Joanna Nadin

There is something fishy going on in Dorset i.e. my Mum is not at all up to her usual standard of oppressive cleaning / food monitoring. Having just spent four days in close confinement with the Jif-happy one, I can report only one incident of Janet Riley style dictatorship (Me: Hmmm, what shall I have for lunch. Mum: something with plenty of protein. Me: (evil glint in eye) I shall have chips. With nothing.)

Under normal circumstances, my lackadaisical attitude to food groups / vitamins / cross contamination of butter/jam can end in threats / fines / exile or custodial sentences. And attempts to cook for senior members of family are watched at close proximity with hawk-like determination to ensure heating / stirring / chopping methods meet approved standards (as set by Mum in accordance with the Which Guide to Food Hygiene / Good Housekeeping Fascistic Cooking Manual). But managed to make pasta (admittedly with help of Loyd Grossman) without single interruption.

There are only two possible explanations.

1. She is on drugs. Which is impossible. She thinks sherry should be reclassified as Class B along with junior Disprin and Herbal Nytol.
2. She was so stirred by the sight of Dad in his 1970s swimming trunks attempting to surf that she has been overcome with endorphins / stunned into horrified silence.

Whichever. It is very irritating on an inspirational level. She had better get back to her usual banning self soon. I have a novel to write.

Brain hurts. It is vexed by important philosophical question, as asked by Millie. Not usual one to do with death. Or chickens. This one is more complicated. And possibly ickier. It is: What is the point of boys? It is because at age of five Millie has apparently already decided to shun swarthier sex and opt for big gay wedding:

Millie: I am not ever never getting married except to Katherine. We will live with you mummy.

Me: Super. I can hardly wait.

Millie: Because boys is horrid.

Katherine: Boys is coming. Run away from your life.

Millie: Yes because they will hit you like mad.

Katherine: Where is mad?

(Then ensues wedding in the den, involving wearing half of hedge on head and dancing in tutus to the theme from the Mister Men).

All of which is very progressive. Though not the bit where Katherine did a wee during ceremony or demanded that I do “alien sick”. Do not think even the gayest of weddings would welcome that. But, still, surely there is a point to boys. Apart from the obvious. But Millie not keen on having babies either. She says she will adopt an orphan and has already chosen it from the Boden catalogue. It will reside with me, her and Katherine and live on a diet of porridge. Which, frankly, sounds like version of hell. So have told her boys are actually magic. Plus they can open jars. It’s a start.

I tried. I held out for weeks, despite the desperate pleas of my daughter:

MILLIE: Please Mummy, but Hannah and Ava have seen it. And Hannah has completely fallen in love with Choy.

ME: Troy

MILLIE: Yes. Choy. I want to fall in love with Choy.

ME: Troy. You are too young for love.

MILLIE: I am five. I will love Choy.

But eventually, I gave in. It wasn’t the whining. Although that was annoying. It was the memory of my own deprived childhood. Not in the financial sense, but cultural deprivation – the memory of being banned from Dallas and Grease (too American), Eastenders (common), and Coronation Street (Northern and common). And thus spending my playtimes doing hopscotch on my own while Theresa Fraser led the rest of Year 3 in a re-enactment of Sue Ellen drunkedly fighting Pamela, or Rizzo stubbing out her cigarette under her stilettos.

So I did it. I bought High School Musical on DVD. And settled down for two hours of hideousness while Millie cheerled her way around the living room.

But something weird happened. It’s like Pringles – I think they put subliminal drugs in there. Because, once I’d popped, I couldn’t stop. After ten minutes, I was singing along. Then I was crying. Then I was telling Millie to shush because I was missing all the good bits.

Disney got me. And they got me good. I’m going to see HSM3 tomorrow! I’ll take Millie as an excuse. But she’s gone off Choy. She only really wants the pick and mix sweets in the foyer. It’s me who’s looking for the happy ending.

Today have mostly been trying to explain the colossal significance of the 5^th November to a five year old. But the details of bonfire night and the US Presidential Election seem to have got muddled on the way.

Me: Will you stop showing me your pants, this is utterly exciting news.

Millie: Why?

Me: Because America has elected its first ever black President.

Millie: Is he the doll?

Me: What doll?

Millie: The doll that tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament.

Me: You mean Guy Fawkes?

Millie: Yes. The doll.

Me: No. He is a real, and alive, important man.

Millie: Then why is there fireworks?

Me: I give up.

Millie: How far is Afghanistan?

Me: My thoughts precisely

It’s a shame. I wanted her to remember this for the rest of her life. Maybe she will. But I’m pretty sure it will be as the day when she ate too many marshmallows and got her monkey stuck in the washing machine.

Hurrah for Christmas is here, the season of goodwill, mince pies and too much Haribo.  Oh, and little white lies:

Millie: Is Father Christmas real?

Me:             Yes

Millie:            But how can he get round the whole world in one night?

Me:             Magic

Millie: But how can he get in my house?

Me:             The chimney.

Millie: But the chimney is blocked, I have checked.

Me:             Through the cat flap then.

Millie: He is too fat. Does he make himself thin and invisible?

Me:             Yes.

Millie: So he is a ghost then?

Me:             Yes, have another sweet and go and play with your monkey.

But the tables have been turned. Fuelled by sugar, and the lure of Grease on DVD, Millie has cottoned on to the white lie:

Me:            Go back to bed, it is late, and I am watching the news.

Millie:            Why are they singing “wella wella wella uh” on the news?

Me:             Um. It is American news.

Millie: But I can’t sleep. There are too many cars going past.

Me:             We live in the middle of nowhere. There are no cars.

Millie:            It is the wolves also. They are howling.

Me:             That is Tinkerbell. She is not wolf. She is irritating sheepdog. Go to bed.

Millie: But I am stressed.

Me:             You are five, you have no stress.

Millie: I do. I am worried about Father Christmas’s ghost getting stuck in the cat flap.

Maybe it is time for the truth after all. Or maybe next year…

Hurrah, it is that time of year again. Yes – the annual hand-wringing exchange of emails between me and my brother James about what to get our parents for Christmas.

For example:

James: And our father. What shall purchase for him this year? Golf paraphernalia? Or liquorice?

Me: No. I have better idea. A tattoo on his arm with the web address of internet movie database. So that each time he sees someone he recognises on telly, he can look it up in seconds, instead of saying “Oooh, I know that person. What have they been in?” Which is like clarion call to all Nadins within 100-mile radius to then spend hours in agonising thought to remember which advert that bloke on the left in Little Dorrit was once in.

James: Genius. And also a signed certificate to vouch that it does not constitute cheating.

Me: I will forge one immediately. What about Mum? Apparently she wants to ride in balloon.

James: Hmm. But does Which do a guide to Hot Air Balloon trips? Do not want to pick wrong one and risk eye-rolling and lesson in how to shop sensibly. Remember what happened with the toaster.

Me: You are right (shudders). Elizabeth Shaw mints and a nice book?

James: My thoughts exactly. And you, sister?

Me: A fortnight in New York, a film deal and a monkey.

James: Or maybe a Take That album?

Me: Lovely. And for you? A box of Terry’s All Gold, but only the strawberry ones?

James: Ah. Heaven.

If only…

I tried. For literally weeks. Well, alright, days. I said I was absolutely under no circumstances going to sign up to Twitter i.e. sign away yet more swathes of my day when could usefully be writing / making cups of tea / watching Doctors. As it is Myspace and Facebook require constant monitoring to find out what friends are eating / watching / poking each other with.

But then Facebook friend John Prescott (yes it is he, of two Jags, and large hairdoed wife fame) started twittering. And all self control went out of window and within minutes had got account and linked it up to Facebook and started following (aka stalking) random people.

But then noticed no one was stalking me. And am now suffering from troubling flashback to school netball / rounders / swimming / hockey / who gets to sit on non-weirdo lunch table etc, when perpetually got picked last. Is hideous popularity test. Stephen Fry has 50,000 stalkers. So am begging you, in spirit of preventing me having to lie in darkened room to banish painful school memories, to stalk me at http://www.twitter.com/joannanadin

Have known since was 8 that was never ever going to be Darcey Bussell type (nor did Darcey Bussell, given that this was 1978 and do not think she was born yet, but you get drift). Was not through some epiphany of self-awareness. Was through no-nonsense words of mother i.e. “you dance like elephant, Joanna”. Was dream-shattering moment (despite fact that at that point actually wanted to be Velvet Brown and win Grand National dressed as boy). So have been v careful not to shatter dreams of Millie, who has changed her mind from original plan of being either a) astronaut or b) Vanessa Hudgens, and decided she wants to be Olympic swimmer: Millie: mummy what are those people doing Me (glancing up from Grazia long enough to focus on telly): um. Is Olympics. Millie: What is Olympics. Me: Is test of who is best at what sport. Like sports day. But without hula-hoops, beanbags on head or carrying water in hole-ridden buckets. Millie: What is my Olympic. Me: Um… swimming? Millie: Will I be allowed to wear my goggles. I cannot swim underwater without goggles. Me: Yes Millie: And a snorkel? Me: Er… no. They don’t need one. They just come up for air. Millie: No they don’t. Me: Yes they do. Millie: No they don’t. Me: This is like mouse egg conversation all over again. Yes you can wear snorkel. Which will explain, is because Millie panicked that cat would eat Hama bead mistaking it for mouse egg. Said mice do not come from eggs. Millie said do mice come from sea? Said no do not. Millie said come from eggs then. I said no do not. Millie said yes do etc etc until sex education conversation had to be resurrected for about tenth time in as many months. Which is why am not going to tell truth i.e. that potential as Olympian only really possible if Junior Scrabble becomes official sport, and they allow cheating. Because somehow, no matter what subject is, I will have to end up explaining YET AGAIN that Millie, like mice, did not hatch self out of giant egg. Which frankly, is kind of nice thought. Like being Rebecca Adlington. Or Darcey Bussell.

As any fule kno, am obsessed with teen movies. Mostly because I write teen books, which are all begging to have movies made of them, if only to keep Millie in Hannah Montana DVDs, and also because my own teenhood was more an episode of The Inbetweeners.Which explains why I have spent the afternoon laughing and crying, and trying to look vaguely less than 40, at Easy A (kind of a remake of The Scarlet Letter, which I am not even going to begin to explain, but like Olive Penderghast says, watch the original movie, not the Demi Moore remake), which in an inspired scene (and one that coulda woulda shoulda been writ by me) has Olive regretting that John Hughes is not directing her high school life, only to see her get her random musical number, and Penn Badgeley paying homage to Lloyd Dobler and The Breakfast Club with a Simple Minds outside the bedroom window on the stereo moment.

Which, if you haven’t understood any of this, means you definitely need to immediately view the following, i.e. the Top Eleven Best Ever High School (not “college”, because that would include The Sure Thing, and not “teen” because that would include Back to the Future, Juno and Dirty Dancing) Movies of All Time™, in no particular order:

1.     The Breakfast Club (because everyone should know how to put lipstick on using only their breasts, and make a dandruff picture)

2.     Mean Girls (Li-Lo before she got skanky, weather-predicting nipples, and a script by the genius that is Tina Fey)

3.     Saved (Macauley Culkin in a wheelchair, what’s not to like?)

4.     Easy A (see above)

5.     Clueless (short dumpy curly-headed geek (I like to think me, but actually Brittany Murphy before the diet, surgery, bleach and prescription medication) gets makeover in remake of Emma.

6.     Say Anything (to know Lloyd Dobler is to love him, and that’s not just me saying that, that’s the tagline)

7.     Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (not technically high school as they have bunked off, but I think it’s allowed)

8.     10 Things I Hate About You (Heath Ledger, I have never hearted you more than when you are dancing down the bleachers singing ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You’)

9.     Grosse Pointe Blank (technically a high school reunion, but allowed due to presence of John Cusack)

10. Election (politics, high school, and Ferris Bueller in one script. It’s like they wrote it ust for little me).

11. Heathers (What’s your damage?)

Seriously. Go rent. Or buy. Or pop round and borrow.