Katkens says ....

Of all the band reunions that there have been of late, I have to say that although - or maybe because  - my feet still hurt and my legs still ached the morning after, The Specials has to be the coolest yet!

 

The fact that they were back in Coventry to do this, the final gig of the tour, made it even more ‘special’. They were back in the city where it all began for them, and the 2-Tone movement in general, somewhere that they hadn’t played for 27 years.

 

With 8,000 people packed into the Jaguar Exhibition Hall at the Ricoh Arena, it was like being at an extremely large version of my youth club in the early 1980s, but without the youth! Everyone was doing the same dance to the same music, but we were all 30 years older and somewhat larger – although I have to say, some were a lot larger than others. I kept well back from the front as I wanted to leave in one piece!

 

When I was in my early teens, the ‘skins’ were the coolest boys of all. Smart in their black crombies, with either a Fred Perry and colourful braces underneath or a crisp white shirt and thin black tie, coupled with snake hips in rolled up jeans and the obligatory DMs. Well, the DMs were still there and the jeans, but sadly in many cases the slim hips had widened and beer bellies not only poked through the straps of the braces, but fell well over the waistbands too. But the capacity to skank and simply have a good time is still there, it was just a lot sweatier and at times on Friday – as the group skilfully played a fantastic 90 minutes of classics - I genuinely feared for their health! The fittest middle-aged people in the room were definitely the ones on the stage!

 

As they seared through tracks such as Gangsters, A Message to You, Concrete Jungle, Rat Race, the whole hall leapt up and down as one and I found the skanking came back to me easily as if it had all been yesterday, even though I had been too young for the actual gigs 30 years ago and my dancing had been limited to the youth club discos!

 

I have to say though, I don’t think you can really skank properly unless you were there – as a teen or older in the 80s. My husband was about three when 2-Tone was at its height and, as a Coventry boy definitely had a good stab at it! However, he still looked a little bit like he could have walked straight out of Peter Kay’s Amarillo video until I explained to him that the look he was going for was more like the one-player jogging function on the Wii Fit – and by George – he got it! It really was an excellent work out - by the time they got to Ghost Town, Too Much Too Young and Enjoy Yourself, I didn’t feel quite so guilty about the rhubarb crumble I’d had earlier!

 

It was all just the same, but somehow different. The songs were all messages of an age of recession and unemployment that are still sadly relevant today – but gone was the anger on the faces, replaced by sheer joy of re-living a youth, even though it was a youth of some difficulties.

 

This is the classic anomaly of English nostalgia, everybody always looks back fondly – cutting out the bad bits. As for me, well, I was a young teen in a happy family, the misery of unemployment in the lyrics was something I saw on the news and not first hand. It was the music I was seduced by, the ska sound, the catchy tunes and the musicianship – something that I still relish today. And it was the fact that this music had provided a backdrop to my happy youth that merely heightened the emotion of the night for me.

 

At the end, the band told their audience that we had made a group of old men very happy. What I would say is ‘right back at you’!

OK, there has been much said about Jade Goody in recent weeks and no more that I can say really, but I just wanted to get this off my chest because her final plight left me in a quandary.

Like many, I always hated the fact that she was famous for not really doing much. A resentment probably borne out of the fact that I have always studied and worked hard and never earned as much money as her and maybe never will. I also hated the fact that people seemed to look up to someone who seemed to have nothing to offer, that having no discernable talent was something to be admired as you could clearly make money out of it. Thank goodness then for Michele Obama who finally told us that it was “OK to be smart” when she was in the UK last week! Phew – at last, someone standing up for the intelligent woman!

Jade seemed like a happy, fun-loving woman (albeit with a few anger issues) and a very good mum, but while her plight has not only got more women to go for smear tests, I feel that it has also shown us that we shouldn’t laud her kind of lack of education because it seems it was that which got her into this mess in the first place. It’s been reported that she DID have a smear test, and got a letter telling her that there were abnormalities but she never went back to have it checked out. Surely anyone with an ounce of intelligence wouldn’t have ignored a letter like that? But I don’t know the facts so I won’t dwell on that – it’s not fair. But this lack of understanding about the world has got her into trouble before hasn't it? With the whole Shilpa Shetty racism row, she insisted that she wasn't being racist. She was of course, bt she didn't realise it, and that was the most terrifying thing about the whole sorry incident.

Nevertheless, the fact is that Jade was a star unique to our modern society, a result of something that we have created and therefore we can’t really complain.

Because of a tough upbringing, Jade didn’t have many choices in her life, until a celebrity-obsessed world appeared and developed and where people could become famous for just being famous. She didn’t know how to do anything else but she was able to make money because of the society that we have become. We did it. And I if you’re thinking “well, I didn’t”, the fact is that if you’ve ever read a celebrity magazine, or a tabloid, or any paper for that matter, you are culpable.

There are, of course some people who, when told that they could earn a million from having a few photos taken, wouldn’t jump at the chance. But, if you can’t do anything else, the likelihood of you turning down that offer is extremely remote.  And of course there are very few people who, when told that they could earn all this money to secure the future of their children, wouldn’t agree.

But whatever you think about the way she lived her life and the way she died her death, there is something that can’t be denied and it is this concept that I am wrestling with the most – mainly because of the way that it’s being expressed.

Firstly, and most importantly though, she has probably saved many, many lives because so many more women are going for cervical smear tests and that in itself makes her life more than worthwhile, even though she couldn’t have planned it that way.

And there’s the rub. I am sick to the back teeth of people saying how brave Jade has saved the lives of so many women in a way that makes it sound like she set out to do this much good. Yes she has left a legacy, but not one borne out of selfless philanthropy. It’s a very good thing but please don’t make out it was down to some plan for the greater good.

The truth is she didn’t wake up one day and decide to do something to save lots of women. She got cancer. She didn’t DECIDE to get cancer. I didn’t know Jade but I would be willing to bet my mortgage that given the choice she wouldn’t have decided to do it this way! She got a terminal disease and carried on living her life in the way that she always did – in front of the cameras. And it was a combination of this, plus the aforementioned society that we have created that has probably saved lives. Therefore – and I can’t believe I am saying this but – “All hail the tabloid press and Love It!”

I HATE smear tests – but this year when I got my reminder, I booked it straight away rather than leaving it as I would normally be inclined to do. Leave it and worry about it. But I booked it because she was all over the media banging on about it. Hopefully my results will be fine, and so will all the thousands of others who have gone as a result of her plight. But there are bound to be some results that will come back with abnormalities. And for that, we should not necessarily just thank Jade, but the media circus she created, and the people who lap up every detail of these so-called celebrities lives which in turn means that more and more details are reported.

This wasn’t Jade's choice. She has done good in the same way that she made money – with the media doing all the work, famous for doing nothing except bearing an illness that given a choice she wouldn’t have borne. But her last task was a job that no one would choose.

Her loss is a dreadful, dreadful one for her  family but I’m sure that they will take comfort from this legacy and for that alone, I won’t condemn it – so I will say no more.  But please, please don’t make out that she chose this path. It’s an insult to her.

RIP now Jade.

Going out for a walk in the snow with my husband this week has, quite frankly, been like going for a stroll with Todd flaming Carty! On every occasion, his sense of balance, or rather lack of it, has been akin to the former soap stars hilarious exit from the Dancing on Ice rink. And while he hasn’t actually fallen over yet, he only has to step onto the pavement to be able to be a one man “You’ve Been Framed” contributor who could provide enough material for his own series!

So yes, while the problems of getting around have caused us, along with many other people, a lot of frustration this week, it has also provided us, along with many other people I hope, with a lot of fun and laughter.

Complaining is a national sport for the Brits, and the heavy snow this week has been like manna from heaven to those who particularly enjoy this kind of recreation, but I feel that it has also brought many good things, stuff that maybe we should hold onto in more favourable weather conditions. i.e. normal life!

“What is this life if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare” said William Henry Davies in his poem ‘Leisure’ - and it’s true. In day to day life we care about being in the office all day to earn a living, we care about getting anywhere we want to go quickly and with the least possible fuss and in doing all this we care less about other, more important, stuff.

This week I think, has given us all more time to stand, albeit a little unsteadily, and stare!

My “standing and staring” has also let me see the good that the weather has brought out in us and made me question why we can’t be like this all the time!

OK, the bad weather has brought a lot of bad stuff. Travelling has been dangerous and sometimes impossible. It has been difficult for people to get to hospitals for vital appointments and for the older and/or not very steady to get out for vital supplies. And for everybody it’s often been difficult to get anywhere at all!

Grit and salt is running out and authorities have been blamed. And then there’s the schools! Closing, as some would say, at the mere sight of one flake! And oh what column inches and radio air time has been devoted to THAT subject!

It seems to be quite fashionable these days to complain about schools closing in the snow. And I have to say, I do like to join in sometimes, even though it makes me sound about 100 years old with my “When WE were kids” anecdotes. On the face of it, their closing does seem ridiculous because when WE were kids I think I only had one snow day EVER! But when you really think about it, I really don’t mind them being off now!

When WE were kids, a lot more people, myself included, walked to school, but nowadays, if the entire school run had been out on the roads on the worst days last week, it would have made things a million times worse! Some of these people only ever use their car to drive their kids to school and this really shows in normal weather conditions. Add treacherous snow and their driving is even worse! So I for one was pleased to know that they wouldn’t be out, in fact, why not keep the schools closed longer!

So, the bad weather has been the talking point of the week, and most of it focussing on the bad, but there has really been a lot of good, and good which we should try and carry on!

People have been able to spend more time with their families and, shock horror, still get work done. We have decided to stay at home and work rather than battle in and waste three hours sitting in a car, probably needing the loo to boot!

With today’s communication systems and a laptop, we have realised exactly how much work can be done from home and still get out for a walk with the dog in the afternoon. We have found out that in this decade, more than any other, we should be able to combine work and home with more balance.

We can walk to the shops or to important appointments and we can help those who can’t, by shopping for them. And, as I discovered, walking in the snow seems to be much better exercise than just a normal walk – it really works those calves and thighs! So why can’t we walk around a bit more often?

Also, people have been actually TALKING to each other. Walking along with the dog, strangers have said “hello” or “good morning”, it was astounding! We have CARED about each other, we have asked family, friends and neighbours if they needed anything. We have taken on extra work because our colleagues have been snowed in. And it’s all been done with relish and willingness, we have been actively looking for ways to help.

I have even been trying to think of alternatives for grit in order to clear my own road in a cul-de-sac that just won’t seem to clear up of its own accord! Cat litter was my best suggestion, and although it might have been a bit heavy to scoop up afterwards, it was probably a better idea than my first one – cous cous!

Well, you just add water and within minutes you get a tasty accompaniment to fish and lamb. Surely the same principle would apply to snow, and provide valuable food stuffs for those unable to get to the shops or who are stranded in their cars!

This week has also made us all aspiring artists, inspired by the sheer beauty of the “weather event”. When we haven’t been cursing it because our wheels are spinning, we have been staring at it, admiring it. We have taken pictures in our thousands – photos of snow on its own, trees in the snow, children in the snow, pets in the snow, snowmen in the snow and, thinking everybody else is actually interested in them, submitted said pictures to everywhere we could think of – Facebook, the BBC, GMTV, random friends and relatives, and more to the BBC!

But back to my point. Basically, we have been nice to each and we have pulled out all the stops to help our fellow man, so let’s not forget this week, let’s not confine our good neighbourliness to a mere seven days, and try and carry this friendship and camaraderie on?

However, I do have one bug bear. Please don’t call this feeling of pulling together, the “blitz spirit”. It’s a bit of snow. We haven’t been bombed out of our houses and blown to smithereens by the enemy. We will survive it.

This week, while people have seemed to care more about each other, it has only served to show a feeling for each that we all seemed to have lost in the past couple of decades. You’ve got to admit, it’s been fun, and for those who just moan about it – come on – you’ve loved the whinging too!

And just to remind us - here's the poem!

"LEISURE"

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

Friday 3 October

 

To dance or not to dance?

 

Yes, the first question of course was whether to do it or not? Should I dust off my dancing shoes and learn a completely new skill (in other words - make a complete and utter fool of myself!) for a good cause or not? Well – therein lies the rub. BBC Three Counties Strictly Come Dancing event “Dancers in Need” is for Children in Need so it would seem a bit churlish to refuse – although maybe sitting in a bath of baked beans might be a little easier and have less chance of serious injury, to both myself and the audience!

 

But organiser Gareth Lloyd is very persuasive and after his 55^th plaintive cry of “But it’s for the kiddies”, how could I refuse?! After all, how difficult could it be?! So there it was – I agreed to do it and there was no going back.

 

First let me explain a little about my dance “experience” to date. A future career in the profession was cruelly cut short at the tender age of three when I was expelled from my ballet class, although I have to say, it wasn’t because I wasn’t any good – oh no, no, no! I figure that I could have been the next, or should that be first, Darcy Bussell – in my dreams anyway! But apparently, so I’m told by my mother because I have actually blanked the whole experience out, it was down to the fact that I completely disrupted the entire class. My constant crying and wailing because I didn’t want to be there set everybody else off (some things don’t change!) and the teacher could eventually do nothing with a class of screaming three-year-olds refusing to do “good toes, bad toes”!

 

So, with a dance career firmly off the cards my efforts were limited to the living room in front of Top of the Pops and youth club discos where my “skanking” to the Two Tone beats of the 80s was legendary.

 

However, feeling that maybe the world was missing a great talent I returned to dance in my teens but foregoing the discipline and grace that ballet required and instead enjoying the freer style of jazz and tap, to which I was much more suited, if not particularly good!

 

Tap was my thing. I loved the rhythm and the attack you could put into it and the fact that you didn’t have to worry quite so much about your arms. It was enough getting one part of my body to move quite fast, let alone all four limbs! But nevertheless, I enjoyed a late teens and early adulthood doing classes and even the odd show, the highlights of which being the leather look shorts and silky pink waistcoat of 42^nd Street in panto circa 1988, and doing a cabaret at Batchwood Nightclub wearing little more that fishnets and a short red skirt – classy! Oh yes – and the Can Can at a French themed evening at the Abbey Theatre in St Albans, but the less said about that the better!

 

So yes, I admit that I have “danced” before, but I have to say that the Ballroom and Latin that this event requires, is a completely different prospect. Firstly there’s the fact that I haven’t seriously put one foot in front of the other to a beat for a good 15 years, unless you count the cheesier dance floors of the UK night club scene such as Chicago Rocks and Sports Cafes, where I could at least watch football at the same time, and the first dance at my wedding!

 

But inspired by the greatness that is BBC TV’s Strictly Come Dancing, the prospect of free dance lessons and most important of all, the promise that I could wear a sparkly frock, I agreed to join 11 colleagues and learn Ballroom and Latin for a competition on 7 November!

 

Sunday 5 October

 

To say it was absolutely tipping it down in Bedford on this particular Sunday afternoon was an understatement. It is difficult enough to try and negotiate the one way system in any weather conditions, let alone a monsoon, but there I was, inexplicably trying to find my way to the rehearsal rooms in the cold and wet when I could have been tucked up at home with a nice warm cuppa and the prospect of the Come Dine With Me omnibus to keep me warm!

 

But here I was so let the fun begin!

 

I met up with the other brave souls who had battled through the wind and rain “for the kiddies”, Laura Miller, Lorna Hankin, Kelly Betts and Nadine Simpson. We were all there to try and catch up, and be taught the dances that the others had learned for the inaugural competition the year before.

 

What followed was an afternoon under the patient tutelage of Reg and Fiona, with the help of dancer James, learning the basics of five dances, after which it seemed that perhaps sitting in a bath of baked beans would be easier! Even though they actually make me retch!

 

What I discovered was that while I am fairly “OK” at picking up steps, putting them together with any kind of style and grace is a completely different thing altogether, let alone trying to smile and count at the same time!

 

Although I have to say that in general we all did pretty well. It was a big ask for one afternoon but our teachers were excellent, breaking it down into small sections with lots of repetition until we got it.

 

And then when we got to do it with a partner, it made it all worthwhile. It is much easier when you have someone leading you – although I think that “steering” would be a more appropriate phrase. James was fantastic, whirling us around the dance floor, and negotiating us around the other dancers! He also guided us through the tricky manoeuvre that is turning the corners when it had all seemed to straightforward when going in a straight line!

 

But I think that I can speak for everyone else when I say that after the Waltz, Cha Cha Cha, Jive, Quickstep and Social Foxtrot, we all left feeling quite exhilarated at the start of our quest to take on a new challenge, and actually felt that we had achieved something. We may not be Alesha Dixons yet, but we are certainly not Kate Garraways! We hope! Bring on the frocks!

 

Wednesday 8 October

 

This week I have been trying, in the confined space of my living room to remember the basic steps that we learnt on Sunday. But it’s not easy without a partner so I tried to rope in the help of my husband and attempted to teach him the waltz. This was a mistake.

 

With the strains of my "No, you go FORWARDS, when I go backwards" and his "Yes, that WAS my foot!" reverberating around the house, the dog and cat were looking at us in the way that only they can. The dog with excited and interested encouragement – while keeping a safe distance from the flailing limbs - and the cat with utter disdain and a look of “for goodness sake woman, know your limits” in his eyes, “and while you’re at it, where’s my dinner?”.

 

Looking for encouragement I used the opportunity of interviewing Lesley Garrett ahead of her appearance in Carousel at the Milton Keynes Theatre next week to get some advice. She reached the semi-final in the very first “Strictly” with her partner, the wonderful Anton du Beke, so seemed very well placed to talk on the subject.

 

"It's called Dancers in Need" I said, "and we are! Can you give us some advice?!"

 

And she very kindly obliged. It seems that as well as getting a nice frock and good training – both of which I have been assured of – the most important thing is posture! There go my chances then! I was doing OK on Sunday until I had to stand up straight and hold my head at an unnatural angle looking over James' right shoulder and staring into the middle distance, while still trying to remember what my feet were doing! But hey ho - you have to suffer for your art - don't you?! After all - it IS for the kiddies!

I think that my favourite children’s story slash fairy tale has to be the Emperor’s New Clothes, and the message behind the story of the citizens fawning over their leader’s new coat when he’s really wearing absolutely nothing, has never had more resonance than today.

 

We are bombarded by TV, newspaper and magazine features about people who have done absolutely nothing and are expected to admire them for doing just that – and I guess in a way I begrudgingly do. After all if you can earn thousands for doing not much at all, then you’ve got to have some kind of secret admiration for someone like that - haven’t you? Hmmm.

 

But then there are the people who have worked – have worked quite a lot in fact – and have earned millions. Great, you might think, that’s how it should be, shouldn’t it? But then you begin to wonder how an earth they have made so much in the field where they do earn their living, and you begin to feel just as much annoyance as those who do nothing! Because for the life of you, you can’t work out why!

 

And just like the child in the story who shouts “the King is in the altogether!”, I want to do the same and shout from the roof tops that “Keira Knightly can’t act” and “Kate Moss is for the most part very badly dressed and often looks a right state!”

 

I want to start by saying that I’m sure that both these women are very nice people and that I can only comment from what I see portrayed and I have to say that I am not loving their work.

 

Let’s start with Keira Knightly or as I prefer to refer to her – IKEA Knightly – as she has about as much acting ability as a bookcase. Now I love my IKEA bookcases. They look fantastic in my living room, but I wouldn’t want them to take on the roles of any of my heroines of literature that sit on their shelves. They would make them all look a bit, well wooden, and therein lies the problem with Keira. She is not only exactly the same character in every role she plays, but that character she takes on is rubbish. She speaks her lines blandly and without feeling and with, it would appear, little understanding of the emotion behind them. And yet she STILL gets nominated for acting awards. Wake up people! I was incandescent with rage at her Oscar nomination and calmed only by the fact that she didn’t win. Of course she didn’t win. That would have meant hell had frozen over.

 

And then there’s that stupid smile of hers and her complaining about how she hates being famous and how she eats loads. Well, she’d soon start complaining if no one recognised her or she put on half an ounce! Grrrr.

 

Mr K will now no longer take me to the cinema to see her in a film. Ever since the “Pirates of the Carribean incident” where I muttered and tutted continuously under my breath throughout the film about her lack of dramatic ability, any films with her in now have to be watched in our own home, and preferably without me there as the constant stream of abuse intermingled with phrases such as ‘wood’, ‘dreadful’ and ‘talentless bitch’ tends to drown out what the rest of the actors are saying. I still haven’t been able to bring myself to watch ‘Atonement’. And I really like James McAvoy. Now that’s what you call an actor! He must have cringed when he saw the final cut and saw the chairs and tables acting her off the frame!

 

I don’t feel quite so vehemently opposed to Kate Moss because when she’s been styled to within an inch of her life by the best in the business, dressed by great fashion designers and done up by the best hair and make-up people she looks fab strutting down the catwalk. That girl can really put one foot in front of another! In short, she looks brilliant when dressed by someone else. But fashion icon? Pah!

 

Have you seen the shots when she’s had to get up and dress herself – just like you and me?! Tatty old jeans, dirty old T-shirts, straggly hair, spots and a fag on the go. i.e. whatever she could find on the floor. If she’s a fashion icon then I must be a fashionista as that’s exactly what I look like when going out for the Sunday papers – minus the fag of course! There’s nothing wrong with looking like that, nothing at all, but I wish that fashion commentators would stop showing pictures of her going out for a pint of milk in her tracky bottoms and saying what a great look it is, how she has an innate sense of style and how no one can emulate her. Well, I’m sorry, but I CAN! I suggest that when Kate has to pick out something for herself, she is just the same as everyone else – but thin! There I’ve said it. Wash my mouth out with soap and water.

 

I think that the people that I really admire are those that exploit our propensity to be sheep and believe all that we are told. Take Katie Price for instance – aka Jordan. She is like the Emperor who, having seen how much people are pretending to love his naked coat, is now selling copies and other associated merchandise to his gullible fans. She knows exactly what she’s doing and is milking it for all she’s worth until somebody notices! Good on you girl! Love her or loathe her, she is at least honest about her abilities. Keira Knightly still thinks she’s a credible actress, and Moss never speaks – presumably because no one lets her in case it lets the cat out of the bag

 

So let’s take a step back for a while. Stop believing what we read and stop thinking what we’re told we should think. Let’s all see the Emperor’s New Clothes for what they are - image-based hype to sell a product - and start thinking for ourselves again!