Great Expectations

I have watched many films of Great Expectations and disliked them intensely while all around me enjoyed them and think Pip wonderful, Miss Havisham an icon, Dickens simply marvellous etc. In order to write on my blog about why Great Expectations does not actually merit all this praise I thought I'd better read the book. Oh DEAR. WHAT a struggle.

At first I thought "Damn! This is good stuff! I won't be able to get a blog post out of this." My change of heart lasted about 20 pages before all my prejudices were happily restored to me. And here is why.

Now, I like Victorian prose. I like to read books made up of proper sentences, like Thomas Hardy books are. On this front Dickens is fairly sound - credit where due. 

BUT :

i) Pip! Oh SPARE me do. For a start Pip is a silly unmanly name. Mistake, Charles, take it from me. We women like a manly hero. I took against Pip in a big way early on in the book and subsequent events did nothing to bring me round. He is a total WEED in all respects.

We (the readers) are I think expected to like him for being fond of Joe, Herbert, Wemmick, and for feeling ashamed for being unkind to Joe; however it is easy to be nice about fine people like those and ashamed of behaviour like that; he is ungrateful and spiteful about Pumblechook, his sister, the bad Pockets, unaware that without them he would be grovelling the streets for his living and keeps on and on about their faults. He was jolly lucky to be fed and housed and does he not realise that ALL children are subject to being constantly asked to name the pluperfect of moneo and what 13 times 13 is. He seemed to believe that Mr Pumblechook was not normal in asking these things and that it was unfair and malicious. In my experience this is part of being a child and you just put up with it unremarkingly. [This is for you, infants: monueram; 169]

ii) Miss Havisham! What an unlikely character. No-one could have the will-power to carry on like that for years. What good did it do her? None. What harm did it do her traitorous intended? None. And she would have noticed after a while and realised it would be better to sue the cad for breach of promise instead of sitting around moping and sulking.

iii) Estella! Estella makes me ashamed to be of the same sex. Even a twerp like Pip would not have loved her in real life. She was, in the Minehead parlance, "a right cow".

iv) Coincidence Overload. The plot of this book is preposterous.

Finally,

iv) The last sentence of the book is incomprehensible which is unfair on readers who have ploughed through 443 pages of Pip's whining. Though if it made it clear the uncongenial pair were going to marry and live out their days happily I would be jolly cross - so perhaps it is for the best that you can't tell whether that's what happened or not. Either way, they are welcome to each other.

Below are some draft questions for G-AHLK Examining Board Great Expectations exam.

1. Pumblechook is a ridiculous name and most unrealistic. Why did Dickens give his characters such daft names?  Was it because

      a) he had a personality disorder that made him want to insult his readers by using names that would be more at home in books for pre-schoolers

      b) he suffered from a neurological condition that caused him to imagine that these names were perfectly normal

      c) he was lazy

      d) he thought he was being humorous

      e) people really had those sort of names in those days 

2.  List the ways in which Miss Havisham’s situation is unfeasible. 

3.  Explain why Great Expectations lends itself ill to film treatment.

Answers:

1.  a) is the correct answer because it is clear from all the attributes of his books – plot, characterisation, style, names – that Dickens wished to insult and offend his readers. 

     b) is wrong. There is no such neurological condition recorded in the history of neuropathology.

     c) Certainly Dickens was lazy and could not be bothered to think up realistic names. However a) gives a fuller explanation and candidates will be awarded only 1 mark for choosing c).

     d) is not the explanation. The names are not in the least bit amusing.

     e) is incorrect. No-one ever had or will ever have such silly names.

2.   Miss Havisham’s situation involved her sitting permanently among her years-old wedding feast wearing her wedding finery, bemoaning her miserable fate. There are a number of reasons why this would not have worked in real life :

     i) the food would have begun to smell very smelly quite early on in the proceedings

    ii) rats would have come and Miss Havisham would have been screeching her head off at the first sight of one

    iii) she would have been bored to tears after a few weeks of this

    iv) once she got middle-aged her dress would not have fitted any more

     v) she must have gone to bed every night and she would soon have started to feel pretty silly putting the wedding dress back on in the mornings

    vi) what did she wear while the wedding dress was in the wash? Doing the Laundry in the 19th Century took all day and there weren't any tumble driers to speed things along 

   vii) whoever was paying for all this nonsense would have demanded it had to stop

  viii) she would have got the worst pressure sores ever seen in the history of nursing, and many other medical complications associated with inactivity.

3. Great Expectations should not be filmed because:

                                                                                                                                                                                                       

 a) The protagonists are each given a single attribute, which then defines them and they show no other subtleties  - eg. Pip - a weed; Estella - a right cow; Miss Havisham - an old misery; Joe - can do no wrong; Pip's sister - horrible. This is rigid and unadorned. These simple, unnuanced characterisations cause actors to over-act in a most irritating way. For example, the Christmas meal early in the story is treated in all films as an opportunity for absurdly exaggerated behaviour by the cast and it annoys me. You might expect at least ONE of the directors to exercise a little restraint but no! They are unable to resist trying to make it funny, and yet they all fail, and fail catastrophically. Look, lads, it ISN'T funny and there's nothing you can do to make it so, so don't try.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

    b) Apart from this, the book has descriptive passages that are not demonstrable by any acting; they have to be read. They are the best bits. The book is just NOT SUITABLE to make a film out of.

Well, there you have it. I have spake. I apologise to you all.

A Horrible House much admired by its owner

Here's a house worth Lord knows how many million pounds, but I DON'T CARE! I don't want the beastly place so that saves me £Lkhmm! Aren't I lucky. So will you be when you see these pictures. I have put in a few comments in red, about my own domestic arrangements, for comparison. 

Insider Information: In the Times Saturday Magazine they always have one of these articles, where they go to some non-enitity's house and then write a fawning article pretending to think the house is marvellous. Here we have a French femme fatale's mansion de Paris.

"The place screams luxury," the journalist informs us. A bit cold and spikey, I'd call it (left). That thing that looks like a rug on the floor, is a mosaic. It is not nearly as pleasing as the Roman mosaic in Taunton museum and I bet it doesn't feel as pleasant underfoot either. I can recommend going to see that, and touching it to appreciate how lovely it feels, before they stop allowing such liberties to be taken.

Notice also the hideous light fitment which is fully in keeping with all the other nasty shiny decor in this most unwelcoming of entrance halls. The owner boasts that she has "brought the subtle glamour of a 5star hotel into our home".


Roman mosaic at Taunton Museum.
Shows story of Dido and Aeneas.
Infinitely preferable.

Our entrance hall is furnished with boots all over the floor, a coat rack BULGING with a thousand never-used coats, baskets awaiting collection or repair, the cat, long-forgotten homework, bills and empty beer bottles. Very homely.

This is called the Chill-Out Zone. The family must be midgets as that little footbath is called the Swimming Pool. This basement area also boasts a hammam, whatever that is, and a spa, massage room and cinema. "It's our fun floor," says the owner, proudly. "I don't want anyone getting bored. Each floor has something different to offer." 
We don't have a Fun Floor in our house. There's a ground floor with bicycles in it and some camping equipment and hammers and stuff like that. The 1st floor has a kitchen and an area with chairs, music stands, bookcases etc. and stacks of papers, some of them vital like passports and chequebooks. The top floor has a few cramped bedrooms of which those occupied by the younger members are so untidy that they are eligible for World Heritage status, and a bathroom where we all bang our heads due to the sloping ceiling under the eaves.

The dining room, which has a leather ceiling. I shall say nothing on this matter.
The walls are of alabaster. 

Compare the G-AHLK dining area, where every surface is covered in junk, the chairs are all broken and none of the plates match. We have got MUCH better paintings though and the wines are many and various.

Horrid uncomfortable kitchen. White marble throughout; no expense spared here. Slaves have been in and done the washing up etc., which is nice. It has the air, though, of a hospital treatment room where one might take bloods or administer some other nasty medical procedure. Perish the thought of whipping soufflés or roasting any peacocks etc. in there.
The mere act of making a cheese sandwich in my kitchen can make the area into a bloodbath where it looks as though an 8-course banquet for 40 has been prepared. Countless implements are employed. Crumbs, crusts, wrapping, plates and knives are left about, and other members of the family then enter and complain that there's no bread left.

What???? What is this (left)? A washbasin? A birdbath?

Well, - it's a very expensive alabaster vase water installation designed by the owner of the house. Hmmm. The alabaster may well "echo the material used in the dining room" but if I was going to spend that sort of money I would procure an early Victorian quince dish, or a bit of  Ming.

This picture on the wall is of a frightening tribesman with a machine gun. It is not likely to enhance your concentration when you sit below it for a game of chess. An inexplicable choice of artwork.

Look at that piano. They have covered it in silver foil; and yet they are proud of the fact. They also obviously NEVER play it. Real pianos have their mouths open and are covered in piles of music and the keyboard has every pencil in the house, stored along the upper registers. N.B. Grand pianos have the advantage that the floor underneath them can be covered with piles of music as well. This (shown) is a waste of a piano. There is an old bedspring on the sideboard behind the sofa. You'd think they'd have put that out of sight for the photographers. There is a bit of sheep fleece I think, next to it. VERY odd wall decoration above those. I think perhaps the artist was pulling A Fast One. Anyway, I'm not keen on it. As for the "crocodile-hide and murano glass back-lit coffee table", I have rarely seen a less practical item of furniture. In real life the glass surface would be all smeary and have coffee rings, and the greenery would be long dead. If we had such a table in our house people would put their feet up on it and get it all muddy, before breaking it to smithereens.

The house has 3 floors as well as the basement. There are 3 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, countless dressing rooms, living rooms for the children and silk rugs galore along with mother of pearl and ebony inlays, and more mosaics which get everywhere including into the kitchen. 

The owner said she wanted to create a feeling of warmth and comfort. I am sorry but despite spending £Lkhmm she has failed spectacularly.

Here is a charming interior: Coleridge's cottage at Nether Stowey. The rug perhaps a little ill-advised but apart from that it's delightful. Despite Nether Stowey's proximity to the International Alabaster Hub that is Watchet there is not a speck of alabaster to be seen.

Christmas Presents no one will be pleased with

Advent Sunday is now not 8 weeks away and therefore loads of Xmas Gift Catalogues have begun to arrive through the letterbox;  and here is a selection of things I do not recommend: 

"Picture Keeper" - also known as a memory stick. Spend £34.99 on an 8GB memory stick if you want to, but they are available for £2.99 on eBay, the only difference being that eBay ones don't have Picture Keeper written on them. You can achieve the same effect by writing "Photos" on the memory stick casing, with a common felt tip pen. Then you will have saved £32 which can be spent on gin.

Now HERE is a useful commodity. A deer deterrent which makes an inaudible sound so you have no way of knowing whether it's working or not. Every Londoner is subject to deer-terror I am sure on his daily commute. Even here on Exmoor we occasionally see a deer but I can assure you they have got the sense to run away from cars anyway and have no need of inaudible sound warnings. A saving of £7.99.

Another marvellous idea. How often have you taken the wrong set of keys and consequently locked yourself out? Increase the likelihood of it happening again by having these decoy keys all over the place. I strongly question the claim that they will create any air of mystery or magic in your house or garden. Intense irritation perhaps but not mystery or magic. A total waste of £8.99.

Oh DEAR NO not the Tree Faces again. They had these last year as well and tried to tell us that Mrs G of Doncaster had said "My grandchildren just LOVE my tree faces. They are fascinated by them." Don't delude yourself, Mrs G. Grandchildren are notorious for their execrable taste; and in any case Fascination may be borne of disgust as well as pleasure. Edward Jenner was fascinated by smallpox, remember. Not that tree faces are likely to lead to any inventions on a par with vaccination or anything else. The flat-head nails are not even included.

This preposterous item looks like wine but is actually an umbrella. I defy anyone receiving this as a present to succeed in concealing their disappointment when they realise. A cruel trick to play on anyone. You could have got them £17.99-worth of real wine with that money.

Aurora Borealis Projector indeed. What  a world we live in. £23.24 by the time you have paid for the batteries. Plays a selection of annoying noises too. You do not need this, and nor do any of your acquaintances. A vain attempt by the catalogue people to obtain your money. I would be v surprised if they sell a single one of these.

A 'reflexology massage mask' which claims to relieve puffy tired eyes, remove tension and ease headaches leaving you feeling deeply relaxed. This can also be achieved with gin and I think we all know which method is more enjoyable. Once again gin provides the intelligent answer. £19.99 will buy you a big bottle of quality stuff such as Bombay Sapphire.

A repulsive jug which is both vulgar and impossible to clean. In keeping with common practice in such catalogues they have used this as an excuse to make a feeble pun which irritates the reader and causes you to want to hurl the whole booklet to perdition. An insult to me and to cows.

A prime example of what passes for humour in Catalogue World. I despise them. These things are £9.99 each. Anyone who orders one should be soundly thrashed. For crying out loud. The more I think about these the more furious I become.

Look. I don't like squirrels. Why would I want an ugly toy one in 10 X actual size hanging around in my garden attracting real squirrels? This is horrible, and £14.99 is not, so I'll be keeping the £14.99 thanks.

"Cause your dog to look ridiculous." This is cruelty to animals. It would be better for the human master to wear a badge saying "I am a turkey" than to be seen in public with a pet wearing one of these. 

This is similar to the dog bow tie outfit. Do not make your defenceless child wear things like this. Babies are idiotic enough in their own right, without their adults colluding to make them look even sillier. You should dress your young in dignified clothing.

N.B. They ought to stop the poor little mite climbing up the stairs as it is bound to fall down.

An inflatable sledge. How long do you suppose THAT'S going to last? 2 seconds? 3? It will DEFINITELY pop very shortly after the hapless adults have blown it up. Even if it lasts a full minute that will represent a cost of 21.65 pence per second of use. Poor value for money.

Finally, a useless Periodic Table mug. I admire the Periodic Table - heaven knows why, it is aesthetically displeasing by all my normal criteria - so I looked into this. Thank the Lord I will not have to buy one as closer examination discloses that this Periodic Table does not include the atomic weights and is therefore not much good to anyone. It's like a... a... a... bunch of notes without any stave, or a Times crossword where they have forgotten to print half the clues.

In conclusion, remember this: People like booze. I have just saved you £201.11 by stopping you from buying any of this stuff* so I suggest you go to the Wine Society website.

*£198.12 if you decided to buy a cheap memory stick as suggested.

Why Blackberries are Eve's Fault

The Horror of Blackberry Picking

Due to the idiotic behaviour of our ancestor Eve, getting blackberries to make some jam with is torture. In the Garden of Eden, where Eve had ONE JOB  -  i.e. not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil  -  the blackberries were easy to pick. It was all fine for her, but she had to go and ruin it for the rest of us. 

Blackberry Facts:

1.  The best blackberries are all high up out of reach. This is not because anyone else has been along before you and taken the lower ones. They just automatically grow like that.

2.  Blackberry areas are infested with giant spiders. The spider count is high this year which is due to the fact that the blackberries are better than usual so the spiders know we want to pick them. There were no spiders in the Garden of Eden. Thanks for that, EVE. In the G. of E. blackberry zones were frequented by kittens, puppies and sweet little ducklings. Here we have spiders; also wasps.

3.  All blackberry bushes are equipped with tripwire in the form of suckers made out of military weapons-grade fibres, to trip you up and make you spill your blackberries in the mud. 

4.  Blackberry bushes, despite having vicious prickles of their own, grow interspersed with wild roses which have the most effective thorns ever devised and which will rip through your clothing even if it's made of inch-thick harness leather. The thorns then attach to your leg/arm/face etc. and will not let go due to the reverse-hook design. It jolly well hurts.

5.  Blackberry bushes also surround themselves with savage nettles but believe me they are the least of your problems.

6.  Other accomplices used by blackberry plants include :   a) burrs. These will get all over your entire outfit. That doesn't matter as much as them getting in your hair, which they will certainly do. Burrs in your hair are not a good idea but unavoidable.   b) seeds. You move a dried-out old stalk of some dead umbellifer out of your way, only to have it sprinkle 10,000 seeds into your bucket of pickings. These then have to be picked out later using tweezers - can not be done with fingers.   c) thistledown. This (loads of it) will get in your bucket too and is not removeable by any known means.

7.  The difficulty and danger of obtaining any particular blackberry is in direct proportion to the likelihood of the blackberry turning out to be unripe/mouldy on the side you couldn't see. Allied to this is the fact that the apparent desirability of any blackberry is inversely proportional to the ease of harvesting it.

8. You are certain to get at least 3 ticks when picking blackberries.

So you see what Eve the Mother of Us All has wrought. Mother of all idiots more like.

If she hadn't failed in her one, tiny, mission, we would have been enjoying the cushy conditions she and Adam were provided with in the Thornless Garden where:

1. The blackberries were nice and low down on the plants.

2. Adam and Eve got puppies and ducklings; we get spiders.

3. Blackberry bushes were espaliered neatly against pleasant walls.

4. Note the name, "Thornless" Garden.

5. Nettles in the Garden of Eden had no sting, like Death.

6. Burrs, seeds and thistledown knew their place and kept out of your way. Not that there were any damn burrs, I'm sure of it.

7. ALL the blackberries were in perfect condition in the Garden of Eden.
8. It is a scientific fact that ticks were not invented until after Adam and Eve had left the Garden of Eden.

It could have been like that for us as well, if only Eve hadn't been such a TWIT.

I went to get some blackberries yesterday, and I can tell you it was agony. I got back with my delicate violinist's hands (hem hem) all lacerated and stained and my whole self stung, scratched and bitten.

Here they are, the swines. Along with plenty of maggots, dust, thistle bits and umbellifer seeds all of which ought to be laboriously removed. However our family has a robust antibody bank so I don't bother much.

Also you need apples to make the jam set. These are no trouble to harvest and you don't need many anyway. Someone in the Garden of Eden Ruining Committee missed a chance here.

Here's what I made: a year's supply of Blackberry and Thistledown Jam. Curse it. When you eat some in a few months' time the lovely taste of blackberries is supposed to transport you back to balmy summer days. My foot. It will just remind me of being stung, arachnophobic terror, and my hairdo all ruined by burrs while vast thorns hooked into me.

The suffering that went into producing this is beyond the duty of any mother.

This is to prove what a good set you get thanks to the apples :    

No thanks to the blackberries, or to Eve.     

Clothes to Wear at Picnics

Rousing news, Fashion-wearers! Picnics are now occasions which justify new outfits! According to the newspaper, you should get your husband to wear a pink and very hideous bomber jacket in satin (£490. Yes!) with matching pink trousers. You should wear the world's most unflattering sunglasses and horrid pink cardigan which picks up the colours of the man's trousers. Try to emulate what the model has got on here which is a "green and white check wool and silk body-suit £460, with red and white puppytooth silk-mix shorts." Well well. Who would have thought such things existed?



Later, change in to a not-warm-enough pale blue jersey and tie on a frumpy nasty-coloured headscarf to make yourself look like some old bat off Coronation Street. 



If the weather forces you to abandon the picnic idea, make sure your husband keeps his sunglasses on in the Tea room. Get him to change out of the pink stuff though. Take the opportunity to put on a leopardskin minidress. Always carry a leopardskin minidress with you for times such as these.

If the picnic goes ahead, change again. This time show off your feminine, frivolous side by wearing  a 100% silk dress - a long, golden one. Who cares that all the threads will catch on the brambles, that you will be cold, and that when you sit down it will show the dirt and let the stinging nettles sting you through the flimsy fabric? At least your husband has had the sense to bring some champagne. [There doesn't seem to be any actual food at this picnic. Real picnics involve a lot of unwilling people having to lug masses of heavy equipment across miles of hostile fields, usually uphill in my experience.]

Oh. I have checked the newspaper article and the dress is £1545 and it's a 'gold stretch brocade'. That'll keep the ants at bay.

Actually: In real life, for a picnic you should wear clothes you don't care a bit about. They needn't look nice. All you require is that they should keep you warm, dry and unprickled, and they should be machine washable unlike that handwash only at 3degreesC silk number. Otherwise your picnic will be uncomfortable and you will fret throughout about the thistles getting near the organza etc. Take waterproofs with you as it is bound to rain.

We are not told what shoes these picnicking fools were wearing but I bet they were silly ones and totally inappropriate for the terrain. You want stout walking boots and thick socks; trust me. Picnics are always cold and the ground soggy and full of vicious spiny plants.

Here we see a real picnic. Notice that the protagonists have got a drinks cooler, whose contents are the sole object of their attention. Boy in left foreground wears torn off trousers with holes and filth. His shirt has not been ironed in many a year and is not tucked in. He has removed his boots to expose socks that are holey and too small for him. Boy (right) wears tatty hoody (2/- from the jumble sale), and unironed trousers in sore need of a visit to the washing machine. Neither boy has brushed his hair since the days when their mummy used to do it for them. Sun not shining. Bracken and thorns everywhere. Basket (lower left corner) betrays presence of FOOD that has been brought to the scene. Mind your figures, everyone.

After the picnic go home and warm up. Put on some dry clothes. Check for ticks. Seek medical help if necessary. Have a few stiff gins.

Ridiculous Article in the Times

This was in the Times ages ago (in May), but I am still cross about it. 

"Anna Maxted sets out for a night in the wild, no tent allowed."

Anna Maxted? Who? Why? What for? Who cares?

In the course of the article Anna Maxted reveals herself to be a privileged rich person with a strongly developed ability to delude herself. She took part in one cossetted night's camping for which other people did all the preparation, fetching, carrying and clearing up afterwards; but she thought she had trekked successfully and self-reliantly across the Amazon Basin, discovered source of Nile, been to N & S Poles and ascended Mount Everest without oxygen cylinders.

Paragraph 1 : Poor Anna is cold. Her thermal fleece is a horrid colour. She has built herself a shelter (I bet) out of logs and leaves. She is lying in it. Mistake, Anna! What a fool she is. Everyone knows the first thing you do in camping is make a fire, before anything else happens. Fires are comforting and cheerful. You light the fire, have some beer, then build a shelter, if you still want one. No-one cares what colour their clothes are, as they'll soon be covered in mud anyway.

Paragraph 2 : She explains that she has signed up for a Survival and Bushcraft Course and she is doing this for feminist reasons, to show how clever women are. She says she "bristled with outrage" because Bear Grylls (a celebrity he-man who does camping on television) might be better at survival than her. Her reasoning was that automatically due to being a woman she would be better than all men at everything. This seems odd, since I have NO DOUBT that her extensive back-up team consisted largely of men, except for the make-up artistes who readied her for the photographs. 

Paragraph 3 : She admits to having once worn Gucci Clogs (What they? - Ed.) (see below, Ed) for cliff-walking (what ever that is). This is supposed to establish her Londony credentials. She did not like camping when she tried it a few years ago. Well done, Anna. Camping is disagreeable and inconvenient. I don't like it either because I require hot running water, a squashy bed with linen of thread count > 40,000, and clean clothes, also proper cooked food on china, at a table and with wine in crystal, thanks. 

A Gucci clog. Ideal as you can see for all forms of walking activity.
This is the sort of item that causes Exmoor to deny the existence of London.

Exmoor boots for either sex.
"London? I don't believe there's any such place," say the farmers.

Paragraphs 4-94 : Anna tells us more about the bushcraft course. Things have gone badly, right from the start. She has found that she can't even travel by Land Rover without bashing her pretty little head on the window. The fact that she mentions it shows what a weed she is and she would not last 5 mins on Exmoor where girls are expected to spend their nights lambing 85 sheep while fending off advances from Lothario of the neighbouring farm, their days whipping-in to their father/brother/aunt on a great charger with the D&S Staghounds, and the evenings running up and down Porlock Hill dressed as Father Christmas to raise charity money for the Air Ambulance. The Air Ambulance is held in kind regard on Exmoor as it is the only way of getting to hospital with the ailments that plague the moor, eg. chainsaw-related lacerations, wounds sustained during brawls in lawless village of Brendon, injuries from being run over by quad bikes, and consequences of the lethal pairing of combine harvesters and alcohol; although in practice most people round here just self-medicate with ketamine and a welding torch in such emergencies. 

They (Anna and the instructor, who is also a woman but marginally less silly than Anna) drive in the distressing Land Rover to the Lake District, where they take 3 hours to build a shelter. Real campers would have taken a tent. Anna sleeps badly in the shelter. "I need a pillow," she complains. Why didn't she use her wallet, eh, stuffed as it almost certainly was with nice soft £50 notes. Those Gucci clogs don't look as though they would make a comfortable pillow, unlike the Exmoor boots which are often used for the purpose in the lambing sheds of the South West.

Next morning Anna announces that she won't drink until they've made a fire or eat until they have foraged. What a weirdo! Personally when undergoing something nasty like camping I would want to be drinking constantly and nothing less than 4.5% vol. Worse still, the daft Anna means she will forgo ANY LIQUID AT ALL, not just alcohol. I can't see this turning out well.

The women are absolutely USELESS at making a fire. They "tramp for miles to locate a dead branch of sycamore" - in a WOOD! They carve a spindle, friction creates wood dust and so on and so on... Why in the name of Jesus Mary Joseph and all the Martyrs didn't they just bring some matches with them? They got up at 6am, and have the fire alight by 3pm. They haven't eaten yet, or, presumably, drunk either. These women are INSANE. The instructor woman tells Anna "That was excellent. You are very strong." Well she'd have to be, wouldn't she, doing all that with no food or sustenance of any type. I think the instructor woman's enterprise should be shut down, she's a danger to everyone including herself.

However it is easy to detect that the whole thing is a actually lie. Look at Picture A below, where Anna has brought a completely pointless twig and is adding it proudly to the very feeble fire they have got going. And fancy lugging a big cooking pot like that with you, but not bringing matches. Idiots. In Picture B the fire shown is a different one, which you can tell because it's in a different location. It was probably made by the helpers, using flamethrowers, petrol and coal shipped in by helicopter. In real camping you would not bother making 2 fires. One would be ample for the supposed 2 people on this expedition. What are they cooking in that pot anyway? A ready-made luxury casserole from Waitrose, I expect. Anna makes no mention in her article of bravely slaying a tasty unicorn in the forest or catching a trout or anything. All we are told is that she gathered a few sorrel leaves and a roasted (sic) dandelion root.  

Picture A

Picture B

Later that day, an elated Anna goes home convinced that she has proved herself capable of joining an Expedition to the Borneo Jungle. I can't say I'd expect her to be an asset. Her Gucci clogs might be useful for firewood and the £50 notes would do for kindling, but apart from that she will contribute only trouble.

Stop the Dog

Eric Hill, who invented Spot the Dog, has died. I'm sorry about that, I really am, and I'm glad he managed to make a nice lot of money out of what was really a very minor idea. Good for him. But Spot the Dog books are GHASTLY! INANE! An Insult to Childish Sensibilities! They annoyed the hell out of me when my children were of the age the books are aimed at, and the library was stuffed full of Spot books. The fellow WOULD NOT STOP producing the things. And I am sorry to report that the situation is no better now. I know, because in the course of my research for this article I have been to the library and seen that there are still loads of the books being thrust at the infants of Minehead. Also the Spot books seem to have opened the way for reams of other horrid, meritless tosh to be written for the young.

I shall now explain to you why Spot books should be consigned to the dustbin, by giving a critique of the first book, "Where's Spot?"

Now, the protagonist, Spot; here he is, and what a weed, eh?

Page 1:

This is not good art. How a baby is supposed to recognise that that is meant to be a dog I do not know.

Page 2:

This is madness. Why is the silly mother going to look for Spot? Surely one sounds the dinner gong, and if people are too lazy to respond then tough, I say. Spot's had his chance, and if he can't be bothered to come then he can go hungry. Mothers have enough trouble preparing the wretched food, without having to go searching and begging people to come and eat it.

Page 3:

"Is he inside the clock?" Well he'd jolly well better not be. That's a delicate timepiece and I would be furious if anyone got inside any of my clocks, upsetting the mechanism and putting the pendulum out of true.

Page 4:

Dear Lord it gets worse. Mr Webber the piano tuner will go BESERK when he sees this. The inside of the piano is STRICTLY out of bounds and no-one opens that lid unless I am present, is that clear? This is an irresponsible picture which sets a very dangerous example for children. Anyway, how ridiculous. I think that's meant to be a hippopotamus so what in God's name is it doing on this CONTINENT quite apart from being inside the piano? As for Spot's mother, is she some sort of imbecile? She doesn't appear even to be startled, let alone annoyed. Admittedly the realism required to convey such emotions is not present in these crude and primitive drawings.

Page 5:

The caption for this one is "Is he under the stairs?"

Well for his own sake I hope he isn't, because if I was Spot's mother I would be beside myself with anger by this time. 

One lifts the flap (it's a lift-the-flap book) and finds that there is a lion in the cupboard under the stairs. I ask you. All I can say is, it would be better for everyone if the lion had eaten Spot and then ate his gormless mother. 

Page 6:

Still applying the tired old formula, the caption here is "Is he in the wardrobe?"

Any toddler worth his salt will have climbed down from Granny's knee by now and gone out to play poker with his friends. The last thing he wants is to lift the flap and see an unconvincing monkey which is swinging from the clothes rail. The monkey has dropped litter and banana skins in the wardrobe so Spot's mother has further cause for annoyance. She is not having a good day.

Page 7:

Another shock to which Spot's unresponsive mother gives no reaction. Under the bed there is a crocodile. What sort of establishment is this woman running?

And is it helpful, I wonder, to try to convince innocent children that these exotic animals are at liberty about the place?

Page 8:

Well what a surprise! The daft mother continues her search, though thousands wouldn't. And in the box there are some... PENGUINS! Of course there are. We're all on crack here.

Page 9:

You'd think the mother would have given up by now, but no! She has obsessive behaviour issues. Guess what is under the rug - a unicorn? a breeding pair of pterodactyls? Anything is possible in Spotworld.

In fact in the published version there's a talking tortoise under the rug, which directs Spot's mother to try looking in the basket. This is a blessed relief I can tell you.

Page 10:

At bally last! There's the accursed puppy and about time too. Why is the mother smiling? This sends a terrible message to readers, namely "Deliberately hide from your mother! It will be a laugh! She won't be cross with you for i) wasting her time, ii) letting the food get cold, iii) frightening her because she thought you were lost. Go for it, Toddlers!"

Page 11:

The denouement. 

The level of Suspension of Disbelief required here is absurd. 

1. Spot should have been sent to bed without any supper after the way he had behaved. 2. A real mother who has just had the trouble Spot's mother has had would NOT be watching dotingly as the disobedient offspring ate. She would be unable to bear having it in her sight or earshot, believe you me. She would be sitting in the other room with a large glass of Pimms if she had any sense. However, sense is something, as Spot's mother has amply demonstrated throughout this saga, that she lacks to a CONSPICUOUS DEGREE.

Verdict : Our 2-year-olds deserve better.

When the first Spot book was published in 1980 it was obvious straight away that it was a Bad Thing and a stop should have been put to it there and then. Now it's too late and they're everywhere.