Just call me Mad

Prayers for Maura who passed this morning.

God's love and strength to her husband and three children.

(Insert your own FFS if required)

Oh, friends.

It's a nice photo taken by a dad of his wife and kids and sent out as a Happy Mother's Day greeting to their friends and family and well-wishers. The wife tweaked it a bit.

She did what? Gaw blimey, Guv! Would you Adam an' Eve it?

No other mother in the history of family photos has ever tweaked a Dad Snap before?

Nobody in the entire history of Hollywood, the Kardashians, publishing, Instathingy, FaceTwit and CatfishTV has ever posted an untweaked photo?

Photos have been tweaked forever.

Before photos, Leonardo was doing it to La Giaconda with a paintbrush. Greco-Roman statues and Ancient Egyptian death masks are not exactly how their friends remembered them.

Stalin airbrushed people he didn't like out of his photos and I've cropped a couple of ex-boyfriends with a pair of scissors. I'm pretty sure in the 1960s my mother tweaked her old black and whites with a pencil - just a bit of shading here and there to make her nose look shorter and give herself more um, cleavage. And Grandma definitely drew eyebrows on a photo of my baby sister once - you know, to make her look more like a baby and less like a swamp monster.

When I say Grandma, actually it might have been me, now I come to think of it.

I don't get the fuss.

The pair of them bang on about the importance of good mental health while abusing their own families.

It's pretty well understood these days that stress and anxiety impact on one's physical health and well-being.

And boy, do that pair cause stress and anxiety!

Prince Philip (deceased), Queen Elizabeth (deceased), King Charles (ill), Catherine (ill), Mr Markle (ill for a long time)...

Probably could include on the list several ex-employees and staff as well, who decided the job wasn't worth the stress and anxiety and pressure.

This is not coincidence.

No amount of anxiety-relieving finger-tapping will work when you're inhaling her exudence; her personal and particular eau de parfum, Essence of Toxicity. Comes in an odd-shaped bottle that fits inside a toilet roll. You know the dress I mean! Sprays everywhere, every time she flushes down the brown.

Many of us have memories of being small. Mine are mostly difficult and it's taken me many decades to process some of them.

I remember (aged about 4, when a murder victim was found dumped in a field a mile away from our council house and it was all over the national news) asking my mother if there were lots of murderers, and she - in her adult brain, probably thinking about statistics and percentages of the population - said yes, quite a few.

I was terrified for years, because in my child brain my world consisted of parents, grandparents, aunties, uncles, cousins, neighbours and people we'd say hello to in the village shop.

"Yes, quite a few" means some of them must be murderers!

I added it to my bedtime prayers; please God, don't let anybody murder mummy and daddy. Underneath the bed became my favourite sleeping place, and at seven I was taken to the doctor and put on medication because I wouldn't sleep at all for days on end and my teachers were worried about me. Not my parents, just my teachers. Thank you Miss McCarthy and Mrs Bell, you tried to help.

Statistically, murders and murderers as a percentage of the population are significantly less than 1% for most countries but when you're four years old and you only know a hundred people, being told that there are "yes, quite a few" murderers is utterly terrifying.

Which makes me wonder how Archie and Lili are feeling right now with their dad locked in a battle with the Home Office about his security.

No, we can't go to England because daddy's not safe and you might get kidnapped and have your ears chopped off.

No, the English police won't look after us, and our security men aren't allowed to have guns to protect us.

No, there is nowhere to hide in England, it isn't safe for daddy and mummy. We are special, we need special policemen to protect us.

I feel so sad for those kiddies, being brought up to think everyone's out to get them.

"Yes, quite a few" murderers for little 4-yr-old me must make it horrendous for Archie and Lili. I hope Their Marklenesses are putting aside plenty of money for their kids' therapy.

There are better writers than I am who have already covered a lot of this week's Scobie Doo-Doo, but there is an area where I am well qualified to comment. I worked for many years as a multilingual researcher and translator. I worked with authors, TV shows, even a couple of movie producers. Oh and I translated medical reports for holiday-makers who'd had emergency treatment in Spain, which sometimes got a bit weird and once involved a bunch of daffodils.

When you're translating, the golden rule is: you are not allowed to change, add or omit anything, ANYTHING, that isn't in the original manuscript. Under pain of being sued for thousands of dollars. Changes, additions and omissions lie solely with the author, his editors and his publishers.

So why isn't Scobie suing his Dutch translators if the doo-doo is all their fault?

Let me think...

Answer: It's not their fault, they translated what they were given. No changes, no additions, no omissions.

Why isn't he suing his editors and publishers? Erm... I think money might come into that one. Massive, and possibly carefully calculated, publicity to enrich the Scobie by spreading the doo-doo.

As a translator, you receive the manuscript. You read it through in its entirety, several times, to get the feel for the author, his style, his grammar, his idio- idiopsycho- idiopsychosyncracies- wait, I'm good at my job - his pet peeves! And you make notes on how to replicate all this and reproduce his doo-doo in a different language. You print off a working draft of the original doo-doo, with additional spacing to allow for your careful thoughts (I'm old-fashioned, I like to do this bit with a pencil; the young ones probably do it all on computer these days) and you translate all the easy stuff you can do off the top of your head. Then you go through it again, filling in the worrying bits, usually with an assistant, editor or other colleague, and working on the style, grammar, punctuation, cliches, idioms and colloquialisms etc etc etc, always aiming to reproduce the author's authentic voice without getting too hung up on what a nasty piece of work you're dealing with.

You type up your final draft and submit it to the publisher. The whole process takes months of careful work, checking and double-checking and triple-checking.

There's no way the two names are there by accident.

On the positive side, Scobie's doo-doo has hit the fan and splattered right back in his face. He may think his face is so plastic and cleanable with a wet-wipe that the doo-doo will just slide off, but I don't see that happening. He's annoyed too many people.

Meanwhile the Montecito Twosome remain as Gruesome as ever. Shall we have a good pray for their well-being? Three, two, one...

I'm 60, short and dumpy with purple hair. Being an energetic gardener I have well-muscled legs that used to look athletic but now resemble the roots I discovered last week while digging up a thirty-year-old fuchsia bush, and my arms taper like parsnips, wide and flavoursome at the bits at the top but thin and scrawny at the wrists. I'd look like a professional body-builder, apart from the beer-belly and the "farmer's tan" which makes me look like some kind of hybrid saddleback pig. And then there's my other half, Princess Madafu, who scrapes off the coagulated mud between my toes and manages to make herself gorgeous with sophisticated corsetry, home-tailored sparkly dresses (which, let's be honest, I make her buy second-hand from the local charity shop; I mean, come on, I'd rather spend our money on a new greenhouse) and then she spends the evenings Googling weird make-up videos when I want to watch Alan Titchmarsh.

On the whole, we get on fine. She ignores my fashion advice, I ignore hers. I tell her she looks like a Tamworth sow, she tells me I look like Harold Steptoe. It's OK, we love each other - which is probably just as well because we are the same person in the same body.

Which leads me on to Markle. In particular, Markle's legs.

Mad says Markle needs to take advice from a proper stylist 'cos her legs are her worst feature. Apart from her personality, of course.

I say Markle needs to take advice from Mad.

It's like green-eyed Markle wants to be as slim and sporty-looking as the Princess of Wales but ignores professional advice in her clothing choices because she thinks Meghan Markle Knows Best. She thinks Meghan Markle Knows Best in every aspect of her life. She pays people to tell her Meghan Markle Knows Best.

It's sad.

It's especially sad that she doesn't have an honest best friend to take her aside and tell her she looks like a sparrow who accidentally nose-dived into a bundle of rags tied up with string. It's sad that she doesn't have real friends. And worst, it's sad for her kids to be brought up by a mother who doesn't understand what the words love, friendship and honesty mean.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-12336851/She-doesnt-Camillas-joy-Princess-Wales-labelled-disappointment-approach-jewellery-former-Vogue-editor-awarded-OBE-late-Queen.html

I have no idea who this ex-Voguey Suzy Menkes person is but she's clearly up her own bottom.

The Princess of Wales dresses appropriately for the occasion and recognises that many families struggle, so she doesn't flaunt The Firm's family wealth and privilege. For day wear, I like to see her showcasing the lesser known, up-and-coming British designers, and I love it when she wears something cheap and cheerful - like a £5 pair of High Street Woolworths Walmart Argos Catalogue earrings that a small child could afford, with kiddie-level pocket money, say for mummy's birthday or for Mother's Day.

https://people.com/royals/kate-middleton-wears-6-dollar-earrings-scarborough/

Evening wear, when she has to get glammed up for an opening night or a state banquet, she looks fabulous in a tiara and select pieces from the royal vaults. Thing is, she always has class, and understands when to bling or not to bling.

I think Sophie is good at this too, and Anne - who, let's face it, would always rather be in a moth-eaten gansey mucking out the horses yet still puts in all the hard work for charities and being pleasant to people she'd rather pepper with two barrels of buckshot up the wossname.

Suzy Menkes strikes me a little bit envious.

Warning: this post contains my personal LGBTQ+ opinions and is only suitable for grown-ups who have working braincells.

I gave up on British news for a couple of weeks because it was endless Phillip Somebody and Holly Somebody-Else and some breakfast TV show I've never heard of, but now I have to step up with the other news and make my happy fully-on-the-spectrum twinkly LGBTQ+ views clear. I fully understand if no-one wants to like this post out of fear of death threats from the vociferous crotchdangle supporter community.

I'm quite masculine but definitely a biological female - and I have the undercarriage scars from pushing out a 10 lb 12 oz baby to prove it. I just don't want to walk into a womens' changing room and see male crotchdangle swinging around.

It's as offensive as receiving unsolicited d*ckpicks.

I don't want to see unsolicited crotchdangle.

Transwomen without crotchdangle are fine, I don't find them in any way threatening. Gay men with crotchdangle are equally fine, and they've always treated me as an equal. Little story - The first time I ever got a good look at crotchdangle was at Uni in the early 1980s, at a party with my gay best friend - I was puking in the kitchen sink and he need a wee so we "emitted" together. He held my hair up. And we both cleaned the sink afterwards. Together.

Here's another little life experience from my time on the farm in France. Daddy Bull (male) and Mummy Cow (female) love each other very much, for about five seconds - it's very quick. Mummy Cow gets pregnant, gives birth and lactates. For every calf, Mummy Cow spends two years of her life being pregnant, lactating and recovering; Daddy Bull's contribution to this is five seconds of squirt!

Two years for female Mummy Cow; five seconds of squirt for male Daddy Bull.

This is the biological reality of life.

Male-on-female abuse is a reality. I suffered it personally as a child.

You won't stop male-on-female abuse by letting males identify as females and wear lipstick and dresses and high heels and then let them wave their crotchdangle at us in total disrespect.

If you have crotchdangle, keep it to yourself.

Oh and also, stop invading women's sports like you're some kind of trailblazing heroines.

You're not.

If you were, there'd be transmen trailblazing in men's sports. And there aren't. You're only sh*tting on women.

Genuine gender dysphoria needs to be respected and to have a sympathetic medical approach from properly qualified doctors. It doesn't need thugs in masks threatening and abusing people for standing up for female rights. I adore Caitlyn Jenner and Suzy Eddie Izzard. They are the Nice Side of Trans. Full respect to them. I'm not transphobic, I just hate thugs with crotchdangle invading my privacy.

Reinventing a previously reinvented former reinvention of an earlier reinvention in the hope that people will forget what a shallow, manipulative, vindictive, nasty person she is (rolls eyes, smacks forehead). Wearing a shiny gold dress that looks like it's made of used Ferrero Rocher wrappers kiddie-glued to a toilet roll tube, to accept an award from her friend Gloria's schmaltzfest, she still exuded the same self-absorbed delusion that she's important. And empowered. And empowering. And kind.

By the way, how's your dad, Meggsie? Has he met his grandkids yet?

And poor old Hazza, tagging along, still being the spare, with shoes polished to a mirror-like shine so she can make him lay down and put his feet in the air when she wants to check her hair or make sure her eyelashes haven't crawled away.

Gods, it's nauseating. Of all the many worthy women out there to celebrate, they have to go and pick her. How well-stuffed was the plain brown envelope she gave them, I wonder?

I'm reminded of a little poem we had to learn in school fifty years ago:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44302/ode-on-the-death-of-a-favourite-cat-drowned-in-a-tub-of-goldfishes

Not all that tempts your wandering eyes

And heedless heart is lawful prize,

Nor all that glisters, gold.

Name: Oh My Little Scobie

Pre-programmed to say whatever his handler wants you to hear

A delightful little toy that will provide hours of fun. Well-used by current owner but still in working condition.**

Latest demo available here: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-12041453/Omid-Scobie-reveals-Harry-Meghan-wait-time-welcomed-coronation.html

Owner open to offers.

Contact: Owner very private person, ring her PR (may change daily)

Peace, expensive coffee and massage-blessings. Be Kind.

*Facial muscles not fully functional

I hate my life.

I left my plate of chicken on the breakfast bar when I went to open the front door for my paramedic son coming home from a late shift. The son and I were going to have a nice meal together as he de-stressed. Got back to the kitchen and there's a big dog-tongue-shaped scoop of absent chicken on my plate...

Not to mention the happy looking lassie on my chair feeling soooo-o-o pleased with herself for sitting impeccably, paws together in an elegant Downton Abbey dowager duchess fashion and not smudging her chicken curry-coloured lipstick or chewing the paper napkin. She sensibly spat the onions onto the floor and only had four grains of basmati rice stuck to her nose.

Son's dinner was totally unlicked, by the way. Just mine.

At last, some confirmation by the Palace, not just endless speculation by clickbait journalists and ScoobieWoobie.

She won't be there.

On the face of it, bl**dy good news!

Can't help but think something's brewing though.

What's the betting she's going to try and pull off some big "Archie's Birthday" stunt? She couldn't wangle any coronation seats for her celebrity "friends" so they're all invited to Archie's 4th instead; what a lot of cupcakes that'll be! It's a good job Harry will be in London, she doesn't want him at Archie's 4th anyway. She doesn't want him at all. She's had enough of him. She just wants the house, the kids, the money and world domination. She's probably secretly hoping Border Control will stop him coming back to the US for his publicly-admitted drugs use. There's a big crack in that marriage and the papering-over will soon become newspapering-over. Meanwhile the divorce lawyers are circling greedily.

I'm really afraid I'm in the beginning stages of dementia.

I keep forgetting names and shopping lists. And pets.

The worm tablets are for my last remaining cat, by the way, not me.

Maggs, daughter of Painty and an unknown father, is acting weird this week. It could be worms, but on the other hand it could be that when she sits by the front door she's expecting the front door weather to be better than the back door weather. She normally uses windows, not doors, but my back window sills are occupied by trays of seedlings and the front windows are closed because of the wind and snow. So either Maggs has a door problem, a worm problem, or else I need more windows.

I'm not a huge fan of British TV chef Jamie Oliver, so it was interesting to read comments on his latest show about £1 meals. That's £1 per portion, not £1 for the whole dinner. I haven't seen the programme but I'll put my two-pennorth in anyway.

While it's good to be saving money in these trying times, the way to go is not as simple as "buy cheap", it's about making the food go further.

Yes, you can serve up a roast chicken dinner for £1 per person, but then any self-respecting cook would put the bones in the slow-cooker and make 5 litres of chicken stock; cool and strain and turn the stock into a week's worth of soups and sauces.

Like our grannies and mums did when times were hard and leftovers were served up again and again until everything was eaten.

They had respect for the food, for the farmer and for the animal that died so that they could eat. There was very little food waste. Food was too valuable. Even the peelings went on the compost heap to recycle in the veggie garden or were collected by the local milkman for his sideline in pigs.

Our grannies and mums were more "green" than today's crop of pontificating woke people who protest about climate change while demanding environmentally unfriendly imported vegan almond milk, avocado toast, weird "Meghan Coffee" and unseasonal salad. Where's the logic? I mean, genuinely, do these people not know how food works? Even one of my own sons asked me for asparagus the other day - hell, no! Not till May (or April if I get some nice weather), but even my own son, who loved to help me in the allotment at age three, is so used to seeing ever-ready supermarket vegetables he's forgotten that Nature has a big say in what we should eat and when!

I despair! I am a failed parent!

On a positive note, Princess Mad - who does all the cooking - bought the British equivalent of £10 of stewing steak and kidney last week, a bit of a treat as we (five adults) don't often eat beef. Day one, served stew and dumplings; day two made a steak and kidney pie; day three used the leftover gravy to make beef and vegetable soup; day four froze the last of the soup to use in a ragu later this week. No unseasonal asparagus involved! Fresh, local, seasonal!

To do anything less is disrespect.

Disrespect for the farmers, the cattle, the butchers and the grannies and mums who taught us how to be "green" before "green" was even invented!

That is the question. So what to do about H&M?

Now that they've been "evicted" from a house they rejected when they fled Royal Duties in order to embark on their multi-million dollar, worldwide, rainbow-flavoured Privacy Tour (thanks South Park, I love you!), I'm sure King Charles employs better brains than mine to decide if a devastated dad's love for his errant son trumps a constitutional monarch's duty to the people who maintain and employ him, not least so that the British people don't have to face the prospect of electing a President Blair, or a President Branson, or a President I'm-Richer-then-you-are, or a President I'm-A-Celebrity-on-Luvvie-Island. Or, God forbid, a President Markle.

Unless, of course, it's Samantha Markle, who actually seems quite nice and normal and not a bitter, twisted narcissist like her half-sister.

The woffling's starting to happen again, isn't it? I must learn to control myself.

Oh and I made the traditional English-style bangers and mash with dry sausages and onion gravy on the side, and then No.1 Son decided he'd send out for pizza instead so The Chipster got four onion-gravy-free sausages and had a very waggy tail all evening. Dammit, I haven't got the hang of this "control myself" thing yet! Big breaths, Mad, big breaths...

[Yeth, and I'm only thixthteen... nonono, forget that last bit, it was a joke from my disreputable past]

I don't care how upset the Gruesome Twosome are at losing Frogmore. You leave the company you work for, then you lose the company car. You engineer the Megzit and b*gger off to Montecito, then you don't get an apology from the family firm you abandoned to shack up with Netflix and Oprah Whingefree. You don't diss your family and contribute to the death of your grandma and then get the prime seats reserved for the loyal trustworthy family members.

I trust His Maj to listen to the advice he's being given.

No-one wants H&M at the coronation, so the invitation has to be given in such a way that H&M - or at least the M-bit of the twosome - can be prevented from showing up and turning it into a Meghanfest. Tricky situation for both sides.