Lock up your daughters…

…and your sons, for that matter. 

There has been a complaint.  About me.  My crime?  I, Marsha Klein stand accused of disseminating unsuitable reading material to under-age children.  How do I plead?  Well, guilty – no point in denying it -but, in my defence, I will say two things:

1) I didn’t even give the the book to my daughter, she borrowed it from a friend.  The fact that she then passed it on to another friend (whose mother complained) was nothing to do with me either, your Honour;

2) It was only a Jilly Cooper* novel, for God’s sake, not hardcore porn!

I would like my previous good character and community work (years of jam-making for playgroup jumble sales) to be taken into account.  Case for the defence rests.

I’ll pack my things now and enter the Anne Robinson Correctional Unit for Unfit Mothers, where I shall await your verdict.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Blogosphere, my fate is in your hands.

* I haven’t actually read any of Ms Cooper’s oeuvre (ooh, get me!) so I’m not actually qualified to assess its suitability for a 15 year-old, a fact which didn’t go unremarked upon by my accuser.

The ghost of an idea

On the bus coming home this afternoon I had just sat down when I felt a hand on my shoulder.  I turned round and came face-to-face with a rather posh-looking old woman:

RPLOW:  Are you…? Is it Sheila?

Me:  No, Marsha

RPLOW: You’re not…oh, what was her name? She died recently, you know…

Me:  ??????

RPLOW:  I thought you were someone I had meant to contact but didn’t…Sorry about that.

Me (faintly):  That’s OK.

I wonder how much refresher driving lessons cost?

Let the train* take the strain

Visited the orthodontist yesterday, with daughter No. 2.  On leaving the house I realised that I didn’t have enough change for the bus.  Indeed, as it turned out, I had hardly any money at all in my purse (I know, I know forward planning and all that).  Add to this the fact that we were very tight for time and all the ingredients for a stress-filled trip were in place.  A quick visit to the nearest ATM complete, we arrived at the bus stop with, literally, two minutes to spare (bus due at 9.58, time on mobile phone – my watch strap broke months ago and I haven’t got round to replacing it – 9.56).  I left No. 2 at the bus-stop with her bus fare (I had just enough money for that) and intructions to get on the bus by herself if I wasn’t out of the nearby shop by the time it came.  About a minute and a half later, I was paying for my newspaper when I saw a bus at the bus stop and No. 2 gesticulating wildly and shouting “Mum, COME ON!”  I legged it out the shop and together we ran to the bus stop.  As we ran something fell from the window of the flat above the shop and hit No. 2 on the head.  “Are you OK?” enquired the electrician, who had just hurled the offending object (a coil of cable).  As No. 2 seemed fine, I replied with a brisk “Yes, but more by luck than judgement!” and went to board the waiting bus.  “Not that one Mum!” yelled No. 2.  I then realised that TWO buses had arrived at once (What are the chances, eh?)  So I aplogised to the driver and stepped aside.  Meanwhile, no doubt suffering from delayed shock, No. 2 began to cry and an old lady appeared at my shoulder to exhort me to go back and “make a fuss”.  At approximately the same time, a plumbers van pulled up between the buses and the driver wound down the window and, pointing at the electrcian, shouted to me “He’s up there!” Being the caring parent I am, I muttered something about a dental appointment, shouted my thanks to the plumbers, thanked the old lady and got on the (right) bus.  I had to apologise to that driver too, as he wasn’t best pleased at having been unable to pull into the bus-stop due to to the plumbers van.  However, once I explained the situation, he offered to call an ambulance!

Finally I was able to sit down and remind myself why I gave up driving.  It was just too damn stressful…

Valium anyone?

* OK, it was a bus but I don’t know any slogans about buses.

D’ya wanna be in my gang, my gang, my gang?

D’ya wanna be in my gang?  Oh yeah!… might well have been the question on Alex Salmond’s lips for the last week.  Possibly.  Anyhoo, it seems that no-one (or almost no-one) DOES want to be in Eck’s gang and that he along with the 46 other nationalist MSPs is going to have to go it alone and form a minority administration.  

I must say I’m quite surprised by this turn of events.  I mean, obviously the 17 Tory MSPs were never going to join up, what with them being the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party, but I’m surprised at the Lib Dems who, having spent the last eight years in coalition with Labour, have declined the offers of partnership made to them by the SNP and Labour and have declared that they will be back-benchers in this new administration. The only party willing to come out to play with the Nats are the Greens but, with only 2 MSPs, they hardly make a difference.

Of course the biggest stumbling block for any potential coalition is the independence question.  With every other party (bar the Greens) opposed to a referendum,  it seems that the union is not under any imminent threat.  Personally, I think we’ll all be back in the polling booths in a couple of years.  Mind you, politicians are a pragmatic bunch and the Nats have waited a long time to be the largest party in Scotland.  They have scented power.  As Marx*once remarked: “Those are my principles.  If you don’t like them, I have others”.

*Groucho.