bluesinateacup

At the risk of groans from those who’ve heard me say this before, I’m as good at relationships as Genghis Khan was at living in peace with his neighbours. This means you’re free to take everything you read in today’s blog with a generous pinch of salt. Or maybe a couple of kilos of the stuff.

I got into a conversation about marriage over breakfast this morning. Doesn’t happen very often. I don’t do conversation over breakfast. Not since I stopped being married. And the flow was rather one-way even then. My brother and his wife were passing through on their way to Cornwall. They’ve been married less than two years, so the subject is still quite fresh in their minds. We started off talking about unrealistic expectations. Fairytale weddings. Happy-ever-after. That kind of stuff. Then we strayed into the idea that real marriage is more about love than paperwork. Dangerous territory.

Marriage has been in the news over the last couple of weeks. Specifically, marriage equality. A law that finally allows people who happen to be gay to do the paperwork as well as the love came into effect on 29^th March. I’m in the odd position of not understanding why that’s such a big deal. Of course it’s a big deal for those who’ve been denied the right for all this time. What I don’t get is why so many other people are up in arms about it. What’s wrong with two human beings making a loving commitment to one another?

Some have even gone so far as to blame last winter’s floods on same-sex marriage. Seriously?  If God wants to wreak vengeance, he has plenty of other cause. Is it so bad for two people of the same gender to love one another? What about all the real horror perpetrated in the name of marriage down the ages? Polygamy. Adultery. Subjugation of women. Domestic violence. Rape. Child abuse. Murder. To name but a few.  Doesn’t that stuff bother these people’s God?

One man, one woman, for life is the mantra. The ‘biblical model for marriage’ I’ve heard it called. I’m not sure what happens in the bible looks much like that. Polygamy’s the norm in the Old Testament. Where that vengeful God mostly hangs out. If all those wives failed to give you sons, you slept with the servants as well. And if a woman you happened to want didn’t fancy you, you could always rape her. She’d have to marry you then. It doesn’t sound much like a magical world of happy-ever-after to me.

Jesus’ approach was different. For a start, he wasn’t vengeful. He wasn’t married either. But he was an if-you-look-at-another-woman-with-lust-it’s-adultery man. And here’s the odd thing. All those people I’ve heard insist on biblical literalism (especially when it comes to things they don’t like about other people). They can always find a way round that one. It’s hyperbole. He didn’t really mean it literally. It’s a spiritual metaphor.

In a former life I used to marry people. The last bride I saw walking towards me was my own daughter. I will never forget that moment. I’m still an old romantic at heart. I’m just a lot more realistic about the commitment involved than I used to be. Marriage is all about love. Real warts-and-dirty-socks-and-squeezing-the-toothpaste-all-wrong love. Not paperwork. Not convention. Not ‘models’. Biblical or otherwise. On paper I was married for forty years. Forty years, two days and about three-and-a-half hours to be precise. I know people who’ve never done the paperwork. They didn’t see the need. Or they haven’t been allowed to until now. Nevertheless, they’re more married than I ever was. Regardless of the number of X or Y chromosomes involved.

There are times when blogging feels a bit like shouting at a wall. So I’m probably well-placed to understand how British scientists must have felt when they tried to explain to Owen Paterson that culling badgers wasn’t a good idea. Might as well have gone down the pub. At least somebody would’ve listened.

To be honest, the whole thing never made much sense to me. The evidence that badgers are responsible for bovine TB is at best patchy. A badger cull would only ever make modest reductions to cattle TB, according to experts. Quite apart from the cruelty. And the environmental implications of removing a major predator from the food chain. Or don’t they teach them stuff like that at Radley? It was never going to work. Even a trained marksman is going to have difficulty shooting a moving target. With the required precision to kill instantly. In the dark. Or did Mr Paterson think the badgers were going to give themselves up willingly? OK, guv, it’s a fair cop. We gave ’em TB. We deserve to die. ‘Ere, tie me to this tree and shoot me. I won’t move. Promise. No. Tricksy beasts them badgers. One of the most elusive larger mammals in the British ecosystem. Always moving the goalposts. And themselves. It’s just not cricket.

Then there’s the expense. Admittedly that’s seldom been a consideration for British governments when it comes to slaughter. Animal or human. Austerity rules when it comes to care. Carnage is a different matter. Apparently that the cost of vaccinating badgers in Wales came to £662 per head in 2012. Policing costs alone for the cull in England amounted to £1623 for every dead badger. Pesky creatures. Brainwashing all those poor, gullible idiots into believing they have a right to live.

One of the oddest things about the cull is Owen Paterson himself. Allegedly his family fostered two orphaned badgers when he was a child. Bessy, the female was the first. In his own words, she was extremely intelligent, had a very low opinion of cats, but loved the dogs. When Baz arrived the two eloped together. Maybe this is some kind of revenge mission. Because, with all the excitement of the apparent back-down, we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that the trial culls in Gloucestershire and Somerset are set to continue. In fact Mr Paterson still insists that once the techniques have been perfected he intends to press ahead in the areas currently on hold. Meanwhile, he’s quietly removed the requirement for independent oversight of the existing culls. Just to make it more fun. In the words of Maria Eagle, the Shadow Environment Secretary, he’s declared open season on the badgers in the culling areas. Effectively, he’s ensured that hundreds more badgers will be maimed, or die in agony, at the hands of incompetent marksmen.

I don’t understand. Does Owen Paterson think if there’s no evidence, the cruelty’s not happening? If he shuts his eyes very tight it’ll all go away? He’s not that stupid. Perhaps he and his cronies actually derive some kind of perverse pleasure from the suffering of animals. And of less privileged human beings. Makes some kind of sense in the current climate. He’d need to sweep that one under the carpet for sure.

But if he thinks all us nasty, sentimental, badger-loving deviants are going to be fooled by his mendacity, he probably has another think coming. Sorry Owen. We’re not that stupid either.

I walked to work this morning. Saharan-dust-smog catching in my throat. Blurring out the sun. I couldn’t help feeling ever so slightly pessimistic about the future of the planet. Or at least the human race. Spring flowers were blooming. Trees coming into leaf. The traffic on the motorway just as heavy as ever. Everything seemed quite normal. Apart from the air I was trying to breathe. Was I the only person who felt uneasy?

Some of us have been making noises about the environment for years. Forty years and more in my case. I’m not quite old enough to remember London before the Clean Air Act 1956. I do remember being sent to school with my scarf over my face during one of the last smogs. The government had the guts to make people clean up their act then. Not now, it seems.

It’s odd really. It’s accepted wisdom that our current lifestyle isn’t doing the planet any good. Children get taught this stuff at school. Even the least informed among us know we ought to recycle. And that using the car to go to the corner shop probably isn’t a good thing. Of course there are a few dogged climate change deniers. After all, there are still flat-earthers out there somewhere. But most of us know something needs to change. The trouble is, we’re not keen on it being us.

The Earth Summit of 1992 consumed vast quantities of paper and aviation fuel. It seemed to result in a general agreement that Something Needed to be Done. Then everyone went home feeling they’d Done Something. Very little changed. In June 2012, twenty years later, we were emitting 48% more carbon dioxide from the consumption of energy. Air pollution levels in the south of England this week have reached level 8 on a ten-point scale. The smog in Shanghai is now so dense the authorities have installed giant TV screens to broadcast the sunrise. Seriously. Is this what we want?

Climate change is such a massive issue it scares most of us. After all, what can I do? I could turn off all the lights in my flat (I got up and turned off two before I typed that sentence …). Never fly again. Eat nothing that hasn’t been produced within walking distance of my home. Consume less (or no) meat and dairy produce. Turn down the heating. Do less washing. I can swear I’ll do all of the above and more. If I’m the only person doing it, what difference will it make? After all, I open the door of my flat and the lights in the corridor are ablaze. All night. It’s a spit in a bucket. A drop in the ocean. If there’s any ocean left to drop into. But what if I’m not the only one? If we all spit in the same bucket we may not fill it, but at least we’ll make it wet.

Earlier I dismissed climate change deniers as being on a par with flat-earthers. Some are. Others have a vested interest. Take David and Charles Koch. Billionaire oilmen. Greenpeace report that they have invested millions in campaigns to delay legislation on climate change in the USA. Maybe they believe their grandchildren will be miraculously saved from the consequences of their greed. Sadly, I don’t think mine will. I guess it’s time I did something about it.

In last week’s Guardian, David Graeber argued that working-class people acquiesce too easily in the face of the government’s austerity measures. We’ve lost our sense of solidarity. I’d extend his argument to climate change. We know something needs to be done. Our leaders aren’t interested. David Cameron’s made it quite clear where he stands on ‘green crap’. Instead of sitting down and waiting for the inevitable, shouldn’t we be fighting back? Come on. Even if we only walk once in a while, instead of using the car. Turn the lights off once in a while. Think about what we’re eating. At least we’ll have tried. After all, do we really want our children and grandchildren to have to watch TV if they want to see the sunrise?

I am currently blogging to support One25, a Bristol charity working with street sex workers. If you’ve enjoyed reading this, please consider donating at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=JeanMutch

Thank you.

There are times when I despair of my chosen faith. Not because I have a problem with God. Until we happen to disagree on something major of course. It’s more God’s self-appointed representatives on earth I struggle with. George Orwell, in The Road to Wigan Pier, slated both Christianity and socialism. As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for socialism is its adherents. I’ve ended up a Christian with socialist tendencies. And a feminist to boot. I have to tell you, George – you were right.

Now, I know Jesus didn’t go for ‘filling-churches-any-way-we-can’ evangelism. He preferred considered commitment. He didn’t sugar the pill. He didn’t pull punches. If people weren’t ready, he let them walk away. He didn’t manipulate. Or cut them a deal. Take the guy who didn’t want to part with his money (Mark 10 v 21-22). Jesus didn’t hot-foot it down the road after him. Wait a minute. Maybe we can sort this out. I was only kidding when I said give it all to the poor. How about a small donation to the building fund instead? Jesus didn’t do compromise. On the other hand, he wasn’t a fire-and-brimstone, you’re-all-going-to-hell kind of crazy preacher. No, really. He wasn’t. So far as I can tell, the only people he had a real down on were the religious establishment. The ones who thought they’d nailed it without his help.

Let’s take a quick look at the last few weeks’ news. We could start with the Polish priest who’s decided Lego is the work of the devil. Yes. I thought that was an April Fool too. Apparently he had an issue with My Little Pony once upon a time. I can sympathise with that. But Lego? Then there’s the American Christian school that slated an eight-year-old for not being ‘feminine’ enough. News of the demise of Fred Phelps drew more sympathy from the gay community than he ever had for them. In an ironic twist, he was excommunicated at the end of his life by the Westboro Baptist Church he founded. He wasn’t hard line enough for them. There’s also a preacher out there somewhere still insisting that women shouldn’t even say ‘amen’ in church.

See why I have issues? Talk about you’re-all-going-to-hell crazy. Whether it’s Lego models or same-sex marriage, why do Christians always have to be ‘against’ something? Just how does anyone justify hatred in the name of someone who said love your enemies? Endless finger-pointing on behalf of someone who said do not judge? It’s as if we become super-vigilant about everyone else’s shortcomings as soon as we set foot in a church. Conveniently forgetting that we’re far from perfect ourselves.

To be honest, I’m with George on this one. Hyper-critical hypocrisy is not a great marketing strategy. I’ve done my best to follow Jesus for the last thirty years and more. Yet I can still begin to question it all when I see some of my fellow travellers. Why would you want to make an eight-year-old worry about her individuality? Did Adam and Eve wear fig leaves in different styles? Why do we pick on a child’s clothing and remain blind to massive issues? Greed. Poverty. Injustice. Straining out gnats and swallowing camels. No wonder so many people want nothing to do with any of it.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I’ve got it nailed. But I think I prefer Jesus’ approach. He didn’t harangue. Berate. Condemn. He met ordinary people exactly where they were. Ate with them. Talked to them. Listened. Loved. Wept for them. Never once did he lick his lips in gleeful anticipation of their eternal suffering. Anything but.

And if any of this sounds as if I’m judging anyone for being judgemental … I’m sorry … I guess nobody’s perfect. Thank God.

I haven’t written anything very exciting today, for reasons I’ll explore in more depth below. I just want to include the link to my fund-raising page at the opening of this post, as I’ve been told it’s not easy to find in some of the other posts. I’m doing all this crazy blogging to raise money for One25, a charity that does amazing work with street sex workers in Bristol. If you’d like to make a donation, encourage me and even give me an idea for a blog post, please go to http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=JeanMutch Thank you!

Today I’ve cooked heaps of fish and spicy wedges. I’ve planted a gooseberry bush and a loganberry cane on the allotment. I’ve sprinkled radish seed in the gully between the potatoes. And I’ve pushed words round and round and round on a page. Like picking at a meal I don’t really want. Hoping no-one will notice I’m not actually eating it.

I’ve been trying to write about gender inequality. The subject is massive. I also have a personal stake in it, for obvious reasons. As well as a lot of very strong opinions. Some of these may not sit well with everyone. To cap it all, I’m a chronic people-pleaser. It’s not really surprising I haven’t found a way of tackling the issue that works. I’ve done lots of research. Written a fair few words. But I’m by no means happy with the result. I’m going to have to cut it into bite-sized chunks, like any other oversized meal. Freeze it in small portions … OK, so I’m stretching the metaphor now … and do a number of shorter articles at different points during the next 100 days.

As a woman, I’ve struggled all my life with the idea that I’m worth less than a man simply because I was born with a uterus. Perverse of me I realise. I just can’t work out why being created with the ability to give birth makes me an inferior being. Rather the opposite you’d think. But that’s an argument for another day. Perhaps.

Despite legislation, gender inequality is alive and kicking. Recent figures suggest that women in full-time work in the UK earn on average £5000 less than their male colleagues. The gap is getting bigger. Meanwhile, women do the lions share of the housework as well. Domestic abuse, casual misogyny and sexual assault are commonplace. Even in our supposedly civilised society, a woman can receive horrific threats from men, simply for campaigning for equal rights. Women are exploited in the sex industry throughout the world. Trafficking for sex work is a live issue. The media obsess about women’s appearance. It doesn’t seem we’ve made much progress in forty-plus years of feminism.

So this is just a taste of where I might – or might not – be coming from on this particular thread of the blog. Plenty of space for a good rant or two, I think. And of course there’s the whole question of religion and the position of women … I can see I’m going to enjoy this after all …

9.45 am. I’m running late. I’ve checked the emails. Done the paperwork. I’ve made a few calls and sorted out some work for my student who’ll be online at 5. He’s from Eastern Europe. Working 70 hours a week on minimum wage for a well-known hotel chain. He lives on energy drinks and struggles to keep his eyes open as we discuss the finer points of English grammar on Skype. So, what exactly is a phrasal verb again? Why do we say ‘fast food’ and not ‘quick food’? I’m in awe of his dedication.

I steam out of the front door. Grab my apron and two freshly-baked cakes as I go. Oven off? Check. Laptop unplugged? Check. Hair straighteners? Didn’t use them today. I’m late. Should have left half an hour ago. The bay windows crane their necks all down the road. I fret. Anne won’t say she’s not happy. You can’t nag volunteers about timekeeping. It’s just that I hate letting people down.

She waves her knife when I arrive. She’s dicing sweet potato for the soup. Anne’s a human dynamo. Defying arthritis. Osteoporosis. Chronic chest infections. She’s the driving force behind the community café. Her vision and energy leave me breathless. John hugs me and hands me coffee. He’s smiling so I guess his chronic back pain isn’t so bad today. When I met him two years ago he was so depressed he couldn’t even look at me, never mind hug me. Sally ties her apron strings and brushes back her hair. She’s brisk and beautiful. Well on in recovery now. Still as brittle as the blue glass Bambi I was given as a child. She rules the front of house with such precision. I couldn’t work with her at first. I’ve changed a lot.

Alice is out of breath. She’s like a little bird. Gets smaller every time I see her. She’s not in recovery. Not even close. Her abusive partner’s in prison. Probably for beating her senseless. Again. She’s never said. A plague of louts has colonised her home since he’s been gone. They beg and steal to pay for the facilities. Including Alice. They look no more than children. All sliding down the slope to where she is. Still cocky enough to think they won’t end up there. They strut in. Demand food as if we owe it to them. I told one last week he’d do best to be polite if he’s going to make a lifestyle out of blagging. He said sorry, like I was his Nan. Alice is paper-white. She didn’t make it yesterday. Slept all day. Forgot her methadone. She’s starving. Quite literally. She works with the ferocity of pure survival. Eats anything on offer. She’s no idea where her next meal is coming from.

The café fills with mums and toddlers. Grannies taking kids out for a treat. Alan proposes to Anne across the counter. He does it every morning. Then tells me, sotto voce, we’re on for a hot date tonight. Last week he called Anne and told her he wanted to take his life. Ray grumbles about his ne’er-do-well son. Always borrowing money. He’s just waiting for me to pop my clogs so he can have the house. He asks for a sandwich and a salad. With plenty of onions. Val makes sure we’ve got her jacket potato in, then potters to the shops.

We’re well into the toasties when the Food Bank staff arrive. Jane limps to the counter. We joke about the ginger cake. It’s not spicy enough, she says. Jane and husband Eric are well into their 70s. The Food Bank’s mushroomed in the time they’ve been here. They were serving half a dozen people on a Friday when I arrived. These days the place is heaving. Families on minimum wages. Recovering addicts. People with learning difficulties. Refugees. All referred by professionals who know they won’t be eating otherwise. Mostly they’re quietly grateful. A few are more demanding. Some aggressive. Shame does strange things to the human psyche.

I came here to be near my family. A woman pushing 60 who’s spent her best years caring doesn’t get a lot of job offers. Not when there are 120 younger, fitter people in the queue. I claimed JSA for 10 months. Volunteered in the Café, and at One25. My adviser at the Job Centre told me to keep the volunteering quiet. It made me ‘unavailable for work’. I’d have jumped at work if any had been offered. As it was, I think I was a cracking bargain at £71 a week. I worked a minimum of 30 hours. Not including baking cakes. I talked to isolated mums. Made tea for lonely pensioners. Unblocked toilets. Calmed agitated addicts. Signposted homeless men to local services. Discussed botched domestic repairs. Thwarted thieves. Made sandwiches and salads. Shared experiences with frustrated claimants. Washed dishes. Endlessly. Persuaded more than one that staying alive was worth it after all.

When David Cameron first talked about ‘The Big Society‘ I envisaged a revival of Victorian philanthropy. Wealthy do-gooders distributing alms. Ladies-who-lunch foregoing canapés to serve nourishing soups to the poor. Those who have everything giving something back to the community. Anyone who works with volunteers will tell you it’s not like that at all.

I took a friend to the community café a few weeks back. He’s lived abroad for many years. He had some high ideals about the church’s role in social welfare. We sat down to lunch around the time the food bank opened. The café was so short-staffed I almost had to nail myself to the chair. Anne was having a bad day. She was visibly in pain. Two of the staff were refugees. They spoke almost no English. The fourth member of the team was a gap year student. They were working flat out. I felt so guilty I could barely swallow my tea.

As we ate, the room began to fill with hungry people. Single mums with sanctioned benefits. The family of a woman with dementia. Homeless men. People with disabilities and mental health issues. The food bank staff swung into action. Three of them are over 70. A couple are students. They dealt with a steady stream of human misery. Dispensing cheerfulness and grace with cereal and teabags. My friend began to understand.

The truth is, wealthy do-gooders are mythical as unicorns. Ladies-who-lunch are certainly alive and well. But those who want to hand out soup are rare as hens’ teeth. The government’s hard-working people have neither the time nor the energy to volunteer. That’s all been eaten up by overtime. Be grateful for it. You’re lucky to have a job at all these days. Those left to plug the yawning gaps in social care provision are often as poor and broken as the people we serve. Sometimes more so.

When I came home to Bristol I thought I was coming here to give. I expected nothing back. How wrong I was. Aside from four cooked meals a week (no small thing when you’re eking out your JSA) I found more love and friendship than I knew what to do with. Two years down the line I can barely open my front door without seeing a friendly face. I thought I was coming here to serve soup.  I’ve received far more than I could ever give. Right down to the confidence to stick two fingers up at the system that tells me I’m no use. And employ myself.

David Cameron quoted the Bible to us all last Christmas.  It is more blessed to give than to receive. I can’t help but wonder why he isn’t giving more. Doesn’t he believe in what he says? Surely he wants to be blessed? His government’s presiding over the worst assault on giving in the history of the welfare state. Church leaders are horrified by the consequences of ‘austerity’. Doesn’t he care what he’s doing to people? Alarmingly, the evidence suggests perhaps he doesn’t. An article by Brian Alexander quotes studies that suggest the rich really are different, and not in a good way: Their life experience makes them less empathetic, less altruistic, and generally more selfish. And clearly not averse to quoting the greatest altruist to walk the earth in support of their own ends.

And somehow I’m reminded the altruist once said ‘it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God’. I think he may have had a point.

If pushed for my most fundamental core belief I’d have to say it’s that every human being is of equal value in the eyes of God. Straightforward, you’d think. Although we may fall out over the ‘God’ part. Self evident, I believe the US Constitution puts it. The more so, you’d imagine, for those with claim to religion or spirituality. But I’ll leave that one for later. Yet even a cursory glance at the world will tell you how far short we fall of this ideal.

On a global scale, income inequality is increasing. The richest 67 people in the world own as much wealth between them as 3.5 billion of their poorer fellow beings. Here in the UK, cuts in provision for the poor and vulnerable have resulted in an escalation in the use of food banks, accompanied by a backlash from the the political elite, who seem to hold the poor responsible for the economic crisis in its entirety.

Inequality isn’t only about wealth. Gender and sexuality are major issues. Intolerance toward those who don’t conform to sexual ‘norms’ is alive and kicking. Literally in Uganda. Gender inequality is so endemic we’re almost blind to it. Laura Bates, originator of the Everyday Sexism website, makes the point in today’s Guardian. She cites the casual misogyny of men who see nothing wrong in intimidating a woman in the street. Then call her ‘frigid’ when she objects. We live in a nation where less than a quarter of MPs, and only 4 out of 22 cabinet members, are women. This should tell us something. On average, two women every week die at the hands of their abusers. Yet a report this week cites ‘alarming and unacceptable’ weaknesses in the police approach to domestic abuse. How can we lay claim to equality?

I’ve been working at St Mark’s Community Café, as well as One25, for almost two years. Until recently I thought that any politician worth their salt should spend six months in a place like this. It’s the coalface. The front line. The harsh reality of life. The place the addicted, broken, dispossessed queue up for bacon rolls. It should change your life. Maybe I was over-optimistic. Over-estimated the capacity of the elite for empathy. There’s hard evidence to suggest the rich really are less emotionally intelligent, or empathetic, than the poor. Or as someone put it to me this morning. Anyone who wants to reinstate fox-hunting – who derives pleasure from watching a live animal being torn to pieces – isn’t going to care much about his fellow human beings.

I’ve spent most of my life caring. I’ve been a mother. A foster carer. A youth worker. A long-term carer. A learning mentor. A live-in carer. I’m now a crazy volunteer. This is where my heart is. I’ve learned the hard way that it doesn’t make you rich. Or even financially secure. In a society where money matters most, looking after the vulnerable doesn’t count for much. If you want to get rich – ditch the love. Or as David Graeber’s headline in the Guardian this week says Caring too much. That’s the curse of the Working Classes.

So for the next few days the blog will be making a whistle-stop tour of a very small part of the world of human inequalities. Please come with me. Feel free to comment. To encourage or to disagree. And if you’d like to support an organisation that’s making a real difference to real lives, please have a look at One25’s website or at my fund raising page. Thank you.

Any other writer out there hate the sound of her own voice? I think I’m beginning to. Nothing I write feels quite good enough to post on the blog. I haven’t finished anything substantial in the last four or five days. I feel as if I’m talking to someone’s voicemail. Leaving one of those awful, garbled messages where you realise half way through that you sound like an idiot. Then you get tongue-tied and end up sounding even worse. Afterwards you discover you’d called the wrong person anyway. So you have to leave another message for the right person. That one’s even worse. At the end of it all two people are left thinking you’ve lost the plot. Not including yourself of course. Because you knew all along that you never had it in the first place.

Yesterday I got home from the shops with a right royal rant in mind. I was no more than three sentences in when The Editor arrived. She sat down at the keyboard. Elbowed me aside. Not so much as an apology for being late. You can’t rant when The Editor’s in charge. Ranting’s uncontrolled. The Editor’s a control freak. She excises adverbs. Pares sentences to the bone. Questions hyperbole. OK, I threatened to decapitate the owner of that dog. Was it really so unreasonable? It took twenty minutes to clean the sh*t off my shoe.

The Editor’s really good at taking the steam out of my sails. The sting out of my tale. The purple out of my prose. She also hates clichés. So have some of that. I was all ready to rant about social justice. Or the lack of it. I ended up sounding like a slightly bored Anglican vicar. No offence to any Anglican vicar. It’s just that preaching in the same church for forty years tends to leave you a little short of inspiration. At least I imagine it must. I’ve never tried it.

The Editor is a perfectionist. A tyrant of the first order. She’s been through all this more than once already. Nit-picking. She trawls my work in search of minute flaws. When she finds one she pounces. There you are. You’re rubbish. Why don’t you quit? Now. Give up giving up. Put the telly on. And while you’re about it, get a proper job. Stacking shelves in Tesco’s. Well away from the wine section. Who are you trying to kid? There’s better prose in the instructions for a Pot Noodle. At least I assume there is. I’ve never read them.

The Editor clock-watches. Does word counts. Spell checks. Drinks endless cups of coffee. Pokes my achy shoulder. Looks at Facebook. Finds a fascinating news item. Needs the loo. Wonders if she’ll sleep after all that caffeine. Reads everything I write out loud. Again. Boils the kettle. Deletes a paragraph. Re-inserts it. Forgets to make the coffee. Thinks she should drink something else. Makes coffee anyway. She frets about what people will think of my writing. Tells me not to worry. No-one’s going to read it anyway. Then seizes on a sloppily-constructed sentence and tears it to shreds. If all else fails, she’ll start thinking in poetry. Then I know I’m doomed.

But sometimes. Just once in a blue moon … Get off. I’m having that one. Leave my clichés alone, dammit … She’ll come up with something rather wonderful. Something that leaves my unruly, ranting butterfly-brain open mouthed in awe. And I suppose … yes, I’m having this cliché as well … that’s what makes the rest of it worthwhile.

The blog’s been quiet, but the pen has been active. Well, the keyboard really, but ‘pen’ worked so much better in that sentence … I have several pieces of work on the go at the moment. None of them quite ready to face the world. Tonight’s post is by way of letting you know I haven’t given up giving up. And I haven’t thrown the laptop out of the window. Yet.

In all the excitement of writing, I’ve forgotten to add links to my fund raising page on some of my posts. Tonight I’m taking time out from some of the serious writing to remind myself (and you, of course) why I’m putting myself through this. Making myself write 500 words a day is my way of giving up ‘not being a writer’ for 125 days. I’m doing this to raise money for One25, the amazing charity that helps street sex workers in Bristol to step away from the streets. My night on the outreach van last night reminded me yet again how valuable their work is.  If you’d like to support me, please take a look at my fund raising page.

I’m also asking people to suggest ideas for articles or titles for short stories. I’ve had a couple of suggestions so far. The first was to write about my experience of working with One25. You can read my response on this blog. I’m not sure I’m up to writing a full doctoral thesis on The Concept of a Moral Judgement, so I’m quite relieved it wasn’t a serious suggestion. At least I hope it wasn’t. But it may inspire something, sometime in the next 106 days. You never know.

If you’ve got an idea for a topic, or a title for a short story, please leave a suggestion on my fund raising page. I can’t promise I’ll have time to write something for every suggestion. To be honest, I’m kind of hoping I’ll be trampled in the rush. But I’ll do the best I can.

Meanwhile, I’m exploring ideas for an anthology about becoming an older woman. Seems appropriate, somehow.  The first story is The Invisible Woman. There’s a second story in progress. I’m also finding lots of ideas in the news at the moment. Sometimes this crazy world makes me laugh and cry all at once. I hope I can bring some of that to this blog. Thank you for supporting me along the way.

My name is Jean. It’s been five minutes since my last post on Facebook …

I never imagined it could come to this. Ten years ago I’d never heard of Facebook. I was blissfully unaware of the word ‘blog’. If someone said ‘google’ I had confused thoughts of cricket. ‘Tweet’ was what a carton bird did. And ‘retweet’? Well who on earth came up with that one anyway? Halcyon days. But I was already on the slippery slope. I’d graduated from the occasional email after supper to Friends Reunited. I’d started surfing the world wide web at night. Wide-eyed. Innocent. Teetering. It only took a chance remark to push me over the brink. My daughter had decided to go to Australia for a year. If you were on Facebook it would be so much easier to keep in touch, Mum. That was it. I signed up on 2^nd September 2007.

Within days, I was uploading photos. Posting status updates. In the third person. Jean was wishing she was somewhere else on 12^th September. I’ve no idea where she actually was. But she was alive and kicking the following day. By October 2008 she was trying to fathom the meaning of life. She went through a phase of throwing sheep at people. Anyone else remember Superpoke? It didn’t stop there. She started ‘liking’ pages. Doing quizzes. Posting aphorisms. Sharing news articles. Collecting friends … and losing them again. Possibly because of her dubious activities with sheep.

Twitter remained a mystery for much longer. The whole idea seemed crazy. What would I want with mundane details of my favourite celebrity’s life? Why would I even have a favourite celebrity? @bluesinateacup was born more of curiosity than anything else. Sorry. Did you say something about cats …? She observed the flurry of feathers with quiet confusion for a while. Then she fluffed herself up. Spread her wings. Opened her beak. What was that about cats again? These days I’m responsible for three Twitter accounts. There’s my business account (@eflimagine). An account for St Mark’s Community Café (@StMarksCafe). And @bluesinateacup of course. Thanks to Outset Bristol, I’ve mastered HootSuite. Now I can retweet my own tweets. No really. I can.

It wasn’t always this way. There was a time when I used to have real conversations. With real people. I know all you people out there are real too. But I can’t see you. Can’t hear the nuances of your voices. I don’t know how you’re feeling. At least, I’ve only got your electronic word for it. I can’t give you a hug when we both need one. OK, I could give you any number of virtual hugs. Throw sheep at you if that’s your thing. But it’s not the same.

My guess is not many of you remember the 1979 General Election. The dreadful day Margaret Thatcher was elected. I moved house that day, so it’s etched on my mind for ever. I sat among the packing boxes and wept as the results came in. The house we moved into was on an estate in a small Wiltshire town. As we settled in, the neighbours started knocking on the door. They brought tea and biscuits. Invited us round for coffee. Gave us sandwiches. Advised on decorating and childcare. Helped us strip the ghastly polystyrene tiles from the kitchen ceiling. They asked who we were. Where we came from. Who we were related to. Pure nosiness of course. Fuel for gossip. But they cared enough to ask. For better or worse, we became part of a community. We supported each other. Our children played together in the street. Scraped their knees. Fought. Forgave. Ran freely in and out of one another’s houses. We adults exchanged DIY tools. Shared surplus produce from the garden. If there was a birth, a marriage or a death we all chipped in 50p for a gift. I didn’t know it then, but we were the last family to be accepted into a close-knit group whose days were already numbered.

I don’t remember where the rot set in. Was it all the cars on the school run? You can’t strike up a conversation from a sealed tin box on wheels. Perhaps it was the rising expectations. Second-hand was second class. Sharing was scrounging. We all worked longer hours. No time for idle chat. After all, there was no such thing as society now. It was every woman for herself. The children came in from the street. Played computer games instead. Safe. Sanitary. Separate. I moved out twenty-six years on. I didn’t know my next-door neighbours’ names.

I live alone these days. I’m not the only one. The percentage of single occupancy households almost doubled between 1971 and 2011. I’ve got used to it. I’m not sure I could share my living space these days. No fighting for the remote control. I don’t have to cook unless I want to. And no-one eats the ice cream while I’m out. I’m free from all the messiness at last. But it’s a lonely business if I’m honest. A world without community can be a soulless place.

So we build community again. Safely. On social media. No scraped knees. We create a persona. The way we think we ought to be. We don’t have to make eye contact. Get our hands dirty. Deal with smell. Bodily functions. Inexplicable mood swings. We can each sit secure in our own little bubble. Tweet chirpily. Post statuses with hints of deeper meaning. Throw in a hand grenade from time to time, and watch the reaction from a safe distance. Take off our make-up. Pretend it makes a difference. And if we don’t agree with something someone says, we can block. Unfriend. Unfollow. We never have to deal with them again. Simple. So seductive. So very-nearly-real. And if we get sick of it, we can always play Candy-bubble-saga-ville instead.

But the community we build has another side to it. That’s what gives me hope. I’ve reconnected with friends I’d more or less lost until I bumped into them here. Others I’ve grown close to, though we’ve never really met. I see updates in a dozen different languages. Follow people from all around the globe. I read newspapers. Use social media to educate myself. To express my opinions. My community’s grown way beyond the confines of one street. My personal perspective, changed beyond belief. We human souls are just not built for solitude. We need each other. We may not share garden produce any more. Instead we share corny jokes and cartoon kittens. We may not exchange DIY tools, but we still exchange links. Opinions. Photographs. And gossip. On a global scale. It seems the human spirit’s irrepressible after all.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a sudden urge to throw a sheep at someone …