Go Wolves!

My step-godson is playing.

Has anyone else’s mother basically turned into Roseanne Barr, circa this era, after retiring and having nothing else to do but watch nonsense and read Facebook updates?

This was my fear about her retiring (well, one of them, the other concerned her drinking). She’s undergone another of her periodic transformations into a completely different person, which always involve everything from a new wardrobe to a new worldview, and this person is Roseanne Barr.

The old boyfriend has been given the heave ho, for one of his more blue collar friends, so all I can say in appreciation is that her awful and shocking ‘rugby wife’ era is over.

I’ve lived previously through the Sloane Ranger phase, the New Romantic punk one, the big haired Dynasty one, the pared down 90’s woman one, the ageing siren one, the social justice one, and a few others along the way. Lately, the rugby wife one, all jeans and rugby shirts, studying the scores and keen to talk all things Twickenham. Now, it’s all change again, which I noticed the styling of as soon as she came through the door for her birthday weekend - denim jacket, hippy bangles, baseball cap - and the opinions, f*** me - I could just read Dan Woottons Twitter feed if I wanted to hear that.

I remember my grandparents cursing themselves for not insisting on sounder intellectual and cultural hinterland, but instead allowing her to run riot with her notions and whims. Actually, chiefly, I remember my grandfather doing so, and my grandmother agreeing that he should curse himself for blocking her more disciplinarian approach until it was too late.

When she arrived last month, she was wearing silver trainers, bright pink socks, gold leggings, a lurid green BRAT t-shirt from Stradivarius (although she had no idea of the cultural meaning of this term and declared herself horrified when I told her, because ‘Kamala is a genocidal maniac’), a denim jacket, a red (thankfully unbranded) baseball cap, and more bangles than a gypsy. My son had already told me she’d dyed her hair bleached white blonde, so I’d been expecting that part.

I suggested ADHD - only to find a 70 year old throwing a teenage tantrum in response to what was meant to be helpful.

This is partly my fault I think. In response to her moaning that every channel is pro Israeli, I told her to watch Al Jazeera. I thought my son was exaggerating when he said she now watches it on a loop for hours, but she did it when she came for her birthday too - and when she wasn’t in front of it, the phone was out.

Even during meals out, somehow it’d sneak back onto the table so you’d end up being told ‘wait a minute, I’m reading something’ whenever you tried to continue the conversation. Pointing out this was a bit rude and to please put the phone away resulted in full on 14 year old style cries of ‘stop picking on me’.

Btw, I hope this reads as affectionate rather than as hateful. Exasperating to hell and beyond, but affectionate.

It does, I was just thinking 'At least CT's mum isn't boring.'

I am glad to report that my Mum, now a grand 80 years of age, has not turned into Roseanne Barr.

My mum is 81 and is not Roseanne Barr either.

Oh well, there we are then.

A horrible depressing day. Bright sunshine, but I just don’t feel good, or positive.

Earlier I went to pick something up in a much poorer town and it was like stepping into a world I haven’t seen since I left London, and one I’m dreading returning to when I return home. Filth everywhere, bins overflowing, and people looking so beaten by life. There was a man outside premises bearing an ‘Are you hearing voices? Drop in!’ poster, and he looked as if he was hearing them there and then. I saw an old man bent double in the grubbiest clothes - worse than just a tramp. He looked ill and battered by life, could barely walk. Someone else appeared to be limping home with a stolen supermarket trolley for support. It was a relief to return to the well off coastal village I’m based in just now, but I feel really sad.

You used to see this on the news - Romania, or Russia in the early 90’s. It’s definitely what Britain has turned into. It’s dirty and dejected. Then I think of going home to my own area which has become a tacky Disney version of itself, with plenty of empty units of its own these days. I just don’t like any of it. I feel really much more down now than I did before I went.

It feels like a few select areas have improved but they’ve become detached from the rest, such as where I am right now and I noticed the same in most of Edinburgh which appears to be a thriving bubble. Then there’s a very very few like my own part of London which have completely gone off the deep end into overtly corrupt levels of wealth, which stopped being entertaining or ironically amusing I’d say a few years before Covid. And everywhere else has gone right down the toilet.

You can see it in the buildings, the people, even the tarmac. I noticed it even in the road signs, all dirty and broken. The entire place is caked in filth, and there’s a feeling to me, not that nobody cares, but that that’s just how it is, and they almost can’t bear to engage with or admit to themselves how bad it is. They look desperate, and poor. Nothing works, the whole country is just basically wrecked. I had tears in my eyes actually when I parked up earlier, it was so depressing.