Cleavage Confusion

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The recent warm weather has brought with it a huge amount of exposed flesh wandering up and down the streets. Cleavages of all shapes, sizes and tones have been bouncing about with abandon, triggering within me an age old confusion about how not to look at something which is blatantly screaming out to be ogled.

There’s no doubt it confuses the hell out of the feminist in me.

The younger generations seem perfectly at ease with it all, while the generation above me is forgiven for being lecherous old buggers and are viewed with a certain amount of pity. But for me the dilemma remains: am I allowed to let my eyes roam?

I was brought up with quite a strong feminist cultural background. I knew from the offset that women were in no way inferior to men, and certainly should never, ever be treated just as sex objects.

Fair enough, and I’ve always been a passionate believer in equal rights. But in the confusion of it all there were some less healthy ideas embedded in my psyche, not least the one that seemed to believe all men were potential rapists. This idea horrified me.

As a teenager with raging hormones, it was easy enough to understand the difficulty in trying to keep all these sexual urges under wraps, but the idea of taking a woman against her will was utterly abhorrent. Of course in those days I didn’t yet understand rape is not about sex but power, so lived in a certain amount of fear of what I was told might be capable.

Back then it was my understanding that all women believed that all men were possible rapists in waiting. So before I could ever hope to establish any kind of relationship with a woman, whether sexual or platonic, I would first have to demonstrate all my sexual yearnings were strictly under control.

One form of this was to teach myself not to look at her breasts when talking to a woman. When you are a teenager with raging hormones, this is an incredibly difficult act; there’s no doubt it would have been considerably easier to gouge out my own eyes. But I was determined and by my late teens I had learned how to look women in the eye even when they were wearing the lowest cut blouse.

However, in the past few years in our very distinctly post-feminist culture, there have been no end of fashion programmes for women showing them how to make the most of their “assets” and draw attention to them. From the cut and the colour of the dress through the plunging neckline, to the use of necklaces to draw the eyes right to the sweet spot. Everything is designed to make men look.

So I’m left in a state of perpetual disorientation as the twin forces of cultural upbringing and in-your-face marketing pull my eyes, brain and conscience in opposite directions.

I suppose I have to conclude that a brief admiring browse is acceptable or even desirable, but no woman is likely to enjoy being gawped at or feel the drool dropping into her cleavage.

But this in turn makes me wonder how many women, when I was younger, must have wrongly concluded I was not interested in them because of my utter failure to offer an appreciative glance…
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Mon fils, l'entrepreneur

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“Mum, Dad, can I go skiing with the school next year?”

Mum and Dad exchange glances. The financial situation is not brilliant.

“Of course son, so long as you pay for it.”

“What, like last year when I saved up my money and did extra jobs around the house so contributed nearly a third towards the costs?”

Awkward pause…

“Er, no son, you’ll need to contribute considerably more this year. Extra jobs around the house are still taking money from our pockets. I’m afraid you’ll need to find a way to bring in an external income…”

“Ah…”


And so began discussions, brainstorming, head scratching, scribbling down ideas, dismissing them, revising them, and the creation of a waste basket overflowing with screwed up sheets of paper (ready for recycling, of course) until our friend Mark asked if Rogan would bake a cake for his wife’s birthday.



Mark knew Rogan was looking to earn some money and also knew he has his mother’s touch when it comes to baking. Thus a new business was born.

Leaflets still need to be created, but word of mouth is already spreading and he has a couple of orders lined up for next month already.

The past few days have been spent helping Rogan set up a spreadsheet for accounts, a client database, a cake database (or cakabase as Rogan like’s to call it) and, of course, a basic website.*

Using Blogger and removing the dates and comments options, we’ve managed to create a free website which isn’t plastered in all the ads most free websites insist on. So when you’ve got a moment, do pop over to These are not just cakes…

I’m afraid postage and delivery options are zilch for this business. If you want to order one of Rogan’s cakes you need to be able to pick it up yourself. However, if you know anyone in, or passing through, SW Scotland, do point then in Rogan’s direction.


*Some fathers teach their kids how to build train sets, go fishing or light a campfire…
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Window of the soul...

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There are those who say the study of dreams can give us valuable insights into the subconscious.

Some take it further and say dreams offer us prophecies and visions of the future if only we can discover the correct interpretation.

And for others still, dreams are seen as a connection with the divine; a point where we can touch the mind of God or the Infinte.

However, I'm still trying to work out the significance of one of last night's dreams, which was set in an alternate universe containing a couple of minor TV celebrities with superhuman powers and I was in that awful position of realising I hadn't packed any clean underwear for the journey.
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Alternative Energy Source

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In these days of environmental awareness, global warming and the introduction of the term “carbon footprint” into the English language, the search for renewable, less damaging energy sources is underway. Money, time and thought has been invested into solar power, wind power, tidal power, electric cars and even bio-fuel as a way to help reduce carbon emissions. However, each alternative is beset with its own problems and limitations.

Nuclear power may emit zero carbon, but as the waste products will still be a health hazard 250,000 years from now, not everyone is convinced by government enthusiasm about building more stations.

Wind, tidal and solar powers are all dependent on the weather, which is unpredictable at the best of times.

Electric cars require plugging into the mains electricity system, which is still mostly generated by environmentally unfriendly coal, oil, gas or nuclear power.

Even bio-fuel, hailed as the renewable alternative to oil, is not without its problems, when the growing of appropriate plants has impacted on issues such as deforestation, human rights, the food vs fuel debate and water resources, to name a few. And, of course, bio-fuels have other emissions beyond carbon, which also damage the atmosphere.

However, here in the Ayres household, we have discovered a new potential, renewable, environmentally friendly, zero carbon emission, portable energy supply, where each unit is active for several years.

It is The Hot Flush.

Yes indeed, you heard it here first, Ladies and Gentlemen. Menopausal women are the energy source of the future.

Cars, buses, trains, planes, schools, hospitals and government buildings across the land always contain a number of women of a certain age, just waiting to feel appreciated.

Thinking of building that extension to make a granny-flat for the mother-in-law once the mortgage is paid off? Build it now and tap into this vital resource, before it’s too late.

Women of the world, forget HRT and attempting to compete with surgically enhanced celebrities trying to look forever youthful, and embrace the third age of womanhood with pride and a sense of empowerment. Never has humanity, nay, the future of the entire planet, needed you so much.

Now all we need is an rocket scientist* to help design the power converters and we will save the world!



*Where’s Dr Maroon when you need him?
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Time and a half

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There’s an old joke, which goes something like: if you quit smoking, drinking, fatty foods, chocolate, gambling and sex, you don’t live longer – it just feels like it.

Regardless of the truth, it does raise the concept of the difference between objective and subjective time. The world may spin through space, rotating every 24 hours, while orbiting the sun every 365¼ days, but our experience of the passing of time often bears little relation to the constant rate shown on sundials, digital watches and wall planners.

We talk of long days, short summers and continually wonder how it can possibly be Monday, again, so soon. And we all know that 15 minutes in the dentist’s chair lasts 37.4 times longer than 15 minutes on the Internet.

And so it is the CFS is playing havoc with my own internal clock.

For a start, it feels like I experience two days for everybody else’s one. From the long night and struggle to move from not-quite-asleep, to more-or-less-awake, through the highs of the morning espresso, the caffeine comedown and the slump after lunch, by the time I crawl into bed around 2pm, I feel as exhausted as if I’d done a long hard day’s work. Day 2 lasts from sometime around 3.30pm, which needs to be kick-started with a strong coffee, and lasts until the approach of midnight, when most people are finishing their only day of the day.

And yet, the amount I manage to achieve in any one of these half-double days is minute and trying to work on any longer term projects is exceptionally difficult. In my former days of energy, it would generally take half an hour to properly get into something, but then several hours of work could be committed to it there and then. These days, however, I have barely started before I’ve run out of gas and my mind starts floating about, unable to sustain the focus required. Needless to say that constant starting but never getting anywhere is a frustrating process.

So despite the fact each week lasts a fortnight for me, I achieve in that time less than I used to in a single day.
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Brief Encounter

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Do you remember The Storytellers Blog? It was quite the phenomenon last Autumn. But then Christmas distracted everyone and through the long winter people's thoughts have been elsewhere (I'm being generous here, I know, as I don't want to admit everyone might have thought it was a crap idea).

Kanani posted the first story of 2008 earlier this month, so I thought it would be a good idea to try and kick start it again.

A couple of weeks ago, Pat from Past Imperfect asked about people's brief encounters with complete strangers where a moment was shared. It set me off thinking about a particular occurrence me nearly 10 years ago when travelling home, late at night.

So I thought I'd record my own Brief Encounter and post it on The Storytellers Blog.

With a bit of luck it might inspire you - yes you, stop looking at everyone else when I'm talking to you - don't think you can hide anonymously behind your computer screen - to record your own story and post it. If you're not already a member of The Storytellers Blog, send me an email and I'll give you the permissions needed so you can upload your tale.

OK, now you can pop over there and listen to my Brief Encounter.
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Tidying up...

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I am attempting to tidy my study.

Considering it’s only about 6 foot wide and 9 foot long and I’m not even thinking about sorting out the bookcases, you might imagine it should be a fairly straightforward task. But it isn’t.

Unlike Mary who instinctively understands the idea of a place for everything and everything in its place, my filing system is chronological: piles of paper and books everywhere, with the last thing I looked at probably on top of one of the nearer heaps.

Stuff that really has to be dealt with gets put on my Pondering Chair – a comfy, swivel chair away from the computer where I can sit, muse, strum my mandolin, occasionally fall asleep and, of course, ponder. Eventually the chair becomes too covered for anyone to even perch on the edge, so the pile gets moved to any available bit of floor space, with the full intention of dealing with it as soon as I have a moment. But then a new pile slowly builds up in the now vacant space until, at some point, it too will be moved to the floor or, in extreme situations, balanced precariously on top of another pile.

Having reached absolute saturation point, about 6 months ago, I have decided to attempt to work my way through the room and discard anything unneeded or irrelevant.

So far I have found Christmas letters from friends, not even the most recent Christmas I have to confess; CDs of music people have thought I might find interesting; magazines open at an article I read once with the aim of investigating further; a few stray old photos I’d meant to scan and clean up; a £10 book voucher in a card marked “Happy 40th Birthday”; and hundreds and hundreds of scraps of paper, backs of envelopes and bits of notebooks covered in ideas.

Some of these ideas are no more that a couple of words hinting at a bigger thought I didn’t want to forget and planned on expanding. Some are lines of conversation I thought could be slotted into something larger. Some are even quite developed ideas consisting of both sides of the envelope with squiggly arrows running to tiny print squeezed into gaps between the main text. A great many are completely illegible as my handwriting is appalling.

Let me pluck a few random ones to give you a taster…

The 200th Wedding Anniversary

“Have you got Moby Dick?”
“No, it’s just the way I walk.”

A Special Branch operative, a tabloid journalist, a BBC investigator and the Features Editor of a woman’s weekly magazine make up a terrorist cell. Each believes they have successfully infiltrated a fanatical organisation and are busy making notes on all the others, but have no idea there isn’t a genuine terrorist between them.

Would the Anti-Christ have as many doubts as the Christ? Could you have a reluctant messiah and a reluctant anti-messiah?

Showing Times for “Sin City” at the Odeon in Glasgow on Tuesday: 12.15pm, 15.15pm, 17.30pm… oh, hold on, I think I can scrap this one.

So what do I do with all these scribbles? The obvious thing is to file them, or at least put them in a folder, which is what will probably end up happening. But I know once they are tucked away out of sight, they will be forgotten about and never looked at again.

How do I know this? Because I’ve just found another folder containing hundreds of scraps of paper, backs of envelopes and bits of notebooks covered in ideas.

Some people complain about lack of ideas and writer’s block. For me the problem has always been option overload and getting round to actually doing anything with them.
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