Why are pub bands so loud, or when did I get so old?

Tonight we went to the pub.  Not something I've done a lot of, even in my younger days, I was not a huge fan of pubs.  When I was at uni (the first time around anyway), pubs were not smoke free, and nobody had Responsible Service of Alcohol Certificates, and all bartenders wanted to be Tom Cruise in Cocktail.  This was also when I was still watching Tom Cruise movies, which I won't do anymore because I think he's kind of an arse.  Partly because his religion has given him some seriously overbearing opinions on stuff he obviously has no clue about, and partly because he seems like the quintessential short man.  Now, pubs are smoke free, and all the smokers have to sit outside in the cold in a resentful huddle, where they smoke up a veritable cloud of fumes that everyone else has to walk through to get to their cars.  And it was cold tonight, cold enough to warrant two cardigans.  It's nice being able to sit in the warm in air untainted by the eye watering fug of cigarette smoke. 

The one thing that hasn't changed though - pub bands are still loud.  Loud in a way that makes you uncomfortably certain that your ear drums are being damaged.  So loud that even surrounded by people, you feel terribly isolated, because no-one can hear anyone else speak above the racket.  So I sat in my little bubble of isolation feeling disgruntled, because I really would have loved a catch up chat with a friend I haven't seen in about ten years.  Apart from grimacing at one another, in agreement that yes it was flipping loud, we just smiled a lot, and mouthed stuff that I'm sure mostly consisted of moaning about the loudness.

And I hate drums.  Just putting it out there.  And no offense to drum players, I'm sure it takes a heap of skill and practice to make that kind of noise, but seriously, can't you turn it down?  And the bass.  I'm the kind of easy listener who turns the bass down to non-existent on my car stereo, because I prefer it that way.  So pub bands aren't really my thing.

I was there to hear the support act, my eldest son and a friend who have recently started singing together.  And they were good (there were no drums, so good start for me).  I did enjoy listening to them sing, and it was all very grown up to go out on a Saturday night. 

I've realised tonight, that the thing I enjoy most about being a grown up is being able to please myself and not make excuses about it.  So here I am now, in my pyjamas, sitting in my bed, with a slight ringing in my ears, and this is almost certainly the way I'll spend next Saturday night too - probably without the outing to the pub first (and the subsequent ringing), and I'm good with that. I don't care that it's boring and middle aged, and mundane, it's also comfortable, more interesting, warmer and it smells better.  And I can hear when people talk to me.

Audio books

Since being involved in the production of an audio book, I've realised what a pleasure it is to be read to.  Usually I am the one doing the reading to other people, my own or the children I teach, but listening to someone read is very soothing.

With this in mind I downloaded the amazon Audible app to explore their service.  One book a month for $14.95, might be quite nice to listen while I'm running or knitting.  I might like it.  The app allows you to sample a few works before you commit to anything so tonight I did.  The first book was The Help, which I've read already to myself.  The narrator had one of those drawling southern voices like warm honey, entirely suitable for the work, and I was lost in it.  It truly brought the book alive in a way my In My Head voice couldn't do.  I was fairly convinced that this was a good idea, and when the sample ended, I wanted more, so I downloaded The Hunger Games, which I've also read and loved.  

I don't know who narrated this book, but I didn't like it.  Not one bit.  She paused in the wrong spots, she read too slowly, her intonation was horrible.  I tried speeding it up. But it was still annoying as hell.  I love that book, but I can't listen to that voice reading it to me, there is no pleasure in that at all.

Before I go ahead with a membership then, I need to find out if I can sample a part of a book before committing to it being the one I choose.  Because if I can't then I don't think it's going to suit me at all. 

I'm wondering if I'm just being fussy and hard to please.  I don't think so because I loved the first book, it was beautifully done.  

You did what?

I was reading a forum today, as I do fairly regularly, it is easy to become engrossed in other people's lives as they share them.  It is often a good reminder of the things I have to be thankful for in my own life, be it good health or my children, or functional relationships, my life isn't perfect, but it's not the worst.

One poster described  a situation with her mother and asked if she (the poster) was over reacting.  Now as a general rule, my default position on whether other people are overreacting is Yes, you probably are.  People are so uptight and get their knickers knotted so easily over the smallest of slights.  Move on, move on, you'll be fine.  But as I read this, I felt genuinely irritated on this poor woman's behalf.  The scenario is thus - the poster has a three year old son, a sweet little boy with longish hair that touches his shoulders.  There is a picture of her husband in her signature, and he has the same hairstyle she describes for her son.  It's long for a bloke, but he's a nice looking fellow, and I imagine that it looks cute on her little boy too.  The son went for a visit to Nanny's house.  Nanny, despite knowing that the poster liked the child's hair the way it was and had absolutely no intention of cutting it, decided that she would cut it.  And did.  Shearing it off with clippers, if you please, so not just a wee trim of the ends, but inches, then posted photos of it on Facebook, which the mother saw, before she saw her son or knew about it at all.  The poster asked if it was overreacting to feel angry about this.

Now some people fussed about first hair cuts being special, and I've never been that precious myself about that kind of thing, I'm not saying it's wrong, just that that wouldn't bother me in itself.  What bothers me about this, is that the grandmother deliberately went against her daughters wishes and did something to the child.  Something that is going to take longer to rectify than changing a t-shirt say.  So she did that, behind her daughters back, then posted pictures about it on social media, then laughed and said it wasn't a big deal and not to fuss.  Not a big deal.  Not to fuss.  Are. You. For. Serious?

Wrong wrong wrong.  You get to do this stuff with your own kids.  Not anyone else's, regardless of whether you are the grandparent.  It is not your decision, not your right, not anything to do with you, you had your turn, so back the hell off and don't be so disrespectful.

This is right up there with piercing someone else's kids ears.  It's just not on.

The best suggestion was that Grandma get her head shorn too, after all, it's just hair.  It'll grow back.

Constant entertainment is killing our creativity

I was out shopping today after a horde of hungry teenagers turned up at my house and I rashly invited them for lunch, then realised I didn't have enough food in the house.  Walking past one of the shopping centre hair dressers, I noticed a toddler having his haircut.  Not so unusual, except he was set up in front of not the more traditional choice of a mirror, but a widescreen television.  And he was sitting beautifully still, and the hairdresser was able to cut in peace without being swatted away, or chasing a moving head around as he tried to dodge her.

Initially, I saw the attraction and the sense in such a set up.  Brilliant, really.  But then I started thinking about when mine were little, which doesn't seem that long ago, and I have one still who is still under ten, so I'm not completely out of touch (just to completely justify my right to comment on this particular parenting phenomena), and honestly, I don't recall it being a huge drama getting hairs cut.  I've also done the hairdressing, I still cut the girls hair now, and always have, and when the boys were younger we had clippers and I was reasonably confident in shearing them.  I know for some children it is a huge horrible deal, and if that helps those kids and their mum's to get through something that would be otherwise extremely traumatic, then thats a good thing. These children though are the exception, for your average toddler, I think learning to sit quietly is a good skill to practice, and I think we are taking that away from children.

This new generation are plugged in and switched on from a very early age, navigating phones and tablets with ease before they can even read, but are they able to entertain themselves?  Do they have the opportunity for quiet reflection, for creating something from nothing, for being amused simply by their own thoughts?  And if they lose that ability, what will that mean for the sum of human creativity?  Will there be no more Shakespeare's, no more LM Montgomery's, no more AA Milne's?  If they aren't allowed time to day dream, when will they have time to create imaginary friends, and games?  Constant entertainment may make it easier to navigate childhood, but is it really better, I'm not convinced it is.  And if they lose their ability to create, who will be the game makers and movie makers of the future?  Who will dream the dreams that lead to the next big thing?

Looking around at little children hunched silent over their screens, it all seems so passive, they are spoon fed their entertainment as often and as much as they want.  When I was a kid, cartoons happened as a filler between scheduled programming, you never quite knew when one would come on, and it was exciting, and over too soon.  My brother and I would always call each other to make sure we didn't miss it.  Cartoons were an event.  Then we went back to the business of being a kid - playing.


I don't think that the way I parented my children 19 years ago was the only to do it.  I am sure there are some exciting things going on in the parenting world, and even now I see stuff that I wish I'd had when I had littlies.  But all this screen time bothers me.  Not to be an old fogey about it, but it does.  And if it doesn't wreck their creativity, then it will surely wreck their eyesight and their hearing.   That's all I'm saying.

5:2

So much for writing every day, still, I have made more headway than I expected, given my history of starting things and letting them slide.

There has been quite a bit of hype, and a degree of skepticism around the 5:2 diet.  Usually the word fast is also involved, and I think that's what freaks people out.  Fasting!!!  Not eating for a whole day?  Why would anyone do that.  That was my own reaction to be honest.  I enjoy my food, what's not to like in a world that has given me garlic prawns, steak and mushrooms and chocolate in a myriad of forms?

I watched the documentary, and loved the idea of all the other health benefits that apparently go hand in hand with this way of eating.  With an undisciplined husband with high blood pressure and cholesterol, who can't seem to sustain any kind of healthy eating plan for very long, and 10 extra kilos myself that I wouldn't mind ditching, I wondered if this might be our miracle.

We have been fasting intermittently now for about 10 weeks, and have each lost about 5 kilos.  I'm hoping that the other health stuff is quietly happening in the background, and my body is staving off the horrible possibility of alzheimers and type 2 diabetes and even cancer. 

I'm happy to say, that fasting really isn't as bad as you might think.  In fact it isn't bad at all.  Today is a fast day, and I've just finished eating an apple and had a cup of tea.  I'm still using full cream milk, I just take that into account when I count up the 500 allowed calories.  I tried using skim, but we just didn't drink it on the other days so it would sit in the fridge and go bad.  I'd rather have two cups of tea I enjoy than 5 or 6 cups that are only barely palatable.  For lunch I'll cook up two fresh tomatoes and have them with salt and pepper.  I sometimes have this kind of thing on non-fast days too, though I'll add cheese those days.  Dinner tonight will be vegetable soup.

Initially when we started fasting, I was buying boxes of chicken nuggets for the kids to have for their dinners, or frozen pizzas, neither of which I like particularly which was a plus, and didn't require me to make much effort with their meals in terms of preparation or cooking.  I am a picker, and cooking without tasting is hard.  I realised that that wasn't going to be ideal as a long term solution, and that I was compromising their diets for the sake of my convenience, so we are working around that.  Stir fry is a good family option, we have Slendier angel hair pasta, and they have noodles or rice.  The slendier pasta is made from some weird vegetable called konjac, and in a stir fry it is quite palatable, and only worth about 12 calories a serve which is fabulous.

So far, I haven't failed a fast day.  I did have one week off, where it was just too hard to fit it into the week, there was a staff luncheon at school, and other stuff, so I skipped one fast which was fine.  I think it is this flexibility that makes it work so well.  I don't do rules very well, and sustaining diet rules for any length of time makes me feel deprived and resentful and grumpy.  With the fast diet, I have two days in the week, where I restrict myself to 500 calories, then the rest of the week, I eat normally, I have the odd treat, and don't feel like I'm doing anything wrong.  On the fast day, my mindset is that I may feel a little hungry that day, but I will eat X Y or Z tomorrow.  It is a good match for my all or nothing personality.

People have been funny about it.  One woman asked me if 500 calories wasn't quite a lot to eat anyway.  It's not by the way.  It really isn't and you do feel hungry.  But it's manageable.  Others seem to think I'm going to pass out or it will be very very bad for me in some undefined way.  perhaps my body will go into the fabled starvation mode and hang on to every gram of fat (probably storing it on my thighs where it will feel at home) and it will be that much harder to lose.  Mostly they look kind of sorry for me.

I'm quite happy with it though, and for me to manage any kind of sustained weight loss program is bordering on the miraculous, so as long as I am still happy to do it, I'll keep going.  I can keep anything up for a day.