The other morning, it struck me that I considered it perfectly normal to be drying a pair of the GB's giant socks by wrapping them round the kettle. He needed to be in school in dry socks, and they had thrown themselves off the radiator in the night,so were still soggy. I briefly contemplated putting them in the microwave, but some dim recollection of a flaming tea towel and cross firemen held me back. Keeping the GB spruce is a task which requires Jeeves and entire servant body of "Downton Abbey" AND "Upstairs, Downstairs". His enormous canoe-like shoes are covered in mud ( why? how?) when no rain has been seen for weeks. Great flapping shirts go out white in the morning and come in at 4pm caked in grub, bedizened with red Biro and tattered as to the armpit. His trousers..Oh God, his trousers..
What do they DO at that school? When I visited recently there were no visible signs that lessons were conducted in the trenches of WW1, I saw no septic tank, nor did anyone rush at me with a red pen and scrawl all over my face. Admittedly it was Parent's Evening, so they mightbe restraining themselves, but I am not sure that anyone else's son comes home looking like they were on their way to a Halloween party. I suspect foul play.
Perversely, when he is not at school, he aspires to the standards of self-presentation of a male model in Italian Vogue. Trainers must be immaculate, frighteningly costly polo shirts are ironed with the deftness of a Japanese paper flower maker, and his hair is a sculptured confection of wonder.
Now, I am a slut, borne of a slut and a neatnik. I rise from a chaotic rubble of single stockings knotted inexplicably round hairbrushes, lost contact lenses, drooping hems fixed with Blu-tack, and missing buttons. Some of my best friends are also sluts, and I must say, they are by far the most relaxing folk to be around. I have lived with neatniks and we drive each other mad. My offices have tended to be untidy, with collapsing piles of files and drawers crammed with spare shoes and half-empty perfume bottles. A dear neatnik friend with whom I worked used to visit me in my office from time-to-time. He would stand chatting to me, all the while tidying my desk; arranging pens and straightening folders, filling the sellotape dispenser, and removing my lipsticks from the drawing pin holder. I once caught him at home arranging all the tins in his kitchen cupboards in alphabetical order, the labels all facing outwards.
I probably should say that I am oddly fastidious when it comes to actual dirt, and that most other sluts are too. We can be utter fashion plates and our personal hygiene is generally irreproachable. You can safely stand next to us on the Tube. However, we have left behind us scenes of ruinous chaos, which we regard as no-one else's business. All the world is a stage, and the slut will strut upon it looking marvellous and trailing clouds of Chanel.However, backstage does not bear close investigation.
So the GB may have Neatnik as his dominant sign, but with Slut Rising. He informs me that it is an immutable law of Nature that I should be his personal attendant... "Until I am eighteen, it's Your Job". So I quit.
Of course, he will inevitably marry a Slut; people do want to, oddly enough. They are attracted by the air of Bohemian disarray and the unlikely prospect of ever having a conversation about which sheets to buy. This is all very well if fun is what you are after. There will be plenty of unruly exits from bars, wild laughter, and good-natured drunkenness. But Oh, beware, my son...there will also be many many lost keys, broken heels and visits from glaziers. And while love, which we are reliably informed by Micheal Ball and other modern thinkers, changes everything; there are some things it is powerless to alter. You can love a Neatnik to distraction but still want to lunge over a table to stop them folding Kit Kat wrappers into a tiny, even square.
What do they DO at that school? When I visited recently there were no visible signs that lessons were conducted in the trenches of WW1, I saw no septic tank, nor did anyone rush at me with a red pen and scrawl all over my face. Admittedly it was Parent's Evening, so they mightbe restraining themselves, but I am not sure that anyone else's son comes home looking like they were on their way to a Halloween party. I suspect foul play.
Perversely, when he is not at school, he aspires to the standards of self-presentation of a male model in Italian Vogue. Trainers must be immaculate, frighteningly costly polo shirts are ironed with the deftness of a Japanese paper flower maker, and his hair is a sculptured confection of wonder.
Now, I am a slut, borne of a slut and a neatnik. I rise from a chaotic rubble of single stockings knotted inexplicably round hairbrushes, lost contact lenses, drooping hems fixed with Blu-tack, and missing buttons. Some of my best friends are also sluts, and I must say, they are by far the most relaxing folk to be around. I have lived with neatniks and we drive each other mad. My offices have tended to be untidy, with collapsing piles of files and drawers crammed with spare shoes and half-empty perfume bottles. A dear neatnik friend with whom I worked used to visit me in my office from time-to-time. He would stand chatting to me, all the while tidying my desk; arranging pens and straightening folders, filling the sellotape dispenser, and removing my lipsticks from the drawing pin holder. I once caught him at home arranging all the tins in his kitchen cupboards in alphabetical order, the labels all facing outwards.
I probably should say that I am oddly fastidious when it comes to actual dirt, and that most other sluts are too. We can be utter fashion plates and our personal hygiene is generally irreproachable. You can safely stand next to us on the Tube. However, we have left behind us scenes of ruinous chaos, which we regard as no-one else's business. All the world is a stage, and the slut will strut upon it looking marvellous and trailing clouds of Chanel.However, backstage does not bear close investigation.
So the GB may have Neatnik as his dominant sign, but with Slut Rising. He informs me that it is an immutable law of Nature that I should be his personal attendant... "Until I am eighteen, it's Your Job". So I quit.
Of course, he will inevitably marry a Slut; people do want to, oddly enough. They are attracted by the air of Bohemian disarray and the unlikely prospect of ever having a conversation about which sheets to buy. This is all very well if fun is what you are after. There will be plenty of unruly exits from bars, wild laughter, and good-natured drunkenness. But Oh, beware, my son...there will also be many many lost keys, broken heels and visits from glaziers. And while love, which we are reliably informed by Micheal Ball and other modern thinkers, changes everything; there are some things it is powerless to alter. You can love a Neatnik to distraction but still want to lunge over a table to stop them folding Kit Kat wrappers into a tiny, even square.
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