LML Has Moved!

Little Miss London is moving up in the world and has relocated to a gorgeous new premises!

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Many thanks for your continuing support.

That Age-Old Question

 

                                                     Image courtesy of crazy-jokes.com

How are we going to pay for our old people? LML mulls it over.

Old people really are an outrageous inconvenience. Not only do we have to contend with them occupying prime spots on public transport and hobbling cripplingly slowly down the Strand in the middle of rush hour when, actually, SOME OF US HAVE PLACES TO BE GRANDPA, TIME IS MONEY, CHOP BLOODY CHOP, but once they’ve expended their economic utility we actually have to pay for the old crones to have the privilege of lying in a dank, state-funded room stewing in their own stinking piss. It really is beyond the pale.

The question of who pays and cares for the elderly is critical. Medical advancements and better information on healthy living mean that the number of people living past the age of 85 will double in the next 25 years. Whilst healthy lifestyles and medical innovation are clearly to be applauded, we have become victims of our own riotous success, thoughtlessly pursuing the single-minded goal of long life with no consideration for how it might impact our society, economy or quality of life. Progress for progresses sake.     

Well, we’re here now and we have three payment options for elderly care – the individual, the family or the state. Let’s take each of these in turn:

If an individual has to pay for their own care then we will end up with two bands of people: those who can afford it and those who can’t. Of those who can’t, some people will have foolishly and impudently frittered their money away, and that quite rightly makes the rest of us angry about the prospect of having to provide for these selfish and foolhardy individuals. However many others simply will not earn enough in their lifetime to pay for adequate care. Whatever the reason, these people will need somewhere state-funded to go - we can’t have old people lying in the street starving and soiling themselves – and unless we drum up extra funding these places will inevitably be squalid, underfunded hell holes because proper elderly care costs. A lot. 

Once upon a time families were responsible for the care of their elderly but times have changed. In Asian cultures, the older generation with their wealth of experience, wisdom and knowledge are treated like demi-gods, whilst here a trip to the parents is an experience to be borne, not cherished. The pitiful situation of ‘Grandpa’ in the Simpsons TV show is an amusing caricature of the real-life disintegration of the family. I’m not blaming just the children here – many elderly people themselves object to being uprooted and moving in with younger family members. It’s a two way street and it’s deeply lamentable. If you can’t rely on your own flesh and blood to empty your catheter then who can you?

And so to the state. Whilst the idea of a ‘death tax’ has historically been unpopular, our other two options are, quite frankly, no goers unless we are prepared to allow those individuals without a loving family or bountiful riches to languish in sub-standard care. (Incidentally, the term ‘death tax’ is an unfortunate and inflammatory misnomer that should be renamed the ‘fair tax’, because that is exactly what an inheritance tax is. It doesn’t adversely affect rich or poor or contribute to existing wealth inequalities. If you inherit money from someone it is not your divine right or entitlement but a fortunate and lovingly bestowed gift from beyond the grave. )

I fully support an inheritance tax that everyone will have to pay and the proceeds of which will go towards elderly care for all of us, either in an old peoples’ home, or in our own home. Whilst there will be those who recoil from the prospect of having some of their money entailed away from the family line, to me it makes perfect sense that the unused assets of a citizen be used to make the end of their life as comfortable and dignified as possible. Elderly care should be included in the same bracket as healthcare and education – a public good that everyone should be entitled to, and therefore everyone should pay for.

The elderly population in this country deserve proper care. It is a travesty that we have allowed them to wither in the shadows for so long like scrap heaps of junk metal when they have contributed so substantively to society, the least of which is their economic contribution. One thing I struggle to understand is our reluctance to provide for them - these people aren’t a minority that we can venomously push to one side, they are you and me, our siblings, partners, children and grandchildren. We must all confront our own steady and relentless decay and I suspect that when the time comes we will all appreciate the opportunity to do so with as much grace and dignity as possible.

Personally, I’m going to get myself a top-notch dealer and spend the rest of my days in a glorious (legal) drug-addled sunshine disco popping stupor on a bed of Krispy Kremes with stringent instructions to family not to resuscitate should I kick the bucket. It’s a lot cheaper than life in an old people’s home and, let’s face it, a hell of a lot more fun.

Why I Have No Love for Valentine's Day

Picture courtesy of NME

It’s that time of year again – Hark! Here the angels weep for their empty mailboxes. Yes that most religious of days, Saint Valentine’s Day is upon us, a day for the women of the world to put enormous pressure on themselves and their partners to fulfil the ridiculous romantic la la land fantasies fabricated by clever advertising gurus. My objection to Valentine’s is not solely based on its roots in consumerism, although it is quite clearly a ploy for business to cynically profiteer from love, an emotion so joyfully simple and pure it needs no adornments nor fanfare.

 I can't stand the fauxmance of Valentine’s Day. It's not that LML has an outright objection to romantic gestures, indeed I can think of nothing more romantic than waking up after a night pounding pina coladas, with a topless model smiling indulgently down at me with a double D cup of tea and half a pig in a roll. It's just romance a la Valentines is so painfully clichéd - lurid red heart balloons, wilting roses and insipid candy abound in a day that pays homage to bad taste. Romance is cancelling a football game to spend the whole day in bed with your partner, or it's cancelling a shopping trip so your partner can spend the whole day at a football game. It's not a love bear, painstakingly stitched together by the bony fingers of an Indonesian orphan who, if they knew said bear cost £14.99 would probably wonder how the hell the West got so rich when it's clearly populated by complete morons.

Secondly, Valentine’s Day is not the celebration of two people's love for one another it is the celebration of a woman's love for expensive gestures of romance. Does anyone know of a (straight) man who genuinely loves Valentine’s Day? In fact, does anyone know a man who doesn't dread Valentine’s Day in much the same way as they might dread a visit to your parents or the dentist? In eight years of dating I have not met a single man who said "OMG, it's V day next week! Let's book a hugely overpriced restaurant and spend the evening silently resenting the stuck up, sneering waiter who frowns at laughing and kissing as it it's horribly working class." To make Valentine’s Day a day truly to be appreciated by men and women you'd need to go out for a romantic candlelit dinner before coming home to watch Terminator in your underwear. Fact.

Mostly though, Valentine’s Day makes us all feel hopelessly inadequate, whether you’re single or in a relationship. If you're single it can feel, not only like the whole world is in love but that they’ve all simultaneously decided to rub it in your face (ha ha!) before cantering home to have sex for the seventeenth time. In reality, half the world is in a couple, and half of those are depressed and wish they were single. (You’ve seen those couples mutedly chewing their way through the ciabatta? – yep, them). If you're in a couple, no matter how loved-up and sexy you are there's always someone more loved-up and sexy than you somewhere else, with bigger gifts, better hair and a boyfriend who doesn't think the epitome of sophisticated dining is make your own fajitas. I know a girl who was dating her boyfriend for 3 months and for Christmas he got her a Mulberry bag and booked the suite of a five star hotel for New Years Eve. God knows what she got for Valentine’s Day, maybe a small European country.  

 LML does appreciate the need to have a holiday in a month as depressing as February so how about these? 'National Give £50 To A Retailer For No Discernable Reason Day' or "National Day for People to Buy Themselves Loads of Crap to Make Themselves Feel Better About Their Empty, Meaningless Lives". Or how about cutting out all the spiel and just having a "Stuff Your Face with Chocolate and Booze Day". Although it may be a struggle, LML suspects she can get on board with a day dedicated to the consumption of cocktails and cakes.

Having said all that, LML has traitorously spent the afternoon in the bath of a boutique hotel drinking pink champagne, eating Green and Blacks and reading fashion magazines. Happily, you don't need a lover for that.

Seven Deadly Sins for the Modern Age

Image courtesy of blackeri on DeviantART

1. Apathy

Over the years the British public have become increasingly apathetic about politics. Occasionally we will rise up in fury in reaction to the odd, unpopular piece of policy or indiscretion by a rogue MP, but eventually the spin doctors smooth out our ruffled feathers and we settle back into our default position of am I bovvered? Voter turnout peaked at 83% in the early 1950’s but has since slumped more than 20% to 61% in the 2005 general election. Do we really care so little for how we are governed, and by whom? Here’s a happy statistic: if you earn £30,000 pa, you will pay an average of £264,000 over your lifetime in income tax alone. You don’t care about that, but you do care what Ashley Cole texted Cheryl last night? EUGH. I DESPAIR.

2. Bitchiness

I have been fortunate enough to observe some genuine bitching pros in their natural habitat: the private girls’ school, a haven of hormones and self-doubt where the accomplished bitch can flourish. An individual truly skilled in the art of bitching can transform almost any trait into something to be mocked and derided by their braying band of slavish devotees. Look at the calves / shoes / nose / face / hair of that fat / anorexic, poor / rich, frigid / slutty, stupid / geeky, upper class / middle class / lower class / working class scumbag. (Delete as appropriate). Where once these charming musings were limited to the common room clique, with the advance of such devices as Facebook and Twitter the internet is the bitch’s oyster, allowing him or her to parade their acerbic observations to malleable young minds across the world.

3. Greed

The more observant among you will note that Greed was, in fact, one of the seven original deadly sins but I felt that I couldn’t possibly leave it off the list given its’ modern day poignancy. With bankers taking home pay packets in the millions and ambulances needing hefty reinforcements to cope with the surge in obesity, it seems we can’t resist stuffing our mouths, and our wallets. We prioritise the short term fix – a sinfully sticky sponge or a new silk blouse – over long term fulfilment and happiness. LML isn’t suggesting we all live off wild berries and wear 100% eco sacks hand-braided from reconstituted goat hairs, that’s crazy hippy talk and everyone needs the occasional perk. But when consuming – cake, cars, clothes, phones - becomes the fallback position in life, as opposed to a well-deserved treat, is when we have to stop and take a long, hard look at our behaviour.   

4. Self-Obsession

Vanity, ‘an excessive pride in, or admiration of, one's own appearance or achievements’ was on the original list and although I initially considered it for the modern version I didn’t feel it adequately reflected the modern tendency for people to be so completely and utterly fascinated by their own lives. The people tweeting their every thought, or updating their Facebook status 1,487 times a day do not appear to have an excessive pride in their appearance or achievements, they are simply violently obsessed with....themselves. 

‘Jst had beans4brekfast, LOL!’ 

I wish someone would tell me what exactly is LOL about beans for breakfast. Is it the heightened capacity to dispel bodily vapours? Perhaps it’s a private in-joke between the bean lover and another? In which case, why put an in-joke on facebook? Or maybe it’s the fact that Mr. Bean will cackle like a hyena at absolutely anything: “Going for a drink of water LOL!!”, “Can’t find the washing power, LOL!LOL!LOL!” Groan, groan, groan.

5. Intolerance

Everywhere LML looks there is intolerance of difference, as certain groups and individuals try and promote their way of life as the only way of life. Islamic extremists are intolerant of the West. Western extremists are intolerant of Islam. Atheists are intolerant of religions. Religions are intolerant of reasoned debate. Well, LML is intolerant of intolerance. Why can’t people just accept that we all have different value-systems, beliefs, cultures and traditions and that these differences, warts and all, enrich a world that would otherwise be, let’s face it, pretty dull. 

6. Impatience

Iwantthisarticletobefinished,whyisittakingsobloodylong?

7. Superficiality

LML admits to having a minor obsession with the new dating game show ‘Take Me Out’ in which thirty single women decide over a series of tests whether or not they would date a man. If more than one woman wants to date him by the end of the testing then the man may choose who he takes out. It’s fantastically entertaining and a perfect illustration of our next vice in all its brilliant Technicolor glory. The reasons the women can find not to date someone are truly amazing: “The shirt he’s wearing clashes with my lipstick.” Or “he said he looks after his disabled mother, but I want a man who will look after me!” Seriously, you just said that on national television? Good lord. Mind you, the men are just as bad. When given a choice between two women, one slightly less conventionally attractive than the other, this is the result every single time: The short, curvy brunette will implore “I’m really intelligent, I volunteer with disabled puppies and I work as a comedian in my spare time” and the guy will smile encouragingly before picking the big boobed giraffe who can’t spell her own name. 

Daddy Dearest: Why Clegg’s Paternity Reforms are a Triumph for Modern Families

Deputy PM Nick Clegg will be delighted to finally have some good publicity under his belt after announcing plans to reform the parental leave system by 2015. Under the current system, which harks back to the dark ages before equality legislation existed, fathers are entitled to two weeks of paid paternity leave whilst female employees can expect up to a year of paid maternity leave. Clegg intends to implement a new, more flexible system of shared parental leave where parents can decide between them who returns to work and who takes the additional leave.   

At last! Recognition by the state that not all women want to spend the year after childbirth making play dough figurines and self-medicating in the loo whilst their burly husbands swagger home with the pay check. What’s the point of having equality laws in the workplace when we reinforce gender stereotypes with archaic and imbalanced legislation on parental leave? Once a baby no longer needs to be breast-fed parents should be able to decide who takes the additional leave with no further input from the government. It is not emasculating for fathers to relish the opportunity to bond with their newborns, nor is it shameful for mothers to feel grateful and relieved when they re-enter the workplace after a demanding spell at home with a new baby.

It is a crying shame that men have been virtually banished from baby care, sent trundling off into the wilderness to haul back great hunks of bleeding meat to their needy brood whilst the mother furnishes the young with the emotional nourishment that apparently only a mother can provide. It is an, albeit rare, example of reverse discrimination, the assumption that only women, with their engrained qualities of compassion, empathy, warmth and the much lauded ‘mothering instinct’ can adequately care for our young. Is there no such thing as a fathering instinct then? Are men intrinsically less capable of rearing children than women?

Just as women have suffered years of discrimination in the workplace, so men have suffered years of discrimination in the home, portrayed by the media bumbling round the kitchen all fingers and thumbs whilst their irate wives whip the back of their legs with a dishcloth and moan about the unequal share of housework. Not that I am excusing the certain proportion of men for whom wild horses couldn’t drag them to the washing machine, and who need a good kick up the behind (metaphorical of course, LML does not condone domestic violence) but newsflash! Men can load dishwashers and change nappies too if given the opportunity.

The reforms outlined by Clegg are a success for many reasons. They are a success because, at long last, they recognise the implicit discrimination against men and women when it comes to childcare and attempt to redress the balance. They are a success because they potentially give thousands of children the opportunity to spend time with their fathers during their formative years, forming close-knit bonds that will last a lifetime. They are a success because employers won’t know in advance whether a mother or father will take parental leave, and therefore won’t be able to discriminate against women of a child-bearing age when recruiting for jobs.

Finally, they are a success because they don’t subtly promote one way of living over another as the existing parental leave structure does. Instead they give parents the choice to find a system that works best for them. Some parents will stick with the status quo, others will go for a complete role reversal whilst I suspect the majority of us will find somewhere in between the two.

In a society that has become increasingly proscriptive – drink plenty of water, but not too much! Breast-feed your children, but not for too long! Eat fish, it’s good for the heart! Stop eating fish, our oceans are empty! – it is a pleasure to be given a choice in something for once.

Three cheers for choice – and for Clegg.

Hello, Boys!

Do you have a thing for Justin Bieber, or the floppy-haired nymphs from One Direction? You are not alone. LML takes a closer look at the age of the tween boy crush and asks, are we perverts?

A few weeks ago I was sat on my sofa with a friend watching X Factor, not a usual position for LML to be in but I figured if I didn’t want to remain a perpetual social outcast I should try and engage with the cultural zeitgeist. I did in fact, rather enjoy it, and I wasn’t the only one. “Oh my god, I love Harry Styles, he is so fit!” panted my friend next to me. Really? Even though his legs are the size of tree stumps and he drinks Smirnoff Ice through a straw? Is it just me who wants to give him a quart of milk and a cookie before affectionately ruffling his curls and tucking him up with the latest Tin Tin?

My friend is just one of an increasing number of twenty-something women harbouring a crush on a much younger man. Where once women lusted after the likes of distinguished older gentlemen like George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford, now we’re going for a new, younger brand of sex appeal: Robert Pattinson, the boys from Skins, even Harry Potter has an element of geek chic. They’re young, talented and gorgeous with none of the emotional baggage of the older generation. Who wants to fantasize about a 48 year old with a dodgy beard going through a mid-life crisis?   

Another friend recently embarked on a rather ill-advised, romantic tryst with a 17 year old with braces (and no not the jaunty fashion statement kind favoured by ageing history professors, the other kind). Her justification was “well, he’s legal.” Isn’t that the same thing 30 year old men say to themselves when they’re prowling bars on the look out for impressionable young women?! To be fair to her I get the impression he was wise beyond his years, and most importantly, a very enthusiastic participant in said trysting.  

Admittedly I am somewhat biased in the old vs. young debate given I have a penchant for old(er) men, mostly for entirely superficial reasons. LML is not ashamed to admit to adhering to the life philosophy that the older your boyfriend, the younger you look. The same goes for boyfriends who are curvy / tall, making you appear slim / petite. It’s illusory dating, and before you all throw your hands up in mock horror (‘me? superficial? I SO go for personality…’Whatever love, I saw you out with that Calvin Klein model with the reading level of a 3 year old) just remember that all these old, chubby, tall boyfriends are gaining some serious cool credentials by dating comparatively skinny, young, short girlfriends. It’s win-win!

LML believes that unless there are serious mitigating factors (yacht ownership, for example) if a man has significantly less wrinkles than you then he’s a no-go. Do you really want to look all pruney and haggard next to the taut creaminess of your lover’s youthful visage? Enough respect to Madonna for nailing bonafide hottie Jesus, if I have a tenth of her chutzpah and devil-may-care irreverence when I’m her age I’ll be a very happy woman, but doesn’t she ever stop and think “I’m actually dating a toddler”?

On balance, I suspect that we are not perverts. Most women might harbour a secret crush for the likes of Harry and co but if actually confronted with the possibility of a little extra-curricular activity behind the bike sheds I suspect most would gracefully decline. After all, real life so rarely lives up to the wistful fantasies we construct in our heads. I remember what a 16 year old kiss felt like and I think I can best describe it thus: Imagine being whipped round the back of the knees with a soggy skipping rope. Then imagine that in your mouth, over and over and over again whilst your neck tilted to one side gets increasingly sore and you wonder wearily when this slimy ordeal will be over so you can race back to your friends and boast about how amazing your first kiss was. You’d forgotten, hadn’t you? Reliving the moment? Relieved it’s all over? Exactly.   

After all hard liquor, broad shoulders and a steamy, knee-buckling kiss is what sorts the men from the boys. Sorry Justin.

Please Sir, Can I Have Some Work? A Lamentation from the Lost Generation

It’s been 162 days since I was last in paid employment. Not that I’m counting or anything, unless counting means monitoring with an intensity that borders on deranged.  I first heard the phrase ‘Lost Generation’ a few days ago and for some reason it reminded me of Steven Spielberg’s The Lost World, as if unemployed graduates are like pre-historic dinosaurs threatening the very survival of the human race with our futility.

My first proper paid job was with a quango for a year and a half, mostly doing administrative jobs taking overpriced sandwiches to overpaid suits who would complain about working past 4.30pm on a Friday. They generously offered to extend my contract for another few months – incidentally, at the time I would have used the word ‘generously’ in a sardonic fashion but in retrospect I appreciate just how generous it really was – but I declined. Now the words: Make, Bed, Your and Lie might be flying around, and to that I challenge you to spend a year and a half as a poorly paid paper-shuffling android and then jump for joy when you're offered another 3 months as a poorly paid paper-shuffling android, after which you'll probably be fired.   

At the moment I’m doing an unpaid internship made possible by the fact that my long-suffering, generous-hearted mother is happy to let me continue to loaf around her house looking morose and eating chunks of cheese out of the fridge like a very depressed, oversized rodent. She knows she can’t get away with the “when I was your age” lectures because she’d have to finish them with “I didn’t have the urge to drink lukewarm pinot grigio out of a jug whilst watching reruns on ITV2”.

There are quite a few interns at my workplace, all with good degrees, clean shirts and the kind of can-do, pumped-up attitude that has recruitment consultants drooling into their lattes. Every morning it’s the same old, “So, found anything?” False, beaming smile, “Yeah, yeah I found a job filing tax returns for an Icelandic fish-gutter based in Svalbard. It’s unpaid, but at least it’s some more experience on the CV.” Then we shuffle mournfully over to our desks, clutching our own-brand cups of tea and continue with our data entry. Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, Tab, Enter, Repeat, Sob.     

I almost wish I’d gone for one of those sales jobs you see advertised with a title like “Senior Managerial Retail Executive, Earn 100K in your first year!£!£!£!£!”. At least I’d have some money to go with my misery.  And yes okay, for all of you thinking what a self-indulgent, jumped-up little twerp I am, I must admit that thinking about my situation rationally I am in a much better position than most.

I am fortunate to be able to live in central London with an obliging parent whilst many of my acquaintances have been forced back home to far less glamorous locations: Basingstoke, Burnley, Bolton. There's nothing wrong with any of these places of course, unless you are an eager young graduate keen to make your fortune in which case it's like being promised the world and then finding out that, actually, the world's not for sale but how about this nice 1 bed semi off the M6?

I am lucky to have savings so I can afford to do CV-plumping internships rather than having to graft in a cafe or bar to earn rent money. I met a friend in India who is an incredibly bright, motivated young woman from oop North, keen to work in the international development sector. She scrimped and saved every penny for months so that she could go to India to do research with a disability charity, to get the requisite developing country experience you need to make it in the industry. She's back home now, applying for everything and anything she might be remotely qualified for, desperate to make it to London to kick-start her career (I don't have the heart to tell her things in London are almost as dire as the rest of the country).

And yet, whilst I can appreciate my good fortune compared with some, misery is not objective. The woman who has just lost a beloved parent doesn't, in the immediate aftermath of her grief think ‘thank god I'm not a Somalian orphan.’

So, is there any hope? Of course there is. It takes just one application and one employer to see a job, a skill or a spark on your CV for you to be lifted out of the wastelands of unemployment and elevated to a higher state of being. As a loved one is fond of saying to me, I need “relentless positivity” and a firm conviction that I am the ideal candidate for someone, somewhere. 

After all, tomorrow is another day. Lucky number 163…