PA in our Pocket or Marketing Tool?

As technology surges forward, mobiles shrink and mankind busies itself getting connected, the world continues to grow smaller with every passing day. Now, wherever we turn, we see people talking, texting or completely oblivious to their surroundings, engrossed by the latest download.

Of course it’s good to talk – or so they say. Everyone and their brother are now happy to be ‘friends’. They post, comment, and tweet, happy to share their life and divulge their souls. Yet should they one day pass in the street, they’d probably just walk on by.

Yes, the world may be talking, but what, if any, conversations are actually taking place?

Not long ago mobiles were such a simple tool; used to catch up with family or make a quick call. Today, in many ways, they help to run the world. They are our lifeline and motherboard rolled into one.

We rely on them to bank, shop, travel, and date. To track down, meet up, and break up. They tell us what time to wake up and where we need to go. They can be our secretary and our salvation. For the foolish, who use them to cheat and deceive, they can also be our downfall.

As this market grows and mobile advertising looks set to explode, you have to ask yourself this – are phones really designed to help us manage our everyday lives, or are they just a marketing dream – a tool designed to sell, and therefore, in turn, control us?

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Couldn’t have said it better myself

Living in Perth, you really have to wonder about some of the people here. Do they have a warped sense of humour, or are they just incredibly thick? I’m talking number plates, and some of stupid things people choose to have stuck on the front of their cars. I’ve already listed some of the more ‘interesting’ plates that I’ve seen before, but below are a couple that really stood out from the crowd.

The first car I saw in the shopping centre yesterday, when it drove into the car park at a speed only acceptable on the German Autobahn or a race track. Once the lives of passing shoppers had been suitably put at risk, the driver screeched into the disabled bay /taxi rank right in front of the entrance, climbed out of the car and lolloped inside.

I use the word lollop, because for all extent and purposes he had the definite whiff of Neanderthal about him – no shoes, skanky feet, clothes that even the homeless would turn down. His tattoos encircled every limb, his hair was matted and greasy enough to fry a dozen eggs and he had, what could only be described, as the remains of dead rat hanging down his back. Basically he looked like something you might see painted on a cave wall, with a club in one hand and a dead animal in the other.

As he disappeared off to buy whatever it is that modern-day cavemen buy, several words did immediately sprung to mind – but I needn’t have bothered forming my own opinion. With his carefully chosen number plate, he’d already gone to the trouble of describing himself. How thoughtful and spot on. Maybe he was more articulate than first thought.

I didn’t actually see the driver of the second car, but I’m guessing they share many of the same qualities as the first driver.

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In case you’re unfamiliar with the word ‘feral’, it’s one that seems to be widely used here to describe a certain sort of person. The following description is from  www.urbandictionary.com, and I couldn’t have put it better (or more colourfully) myself.

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An individual who usually lives in a housing trust neighbourhood who loves wearing flannel shirts, tight faded jeans, tracksuits (usually FUBU, EMINEM, etc branded). Usually has a pack of smokes tucked under the shoulder of their knitted jumper/wifebeater, and one behind the ear for ‘ron.

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Commonly spotted at shopping malls and fast food outlets and especially Centrelink which is their sole source of income with the exception of drug dealing/manufacture/growing/selling stolen goods. Known to swear a lot and are frequently found not wearing shoes, much like their offspring who are usually dirty looking with snot running from their noses.

“What the **** are you looking at ****?” said the feral female with no shoes with a major muffin top over her 4 sizes too small mini skirt and no bra.“Nothing” replied the man walking by and minding his business.

“Well do ya wanna root? If I have another kid I can start me own footy team and Centrelink will fund it!” Asks the feral skank who can be smelled from 20 metres away.

“No thanks. I’d rather have sex with a garden mulcher. It’s much safer than your diseased, stinky p****” Replies the man about to be robbed by the group of male ferals waiting for him around the corner.

So that said, would you seriously want this word on your car?!

Taxing the fat to pay the thin

So, finally a doctor in the UK has been brave enough to speak out and voice what many people already think  – that instead of pandering to the needs of the morbidly and super morbidly obese with free mobility scooters and Disability Living Allowance, they should be made to contribute towards the massive strain they are placing on the health system, by paying more tax. And in turn, those who work hard to remain fit and healthy should be financially rewarded for their effort.

With obesity related issues draining every last penny out of the already overstretched NHS budget and £6.3 billion being spent fighting fat, this scheme sounds about on the mark to me. No doubt it’ll be met with cries of “You can’t say that”, but it has nothing to do with being judgmental or ‘fattist’, it’s just common sense. As is Dr Chand’s proposal to add tax to the type of fattening food that offers little or no nutritional value, yet guarantees maximum ‘junk in your trunk’.

Such a tax would of course cause outrage amongst the loyal Happy Meal brigade, all of whom would shriek loudly that it’s unfair to target those on lower incomes, who consider fast food a cheaper alternative. Quite frankly, tough. Tobacco and alcohol are already taxed in an effort to target smoking related illnesses and binge drinking, so why shouldn’t unhealthy food be too?

And as for the argument that junk food is the cheaper alternative, what a load of rubbish. It’s the easier alternative. With every supermarket offering cut prices bargains and more BOGOF offers than you can shake a stick at, it’s far cheaper to cook simple healthy food that it is to buy in a round of up-sized burgers, chips and coke. Even if you do have limited funds and an army of hungry mouths at home to feed. People who choose takeaways every night over cooking are just lazy, and parents who feed their kid’s junk for breakfast, lunch and tea should be done for child abuse. (see related post).

Strangely enough, many of these parents who claim they can’t afford to buy healthy food for their kids just so happen to smoke and drink. They think nothing of puffing £5 into thin air or pouring it down their throat, but they can’t stretch the family budget enough to incorporate something that hasn’t been regurgitated out of a deep fat fryer and into a styrofoam box. For £5 you can buy an entire chicken. So do you spend your money on 20 cigarettes, or a whole birds worth of protein to feed the kids? There’s the difficult decision of the week.

The argument that fast food is even fast is the biggest myth of all. At tea time it takes less time to scramble an egg, microwave a potato or even cook some pasta than it does to climb into the car, drive to the nearest nugget dispensing outlet, queue up, order, collect and scoff. Of course most children would probably prefer the nugget option, and as such be more likely to eat it up without a moan or a struggle, but since when was feeding them meant to be about taking the path of least resistance?

Children are just that, children. They should be eating what’s right for them, not what’s easiest for the parent, no matter how much money they have, how brain dead they are in the kitchen or whether by the end of the day they’ve simply lost the will to live. God knows I could well do without the constant battles about how many vegetables are lurking on my kid’s dinner plates, but I’d rather deal with the fuss they sometimes make than watch them both turn into Weebles, and wobble right off their Trip Trap chairs.

So is the idea of taxing the morbidly obese ever going to work? Nope, not a chance in hell. Why? Because many of those who fall into this category probably aren’t able to work in the first place. Their size, and the associated health problems that comes along with it, prevent them from carrying out even the simplest day-to-day tasks, never mind holding down paid employment. So if they were forced to pay more tax, they would no doubt need to be awarded more disability allowance to afford it.

Obesity is a problem that will carry on for many, many years to come. In part this is because many of those individuals who are contributing to the problem, simply refuse to accept any responsibility for their own actions. Instead they prefer to blame the government for its lack of support in helping them to lose weight. They complain about the shortage of free local sports centres and wide open spaces in which to jog. They claim that a bunch of carrots are exorbitantly priced and no one ever taught them how to cook.

In answer to that. It’s not up to the government (who lets face it can’t even run the country properly never mind a weight loss club) to prise the fork out of each and every chubby little hand across the land. There are 1000′s of miles of free pavements in the UK, go walk on them. If you can afford to upsize your £4.50 McDonalds meal you can afford a bunch of carrots. Go buy a cook book, or cheaper still, turn on the TV and listen to Jamie Oliver.

It seems incredible that so many people simply refuse to put two and two together and start addressing the problem, instead of comfort feeding and making it even worse. Even with all the fat fighting campaigns, health lectures and awareness raising TV programmes out there, all trying to ram the obvious message home, it’s hard to see what the solution will be.

Perhaps if those who need to shed the weight actually climbed out of their complimentary buggies and used their feet, they might be surprised to find the weight starting to drop off. Obviously there’s no miracle cure to losing this amount of weight, unless you see stomach stapling as a viable option, but it has been done, and is therefore not impossible.

I’m not even going to pretend to have a clue about the horrible vicious circle of a situation that you’d find yourself in, when you reach this sort of size. Or how demoralising and depressing it  could be to live with everyday.

I’m pretty sure that getting the weight loss ball rolling would indeed be painful, and a tremendous struggle of mind over matter to say the least. But any type of exercise was never designed to be easy, it was designed to be exercise. And anyone who’s ever tried a step class (and failed miserably) will know that exercise can be painful, complicated and downright humiliating whatever size you are.

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There’s no such place as perfection

Lots of people heading over to live from the UK want to know, what’s life in Perth really like? Is it all blue skies, suntan cream and sandy beaches? Is it better than the UK in every way? Is everyone as ‘happy as Bruce’ and do the kangaroos all smile and wave you on your way as you speed off to work your 5 hour day?

In a word, and a very short one at that, NO.

Despite popular misconception, it does get cold here as well – Perth has long winters with not much sun and a lot of rain. Just like the UK, everyone isn’t happy all of the time, and kangaroos don’t really smile. I’d say if anything they smirk.

Some people, understandably, given how many burning hoops they have to leap through to get a visa, want to believe that Perth is the answer to all problems on earth – and the very opposite of evil old England. Yes, without a doubt it’s a lovely place to live and the lifestyle is so laid back that many have trouble getting upright again. But like every country it’s far from perfect.

Houses are still expensive and the cost of living high. Jobs are often hard to come by, and the working hours and commutes long. Older kids are often tempted by the huge drug scene on offer. Gang crime, knife crime and gun crime still fills up the news. Politicians still fail to deliver and continue to talk out of their backsides… So Perth may be many things to many people, but if you’ve built it up in your mind to be ‘perfection’,  then you might just be shocked to find it’s not the answer to all of your prayers.

Those migrants fresh from the plane and still marveling at the vastness of the sky, the millions of stars on view at night and the wide open beaches will tell you that ‘Perth is as good as it gets’. And that, I think can be very misleading to those trying to decide whether to make the move over. Firstly because the reality of life overseas (once the initial excitement has worn off, whether that takes a week, a month or ever a year) can sometimes be very different to what people expect, and secondly peoples idea of ‘as good as it gets’ can vary greatly.

Many people move over from the UK for a better lifestyle and a house in the sun, a chance to escape a country that is spinning out of control. But despite this, a massive 40% of those who move over from the UK still decide to go back again. That’s an awful lot of people making an extremely costly and difficult decision to return – a decision no one would ever take lightly, or do without good reason. Moving your life around the world is a big enough upheaval in the first place, moving back and starting again is an even bigger one.

Everyone has their own different reasons for not wanting to stay. Some find the distance from friends and family too great. Some feel too cut off from the rest of the world. Some realise that problems faced in the UK are also faced over here. Perhaps some just didn’t want to spend their weekends surfing, hiking, fishing, camping and drinking beer around a BBQ. Or maybe once they’d had a year of cooking sausages in Kings Park, eating fish & chips at Hillarys and trying to spot animals at Perth Zoo the novelty of it all simply wore off. Who knows, maybe the reality of life here simply never lived up to the hype.

So if you’re leaving England and heading south in search of perfection, then it might be wise to really get the lay of the land before your feet touch down on the dusty ground. This way you cut then risk of being surprised, disappointed or disillusioned  by what you find. Because if you arrive ready to start your new life Down Under with your eyes wide open, then you will probably love it all and never look back.

To quickly go back to the original question of what’s it like to live in Perth, here’s my answer:

Today I got woken up early by the radio. It was grey, wet and cold outside and the drone of irritating DJ’s put me back to sleep – until the dog barked millimetres away from my ear. I dragged two children from their beds and fed them breakfast. I made my own breakfast and then watched it conceal into concrete as I hunted for last nights homework sheet. I stepped on the dogs tail as he rushed past me to the backdoor. It was still pouring with rain, so as the school bell went in the distance I threw the kids into the car.

I returned from the school run, cleared up breakfast, emptied the dishwasher, put on the washing machine, swept half the garden off the kitchen floor. I then rounded up my son, his water cup and potty and headed out to the supermarket. We navigated the aisles with a renegade trolley while I fed him pancakes to keep him quiet and contained. I loaded the car, filled up with petrol and unloaded the car – all in the rain.

Next came lunch, as requested by my son. I watched him push it around his plate for so long that I gave up, ate it myself and then cleared up. He got all his toys out just to see what would take his fancy – we played with Lego, blocks and trains. The school bell sounded, so we set off with the dog in tow. We ran to the park so the dog could wear himself out while we all stood under a tree in the downpour. I supervised homework, cleared up the house, cooked dinner for the kids and remembered the washing in the machine from this morning. I shoved it all in the tumble drier as it was still raining.

Fed both kids their dinner – felt my blood pressure rise. Cleared up the mess. Supervised their bath time – felt my blood pressure rise further. Overcame a toddler meltdown when Tellytubbies said ‘Goodbye’. Shoehorned two kids into bed and then cleared up the house. Again. Started dinner. Again. Husband arrived home. We both collapsed in front of TV – exhausted. The dog barked at next doors cat and woke me up at 1am. I lay there staring at the clock and waiting to go back to sleep again. I started to panic when I couldn’t fall asleep. Then I suddenly remembered I’d forgotten to turn the tumble drier on. I went to sleep convinced I could already smell the washing going mouldy.

I got woken up early by the radio….

Point made? Living in Perth is like living in many other countries around the world – 5% sunshine and light, 95% reality of your day-to-day life. So whether you choose to live at the top of the world or down here at the bottom, your bills will still mount up and your funds sometimes run low, your children will still squabble, bicker and sulk, and the contents of your ironing basket will still have doubled in size everytime you walk past.

That, as they say, is life.

Why Perth will never equal Paris

Paris, NY, London and Milan – the fashion capitals of the world. Exciting hubs of cutting edge design and stylish good taste. Where the beautiful flock to see and be seen, and designers fight to outdo each other, sending one unwearable outfit after another down the catwalk.

Perth on the other hand – not so much a hub as a gaping hole. The universal dumping ground for the last 3 decades worth of dodgy trends. A place that shops everywhere send their unwanted stock to, and the fashion police earn more in a weeks overtime than your average divorce lawyer would in a year.

Lord only knows why some of the clothes shops are so bad here, it’s not like there isn’t online access to the rest of the world and a constant supply of current fashion magazines. Perhaps it’s because the city is so isolated that it’s inhabitants just don’t care, or because the over zealous customs officials are rooting out all the best stuff and selling it off on Ebay. Whatever the reason, I’d have to say trends here seem to be at least a good 20 years behind the rest of the world.

Think ‘Hillbilly Chic’. A sort of trucker meets 80′s Chav meets unwashed backpacker.

Of course the limited choice of shops really don’t help. They are enough to turn even the most fashion conscious into the worst sort of fashion victim – or phobic. The options range from the likes of Kmart, Target and BigW for your cheap and cheerful basics – with basic being the operative word. Most garments seem to fall apart in the wash, beg for mercy under the heat of a gentle iron or change several dress sizes hours after being removed from the hanger. You get what you pay for of course, so for kids clothes, which have a shorter life span than the average family camera, these shops are great.

At the other end of the rather abysmal spectrum is Myers and David Jones. Both shops are supposedly the ‘Creme de la creme’ of Aussie shopping. Say no more. I’ve been into each a few times, but have never seen anything either particularly special or stylish, let alone affordable. I had a voucher to use up for David Jones recently, and it took me several visits to try and find anything that I even wanted to buy. In the end I settled for a pyjamas top. I only managed half an outfit as the top alone came to more than the voucher, and I was loathed to fork out even more for something I didn’t actually need.

Several washes later and the stitching on the top had all but unravelled. The fabric had also stretched so much on the sides that if I’d leapt off our roof, I could probably have coasted all the way out to Rottnest on a wind current.

Funnily enough a set of pyjamas I bought from Big W 3 winters ago are still going strong.

When talking to other POMS here, the one shop that most seem to miss is NEXT. If I had a decent pair of well fitted jeans for every time someone asked why they can’t open a store in Perth, my wardrobe would be overflowing with denim.

Clothes aside, there also seems to be an underlying scruffiness ingrained into the WA culture. The mullet for instance is incredibly popular over here, and it’s not uncommon to see an entire family out and about, all sporting matching scraggly rats tails down their backs. I think that like the fashion, photos in mens barbers over here must be somewhat outdated.

The other trend, one that never ceases to amaze me, is the notion that footwear is entirely optional. Now I’m not talking about going barefoot to the park or the beach – that would be understandable. I’m referring to those I’ve seen without shoes in IKEA, the city centre, restaurants, supermarkets, the cinema and the most dangerous of all, or so you’d think, Bunnings.

Revolting, dirty looking feet aside,  surely there have to be some serious health and hygiene laws being broken as kids run across the urine soaked floors of the public toilets and straight down the fresh produce aisle of the neighbouring supermarket.

And needless to say, if such people don’t ever wash their feet, it’s highly unlikely they’d wash their hands..

I followed one such woman and her snot encrusted child around Coles last week, and snapped her for with my phone for proof. Given that she looked like she was probably capable of beating me to death with one of those blocks of cheese, I’ve airbrushed her features slightly. But to be honest, I very much doubt she’d ever stumble across my blog, or be able to read this post.

This shoeless woman I have to say was certainly not alone. I spotted several others, overgrown toe nails and all, hot footing it through the freezer section.

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Perhaps people in WA feel there’s no point bothering with their appearance, because there’s really nowhere to dress up and go. I can relate to this, and know from experience it’s a very easy and highly dangerous trap to fall into. Before you know what’s happened, you can find that you’ve metamorphosed into a homeless bag lady, wearing the same old tracksuit for 6 days in a row and have forgotten to change out of your PJs on Sunday.

Now I’ve never been one for making a huge effort with clothes, or really caring that much about how I look, but a while back I realised I was starting to stoop to such a level. This was around the time I arrived at the school to collect my daughter and realised, as I went to get out the car, that I’d left the house in my slippers.

So the following weekend, when heading out to Coles to do the weekly shop, I dug around in the back of my wardrobe and put on a jacket, a scarf and my high-heeled boots – the sort of clothes I’d have once worn in the UK when popping out to fill the car up with petrol. Taking it one daring stop further, I took my hair out of a pony tail and dusted off my mascara,  pumping the tube vigorously to break the old clumps off the brush.

My son walked straight past me in the hallway, and then did a double take as he disappeared around the corner. I don’t think he actually recognised me. How sad is that.

“Oh you do look pretty Mummy” my daughter said as I appeared from the bedroom, clearly impressed with my ‘Extreme Makeover’. I loosely translated this compliment to mean that I normally didn’t.

“So where are you off to then, seeing as you’re all dressed up?” enquired my slightly suspicious husband.

With that I realised that I had better start making more of an effort, before I reached the day where I would think nothing of going to the shops still wrapped in my duvet, or end up with skin as thick as a rhinos hide on a pair of black and scaly feet.

Shop till you fly

Recently I was lucky enough to find myself ambling around Duty Free, passing time before boarding and trying to pump some extra blood around my body in the hope of preventing a bout of DVT. Having checked in early, my husband informed me that this time we were NOT to be the last people to board.

Over the years we do seem to have made something of a habit of leaving things till the last minute, and as a result finding ourselves running across terminals and creeping through the cabin with a red face – brought on by both the unexpected exercise and the embarrassment of being the last to arrive.

The most memorable of all was our trip to Venice – a surprise for my 30th birthday. Obviously the holiday wasn’t a surprise, but the destination was – right up until the point when our names were called out over the tannoy, as I sat on the loo. As an airline, Easy Jet aren’t the most accommodating at the best of times, and straggling passengers are not appreciated. We were severely reprimanded as we skulked on-board.

Our reoccurring lateness to board is normally caused either by a family member who refuses to say goodbye, or by the fact that we love Duty Free. A wonderful no-mans land between one country and the next, where you can browse amongst products that you would never normally encounter, and dabble with things that you could never hope to afford. A place where the bright shiny lights and colourful displays draw you in and leave you suddenly feeling compelled to buy something you don’t really need.

Yes, in Duty Free it seems there really are no laws to govern those impulsive and overwhelming urges to spend money, and none to control the common sense that normally keeps your wallet firmly zipped up and out of harms way. I don’t know if this short lived spending insanity is down to being trapped in a windowless environment with time on your hands, or because the powers that be pump something through the air ducts that momentarily addles your brain.

I suspect it may have something to do with the many hideously overpriced restaurants – the ones that offer up 4 day old pre-wrapped ciabattas and muffins, that if used in a sling shot, could easily bring down a plane. These sort of places undoubtedly make it cheaper to keep on walking in circles, than it is to sit and eat.

Anyway, this recent visit of mine went off as expected. After stocking up with the necessary water, Pringles, chocolate, 3 books and a stack of magazines to last the 5 hour flight, I thought I would keep us entertained by trying on at least 30 pairs of sunglasses. I say entertained, as most of them did make me look like a bug eyed bee. Of course we knew we wouldn’t actually be buying a pair, given that they each equated to a months car repayment, but the sales girl, bless her, saw a commission opportunity with every pair. So each time that I picked some up she would, without fail, say, “You want to try those?”.

Having worked out that the best pair for me were also the most pricey, we headed off in search of perfume. Buying perfume is of course compulsory when in Duty Free. All boarding cards do in fact state, in very, very small print, that no person is allowed to fly without first buying at least 50ml of something expensive and smelly.

Having already done the necessary perfume research beforehand, it was chosen, bought and paid for in quick succession. There was a slight ‘discussion’ with the sales assistant regarding the free toiletry bag and CK ONE perfume that was advertised to go along with every $100 spent, but apparently the wording on the ‘Get a FREE perfume’ sign was slightly ‘misleading’, and only the bag was on offer. Strange that, how the free incentive always seems to magically disappear at the 11th hour of purchase.

With my husband being left to buy the perfume, it was finally my time to browse. First to the nail varnishes, where a rather nice bright pink colour was selected, appreciated and then put back down. Too late. The shop assistant had already spotted my moment of weakness – made easy of course by the fact she was practically perched on my shoulder at the time. She scurried across to my husband to ask if he wanted to buy the said nail varnish. Being the lovely husband that he is, of course he said yes. So it was fetched, bagged and paid for before I could even open my mouth.  Give her her dues, this assistant certainly won points for stalking her prey and going in for the kill.

With my smell and nails in the bag,  I went off to prepare my skin for the 5 dehydrating hours ahead. This of course entailed much sampling of everything on offer, and moisturising myself to within an inch of my life. Or until I had become such a human oil slick that I could easily glide across the floor. 3 face creams, an eye-lift gel and a body shimmer powder later, I headed towards the brand that I would/could never buy – La Prairie. Can’t say I know much about the range, except that it features heavily in glossy magazines and has less chance of appearing by my toothbrush than an enormous pink elephant.

First there was the Skin Caviar Eye Lift. At just under $500 a tub, that seemed to be an awfully overpriced pot of pureed fish eggs. Still, it went on well and without even a whiff of fish. Then I rounded the corner, and found out that the caviar cream was actually reasonably priced, when compared to the Cellular Radiance Concentrate Pure Gold – at around $900 for 30 ml. Is it me, or does that seem a tad excessive for a face cream, even one that contains specks of gold?

Not wanting to dismiss what I didn’t know, I thought it only fair to give it a go. So I pumped out around $50 worth and rubbed it into my arm (my face by this stage was already well loaded up with caviar). Now I can’t say I spotted any gold specks, but I do know that my arm now had a faint whiff of what smelt to me like cat’s pee. Not just my imagination, my husband confirmed that I smelt disgusting.

Disappointed with the result, the offending $50′s worth was scrubbed off with a wet wipe and I walked away safe in the knowledge that Garnier and L’Oreal were quite good enough for me. To make myself feel better, I splashed out on an Elizabeth Arden 8 hour lip balm. With a built in sunscreen, it is an absolute necessary for Perth, so would have seemed a crime not to get one.

All shopped out and creamed up, there was barely enough time to neck a hot chocolate (the ratio of 70% froth to 30% liquid turned out to be a good thing) before setting off for the plane. By this time the final boarding sign was flashing and we were forced to move at a brisk trot. Once again my husband didn’t get his wish, and I didn’t even get a chance to duck into the toilet.

What’s a girl to do. After all, as the name itself implies, it is ones DUTY to make sure that you personally test everything that is laid out for you for FREE.

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Mary Poppins has nothin on me

I have to admit that try as I might to keep my handbag and it’s contents streamline and minimalist, it always seems to remain something of a bottomless pit. A black hole of the accessories world if you will, one with the spacial dimensions of a tardis.

I am sure that this is the same for women everywhere. It’s what we do. Trying to pack our entire lives into a small bag and preparing ourselves for every conceivable situation and emergency, one safety pin and a furry mint at a time. I do think some days that if I just added an inflatable bomb shelter and a years supply of loo roll, I could actually survive and outlast the fallout from a nuclear war, by living off and utilising the contents of my bag alone.

A man might think this is something of an exaggeration. A woman might see how this is possible. A mother would completely understand. Why mothers you ask? Simple. A mother knows how it is possible, and more importantly necessary to have so much stuff on or about your person at all times. A mother knows that to get ahead and stay ahead in the game, you must start to think, plan and pack on a MUCH grander scale.

When you expel a small and screaming infant from your body you (often reluctantly) resign yourself to the fact that it will be a good many years before you will be able to use a handbag large enough to only contain a mobile, a lipstick and a single front door key.

As baby arrives into the world, out goes the small and stylish shoulder bag and in comes what can only be categorised as a hold all. A large one at that, usually with a teddy bear motif on the front, with multiple pockets and a detachable fold out changing mat.

Stylish? No. Ever so practical? Yes. Heavy enough to put your back out? Absolutely.

Of course these baby changing bags don’t need to be quite as large as they are. I sometimes think that as they are targeted at new and hormonally imbalanced mothers, companies actually design them to provoke and feed every paranoid thought that you have and to guilt you into buying ALL of the accessories on the shelves next to them.

I remember thinking that if there were so many pockets, then surely they must all needing filling up with essential ‘life saving’ baby supplies. On my first trip out with Baby No.1 the bag was so overloaded that it nearly up ended the pram. If memory serves me right I had 3 changes of clothes, at least 10 nappies, a huge packet of wipes, 2 bottles of milk, 1 bottle of water, 3 dummies, 2 blankets, 4 soft toys, a rattle, a soft book, 10 sachets of Calpol, a thermometer and a fully stocked First Aid kit.

Why? I have absolutely no idea. Bournemouth wasn’t due to be hit by a freak hurricane anytime soon and my baby was highly unlikely to break free from the confines of her pram and dive head first into a dirty puddle, requiring a complete new outfit, or 3. She also wasn’t unwell or even slightly feverish when we left, so the chances of her making her way through 10 nappies and enough Calpol to subdue a small horse were about on par with me getting a good night sleep anytime soon.

As I said, these baby bags feed your paranoia and strip you of all your everyday, non lactating common sense.

Over the years I whittled down what I took out, even getting to the stage where I would stick a backpack on my daughter so that she could carry her own nappy, wipes and water. A cruel and heartless mother maybe, but one that by this stage had a bad back. Then finally came the day when I treated myself to a new and tiny little bag. It was lovely. I could actually carry it on my shoulder without it digging into my skin and cutting off my blood supply. I revelled in the fact that I could now leave the house without packing supplies and no longer lived in fear of finding the contents of my wallet saturated in milk.

Then Baby No.2 arrived. Along came another wretched baby bag, a slightly trendier one this time with it’s camouflage pattern, but nevertheless huge by comparison and full to the brim of things I didn’t need. Yes, even I had thought I would have learned from previous experience, but apparently not. Those bloody hormones seem to have the power to completely override all rational thinking.

These days I have weaned myself down to a bag that actually resembles something I would have used in my baby free days – on the outside at least. Open it up and my entire life falls out all over the pavement. Try as I might I just can’t keep my bag below 90% capacity. I just stuck in my head and had a poke around and this is a summary of what I am currently carting around.

One overstuffed wallet, full of bank cards, old receipts, an albums worth of family photos and the necessary plastic to gain me access to the cinema, library, hospital, gym, swimming pool and Spotlight. A stack of my own business cards, a voucher for a free scone at Bakers Delight and a paper cutout of the words ‘Good luck Forever’ that my sister covered in sellotape and gave to me way back in 1987. Strangely enough there is no money in there to be seen.

3 tubs containing sultanas, rice wheels and apricot squares. A water cup with a valve that doesn’t know it’s supposed to be one way. A cereal bar that looks like it has gone under the wheels of a tank and a teething rusk so old it has fossilised. Approximately 9 and a half tissues (in various state of use), 5 hairbands and a broken hair clip. 4 pens (one with a missing cap), a couple of IKEA pencils and a ‘Green Tea’ bag. 2 nappies and a resealable sandwich bag of wet wipes. An overused nail file, the handle of a hairbrush, a plaster that has lost all it’s stick and a rather grotty twig that somehow made it’s way in at the park. 3 contact lenses, 2 lip balms and and a compact (in case I should every have a day where I find time to apply make-up). A ‘lift the flap book’ about baby animals (minus the flaps), a chewed train carriage, a Polly Pocket shoe, a potentially very dangerous bottle of bubble mixture and at least 8 toy cars of varying makes and models. A school excursion permission slip, a letter that is waiting to be posted and a mobile phone that looks as if it has done 10 rounds with a toddler….

Now you could be forgiven for believing that this cluttered bag of mine is as old as time itself and the ‘stuff’ has accumulated over many, many years. Not so. My husband bought it for me several weeks ago. I simply transferred the ‘stuff’ from the old bag to the new one, manky looking tissues and all, and then carried on where I had left off.

Once again, if you’re a man you’ll be shaking your head at the very idea of keeping such rubbish about your person everyday.  If you’re a woman you’ll no doubt be empathising. If you’re a mother you’ll know that what I carry around with me is actually just the everyday essentials needed to keep your kids happy, quiet, entertained and fed when more than 10 feet from your own front door.

Now, taking a trip away with kids for more than 24 hours is a whole different story. THAT requires months of preparation, packing with military precision and a vast array of luggage on an even greater scale.

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All things IKEA

On Valentines Day this year the population of Perth sent up a collective cheer when the new IKEA (the old store was barely large enough to swing an oven mitt and matching tea towel) opened its doors to the Allen Key loving masses. It did seem rather an odd date to open, given that this shop is surely responsible for more arguments between couples than any other. God knows how many couples actually fell out over their meatballs that day and whose relationship never even made it past the lighting section. If Cupid had even been stupid enough to try and make it through the doors, he would never have stood a chance and was no doubt trampled underfoot in the stampede.

I always wonder what percentage of the homes on this planet have something in them from IKEA. Of course who’s to say there isn’t an intergalactic franchise out there somewhere, it’s not beyond the unimaginable.

I know that there isn’t a room in our house that hasn’t got something from IKEA in it. Take my office for instance. I am sitting in my IKEA cream swivel chair, at my glass ‘scripted’ IKEA desk, underneath 2 IKEA glass shelves and between 2 IKEA white book cases. That’s before I even turn around to face the set of IKEA glass topped drawers behind me, which sit underneath 3 IKEA orchid canvas prints. I hasten to add that the other rooms in the house aren’t quite so Swedish in their design and I have never had anyone come to visit and have them ask for a yellow bag and a tape measure at the door.

It’s actually quite incredible if you think that the shop, founded back in 1943 by Inggar Kamprad, a 17 year old Swedish boy  who started off by selling pens, watches, jewellery and nylon stockings, has since gone on to become the world’s largest furniture store, with 120,000 employees based in more than 29 countries, selling just under 11,000 products.

Incidentally the name IKEA is an abbreviation for “Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd” which is the initial letters of his first and last name, the farm where he grew up and the town he lived in.

Despite claiming that the reason you can never find a member of staff is so that the prices can be kept low, IKEA must surely be making more money per second than their customers can pocket the free pencils. But that said, it is unofficially the world’s largest charitable organization, so can be forgiven for mercilessly emptying out our bank accounts time after time.

I have to say I do love IKEA. There’s no where else quite like it. There’s certainly no other shop that has the power to convince me that I simply have to have something, that half an hour before I never even knew existed. Every time I go there I spot another weird and wonderful gadget designed to save me time and space. I discover a new and improved way to arrange my clothes, display my books and stack my spices and I always find a new range of crockery that’s just crying out to be bought.

It’s the sort of shop where you go with the intention of buying some bag clips and a couple of candles and then somehow find yourself coming through the checkout (or should I say slinking through, while silently praying that your credit card can take the battering) with a Billy Book book case, an assortment of glasses that you have no place to store, a single mattress, a new bathroom sink, 8 large wicker baskets that will now need filling and a ceiling light. One that comes in a box the size of a pack of cards and requires an advanced diploma in origami  to put together.

The fact that all of these flat packed and bulky items are highly unlikely to even make it into your car is neither here no there, unless of course your small 4 door hatchback has somehow  magically metamorphasised into a horsebox whilst you have been shopping. Then again, I have seen someone squeeze a single mattress into a Mini Cooper before and we once fitted an entire kitchen into our 7 seater, so the impossible it seems, can sometimes be done.

For all these reasons above I have to say that I also hate IKEA. OK, so maybe not hate. I could never hate it, I just wish that I had more resistance to the hypnotic hold that it seems to have over me once I walk underneath the blue and yellow flags.

On so many visits I have walked the entire way through the store (few people dare stray off the arrows and cut through the displays), written endless lists on multiple bits of paper and spent hours agonising over what will go where. Then I reach the warehouse and find that, surprise surprise, 10/15 items on the list are currently ‘Out of Stock’. Worse still there is no known delivery date and I am not allowed to reserve whatever it is I need when it arrives.

A classic example is when I brought the desk that I am at now. There was only 1 of the leg supports (I needed 2) left in the store. I ask you, why 1? Do they sell many tables without legs, or legs without tables? Why did someone else only buy 1 leg? It took 2 more trips to the store before the elusive leg finally appeared and my desk, which was wedged up on a bedside table, stopped wobbling.

Still can’t complain, where else allows you to kit out a whole house in around 4 hours.

That’s allowing 30 minutes to pick out the items you want from the catalogue, an hour to find them as you slowly walk behind other people ‘display shopping’ at a snails pace, another 30 minutes struggling to get the flat pack boxes off the top shelf in the ‘help yourself’ warehouse and then the final 2 hours, stuck in a queue waiting for your ‘too big to carry’ items to be wheeled out from within the belly of the IKEA beast.

Of course this estimated time doesn’t allow for the additional 3 hours that you will later spend driving back to the shop, to buy the bag clips and candles that you forgot to buy the last time. Then queue up for that all important screw that happened to be missing from the original bookcase. The one that is now in several unusual looking pieces and is scattered across your living room floor.

Arhhh, what a store. You’ve got to love the way they just make you keep coming back for more.

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Choice isn’t always a good thing

It is an accepted fact these days that our everyday decisions are now dictated to and in many ways controlled by marketing companies and the hypnotic hold they seem to have over us. Through the power of media they relentlessly bombard us, telling us how we should be living our life, what we want to look like, how we should feel, what we need to eat and when we should be rushing out and spending money we haven’t got. These marketing gurus also seem to have the ability to take an everyday mole hill of a decision for us and turn it into a mountain of dilemma.

Take this morning for example. I went out looking to buy some toothpaste and came back needing half an hour in a darkened room and a packet of Panadol. Had I known beforehand that buying a simple tube of toothpaste was going to be such a challenging lesson in choice and decision making, then perhaps I would have left the house a good 15 minutes earlier and taken along a friend for moral support.

On the surface it might seem like a fairly straightforward mission to accomplish.  A matter of reaching out and grabbing the same one I had used that morning, a whole 60 minutes ago. But ‘simple’ is never something that translates easily from theory into practice. Don’t ask me how, but somewhere between the bathroom sink and the shop floor my memory had somehow erased all memories of which one I normally use.

Incidentally I blame this short term memory loss entirely on having children and as a direct result of all the brain cells that have died due to years of lost sleep.

Anyway, as a consequence of my brain blowing a fuse in this manner, I was now faced with what can only be described as a bank of cardboard boxes, and a terrible case of indecisiveness starting to grow. As someone who has trouble choosing between a blueberry muffin and a chocolate muffin without first checking what my husband is having, this didn’t bode well for my walking out of that shop anytime soon.

This may seem like something of a dramatic exaggeration (something I admit we writers are prone to do from time to time), but this time I kid you not. Stretched out from one end of the aisle all the way down to the shower gel there were no less than 24 different types of toothpaste on display, and this by the way, was ONLY in the Colgate section.

I ask you, 24. Is that really necessary?

All I want from my toothpaste is something to make my teeth shiny and bright enough to stop traffic and to give me breathe as fresh as a packet of Polo’s. What I don’t want is to have to stand there trying to narrow down the choice and make an informed decision about something so incredibly mundane.

Of course I know that when it comes to sales it is purely about the figures and making even more money for Mr Colgate. But please, can’t they take pity on those of us who simply don’t have a spare 15 minutes to scan the packets back and forth and wonder whether we need the Colgate Maximum Cavity Protection Blue Minty Gel, the Colgate Advanced Whitening plus Tartar Control, the Colgate Max White or the Colgate Triple Action..

What does ‘triple action’ even mean? Will it swill your mouth out for you and wipe down the wash basin afterward? If it did they should just say so. The stuff would fly off the shelves and into the homes of anyone who has a child who goes to brush their teeth and leaves a rim of dried on toothpaste scum in their wake.

So here’s what I want to know. If toothpaste is a health and hygiene product and something that we should use at least twice a day, then why does the whole industry have to be turned into such a marketing companies dream and a buyers nightmare. Why can’t they just make ONE toothpaste that does the lot. Toothpaste at the end of the day is just toothpaste and I find it very hard to believe that the ingredients in each of the 24 different types that Colgate produces can vary so much as to warrant a different name, packaging and price tag.

This overwhelming choice aside, what no doubt has that Tooth Fairy shaking her head in horror is the effect that some of these toothpaste can have on your teeth.

For years I have been coveting the Hollywood smile and buying anything with ‘Whitening’ on the box. Are my teeth any whiter for it? Of course they aren’t. Instead they are now so sensitive that eating an ice cream on a windy day can be something of a challenge. I am also forced into the ’Sensitive’ toothpaste section, one that funnily enough comes at twice the price for half the tube. If I was that way inclined I’d say there was a definite whiff of a conspiracy to be had here. Much the same as if Benson & Hedges sold you cigarettes for years and then charged you double the price again for a new set of lungs.

Of course I am without a doubt the gullible mug for believing what I read on the packet, especially given what I do for a living. My common sense tells me that the promise of gain always results in some sort of pain. But it does make you wonder how safe on our teeth are these Whitening toothpastes over many years of constant brushing abuse?

Are there cages of guinea pigs stowed away somewhere with perfect smiles, but with teeth too brittle to bite through a sunflower seed?

Amongst the many offerings from Colgate there is even the ever so temptingly titled Baking Soda & Peroxide toothpaste. Can that really be safe? While baking soda is great for clearing out blocked drains and peroxide handy if your highlights are growing out, when it comes to teeth they both sound harsh enough to strip off all the enamel from a 100 paces.

Last year 3 brands of Chinese toothpaste, Tri Leaf Spearmint, Cool Mate and Heibeing were banned when they were found to have contained potentially lethal levels of a toxic chemical called DEG (diethylene glycol). This is an industrial solvent used in paint and anti freeze and can cause kidney and liver damage. Counterfeit Colgate toothpaste also turned up in the US last year, containing the same dangerous chemicals.

It’s enough to make you wonder what other hidden ingredients you are swilling around your mouth. Are we that generation of human guinea pigs so swayed by clever advertising and slick marketing that we are willing to use anything if it sounds to good to be true? And if so, which parts of our bodies will be turning green and dropping off in years to come?

Ho Ho Ho

Christmas came early to sunny Perth today.

Well when I say Christmas, I should probably clarify. After all, it is only July and many of us are still trying to shed the weight gained from the last time we dived head first into the festive trough.

I’m not actually referring to any of the good bits of the most expensive day of the year. There were no presents being opened at 3am, no roast dinners on the go since 7am and no empty mince pies cases scattered across every surface in the house. The dog wasn’t subjected to wearing antlers and there was certainly no flopping in front of the TV while eating an entire box of chocolates – it’s a known fact that unless all Christmas bought confectionery is eaten in one sitting, it will almost certainly be stale by Boxing day.

No. The part of Christmas that crept up and bit me on the credit card today was the mind blowing, hive inducing stress of shopping.

Upon hearing that the Toy Sale of the year had started in Kmart this morning and the store was being stripped of all bargains with every passing minute, I found myself shoe-horning a very unreceptive toddler into his car seat and heading off with my wallet in tow. Now, I like to think I am a fairly organised person. I often start the great ‘stocking filler hunt’ months before and have everything wrapped up and ready to go by November. But buying ‘tree’ presents already? It seems like madness. The fact that I also voluntarily subjected myself to the crowds of manic mothers with prams, and the panic comes with trying to decide what our little angels will be wanting in 6 months time – now that is certifiable.

And the reason why so many people were bulk buying for Santa in July? That would be Layby. A concept that makes you buy and spend far more than you ever intended to. Items are then put to one side, paid off slowly throughout the year and collected in a few days before Christmas. The downside of Layby (as experienced by yours truly this morning) is that by the time you have your 3 tonnes of brightly coloured plastic and the 10 AA batteries that each item inevitably required, the Layby que has stretched all the way back around the store to the entrance.

Having already narrowly missed death, by what can only be described as a stampede of highly strung wildebeast, I was faced with two choices. Wait at least another hour with a strapped in and loudly protesting toddler who, like Hansel, had already left a trail of biscuit crumbs throughout the store. Or, head straight for the empty checkout and pay for the whole lot in one go. So defeating the very point in buying early, using Layby and spreading out the pain of the payment.

Seeing as I am already home and the said toys are now crammed into the shed (later to be somehow hoisted into the loft away from the very prying eyes of a 7 year old) I obviously went for the easy option. My flexible friend may not like me much anymore, but at least I am in the safety of my own home and avoided cultivating another wrinkle.

Layby is without a shadow of a doubt a very clever marketing ploy, used by stores to brainwash parents into buying presents early. But, to be fair, it is also a great way to spread the cost of an otherwise bank account draining time of the year.

But be warned. If you are going to shop on the first day of the sales and make the most of all the great discounts – leave your kids at home, take a stool and pack a picnic.

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