Category: Stuff that just happens

Bikini Pose

When I hear a cry of: Mu’um! approaching my bedroom when I’ve just got out the shower, I now administer a sharp warning to the approaching teenager that I’m naked. I’ve been caught out too many times over the past few years and I’ve had my fill of teenage girls’ faces contorted in disgust at the sight of their mother with no clothes on. I don’t think that it’s because of the state of my body particularly. I think if you asked them they’d agree that it’s just the mere fact that I am their mother and I am naked, just as they would no longer stand in front of me with no clothes on. We’re not naturists, it’s all perfectly normal. Which is why when I heard that Jamie Oliver’s two teenage daughters witnessed their 5th baby being born and cut the cord, I was just a little skeptical. I mean, I think my teenage girls would rather kiss my butt than watch another sibling appear from my fanny.

Anyhow, if they did enter my bedroom, they may be in severe danger of catching me perfecting my ‘bikini pose’. Oh yes, nothing escapes me. I’ve seen it on Instagram over and over again since July. On every beach, in every country all over the world, teenagers are taking a stance: not a stance on the abolishment of student grants and rising tuition fees you understand. No, the bikini stance: facing the camera with one leg about a foot further forward than the other with your arse stuck out so far that the small of your back is crying. When I first saw it I thought it looked a little strange – as if they have a problem with their hips. Then I thought to myself: if they’re all at it there must be something in it. So I tried it in front of the mirror this morning. “You put your left leg in, your left leg out. You do the bikini pose to stop it all hanging out!” I found myself humming to myself, as I practised it a few times to get it right and now I know! I know why they do it! I have discovered the teenagers’ secret weapon that they need in their armory with so many selfies constantly taken around swimming pools and being shared immediately on social media: it pulls the tummy tight – try it! Drop what you are doing right now, find a mirror and strike the bikini pose. Join the revolution! No need to shy away from that selfie stick looming over your head as you’re trying to read your magazine. Leap off your lounger, stick one foot in front of the other and stick your bum out. Hell, go the whole hog and do the peace sign. You are going to thank me for this! No more groans as you look back at those holiday snaps, just a beautiful tummy stretched out like a piece of old knicker elastic. 

I’m going to spend this afternoon trawling through Instagram for ways in which I can deal with a fat arse. Watch this space! 

Age is Just a Stupid Number

A few years ago, I think it was in my 40th year, I was in a coffee shop slurping on a latte, when the chap sitting next to me started engaging me in conversation. During the course of which he said that I looked young: 16 years old, he said. I spat out my latte with a snort of laughter and he continued assuring me that I looked like a teenager.

Now, before you all snort out your own coffee and judge me for being a sad old cow, who takes compliments from elderly men (oh, had I not mentioned that he was old…) and spouts them as gospel – I didn’t. I thought: you joker, but I’ll take from it that I don’t look too old and wrinkly just yet. I did, however, return home and whoop away to partner how someone in Neros had said I look 16 and when he asked how old that person was, I had changed the subject.

Ever since that day, periodically, partner has made a sarcastic comment in passing about me, ‘only looking 16.’ It generally comes up when I remind him that he is nearing 50 and is older than me and so on – it’s his weapon of mass sarcasm.

This morning on the dog walk we got chatting to a fellow walker and she was asking about the ages of our kids. “You don’t look old enough!” She exclaimed. “You only look 37”.  When we’d parted company, I looked at partner and glowed. I grinned like a Cheshire cat and I couldn’t help myself saying to him: aren’t you lucky to have such a young looking partner!

Crikey, he replied. From 16 to 37 in 5 years. You’ve aged 20 years in that short time. Life has been hard on you!

That’ll teach me to gloat.

Fake Tan

The post in the following link was sponsored by a sun cream manufacturer.

http://www.womenshealthmag.co.uk/fitness/fitness/5375/5-ways-to-get-fitter-on-the-beach/

But it was published in Women’s Health under the guise of ways to stay fit on holiday: “if you’re itching for your fitness fix”

Erm…not really.

“Here’s 5 ways to turn any beach holiday into a bona fide fitness retreat.”

It said. I’m asking…WHY?

Just because you’re on the beach, relaxing on that holiday that you have saved up for since Christmas and been counting down the days until you can finally kick back…doesn’t mean you stop here. Fuck no! Don’t for one millisecond think that just because you are on holiday you can relax! “Use these easy tips to tone at home and abroad…There’s no reason to idle until cocktail o’ clock”

No! Why the hell would you want to, ‘idle’ on holiday? For god’s sake, woman, didn’t you realise that your holiday is actually, “a bona fide fitness retreat”? Your first proper opportunity to get tipsy since you gave birth.

1. 7:00 AM morning run Early riser? Piss off! Because your kids are knackered from the flamenco dancers last night and this is actually the first lie in you have had since you were so drunk at your sister’s wedding, you failed to notice them jumping on your head the following morning!

2. 11:00 AM: mid-morning yoga poolside with kindle and a bloody great big cocktail. Just work that core and see if you can, “Nama-stay upright”.

3. 2:00 PM: afternoon paddle-boarding A way to escape the hot sand? Check. A way to relax in easy reach of the water? Check. Pass the Margarita sunshine, I’m getting on that lilo!

4. 5:00 PM: evening HIIT The sun’s just dipped, but it’s still warm, perfect conditions for a quick splash in the sea and back to the apartment to get ready to party!

5. 9:00 PM: sunset stroll…ok, this is a maybe, “it’s the perfect way to end the day and reduce the impact of all that good food”…oh and there was me, stupidly thinking that it was just a romantic walk along the beach with the other half.

Adverts for products that are masquerading as ways in which we should exist: fuck off! Nobody needs your guilt trips. Ever. Especially not on holiday.

Talking of which, I may be a bit quieter over the next month…

Happy relaxing hols 🙂

Suncream, Sand and Smalls

kidsclubsbucketspade

Kids’ clubs on holiday. Ooh that was once a controversial topic. I don’t know what the current thinking is. Are they frowned upon by people who don’t understand the concept of: parents need a break too?

“You have kids and then don’t even want to spend time with them on your family holiday” – people have been known to say.

In the past, I have been known to say, in response to this: “fuck off!”

Everyone who owns small children knows that holidays are not what they were pre-kids. In fact, there should be an alternative word for a holiday with your kids, that probably wouldn’t include the word, ‘holiday’. A few weeks before, the anticipation is great. A few days before and you are feeling completely overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the task of packing for babies/toddlers/checking partner’s/if you’ve got time, you throw in a bikini and a sarong for yourself. By the time you get to the airport, you are heading straight for the Wetherspoons, or, if you’re lucky, the lounge where you feast on the complimentary drinks, while your kids are already wondering who this person is and when can they have a break from this stressed out individual – hey parents, we need a holiday too!.

A holiday by a pool seemed like a brilliant idea back in January, when all you could dream about was sun. When you descend on the pool on your first morning, however, the reality is that none of your children can swim and you have to be on it like a hawk. You buy yourself a cocktail just because it makes you feel grown-up, oh and as if you are on holiday. It then sits getting warm next to the Kindle that is switched off and realistically, will remain switched off for the duration. The 3 s’s: sun cream,  sand and smalls – nuff said. If you are clever, you have somehow managed to bribe grandparents into joining you – probably on the proviso that they will get to spend quality time with their grand kids (mwahahaha). If you didn’t do this, you may well find yourself booking them in to the kids’ club, whilst alleviating your guilt in the knowledge that if you didn’t, you may well kill them and that they are just going to have so much fun in there with all those other little monkeys, who are muttering away to each other over the craft of the day: call this a holiday? I can do this crap at home.

My ex and I used to go on holiday to a hotel in Scotland, where there was a kids’ club. That’s why we went to that hotel. Recently the girls were talking about those holidays and one of them said that they had hated the kids’ club. Next thing I know, they’re all muttering in agreement. Rubbish! I told them. You loved going to that club. Admittedly it was run by a Scottish matriarch whom everyone, including the parents were terrified of. Every morning there was a long queue of hungover parents, waiting patiently in silence, counting down the minutes until they were next to sign for three hours of freedom. A couple of times we went to this hotel with my sisters. One morning my little sister decided to have a laugh with our brother in law by pretending to admire his new phone, whilst changing his ring tone. This particular morning we were all standing ashen and silent in the long queue, when my brother in law’s phone boomed out: “I’m hung like a donkey!” in an Alan Partridge voice. The matriarch didn’t look best pleased and it did cross my mind that she never treated our kids the same after that.

So where do you stand on this one? Are you putting your kids in a kids’ club while you relax by a pool this summer, or are you of the opinion that holidays are for the family to spend all the time together. Don’t worry if you feel this way. I won’t swear at you, because my kids can swim, put on their own sun cream and pour my wine when I am stuck to the sun lounger. There is light at the end of a very long tunnel. Happy holidays 🙂

 

 

The Journey: Perfectionism vs. Excellence

This post is looking at the concept of perfectionism versus excellence. I am relating my thoughts mainly to the teaching of martial arts. However, the same concepts are transferable when we are teaching our children as their parents, the way in which teachers at school are teaching our children, the way you may be experiencing being taught as an adult. We must not confuse excellence with perfection. Striving for excellence is a personal journey. Striving for perfection is usually trying to follow someone else’s path.

Life is a journey

Life, as we all know, is a journey. It takes us to some amazing places, some scary places and some shit places. We meet so many people along the way: some travel with us the whole way, others only for a part of it. Some of the people we meet on our journey aren’t very nice and others change our lives forever. For some people their destination comes sooner than they were expecting and for others the journey is long.

Teaching is an evolving journey

As a teacher I am always reflecting: thinking about what made a class good, or what didn’t quite work. On how students learn and thus on how to teach. Teaching for me is a journey in itself and my perspective is often changing. I actually feel that it is evolving, because I feel that I view things in a better way now.

Martial Arts provides a structure

Martial Arts are highly structured and disciplined – this, of course forms a great deal of their appeal. In a world that feels chaotic and we often feel out of control, martial arts remain a constant.

Perfection is someone else’s standard –  it is an illusion

There are many types of martial arts. Each one has its own benefits and many of the benefits are shared throughout all of them. Sometimes, however, I feel that instructors strive for perfection, borne out of a misguided conception of the Art. Of course it is important that standards are kept high, but standards remain, with the best will in the world, subjective. Perfection is an illusion. What’s perfect to you will not be perfect to someone else.

In Taekwon-do, there is no right or wrong answer to getting a move correct. The answer is fluid. It will depend on interpretation and is subject to Chinese whispers, as Grand Masters pass their knowledge to masters who pass it to instructors.

Striving for perfection is demotivating – make yourself happy by trying your personal best

So those instructors, or indeed any sports coaches or teachers who strive for their idea of perfection are, I feel missing good teaching techniques and goals. Put martial arts, for example in the context of people’s lives: for most students it is a hobby. One that keeps them fit and strong just like other sports do, while at the same time providing them with a structured goal setting system. This is highly motivating, until you get an instructor who is pushing for his or her idea of perfection at every stage. Let’s contextualise it again: there are few other sports or hobbies that strive for perfection in order for you to do brilliantly at them. Watch a game of international football and plenty of mistakes are made, but overall the standard is often high. As teachers, coaches and instructors we should not expect the student to make us happy by trying to be perfect. They should be trying to make themselves happy by doing their personal best.

Excellence is personal and inclusive

I believe that Taekwon-do instructors and other coaches need to approach their teaching with a broad mind. Striving for blanket perfection of a technique may seem like an admirable goal, but it is an exclusive rather than an inclusive way of teaching. How can someone with a disability, for example, be included in this approach? How can an older, less flexible person be made to feel that they are succeeding? What about a person who lacks power, just because that is the way they are made?

It is about being as excellent as you can be, rather than as perfect as someone else thinks you should be

Striving for perfection with students is a demotivating method. Take a teacher in a school. They aren’t looking for the students to get 100% all the time. They are encouraging each student according to what is expected of them as an individual. A student whose teacher is looking for perfection will never feel that they are getting anything right. As parents we can be guilty of this too. It is not about lowering standards, it is about individual goal setting, encouragement and support. It is about being as excellent as you can be, rather than as perfect as someone else thinks you should be.

Striving for perfection will never make you happy

For too long I feel that some martial arts teachers have failed to see students as individuals. I have seen this on my own teaching journey. I myself in the past have expected students to be able to do more than they are perhaps capable of at that time. If a student is striving for perfection, they will never be happy, no matter what they achieve.

Motivate with personal targets, rather than demotivate with unachievable expectations

So my teaching journey has now brought me to a point where I see every student with their own abilities, strengths and restrictions. I am not putting any limitations on what they can achieve and I will push them as far as I can, with the knowledge that I am motivating them every single step of the way, rather than demotivating them with my own unachievable expectations. This way, they will achieve so much more than they ever would with the goal of perfectionism. If you never feel good enough, your journey will end.

The Fruits of Perseverance Taste Sweet

I remember when I was weaning my daughters, I read somewhere that you have to introduce a food 20 million times (actually, I think it is about 20, but I lost the will by approximately 5) in order for the child to like it, if they aren’t immediately enamored. This always seemed like a step too far for me, as a frazzled parent with 4 young children. There was only ever so much spitting and throwing and puking it back up that I could take. I would soon give up. Hence, perhaps the reason why my 17 year old still hates fish. But then again, so does my 47 year old sister. Aren’t there just some foods that we will never like, no matter how many times we try to?

Or are there? Did I just give up too early? Should I have persevered?

The thing is, teaching Taekwon-do has made me realise a thing or too. Not so much about food, although doing the training has meant I haven’t had to worry too much about how much I eat, but actually more about how we learn.

You see, as teachers we have a whole load of knowledge that we want to impart. Some of it is quite basic and some of it is bloody complicated. When we first show a student a new move, we expect them to struggle with it: where to put the hands, which hand on top…there’s a few issues going on that they need to grasp and we have the patience to let them try and to keep trying, until they begin to master it. Once they get it, we feel pleased, for both of us. For them, because they have achieved something new and for us because we can enjoy watching them progress.

However, this is where the food comes in. Usually when we learn something new, we don’t get it straight away. Often it takes many, many attempts to master the technique and during all this time, we need to be reminded of how to perform it over and over again by our instructor. It is so important for teachers and students to understand that we do not learn things on that first attempt. In fact, it can actually take far more attempts than a student may feel they have got the patience for. It is imperative however, that we, both teachers and students, do not give up – unlike my abandonment of foods. My lack of perseverance of reintroducing them until my children ‘got them’. We must never feel that the mountain is too high to climb and so to make do with what we already are comfortable with. How limiting is this view!

I know that if it takes 5 demonstrations of a technique or 5000…hell, even 50,000, eventually that student will get it. And actually, the fruits of their efforts will taste all the sweeter for persevering.

Image result for perseverance 100 times quotes

 

Up Yer Bum!

THE swimsuit to wear this summer (apparently) is Brazilian inspired aka up yer bum. I asked partner whether he thought this was the appropriate look for me in Spain and he faltered. I took it as an out right ‘no!’ I’m too old. My arse isn’t botoxed or surgically enhanced and besides…it just feels like you’ve got a permanent wedgie.

If the truth be told, I’ve see them on Instagram and I’m not sure I’m convinced. No doubt when the Olympics start in Rio this week, however, the BBC will find some choice shots of Brazilian ladies for their VT’s, beach volleyball perchance, to convince us all that this type of swim suit can, indeed look good. While at the same time I will be chucking things at the telly going: you sexist producer bastards. Show us some cock in lycra!

In fact, there is a whiff of buttocks in the air at the moment, as Channel 4 hosted a games show where contestants got their butts (and knobs) out. Ffs why? Where’s the mystery? C’mon ladies – a guy may have a small penis but be fucking Einstein. Conversely, he could be hung like a friggin’ donkey and be Donald Trump. It’s not all about the dick. They are important, but we can be flexible.

Nudity is in the air. Naked old geezers have been photographed cycling in Kent (of all places) and there is a nude restaurant just opened in Elephant and Castle – the go to place for romance.

Summer is certainly the time for tits and bums to get an airing…not mine you understand, but other people’s. What is acceptable these days? I see so many teenagers flashing their flesh on Instagram for likes. One vague sighting of a daughters’ arse and I’m on it like a car bonnet. Meanwhile they couldn’t give a monkeys. Where are the standards? I haven’t got a bloody clue. Because on the one hand you’ve got the naked octogenarian on his bike and on the other you’ve got teenagers showing off their abs. Abs that have been encouraged by fitness gurus on Facebook. Oh, and their arses – inspired by Brazil and the Olympics…

I would really love the Olympic legacy to read more like this: girls inspired to take up sport after Britain’s successes in the Rio Olympics.

Come on ladies: nail it!

Accept Difference

To the lady in Waitrose this morning…

Please don’t judge me for looking at you. Mine were eyes of sympathy, amidst those of curiosity and others of condemnation.

You were leaving the cashier, as I was coming in. I couldn’t help but look, because your child’s screams filled the entire vacuous space of the shop.

To me, his screams of wanting cake were not the ordinary cries of a child having a tantrum, they were somehow more than that.

I could only see you through the tills and couldn’t easily reach you, or I’d have reached out and asked if I could help. By the time I had thought to do this, the screams, though they didn’t lessen for you, were disappearing out of the shop.

You looked so calm. Deep down you must have been in agony. It was as if time stood still for those moments as he screamed for that cake. But you had the look of someone who had dealt with this before. Someone who is able to block out the prying eyes and focus on what really matters. Him.

I could see, even from across the shop, that you understood why he was upset and because of this, it didn’t actually matter that people were staring in disbelief. Some embarrassed, looking nervously at other shoppers, trying to make sense of what they could hear. Some probably like me, wanting to ask if they could help, but not quite knowing how to.

You must have made it out of the shop and away from that difficult moment, because by the time I left there was only the usual noises of a supermarket car park filling the air.

I admire you. I admire your ability to cope so well under scrutiny. I don’t know whether you always cope so well. But even if this was your finest parenting achievement so far, you nailed it. You didn’t need our help today, but you have my thoughts.

Disability is not always visible. Your response is. Make a difference. Accept difference.

https://www.facebook.com/Themightysite/videos/649599385187812/

If you enjoy my blog, I would be very grateful if you voted for me in the Mumsnet Blogging Awards: Best Writer and best Comic Writer categories. It is a quick one – takes seconds and here’s the link, thank you 🙂http://www.mumsnet.com/events/blogging-awards/2016

Droning On

Daughter 1: Mum, will you pack for me – you don’t have to choose my clothes, just pack them?
Me: Why?
Her: Because you’re good at it.

No, I said.

So she packed, as well as tidied her room, painted her desk white, walked into town to get toiletries and get Turkish lira, did an hour’s Taekwon-Do training and cooked dinner for 6 of us. She’s off to Turkey today and I won’t see her for two weeks. So I spent the whole of yesterday feeling guilty. Guilty that I’d said no to packing her suitcase. Guilty for not remembering that she needed foreign money. Guilty for moaning at her about painting her desk and guilty about having asked her to cook dinner. Was she stressed and anxious about any of this? No. She was happy and excited about her holiday and by doing all those things she felt independent and secure. I did the right thing – I think – but I spent the whole day questioning myself.

You see, as I talked about in my blog: Bonsai Parenting, we are doing far too much ‘helicopter parenting’, where we hover over our children like an irritating mosquito, swooping in if our child needs rescuing. Keeping a close eye on proceedings, ready to throw the rope down for them to grab hold of and get taken back to the safety of the home at the slightest whiff of potential conflict or danger.

However, I would even take it a step further in my analogy of how we’re bringing up our kids. Modern parenting is more like drone parenting: even more intrusive, with its ability to get in closer and to gather the necessary information required to control our children.

‘Drones provide troops parents with a 24-hour “eye in the sky”, seven days a week. Each aircraft can stay aloft for up to 17 hours at a time, loitering over an area and sending back real-time imagery of activities on the ground. Although drones are unmanned, they are not unpiloted – trained crew parents at base steer the craft, analyse the images which the cameras send back and act on what they see.’

Information from teachers, tutors and sports coaches, to name but three. Parents are incessantly requiring feedback on their offspring, to use to remain firmly involved at every decision making process. Drones can spy, and as parents we are encouraged to spy on our kids: check their internet activity, read their texts, always be on the lookout for clues to them entering the dark side, from where we will immediately rescue them.

We’ll rescue them by droning on to teachers when our child is even slightly struggling. Droning on at the side of the pitch, telling a child how to play a game that the parent probably knows little about. This isn’t just words of support, this is telling them what to do and even worse, telling them what they should have done. This is apparently one of the main reasons kids, particularly girls give up sport in their droves as they approach the teenage years – they are embarrassed and made to feel even more self conscious by well meaning drones.

Drones, unlike helicopters, can swoop right in. They are on the PTA, on the school trips, on the school reading rota, they are constantly at school. Then the next thing they know they are traipsing around university open days where frustrated deans are prising their child away from them and telling them to go and do something else for a couple of hours. They are writing the personal statement, sorting out their child’s work experience and attending their interviews with them.

Drones are doing everything they can to prevent risk: risk of injury, risk of failure and risk of boredom. But this well meaning drone parenting is creating children who are more likely to develop low self-worth, who are stressed and anxious and who are more likely to engage in risky behaviour, such as binge drinking.

I’m not the parent who drones on at the side of the pitch – I leave that to the coaches. Nor am I the parent drone, hovering in the school. But I am a drone. I’ve realised that I have spent the past few months asking one of my daughters if she is ok. She became a little more withdrawn than usual and I worried. I worried that she had lost her spark and so I asked her: what’s wrong? Nothing, came her reply. But I asked again and over the months again and again: are you sure?  No wonder she withdrew. She’s doing well at school, she has good friends, but I still worried too much. When parents drone on, anxiously asking: are you ok? they can make the child anxious because they sense that we’re worried and, of course, it can make them pull away. I am over-analysing, when I should be giving her the space to breathe.

The other time that I drone on is about chores. That constant: can you do this? Have you done that? I asked you to tidy up and so on, doesn’t teach them to notice for themselves when things need doing. I repeat myself too frequently. I am not raising robots, I am bringing up independent human beings, whom I want to be self-aware.

Parent drones are well meaning, because not being a drone can feel detached and alienating and, as I said at the beginning of this post, hands off parenting can make you feel extremely guilty. Ironically, in order to develop our children’s confidence, we need to develop our own. Do you think our own parents ever felt guilty when they told us to, “go and play”? No, because they weren’t surrounded by other parents who were hovering over their offspring and they weren’t being constantly fed horror stories in the media about paedophiles who lurk on every corner. They don’t. But they do exist. They exist in places where you cannot always be: it could be your child’s friend’s dad, or a family member. All we can do is to develop our children’s confidence and self esteem; let go and trust.

So next time I’m sick of my own voice droning on I might just shut up and see what happens. I might actually be pleasantly surprised.

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Love Island: The Nation’s Moral Compass

We’ve just got rid of Love Island – sorry, I know that some of you were avid watchers of it, so no need to despair! As I was perusing tonight’s TV schedule I noticed two new shows that may just excite you. If watching young, hot bodies is your thing then tonight you were quite possibly in luck. The first one to catch my eye was: Coach Trip – Road to Ibiza (E4, 7.30pm). My first thought was that it involved elderly people, as for some reason I associate coach trips with the old and then I thought that perhaps it is a Geographical programme. Alas, no. The reviewer called it a: ‘claustrophobic popularity contest’ and also used the word, ‘savage’. What is it with our seeming desire as humans to want to watch other humans basically drown in their own piss? Because that’s what all these reality shows rely on: people making complete twats of themselves, often at others expense, for our supposed enjoyment. Isn’t this what Big Brother continues to do?

I may be scathing of them, but I actually applied to go on one of them last year: Bear Grylls’, ‘The Island’. Watching the first series I, like thousands of others, thought that I fancied that challenge. I loved the idea of seeing how far I could push myself mentally and physically. I found the idea exhilarating. I didn’t get chosen, but watching the second series I realised that it is all about personalities and about the producers lining people up for an epic on screen fail. I saw how naive I was to think that the experience would be ultimately a personal journey. No, what the experience would be is a constant battle to stay sane in an environment where you have been set up to fall down at every opportunity, not just through being constantly hungry, but by being endlessly challenged by the other people who surround you. This is a modern day Lord of the Flies. They stick a couple of fairly normal people on there and the rest of them are completely bonkers. It’s a personal journey in popularity, both on and off screen. It’s narcissism packaged as survival.

Talking of which, if, ‘Coach Trip’ wasn’t enough excitement for you tonight, you could have put on the kettle or poured yourself another glass of wine and settled yourself down to watch: Naked Attraction, (C4, 10pm). Or, as the reviewer called it: another new low. This is a dating show where the contestants see each other naked before going for a night out. Now call me old fashioned, but isn’t it better to check that the guy has a personality, before clocking the size of his dick. Because, let’s face it, he could be hung like a fucking donkey, but if he can’t string a sentence together, has halitosis, or supports Donald Trump, it could be a deal breaker, whatever the size of his knob.

Apparently the presenter, Anna Richardson, stands with a singleton in front of six naked men and tells her: “Each of these guys has an attribute you have said is attractive to you.” But you can’t see narcissism, we all cry! Actually, I think that we really would cry if we had to watch this. But do not despair, because over on Channel 5 at the same time is Big Brother…pass the remote.

Suddenly, according to an unlikely source, The Telegraph: ‘Love Island is looking like Britain’s moral compass.’ Well, what does that say about us?

All's fair in love and war: some of the Love Island cast 

If you enjoy my blog, I would be very grateful if you voted for me in the Mumsnet Blogging Awards: Best Writer and best Comic Writer categories. It is a quick one – takes seconds and here’s the link, thank you 🙂http://www.mumsnet.com/events/blogging-awards/2016