Thursday 22 October 2015

Just where is Mount Everest?

One of my many current jobs, in a theatre box office, supplies me with a wealth of classic withdewrespect-esque moments.
Earlier today a lady booked her ticket to a show and asked: "Will we be seated in rows?"
As opposed to....? Sitting on top of each other, sitting in a line, sitting at jaunty angles....?
I'll be adding that to our 'daft' comments book which is aptly entitled "What part of sold out do you not understand?!


So back to my usual stream of withdewrespect nuggets from my children; always true, never unknowingly embellished.
Now remember, the seven-year-old is usually, how shall I put it, the less dingbat-ish of my two adorable children but last week he slipped.
Watching the men's 1,500m in some athletics championship or other, he piped up (expression: deadpan): "Mum, are they allowed to overtake each other?"


You are reading a blog called withdewrespect therefore I make no apology, nay want to hear any moaning and groaning, about my tongue-in-cheek un-pc, unsubstantiated, stereotyping, light-hearted banter which may or may not tweak the nose of any 'isms, 'ias that we are quick to quote these days.
I've already decided that my 7-year-old son is gay.
Why?


Picture me in the shower.  Well OK, picture that you're stood outside my bathroom door when you hear a hollering.
Me: "Daaaaaaaniel!"
Daniel: "Yes mum?"
"Can you please bring me the towel that's hung over the bannister?" (we're dead posh in our house)
"Which one?"
"The green one, please."  (posh, and polite)
Daniel: "Erm, do you mean this mint one?"


The world has gone mad.  I took my children to a new leisure centre the other day and at the top of a slide a lifeguard was sporting a full body harness which securely shackled them to a steel bar.
Clearly it didn't matter if any of the bustling queue of giddy, bare-footed small children slipped down the slide.  Oh, wait a cotton pickin' minute, that is what they were queueing up to do.
That night on TV, I watched Earth's Natural Wonders and saw children as young as seven going to extraordinary death-defying heights and lengths to hunt for food to keep them and their families alive. No ropes in sight.  And un-harnessed rescue doctors on Mount Everest used just a ladder to cross a 10m wide, 50m deep crevasse up a mountain as high as planes fly.


Interestingly, in recently recounting these comparative stories to a fellow Hons Degree graduate friend, we both admitted we didn't know where Mount Everest is.  In the Himalayas apparently but I don't know where they are either.


Is it any wonder I'm thick with the array of quite frankly, shit programmes on the television these days; Botched Bodies, Nightmare Neighbours, Benefits Street, How to get a Council House, Britain at the Bookies, need I go on?
And the wealth of food programmes never ceases to amaze with every single aspect of nutrition, cooking, baking and eating covered from every angle and every country.
However, I have found a gap in the market and am currently writing a pitch for the BBC, Breakfast Beauties (working title).  It features the art of opening a box of cornflakes and putting a slice of toast in the toaster, I've written the script for a six-week pilot run.


I was watching the programme about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and internally scoffing, how ridiculous to wipe the hob a specific number of times?! It was so daft I had to rewind and watch twice and to hear better put the volume up to number 20 (it has to be an even number or a number divisible by 10). (Pot, kettle, black)


Thankfully, my youngest son enjoys nature and history programmes.  The other day he watched something about the Stone Age and was inspired to make a dagger.  He went out into our cul-de-sac and found himself a branch and a flint (well that fancy stuff people have instead of soil these days) but struggled to find a strong root.  So I gave him some sellotape and told him they might have been developing early Sellotape prototypes in the Stone Age.


He also made a fighter jet made out of Karcher steam cleaner box (OK, I hold my hands up to the OCD), coffee shop stirrers as guns and was keen to factor in air bags made out of sponge.  Deadly, but also quite safe in the event of a small bump over Syria.