sophistication

Catherine Mayer on equality, red reads and the manifesto she wants you to steal

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) #book, Book, British, comedy, Culture, Event, Feminisim, Humor, Humour, newspaper, Nonfiction, Novel, Review, sophistication, Swindon, Uncategorized, Young Professional , , , ,

Crossing the stage, Catherine Mayer strikes a formidable figure as she throws down her bag and proclaims, “will there be rock?!”

Such an entrance is bold, confident and, above all, powerful, but then what else would you expect from a former TIME editor, turned pro-equality figurehead? An awkward chuckle fills the room from the collection of predominantly white, middle aged, women who sit before her.

Before starting her pre-prepared speech, Mayer casually brushes a few strands of hair from her face and dives into why Prime Minister Teresa May doesn’t represent female empowerment. The speaker’s assertive tone and head strong approach creates a stronger reaction in the auditorium. This is no ordinary run-of-the-mill feminist. After a couple of minutes, the speaker looks down at her stop watch and realises she’s been Minister bashing for too long. “Sorry, I tend to ramble” she apologises, before beginning the focus of her allotted slot; a seminar of her new book Attack of the 50 Ft. Women: How Gender Equality Can Save The World!

Mayer’s presentation style is intense to say the least. You can almost taste the venom being spat from the author’s lips as she laments over those who suggest women are empowered. “It’s the same with red heads,” she explains, “people assume they form the majority in Scotland when they don’t. The simple truth is that red heads and women stand out, so we imagine their numbers to be higher. If you include Scotland, only sixteen of the world’s leaders are women.”

Alongside the publication of a book, in 2015 Mayer founded the Women’s Equality Party (WEP) with the help of media personality Sandi Toksvig. The empowered speaker was keen to put across the struggles facing modern day politics and her aims for the WEP. “If we get into power, we win! If the other parties steal our ideas, we win!” Nods of approval circulate around the room. In an age of politicians scrambling over each other to reach the top, it’s refreshing to have a party which doesn’t seek to necessarily become ‘top dog’.

Given her background as a political reporter and the nature of the viewing audience before her, it is no surprise that Mayer devotes a portion of her time explaining the electoral candidates and policies representing her party. “In the Tunbridge Wells local elections we got 10% of the vote and beat UKIP” she comments smugly. It was therefore just as unsurprising that the audience challenges Mayer on ideology, notably the use of the word ‘women’ in WEP. Conceding that the use of gender in the party’s name did make broaching the opposite sex a harder task, Mayer firmly argues that to call themselves “the Equality Party” would detract from what her party was trying to achieve. “We might as well rebrand ourselves the Labour Party” was the sly remark.

Disgruntlement from Mayer’s groupies emerges when the female lead comments on other political organisations stealing WEP policies. Mayer, unperturbed, shrugs it off. “Can you keep a secret?” She giggles, “we’re going to send out copies of our manifesto to the main parties with a note that says ‘steal me.’” The audience laughs with the speaker and peace is restored once again among the frustrated women in the reaches of rows F to I. Already on a pro-feminist high, Mayer ends her segment by boldly proclaiming her plans to organise a one day strike for all women. The reaction couldn’t have been more overwhelmingly positive from the crowds below.

Even though this humble writer didn’t quite see eye to eye on all her beliefs, there is no denying Catherine Mayer knew how to work a crowd of disgruntled activists. Move over Wembley, Swindon Arts Centre may just be more rock and roll than you think.

catherine-mayer

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Francesca Martinez: “At Least I’m not a Pot of Hummus or Donald Trump”

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) comedy, Humor, Humour, newspaper, Review, sophistication, Swindon, Uncategorized , , , , , , ,

For The Ocelot – Wiltshire What’s On Magazine

 

When it comes to mutually exclusive, ‘disability’ and ‘comedy’ are two words which you would normally expect to be in the taboo corner. So why do I find myself laughing at a “wobbly” lady’s failed attempts at cherry knocking?

Welcome to the hilarious and wonderful mind of Francesca Martinez. Born with cerebral palsy but waging a one-woman mission to have it renamed ‘wobbly’, Martinez sheds a brutally comedic look on her experiences growing up in an able-bodied world. Without blinking, she sweetly comments ‘funny how the girls who used to bully me now want to add me as a friend on Facebook. F**kers!’ before taking a long sip of water. It makes you wonder why anyone would pick a fight with Martinez. Not because she’s funny or a genuinely lovely person, but because under the smiles is a deeply vengeful personality.

Chatting with her in a in a stylish coffee shop in Swindon’s Old Town, without warning Martinez’s conversations divert from the trivial to the deeply philosophical. Two sips into my moderately priced Americano she states that the root cause of unhappiness is the consumer-based drive to always want better. ‘We want to look prettier, be thinner, have a better mobile phone, a better house. Our society is so aspirational we never stop and think about what we have. Once you stop and reassess those things you realise that life could be a lot worse,’ Martinez poignantly observes, before quickly adding ‘for example, I could have been a Rice Krispie…or Donald Trump.’ Cue another timely sip of water. ‘We’re all trapped in toxic bonds of our own making so when you think about it breaking yourself away is actually a form of civil disobedience.’

Having taken most of her life to discover and liberate herself from the evil clutches of self-loathing, Martinez is keen to spread a message of positivity. ‘I spent years thinking negative thoughts and my only regret is that I’ll never get that time back,’ she comments, ‘I do a lot of talks at schools nowadays where I ask students to put their hands up if they’re happy with their appearance. It’s really sad when no one raises their hand so I tell them “you’re in the prime of your lives. This is as good as it’s ever going to get!”’

Spending an hour in the company of Francesca Martinez is a delightful, if not insightful, experience. It is a testament to her abilities that in her presence you can see beyond the disability to the woman who lies beneath. Perhaps put more succinctly by the wobbly expert herself, ‘if I was retarded I’d have voted for UKIP’.

 

Francesca-Martinez-comedi-014.jpg
Francesca Martinez

 

 

 

 

Five Reasons Why I Can Never Become Famous

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) adult, Humor, Humour, Photos, sophistication, Swindon, Uncategorized, Young Professional , ,

No two words fill an office with more dread than “team” and “photos”. I mean it’s effectively a modern-day, corporate, form of torture. It doesn’t matter if you’re Angelia Jolie or if you look like the back of Wayne Rooney’s head, nobody jumps for joy when faced with the prospect of having a camera being shoved in one’s face for use in the office team chart. Just thinking about my face filling a wide angle lens makes me naturally tense up and feel queasy.

At the time a few people laughed off my concerns. “It’ll be fine!” they said, “no nobody wants their photos done, we’re all in same boat,” they reassured. But they were wrong. It wasn’t alright, we weren’t in the same boat. For while all of my colleagues were able to at least obtain one semi-decent photo for the team structure chart, these are the best I could pull off with a professional photographer…

, English Heritage, Swindon, Wiltshire, UK
, English Heritage, Swindon, Wiltshire, UK
, English Heritage, Swindon, Wiltshire, UK
, English Heritage, Swindon, Wiltshire, UK
, English Heritage, Swindon, Wiltshire, UK

Jesus Christ they’re awful.

Needless to say the hunt is now on to find a photo where I don’t look mad/confused/infected with some terrible tropical swelling disease. I’ve also decided that as a result of this I cannot ever have my photo taken for semi-formal purposes ever again. If people need to know what I look like they can ruddy well come over and say hi. I’d rather have the profile picture of a happy owl than my constipated face.

f393b96b729f4cfe170dc8856243b696
The look I wanted to pull.

 

Five Minute Review: Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) #book, Book, Humor, Humour, Novel, Review, sophistication, Swindon, Uncategorized ,

One classic novel, five modern minutes to write up its review…

Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy is a novel which depicts the relaxed pace of life in the countryside of 19th century England. It essentially tells the tale of three men from different backgrounds fighting for the love of one woman. You come to dislike them all to more or lesser degrees. Bathsheba (yes, that is her name) is a character with little warmth to her personality and, like all urban dwellers of the period, treats her rural tenants like dirt on her shoe. There’s Gabriel Oak, a hapless shepherd which following disaster finds himself working for the rich and snobbish Bathsheba. To say Oak is obsessed with Bathsheba would be a vast understatement. It’s no plot spoiler to say he proposes to Bathsheba and gets turned down within the first couple of chapters (keen much?). Then you’ve got the more maturely aged farmer Boldwood who, after receiving a wicked joke Valentine’s card, becomes infatuated with our female lead. Finally there’s Sergeant Troy, a passing army figure and notorious womaniser. Guess which one Bathsheba takes a shine to?

People often get doe eyed with the English rural landscapes depicted in this novel, but I don’t see it. To me this novel depicted country folk as a backwards breed who spend all their time rambling on and on about nothing at all. One of the few times I felt sympathy for Oak was when he was trying to get urgent help but had to contend with a bunch of idiotic drunkards in a pub. Who is going to give you money for booze if your mistress is dead Mr. Poorgrass, WHO?

Like a lot of literature from this period of writing, footnotes take dominance across most pages and the copy had religious and general ‘thing’ references which I imagine very few people would be able to understand two centuries later. I started off trying to read all the footnotes but quickly gave up when I found I was spending more time reading footnotes than I was when I was at university. Unfortunately it meant that supposedly hilarious jokes and witty comments made absolutely no sense.

If you’re a fan of Austen you’ll like this but Stephen King obsessives keep well away.

The Devil in Carb-ate

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) food, Humor, Humour, Photos, sophistication, Swindon, Uncategorized, University, Young Professional , ,

This evening I was reintroduced to a world of vice and nutritional sin. My old foe reared its ugly, cream filled, head and called to me from across the supermarket floor. Standing at the reduced bread stand I heard it whispering to me and made the fatal mistake of making eye contact. It was at that point my destiny for the evening was sealed. My poor body never stood a chance. The name of this dastardly snack? Custard creams.

A whole pack of custard creams now lay decimated on my bedroom floor, the empty wrapper and a string of pale crumbs serving as the only reminder that here once stood a tall stack of heavenly sin. The scrunched up wrapper of a product once fulfilled and bulging, now hollow and useless.

I dare not study the custard cream wrapper at length, the nutritional values which once seemed hidden from view now laugh at me in mockery, inspiring those inner feelings of guilt and shame. “You’ll remember this one moment of weakness for years to come!” it cackles. In frustration I reach out and grab the snack wrapper with such aggression that the orange skin lets out a rustling squeak. I thrust my hand into the bin and release my prisoner there to join the rotting carrot and greasy pizza boxes, before walking out of the room and switching off the light.

Wrapper dealt with I thought the guilt and ill feeling of consuming 50,00,000 calories in one sitting was removed from my life. I pick up a book and start reading in a bid to distract my mind.  A little voice pipes up from deep inside me, it is coming from my stomach. It says “you thought you could dispel me so easily? You fool!” And the self loathing begins again.

The devil lives inside me and he is not red, nor is he a horned beast. He is a custard cream.

Attempts at Sophistication: This Will Go One of Two Ways…

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) sophistication , ,

So, I’ve now been in Swindon cracking on six months. Alice reminiscing moment: this time last year I spent a week doing solid dissertation research, including eight hours in Warwick archives on only a snack bar (I painfully discovered that they only had coffee sachets and an out of date cuppa soup. In my defence you look at this site and tell me you wouldn’t assume they’d at least have a bar of chocolate for sale: http://heritage.warwickshire.gov.uk/warwickshire-county-record-office/visit/) It was also the week I interviewed these lovely people:

IMG_5652 Interview Pic 1 Interview Pic 2 Interview Pic 3

Ok, so, left to right: Anne Fox, Coughton Court volunteer, Lisa Parry, Coughton Court property manager (also one of my internship managers), Jeffrey Haworth, National Trust curator, and Lord Hertford, Marquess of Hertford and owner of Ragley Hall. Anne fed me with so much cake I wasn’t sure I’d be able to walk out the door, and I’ve never really shut up about my interview with Lord Hertford.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, half a year in Swindon (one extreme to the other). So, in December I realised I’d been here for a few months. The job was/is going swimmingly and my colleagues were/are hilarious (the toy and game buyer lifted her top to show me her dress underneath this week, such is her desperation to feature in my blog. Don’t say I never mention you Lorna).

But despite this I felt my evenings were lacking. I’d gone from being this clued up, academic who would yell scholarly quotations at those who supported the death penalty, to an individual who by 6pm was in an oversized hoodie and watching Teen Mom 2 (you know, something I could really relate to). I was doing nothing but upholding the Grimgrad title I’d given myself. Something had to change.

So what has changed Alice? Well, I hear Teen Mom 3 is starting soon on Viva… But in all seriousness I have done a few things. I started writing this blog (which I think everyone will agree is the best thing since sliced bread). I’ve also started a pottery course. This Monday will be week four of a ten week course. I have no pottery experience but in week two I made this:WP_20150119_20_25_49_Pro

It certainly isn’t about the start a new arts and crafts movement, but I was quite proud of it (next week I’ll start glazing it). Mumma Bennett gets the award for best reaction: “You know, we always knew when you were running around the garden with mud pies you’d accomplish something.” “really?” “No, but seeing this has reassured us”. I expect to be writing more on my pottery in the upcoming weeks. You ain’t seen the last of Alice and her mishappen pots yet!

A couple of months ago I also restarted my favourite pastime of going to coffee shops in culturally interesting places (e.g. Cardiff, Oxford, Bath) and reading a book. Right now I’m reading Wild Swans, which is all about three generations of Chinese women living under Communism.

This is how I think I look doing this:

This, though, is probably what you’re picturing/what I actually look like:

On top of this I’m also going to try to make a start on my Spanish language CDs which I’ve had knocking around for a while. I did it at GCSE but since then my Spanish has boiled down to ‘piso’ (piss-o) AKA a flat, gato (cat, not to be confused with the French, gato, meaning cake). That and shouting “tortoise!” whenever Captain Jack goes to the Island or Tortuga. Hopefully by April I’ll be able to construct a few sentences. Perfect timing for when I go to the Turkish/ Greek Island of Cyprus.

As my title sums up, I hope doing all this will enlighten, educate and sophisticate. One thing is for sure, I’ll either come out of this as a graceful lady like the ones in Jane Austen novels, or I’ll come out like Jane Eyre. Jane is an annoying, whining, poor, girl who throws the attempts of the rich Mr Rochester to lady-fy her in his face when she runs away across the Yorkshire Dales, taking no provisions with her and leaving her money on the coach. WHO DOES ANY OF THAT?! She ends up moaning about being hungry for the next two chapters. Oh dear Lord, no matter how bad it gets, I hope I’m never Jane Eyre. If anyone sees hints of Jane Eyre in me please stage an intervention before it’s too late.

Right, I better go. We have a slight issue developing here. Nothing big, just water coming through the ceiling. Standard Thursday night really. Until the next time.