Big Sister

Despite resistance, tantrums, sulking and (I'll be honest here) some weak attempts at intellectual terrorism, I ended up watching Celebrity Big Brother. And like everyone else who has been dragged, protesting, into popular culture, I became a helpless gibbering victim. Perhaps it was because I had never seen one of the regular series that I fell so hard, but I promise I don't intend to try watching one.

Like so many activities that have drawn me to their televised fringes - boxing, snooker, poker - it's the underlying stories that pull me in. One night, Doyle Brunson (you don't need to know) won a world championship poker tournament with 10,3. Not fascinated? Well, you wouldn't normally hang onto 10,3. Nor would Doyle Brunson, but he had twice before won a world title with 10,2 (even more unlikely) and he thought he'd got that again. He didn't even check, but he won anyway! That's the kind of story that keeps me from sleep.

The thinking point of Big Brother was, for me, even less riveting. A boy from a band that I hadn't previously heard of was saying that although his family were poor, they still had pesto, so he guessed they were really poor middle class. My own family were poor in a way that would sound like a joke to many today. We lived with my Gran until we got a council house and when we did the council had stripped it of every removable thing, including the colour. It was a cream-painted shell. Unable to afford carpets, my Dad painted the floors - blue in the kitchen, brown in the living room and green upstairs. We collected furniture from friends and family, but among my Dad's first purchases (probably on tick from the Co-op) were a bookcase and a radiogram. I think the whole street must have heard the row. My Mum couldn't understand his priorities, but years later I understood the pesto remark. We were poor, but we had a bookcase and a radiogram.

When I got with The Man his son told me that they were all fascinated to see how it would turn out. "You're like complete opposites. You're, well, clever and he's ... Dad." I think The Man is clever, but schoolteachers in his past would queue up to contradict me. His approach to school was to get the cane three times early in the day so that he would be exempt from further punishment and could do what he liked for the day. The only record player story he could remember when I asked was when an auntie of his was going out with a gangster who stomped all over the 78's at a drunken Christmas party.

I think what I loved first about The Man (apart from his body) was that he came from a place I recognised. He didn't think painted floors were a joke or a shocking deprivation. He can tell stories of long dead relatives one-for-one with me and he has a mind for historical detail I've not come across since my Gran died. We have accumulated a huge stack of books and CDs but some differences remain. We eat what is good for us as we were brought up to and although that has changed with science and fashion, he eats his with tomato sauce - and I don't. You see, my family were poor, but we didn't eat ketchup - it's like pesto, but the other way round.

Who's Going to Look at You?

Well, this took a while, didn't it? Too much to do? Yes, but that's not it. It turns out that even my innocent (and mildly cultural) weekends away with The Girl are not without dire consequences.

Proud of my new internet capability, I was quick to show off to Younger Son. He was (a bit) impressed but was much more anxious to introduce me to a new way of blogging whereby we could all share our thoughts in a much more open format. I think. In fact, I didn't understand a word he was saying, but I've learned to work on short term memory, storing these things up for later unpicking. If you understood half the things your children said first time round you'd probably be bringing them up far too much in your own image. In any case, he had me over a barrel. Older Son had recently left for Uni and he knew that I would walk over hot virtual coals to talk to him


Don't ask me what we did, or what it was called, but I added a short profile and a few words of wit(?) and introduction, The Boy attached a picture of me he had taken at a christening (flowery dress and clean, brushed hair) and the next day I had an e-mail from Evil Pixie Cherrybottom asking to be my friend. 'Is this normal?' I asked. 'Oh yes, that's just Sarah.' 'What about Noddy Count-My-Spots?' 'Yep. Just Tim.' This was already more friends than I had counted on but there you go. Then it started. 'Why are so many of my new friends named after porn films? Look, I've got Bridget the Midget, Deep Throat and ........... why do they want to be my friends?'

Its been a while since I've seen anything change gear quite so fast. Younger Son was out of languid and quietly knowledgeable and into Sweet Mother of God quicker than Jenson Button coming out of a chicane. 'Have you read why Erica's Dog wants to be your friend?' I had, but I lied. No son should have to imagine that.

And that, my friends, was the end of that particular form of communication.

If only I had been able to offer the boy some form of post-traumatic counselling I could have been back as Alias Mum sooner, but it didn't really end there. The shock was so great that he felt the need to download onto The Man and the Floodgates of Paranoia burst open. Why? Why? Why? Hadn't he told me over and over (yes) what kind of maniacs are out there? Should we change the computer? Is it too late to go back to writing everything long hand? Do I listen to nothing?

Maniacs, look away now. There is nothing to see here. Coward that I am I have waited until I am alone with The Girl to add to this journal. Whatever he thinks, I don't set out to deliberately torment The Man. And if there are other people out there who have reached my time of life, or who aspire to, or remember it, this might just make you smile and my work here is done.

Waiting for the kettle to boil, wondering what to write, is it wrong to be so cheered that Rachel, child of my heart, a yet to become sophisticated twenty one, has her bum stuck in the wastepaper basket? We are having a mother/daughter weekend, eating vegan food and visiting the boring places 'real' men don't visit. It is my weekend away from Manland. It has cost more in phone credit than petrol, but as soon as her bum is free I shall put Kasabian on the cd player again so that she will dance; innocent of the vengeance she is wreaking on the bloke downstairs.

Don't get the wrong idea. The men at home - partner and sons - are the loves of my life, but it was only when Rachel left that I was able to see how differently they perceive the world. Although they out-number us, we had, quite unconsciously, preserved our guardian status. We were the moral majority. Who knows how family dynamics develop? But now they have me outnumbered in all senses. Discussions have become debates. Disagreements have become this-is-not-a-bloody-debates. They are all right - that is in the right - all the time. And I can see all their points of view. Which means I am permanently in the wrong.

You dance baby. Show some positive female action. Only take that bin off your bum first.