Swimming

While I was swimming yesterday evening a children's swimming lesson was also taking place. The man running it was a perfect example of why all sports instructors should undergo compulsory personality transplants, although he did at least distract me from my usual thoughts of "I'm SO bored I might just drown myself for the novelty factor".

He stood on the side of the pool bellowing at the 6 girls, finishing each command with "If you don't understand, put up your hand". If their hand went up, he just repeated exactly what he'd already said, in a slightly louder and more annoyed tone of voice, despite the fact that they didn't understand it the first time. For one particular manoevre, he must have done this at least 5 times, until eventually the girls lost the will to live and stopped putting up their hands. When it became apparent that they still hadn't understood, he got them out of the pool and gave them a pep talk (at the top of his voice) about how they should say they didn't understand if they didn't. His words said, "it's fine to say you don't understand, it doesn't make you stupid", but his tone of voice said "but you are unbelievably stupid for not understanding this". Which reminded me of our old school PE teacher who would tell motivational stories about enormously fat girls who got fantastic grades because they tried very hard, while at the same time totally ignoring any effort put in by those of who were athletically challenged.

When the girls had finally grasped what they needed to do, Mr Swimming Instructor then demonstrated a novel way of praising them. He started shouting out "good boy, well done, see girls, it took a boy to show you how to do it." When they protested that they were girls, he said "oh really? That was so good I thought it must have been a boy doing it." Argh... from bullying to casual sexism in one easy step.

Reading

At church on sunday we were shown a video about the work of the bible society, who translate the bible into different languages and formats. It made a big deal about the need for audio bibles, because of the many people who can't read. All fine, except that this message was conveyed entirely by pictures accompanied by written text and a musical backing track - no spoken words at all. Therefore assuming (I assume!) that anyone in a developed country would be able to read from a screen....

Public transport

I use a lot of public transport. Most of the time I quite enjoy it, I don't even mind too much when teenagers play music on their rubbish mobile phone speakers to the whole bus, though it does get annoying when more than one person does it and they get into a mobile music war.
On a less grumpy note, this morning I saw 2 young teenagers get on the bus, bringing with them a load of fishing tackle in one of those old person shopping trollies. One of them sat down, but stood up when he saw an older person getting on the bus. However the older lady walked straight past the seat, and a young guy sat down in it instead. The trolly was quite sweet, the standing up was sweet, and the look on his face when the bloke sat down was even sweeter.

I went to church this morning. The service ended at 11.20am, and these were the things I was asked between 11.20am and noon:

Immediately as the service finished I turned round to speak to the person sitting next to me, who I think was a first-time visitor. Before I'd managed to speak I was stopped by the church treasurer, who asked me to sign some cheques right now because he had to leave. I got up to do so, while at the same time attempting to convey via the medium of international gestures that someone else should say hello to the visitor.

As I signed the cheques, someone walked up carrying a large bronze cross, and asked me to unchain the vestry door so she could take it round the back.

I was about to do so, when someone waved at me from the prayer corner, wanting me to pray with someone. The treasurer went to open the vestry door.

I went and prayed, offered tissues etc. The person recovered herself, and I went into the next room to get a coffee.

On the way to the coffee queue ( a walk of at least, ooh, 20 seconds) the person who I'd been communicating with via the medium of sign language stopped me to ask if I knew anything about the visitor because he'd had such a strong accent he couldn't understand him. I didn't, but had a long and confused conversation, because I initially thought he was talking about the preacher, who had a slight welsh accent and had entertained us by telling stories in a scots accent.

Walked 3 paces and someone stopped me to ask if I could do some photocopying for them. I said I would once I'd got a coffee and if I could remember the code.

Walked another 3 paces and was stopped by someone else. She wanted to know about a notice in the notice sheet, did I know anything. I said I didn't. This apparently wasn't sufficient information, so I added a couple of suggestions of people she could ask and for good luck also outlined their half term holiday plans. This was more acceptable, and I made it to the front of the coffee queue without incident, at the same time waving to a friend to get her to come rescue me.

At this point actually managed a non-functional conversation, which was only interrupted by the photocopying lady who very politely told me she'd got someone else, who could remember their code, to do it for her.

Then all that was left to do was lock up, chase out the stragglers, and run away home. Is it wrong to be slightly horrified at the thought of going to a church service every week for THE REST OF MY LIFE?!

Hairspray

About twice a year I fill up a free saturday afternoon by buying a super cheap theatre ticket. Today I went to see Hairspray - my tastes tend towards the philistine and I like musicals for the feel-good factor and the fact that you don't need to think too much. I had one of the seats in the gods, the kind where you get an oxygen mask along with your ticket, but the view was ok - I've been to some where I've ended up peering out from behind a pillar. It only started a couple of days ago, so it's still in the preview stage, but it was fine apart from a few lapses in sound and a little problem when the follow spot didn't really follow. I read a paper article a while ago that said Hairspray was successful in the USA because it makes fun of american blue collar workers, but would be less successful in the Uk because... mmm not sure I can exactly remember the logic here, but the prediction was that the stage musical version wouldn't go down well in London. At the time I'd only seen the film version, and didn't really agree that it was mocking a particular category of person. The stage version though does have the mother (John Travolta in drag in the film, Michael Ball on stage) as more of a caricature, if it's possible to be more caricatured than a man in drag- John Travolta's woman is slightly more convincing (as a woman and as a character) at the beginning, and definitely less manky.

So... Loved the film, quite liked the musical, and still not sure if it's stereotyping and if it is, whether it's in an ironic good way or a bad way. Isn't any period piece going to have some degree of stereotyping that time period? But it also reminds me of this vexing question of whether it's ok to call people chavs... is it just an (admittedly derogatory) description of a type of style, or is it similar to racist/sexist labels? Answers on a comment please...