Riot Ranting

Apparently the riots were a protest against the cuts. The man said we have been overpaying for petrol for many years now and you don’t see scores of road users stealing massive tellies from Curries in protest. I am sceptical as to whether or not any of the ‘protesters’ knew what they were ‘protesting’ against, I mean, make your mind up kids, was it the shooting of Mark Duggan or having your youth club shut down? In my opinion, the answer is neither. The very fact that the riots spread to so many different areas of the country just goes to show how bored the ‘yoof’ of today are, pumped up full of pubescent hormones and looking for the next adrenalin hit. They are not content with what they have, because our society values possessions over principles and money over morals.

Maybe the police should have stamped it out the moment it started. But can you blame them after the death of Ian Tomlinson? We were all very quick to criticise them when an innocent man was hurt while they were protecting our country, how could they possibly guarantee that innocent bystanders would not be injured by rubber bullets or dry clean only trainers not ruined by water cannons (and lets face it, there were an awful lot of trainers on the street those nights)?

Being ‘poor’ is a delicate subject, it’s always easy to sit in a position of privilege and judge those who have less than you. But these people give those who are truly poor a bad name. I think it’s pretty strange that the ‘poor’ rioters were walking round in £100 jeans and expensive trainers, and come to think of it, how come they all had Blackberries to organise it in the first place? Are Blackberry’s even available on weekly payment options from Freemans catalogue?

 “There is nothing for young people these days”. Well the truth is, our current ‘yoof’ have more amenities and resources available to them than ever before.

Just take a look at your local library notice board. Groups, helplines, out reach projects, all for young people. I don’t see many “middle class out reach project” or even “wine appreciation society for mothers on the verge of alcoholism” (kind of describes my book club but still) notices, it’s all about the kids. Our parents, or even those of us in our thirties, didn’t have access to half the amenities there are today (the most exciting addition for my generation being the launch of Childline, a service I was fortunate enough not to need except in response to “you’re grounded” “I hate you. I’m gonna call Childline on you”) and you didn’t see us rioting in the streets, helping ourselves to anything we could lay our hands on.

I remember very well how hard it was to be young. Everything is boring (I’d give my back teeth to be bored these days). Hormones are off the chart (I know how that feels, but for different reasons these days) making everyday life uninteresting and you are constantly searching for the next big adrenalin hit, whether a snog behind the bikesheds or pooling your dinner money to buy ten B&H and a bottle of White Lightning at lunch time. So much of the ‘fun’ I had as a child involved being naughty in some way. But I would never, ever have considered doing anything like what has happened this week, bored or not.

Can we blame a lack of discipline? This is the first generation of kids whose parents were not allowed to smack them, is that some kind of coincidence? We all use the naughty step, and hang on Supernanny’s every word, but would our kids be better behaved if they got a good smack every now and then? One father said on the news that he couldn’t control his kid because he wasn’t allowed to tie him to the bed or give him a smack. I kind of see where he’s coming from, what’s he going to do? Put his 16 year old on the naughty step? Ooh I’m scared.

The reason why me and my mates didn’t do anything that naughty was because we knew that repercussions would stretch further than taking a ball out of one jar and putting it in another, or moving one space down on a reward chart. My mum wasn’t a smacker but my Dad was (“just wait till your father gets home!”), in the pull your pants down and smack your bum in the middle of the shopping centre kind of way. And when we  were too old for that, he’d already done the ground work so we understood the look that said: “I WILL pound the crap out of you and if that means taking you to the shopping centre I bloody well will, don’t test me.”

Real Men?

I asked the man recently if he would ever consider a hair transplant. He looked at me as if I had asked him if he wanted to wear a dress; despite bemoaning the demise of his hairline for as long as I can remember it seems as if a hair transplant would be going too far. Most men don’t like to look as if they have tried too hard. The man is very much a blokey man. As a mechanic he comes home grubby and sweaty and frankly there is no vision I like to imagine more than that of him topless, overalls tied round his waist and carrying a tyre, a la Athena poster circa 1989.

The rise of the metrosexual man has been well documented and is now creeping into the lives of ‘normal’ men. Where previously it had been women who were bombarded with images of perfection in the media, men are now starting to get a taste of it and are feeling the pressure to buff, polish and beautify themselves to keep up with current trends. But should men be men? Should plastic surgery, beauty treatments and Botox remain women’s domains?

Men and women’s roles have become more interchangeable in society, so it is inevitable that other lines are becoming blurred. And why shouldn’t men make more of an effort? Us women have been using beauty products and primitive forms of makeup since time began, going so far as to use toxic ingredients to create makeshift face powder and mascara, the danger of blindness clearly outweighed by the thrill of having long eyelashes to bat at potential suitors.

In the last twenty years we have seen a massive growth in the male beauty industry, with male grooming products seeing a rise of 900% in less than 5 years. So many men are clearly jumping on board. But having a neatly trimmed beard and using moisturiser is one thing, wearing guyliner and manscara is a completely different animal.

Ollie from Made in Chelsea is a case in point. He has enviably shiny, swingy hair, fake tan and wears more than a hint of foundation. And he is, for want of a better word, beautiful. I think there is something intriguingly sexy about him but I’m not sure I could relax around a man who is prettier than me. In reality, I like my men to be men, including a satisfyingly rough face and chest rug long enough to twirl round my fingers. If I wanted a smooth chest to stroke and someone to borrow my makeup I would become a lesbian.

I see nothing wrong in men looking after themselves. Moisturiser, body lotion and aftershave show that you care about your skin and smelling nice, I would even go so far as to say a bit of concealer to cover the odd spot wouldn’t detract from a mans innate masculinity.

There is however, a limit, and I think for me that line is with obvious makeup and excess plastic surgery, a little nose job I could handle but shiny foreheads from Botox, implants to increase the size of random body parts or wind tunnel facelifts are out.

But two areas of metrosexuality that I fully support are pedicures and man bags. In my experience a man with nice feet is as rare as the proverbial flying pig. Horny, yellowy toenails and random tufts of hair sprouting from misshapen toes, even my sons have gross feet and they’re only 2 and 4. But it’s nothing that a nice pedicure wouldn’t fix (if only the sons would allow me). And man bags are just good sense. How nice would it be to go out and not hear the dreaded words “can you put this in your bag?”, your tiny beautiful clutch only designed to carry a lipstick, a twenty pound note and a Tampax is now bulging with car keys, an extra mobile and a mans wallet. A man bag would solve all this. They could carry our lipstick and Tampax instead, and of course, their concealer.