Tuesday Night is Curry Night

Tonight's topic is what we would put in Room 101. (By the way we ate vegetable pathia, dhansak, plain naan, chapatti and a pilau coloured in a manner no natural foodstuff has ever been).

Velouria's Room 101 wishlist is:

1. The entire Bedingfield family
2. Tracey Emin and that buttock-clenching post-modernist claptrap ("she is a lout" Brian Sewell)
3. Licorice
4. All Saints studded belts
5. People that try to high five you, especially those aged under 16
6. Pretentious marketing speak
7. Sandals All Inclusive Resorts and anyone who would actually go there

My list is:

1. Freddie Mercury
2. Small beige houses
3. Foof belt skirts
4. The food served by Betty's Tea Rooms which tastes delicious but makes you feel sick for hours afterwards
5. Personal statements that start "I have wanted to study Logic and Metaphysics since I was an four years old...". No, you haven't.
6. The phrase 'in terms of'
7. Men who steer their girlfriends by putting their hand proprietally in the girlfriend's lower mid-back.
   

Next week's list will be brought to you by an unknown, but voluminous, quantity of Indian Food and Top Ten Totty That You Shouldn't But You Would.

Your turn: please comment on what would be in your Room 101. Velouria would appreciate it if someone would pop X-Factor in as she's run out of options.

Girls on Film

How do you tend to spend Tuesday nights? My Tuesday nights have had a variety of commitments over the decades. In the mid-1990s, Tuesday was Student Nite at Ziggys nightclub in York (which is just as crap as the name suggests. One memorable night my best female friend and I were stood with a male friend, Dave, at the bar. A random bloke in a shiny shirt walked up and pointing at we two girls whilst addressing my mate Dave he inquired: 'they both with you?', when Dave answered in the affirmative Shiny-shirt-man responded, 'can I have one?' as if universal female suffrage had never occurred). For a while in the early noughties Tuesdays were gym nights and after I became a teacher they were stick kid in bed, work until midnight, go to sleep exhausted nights (c.ref Sunday to Thursday).

Now Tuesdays are far, far, far more wonderful than I can ever convey. Tuesdays are Curry Night (capitals ungrammatical but intentional). On Curry Night my friend comes over and we eat curry and discuss the state of the education system. This is a euphemism for thoroughly and systematically slagging off one particular school. However, last night we undertook some wonderful pastimes:

(1) planning out which songs we would dance to if we got on to Strictly Come Dancing. My answer to every single dance was a Duran Duran classic (i.e. Argentinian Tango to 'Girls on Film'. But apparently the tempo would be wrong). I worked through the Duran back catalogue and failed miserably to show any knowledge of dance whatsoever. I then chose 'Something Changed' by Pulp which was the 'first dance' song at my wedding. This led to,

(2) digging out my wedding video, heckling my ex and cheering myself. I have to say - and anyone reading this who attended might agree - I did look bloody gorgeous that day. Was that really my body? The weird thing about looking at the wedding video was I didn't feel any sort of nostalgia or regret for my marriage. I did get a little sniffly watching the wedding speech I gave but the emotion was solely about my Granddad who had died before the wedding. I'm surprised at how it isn't raw and difficult to watch my wedding video but it just shows how far I've come.

So on Curry Night I looked at girls on film from two angles. The first, the Duran early '80s classic and the second, myself on my wedding video. One is an outdated curio from a time long gone. And the other is a Duran Duran song.

So this is my life story

Sat nav is an amazing creation of this century, it shows you where you are now and how to get to where you want to go. And if you have half a brain you will even know the difference between Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Newcastle-under-Lyme and not end hundreds of miles astray, wandering around hopelessly and asking Black Country types why you can't see the Angel of the North. Amongst many things, my ex was completely anti sat nav. He much preferred the spiritual and geographical purity of having huge sheets of Ordnance Survey maps completely blocking out the front view of the windscreen and blazing rows about where we might be and which turn-off was the correct one. Another thing he despised was my music taste. At first he pretended to be into the bands I liked, but by the end he treated everything with disdain. Foremost in the pantheon of bands he hated were the mighty, mighty My Life Story (or 'My Wife's Tory' as he called them. Chortle. Not).

So, last night I did two, maybe three things, he would completely disapprove of. Firstly, I went to Manchester (a place he calls Scumchester). Secondly, I got there by using my sat nav. And finally, I went to an acoustic set played by Jake Shillingford of My Life Story. Now, I'd have to set up an entirely different blog to properly introduce you to the immense gorgeousness that is My Life Story but I know it won't succeed because the only people I've ever met who actually like them are my friends. You know who you are.

If my life story had sat nav the journey would go like this. In the late 1980s I took the route of being very shy and a total square who rarely left the house and had few friends. In the early 1990s I took a left and headed straight down A1 party girl territory. I was a bit of a glamour-puss and have lots of 'things I did when I was gorgeous' stories. In 1997 I bore right and met my ex and for a while the road was straight and fast to 'happy ever after'. In 2002 I got pregnant and I got stuck in the cul-de-sac of stay at home all the time, have no friends, be a bit square, whilst having a dreadful relationship. Then new year 2008 my life's sat nav recalculated and my ex took a right straight out of my life. At this point I set the sat nav for total new road and last night I arrived at one desired destination.

I got a cuddle from Jake Shillingford and I have photographic evidence that it happened on my Facebook. Wibble. Incoherency. Giggle. Woo-bloody-hoo. I made a bit of a twat of myself as I couldn't string lucid sentences together but he was very lovely and chatted regardless of my utter girly patheticness.

This post is dedicated to The Dedicated. We sparkle and shine. And we're the only ones who understand those words.

Happy returns

There are many ways in which to segment a lifespan: by careers, by rites of passage, by lovers, by hairstyles (both wise and, usually, unwise) but the simplest is by years. Tomorrow is my birthday and, unusually, I am about ten years younger than I was this time last year.

If I were clever enough to draw graphs I would be able to chart the gradual decline in my married fortunes by the manner in which my ex and I 'celebrated' my birthday. But I don't know how to do that.

1997 - a fantastic seventies cops themed party.

It was a cheap excuse to dress up as Charlie's Angels.

We scandalised the neighbourhood by having the party on the day Princess Diana was buried and the nation snuffled sadly. But we didn't. We dressed up in polyester and boogied.

2001 - my 30th. Huuuge party in Scarborough and a trip to Barcelona

2002 - I was pregnant so no drinking but we went to see a film

2005 - I was left at home to look after the kids whilst my ex went to football with his friends.

2007 - my birthday clashed with a home match again and I always lost. So went to the cinema with my best friend to watch 'Atonement' instead.

Hmmmmnnn. Do you see any decline in my fortunes? Unlike poor old Diana there weren't three people in my marriage towards the end, there were about 23. Me, my ex and the entirety of his football team. With me coming in at a paltry number 23.

So, what about this year? Well, I've had a bloody marvellous time. I went out on the town with my friends last night. We ate posh pizza. We drank cocktails with free Cobra chasers. My friends valiantly tried to get the Dj in an Indie club to play Duran Duran for me (they failed). A short Mancunian who looked like a bit like Ashley Peacock from 'Coronation Street' tried to chat me up (he also failed). I burnt chips at 4am. Today I recovered by eating Minstrels in front of 'Mamma Mia' whilst intermittently sniffling, singing and ogling Colin Firth. It rocked.

And I feel significantly younger than I did this time last year. I don't know about many happy returns, but I do know my happiness has returned.

We're doomed, all doomed.

As my well-educated readers know the average person has fewer than two legs and if you are blessed with two legs you are above average (if you take a mean of all people a small proportion will have no legs, or one leg, or a stumpy bit and then when you add them in with the majority who have two legs you end up with the average human having 1.73 legs or something). So, clearly statistics are nonsense. Therefore, whenever you read that 1 in 3 British marriages end in divorce you have to question the statistical validity of that statement.

I can give you some useful advice on how to have a happy, lifelong marriage. Don't live on my street. Ever. My little terrace of 6 houses spells doom for marriage.

In number 5 lives J___. Her husband scarpered with another woman in 1967 and she still bleats on about it. We try to avoid her. In fact, on bin night I have to pay extreme attention to the manoeuvring of my wheelie bin, rendering me completely incapable of making eye-contact. Oddly, a minute after she starts talking to me I can usually hear my son crying inside and I have to rush in to see him. Even if he's 2 miles away at his Dad's.

I live in number 2 and, very conventionally, I split up with my husband after 7 years of marriage. He was immensely itchy.

Number 1 is owned by a lovely young couple called M___ and J____. They got married the week before Christmas 2007 and she'd moved out by March 2008. A three month marriage? Anyone would think I lived next door to Britney Spears. Ironically, they bought the house from T____ and C_____ after their marriage split up after 17 years.

This week I was talking to my other next-door neighbour, P___ who is married to M___. They bought the house a couple of years ago in a practically derelict state and have been doing loads of work on it. During our little conversation she told me that she and her daughter were shortly to be moving out after 22 years of marriage.

Clearly, the young couple with the baby in number 6 need to relocate. Fast.