I once spent a morning discussing Hinduism with the man who came to service the boiler, a habit that started when my son was studying theology and I felt a duty to keep up, and I venture that his (Mr Boilerman) knowledge of the world’s leading belief systems who have put the average vicar to shame.

Are you aware, for example, that there is a museum in India with every one of their Gods represented? Over 21,000 of them and for all I know rising?  Presumably there is a constant need for new ones to cover technical advances- God of the iPad, God of the iPhone and so on and on.

This week a tearful Muslim mother confided in me that, far worse than her son heading off to Syria, her daughter was dating a Hindu.  She would, she added, even prefer her to be dating a white boy.  “Even one of my sons?” I couldn’t resist asking, always my acid test of real tolerance.  I wonder what her reaction would have been if the roles had been reversed and I expressed a preference for Catholic over Jew, or black over white for their girlfriends.

On Saturday I went to the West London synagogue where I saw a remarkably self-possessed 13 year old become bar mitzvah.  Another learning curve when I discovered that there were guards at the entrance, a precaution we haven’t needed in English churches since the Reformation, what with them  attracting hardly any attention,  not even from their parishioners, and certainly not from people inclined to throw bombs into them.

After the service my friends having taken off their prayer shawls and yarmulkes, and not skipping a beat, we went across the street to a Lebanese coffee house for coffee and baklava.  Non kosher.

On nearby Oxford Street there was a group with banners urging me to boycott Marks and Spencer because they support Zionist oppression of Palestine.  What and cook from scratch?  I’d have to launch my own protest movement against that.  I am genuinely moved by the plight of the Palestinians which makes me anti-Israeli government policy, not anti Jewish. The same reasoning would apply if Donald Trump were ruling America.  Also outside the store was a man selling books and CDs about Islamic beliefs, including one called ‘The Message’  which was on my lengthy list of  Ways to Improve Yourself, lovingly prepared by my son.

“How much is it?” I asked the stall holder.

“Are you Muslim or non-Muslim?” He asked with a grin, clearly having spotted my lack of a burka.

“Which would be cheaper?” I replied.

Other outings this week included a trip to a Chinese restaurant and watching a Japanese film – “Our Little Sister” – charming and beautiful.  See it.

Having grown up in a village where the most exotic person spiritually was a far-from-home Welsh Methodist it never ceases to amaze me that you can meet such a cross section of the world every day of your life, provided you leave the village for cosmopolitan London I should add, and have something in common with all of them, even a shared sense of humour.

There is  an old story from the Irish troubles about a man being stopped by gun toting men wearing balaclavas.  “Don’t shoot me” he pleaded “I’m Jewish”.  The gang leader thought for a moment.  “Would that be Catholic Jewish or Protestant Jewish?”

I like to think that here we are, first and foremost, Londoners.  And there won’t be a cartoon to illustrate it.

 

 

 

I may, may have berated television commissioners from time to time for the never ending stream of ‘100 Best …’ programmes but in response to popular demand I have decided to give you ‘The 100 worst nights of my life’.  Series One.

There could be voting with a premium rate number for you to ring repeatedly to ensure the victory of your choice.  Untold riches lie in wait.  I might even be able to afford therapy at last.

An old chum, owed many favours, asked me to lend her moral support while she made a presentation to some group or other.  First mistake was not paying more, any, attention to the details. Oh, novice error.  It turned out to be an evening listening to a hard sell that would have made a Scientologist blush by some self-help group which in return for several hundred pounds promised a life of perfect happiness.

How many times did my mother warn me to note the location of the fire exits in case of a need for a rapid getaway?  Novice mistake number two. I eventually found myself in a small room with three young people and two ‘counsellors’ whose fixed grins and glassy eyes would have made them shoo-ins for leading roles in ‘Captain Scarlett and the Mysterons’.  They may even have had strings.

We were required to fill in a short questionnaire: What works in your life?  I’m there filling in the boxes.  ‘Me, almost non-stop’. What doesn’t work? My idle sons.  Top of the class, me.  Please miss, can I be milk monitor?

There was group sharing of our issues. A youngster in my group couldn’t decide whether to move house or not.  Doh! There are only the two options – you do or you don’t.  Toss a coin. That’ll be fifty quid.

A young woman complaimed that although she was following a rigorous diet and exercise programme, she wasn’t making any progress towards her fitness goals.  ‘Are you a professional athlete?’ I enquired in a tone she mistook for caring.  ‘No’ she replied ‘I’m a receptionist’.  Possibly not going to hold you back in your giddy career path then?

Next problem. ‘I am forty, married to a man with a low paid job and I want to give up work and have a baby’. Do you think this course could help me to achieve that?’ How exactly? By waving a magic wand?  The correct answer is that you can’t have the happy housewife fantasy, like most people.  Don’t hand over that cheque to the Mysterons, I’ll take cash.

This ninnyist inability to face and deal with reality is what comes of all this political correctness.  You can’t have it all and no course in the world is going to come up with an answer to that, however much it costs.

We have somehow created a nation of people who can’t blow their own noses.  No wonder they don’t vote – that would involve making a decision.  And I’m sure you’ll join me in sending them free of charge the six short words that will really change their lives.

Grow up and get a life.

 

 

Do not, dear Reader, be deterred by the title.  My son once told me that whatever essay title he was set for his homework he would dismiss it in the first sentence and then write 2000 crisp words on whatever was occupying his fevered teenage brain that week.  How Sir must have looked forward to marking time.

I have just been on holiday and very nice it was except for the 50 minutes that we queued to get through passport control on returning to Heathrow.  One hates to pull rank but really.  Surely someone somewhere has the intelligence to think ‘Hmmmm.  A mother and two sons returning to their country of birth after a brief absence from an extremely sedate destination with British passports.  I expect we could shorten this intolerable wait by employing the airport version of a Triage Nurse and giving such people an express ticket” or is that beyond the wit of a civil servant?  Answer, sadly, yes.

I shall therefore in a spirit of compassion and understanding for the less able give you a few tips accrued over many, many years to make your own trips more bearable.

It is a FACT not even worthy of further discussion that no holiday requires you to take nine pairs of shoes and certainly not in my suitcase.

There is a happy medium between arriving four hours early for the flight and having to be carried across the tarmac  at a run by two security officials.  Been there, done that. Not impressed.

Your travelling companions should be carefully pre-vetted for irritating habits.  Observe nose picking, hair twiddling, nail chewing (Continued on page 94) for long enough and you will snap ‘n’ slap. Never attempt a road trip with someone you already mildly dislike.  Days of such close confinement can only end in murder, first degree.  Other motoring hints: driving with the white line under the middle of your vehicle may enrage other road users.  If there is frost on the inside of the windows the air conditioning needs reviewing.  If your passenger screams you need to slow down, put both hands on the wheel and pay some attention.

It is worth checking before travel that your driver does not suffer from elective deafness in the ear nearest to the navigator. Do they know left from right and can they follow a simple instruction to turn in one of those directions?

A weak bowel or bladder is not conducive to happy travelling.  Administer drugs, covertly if necessary, rectally  if desperate.

Finally do not take directions from the doorman who you have tipped with loose change amounting to under a dollar.  It may well satisfy their sense of justice to picture you driving through parts of their city previously unknown to armed police, never mind witless tourists,   but it is unlikely to endear you to your passengers.

Happy holidays!

Another biblical upside of Easter is that without schools the roads of London open before you like the Red Sea.  Journeys which normally take days can be completed in minutes. I went to a meeting yesterday where every single person was there up to an hour early and wearing a look of post-Apocalypse shock at the ease of their journey.

Road chaos is not the only blight that schools cause.  I am reminded of one of the low points of parenting – and we are talking stiff competition here – parents’ evening.  Even Baby Jesus couldn’t raise this event from the dead.  A draughty sports hall where eighty odd, and I use the word advisedly, teachers seated alphabetically await their two and a half minutes in which to tell me what they most dislike about my son.

On one occasion I was tempted to seek out the German master who wrote in a report ‘Recently the veil of feckless incomprehension appeared to have lifted, briefly’.  Who says they have no sense of humour?

‘He lacks motivation’  they whine, teacher-speak for bone idle. ‘Then motivate him’ I say, locking eyes, that most dangerous of Mothers, the one that answers back.  ‘He’s an anarchist’ one complained, ‘and you encourage him’.  I blushed with becoming and hopefully unnerving modesty.  ‘His work is untidy’. His room is untidy – do I telephone  you and expect results? Do I ask you to tackle his constant demands for money, his ‘taste’ in clothes or his inability to floss? I do not, dear reader, because I imagine that they have better things to do, as do I.

One wretched teacher, and a woman at that, had the temerity to ring me in a SHOE SHOP in order to tell me that the boy had fallen asleep in an exam.  Wake him up then madam and can I try these in the navy blue?

What far off planet have these people come from that they imagine any teenager listens to his mother?  ‘Son, your works untidy’. ‘Message received Ma, I’ll sort that out immediately. Sorry you had to mention it’.  I don’t think so.  They have access to the child for eight hours a day without achieving any discernible improvement yet they sincerely believe that a swift word in my shell-like and all will fall miraculously into place.  Are none of them parents, or even residents in Real Life?

My revenge, never actually implemented, would have been a Teachers’ Evening. This would have been a twice yearly event requiring them to leave work early, struggle through rush hour traffic and sit on a small, hard chair in a dusty corridor in order to listen to a litany of complaints.

I would have served spectacularly bad coffee and Pound Shop custard creams and whilst waiting for their moment with Mother in charge of Personal Hygiene they could run their eyes over my collection of takeaway menus or inspect my pristine gym kit.

I could even have left my holiday snaps displayed on the wall and offer a short tour of the utility room with an option of rummaging through the lost proper basket.  The happiest days of my life? Could do better.

I was asked to talk to some schoolchildren recently (Can’t imagine what they must have done that I was presented as an alternative to a thrashing) and I related a story from my childhood, the harshness of which would have had it cut from ‘Angela’s Ashes’.

My numerous sisters and I had waist length hair which was washed weekly, probably in a character forming combination of cold water and carbolic soap and combed through without the benefit of either conditioner or compassion.  Any sign of protest was met with the traditional swift, sharp shock – usually a thwack with the back of a hairbrush and a reminder that one must suffer to be beautiful.

the amount of suffering that we collectively endured to that end makes it a national scandal that at least one of us didn’t go on to be crowned Miss World.

My older and very lovely sister had clearly taken this message to heart which she demonstrated during her teenage years by wearing plastic bags inside a pair of blonde, thigh-length suede boots so that they would not be stained by the blood from the blisters that they caused.  Beat that, Opus Dei.

Leaving A for agony brings me to b for burka and thence to the c-word, an expletive which never crossed my mother’s lips – C for comfort.  And for Childline to which, had it existed in those far off days, we would doubtless have been whining when we walked a mile barefoot across field every morning because she sincerely believed that it improved the complexion, especially if you didn’t die young of pneumonia.

The upside of the burkha  is that it enables you to drive your children to school wearing your pyjamas underneath without attracting the attention of the traffic police who seem to find nightwear behind the wheel hugely amusing when they stop you but that dear readers is a story for another time.

C is also for cruel, as was the remark that my son addressed to me the other day.  I later sent him a text informing him that I had gone to live in Syria where women were treated more kindly, even by Isis.  And he was C for contrite when I collected him from the station that night swathed in my makeshift burkha.

Next week