Dirty Dancing?

When I was very young, I got sent to ballet classes. I was seriously crap.  Too tall, too ungainly – the ugly duckling in the back row.  Ritual humiliation on a weekly basis.  I didn’t dance for years after that, until I got into my teens and realised that I needed rhythm, a beat; drums and guitars; loose limbs not pointy toes.  I haven’t stopped dancing since.  I danced my way through university and partied my way through my twenties.  I don’t really mind what the music is – as long as it’s got a beat, my toes will start tapping, my hips will start swaying.
 
Adrian, bless him, isn’t one of life’s natural dancers – he jokes that the pogo is his dance of preference – so I tend to dance solo, or with friends, or – as you already know – with the stampeding horde of ululating women that is Zumba. 

Anyhow.  An email popped into my inbox about the Disney Channel.  Seems they’re launching an online dance contest for children and young teens. Could I publicize it?  Heck, why not?  Anything that gets children moving is good in my book.   So, here’s the blurb…

Disney Channel has teamed up with Got To Dance winner Akai Osei to launch Shake It Up: Dance, Dance, an online dance contest that will give the winner the opportunity to have their dance aired on the channel, as well as a holiday to LA and a dance master class with Akai. The online dance contest is open to anyone between 6-16-years-old.

Viewers have until August 31^st to visit the site and upload their clips. The winner will be voted for from a shortlist of 10 finalists.  So, go for it!  

Disney did a survey on young people and dance and found, encouragingly, that almost half of them dance several times a week and that 67 percent of those surveyed said that dancing made them feel happy with a quarter feeling more confident.   I dunno, dance certainly boosts my endorphin levels sky-high.  It’s a total body and mind workout and I wouldn’t be without it...  It saves my sanity!

So, so far we were singing from the same songsheet.  But then they went on to say that the survey revealed the ‘most iconic dance moments in history’ and, errr…. Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal, High School Musical’s We’re All in This Together and Beyonce’s Single Ladies.

WTF???

Now, we could be here a very very long time if I listed all my favourites but…hey…. Let’s start with.. 

Heaven’s Gate – the roller skate dance is awesome… but sadly it won't load (YouTube it - it's worth it.)

But I love the waltz too…

They got the tough street kids into ballroom with this one in Take the Lead… and by heck the tango is one sexy dance...

There's Dirty Dancing, of course… 
http://youtu.be/WpmILPAcRQo

And there's Riverdance in the campervan in Father Ted (apologies, can't find a clip for that but it's a cracker.)

But, my favourite?  It’s got to be this, huh?   Love this movie to bits..

What about you? 

Oh God, am I a pushy parent?

Should you push children? That thorny old question. Gloom has descended upon the Bonkers House because the end of the holidays is looming and with the new term comes entrance exams. James has been set a pile of practice papers and getting him to tackle them has been akin to making a terrier avoid rats.

Part of me thinks, oh for heaven’s sake, he’s eleven. Surely it’s an eleven-year old’s god-given right to lounge around during the holidays, watching TV; hanging out with his mates; lobbing snowballs and so on. But another part of me thinks, shit, I’m working my socks off to keep you at this school and I’d like just a tad of commitment in return.

Aha, I hear you say, clambering onto the moral high ground and gazing down disapprovingly – well, if you will send your child to independent (ie fat fee-paying) school, then it’s your lookout. And, yes, it is. But let’s not go into that one right now – I seriously haven’t the energy.

James will pass his exams, of that I have no doubt. It’s the scholarship thing that bugs me. Let’s be honest, anything that would help with fees would be a blessing from on high. The annoying thing is that he could do it. He’s a bright lad but, by heck, he’s lazy.

‘I’ve finished my English paper,’ he says.
‘But you’ve only done half an hour.’
‘But I finished.’
‘Well, write more.’
‘My hand hurts.’

Ah, it is a sad thing for two writers when their offspring finds writing a story a chore. But such is the sheer nastiness of fate.
‘But isn’t it fabulous, making up stories, letting your imagination go wild?’
He just looks at me as if I am a complete imbecile.

So I figured I’ll resort to bribery.
‘Look, no pressure okay, but just saying...if you were to get a scholarship, we’d save so much money that maybe we could afford to go on a really great holiday.’
‘Portugal?’
Why he is fixated on Portugal, I have no idea. He hates seafood. Maybe it’s the golf. He caught the quizzical look.
‘Okay, not Portugal. DisneyWorld. Florida.’
Gulp. Disney was fabulous but, having tasted the high life there, I don’t think I could bear to do it budget fashion. This time he caught the look of sheer panic-stricken rabbit in headlights and, bless him, took pity on me.
‘Disney Paris then. With a friend.’

So it was agreed. Has it worked? Nope. Not even the charms of Mickey and the thrill of the roller coaster has lured him away from the Xbox and the snow. The papers sit, gathering dust, and wistful dreams of skinnier fees have been put sadly to one side.

Because maybe, just maybe, my heart isn’t really in it either.

Mice biting, dogs peeing, tum-ti-tum

This was going to be such a good day. James is off having a sleepover with a friend and so this was going to be the day I salvaged from half-term to get through my Sisyphean list of Things To Do. I was going to write two features; bang off lists of scintillating ideas to my editors; do some invoicing; and all before lunch. Then I was doing to spend the afternoon resurrecting the children’s novel, washing my hair, painting my toenails and maybe, just maybe, making up a new batch of rhubarb syrup. I was going to launch into the weekend feeling productive and positive and pretty fabulous. Yup, well that was a silly idea.

It’s 11am and I still haven’t had breakfast. Mainly because Adrian and I, demob happy, went out last night to see Angels and Demons (total and utter tosh – we kept whispering to each other things like ‘he’s got ten minutes to save the cardinal from being toasted and he’s changing his suit?’) and then had an immense curry. We were the only people in The Ganges which was a little disconcerting and so I think we felt honour-bound to order more than we really needed. The waiters were so impressed they gave us free lager. Hence spent a long uncomfortable night balancing on my belly and dreaming of stomach ache.

Quite apart from feeling queasy (had to stop reading Sea of Poppies as they kept talking about dhal and chapattis) the morning has gone wrong in about six directions at once.
Adrian woke me up to tell me: ‘There’s a leak in the kitchen…under the sink.’
That would be the new kitchen and the hand-built sink unit with the water seeping into the new oak flooring.
Tracked down Percy the plumber who turned up with his usual knowing grin.
‘Been having a good time, I hear. Off on trips to Disney. Was reading your blog…’
What? Is nothing sacred? Now I can’t even moan about plumbers online.
Turned out that mice had eaten through the piping. Nice. And Percy couldn’t fix the pipes until Brett, the cabinet-maker, came back to take the sink unit to bits. So the whole morning has vanished in phone calls, and people racing over the moor and narrowly missing each other, pretty much like a Laurel and Hardy farce.

Meanwhile the dog has been barking his head off and I just caught him sliding down the stairs having peed up against the bed – again. The friend’s mother has just rung to say could we pick up James early (I’m not even going to ask why) and so my beautiful organised productive day has descended into chaos.
Never mind. As Adrian said, ‘Nobody’s died.’
‘Wish the bloody mice would die,’ I muttered in return.
‘Nobody’s in hospital.’

I raised an eyebrow. ‘There’s still time for an assault on A&E.’
So far James has managed to get through half-term without concussing himself or spraining an ankle – though he has a cracking black eye courtesy of cricket (no, not a ball, fell over on a piece of rope) and a graze over his nose (Butlins water slide). The first thing his maths teacher said, on seeing him in the park, was – ‘Still in one piece, James?’

Anyhow, here I am blogging when I should be working. Why? Because it’s good to write. I still think blogging is great therapy and that, when the mice are eating through your pipes and the dog is peeing against the bed; when every travel editor in town has no budget and you're STILL feeling overfed at 12 noon, at least one can still moan and gnash one’s teeth and whinge online. Yes, of course I should be doing something constructive, like heading into battle against the weeds or even sponging down the bed but frankly I can't be bothered. Is it too early for a rhubarb bellini?

Er, Disney....

Last week Blackden, next week Walt Disney World. The contrast couldn’t be greater really. I’ve been invited (along with a band of other bloggers) as a member of Think Parents Network. I always do a double-take on being described as a parent as it’s not a label I think of applying to myself (likewise ‘mother’). I’ve never been archetypal parent material and never really ever imagined I’d become a mother. My mind and body went into severe shock when I was pregnant and neither has ever really recovered. I have blundered through parenthood by applying my standard response to any new challenge – a crash course of reading the textbooks then bluff like fury. It’s always worked in journalism. I don’t think I’m a bad parent (I don’t write books shaming my son – at least, not yet) but I hardly think I’m representative.
Also, and here’s the irony – I don’t really like theme parks. Part of being an odd parent is that we have never really done the parks – have never made the pilgrimage to Paris, have never faced up to Alton Towers. My odd excursions (to Legoland and Chessington) have been to accompany friends and their children. I get vertigo and motion sickness and have a very low fear threshold. Consequently I screamed all the way round the baby roller coaster at Legoland and got off (shaking) to a barrage of abuse from parents who had been patiently queuing for an hour only to find that now their children were all sobbing and refusing to do the ride. ‘That mummy was scared – me not doing it’ was the bottom line. Wise me.
I succeeded in getting round Chessington without setting foot on a single ride.

Given this antipathy, I’ve been reluctant to tell people about my forthcoming trip. But the response has been extraordinary. Seems the most unlikely people go gooey-eyed over Disney.
‘Oh, it’s fabulous, absolutely fabulous. You’ll love it!’ gushed one of the mothers from school, who I’d always had down as the ‘trekking across Patagonia by llama type’.
‘Don’t be such a snob,’ said a friend at the pub, rolling her eyes. ‘Suspend your critical faculties and you’ll have a ball. Ah, you’re soooo lucky.’ She went dreamy-eyed and floated off into fond memories of Mickey and the Magic Kingdom.

Even my mother-in-law went into full-on gush mode. Turns out she’s been to Disneyland, Disneyworld, Florida, Paris and Outer Mongolia with her friends (not a child in sight) and LOVED it every time. Now there’s the weird thing. Like MIL and crew, we bloggers (mothers all) are going without a child between us which, to my mind, rather defeats the object. But no. It seems that people (lots of people, adult people) go to the ‘worlds’ sans children. Strange but true.
‘We went without children,’ said another friend on the phone last night.
‘We did?’
‘Yup. Don’t you remember? We were in Florida and felt we ought to have a look. It was full of children screaming, ‘I wanna burger, I wanna nicecream, I wanna ka-ka.’
Silence. Did we really? Ah yes, it’s coming slowly back. I was twenty-something and lean as a reed, wearing cut-offs, a t-shirt and a baseball cap over cropped peroxide blonde hair. We walked down the beach and I noticed that three months of working out had paid off – my leg muscles were actually rippling. Full-on panic mode set in. Can I lose three stone in a week? Florida = sun + coast = swimming = costume = ritual humiliation. Having spent last week writing about the latest Hollywood beauty trends I am suddenly painfully conscious of my:
a) rippling flab
b) eerie gleaming white skin, pockmarked with cellulite
c) two inch grey roots
d) sprouting hair (sorry Milla)
e) grubby finger and toenails.

‘Oh, don’t be so ridiculous,’ said my pal at the pub. ‘This is Florida, not LA. You’ll be the skinniest there by a mile.’ Flicking through my photo album, refreshing my memory, I take comfort in the pics I took of the largest bodies in the world, standing like megaliths, fat-swathed ankle-deep in water, gazing out to sea. Let’s just pray that Florida hasn’t gone on a health kick in the last thirty years.


PS – have to say, full brownie points to Disney for taking along a self-confessed sceptic. ‘Can I write what I like?’ I asked. ‘Yes, providing it’s not libellous,’ came the reply. So that’s OK then. Of course, when someone is paying for everything it takes a hard nut to be totally and utterly rude but I will try my hardest to be honest and objective. Yup, even if hanging upside down vomiting. Whether that would be on Thunder Mountain or at the sight of a giant Mickey Mouse cosying up to small truculent children is yet to be decided.

PPS - image shows me and my fellow bloggers - see, I'm getting into the mood already....(he he)