What the - Heck:where the bad kids go

Boychild is currently obsessed with death. This weekend he fashioned one of his toy boxes into a coffin for his, apparently departed, toy dog named Toto. He continually threatens to kill himself if I try to make him do things he doesn't want to do, and asks seemingly endless questions about what happens when one departs this motal coil. In the normal course of events I would have to refer him to Spouse to answer questions about heaven and hell since he actually listened in RE lessons, and strangely was a member of a church group in his youth. By contrast I was brought up by committed atheists, and irritated the hell (oops, bad pun) out of my RE teachers by constantly referring to religion being the opium of the people. Christ, I must have been an impossible child.

Now I have all the answers about where naughty little darlings go when they die, and I'm not afraid to share them. Forget the Bible, Dante's Inferno and Milton's Paradise Lost - Heck: Where the Bad Kids Go by Dale E. Bayse - has all the answers you need. This book is, peculiarly, an enchanting story about siblings Milton's and Marlo's post-death shenanigans in child hell after they die at the hands of a freak marshmallow explosion in a shopping mall, as you do. I'm not a fan of otherworldly fiction, but Heck is something else, and fed my addiction to satire and punnagry, and a couple of perfectly executed digs at the French made me howl.

Now Boychild believes that should be meet an untimely end he will be greeted by Bea "Elsa" Bubb, the Principle of Heck; he will undergo SATS (Soul Aptitude Tests); take Ethics lessons from Richard Nixon; and discover whether Home Economics teacher, Lizzie Borden, has an axe to grind with him. All this in a luridly evoked world of demons and, well, lashings of poo. The book works on a number of levels, from the ingenious concept to the savage humour and literary references, together with a really very touching development of the siblings relationship. The only thing that I don't get about Heck is that it seems to be marketed at children. It's far to good for them.

http://www.wherethebadkidsgo.com/

Dentistry is no laughing matter

I finally bit the bullet, or rather after biting on a chocolate bar which caused the kind of searing pain I last experienced in childbirth, in the general vicinity of my lower right wisdom tooth, I decided that after five years it was probably time to reacquaint myself with the dentist. I stopped visiting after a winged serpent creature from hell masquerading as a dental hygienist castigated me once too often for flinching when she stabbed me with a needle the size of a tooth pick, and I decided that either she had to die, or I had to neglect my molars. The alleged woman's face was incapable of breaking into a smile, and she made no secret of the fact that she found my nerve induced attempts at humour to be incredibly tedious. After considering the pros and cons of life imprisonment I concluded that, quite frankly, there are more interesting hate figures in my life that I would prefer to do time for, and therefore have ignored the check up reminders ever since.

I've been treating the pain with neurofen plus for a while but this week when I went to buy my 24 pack - the largest the nanny state allows you to purchase in one go - the pharmacist begged me to visit the dentist. Why can't we buy more than 24 painkillers in one go, it just doesn't make sense. If someone was hell bent on suicide by overdose they would clearly go to the double of visiting more than one pharmacy in order to get the job done.

During my five year break dental technology has moved on, and I was very impressed with the slide show presentation laid on my Dan - strange being on first name terms with someone that's about to do battle with your oral cavity - after he photographed and x-rayed each tooth, he explained why I'm in such pain. It was a bit like watching Peter Snow analysing election results: if you look at this pre-molar you will note the slight red shading indicating a dyxtal cavity, but the blue hint is suggestive of a resurgence of periodontal exclusion... It was about as fascinating as being shown live feed of my cervix during a biopsy a few years ago. There are just some things you can get through life quite contentedly not knowing. All I wanted him to do was extract the offending tooth. After the procedure he complemented me on my apparent lack of a gag reflex, but despite the fact that he's pretty hot as dentists go, I resisted the urge offer a quid pro quo for the costs of the treatment - you pull, I blow.

Expensive expenses or Hogs round the trough

Mercifully the current breakfast tv obsession has moved on from swine flu and is now centred squarely on expense claims submitted by members of Parliament. I lost interest in party politics some time ago when the Labour party abandoned it's principles and started trying to out tory the Tories, the Tories consequently had an identity crisis, and the Lib Dems got drunk and played with rent boys. I do feel aggrieved that I helped the incumbent Government into power by securing Spouse's vote which would otherwise have been cast in favour of the opposition by offering him a blowie. It is, however, delightful to watch politicians of all political persuasions desperately trying to defend making the nation pay for everything from the upkeep of their tennis courts and helipads, to keeping them in toilet paper and double espressos. I would, however, like to complement the appropriately named Douglas Hogg MP for submitting a claim for the costs of dredging his moat. That is so screamingly outrageous it's fucking hilarious.

My only regret about this story is that it broke after I concluded my dealings with Geordieman. Consider the fun I could have had by asking what my tax money was going to be spent on: it wouldn't quite cover the costs of the renovations on Hazel Blears constituency home, but it would have bought several Corby trouser presses. I could have offered to settle my tax bill by sending 2272 packets of chocolate Hob Nobs directly to the House of commons thus saving Geordieman the trouble of asking me any more asinine questions. Alternatively I may have offered to clear the arrears by cleaning up a moat or two, or pruning Hazel's roses every Sunday for the next six months.

Perhaps it would have been possible to negotiate a reduction in my tax arrears by agreeing some additional expenses to off set my income. Since crashing my car during a mult-tasking meltdown I have to walk far more (I do not recommend applying lipstick, sending text messages and having a sneaky smoke while in charge of a mechanically propelled motor vehicle) . I can no longer claim mileage, so perhaps some recompense for the additional wear and tear to the Choos would be in order. It is also necessary to dress well in order to avoid being mistaken for a prisoner or probation officer, so again, an LK Bennet clothing allowance should not be too much to ask for.

Just one final thought: if I fiddled my expenses I would not only have to re-pay the money, I would be sacked and struck off. Bring back Guy Fawks - all is forgiven.

I've spent most of the weekend trying to figure out how some facts seem to become embedded in the Little Darling's psyche, and other's don't. After school on Friday they watched an episode of Dr Who, The Shakespeare Code, where the good doctor takes Martha back to Elizabethan England (I appreciate that I'm in danger of alienating my non-Anglo readership) . Boychild asked who Shakespeare is, and Twin 2 announced, with the condescension of a Cabinet Minister, don't you know anything Jack, he was a writer when Jesus lived. I didn't know where to start correcting that one, so I let it go. I'm sure most parents have experienced the dinosaur debate - did they exist when you were little, when Granny was little, and so on. Their lovely little minds simply can't comprehend the expanse of history, and they seem to dip in and out of moments in time much like Dr Who in his TARDIS.

Twin 1 has a fascination for what did and did not exist when I was her age - she was horrified to learn that I had to endure only three channels on a black and white tv, that music was emitted from a crappy old cassette player, that windows were for looking through and mice were vermin, that the closest thing to a games console was etch-a-sketch, and that cutting and pasting involved scissors and glue. I suppose the Little Darlings' inability to comprehend life before technology is understandable. How the hell did anyone get any work done before email and the Internet? My first task every morning is to check the inbox, delete the plethora of invitations to extend my penis, have sex with an unfeasibly large breasted woman from Indiana, and pay my tax bill online. What I do love about email is that it reduces the number of telephone conversations with minions from the Ministry of Justice who are definitely somewhere on the autistic spectrum, and aren't on an extended period of sick leave, strangely enough, and therefore have to suffer my particular brand of sarcasm. I know it's the lowest form of wit, but you have to admit that it is incredibly funny.

More fuckwittery

One of the enjoyable things about being female and of a certain age is the ability to shock by uttering a few well chosen expletives. I love swearing, always have and always will. I know that a lot of people aren't fond of the c word, but there are circumstances when only cunt will do. Unfortunately my love of all things invective almost cost me my practicing certificate during my first year of work. I was completely out of my depth with a dispute over a will, and was being masterfully manipulated by a pompous arse of a solicitor representing one of the other parties. He he was afflicted with short man syndrome, and since I had the audacity to be newly qualified, female and tall I seemed to bring out the Napoleon in him.

One Friday afternoon just as I was about to leave the office he rang and demanded I fax him some document immediately. These days I would tell him to fuck off, but in the infancy of my career, before deference had been subsumed by the realisation that being a lawyer is ninety-eight percent fuckwittery management, I submitted to his bully boy style. I stomped back up to my office on the third floor, retrieved the relevant papers, and stomped back to the fax machine on the ground floor whilst chanting, you cunt you cunt you cunt... Somehow, in my haste to get to the pub, I managed to address the fax header page - Mr Cunt - and only spotted it when the page came out the wrong side of the fax machine. Oops. Mr Cunt, I mean, Mr Carter was not impressed, and threatened to report me to The Law Society who, on the whole, take a dim view of the use of the c word in interpartes correspondence, and are not, as an institution, renowned for a ribald sense of humour. Fortunately the Senior Partner of my firm devised a cunning tourettes defence, and secretly agreed that the the whole matter was complete fuckwitism.

The next time I used the c word unwisely has lead to a situation where I can't be honest with twin 2 when she asks me what her first word was until she's at least twenty-one. The girls must have been about eighteen months and we were house hunting. It was raining, and we were waiting for the spotty teenage estate agent to pull up in the BMW peeping over the steering wheel, and show us around a prospective new home. Spouse and I were carrying a twin a piece, and I was grumbling, and grumbling and cussing is one and the same thing for me. At some point it was inevitable that I would say cunt. Up until this point Twin 2 had been mute apart from random gurgles, but, sadly it was at this precise moment that she chose to find her voice - cunt was her first word. She found the word fascinating, and once the acne faced chino wearing estate agent finally arrived, she repeated the word at five minute intervals throughout the tortuously long viewing. Acne face pretended he hadn't heard and feverishly pointed out original features and cupboard space like a toad on speed. I desperately wanted to ask him if I looked like the kinda cunt that would teach my babies to swear, but resisted.

Despite having true badmother credentials, I rarely swear in front of the Little Darlings. Fortunately Eve forgot the c word before she started nursery, and although they are aware these words exist they appreciate they are strictly for parental use. Last night Boychild told me that he is no longer friends with Oliver because he swore at him. I asked what he said, and Jack whispered, he called me an idiot. This struck me as funny since in scramble chat, the game I've mentioned before, you can call someone a wanker, but you can't call them an idiot. More fuckwittage, if you ask me.

The return of Geordie Man

Whilst writing this post I have a telephone receiver jammed between my shoulder and ear, and I'm on hold to the Revenue due, apparently, to the high volume of calls at the moment. I'm waiting for an adviser to become available. Advisor huh. We'll see.

While waiting, impatiently, I'll share my proposals with you.

1. As a British subject I am concerned about way in which the Government are wasting the tax income they receive. For example, every household in the land is to receive a leaflet advising us what to do if we fear we have swine flu. I can offer the Government the advice that this is totally unnecessary since every household in the country is so well informed on this teeth clenchingly dull subject that they could write an article for the Lancet about it. If there happens to be someone that has managed to avoid the agonisingly patronising news bulletins they must live in a hippy commune in the Welsh Mountains, and therefore have no contact with the outside world, and the swine flu virus. My fee for advising the Government that it can make a huge saving by not sending out any more redundant information is the balance of my tax bill.

2. I'm not confident that this will work, so I have a back up plan. I've applied for a new credit card since that I would prefer to pay interest to a faceless bank whose call centre will be based in New Delhi rather than Tyneside, and although I will probably have as much difficulty understanding the Indian adviser that telephones me to ask why I have not made a payment, I will not have to endure Geordieman again. I intend to inform him that I have followed the fine example set by our leader, Gordon Brown, and borrowed my way out of this crisis. Who do you think will go bankrupt first, I wonder, Badmother or Great Britain?

Fuckwittery

Here's a hypothetical story for you to fly up your flag pole, and see which way the wind's blowing.

Let's say that if I were acting for a lifer convicted of murder about thirty years ago, and he was due to apply to the Parole Board for a transfer to an open prison to prepare for release into the community, you might expect a suitably qualified forensic psychologist to prepare an assessment on the nature of any risk of serious harm that he may pose to the public. Hypothetically the Parole Board might, strangely, agree with me and direct a psychologist to prepare an assessment. However, the hypothetical psychologist in this story does not think that a prisoner who has killed someone with a sawn off shot gun, and maimed another to be a priority. One would have to wonder about who the hypothetical psychologist would consider a priority - Peter Sutcliffe is in Broadmoor extracting pencils from his eyes, and Myra Hindley did us all a favour, eventually, and died.

For the sake of argument, lets say that we all go along to a Parole Board hearing, and a certain psychologist tells me before the hearing that it's not my place to demand a report, and I tell her to bring it on with her flat brown shoes and taupe cardigan before the Judge. Perhaps the Judge agrees with me (I know it's not professional to gloat but I did manage to do that ner ner na ner ner gesture to her without the Panel noticing). If this happened to be a real story would you expect that, after being chewed up and spat out by a Judge, and receiving a further deadline to complete a risk assessment, that a hypothetical psychologist might do her fucking job. Apparently not. Strangely the psychologist won't take my calls - was it something I said? So where does that leave me in this imaginary scenario. It's just this sort of fuckwittery that drives me to keep writing.