A vicar in the town where I live has caused huge upset and landed himself in the national press for bowling into a primary school and announcing to the startled, and subsequently very upset, kids that Father Christmas doesn't exist.
What on earth possessed the man?! I bet he's keeping his head down and staying firmly out of sight in the vicarage right now. It appears the teachers had no idea of what he intended to say and are as miffed as the parents.
I've long had a detached relationship with the church and it's episodes such as this that further confirm that detachment. I appreciate it must get right up the clergy's nose that Christmas has become, for the vast majority, a consumer frenzy with the focus on the presents under the tree, drinking way too much and eating so much that it's hard to get into anything not involving strong elastic in January.
This offending vicar probably only meant to try to emphasise to the children the real meaning of Christmas in his eyes but handled it badly and ended up with a PR nightmare at his church steps. Bet there'll be even fewer bums on the pews in his parish this Christmas morning.
Christmas is different things to different people. To my religious friends, it's the birth of Christ. To me it's a winter festival. To little kids, it's about anticipation, excitement and presents. It's a magical time and each family creates their own traditions, ways of celebrating and memories that are precious to them.
Little kids have plenty of time to decide if they want to believe in God or not. Surely the magical story of Father Christmas can sit comfortably alongside the story of Jesus's birth?
It's such a short time that parents have to see the wonder and magic of Christmas in their children's eyes before they work out the truth. I can still remember clearly the horrible moment when I found out that Father Christmas was in fact my slightly sozzled dad, when a friend and I managed to stay awake late and heard our dads come stumbling and giggling into our room to fill our stockings.
I know, as a parent, I wanted to prolong the magic of the sheer possibility of Father Christmas, his reindeer and the elves for as long as possible when my boys were young. I loved everything about the Christmas traditions we created as a family, the sending of the letters up the chimney to Father Christmas, the whisky and mince pies left on the hearth on Christmas Eve, the sooty footprints that he left after his visit that they found on Christmas morning.
It's only this year, when they are 18 and 12, that we've agreed finally to move the stockings from their rooms to the sitting room as setting my alarm for 3am to ensure they were asleep before I crept in, as I've done the last few years, was, even to this Christmas addict, somewhat mad.
I have no problem with Christians putting Jesus at the centre of Christmas even though he's not at the centre of mine. I went along with the whole Nativity story when my boys were little even though I don't for a minute buy into the baby in a manger story, but I respect those who do. I wanted my boys to be exposed to all the traditions and stories of Christmas.
The Church of England wonders why it is having a hard time reaching people nowadays. Episodes like this bumbling vicar should give them a clue.
Merry Christmas!
Friday 13 December 2013
Monday 10 June 2013
Being 50.
I've been 50 now for five days. This is what I've learned....
1. Intensive skin rejuvenating wrinkle defying face serum is a great present.
2. Wear high heels all night at your 50th party and your knees will pay you back by giving you terrible gyp the next day.
3. Despite having notched up a half century, go out with your mother and she'll ask if you have your bag/coat/keys. Could be worse, she could still be asking if you're wearing clean knickers and if you need a wee before you leave, she only stopped doing that when you were about 32.
4. You are now Madam, never to be Miss or Madamoiselle again.
5. 'Suck it all in' bodies do work but unpop them without concentrating at 2.45am at the end of your party and, before you know it, they roll up tight under your armpits and you're stuck fast. It'll take a considerable length of time and several helpers to get you out. I know, I learned the hard way.
6. Your email spam is suddenly full of Saga holidays, facelift offers, ads for star lifts and Viagra and invitations to train to become a gas engineer.
7. Be forgetful, lose something or just be a little bit eccentric and your sons will say 'It's because you're old now Mum'.
8. Keeping the boobs upright will require a bra that costs the equivalent of the GDP of a small country.
9. 10.30pm is a late night.
10. Buy an expensive new perfume and everyone says 'oh I loved you in Chloe, it was your smell.' Put the expensive new perfume in a drawer and go back to Chloe.
11. If you wake up and feel the need to see the sea, go.
12. If someone buys you great jewellery, hang on to them, tightly!
1. Intensive skin rejuvenating wrinkle defying face serum is a great present.
2. Wear high heels all night at your 50th party and your knees will pay you back by giving you terrible gyp the next day.
3. Despite having notched up a half century, go out with your mother and she'll ask if you have your bag/coat/keys. Could be worse, she could still be asking if you're wearing clean knickers and if you need a wee before you leave, she only stopped doing that when you were about 32.
4. You are now Madam, never to be Miss or Madamoiselle again.
5. 'Suck it all in' bodies do work but unpop them without concentrating at 2.45am at the end of your party and, before you know it, they roll up tight under your armpits and you're stuck fast. It'll take a considerable length of time and several helpers to get you out. I know, I learned the hard way.
6. Your email spam is suddenly full of Saga holidays, facelift offers, ads for star lifts and Viagra and invitations to train to become a gas engineer.
7. Be forgetful, lose something or just be a little bit eccentric and your sons will say 'It's because you're old now Mum'.
8. Keeping the boobs upright will require a bra that costs the equivalent of the GDP of a small country.
9. 10.30pm is a late night.
10. Buy an expensive new perfume and everyone says 'oh I loved you in Chloe, it was your smell.' Put the expensive new perfume in a drawer and go back to Chloe.
11. If you wake up and feel the need to see the sea, go.
12. If someone buys you great jewellery, hang on to them, tightly!
Monday 20 May 2013
Talking sex.
The 12-year-old looked up from his book and asked 'what's a dyke?' 'It's a barrier to stop the sea flooding the land', I said. He looked puzzled. Ah. 'It's also slang for a lesbian,' I went on. 'Oh, that makes more sense,' he said, and went back to his book.
Now that's a conversation I would never have had with my parents aged 12 or even 22, come to think of it. It seems not only have books changed since my day but so have our relationships with our kids. My parents never did the birds and bees talk, I found out all I needed to know from behind the bike shed at school, from friends, the problem page of Jackie magazine and sneaky reads, under the bed covers at night with a torch, of my dad's Dennis Wheatley books.
Sex just wasn't discussed. My mum would go bright red and start stammering if even the most oblique reference came up and Dad was in a world of his own and, presumably, felt that having daughters rather than sons made 'all that business' Mum's domaine.
Once puberty kicked in Mum went on high alert. One lunchtime when I was at Sixth Form college, she came home early to find me and my best friend and a male friend eating sandwiches. 'What on earth is going on here?,' she shrieked. 'Er, we're having lunch,' I said. Clearly she suspected we were planning a threesome after we'd finished our cheese and pickle and Cokes.
After I'd left home we went on holiday and my younger sister was allowed to bring her boyfriend. Mum hauled me to one side and hissed 'keep an eye on them, they can't be left on their own for one minute in case they, well you know.' I did know.
Such was the atmosphere of embarrassment about sex in our house that I can still clearly remember going hot and cold while watching Ryan's Daughter with my dad. As Sarah Miles got down to it with Robert Mitchum, I leapt out of my chair, announced loudly 'think I'll make a cup of tea, anyone want one?' and disappeared into the kitchen at warp speed. I was probably about 17 at the time.
Contrast that to just a few nights ago when my 18-year-old son wandered in to the sitting room as a girlfriend and I were watching Hope Springs. He happened to appear just at the moment when Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones were trying to get down and dirty but realising nothing was going on downstairs for poor Tommy. 'Oh blimey, he can't get it up', says the son and we all laughed.
I'm relieved and kind of chuffed that somehow, I'm not sure how, I'm just not embarrassed to talk about sex and answer any questions my kids have. They know gay men and women and don't think twice about it. I'm proud they're enlightened and non-judgemental.
How times have changed. Well, kind of. The husband of a friend of mine was delegated to have the facts of life talk with his son. He kept putting it off until my friend ordered him to get it over and done with. The poor man waited until it was dark, took his son out to the car on the drive, sat him in the back, then climbed in the front seat and kept staring straight ahead while he did the deed. He'd have got on well with my mum.
Now that's a conversation I would never have had with my parents aged 12 or even 22, come to think of it. It seems not only have books changed since my day but so have our relationships with our kids. My parents never did the birds and bees talk, I found out all I needed to know from behind the bike shed at school, from friends, the problem page of Jackie magazine and sneaky reads, under the bed covers at night with a torch, of my dad's Dennis Wheatley books.
Sex just wasn't discussed. My mum would go bright red and start stammering if even the most oblique reference came up and Dad was in a world of his own and, presumably, felt that having daughters rather than sons made 'all that business' Mum's domaine.
Once puberty kicked in Mum went on high alert. One lunchtime when I was at Sixth Form college, she came home early to find me and my best friend and a male friend eating sandwiches. 'What on earth is going on here?,' she shrieked. 'Er, we're having lunch,' I said. Clearly she suspected we were planning a threesome after we'd finished our cheese and pickle and Cokes.
After I'd left home we went on holiday and my younger sister was allowed to bring her boyfriend. Mum hauled me to one side and hissed 'keep an eye on them, they can't be left on their own for one minute in case they, well you know.' I did know.
Such was the atmosphere of embarrassment about sex in our house that I can still clearly remember going hot and cold while watching Ryan's Daughter with my dad. As Sarah Miles got down to it with Robert Mitchum, I leapt out of my chair, announced loudly 'think I'll make a cup of tea, anyone want one?' and disappeared into the kitchen at warp speed. I was probably about 17 at the time.
Contrast that to just a few nights ago when my 18-year-old son wandered in to the sitting room as a girlfriend and I were watching Hope Springs. He happened to appear just at the moment when Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones were trying to get down and dirty but realising nothing was going on downstairs for poor Tommy. 'Oh blimey, he can't get it up', says the son and we all laughed.
I'm relieved and kind of chuffed that somehow, I'm not sure how, I'm just not embarrassed to talk about sex and answer any questions my kids have. They know gay men and women and don't think twice about it. I'm proud they're enlightened and non-judgemental.
How times have changed. Well, kind of. The husband of a friend of mine was delegated to have the facts of life talk with his son. He kept putting it off until my friend ordered him to get it over and done with. The poor man waited until it was dark, took his son out to the car on the drive, sat him in the back, then climbed in the front seat and kept staring straight ahead while he did the deed. He'd have got on well with my mum.
Friday 3 May 2013
A vision of loveliness....er.....
Is there anyone who looks good in glasses? Apart from the dentist, flying and smear tests, there is little I like less than choosing new specs.
I have worn contact lenses since a beady eyed secondary school teacher spotted that not only could I not read the words on the white board, I was having trouble locating the white board at all. My parents endeavoured to persuade me that NHS frames (ie: the cheap ones) made me look absolutely gorgeous, a vision in, usually, bilious pink plastic. I may have been young but I was on to them and I put my foot down and refused point blank to wear glasses.
In those days wearing contact lenses was like putting a piece of Tupperware in your eyes, they were so thick, but I persevered, there was no way on earth I was wearing the Joe 90 specs.
My dislike of specs remains to this day but my eyesight is now so bad that I've had to succumb to reading glasses and a second pair for my shortsightedness, so I can find my way from the bed to my contact lenses each morning. Without specs or contact lenses my world is like an Impressionist painting.
Every year or so I'm summoned by my optician for a check up. There's no getting out of it, they're a canny bunch, cancel and they sweetly but adamantly point out they won't be sending my monthly batch of contact lenses until I turn up.
I have no problem with the optician's check up, I quite like being made to jump by that little puff of air as they check my eye pressure, there's no horrible drilling and you get to keep your clothes on.
The bit I really can't abide is choosing new frames. Why is it that in a shop surrounded by several hundred frames, there is not one that doesn't make me look like Dame Edna Everage or my grandma?
I love the way the specs industry has tried to jazz things up and have us believe that glasses are fashionable, hip and cool. Dotted around are posters of fetching women and hot men gazing into the mid distance looking alluring in a pair of specs. Gok Wan has even got in on the act and his range sits alongside the likes of Missoni, Red or Dead, Hilfiger, Karen Millen and RayBan. It makes no difference, £25 or £175, they all make me look like Hank Marvin on a bad day. There is nothing remotely sexy or come hither about me in specs.
Last time I got so fed up and huffy that when finally I found a pair that I could just about bear, I bought identical frames for both my distance and reading glasses and then spent the next two years muddling them up and wondering why my world was constantly fuzzy.
Every year I have that little glimmer of optimism that, maybe just maybe, when I collect my new specs I'll put them on and think 'wow, I look good in these', but in 10 days or so's time I know the reality will be, I'll pick them up, hand over a small fortune, put them on and think 'yep, Su Pollard.'
I have worn contact lenses since a beady eyed secondary school teacher spotted that not only could I not read the words on the white board, I was having trouble locating the white board at all. My parents endeavoured to persuade me that NHS frames (ie: the cheap ones) made me look absolutely gorgeous, a vision in, usually, bilious pink plastic. I may have been young but I was on to them and I put my foot down and refused point blank to wear glasses.
In those days wearing contact lenses was like putting a piece of Tupperware in your eyes, they were so thick, but I persevered, there was no way on earth I was wearing the Joe 90 specs.
My dislike of specs remains to this day but my eyesight is now so bad that I've had to succumb to reading glasses and a second pair for my shortsightedness, so I can find my way from the bed to my contact lenses each morning. Without specs or contact lenses my world is like an Impressionist painting.
Every year or so I'm summoned by my optician for a check up. There's no getting out of it, they're a canny bunch, cancel and they sweetly but adamantly point out they won't be sending my monthly batch of contact lenses until I turn up.
I have no problem with the optician's check up, I quite like being made to jump by that little puff of air as they check my eye pressure, there's no horrible drilling and you get to keep your clothes on.
The bit I really can't abide is choosing new frames. Why is it that in a shop surrounded by several hundred frames, there is not one that doesn't make me look like Dame Edna Everage or my grandma?
I love the way the specs industry has tried to jazz things up and have us believe that glasses are fashionable, hip and cool. Dotted around are posters of fetching women and hot men gazing into the mid distance looking alluring in a pair of specs. Gok Wan has even got in on the act and his range sits alongside the likes of Missoni, Red or Dead, Hilfiger, Karen Millen and RayBan. It makes no difference, £25 or £175, they all make me look like Hank Marvin on a bad day. There is nothing remotely sexy or come hither about me in specs.
Last time I got so fed up and huffy that when finally I found a pair that I could just about bear, I bought identical frames for both my distance and reading glasses and then spent the next two years muddling them up and wondering why my world was constantly fuzzy.
Every year I have that little glimmer of optimism that, maybe just maybe, when I collect my new specs I'll put them on and think 'wow, I look good in these', but in 10 days or so's time I know the reality will be, I'll pick them up, hand over a small fortune, put them on and think 'yep, Su Pollard.'
Wednesday 24 April 2013
Just too blooming smart.
I've been a BlackBerry girl for virtually as long as I've had a mobile phone. There's something comforting for a technically challenged person like myself to know your way around the workings of these increasingly complicated Smartphones. As a touch typist, the Qwerty keyboard is like an old friend.
Recently I decided it was time to get another phone for private use and to keep my BlackBerry for work, so, in a moment of frivolity, I decided to ring the changes and dive into the previously unexplored world of the iPhone. Well, the iPhone 5 is, indeed, a nifty piece of kit and has many whizzy features that I will never understand, let alone use.
I'm one of those customers who has assistants in the phone shops rolling their eyes and mouthing 'nightmare, hasn't a clue' at each other. Maybe not as bad as a friend who, in complete innocence, asked an Apple assistant or guru or whatever they're called, if you could make phone calls on an iPad, but almost.
I text, I phone, I email, go on the Internet and occasionally take pictures with my phone. I don't play games, have no interest in apps (first time I heard incorrectly and thought they'd said abs), will never use it to play music, find my way anywhere, look at the stars, or do any of the myriad of other clever things that Apple has come up with.
The touchscreen keypad has been the biggest hurdle between me and my iPhone becoming great friends quickly. It has nearly driven me mad. I've been used to my BlackBerry being cooperative and accommodating and recording the exact word I type on a text or email. Oh no, that's not the way the iPhone 5 likes to operate. It has a mind of its own.
Yesterday I emailed a shopping list and it decided I couldn't possibly want unsalted cashew nuts so it did its own thing, overruled me and declared that I'd like some 'insulted cashews' please. Huffy nuts, what a great thought.
Then the other day it helpfully informed a friend that I was doing us 'grizzled salmon' for dinner. Clearly it's seen my cooking.
My friends are now used to having to interpret my messages and those who have iPhones themselves are past masters, having been through the same thing with theirs. A text conversation with an iPhone owning friend can be challenging to say the least. 'Did she really mean she's got the bird? Oh, got it, she's bored!'
A friend who is an iPhone veteran has told me that mine will, apparently, get to know me over time and work out what I'm going to say so it can predict my words accurately. That I find rather disconcerting. It's clearly not that good at it yet.
Recently I decided it was time to get another phone for private use and to keep my BlackBerry for work, so, in a moment of frivolity, I decided to ring the changes and dive into the previously unexplored world of the iPhone. Well, the iPhone 5 is, indeed, a nifty piece of kit and has many whizzy features that I will never understand, let alone use.
I'm one of those customers who has assistants in the phone shops rolling their eyes and mouthing 'nightmare, hasn't a clue' at each other. Maybe not as bad as a friend who, in complete innocence, asked an Apple assistant or guru or whatever they're called, if you could make phone calls on an iPad, but almost.
I text, I phone, I email, go on the Internet and occasionally take pictures with my phone. I don't play games, have no interest in apps (first time I heard incorrectly and thought they'd said abs), will never use it to play music, find my way anywhere, look at the stars, or do any of the myriad of other clever things that Apple has come up with.
The touchscreen keypad has been the biggest hurdle between me and my iPhone becoming great friends quickly. It has nearly driven me mad. I've been used to my BlackBerry being cooperative and accommodating and recording the exact word I type on a text or email. Oh no, that's not the way the iPhone 5 likes to operate. It has a mind of its own.
Yesterday I emailed a shopping list and it decided I couldn't possibly want unsalted cashew nuts so it did its own thing, overruled me and declared that I'd like some 'insulted cashews' please. Huffy nuts, what a great thought.
Then the other day it helpfully informed a friend that I was doing us 'grizzled salmon' for dinner. Clearly it's seen my cooking.
My friends are now used to having to interpret my messages and those who have iPhones themselves are past masters, having been through the same thing with theirs. A text conversation with an iPhone owning friend can be challenging to say the least. 'Did she really mean she's got the bird? Oh, got it, she's bored!'
A friend who is an iPhone veteran has told me that mine will, apparently, get to know me over time and work out what I'm going to say so it can predict my words accurately. That I find rather disconcerting. It's clearly not that good at it yet.
Saturday 13 April 2013
A politics free zone
Politics has been everywhere this week following the demise of Britain's first woman Prime Minister. Tomorrow my in laws are coming for lunch. Between now and their arrival a sign will be going up on the door announcing that this house is a Thatcher free zone.
I have never seen the point of debating politics, after all my humanitarian, leftie leaning arguments are hardly likely to have a die-hard Tory suddenly having an eureka moment and declaring 'golly, you're right' are they?
The trouble is my father-in-law, lovely man though he is, doesn't work by the same rules. He loves nothing more than to bang on about politics and will argue black is white if it's the opposite of the view everyone else around the table is espousing. When my father was alive I would stand well back and watch them, one the son of a Socialist who believed vehemently in unions and didn't have much time for management, the other a self made man, a member of the management class and believer in free markets with not much time for the welfare state or NHS. It's amazing they never came to blows.
I'm a political being and have firmly held beliefs and principles but, as far as I'm concerned, they're my business and no-one else's. I don't hide them but I don't need to impose them on anyone else either. I grew up under Thatcher. My views about her and those of my father in law are as wide apart as the Grand Canyon. I've interviewed a few politicians in my days as a journalist and have concluded, generally, they tend to be much of a muchness. The best I can say about David Cameron, our current incumbent, is he has lively hair.
We're just back from a couple of weeks in America visiting North and South Carolina and New York. The United States is a fine place with many lovely, friendly people but I've found, it's best to steer clear of politics and religion especially when you're in the South.
I reminded the husband of this before we left the UK and pleaded with him, for the sake of a relaxed, pleasant holiday, not to come out with anything inflammatory. He got distinctly huffy at the very possibility.
Eight hours and two flights after leaving the UK we arrived in Charlotte, North Carolina, on a beautiful, sunny afternoon. The sons and I sat with the luggage in the Avis car rental office while the husband did the paperwork. Our accents were much admired, the wonderfully friendly staff took the boys to have their photos taken sitting in a whizzy Mustang, the atmosphere couldn't have been friendlier, until the assistant commented on the husband being left handed as he signed the rental agreement.
'The same as your President, I'm in good company then,' I heard him utter chirpily. Oh great.
The temperature dropped several degrees, the previously effusive assistant turned distinctly chilly and snapped in her Southern drawl, 'I'm no supporter of his, I'm a Ronald Reagan girl' and the bonhomie was long gone. Fabulous, we're not even out of the airport and he's done it. Sigh.
It didn't even come as a surprise when, suddenly, our pre-paid all inclusive voucher now was mysteriously £350 short and when, a few days later, the supposedly top of the range executive Chrysler 300 developed a burning smell and all the electrics packed up.
See, steer well clear of politics and religion.
I have never seen the point of debating politics, after all my humanitarian, leftie leaning arguments are hardly likely to have a die-hard Tory suddenly having an eureka moment and declaring 'golly, you're right' are they?
The trouble is my father-in-law, lovely man though he is, doesn't work by the same rules. He loves nothing more than to bang on about politics and will argue black is white if it's the opposite of the view everyone else around the table is espousing. When my father was alive I would stand well back and watch them, one the son of a Socialist who believed vehemently in unions and didn't have much time for management, the other a self made man, a member of the management class and believer in free markets with not much time for the welfare state or NHS. It's amazing they never came to blows.
I'm a political being and have firmly held beliefs and principles but, as far as I'm concerned, they're my business and no-one else's. I don't hide them but I don't need to impose them on anyone else either. I grew up under Thatcher. My views about her and those of my father in law are as wide apart as the Grand Canyon. I've interviewed a few politicians in my days as a journalist and have concluded, generally, they tend to be much of a muchness. The best I can say about David Cameron, our current incumbent, is he has lively hair.
We're just back from a couple of weeks in America visiting North and South Carolina and New York. The United States is a fine place with many lovely, friendly people but I've found, it's best to steer clear of politics and religion especially when you're in the South.
I reminded the husband of this before we left the UK and pleaded with him, for the sake of a relaxed, pleasant holiday, not to come out with anything inflammatory. He got distinctly huffy at the very possibility.
Eight hours and two flights after leaving the UK we arrived in Charlotte, North Carolina, on a beautiful, sunny afternoon. The sons and I sat with the luggage in the Avis car rental office while the husband did the paperwork. Our accents were much admired, the wonderfully friendly staff took the boys to have their photos taken sitting in a whizzy Mustang, the atmosphere couldn't have been friendlier, until the assistant commented on the husband being left handed as he signed the rental agreement.
'The same as your President, I'm in good company then,' I heard him utter chirpily. Oh great.
The temperature dropped several degrees, the previously effusive assistant turned distinctly chilly and snapped in her Southern drawl, 'I'm no supporter of his, I'm a Ronald Reagan girl' and the bonhomie was long gone. Fabulous, we're not even out of the airport and he's done it. Sigh.
It didn't even come as a surprise when, suddenly, our pre-paid all inclusive voucher now was mysteriously £350 short and when, a few days later, the supposedly top of the range executive Chrysler 300 developed a burning smell and all the electrics packed up.
See, steer well clear of politics and religion.
Friday 9 November 2012
Onesie? Oh dear god.
Sometimes I have the distinct feeling that I go to sleep and something extremely bizarre happens while I'm out for the count.
This has happened again. I went to bed and sensible, fashion conscious and stylish women were kipping down for the night in sexy satin nighties, cosy cotton PJs and classy nightshirts. I woke up to discover the hideousness that is the onesie is now being touted as nightwear for grown women. What?!
And here it is, the ghastly onesie. Who on earth over the age of five would want to be seen in something like this? If you happen to be slim and petite you're going to look like an overgrown toddler and if you've got curves, hey, it's the instant Teletubby look. Lovely. In my book the only people who look cute and adorable in romper suits are babies. Young teenage girls might just be able to get away with them in the privacy of their own home and look sweet and Tiggerish but anyone else, no way.
Not only are they supremely unflattering, they're also totally impractical for any woman who's starting to wish she'd paid more attention to those pelvic floor exercises. All those buttons, just what you need when you're dashing to the loo.
There's something disquieting about the onesie too. Perhaps it's just me, but I've always found those nightshirts with cutesie teddy bear motifs on the front unsettling and the onesie falls into the same category - why would a grown woman want to wear something that's more suited to an eight-year-old girl? We're not little girls, we're women.
And sexy? Hardly. I can't believe there are many men out there who'd get all hot under the collar at the sight of their beloved in one of these. They'd be more likely to fall about laughing, I reckon. Can you imagine the logistics of getting out of a onesie too? It'd be like peeling a banana.
I'll probably be told the onesie is ironic fashion. Well, I'm all for irony and black humour but the onesie is a fashion horror too far for me. I'm sticking to my safe satin nighties and PJs.
This has happened again. I went to bed and sensible, fashion conscious and stylish women were kipping down for the night in sexy satin nighties, cosy cotton PJs and classy nightshirts. I woke up to discover the hideousness that is the onesie is now being touted as nightwear for grown women. What?!
And here it is, the ghastly onesie. Who on earth over the age of five would want to be seen in something like this? If you happen to be slim and petite you're going to look like an overgrown toddler and if you've got curves, hey, it's the instant Teletubby look. Lovely. In my book the only people who look cute and adorable in romper suits are babies. Young teenage girls might just be able to get away with them in the privacy of their own home and look sweet and Tiggerish but anyone else, no way.
Not only are they supremely unflattering, they're also totally impractical for any woman who's starting to wish she'd paid more attention to those pelvic floor exercises. All those buttons, just what you need when you're dashing to the loo.
There's something disquieting about the onesie too. Perhaps it's just me, but I've always found those nightshirts with cutesie teddy bear motifs on the front unsettling and the onesie falls into the same category - why would a grown woman want to wear something that's more suited to an eight-year-old girl? We're not little girls, we're women.
And sexy? Hardly. I can't believe there are many men out there who'd get all hot under the collar at the sight of their beloved in one of these. They'd be more likely to fall about laughing, I reckon. Can you imagine the logistics of getting out of a onesie too? It'd be like peeling a banana.
I'll probably be told the onesie is ironic fashion. Well, I'm all for irony and black humour but the onesie is a fashion horror too far for me. I'm sticking to my safe satin nighties and PJs.
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