Made in Chelsea Rehab

The True Story of How I Fell Into Addiction and Nearly Ruined my Domestic Life

Some people will find it hard to believe, but until recently I was a reality TV virgin.  I lived in a France, a media backwater.  One day, on a whim, my husband and I exchanged our television for a rectangular Zen lamp which looked  like a television.  This lasted for seven years.

When we did get a small television, we had no cable, no satellite, and no time to watch it.  When the children started to grow up, still, somehow, watch-for-free internet TV passed me by.

It started after my son installed Ex Pat Shield on my computer.  For 15 years I had not touched English television, I hadn't even wanted to, but now I could finally access English TV channels.   At first it was under control, Young Drs and Houses under the Hammer from time to time, it didn't interfere with my normal life.    But then Channel 4 became available and I could watch a whole range of fly on the wall documentaries and fly on the wall documentary-style comedies.  It wasn't long before I was looking for something stronger, and one evening I decided to try Made in Chelsea.

The rush was immediate:  these people were actually acting out a pantomime of their own lives!  I was immediately hooked on the camera angles at eye level with back-lit champagne glasses, the polished appearances, the sheer, seemless vanity, the savage bitchery under the heading  'obviously I didn't want to hurt you...' and the ultimate condemnation of bad bahaviour:   "not cool.".

Bird of prey

My desire to find out when Caggie and Spencer would get together was enough to keep me going back for 3 seasons.  When they kissed the sheer raw intimacy brought tears to my eyes. ( My person theory is that off-screen they are married with two kids and just pretending to be split up and off the rails).  Soon I could barely manage to hoover the stairs before having 'a little rest' in front of Made in Chelsea and I was buying my husband take-away meals and passing them off as home cooked so I could watch"just one more episode."

It's hard to explain, but when I did tear myself away from the screen, I was still feeling spaced out and rather strange - I  hadn't totally left Chelsea behind.  It was as though my life wasn't real, and Made in Chelsea was, and I know it sounds stupid, but on some level I believed I was part of the show.  I talked to the characters as if I knew them.  When I wasn't actually watching them on TV, their faces and their intimate lives performed upon my inward eye.  In my own personal Inner Reality Show, I had 'feelings for', 'fancied' or was 'really gud friends yah' with all the boys.  The bit where Fredrik was 'hanging out in the park' topless was the thrill highlight of my year.  I imagined that my hair was long and glossy, my legs were long and limp, that I too could catwalk hanging on the arm of an expensive handbag.   (This has even resulted in some rather inappropriate wardrobe additions).  I half expected to be texted the details of a date on my (non-existant) mobile phone, or to be invited to join the girls as they trailed the rails of the Glamour Magazine fashion cupboard in search of 'something to wear' for an exciting event.  My accent went up a couple of notches on the social scale.  The truth is I'm nearly fifty, overweight, married with two children and have not been invited to a party since 1998. I had to face it;  I was living vicariously through this show.

It was for me utterly spellbinding to see what happens to people with the money influence and the leisure time to do what they want, buying themselves out of their problems and failing to learn from them, and I'm beginning to realise that similar people are running the country.

Please don't wax your chests

I'm pretty certain that by the time they are 35 the lifestyle of drink and indolence will have wrecked their looks.  I see the beginnings of noses and necks thickened and red,  mouths and bellies slack, eyes pouchy and  faces bitter, and I know that even the most expensive surgical intervention couldn't put them back together again, but still I'm a believer.  I'm still consumed by questions such as:   why do they tell their secrets and bitch about their friends, in front of the camera, and then seem genuinely shocked that their secret is out?

Nowadays I do realise I have a problem and I have cut down.  I've started cooking again and the stairs are clean.  But I know that now I've tried it, the temptation will always be there.  I try not to think about it, but I'm asking myself:  what will I do when I reach the end of season 4?

It's a bit awkward.

It's lame.

A Christmas Goodbye

Meeting, parting, meeting...parting

This is dedicated to my best readers (apart from my Mum);  Jenny and family.

Once long ago I found myself in a strange city which did not speak my language, in charge of a particularly intense and demanding very small boy who was very difficult to put to bed.

In search of company, and a place where my very small boy would be welcomed, contained and perhaps even loved, I made a pilgrimage across the entire breadth of the large city by U bahn, to find an English speaking playgroup in the basement of a church.

When I arrived my very small boy found space and freedom and small companions and most importantly new toy-gadgets.  This left me free to look around.  As usual I was feeling out of place,  when I noticed someone.

She stood swaying a young baby in her arms, her face was turned up and to the side, in conversation with someone next to her.  Her face was utterly open and utterly concentrated at the same time, and it's strange because in my memory her face is a disc of pure white light.  This mother continued to sway her baby and exchange unflinchingly with her companion and this would not have been particularly remarkable but for the fact that at her well-planted feet clung a small boy purple with rage.  He was pink purple and orange with rage and he thrust himself at his mother's feet and dragged on her legs and writhed and crashed about.  His face and hair were wet with tears and sweat, his clothes were wet with tears and sweat and the whole room was flooded with the meltwater of his tears and sweat like that scene from Alice in Wonderland,  and tear-snot flew from his nose and enraged spittle from his mouth.  His message was clear, it was roared and screamed and yelled :  I  WANT  TO  GO  HOME !

His mother with accepting calm and total openess and concentration carried on her conversation.  The drama was down there, the baby in the middle, the exchange at the top.  The small boy was by now hanging upside down between his mother’s legs and looking dangerously purple.   I managed to turn upside down too ( I was less stiff in those days) and as we faced each other upside down we managed a sort of wordless hallo.  Shortly afterwards (I like to think because of the sort of wordless hallo) he launched into the centre of the room, his emotional suffrance quite forgotten and found a toy locomotive on a long string.  He raced round the wide floor in ever increasing arcs never once pausing for the entire duration of the playgroup.  I knew I had to meet this mother and when I did it was friendship at first sight.  

When it was time to pack up the playgroup and sweep the floor and just as we were about to leave, the small boy cottoned on and resumed his former position (purple with rage clinging to his mother’s legs etc) and this time the message was :   I  DON’T WANT  TO  GO HOME !

I laughed about this for 12 years (so far).  In those 12 years (and a little more) this family became our dear friends, and the two boys had wild times together and the baby began to grow into a girl, and we explored the sandpits and the Palmengarten and the station and the Christmas markets, and I was saved from a life too lonely and overwhelming.  And Jenny always understood in every sense of the word and saved me from actual death in all senses of the word by knowing to bring me Bach Violin Concertos in the hospital.

The small boys grew up and remained firm friends

Sometimes the family moved to another part of the country and sometimes they came back, and then just after Christmas they came back just in time for my second son’s birth and looked after his brother while I was in hospital where just after the birth they came to see me to say hallo to the new baby and goodbye before they left for Australia.  The were gone for seven years.  When they came back we had moved to another country, but we were all happy to be in the same continent and we were still friends in the spaces in between the times when we managed to travel to see each other as well as the raucus times when we were together.

Home made mince tart on finest Australian porcelaine

This Christmas our friends drove for 8 hours in a hired car to come and see us in our Gite in the Jura mountains for 2 and a half days just after Christmas and before they left for Australia this time for good.  The joy of reunion and feasting and music and love and laughter and wisdom was great and it still is, and  the sorrow of parting was great and it still is.

Rustic plates and plastic cocktail flutes

We do not know how the story of our friendship will continue, or how it will end.  I wish we could have lived in the same continent, the same country, the same town and the same street.  But perhaps this sort of friendship is stretched into something bigger, and perhaps "close" has quite another meaning which we need to learn to understand.  In the meantime the whole of my world is flooded with tears and people and animals swim in it, like that scene from Alice in Wonderland.

Christmas List Results

R did not get a spiv hat, a faux leather jacket and a bank account

B did not get a serious upgrade for this computer

JC did not get nothing

I did not get a red medieval dress with a green girdle

Walk this Wayl

JC wears his Quickfit Fitter ski outfit from a jumble sale...

View from Cafe in Winter Sun

I got up early and set up the room, and while I was out collected pine branches to decorate the fireplace, JC attempted to transmit the true meaning of Christmas illustrated by a bible reading;  his mistake was to attempt this ambitious project BEFORE opening the presents...and upon teenagers.  Back to the drawing board on that one.    But everything else went spiffingly.

Christmas List

R:
A faux leather jacket
A spiv hat
A bank account

B:
Cash for a massive computer upgrade ordered and built by himself

J-C
Nothing (ascetic)

Me:
A medieval dress (red with green girdle)

Winter Tea

In the interests of 'waste-not', I've found an enjoyable way to use organic orange skin.

Before squeezing or eating your lovely orange, slice off the zest with a good sharp knife, a bit of pith doesn't matter.  Put the peelings in an attractive open pot on your radiator to make the room smell nice, when thoroughly dry and crisp keep in sealed jar.

Spiced orange tea

Mix some dried orange zest with your favourite spices, eg:  some cinnamon (stick or powder), ginger (peelings or powder), one crushed cardomone pod, a clove, a pinchette of allspice powder and of nutmeg.

Pour on boiling water and leave at least 5 minutes and drink as a 'tisane', or add a plain teabag and continue brewing, or leave to brew for 24 hours and add to a hot tea or hot water (the flavour continues to develop for 2 days).

I like to add tea,  dark brown sugar and milk to mine.

LATE BANGED TO RIGHTS

R has transformed himself into an organised and on-time guy following his entry into the prison camp otherwise known in this country as 'a school'.  He sleeps in his watch.  He has an alarm set to warn him when to get ready and knows exactly what time he must leave to be nicely early.

Despite this some censored on the front gate, running on bad temper and a faulty watch, has decided he (and the usual crowd of miscreants who get caught on the capricious whim of the petty dictators who pass for teachers in this country) was  LATE.

There is no questioning this judgement.  The ticket is written out.  She wrote 5 minutes late which cannot be true, I know what time he left, he left the same time as he has done every day for the last 3 months, he can only have arrived as the gate was closing (presumably early) not 5 minutes afterwards, and this is for 8.20 when classes start at 8.30, so no actual inconveniencing lateness actually took place.

Pupils are of course MARKED on a collection of statistics under the heading "Class Life" (in reality there is neither class nor life in any real sense of the word in this country's schools), arbitrary and subjective judgements are made with reference to tickets for:  lateness, absence, detention etc, R got 18.5 out of 20 for 'Class Life', but there is no statistical evidence or references available for why he lost 1.5 marks.  So he will suffer marks to be struck off for this affair which will go towards the final judgement of whether or not he is a Good Student (Bon eleve).  Anglophone schools just don't think like this, thinking of our children as 'good' (or not) students.  In the anglophone world we try to evaluate the progress of the child and we are unashamed to form a relationship with our children and to actually like them and want them to succeed.

Why do French teachers behave like this towards a child who is thoroughly respectful of the rules?  What do they hope to achieve?  What they achieve is at best indifference (shrug shoulders, "I don't care" ((about anything)), or hostility.  Which is perhaps whey they need a police officer to supervise the inmates at hometime.  By the way 'hometime' is not subjected to the same precision, they finish any time they want, tough if your child has an appointment at the dentist.

I don't have any recourse following this ticket injustice (or any other injustice), my option is to sign it.  I wrote 'not possible' underneath it but I doubt if anyone will notice and then I called the offending person a very rude word in front of my son.  He said I just shouldn't care.  I wish I didn't.

Human Business, Humanity Profits

Today my mum and I were bemoaning the fact that business ethics seem to differ so much from human ones.

In Britain, business ethics seem set apart from human ethics, and yet are increasingly dominating our human society - for which everybody (but a very privileged few) suffers.

For a relatively mild example (compared to companies that lie cheat and kill) but an important one;   Amazon and Starbucks are not paying tax by setting up in Jersey.   It's perfectly legal, and that seems to be the end of the story.  This despite the fact that Amazon is now a market leader, surely it doesn't need to behave like this?  It could be contributing positively to society, taking a philanthropic approach which would be good for business and good for society.  Is it just thinking about the business ethic PROFIT?

Here is an idea for getting business ethics back in line with human ethics (from the film "The Challenge of Rudolf Steiner" rudolfsteinerfilm.squarespace.com)

"Customers and bankers at Triodos bank are trying to work in a different way with money:  greater tansparency, greater responsability, and greater consciousness about the way the money deposited is actually used.

Peter Blom is Chairman of the Executive Board of Triodos Bank:

"I am convinced that we need to concentrate more on what is really needed in society, and then make that into a feasible business.  There is profit of course, you cannot do without that - but you don't have to start with profit.  Profit is the result.  This relates to what Rudolf Steiner said - profit is not something to aim for but is a sign of a healthy operation, emerging from healthy transaction.  This is a much better way of looking at profit than putting it there as a goal, as an objective, making everything work for that goal.

Steiner always had the human being at the centre of his thoughts, whatever he was talking about, economics, medicine, whatever....in most of our thinking now we exclude human beings - it is about a system and we must fit into  the system.  What he did lets us take each human being as a starting point; let's design around debt for example, in a way which serves human beings.

We cannot achieve this by just repeating or copying Steiner.  Our challenge is to work with what he brought us."