why she voted to Leave.  She has since met a boy and moved to Germany.  One man interviewed on the news had a holiday home in Spain.  When he voted Leave he didn’t realise that by voting to end free movement it meant that it would also apply to him. It is this sort of crap that is really bothering me.  I am extremely worried that Brexit is the start of the ball rolling towards the Third World War.

It is said that people come into your life when you have the most need of them; I have a friend who voted to Leave.  My friend is an intelligent, kind and loving person.  They are not sexist, they are not racist and they are not homophobic.  They don’t care one jot what job you do, the language you speak or where you were born.  I am so grateful to have this person in my life. With Mr Farage being the most horrific and self-promoting of poster boys (asked the Electorate eight times for their view and eight times rejected – why can he not accept the Will of the People and stumble into obscurity where be belongs?) one could believe to be surrounded by people like that odious twerp. My friend reminds me constantly by their presence alone, that he is the minority and we are not. So whilst the Grand Wazzocks think it acceptable to change their minds based on self rather than national interest, refer to burkas as letterboxes, people who go to State Schools as thick as “potted plants” and that it is an hilarious jape to give themselves a name that harks back to the KKK, I know that I am far from being alone in thinking it is not. Now is the time for all of us, whichever way we voted, and whatever the hell happens over the next few weeks, to raise our hands, together, and say to these people: “You don’t speak for us. You have never spoken for us. And you never will.”

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Smear Campaign

nataliegist

close up of microscope
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Right listen here you women under thirty. And, I address Welsh women under thirty in particular. Headline in the news yesterday is that up to a third of you are not going to your cervical screening tests. This is not good news. Not good news at all. What’s that all about? I want to have a stern and matronly word about what might be bothering you.

The Nickname

Yes, it is awful.  Named because the cells to be examined are smeared across a slide before being placed under the microscope.  I am not a scientist but some of you are – I would expect that a number of things that are put under a microscope for examination are smeared across a slide first.  Am I right?  I have absolutely no idea why it has become common parlance for an important scientific test that can save a woman’s life. It’s almost as if they were trying to put us off. I can only assume that the word ‘smear’ was attached to it by someone who didn’t like women very much – the common and everyday sort of misogynistic language that is very slowly being eradicated. A bit like ‘mankind’ or women getting wrinkles, but men getting ‘fatigued’ – that sort of crap. It’s proper name is cervical screening, for that is what it is: screening your cervix for abnormal cells so that those cells can be quickly and easily dealt with before they become a more serious problem.

The Embarrassment 

I get this, particularly when you are younger. And we’re British – we pretty much have the international monopoly on being uptight. I have had three children, and age and numerous medical procedures and examinations have knocked the embarrassment factor out of me. The first time you go is a bit nerve-wracking however much you have or haven’t been poked and prodded in your life. The second time isn’t much better tbh. By the time you get to the third you are pretty much resigned to the whole thing.  But as a woman who has had many cervical screening tests, there is no point at which any of us will ever skip into the surgery, shout “yippee!” and leap up onto the bed in eager anticipation of the speculum.  None.

Now it may be first, second or third time for you, but it will not be the first, second or third time for the medical professional carrying out the procedure. It is difficult for me to emphasise enough to you how disinterested medical professionals are in any of your body parts, and that includes your lady parts. Medical professionals in this area see them all day, everyday. You don’t. In fact, unless you are very bendy indeed, you are the only person in the world who has the least chance of a proper look at your own cervix. But you know for you have a job yourself that any job, whatever it is, stops being a novelty after you’ve done it for a week. Otherwise, how would you do your job?

Yes, a complete stranger performs the test. I think that’s better don’t you? What if you’re lying there and your aunt, who is a doctor, walks in? If a stranger performing the test is a bit embarrassing then someone you know would be positively mortifying. You never have to see this person (except possibly in this context) again. And even if you did happen to bump into them socially, unless you were to whip off your trousers and assume the position, it is unlikely that they’d recognise you. Your aunt, on the other hand…..

And whilst I am here, the person doing your screening does not care if you have waxed vociferously; they don’t care if you have a bush like a rhododendron; they care not one jot if your legs are hair-free or if you’ve just shaved that bit that pokes out of the bottom of your jeans; they could not be less interested in whether or not you want keep your socks on because your feet are cold. What they care about, what they really care about, is getting the test done and done properly so it can be sent off to the person with the microscope to analyse and they can go home at the end of the day and watch ‘Bake Off’.  Just like the rest of us.

So wear a skirt so you can simply lift it up and not feel quite so exposed, take a friend to sit outside so they can shuffle you in and wait with cake for when you emerge, tell the doctor/nurse that you are a bit nervous, babble inanely to them, take some earphones so you can listen to some music instead, do whatever it is to make you feel better about the whole thing, but don’t not go because you’re a bit embarrassed.

The Procedure  

I agree that it is not the most comfortable way to spend five or ten minutes of your life. But it is only five or ten minutes of your life, potentially for your life. And I wouldn’t say it hurts. It’s uncomfortable. You all must know someone who has had cancer and chemotherapy. If you don’t, seek someone out and talk to them about their experience. If you’re sitting in a quad at work, at least one of you will have been affected by cancer, and if you haven’t, one of you will be. Five minutes of uncomfortable is a picnic in comparison to being faced with chemotherapy.

And there is some more good news. Short girls take note – one of my friends (we shall call her Diminutive Friend, for she is teeny tiny) told me that your height makes a difference to how easily your cervix is located. Diminutive Friend claims to be five feet two inches tall (Diminutive Friend is optimistic).  However, that is why she feels like her cervix is located in her throat when she goes for her cervical screening. I, on the other hand, am five foot nine, and Diminutive Friend has made many uncalled for and unkind jokes about the doctor or nurse advancing on me with a miner’s helmet, compass and a map in order to locate my cervix. There you go ladies of less height, something to be grateful for at last.

The Worry of What They Might Find  

There is a statistically small risk that the person with the microscope might report that something transpired from your test that requires further investigation. This would probably require someone else, if you’re lucky another complete stranger, having a bit of a poke around your now freshly waxed lady area. On the other hand, if you don’t go for a test, there is a statistical certainty that the person with the microscope will not make such a report.  If something does pop up in that report, you have two things that are vital; information and time. If nothing does pop up, then you can go about your daily business not wondering what might be because you know you’re looking after yourself.  However, just because they can’t make the report, it does not mean that the thing you are frightened of finding isn’t there.

Also, let me take this opportunity to assure you; your foo-foo is fundamentally no different or unusual to anyone else’s. Common sense and the continued survival of the human race dictates that bodies, including vaginas, are broadly speaking, all much of a muchness based around a generally successful design that has worked for millenia. The person performing the test is not going to recoil in horror declaring that they’ve never seen one that looks like that before. And, if there is by some infinitesimally small likelihood something slightly unusual about your vagina that is likely to affect your health and well-being that is also visible to the naked eye, then they are the person to spot it because it is their area of expertise.

I can’t make you go. I know I can’t. And your mothers would not have brought you up as I am hopefully bringing up my children if you weren’t prepared to stand up for yourselves. We want you to be strong and strident and shouty. For we are strong and strident and shouty. We want you to do all the things that are over and above what we have achieved, and continue to achieve, because we’re standing on the shoulders of the women who went before us. We want you to learn, to write, to sing, to dance, to read, to travel. We want you to vote, to protest. To help us sort the bloody government out – now that really is embarrassing. To get your noses pierced, get a tattoo. Cover your hair, not cover your hair. Wear utterly inappropriate shoes.  We want you to fall in love. We want you to fall out of love and say you’re never doing that again. And then we want you to do it all over again. There are times when a stiff British upper lip is called for – an unfortunate haircut, watching Boris Johnson trying to speak French, someone else taking the last chocolate biscuit – this is not one of them. Tell me I’m wrong. Please. Argue with me. Tell me I’m out of touch, that I don’t know what I’m talking about. And then tell me why. I want you to do that. I need you to do that because we’re buggered without you. And the thing is, the thing is: you can’t do any of those things when you’re dead.

Because you’re dead.

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Make It Snappy

nataliegist
https://pixabay.com/illustrations/crocodile-sea-islands-rock-cliffs-1557483/

You know when something awful has happened in your life and when you wake up in the morning there is that briefest of moments when you don’t remember it?  For that one spark of time everything is okay and nothing has changed so as to be unrecognisable from how it was before. Then you do remember it. And you feel even worse because you can’t believe that you could have been so stupid to have considered that the catastrophic thing that has happened, hasn’t happened.  Because it was so massive, how could you even have thought to forget? There is also the horrific event itself which you felt dreadful about anyway, which now you feel even worse about because for less than a second you thought it hadn’t happened and then you have to relive the horror all over again.  I had those experiences when both of my grandparents died, when my stepfather lost his titanic battle against leukaemia and also now, to a lesser extent admittedly, when I know it is going to be World Book Day. 

Parents of primary school-aged children will know exactly what I am talking about.  They didn’t do it last year at school and that had lulled me into a sense of false security.  Imagine my delight when I discovered that it would be happening this year and two costumes were expected. Not by the school, by the Childerbeasts.  Childerbeast Number Two wants to go as a person possessed of magic– okay, not too bad, we have magical items in the dressing up box.  Childerbeast Number Three will be enjoying ‘The Enormous Crocodile’ and can attend school in crocodile colours if they so wish.  Also not too bad.

However, although they can just go in green or brown or yellow, my Childerbeast does not wish to keep it simple.  No, they want to go dressed as an actual crocodile.  And she’s not the only one in her class.  I think the little buggers have got together and discussed what could possibly inflict the most pain and irritation on their parents.  A crocodile costume you say?  In forty eight hours?  And to go on about it constantly?  Yes, let’s all do that.  We’ll get them to break their “no wine in the week” rule before Tuesday.

Yesterday with what I thought was only twenty-four hours to go, I found myself perusing a well-known department store looking for crocodile-themed items.  It was not an not easy task.  Partly because not only do people who stock department stores seem to think that little girls are obsessed with unicorns, they also seem to think that the only colour they like is pink.  So, I made my way into the boys’ section where it would seem that people who stock the same store think little boys are only interested in blue, green and yellow.  Equally annoying for boys, but handy for me on this occasion.

I availed myself of some crocodile-coloured clothes and a green scarf that I thought would do as a tail.  As I was paying, another woman placed a blue hoodie at the till next to me and advised the sales assistant that although it was blue and from the section labelled ‘boys’ it was for her daughter who was not a fan of pink.  I felt a warm glow of pride for this woman’s daughter.  I placed my items on the counter and told my sales assistant that I was going to fashion a crocodile costume out of them for World Book Day and I hadn’t got the faintest idea where to begin.  She offered her sympathies and failed to hide a note of distinct glee from her voice as her children weren’t having to do it this year.  I refrained from advising her not to be too smug, but as we all know: The Gods of Parenting are always fair.

I returned home and the items purchased were greeted with what can best be described as a muted response. She wanted to go as a crocodile; this was merely green trousers and a yellow t-shirt.  I said that I was going to make some scales and staple them on.  That helped.  A bit. Along with the discovery that I had another twenty -four hours than I thought I had.

I was expressing this sartorial concern to Brunette Friend on the way to school this morning.  One of her Childerbeasts also wanted to go the full David Attenborough and she had been up late into the night making the costume.  She is infinitely more skilled at these things than I am, which is rather like saying that Michaelangelo was better at painting than the Hound.  She offered me her green and brown felt and a glue gun with which to assist my own descent into hell. She said she’d come and free me when I had overdone it with the glue gun because it did peel off with a layer of skin if you got it on yourself. I returned home to begin. 

If I could just pause here – I know why people become teachers.  I had previously thought it was something to do with caring for the next generation or wanting to help children reach their potential.  Or if the Daily Mail is to be believed, the massive pay cheque and the long holidays.  But it’s not is it?  It’s because you all get let loose with glue guns, I know now.  I’ve had a lovely couple of hours cutting and sticking.  And when I ran out of crocodile scales, I just went around the house looking for things to stick.  So far, I’ve glued the washing basket lid closed, the toilet seat down and the chocolate cupboard shut because I stupidly said I’d give up chocolate for Lent.

So I now have a sore back from sitting in a fixed position for too long and something resembling (and I wouldn’t put it any higher than that) an outfit that has a strong hint of reptile about it.  In two hours I shall discover whether my work is of sufficient standard to please the Childerbeast.  And if it is not, then I am out of options and I can’t even comfort myself with chocolate.