flossing the cat

Last week, my seven-year-old daughter seemed troubled. “Mummy, why are you the only mummy on the street with fur sticking out of your arms?” she said. She was looking at my armpits in a hurt, disgusted way, as if I had Tufty the Squirrel in a headlock. I was too knackered to explain to her that contrary to public opinion, all sexually mature women grow hair on their bodies, and that many of them have more hair growing from their armpits and minges than Sasquatch. I was also too knackered to explain to her that the pressure on women to shave, pluck, tweeze, wax, and zap every single hair on their body until they look like pre-pubescent girls is just sinister sexist bullshit dreamed up in the 1920s by those absolute motherfuckers at Gilllete. But the main reason I didn’t challenge her was that I’m sensitive enough to realise that to a small hairless child, a thousand colossal tufts of armpit hair probably looks like the kind of place where witches meet.   “I’ll shav...

I haven’t blogged in a while. These are the reasons: The Summer Holidays:   We’re all going on a summer holiday, tra la la la la la la tra la la … Oh, hang on a minute, what I actually meant to say was we’re NOT going on a summer holiday. Duh! Thing is, my partner is working 12-hour days for the duration of the summer holidays, so I’m staying right here, in the house, for six and a half weeks, with a gazillion children.   Yeah, don’t worry, I’ve got enough food in! Sure I’ll keep the windows open so that there’s enough air n’all! And best of all, my mum’s coming up for a couple of days so no worries! It’ll be nonstop fun I’m telling ya!! Lack of stimuli:   Hey, even if I did have a minute to write a blog in between all the crazy fun times, I wouldn’t know what to write. You see, during the summer holidays, the children operate Amish-style house rules that forbid me from consuming news or current affairs programmes, surfing the Internet, reading books, or excha...

OK. Here’s the problem. Every time I come back from a holiday, the house stinks. The porch and hallway smell like The Elephant House in high summer. The rest of the house also smells like The Elephant House in high summer, except one of the elephants has VAG ROT, and all the other elephants have died. The situation has gotten so bad I dread coming back. “Please god let the cats not have shit everywhere”, I whisper to my partner on the journey home from our most recent holiday. “I don’t think I can take it.” “Just relax”, says my partner. `’If they have, I’ll clear it up straightaway.” My partner doesn’t know me. If he did, he wouldn’t bandy around inflammatory words like ‘relax’. Conversely, I know him well enough to know that the very first thing he will do on arriving home will be to scroll through the list of recorded programmes on the Sky Plus Planner. He would do this even if he needed to pick the zapper out of a buzzing, twitching heap of cat shit as big...

Yesterday afternoon, I walked with my toddler and four-year-old son to the school. We walked in single file in the deliciously cool shadows of some cypress trees. My toddler was asleep in the buggy, fiercely clutching a dandelion clock, the spoils from an earlier battle with her brother. My son was wearing his beloved blue snowboots, from which he won’t be parted, in spite of the heat.    ‘Children get very tired walking”, he said. “Bumblebees get tired too, don’t they?” I passed him his new red water bottle. He drank with both hands clasped seriously around the bottle, his eyes closed, and although we were late for school, everything was absolutely perfect. Perfect, that is, until the driver of a massive fuck-off Eddie Stobart Heavy Goods Vehicle – which was already driving too close to the kerb – beeped his horn TWICE, long and hard. “Nigel, mate”, he shouted, waving to a guy on the other side of the street.  He beeped it again, this time for longer. The...

Everyone knows that the world is divided into two kinds of people: Larks and Owls. Larks love the mornings. Every morning, at the ass crack of dawn, they pop out of bed like a bunch of smiley creepy jack-in-the-boxes, before going for a run around the village, or composing entire symphonies, or eating thousands of goji berries, or singing really chipper hymns of praise to the Sun Goddess, or whatever. Unlike me, larks don’t wake up every morning to a spectacular shit-pile of negative thoughts, which in my case, looks something like this:     At least when I’m in a nursing home I won’t have to do THIS   I’m so tired I must have got M.E.   Would it be possible or practical to install an oxygen cylinder in the bedroom?   If I don’t get up NOW, or at the very latest before the alarm clock says 7:28, something awful will happen.   I could probably gain an extra half hour’s sleep if I home educated.    I wish I was three. ...

Most days, collecting the post is a dismal event. There is the usual avalanche of shit from the Inland Revenue, a flyer or ten from Graham the local Tory candidate, and reminders from the DVLA/bank. Quite frankly, the postman may as well vomit through the letterbox. But this morning was different. This morning, the hallway was filled with a transcendent white light. I shielded my eyes. I approached with caution, like Moses in front of the Burning Bush. There it was ... On MY mat ... In MY house ... The White Company catalogue. Just to clarify, I have never bought anything from The White Company as I am not in the habit of paying £55 for a White T-shirt, or sleeping on crisp White 600-thread-count percale sheets. All I can think is that some kind, philanthropic soul from The White Company - intent on disseminating Happiness - hacked into NHS confidential records, traced the details of all those who have ever suffered from depression, and thought, “I know what would make these sad ...

Or. When Technology Turns Against You I can’t be bothered to introduce this lot. They are all vile. Captchas – OK. I know what you're thinking. What could be easier than typing out two little words on a spotty grey and white background in order to prove that you’re not a robot? Huh? Huh?   Huh?  Well, let me tell you. Smashing the atom. That’s what. Or, sequencing the entire human genome. Or, unravelling the mysteries of the universe. Or, understanding the mind of God. Or, harnessing the sun’s power to meet the energy requirements of humanity for the rest of eternity. Or, getting Little Miss Gwyneth Paltrow’s perfect offspring to drink a mug of motherfucking Cup-A-Soup. That’s what. The other day, after about a billion attempts at typing a  captcha  - and having to suck out the insides of a whole Cadbury’s crème egg between each attempt just to stay calm - I tried the captcha audio version. Except that nobody told me that the captcha audio version is a do...