The ostrich finally pulls its head out of the sand

On Monday evening I went along to a talk by Naomi Klein (author of No Logo and more recently The Shock Doctrine: the rise of disaster capitalism) and talk about rude awakening. I've never been very interested in politics or economics, and rather than having to deal with the horridness of the world I have often preferred to stick my head in the sand... you know, out of sight out of mind...

But Naomi's talk was so accessible and so mind-blowing that I just had to sit up and start paying attention. I was transfixed as she explained how governments exploit crisis situations: wars, natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and whilst the country is in a state of shock they make what would otherwise be a political impossibility politically inevitable. Just like electroshock therapy regresses the psychiatric patient or POW to an infantile state, unable to make decisions, so does the crisis or disaster regress the people. And in that window of opportunity, when the people are frightened and confused, looking for guidance, governments can push through policies that otherwise would never be accepted.

And so I bought the book and I've not been able to put it down since. It's shocking how much I never knew; about the Bush administration, about what's been going on in Iraq, about what happened after the tsunami... and as scary as it is to find out, it feels great to finally be awake.

There is a great short film, made by film maker Alfonso Cuarón and Naomi Klein and directed by Jonás Cuarón, that accompanies the book. I tried to download it here but it didn't work. Do have a look at it though, it's both shocking and thought-provoking. You can view it here on YouTube.

Angelina to the rescue

You know sometimes when you look in the mirror in the morning and you get such a fright that all you want to do is cry "oh, noooo", and run back to the bedroom and hide under the covers for the rest of the day?

When I have one of those days and if I must face the outside world in order to get to work or something, I find it can be really helpful to have access to pictures of the beautiful people looking rough, because somehow it manages to take the edge of my own misery.

This is one of my favourite first-aiders. Sure, when she makes even the slightest bit of effort Ange morphs into a knock-out, but I can live with that, because if I concentrate I usually succeed in focussing only on our shared moments of looking rough. And that makes me feel a little bit better.

Don't call me ma'am

Yesterday afternoon while I was patiently waiting to speak to a real person who might be able to explain why I still haven't received a gas bill, despite requesting one for 11 months, I was put on hold for the umpteenth time with the words "please hold, Ma'am, while I transfer you to the correct department", and I suddenly remembered the first time it happened.

I was only 19 when I was first called Ma’am. I was working as an au pair in a Toronto suburb and I realised after having gorged myself on strawberry twizzlers and Kraft macaroni and cheese for more than six months that I needed to do something in order to fit into my favourite jeans again. So I decided to join a gym. For reasons I will never understand I chose Gold’s Gym. I don’t know what it’s like these days, but in 1988 Gold’s Gym meant steroids and lots of it; steroids and huge men. But it wasn’t the Arnie clone greeting me as I entered the building that frightened me, it was the uttering of the words “how may I help you Ma’am”, that sent me running. And I have been running ever since, not just from gyms, but from Ma’am.

Unfortunately it’s a word that seems to be coming my way with increasing frequency. As far as I can tell, this is definitely one of the worst aspects of aging. I can handle the wrinkles, the sprouting of a moustache… (not sure if I should point out any other bits, in case I have successfully managed to keep them a secret from my man) but I cannot handle becoming a Ma’am. And it’s not even as if they have to see me in order to address me in this horrid way. Is my voice old?

My man came back beaming from an outing to his favourite café; “the owner called me Sir”, he exclaimed. It’s not fair. As usual I get the feeling women end up with the shortest straw. There is certainly nothing to be proud of in being called Ma'am.

I know I should embrace my inner Ma’am, she won’t go away, and truth be told, I don’t want to become one of those women who calls herself a girl when she’s clearly not. But perhaps I should consider relocation. In Sweden they won’t call you anything but “you”, or if they have access to your name they call you by your first name, which is fine by me. In Turkey you become “bayan”, which as far as I understand is more or less an extension of the word “bay”, which means Mr. So that’s no good. But I could definitely handle Madame or Signora, since both words instantly conjure up images of chic, sophisticated women. Which is what I am. And there simply is no chic in Ma’am.

Lucky to be deluded

There is a fashion section in the glossy supplement of our Saturday paper that I can rarely resist, despite the loud complaints that inevitably follow aimed in the general direction of My (totally uninterested) Man. "These prices are outrageous!", "Why are the pictures so dark that you can’t even see what the model is wearing?", "Who on earth would be wearing this kind of outlandish thing anyway?" It’s a sort of love-hate thing I suppose.

They also do a spread where they simply line up the same model (against a white background) and put her in six different outfits, almost exclusively from the high street. I like looking at these clothes, sometimes I even make a note of where I can find a particular one, although I rarely act on it. But apart from the fact that the model is inevitably on the thin side of skinny, and pretty in a strange alien sort of way, I don’t think I’m very different from her and I can at least visualise myself in the clothes she’s wearing.

But last Saturday they had lined up a male model instead, and I found myself wondering what on earth this whippersnapper was doing in the magazine, when surely he must still be singing in the boys’ choir. I couldn’t imagine My Man in any of the clothes.

Of course the unavoidable question was, well unavoidable. I found one of the old glossies, featuring a female model, in the recycling box and with the right page open and just a little nervous I went to the mirror to do a comparison.

And you know what, despite the fact that I’m going to be 38 in a couple of months, I really can’t see much of a difference, apart from the aforementioned divergence in size and prettiness. I’m convinced I still look like I did when I was 21. Maybe some people just don’t age, and I happen to be one of the lucky ones. Or am I completely deluded? I call to ask a girlfriend (a few years older than me), and she confides in me that she is also one of the lucky ones. We are clearly both deluded.

No it's not me in the photo, I found the picture on www.prankabuddy.com