In a bun dance

If I'm going to get something, I usually get it in spades - luck (both kinds), children, clutter, dirty laundry, bright ideas, daft ideas...

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How Santa is destroying Christmas for our kids…

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I dithered about allowing Boy Three to go to his after school club’s Christmas Party – and here’s why… Claus for concern pic: Kevin Dooley via Flickr It’s supposed to be magical. Children waiting for the kindly, bearded chap to deliver their heart’s desire into an old sock on Christmas Eve. Then they ooh and […]

It’s not just men who are sexist

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Get the picture? Taking the mickey out of men just because they are men is easy, it’s (a bit) funny, satisfying and, it’s very wrong. You know the kind of thing – jokes that make blokes out to be overgrown children incapable of anything but watching sport and farting. And that set women apart as […]

This mother’s job

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“Will we be on time?” Boy Two glances anxiously at the car click. It’s the weekend and we are driving to a snowboarding lesson. Instead of a calm reassurance, the poor boy gets a bit of a rant and then a lecture. The thing is – he knows when we’ve to be there and how […]

Things I try to care about, but don’t

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Distress and outrage I can do. The plight of people in Aleppo, exactly how awful TalkTalk’s broadband service has been and the fact we don’t have equal pay for women. These things I care about. However, I’m feeling somewhat out of step with my fellow man this week as there are one or two issues […]

Metrophobia on National Poetry Day

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Metrophobia. Fear of poetry. In the first few classes, I thought it was one of those set-piece jokes like teachers repairing the fabric of the school with leftover dining hall dinners. But then I realised they were serious. Creative writers with a fear of poetry. Who knew? I don’t understand enough about it to be […]