Women and Pots! Why didn't someone think of it sooner?

Look out for my article in KnockBack magazine!

From Pots to Pot and then back to Pots Again

From Pots to Pot and then back to Pots Again, my third historical endeavour after Persephone: The Musings of a Woman in Perpetual Despair, which won the Britney Spears prize for Creative Writing, and of course my seminal debut, The Suffragettes- Why?, is soon due for publication and I am so excited! Just as I was suffering under the burden of my annualistic offering being delayed I suddenly pulled myself together and said:

"Posie wake up! You need to finish that three thousand page historical pamphlet charting the feminist movement from the the ancient civilization of Ur through to the present day using the medium of pots!"

Of course publishers, labouring under that putred beast we call commercialism, weren't interested in the manuscript, but luckily I have enough money to print 700 copies just for me and my close friends. It's really rather facinating and I have sent an extract to the sublime Knockback magazine.
People often say to me, “Women and Pots? Wow. How could you take on such a grand endeavour?"
Well I tell you now, it wasn’t easy. Being a lady Feminist really does take its toll. Not only do I have to take the occasional call from my bank manager informing me that my notoriously large trust fund has once again trebled in size, but I am often forced to sit around the house all day doing absolutely nothing except trying on all my dresses and then not going out in them, before once again settling down to save womankind using nothing but a a bottle of Martini Rosso and an overactive imagination.

So look out for my latest work and if you would like a free copy just email me! Toodles! xx

Women: inherently irrational?

Halt, lady readers, don't book your hostels in Cambridge just yet, as the Valentines launch has been postponed. This time, it's not because I tried to kill myself, but due to publishing technicalities. I'm not bitter, but I do wish I had a bloody boyfriend. Oh the world of a lady writer! Speaking of Lady Writers, in 1925, Scottish Lady writer Willa Muir penned Women, An Enquiry, in which she frustratingly linked the Freudian unconscious with the female gender, and the rational, decisive consciousness with, you guessed it, men. Now, far be it from me to support gender essentialism: I've met plenty of Transfolk and I tell you, it's definitely not as simple as all that. Some mornings I don't feel anything like putting on a bra, and my formidable skills at Scrabble alert me to the fact that frequently I am able to be perfectly rational and on top of things, unlike poor Willa Muir who thought that women were given an important 'creative outlet' in motherhood to match all the fun inventions and science the boys got to do. Silly bitch. The irrational, spontaneous and emotional outbursts of the unconscious/women could, Muir claimed, be channelled creatively and supply society with valuable growth, vitality and humanism, something which starchy men, trapped in their mechanical functionalism, were unable to supply for themselves (for some reason).

Generally, I disapprove, but when it comes to publishing schedules, perhaps Muir was right about women's inherent inability to meet deadlines. Now, one publication which definitely did get off the ground successful was Issue 2 of the Cambridge Literary Review which launched last night in (you'll win a pair of my knickers if you guess it successfully ...) yes that's right, Cambridge! I was trapped in familial pow-wows last night with Aunt Lily over what to do with vast chunks of the family 'fund' which were invested somewhere truly ghastly which might not exist anymore (further proof of our gendered inability to cope with masculine rational constructions, I'll thank you Helene Cixous). The outcome of this was that I missed the launch, which promised to be a good one, with readings from tender Valkyrie Marianne Morris and Tony Robinson from Time Team! I was very glad to have a poem I composed in honour of fleur du mal, Tom Chivers included, and to be able to represent the gritty London scene in the formidable, ivory cloisters of Cambridge, like a female Jude the Obscure, although of course I still use my cantab.net address occasionally.

Do please check it out. Finally, many apologies to those who turned out to see me at the Edinburgh Student Fringe Festival's feminist poetry event, Shout Out! on the 18th Jan, where I had intended to read. After walking around an intimidating student union, full of 'young people' and scores of the sort of idiotic girls who are produced like Sea Monkeys every time a new 'mega-trend' takes off, this time wearing fake fur jackets and palpable Topshop irono-novelty brogues, I chanced upon a sign which made me realise the reading had in fact taken place the day before. Proof, if proof is necessary in your gendered framework of fixed texts and unambiguous language, that women are subject to what Julia Kristeva calls feminine time, which is circular, reproductive, and eternal, in contrast to masculinity's linear, teleological time and its association with culturally valued 'progress'. I contend that if the poetry reading had been feminist, it would still be going on now.

Finis

(or is it? another feminist question)

A Year off the Ward: a Posie Rider work in progress...

The mind is a complex organ, and try as they might, clinical psychiatrists have yet to concoct the correct combination of suppressants, stimulants, narcotics and anti-hallucinogenics to remedy its many, many disturbances. Sound like you? Then you're just like me, and will love my new book!

A Year off the Ward, soon to be published with WPR Books, charts a year in which I attempted not to get sectioned under the Mental Health Act, or because I was stalking someone. My loyal readers will be glad to know my valiant attempts to stay ostensibly sane are finally being bundled into a collectible tome, and they will have been with me throughout the journey via my blog, a garbage heap of the mind like no other. Anyone remember September 2008-August 2009? Let me jog your memory in my book!

And, if you happen to be in Cambridge on the 14th February, you can come along to the launch. It's at Heffers! More details to be announced as I'm currently in frenzied chats with my publishers to ensure the book is in tip top condition, and that I make sure its in proper sentences before I commit it to PDF.

Find below a sneak preview to wet your dripping appetite! It follows the first few weeks of January 2009, when I tried to overcome my mental disturbances by improving my body image through strategic anorexia, and learnt some important lessons about feminism on the way.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

January

“Taught from infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind

shapes itself to the body, and roaming around its gilt cage, seeks

only to adorn its prison.”

Mary Wollstonecraft

I returned to N1 full of Christmas cheer. A fortnight in Aunt Lily's cottage had reminded me of a kind of happiness I had forgotten long ago, weighed down by the perils of modernity and psychosis. I dread sentimentalising the domestic, but there is something so comforting about spending one's days on brisk Hampshire walks and one's evenings roasting Ladurée mincemeat macaroons over an open fire while Aunt Lily microwaves yet another Marks and Spencer Turkey Crown with extra stuffing. Hitherto, I had thought of kitchens as essentially vulgar things which are best buried in the depths of a copious town house and populated with willing staff able to whisk up a chickpea bake and send it flying up a dumb-waiter at the ring of a midnight bell.

Now, however, I found myself craving the aesthetic qualities of the Arga as much as I once yearned for the Georgia O'Keefe printed screen that currently shields the entrance to my modest cuisine from prying eyes. A great change had come upon me. I went online and started a twelve month subscription to Country Living. I packed away my more outrageous (and blood splattered) wall decoration in favour of distressed pine and vintage cross-stitch baby primers from Islington antiques market. I bought holly and mistletoe and put them in a blue chipped enamel watering can and soaked my white Habitat sofa in tea to make it looked antique, like I did as a child in a school project on the Magna Carta and, most troublingly, I started baking.

It all started with Christmas Gingerbread Partridges, a kind of crisp cookie made with a hand-crafted copper cookie cutter and decorated with delicate icing designs. It was another one of Aunt Lily's great ideas, like taking mescaline at my parent's funeral. The partridges were intended to be tree or package ornaments, or decorative gifts for friends I'd missed over the holiday period. Having no friends as such (except Lara, who's a bit too grown up for that sort of thing, and Melody, who's afraid of pigeons, which are a bit like partridges) and no tree, as I had no burly boyfriend to bring it in, and am not a post-feminist after all, I found myself at a loss as to what to do with all the things. They were so, so hard (like rocks), so I didn't dare attempt to eat them. At first. Soon I had discovered that, if soaked in tea, coffee or any hot liquid, they eventually softened to an edible consistency. At 5.0g of fat per partridge, and with little to do between New Year and Pancake Day, it wasn't long before I'd transferred my mental turmoil to my thighs and, whilst trying to run away from the ward with a basket full of gender-normativity under my cook's arm, I had in fact booked myself a ticket straight back to the ward aboard a special convoy vehicle like the ones they use to transfer the obese around airports.

......... to be continued!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Merry Christmas indeed!

I've left the slushy doom of London for Hampshire with Aunt Lily. She avoided the dangerous roads by saddling her prize pony, Emily Davison, and sending her to the station to meet me - such a clever pony. I can't ride, unfortunately, having had a series of equine dreams as an infant which my psychoanalyst attributed to penis envy - since then, horses have always struck me as inherently patriarchal, even when ridden side-saddle. Emily courageously led me on foot through the icy forests to Aunt Lil's, and we've been sharing bottle after bottle of mulled Martini Rossi since Sunday night.

A couple of Christmas treats for you then, a la Posie. Firstly, Laura Dekker, a 14 year old Dutch female has been found on a Caribbean island after running away from sexist bureaucrats who have been trying to stop her achieving the world record for the youngest individual to single-handedly sail around the world. The record is currently held by one Mike Perham, a 17 year old boy from Britain, and apparently the authorities intend to thwart Ms Dekker until she's old enough for it not to be a record, or until a younger boy comes along who's able to beat her. Well sod off, cried Ms Dekker, as she escaped from her captors and sassily sailed off to the Caribbean, proving herself to be both physically and mentally capable of the trip, as well as a feminist icon in the making. We've heard of the plight of Shakespeare's Sister - but what about Sir Francis Drake's? Or Columbus'? Let her sail - Elizabeth I would have and how cool was she?

Secondly, Rage Against the Machine are Christmas number one! I've never heard of them before, I think they're some kind of funk band, but isn't it great? Better than last year's Christian fundamentalist rip-off vom fest.

Finally, three cheers for Melody who is the first woman to walk the Channel Tunnel alone without informing the authorities. She's text to tell me that last night she became so bored of waiting in Folkstone that she parked her Merc in a privet hedge, slipped stealthily, like a fox, through the barriers, underneath a high speed train and into the Tunnel itself. She's just resurfaced in Calais and, having only stopped once for a quick pee beneath a signal, is resting in a refugee encampment and sharing her story with local would-be travellers. So not only has she beat the system, she's also helping to overhaul the Anglo-French fascist immigration policy. You go Melody! She's hoping to make it to Rouen by the evening clinging to the underside of a HGV.

So, hope you have a lovely time and all my festive kisses to you, wherever you may be, as long as you're not a Post-Feminist!
xx

Psycho(self)analyst

Well, the first few weeks (weeks? has it been longer? Massive delirium) of my self-analysis have been fraught with mishaps and misdiagnosis.

At first, it seemed my ego had formed a pathological identification of itself with a lost-loved object, later I seemed to have returned to a stage of anal-narcissism, for a little while I was concerned that I was cathecting purely onto imaginary unconscious objects (thus treating my own body as the object of the beloved) and most scarily of all I seemed to have ceased object-cathexis altogether and be floating in a state of schizophrenic bliss, converting latent thoughts to 'real objects'.

I ruled a father complex out at once because Daddy was such a dear, and besides he died when I was only three on the River Thames at Marlowe. Aunt Lily may of course have brought me up all wrong, but with Showalter I'm inclined to disregard Freud's thoughts on the narcissism and neurosis of homosexuality as just plain behind the times. Surely homosexual thoughts can't be evidence that I fancy myself? I nearly married Ann and she was nothing like me: much less attractive and rather stupid to boot.

I wish I could diagnose myself as an hysteric - feminists go crazy for the early divas of female hysteria, and Helene Cixous thought they were heroes, valiantly and quite reasonably responding to patriarchy's oppression. There's some wonderful stuff about Obsessional Neurotics in Freud and their strong reactions to the repression of ambivalent thoughts about loved ones (all the boyfriends I've secretly hated) but it doesn't fit - I'm too messy to have an OCD. It's a shame, as other hysterias are mostly caused by confused object-cathexis as a result of a faulty Oedipal repression (after the infant realises they're not going to have their wicked way with the mother/father, they quickly put it out of their mind at once and form an ideal image of the parents (Super-Ego) to act as a conscience against any other silly incestuous thoughts). Pathologies can apparently be caused by incomplete repression - Freud describes animal phobias in this way (eg. Wolf Man) as well as hysteric ticks or convulsions, which are the unconscious' way of expressing the chafing repression, which the conscious mind resists. I have been known sometimes to lash out at strangers or swear suddenly, but I'm not sure this qualifies as le grande hysterie. But, I'm disinclined to believe I got the Oedipal stuff wrong: it's so elementary. It would be embarrassing.

All that's left is psychosis, which is supposed to be brought about by the foreclosure of a primordial signifier, the Name-of-the-Father: a nice and complicated theoretical type condition, which also rejects universal patriarchal signifiers, a massive plus and very much up my street. Also, there's a withdrawal of libidinal energy from the outside world, which fits as my love life is dead at the moment. The delusional formulation (libido turned inward to ego and fantasy objects) makes an awful lot of sense as I can be a little self-involved, and Emmeline (my cat) tells me I live in a dream-world, which I always thought is absolutely essential for a great writer, like Tolstoy. I have cause to reflect on the period in which I wrote Me, Tim and my Quim (which was once to be made into a major Hollywood film, before the recession hit etc) and in all honesty I can say I must have been suffering from some pretty severe delusions: in the novel, I have a passionate and highly literary love affair with my psycho-sexual counsellor, while in reality I did not have any kind of affair with my psycho-sexual counsellor, though not for want of trying.

Unfortunately, psychosis is a rather indistinct condition, basically quite a lot like neurosis, and its existence has been contested. I don't want to be neurotic, as it reeks of desperation, and if it comes to that I'll just diagnose myself as perfectly sane and perhaps a little under-stretched intellectually in my current employment. That's the beauty of being a Lady Psychologist, readers!

xxx

Self-Medication, Dr Freud

SO I've been a little patchy recently in le blog as I've been having a psychotic episode. Or two. Or twenty seven. Probably since I've last web-logged there have been as many episodes of Hollyoaks as I've had psychic traumas, and that's including the Sunday round up and taking each portion of it as a stand alone episode, so probably about six in all I guess. And I don't even watch Hollyoaks.

Recently, you see, I've been writing my memoirs for publication on the divine Women's Parliamentary Radio, entitled A Year Off the Ward, which is an account of my admirable mental health in the last twelve months or so, and how through positive thinking, creative sublimation and vigorous self-medication I have managed to avoid a) suicide, b) self harm (sort of), c) stalking (again, sort of), d) violence, aggression towards the young, petty theft and arson (all except arson have been a little patchy I admit). Most importantly, I have avoided being sectioned since June 2007 and, like a repeat offender recently released from prison, the fact that I haven't been sent straight back within the month certainly calls for a celebration of the diazepam-and-white-wine-spritzer kind.

However, writing my memoirs seems to have plunged me into a relapse. Now I know what you're thinking lady readers, this should have sent me running to my blog, or encouraged me to compose a series of Mental Health Tweets, which would probably have me lambasted like the poor dear who wrote very sensibly about her miscarriage (did you see it? if not she said:

I'm in a board meeting. Having a miscarriage. Thank goodness, because
there's a fucked-up three-week hoop-jump to have an abortion in Wisconsin.

Wonderful says Posie! I couldn't have put it better myself.) God knows what the modern middle class neurotic would do were it not for the ready opportunities to monetise one's disturbances. However, I thought that, with the book coming out, I'd keep my material 'fresh' as it were, and try to sublimate furiously through a series of monoprints of female saints castrating dragons figured as menstrual hallucinations (coming soon).

That having failed, I turned to my trusty Freud, the beloathed Father, to do a little self-therapy. I have, you see, run a little slow on the trust fund this season and, with no Christmas shopping done to speak of, need to prioritise my outgoings in order to buy those Jo Malone candles for Emmeline, and Aunt Lily's yearly kilo of Laduree fig macaroons. A therapist, therefore is out of the question, and as feminist critic Sally R. Munt rightly termed such bourgeois femmes as myself 'consumers of therapy', who pay £40 a week so that someone can tell us our thoughts are valid, I am happy to sacrifice this luxury for the greater good.

So, having briskly skimmed through Mourning and Melancholia, Totem etc & Freud's entire case notes on Hysteria (supplemented by readings in Elaine Showalter, the darling, so that I don't get too carried away). I am now to proceed with psycho-analysing myself. Keep updated for next installment! Emmeline is going to hypnotise me now.

I've been Googling the hell out of women all this week and do you know that Tori Amos is a feminist?

The worst jobs in the world for Women? Posie Rider investigates...

Lady readers! I must apologise for my absence of late. I've been incredibly busy drafting A Year off the Ward, which looks set to be published but only on the condition that I first pen a serious exploration of the dumbest jobs for women in the UK. I know what you’re thinking

“This is Posie Rider- a middle to upper-middle class urban haute bourgeois lady writer with a trust fund large enough to purchase a small African country- why would she be writing an article on air-head jobs for women?”

Well readers, that’s kind of the point. The piece is designed to be incredibly shocking, namely because of my hostile reaction to employment opportunities miles beneath my superior intellect. For instance last week I spent a whole three days working in a ‘PR’ company in the ‘HR’ department, which mainly consisted of me ordering Marks and Spencer’s mince pies online and emptying packets of ready salted crisps into little bowls to go with the ‘dress-down Friday’ bar that opens each…Friday. God it was hell. My incredible brain hadn’t been so distressed since I got a B in my Art A-level. Those of you who have had the honour of seeing my incredible artistic offerings on this blog will know that such a claim is totally unfounded and the equivalent of stealing an ice-cream from a small child playing in the sunshine and possibly flashing your genitalia at her: perverted and wrong.

This week I’ve been working in an supposed ‘organic’ kitchen, which I thought would be a more pleasant pursuit, but how wrong I was (my toilet cleaner is more organic than the contents of their culinary offerings). When embarking upon a recipe for Sorrel, Leak and Venison soup I was rudely told to put down my chopping knife and start preparing some egg and cress sandwiches. Egg and cress sandwiches! This was a shop on the high street in Holborn (I sought a position in Borough Market but needless to say there were none available - sigh) but even in this run down cafe I was most shocked by the substandard eating habits of the masses. Next week I’m going to be a receptionist at a hair salon where, in order to fully embrace the role, I am required to peruse those awful publications that go by the name of Heat and Grazia.

However, once again (as with most of my literary purists) I do all this all in the name of great art. For upon completing this terrible article I have been guaranteed publication of my ground-breaking A Year off the Ward.

I (often) feel like a female Jesus! It really is too too much to bear the weight on womankind, and yet I go on... Toodles! x

Ah Dave Buss, I presume?

So, I've been researching David Buss and it turns out he's the professor of psychology at the University of Texas, which explains A LOT.

Sadly, this also means that I will be unable to attend any of his lectures and confront him over his very sexist (and probably uninformed) claims about women in the bedroom.

In the mean time I am going to start drafting a very rude email accompanied by an excerpt from my up and coming scientific pamphlet: Dorian Lay.

More insulting assumptions about women in the bedroom!

My nemesis, the so-called 'scientist' (science-tit more like) David Buss has decided to compile all his stupid ideas into one book for our reading pleasure. It's a work upon why women want sex, and Dave really knows what he's talking about. Tanya Gold reviewed it in The Guardian.

She writes:

"Then I learn why women marry accountants; it's a trade-off. "Clooneyish" men tend to be unfaithful, because men have a different genetic agenda from women – they want to impregnate lots of healthy women. Meston and Buss call them "risk-taking, womanising 'bad boys'". So, women might use sex to bag a less dazzling but more faithful mate. He will have fewer genetic benefits but more resource benefits that he will make available, because he will not run away. This explains why women marry accountants. Accountants stick around – and sometimes they have tiny little feet!"

As ridiculous as Dave's theory may seem - I can't help but think there's an element of truth behind it. My past experience with 'bad boys' aka Gerald (although actually just a whiny sack of congealed chauvinistic gunk) and 'bad girls' aka Ann (although actually just a chav) has shown that they were not faithful mates to me. Maybe it's time I skulked around the Men's shoe department in Harrods on the look out for a man with size six feet? Or stand dressed like a prostitute outside KPMG?

Basically the possibilities are endless- thanks Dave! Oh how I'd love to shove a vagina cake in your mouth and watch you choke. But that not being an option (because I don't know where you live YET) let's move on to explore Dave's other really insightful observations about the opposite sex:

"And so to the main reason women have sex. The idol of "women do it for love, and men for joy" lies broken on the rug like a mutilated sex toy: it's orgasm, orgasm, orgasm. "A lot of women in our studies said they just wanted sex for the pure physical pleasure," Meston says. Meston and Buss garnish this revelation with so much amazing detail that I am distracted. I can't concentrate. Did you know that the World Health Organisation has a Women's Orgasm Committee? That "the G-spot" is named after the German physician Ernst Gräfenberg? That there are 26 definitions of orgasm?"

OK the last part is quite interesting (Meston is Buss's 'female co-writer', although is probably non-existent- a construct designed to confound women and make them buy the book. If she is real she's probably an illegal immigrant!)

"And so, to the second most important reason why women have sex – love. "Romantic love," Meston and Buss write, "is the topic of more than 1,000 songs sold on iTunes." And, if people don't have love, terrible things can happen, in literature and life: "Cleopatra poisoned herself with a snake and Ophelia went mad and drowned." Women say they use sex to express love and to get it, and to try to keep it."

I'm sorry Dave but that ^ is definitely NOT true.

"Meston and Buss also explain why the girls in my class at school went down like dominoes in 1990. One week we were maidens, the following week, we were not. We were, apparently, having sex to see if we liked it, so we could tell other schoolgirls that we had done it and to practise sexual techniques: "As a woman I don't want to be a dead fish," says one female. Another interviewee wanted to practise for her wedding night."

This is not the 19th century, stupid women! Although they're probable friends with Dave which explains why they're incredibly stupid.

Yes, upon reflection, I remember that awful summer when every single girl at Our Burning Infant Hearts Primary School lost their virginity in the graveyard. I was the only one who didn't. Not because I was a feminist at the time you understand, but because I was writing my precocious historical work; 'Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life in Haiku'. All my life history is revealed in my upcoming work 'Posie Rider: A Year Off the Ward' published by WPR Books, in which I cover my time and school and psychoanalyse myself to buggery in an attempt to stay sane.

Back to Dave and the part where he really excels himself:

"Women also mate to get the things they think they want – drugs, handbags, jobs, drugs. "The degree to which economics plays out in sexual motivations," Buss says, "surprised me. Not just prostitution. Sex economics plays out even in regular relationships. Women have sex so that the guy would mow the lawn or take out the garbage. You exchange sex for dinner." He quotes some students from the University of Michigan. It is an affluent university, but 9% of students said they had "initiated an attempt to trade sex for some tangible benefit"."

Would these kind of books ever be written about men? I know plenty of intellectual artistic types of males with lawyer girlfriends to keep them afloat. Indeed having a giant trust fund and a family heritage stretching back to the Norman Conquest, I too have had to bare the brunt of men only after me for my good looks and cash. I fight them off on a regular basis, if not with my copy of Simone de Beauvoir then with my sheer intelligence, which I can tell you now, most of them seem unable to handle.

Men sleep around for self-gain just as much as women, in fact I think they may do it more often. If you think about a successful ugly man wanting a pretty (dumb) girlfriend odds are its in order to improve his image. Now that's worse than just wanting economic independence like Virginia Woolf or Coco Chanel. That's buying someone's body and selling your own soul in exchange for improved self-image.

Be damned! Flees flea say I!

So inspired by Dave's miraculous study I have decided to write my own faux scientific pamphlet entitled:

"Dorian's Lay: How men sell their silly souls for sex"
by Posie Rider.

Plus I'm all over this Dave Buss character like a rash... I'm going to tell him exactly what I think...

And i wasn't alone in thinking Strictly Come Dancing attire is 'trashy'

Look what I've found:

One of the two professional costumiers that supplies dresses to Strictly is DanceSport International in Croydon. DSI hires the dresses to the BBC, and then sells them to anyone who could possibly want a half-dress made of fringing and feathers in some eye-burningly luminous shade. Twenty-five dresses worn on Strictly are being shown on the DSI website as I write, prices on application. Every dress is based on a leotard; some of the celebs choose to wear something under the leotard, others don't. Even the virtual nudity that features in so many of the Latin routines is fake, although the grotesque bump and grind is real enough.

I know. Anyone would have thought I had written that, but it was in fact Germaine Greer.

Read the rest of her article in which she whole heartedly agrees with moi here.
Great minds think alike.

He's Back...

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into your living rooms Chris bloody Hollins rears his ugly sexist head.

You may remember Hollins for the sexist remarks he made last year to innocent news present Sian Williams. I of course stepped up to the challenge and made my thoughts known to the BBC (aka the Basically for Boys Corporation), but they refused to meet my requests and Hollins is still allowed to run wild of licence fee payers televisions insulting the female race.

And now he's managed to worm his way into Strictly Come Dancing! I can't believe he's been allowed to set foot on the set for this 'family' show. Bruce Forsyth presents it for god's sake, although I'm sure even his hands are not clean from the putrid stains of chauvinism.

Look at this video of him yapping on about himself:
< SEXIST!
Quote: "I can't wait for the tight outfits..."

We all know ballroom dancing is pretty misogynistic anyway. Those gaudy dresses are terribly revealing and remind me of that awful debutant's ball I was forced to attend during my late teens. I of course spent most of the night alone in the toilets writing poetry, a pass time more worthy of my creative talents. Apologies, I digress. But what's more even shocking is my concurrence with the Daily Male when they criticised the skimpy 'dish cloth' dresses for 'cheapening the show'. I was of course one of the angry viewers who called in and made my thoughts KNOWN to the BBC. You just can't get away with skirts that short before the watershed. I refer you to said article. And then of course there was the sexist ageism evident in the dismissal of the lovely old biddy Arlene-what's-her-name.

And just when you thought it couldn't get anymore sexist... Chris Hollins is a contestant!

<"TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF HER!": sexual harrassment on live telly.

Lady readers, I would urge you not to vote at all, but if you must know that I am officially endorsing Natalie Cassidy (aka Sonia from Eastenders). I admire her courage for appearing to national television despite being extremely overweight. Her winning might set a positive example to other young fat girls.

We fight on and we fight to win! Toodles!

'A Virgin's Tale' after Bridget Bardot

Bridget Bardot, French existentialist sex kitten, has just turned 75. Retrospectives of this formidable blonde's life have caused me to reflect on, well, my own life. Like Bardot, I was at my prime in my youth. Before I discovered barbiturates, before booze, long before I discovered men, my first love was writing. I was a prolific writer even before my earliest memories, when Aunt Lily tells me I would scrawl nonsensical letters up the walls of the family house, convinced that I was a new prophet after having been given a Good News Bible by a well-meaning Popish cousin. Christianity would not hold my formidable imagination in thrall for long.

I finished my first opera Thebes, A Virgin’s Tale: Parts 1-9 by aged eight, then began to experiment with higher artistic forms including drama, mime and philosophic dialogues. One of my most precocious works from this period with which you may be familiar, Persephone: Pythagorean Musings of a Woman in Perpetual Despair, won Little Miss Brain Award, Hampshire in 1993 - past winners include Philippa Gregory, Marie Curie and Diana,Princess of Wales.

Having exhausted the genre of Socratic Discourse at the ripe old age of twelve I turned my talents to poetry, fiction and historical writing. You may be familiar the historical biography Eleanor of Aquitane: A Life in Haiku and my later work The Tears of the Wood Nymph which won the Marianne Keyes prize for Creative Writing. And now let me treat you to Greek Tragedy I composed on a holiday to the Lake District aged 11 in the style of Handel's Aces and Galatea.


Thebes: A Virgin’s Tale

ACT 1 Scene 1

The Temple of Apollo, Thebes. A CHORUS of Humming Birds stand centre right.

Chorus: The Oracle The Oracle The Oracle!

A Virgin steps down from the Temple of Apollo in Thebes. She is followed by a host of wild animals, including finches, mice and rabbits. She holds a basket of wild oats which she begins to symbolically sprinkle on the ground.

The Virgin: Hail! I hear a new morn dawn in Thebes
What can it mean? What can it be?

The Rabbit: This is a new context.

The Finch: I feel like I’ve been pecked.

The Mouse: Oh an Oedipal effect.

Chorus: The Oracle The Oracle The Oracle!

The Virgin: Philomena I am called and my tragic tale applaud
For now I share with thee how cruel the world can be!
I was born alone

Chorus: Alone Alone Alone!

The Virgin: The mother was a whore

Chorus: Whore Whore Whore!

The Virgin: To the temple I did come.

Chorus: Attention!

The Army of Zeus enters stage left. Step forward ZEUS disguised as an attractive athlete.

Zeus: I have come to Thebes to find a Vir-------gin!

Chorus: Hap Hap Happy!

Zeus: What’s this?
A little girl to pillage.
Best looking in the village!

Chorus: Run Run Philomena!

Zeus: To make her mine
Will be no crime
Cause she’s so fine!

Chorus: Rape Rape and Death!

Virgin: Nay I shall not relent
My will cannot be bent
Although a maid of humble offing
I shall not be pushed into boffing!

Chorus: Apollo Apollo save her save her

Virgin: I am scared as Laius
When screwed up and cursed us
Poor me like Antigone
To an underground home shall flee

Chorus: Zeus Zeus is in your house!

Virgin: Ay me so I see
But he shall not steal my chastity!

VIRGIN Exits.

Zeus: To pluck her virgin’s tooth
I’ll have to use a hoof
Disguised as a fine horse
My plan shall surely take its course.

ZEUS and THE ARMY OF ZEUS Exit.

Chorus: Yes we’ll make a killing for there’s no chance of Zeus wining!

The Rabbit: Poor Philomena!

Chorus: Zeus will surely woo her!

The Finch: She’d love to ride a pony!

The Chorus: And Zeus is just a phoney!

The Mouse: Nay she cannot fail!

The Chorus: For it is called a Virgin’s Tale, a Virgin’s Tale!
Oh Oh Oh it is!
The Oracle The Oracle The Oracle!

The curious case of the Bluestocking Pony and a warning to us all...

Can you believe it? ANOTHER one of my great ancestors has been written about AGAIN in terribly important historical work. This time it's about the bluestockings and my great great Auntie Polly Constance Rider.

She features in a wonderful book by the author Jane Robinson called Bluestockings - The Remarkable Story of the First Women to Fight for an Education. I read about it on the F-word. Although my great great auntie is not directly mentioned a dear anecdote pointed me in the right direction:

... the story of Constance Maynard, for example, appears across several chapters and eventually the mention of her name is like rediscovering an old friend. That Maynard’s father tried to bribe her out of accepting a university place by offering her a pony seems to tickle Robinson in particular, as she brings it up repeatedly. You can almost see her eyes rolling.

Well indeed, because my great great Auntie Polly Constance Rider, was indeed that very Constance! She later married a Maynard and dropped the Polly (she went on to work for Mi5 in Moscow and they thought it was a bit of a giveaway). But what Robinson doesn't know, and what history books won't tell you, is that she accepted that pony with eager joy: and do not roll your eyes Robinson! For she used that pony to become a highway robber, which gave her financial independence, the kind an education could never buy.

Indeed as feminists we must step outside of these pre conceived 'notions' of 'education'. It's very small minded. The whole of life is an erudite force cleaning the tunnels of our minds like a lavender-scented aromatherapy candle (divine!). In this respect one has to conclude that you are either born highly intelligent or just plain dumb, and I think we all know what category the Riders fall into.

Hugs and Pugs!

Posie Rider: My life as an Activist

Now as you'll all know I am descended from a long line of female activists dating back to William the Conquerer's consort Matilda de Ridier IV, so after reading said article in the Observer today, which considers why women are better campaigners than men, I feel that, as an obvious voice of authority in such matters, I am total liberty to extrapolate.



Lady readers, we all know that women make far superior campaigners because:



a) women have and still shoulder the burden of man's prejudice: "we are the Jews for all seasons" as my Aunt Lilly used to say. As a result we are forced to take to arms in order to defend our lot and thus demonstrate our skills.



b) women represent the future of humanity.



c) (the obvious) women are better than men.



d) the media trust women more than men, mainly (and this is scientific fact) because we have longer hair.



e) most women are too stupid to understand anything, rendering them incapable of activating against anything compesmentus. As a result any female initiative seems more impressive than in really is. In fact sustained female efforts to effectively act in unison in the name of politics is extremely rare when you consider the woman:political cause ratio. Of course many women have attempted to master the group dynamic but often land up lost in large out of town supermarkets, or in cat fights over what colour paint to use on thier activist posters. Some can't even open their own front doors.



I personally am dead set against violence - "the pen is zen, the sword is fraud,'' as my Aunt Lilly used to say. You'll be able to see from my letter writing campaigns against the very sexist Ricky Gervais and the bigot sports presenter Chris (I can't even remember your surname) something from the BBC, that these campaigns have indeed proved most effective and will no doubt go on to change the course of humanity itself.



In the mean time I have a lovely afternoon planned making a courgette tart. Melody is coming over later and we're going to play scrabble. Toodles xx

Why Women Are Really Afraid of Psychologists

Last week's news coverage of a would-be psychologist's proof that women are 'genetically predisposed to be socially conditioned in certain ways', aka to be afraid of spiders, while men are less likely to fear spiders, has to be the most depressing thing ever. EVER. Here are some highlights from the Sky News coverage.


Why Women are Really Afraid of Sexist Spiders

Psychologist Dr David Rakison from Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University tested 10 girls and 10 boys, all aged 11-months, with pictures of spiders to see how they reacted. He showed them images of a spider next to a fearful cartoon face and a spider next to a happy face. Dr Rakison's report, published in the New Scientist, states that the girls looked at the picture containing a happy face for longer than the scared one. However, the boys looked at both images for an equal amount of time.

He concluded that the girls found the happy face puzzling as they were expecting to see the spider paired with a frightened face.The psychologist said these tests show that girls have a genetic predispostion to fear the arachnids in contrast with boys who do not ... He linked the difference in results to our hunter-gatherer ancestry when he says women had to be wary of dangerous animals to protect their children, whereas men used more risky behaviour in order to be successful hunters.

Let's ignore the obvious - that 20 individuals tested is not representative of ANYTHING - and have a little look that Dr. Rakison's conclusions.

Firstly, I must ask, why didn't they monitor the amount of time the girls looked at the image of the spider? I had to delete the tarantula image from the article just to write this blogpost! There's every chance that they just enjoyed looking at the happy face. People are cute like that.

Or perhaps the girls, by the age of four, have learnt that spiders are often frightening, and were intrigued by the mixed messages being sent by scientists. This would have nothing to do with their innate predisposition for fear, more to do with their enhanced sensitivity to social mores in the abstract, which the silly (or 'indifferent') boys lack.

Another technical problem with the research is that Rakison doesn't seem to have used a control. In this case, I imagine an image of something innocuous like a circle or triangle next to a happy then scared face would demonstrate whether the amount of time the children looked at the image had anything to do with their enjoyment of the expressions thereon, or sheer confusion of the object and expression being put together.

Rakison's 'social' conclusions don't make sense either. I'm sure any mother would willingly mash a spider or fling a snake out the cave door to save her precious little ones. Otherwise she'd have to stand on a boulder or something squealing until a Manny Man came home, by which time the kids would all be dead.

More convincingly, maybe women in this day and age are allowed to indulge their fears more in infancy, and are encouraged to take delight in the attention of others (a nasty tarantula on my pretty pink dress, eek!) whereas men are encouraged to overcome them in shows of bravado. Social construction of gender anyone? Oh nevermind.

Anyway, none of these musings on the sexism of spiders matter anyway because

TWENTY INDIVIDUALS TESTED IS NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF ANYTHING.

Back from the brink of marriage and alive - just!

Lady readers, I can only apologise for my absence. Yesterday was clearly the worst day of my life, but I awake renewed and refreshed for, thank god, I'm not married!

Things went from bad to slightly better to pretty bad again on Saturday, as Ann was placated by her pizza, but soon high and buzzing from the Cherry Coke I served her as an accompaniment. She came as close to being drunk on sugar and E numbers as any woman I have ever seen over the age of 12, reminiscent of a childhood summer I spent in Portugal trying to get drunk on Malibu ice cream, and then just Malibu. Attempts to entertain her were fruitless as she babbled half incomprehensible nonsense about her family and childhood and the difficulties she faced as a worshipper of Sappho (who she's never read, I ask you!) in the blustering North. It was all rather too moving for me, and I accidentally fell asleep picturesquely in my bio-form Habitat beanbag, to be unceremoniously awoken 7 hours later by Emmeline. Morning had come, and Ann was already in her dress.

Now, we'd kept our dresses a secret from one another so that it would be a lovely surprise. Just to clarify, mine was this one.

As a feminist bride, I'd thought long and hard about what to wear, critical as it is to uphold one's political principles while doing justice to one's admirable waist (cf. the Suffragettes with their great hats). Having decided that my virginity, soul, modesty and so forth were decidedly un-'white', in the bridal symbolic spectrum, I decided to opt for a revolutionary black. Obviously it had to be vast and puffy, and cinch the waist to the vanishing point. I mean I was bloody well getting married. You can't tell from this picture but I also wore an enormous boat shaped black hat based on a Elizabethan design after the defeat of the Spanish Armada. This represented feminism's defeat of patriarchy (and my love of QE1).

Anyway, knowing me just a little bit (enough to be my wife) I thought Ann would have picked up on my fierce, yet feminine, yet feminist, yet fashionable, tendencies, and swapped her frock for a frock coat, top-hat and little cane like the gorgeous Marlene Dietrich. How else would we achieve the desirable and chic gender-bending irono-androgene feminist-couplage I've always dreamed of? Sort of like...

The desire to flout gender conventions through revolutionary dress was clearly the last thing on Ann's mind. From nowhere, hundreds of bunches of white lilies had appeared and filled the house (symbolic of death, surely? Poor stupid Ann, she should've paid attention at the Waterhouse exhibition). White bows decked the staircase, sugared almonds in grotesque pink were boxed up and patterned with love hearts. LOVE HEARTS. There were love hearts everywhere, all over my potato stamped (U+26A2) symbol recycled crepe paper table cloths, filling up my mooncup shaped vases, and all the dead roses I'd put out in ironic reminiscence of the Miss Haversham bits from Great Expectation were destroyed. Ann thought they were depressing.

And her dress.

I don't know how to explain it, I don't have the words, or the stomach. I've looked all day for a picture that approximates its horror. This is the closest one I've found.

That really finished it off. I couldn't marry Ann. Ann was clearly a maniac. I mean, what's the point of marrying a feminist if you're going to wear a dress like that? Getting rid of Ann was harder than deciding not to marry her. At first she didn't understand, then she didn't believe me, then she wanted to kill me. As she came at me wielding the phallus shaped pinata I'd planned to destroy during our vows, I had little choice but to let Emmeline pounce. She's always very defensive of her mistress. There was blood everywhere, like in Carrie.

After the attack, I ordered Ann a cab. I was feeling generous and pretty guilty about everything, so I got it to take her to the National Express depot, not Megabus, which is pretty awful. I only hope she could afford the fare. She doesn't know London very well.

And what have I learnt? Perhaps that relationships, either with women, or men, are not my strong point. Perhaps, as Emmeline often advises me, I need to pursue the solitary course, concentrate on my writing, develop my many undeveloped talents. A woman's way is hard, but only alone can she enjoy the self-expanding freedoms of solitude.

And Ann, this is for you. Though you are uncultured, this may help you formulate your grief. I'm so so sorry!

I have not had one word from her
Frankly I wish I were dead

When she left, she wept
a great deal; she said to me,

"This parting must be

endured, Sappho. I go unwillingly."
I said, "Go, and be happy

but remember (you know well)

whom you leave shackled by love
"If you forget me, think

of our gifts to Aphrodite

and all the loveliness that we shared
"all the violet tiaras, braided rosebuds, dill and

crocus twined around your young neck
"myrrh poured on your head

and on soft mats girls with

all that they most wished for beside them
"while no voices chanted

choruses without ours,

no woodlot bloomed in spring without song..."

Really worried about Ann...

I've just managed to get away from Ann for a moment and readers, I must confess, I'm extremely uncomfortable. I had of course realised that Ann was something of a 'diamond in the rough' - I'm reminded of Moll Flanders, or the winkle-picker one from Tipping the Velvet - but her behaviour today has been less picaresque and more...dare I say...'pikey'.

Now that's a horrible term, I know, and I wouldn't dream of using it normally. The Riders, as I have mentioned, have a long socialist history - my Great Aunt Geraldine famously donated all but one of her five country estates to the National Trust (she kept Scotland, it was the biggest). I have read widely in Marx and really identified with Tess of the D'Urbevilles, poor duck. But Tess didn't have a Sony XBox. Or a Lacoste sleep suit. Or cold sores. And she probably knew what risotto was (Ann thought it was rice pudding).

I don't mean to complain, it's just the weekend's not going how I thought it was going to at all. Ann "wasn't hungry" this morning when I produced my celebrated Eggs Posie (Eggs Benedict but with garlic mayonnaise instead of Hollandaise - yum!). She wolfed down a Bloody Mary only to sick a little in her hand and scream at me for 'feeding her ketchup', and wasn't calmed until I made her a Nesquik from an old packet I once accidentally bought for Emmeline. And she was palpably uncomfortable at the J. W. Waterhouse exhibition I took her to this afternoon. She didn't even find all the little nymphs pretty - I'm worried we don't have anything in common!

What shall I do? She's busy playing Street Fighter now but she'll have finished this level soon (oh god, I can tell by the music, what's happening to me?) and will be coming out to see if her risotto-replacement pizza is ready. The wedding's tomorrow. Oh god...what if Melody was right?

Ann is here...

Ann is here and I must say I'd forgotten how 'boisterous' she is. Can you believe that she doesn't know what a artichoke is? She saw one in my organic vegetable box and thought it was a toy character from the film 'Alien'.

I've managed to steal away to my (non-pink, yet feminine) laptop to write this while Ann plays on her Sony X-box. She brought it with her, all the way down from the north on the Megabus via the M4. Not my chosen mode of transport, but the Riders have been noted for their socialist tendencies in the past so I shall not gripe.