guilty pleasures

I still remember the first time I ever stole something.

It was when I was in infant school, so I was probably about seven or eight. We had a box of scrap materials in the classroom and one of the other kids brought in some stuff to donate that included a piece of sparkly green glittery fabric. I remember Miss Green, the teacher, making a fuss about this fabric to the kid who brought it in and telling her that she should use it on the big fish mural the whole class was making at the time.

I really can recall the day that clearly.

I have always sewn, my Mum was a seamstress so I guess I got the talent from her and even at that age I used to copy pictures of clothes and make them for my dolls, Cindy being my favourite.

And Cindy needed a green glittery dress.

So when nobody was looking I took the fabric, scrunched it up, asked to go to the toilet but went to the cloakroom instead and put it in my coat pocket.

Cindy needed a top like this.

Later in the day it was time to do some art and it was discovered that the material was missing.

There was the usual routine of  'if whoever has taken it puts it back nothing will happen', and I can remember trying to hide my face as I was blushing . . . badly. But I didn't return the sparkly stuff. And I never did make anything from it either, it remained hidden in my room, because once I got it home I realised that if I had my Mum would've asked where it came from.

And at that age I couldn't lie to her.

As it happens all my teenage guilty secrets revolved around deceiving the parents too.

When I was about 13 my parents had a lot of those miniature bottles of spirits.

There were more then this. Way more.
But most of them were empty.

They were kept in a cupboard in the front room - so I was helping myself, and my friends, on a regular basis then putting the empty bottles back. The parents only ever drank if they had visitors which wasn’t that often, but there came a night when I was upstairs and I heard them offering drinks to friends of my Dad who had turned up. I heard Dad go into the room where these were kept - then call Mum - then what sounded like angry whispers.

I'm sat upstairs waiting for WW3 to break out and a year long grounding.

It never came, for days I was on walking eggshells but nothing was ever said.

Move on about 3 years - the parents have split.

One night Mum and I are having chat about things and she says "I'll tell you something you don't know about your Father, he was a secret drinker - he used to drink those miniatures we kept"

A few weeks later I'm round Dads, also having a chat and he says "did you know your mother was a secret drinker............."

I've never confessed.

The kleptomaniac in me still comes out to play from time to time. Nowadays if I want something I can usually afford it but sometimes I just can't resist. Way I see it if I'm spending £100 at the supermarket it doesn't hurt them to give me a jar of coffee as a bonus, although the biggest thing I've ever stolen was a shelf unit that is still in my living room now. I think it's just one little symptom of never quite growing up, although the roots of the habit come from childhood and always being told that I couldn't have stuff.

So I helped myself instead.

It was an easy progression from that scrap of fabric to a bar of chocolate on the way home from school, then as I got older make-up, records and clothes. I'd never steal from a person - do as you would be done by on that count - but if I can get a little five finger discount from a shop I fucking well will.

Never let your bad habits talents go to waste.

My other two guilty pleasures that stem from childhood are biscuit gluttony and the Starship Enterprise.

My Mum would buy biscuits but we were only ever allowed to have two or three at a time, nowadays I can quite happily eat a whole packet - especially if I have a coffee to dunk them in, and very especially if they are McVitie's chocolate digestives.

Fuck the calories.

And whilst it's not exactly something I feel guilty about I am a bit of a trekky.

On wednesday nights my Mum would go out to some ladies group and my Dad and I would always watch Star Trek together. I love the newer films with all their amazing CGI but the original series will always be the best in my world because it reminds me of those evenings.
I even have the outfit. Having a fancy dress ? No prizes for guessing who I'm coming as.

I still watch it whenever it's on the TV now.

Same goes for the original Batman.

Although Christian Bale in the rubber suit is a whole different kind of pleasure for me nowadays.

And I don't feel the least bit guilty about my Batman fantasies.

Come to mumma. I so would. And then I'd do it again.

Adult guilty pleasures are a whole different thing.

I love porn, always surprises me how many women claim they don't like it or say it's disgusting. Yeah right. More like too uptight to admit it turns them on. Or worse are the ones who think there is something wrong with him because the man in their life likes to watch it.

You might not like golf or football but you don't threaten to leave if he watches it do you.

Watch and learn I reckon.
Porn that is, not football.

But I bet you never thought you could combine your childhood and grown up GPs without getting into all kinds of stuff that's truly wrong ?

Think again.

I found Star Trek - the Porn Version.

Fucking hilarious.

Yup. Those are her pants on his ears. Go Spock.

Funniest thing I've seen in ages. Too busy laughing for anything else.
I could post the link here, but then I'd have to put the adult warning back on, and then the stat counter doesn't work and I need to keep an eye on the lurkers.

If you want it ask me.

Update : After reading this I was asked if I'd ever gotten caught, so I wrote a response. http://dirtycowgirl.blogspot.com/2011/08/only-time-i-ever-got-caught.html

it's all lies

Who the fuck thought up the term Global Warming ?

As a teenager I went through a punk militant phase.

I belonged to the Anti-Nazi League, went on marches against Apartheid, bought Living Marxism magazine, wore a ‘Troops Out’ T-shirt, took food parcels to the women protesting the US Missiles at Greenham Common and joined CND and Greenpeace.

And all whilst wearing Dr Marten boots and dirty hair.

I went to rallys and talks that were relevant to my new found sense of injustice and amongst these were many speakers on the subject of global warming and the state of the planet.

The people giving these talks and TV programmes I watched about it made it sound as if these were issues that were going to affect the planet in many years time.

Not likely to affect me but maybe my grandchildren or great grandchildren.

What grandchildren ? Yeah, I think Son needs to pull the proverbial finger out on that one.



Doesn't England look fab ?

It always sounded far in the future, I suppose they thought it would be.

But as is evident from the sometimes freakish and out of place weather conditions that are becoming all the more prevalent it seems that in fact these changes are occurring now.

There’s a part of me that finds this kind of exciting.
That things I thought would happen after I was long gone are occurring now.

My case is packed...beam me up !

Maybe I shouldn’t give up entirely on my plans for space travel and a transporter room in the spare bedroom just yet.

I wanted this....



However I am also a bit disappointed. Global WARMING ?…..my fucking arse.

I thought the implication of that meant I would get to see out my days living in a tropical country without the hassle of emigrating or having to put the cats through quarantine. And that rising sea levels meant I’d end up in a seaside apartment.

If it meant England was gonna get Caribbean temperatures then chop down all the trees I say.



I got this.....



But no, Global fucking freezing more like.

Whoever thought that name up is a fucking lying bastard.

shrinking planet

I’m still amazed by the internet.

This fact has occurred to me again since the addition of the globe visitors map I put on my page. Each of those little dots represents someone who has stopped by to read some, if not all, of what is written here. I find that pretty incredible, without the internet that would never happen, how could it ?
But thanks to the world wide web there are people in what to me are far flung corners of the globe who know something about me and are aware of my existence.
I don’t know why I like that thought quite so much, but I do, and I appreciate the time they have spent here. The world certainly is getting smaller every day.

The thing I really love about the internet is the idea that you’re never truly alone. As I’m writing this it’s 5pm on a Sunday, I’m sat on my bed with a coffee and my laptop and in between writing I’m conversing with a few friends on facebook, my msn is on and there’s a couple of people popping in and out of chat there. Apart from one person I don't see any of them very often - yet cyberspace enables me to regularly keep in touch. I’m also an insomniac and I really appreciate the fact that if I can’t sleep there is always someone to talk to.

I have friends that I have made online from all over the world, I know some people might say that someone you’ve never met and are not likely to is not a real friend but I’m inclined to disagree with them, there have been times when I’ve told these relative strangers things that I might not share so easily with real world friends.

If you’re that extra bit removed from someone’s life it can make it easier to be non-judgemental, and sometimes a different persons outlook and perspective on problems is all you need to see things differently yourself. And it’s fascinating just to hear how different peoples lives are elsewhere on the planet from them rather then watching it on tv.

In some ways I think the internet is a great equalizer. It doesn’t just remove geographical barriers, the differences between our social standing, economic status, age, race and sexuality that separate us in our communities and daily lives become irrelevant. I am the sort of person who will talk to anyone, but without the web my circumstances and surroundings limit that.

And as for internet shopping......I’m beyond impressed that I can go to Asda.com at 4am, pick what I want and the next day it’s delivered.
I actually did all my Christmas shopping online last year too, I may be the exception where females are concerned but I HATE shopping at the best of times, never mind when there is all the extra hassle and short tempered customers in December, but thanks to my Vaio I avoided it all.
Actually I do think it’s quite true that you can get anything you want online, all you need do is enter the right keyword and google will find it for you, and that's preferable to negotiating shops and crowds to me.

There have been times when I’ve been pondering some bizarre question or other, or been involved in a discussion and wanted facts to back up what I’m saying, and it’s all there just for the looking.
Of course whilst you can filter out adult content and spam, and scan for Trojans and spyware, I’ve yet to see a bullshit filter so it does pay to exercise caution over some of what you might find.

I suppose it’s my age showing really, younger people who have grown up with the technology are so used to it always being there they take it for granted. But I can remember when a long distance phone call, to my cousin who lived in the North of England, was an expensive novelty that I was only allowed a couple of times a year.
As a child we didn’t even have a telephone in our house, in fact we only got one after my parents split because my mum then thought it might be wise to have ‘in case of emergencies’ as she was the only adult in the house.

I remember, I think I was 17 at the time, a friend telling me that her parents were going to get a video, which meant that you could watch cinema films on your tv, and us both being totally amazed that this was even possible.
When this wonderful machine arrived it was the size of slab of concrete and weighed about the same, but we were mesmerised by it, and spent hours being more impressed by the fact that we were watching movies at home then the content of them.
That is until the day Ellie found the one featured in the above illustration in her parents room, we were highly amused by that.

As a child I loved Star Trek, still do really (apart from Voyager...just sayin'), and my favourite thing was the ‘communicators’, at the time it seemed so far fetched yet nowadays everyone’s got a mobile phone, which is the same principle to my mind - no matter where you are you can be spoken to, well unless there’s a poor signal.
But even Spock and Kirk would occasionally have difficulties communicating because of some inter-stellar interference. I hope it’s just a matter of time before I can transport myself off to some tropical beach in a few seconds and I’m planning to clear out the spare bedroom ready to install a holodeck.

I once watched an episode of the twilight zone where a man from the past time travelled to the present and was scared to see aeroplanes in the sky. 
I can only imagine where technology will take us 100 years from now - space travel I guess, and I’m only sad that I’m not going to be around to see it.


Beam me up Scotty.