I'm all right, Jack.

One of the things I have noticed as I get older is that I become less tolerant, particularly of incompetency which I witness in increasing frequency. There is, I believe, a clear difference between incompetency and an error caused by a mistake. We all make "mistakes", have accidents and make errors of judgement. I believe most of us have the capacity to forgive such "mistakes" - without compassion we would be a lowly race. Incompetency is a different issue altogether though and as the years tick by I've noticed that I experience more and more "incompetency" which has often been the cause of much aggravation and heartache - this varies from the smallest tasks such as not receiving the letters from school to my father dying an early death from undiagnosed and untreated cancer.

So yesterday, after another such experience I have thought about the reasons why levels of incompetency are rising. Here are some of the reasons I consider to be the primary causes in the UK;

1. Education. The level of education in schools and universities has fallen dramatically. This is compounded by lowering the exam standards and the pass marks so that many people believe they are more skilled/better educated than they actually are. There is less humility amongst the young and little respect for the qualities of age and experience.

2. Education in the workplace. Many people in the workplace do not receive the proper training to do their jobs competently. People are designated tasks which are, quite simply, beyond their education and experience. There are many reasons for this lack of training but I would suggest that the primary cause is that many companies seek maximum profit for minimum outlay.

3. Reliance on computers and computer programs. People expect computers to provide the answer to everything. Yet computer programs are not infallible and are only as accurate as the person designing them and/or using them.  Often, people do not apply common sense or logic when faced with answers thrown up by the touch of a button.

4. The prominence of the cultures of political correctness and interference of government. These cultures have become so widespread to the extent that people will now no longer speak or act freely for fear of persecution, prosecution and reduced employment prospects. Even when the voices of  logic, reasoning and common sense speak loudest, the voice of government and legality always wins.

5. The overall decline of literacy skills. People read and talk less. Language has become abbreviated and therefore overall communications skills have deteriorated. When people do not communicate well there are more misunderstandings and arguments.

6. People have become lazy. The rise of the "Benefits Culture" is destroying the traditional British work ethic and the focus on celebrity and materialism means many people have high aspirations without first learning that in order to receive one should also learn how to give. People who do not value their jobs are more likely to be incompetent.

7. The decline of religion and morality.  In my opinion, (which is, of course, subjective)  religion does not wage war, humans wage war. Religion is continuously given a bad press and throughout history has often been used to mask economic and political agendas. The decline in religion may possibly be linked to a decline in morality, giving rise to a society where the welfare of others and social responsibility has less importance. The phrase "I'm all right, Jack"  has never been more appropriate. Never mind that people may be suffering, starving and living in abject poverty or quite simply hanging around waiting for someone to do their job properly - so long as I'm all right, Jack what does it matter?

And so on...but now I've let off a little steam I can calm down a little. Hurrah!

Oh, wait a minute. Maybe not.

Unfortunately, an email has just arrived on my desktop regarding yesterday's delay. I really don't know why I bother writing to people/schools/organisations/companies to highlight problems as it makes very little, if any, difference and probably only serves to earn me a reputation as a difficult person.

You know, just for once I would like someone to say "We take on board what you say, Mrs Turley. We are really sorry you had a bad experience and we will look into our procedures to make sure this situation can be prevented in the future" - instead of all the usual excuses and waffle.

Ain't never gonna happen. There's more chance of pigs flying. From now on I'm going to stick to being silly. It's a lot more fun.

Right, where's my tickling brush?

Pencils Away!

It was Master Jacob's fourteenth birthday yesterday. A few days prior to the great event, he told me that he did not expect any pencils or pencil cases for his birthday. Apparently, they are boring.

How can this be? Every child needs pencils. I simply cannot see the attraction of an Xbox 360 game over a set of HB pencils with gorgeous yellow and black stripes or even some of those glittery ones with the rubbers stuck on the top or, even better, those pencils with the replaceable leads!

I always encourage my boys to buy pencils when we visit tourist attractions so they come away with something really useful. I mean - if there's a choice of a sparkly pencil for 99p or a fluffy duck wearing a military helmet emblazoned with Desmond's Wildlife Farm/ Military War Museum/House of Horrors for £12.50 what sane mother wouldn't encourage their child to buy a really useful gift? Pencils are the choice of every responsible mother.

Am I right, Ladies?

So anyway, as I am also a loving mother I decided to respect Master Jacob's birthday request. I did not buy him pencils. I got him next best thing.

A pencil sharpener.

It was a big one. I am nothing but generous. In size anyway - there's some good deals at the 99p Shop.

The Insanity of Vanity

Apparently, some women have been reported as spending seventy dollars on sparkly green nail varnish which is the current fashion rage.

Don't these women know you can get the same effect with PVA glue and a tube of green glitter? And, if you buy a job lot on the kid's glitter, you can also have sparkly blue, red and gold nails.

 How cool is that?

Today, I will be mixing up all my glitter tubes for a multi-coloured glitter effect at the total cost of about ten pence. I like to consider myself a trend setter, you know.

Now just to enhance this piece of vital news I was going to insert a video of the infamous nail varnish from You Tube. However, I like to view videos before I use them and on seeing all the relevant videos were horrendously long (like 7- 10 minutes or so) I quickly came to the conclusion I would rather poke myself in the eye than waste ten minutes of my life. I then saw a video for about 2 minutes, debated whether or not to view it for about 0.000000000002 of a second but again chose the sharp stick in the eye. Life is too short and I'd rather waste it writing drivel on my blog.

Finally, for any of my friends reading this post, I do not want any glue, glitter or nail polish for Christmas. But I will accept tickets to the West End, dinner for two at the Ritz or a small island off the Caribbean.

It's the Holidays!

Notice that exclamation mark, Readers. They're cunning little things aren't they? You put one of those on the end of a sentence and it changes the whole meaning. Now if you look at the title above it kinda looks like I'm really happy and cheerful that the school holidays start at 12.35pm today. Precisely at 12.35pm. And not a minute before.

However, if I'd written;

It's the Holidays

You may have thought it was a pure statement - or even perhaps that poor Mrs T has wrapped a large coil of rope around the branch of a nearby tree and is straining her neck towards the sky.

You would be correct on the last assumption.

Oh the sweet joy of the school holidays.

God, I love irony. 

So over the next six weeks I will be doing my best to persuade my boys that; 

a) Haircuts really are a good idea.

b) They really do need a new pair of school shoes.

c) If just once during the day over the entire six weeks they could not urinate over the toilet seat I will die a happy woman.

So other than that exciting news (other than I haven't been strangled by Japanese Knotweed) is I am still alive. I am still writing - working on my new novel which is going from madcap to blatant lunacy and also tampering with my Winnie the Pooh story which (and you may have guessed this) has gone from madcap to blatant lunacy. Ah well. One can but pray for moments of literary genius.

On a completely different note, I read in the Daily Mail this morning that women on the pull ( that's a tawdry UK expression which means "looking for a man to bed" and usually applies to young women who overdose on high energy drinks and live north of Manchester) choose ugly friends so they look more attractive to men. Now as I live Down South I can't comment (too much) about all of my fair sisters but I would just like say I don't believe that at all. I have personally never selected a friend on the basis of their looks just to make me look better. There are only two kinds of women who do this a) who live North of the Border and have overdosed on high energy drinks and b) Samantha Brick. 

You know, they say those Olympic Villages are a hot bed of sex and hormones. I wonder who the female beach volleyball players take out on the pull with them? My guess is it's the East European shot putters. Not because they are ugly or look like they've had a testosterone jab but if the volleyball ladies have the misfortune to overdose on high energy drinks they'll always be someone to carry them home.

Those shot-putt ladies have seriously big muscles. I'd like to have big muscles too - in fact I'd like to have any muscles but that's another story - Let's just say I'm fighting the battle of the bulge at the moment. And losing. However, I did write to Sebastian Coe and asked him if he could introduce a new Olympic event - The Wobblethon. He turned me down. What a rotter. I reckon I was a dead cert for a Gold. I was also a bit disappointed not to have gone on a date with a Russian shot-putter. It would be a toss up which one of would have pulled Usain Bolt but I reckon I may have edged ahead by a slim margin.

The Olympics and the school holidays? Life is perfect!

Ho hum.

Not In My Back Garden

Yesterday I pulled up my drive at 5pm. This is quite a busy time of day for me. This is the time when I am either coming in from afternoon tennis, going out to tennis or refilling the Young Masters stomachs in-between tennis. Yesterday it was the refilling the Young Masters' stomachs. So anyway one of my relatives (I hasten to add on my husband's side) turns up to collect some eggs but clearly also has the intention of telling me some very important news.

We are in the kitchen. I am making the obligatory cup of tea that I do on all social occasions. (Unless it's coffee obviously.)

"Have you heard?" says my relative in a flat, monotone voice and a face of deep gravitas.

"Oh yes," I say, thinking she is referring to something else. "Mr T told me several days ago."

"No... have you heard what I found in the back garden?" she says.

This time her face is so serious, her voice so dramatically full of tension that for a moment I am literally stuck for words (which is rare for me as you know) as a variety of almost impossible scenarios flicker through my mind.

My relative waits patiently -clearly the discovery is so impressive that I must guess it. I am now at a total loss at what awesome/gruesome discovery has been made in her garden in Yorkshire.

"A dead body?" I say, thinking that this must be obvious solution to accord this amount of gravity.

"No," replies my relative.

"Dead bodies?" I say, as by now only mass murder is sounding dramatic enough. "You've found dead bodies in the old well?"

"No," says my relative.

There's a long pause whilst I think over what can be more dramatic than dead bodies. For a moment I consider a huge treasure chest of gold coins from the Spanish Armada but then realise that there's not a lot of chance they would have washed up on the top of a hill in deepest Yorkshire.

I stare at my relative. My face must look completely blank as I can't think of anything more dramatic than a dead body.

Unless...

It's the dead body of a famous person. 

Who could it be?

Bob Diamond? (Yeah, I can see that one....I might even have helped out if asked.)

Samantha Brick? (Has quite a nice feel to it somehow.)

Tony Robinson? ( A certain irony to it.)

Or... worst of all...

Katie Holmes. 

Oh Dear God, I think. What if the Scientologists have finally caught up with poor Katie and dispensed with her in my relative's back garden? Who would expect to find Katie in a well in Yorkshire? It wouldn't be the  first place to look...

Anyway, my face is still blank while I am quietly dreaming through my gruesome scenarios. Finally my relative can no longer stand the tension and blurts out her dramatic news:

"I found Japanese knotweed!"

"Japanese knotweed?" I reply, somewhat confused.

"Yes, Japanese knotweed!"

"Not a dead body in the well then?" 

"No. Japanese Knotweed!!!"

So the exciting news is then, Dear Readers, that my relative found some Japanese knotweed. It's a plant by the way. You find it - in lots of places. All over the world. Sometimes even in gardens. Amazing.

Anyway, today I am going to ring the church bells and wind up the old air raid siren. The human race in grave danger. Think Day of the Triffids, War of the Worlds or just Total Apocalyptic Scenario...

And, unfortunately, Bob Diamond, Samantha Brick, Tony Robinson and Katie Holmes are (as far as I'm aware) still alive.

Ugh. How boring is that? Although I am quite pleased for Katie actually. No so fussed about the others obviously.

You know, some days it's a dull news day, especially when you live in the village. And even more so your relative is barking mad. (I'll diplomatically delete that line later.)

At least my pants stay up

I know I've been slack with my blogging lately. However, I'm not so slack as William Shatner's pants which apparently fell down at LAX airport.

Now that's the kind of news I like. You just gotta love that guy. Eighty one years old and still whipping up a storm.

By the way, I'm over 20,000 words into my new novel. I'm not sure if it's any good. In fact it's probably in very bad taste as so far I've managed to squeeze in everything a publisher would probably hate: lots of gags about The War (sorry), A German matron (sorry), An elderly woman with Alzheimer's who believes she a famous screen actor, a Scottish romantic novelist, a care home, and a mother of three who's just quit her job.

Now I just have to get in the telephone sex, the comical deaths, The Sound of Music and a whole host of other bizarre happenings and this will be the novel that hopefully will make people both and laugh and cry. It'll probably make any publisher laugh and cry as well - but probably not for the right reasons.

I'll be self-publishing obviously.

Bizarrely enough, in my novel, my heroine's pants can be found around her ankles. And this was before I'd read about Bill Shatner and has nothing to do with Fifty Shades of Grey.

More about Fifty Shades soon I think. It needs a serious reviewer like my good self to do it justice.

Sympathy, Please.

I've done my back in. Twice in three weeks. Now this is a first for me as I'm a robust kind of gal and rarely suffer from aches and pains. Even in pregnancy I don't remember any significant backache. (I remember a hell of a lot of other ghastly things about it but I won't divulge them I don't want to discourage anyone from having children even though you won't have a decent night's sleep for about ten years, you'll look like Donald Pleasance in drag until they leave home at 18 and question your sanity everyday for the rest of your life.)

So the first time I awoke in the night with pain in my hip. "That's odd" I thought, "Has Mr T been trying it on without my knowledge?" ( He hadn't but it's the thought that counts.) Then by morning it had spread to a stiffness in my whole back and I was kaput. It took me about three days or so to get back to what seemed normal. I put it down to bad luck which is on a par with what most Doctors say when you go to the surgery which in my experience is usually one of three phrases;

a) "It's just one of things!"

b) "You're getting old. You'll just have to put up with it!"

c) "You're depressed. The pain is a symptom of your depression!"

Now, Dear Readers, I want to offer you my life experiences on such Doctors' phraseology - If you are unlucky enough to experience all three of these diagnosis for the same complaint may I suggest checking your life insurance before seeking private medical care.

Anyway, time passed and all seemed okay with my back and then early last week I was cleaning in the kitchen (Okay, okay go easy on the universal gasps of horror) and I nearly passed out which again is something I have never done. Basically, I have the constitution of an ox - unless my stomach has one of those funny moments.  (I also have the legs of an ox but that's a different story.) Anyway, I decided to put this episode down to an overdose of cleaning fluids (I was a little heavy on the bleach in the sink), the exertion of cleaning the floor and most likely another little hint that the (whispers) menopause is on the way. Also, this theory has the added benefit that I would be able to avoid any future cleaning duties. Which, obviously, is very, very sad but a necessary evil if one wants to avoid drowning in a bucket of floor cleaning solution.

So Thursday comes and I decide to play tennis  in my usual manner which is basically to hit the ball as hard as I can. Because that's the way I am. None of those silly drop shops. Those are for women over 50 who can't run and who don't have a constitution of an ox. So, needless to say, I did my back in again and have spent  3 days in a lot of discomfort  and 4 nights in even more discomfort. I have seen a sports physio and have had all these weird, rather too intimate manipulations done and he clicked some stuff back into place and now I am just stiff, stiff, stiff. 

So other than aches and pains all is well. I am also working on a new novel which is called The Changing Room. It's a comedy-drama about life's ups and downs. I hope I have taken on board all that I've learnt over the last five years writing this blog and doing all the other bits of writing I've done. Hopefully, this will be the book that makes it into print. Fingers crossed.

Ps - when my back is better I am going to practise drop shots. Damn.