Category: World & Society

The slogan ‘Persil washes whiter’ was my first experience of discrimination.

There, under my affronted eight year old gaze were these huge hoardings, and on one was a sparkling white double sheet pinned to the clothes line, and blowing in the wind, with a sparkling blonde admiring with smug pleasure her domesticity. On the matching hoarding a grey sheet was pinned to the line with a brunette looking glum – presumably Persil thought sluts looked glum as well as dark-haired.

So I grew up feeling the injustice of assuming that because a woman had fair hair, she had other advantages. As the blondes paraded across the world’s stages, on screen and telly and magazine front covers, the feeling that gentlemen did indeed prefer blondes continued to be reinforced. And the blondes were undeniably gorgeous – sex bombs like Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot, would-be princesses like Grace Kelly, real ones like Diana. Even Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first woman prime minister was a blonde. Blondes seemed to have all the advantages, based not on gender, talent or nationality, but hair colour.

Perhaps the unkindest cut of all to a brunette, was the remark of the woman who served me in the corner shop. She had always been a perfectly acceptable and slightly mousy person with light brown hair. One Monday morning after a long weekend, she stood behind the counter triumphantly blonde and beaming. I made no comment. But as the weeks went by, I asked her if she felt different now she was blonde. She looked at me with sparkling eyes – “I’ve never had so much fun in my life. I’d never go back to being dark”. I walked out gnashing my teeth.

The world’s brunettes didn’t give me much encouragement either. Jane Russell was too brazen to be taken seriously, while Jackie Kennedy, with her little girl voice, tragic destiny, and un-used opportunities to change the world in some way with all her influence and mana, was a bit of a let-down. Then there was tragic, raven-haired Queen Soraya, the beautiful Persian empress dismissed because she didn’t conceive an heir. She simply retired to the ski slopes in her large black sunglasses which became her trademark long before Jackie Kennedy learned to hide behind hers. I longed for both these women to have used all the goodwill and influence at their disposal to achieve something great.

But the times they are a-changing, and the habit ‘of centuries breaks, cracks, begins to move’ and in what seems like a just re- arrangement of destiny, brunettes are now beginning to have their day in the sun. It began with the blessed Mary, the long haired Australian brunette who married the Crown Prince of Denmark, and then the also-blessed dark-haired Kate Middleton who snaffled her prince from under the noses of countless blonde society beauties.

Better still, some research has shown that brunettes tend to be paid better than blondes in the work force, as they are perceived to be more intelligent that blondes. Now we’re talking. And then there are the blonde jokes, many relayed to me by my grandsons who have more of a foot in the modern world than I. Maybe the crest of the wave was reached the day I was served with my coffee by a pretty blonde waitress. She wore a slogan on her t-shirt, which read: “Speak slowly. Genuine blonde”. A statement which told me many things, and laid my old demons to rest.

And as the years go by, while Persil’s blondes may continue to wash whiter, their roots will only get darker. Brunettes, on the other hand, will grow old gracefully – I think!

Food for Threadbare Gourmets

It’s a bright sunny day in this corner of the Antipodes, and absolutely freezing. So I’ve the hot pot on for comforting pea and ham soup.After washing the dried peas, several handfuls or more, put them in the hotpot. Add three chopped carrots, and a hambone or pieces of bacon if you haven’t got a knuckle from the butcher. Then add a chopped onion, a couple of chopped celery sticks, one or two chopped garlic cloves, a bay leaf, salt and pepper. Cover with boiling water, and leave to bubble away for five hours or more on high, or until it’s all cooked. Fish out the bone, by which time all the meat should be falling off it. I whizz the peas and vegetables in the blender, leaving some to make the soup a bit chunky.

Before eating, stir in lots of chopped parsley, and if you like, make some croutons – good bread cubed, and fried in olive oil. Make plenty, and freeze the rest for another cold day. You can use lentils if you haven’t got dried peas, and make sure the dried peas aren’t old, or they’ll never really soften. I sometimes use some chicken stock cubes if I use lentils in this recipe.

I saw a lovely picture of an English toff, dressed up to the nines, at an English country wedding on Sunday. Black morning coat, grey-black pin-striped trou, grey waistcoat – but you couldn’t see it. Instead there was a grey baby cradle firmly pinned to his chest and looped around his shoulders, holding a very newborn baby. Instead of a top-hat, he was carrying a blue and white spotted bag holding, presumably, all the disposable nappies, wipes and other paraphernalia a Western baby requires.

He was actually the English Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, but it was his role as a Dad which looked so impressive, as with broad smile on his face, and without a trace of embarrassment, he strode into the wedding behind his wife who was holding their toddler.

Time was when a man like him wouldn’t have even been seen pushing a pram. It’s a great leap forward for men, and mothers and their children, that men are actually not bashful any more about being seen to be caring sensitive fathers, or even sensitive new age guys ( Snags). So it seemed all the sadder to read another item on the same page about how the National Health Service has banned the use of the word ‘Dad’ in its information pamphlets, using ‘partner’ instead, so as not to offend same sex couples.

As I thought about this, I thought how much of our lives these days is taken up with not offending people – Moslems, lesbians, gays, among others – these are the ones that spring to mind, maybe because they seem to be offended more often. But are they? And do we take the same trouble not to offend Christians, men, children, and animals who all also get their feelings trampled on sometimes too. Do we have a license to be offended these days if we belong to a minority group or even a majority group?

It seems to me that when we allow ourselves to be offended by the innocent use of an archetypal word like father or Dad, we are actually taking it personally, and making everyone else responsible for offending us, which is another way of saying,’ making us angry.’

But life is a lot happier and less stressful if we don’t take offence and take everything personally. In his wonderful book called ‘The Four Agreements’, a book which must have made a lot of people feel happier and more fulfilled, Miguel Ruiz deals with the question of taking things personally, which usually means feeling hurt or offended – ie angry.

The Second Agreement reads “Don’t take anything personally.”

‘Nothing others do is because of you’, he writes. ‘What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be a victim of needless suffering’.

He reminds us that by taking responsibility for our own feelings, and giving up blaming other people for hurting our feelings, we can give up being offended and feel free instead. Maybe instead of writing politically correct pamphlets and destroying the use of words that have been valued for centuries, bureaucrats could instead, give the offended a copy of “The Four Agreements”! And maybe pigs Could fly too!

In spite of resolving to give up carbohydrates after reading that too many are what cause arthritis, I still have to feed the resident male, which means carbohydrates. But I found a way of eating my favourite vegetables, parsnips, which I fear are full of carbohydrates and sugar too, without causing too much damage. (I hope)

Roasted of course with the meat, they ‘re par-boiled first. Then drained and thrown around the pot with the lid on to make rough edges on them. Add some flour and bang them round the saucepan again, till they’re covered in flour. Then spoon hot oil or fat over them in a roasting dish. At this point I usually sprinkle them with maple syrup or brown sugar, but found a better way this time. I sprinkled them with stevia powder, the sweet herb which substitutes for sugar. You buy it in health food shops. The taste was sublime! Crunchy sweet parsnips with roast lamb and all the trimmings.