They allegedly exist but I'm still waiting for proof (From Bucks Free Press)

They allegedly exist but I'm still waiting for proof

10:21pm Sunday 7th February 2010

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In case you fear I’m going to spout on about love and honesty and all those human qualities which often can’t even be inherited, let alone bought, I’m not. I want to talk about goods which are by nature imperfect regardless of how much money someone has.

In my girlhood, my pocket money could buy me anything I wanted: eight blackjacks for a penny, a jamboree bag or if I saved up, (and I did once) a bra I didn’t need. (I was about nine.)

Later, I’d buy singles at Woollies. Though I can’t remember buying many. It’s possible that I still spent a lot of my money on confectionery. I’d moved up from penny chews to entire boxes of Black Magic.

“Some of the material scared me – sex and boys were still half appealing and half terrifying. (Did I have to get some boy’s saliva inside my own mouth? Would I ever want to do this?)”

Then in my early to mid teens, I’d buy make up. Sometimes I’d buy magazines – meant for teens but more grown up than I ever was. Some of the material scared me; sex and boys were still half appealing and half frightening. Did I have to get some boy’s saliva inside my mouth? Would I ever want to do this?

At one point as young teenagers, my sister and I went to Woollies and bought a handbag each. It was the most grown up accessory we could think of. Shiny and glossy in its fake patent leather look, we carried them around not knowing what to put in it. Sweets didn’t seem right, though funnily enough they were about the size and shape of a box of Black Magic.

Which brings me to item number one. I defy any woman of any means to swear she knows of a handbag that works. There isn’t one.

I’ve always carried some sort of rucksack: I like having my arms free. I tried a satchel too; hmm, not bad but a lopsided weight. A few years ago, I though I was womanly enough to carry a proper handbag and bought a second hand one. It seemed to have a place for everything.

Look, my pens and pencils can go in there, my calculator tucked in there, my keys in that zip pocket and my phone in there. My wallet fits perfectly in that pouch and I can get to everything. There’s even room for a lipstick. Seems a woman with a handbag must carry a lipstick.

So on my left shoulder I hung it and out I went feeling mature and suddenly able: after all, I had a handbag. Real women carried handbags. Women who ran their lives, knew how to get from London to Birmingham without a road map and knew how to put their make up on.

I wasn’t ten metres down the road when the thing began sliding off. Again. And again. So I carried it my hand like models in catalogues do – stylish and sort of cosmopolitan; chic, I thought.

Within another fifty metres, I’d had enough of carrying it in my hand so tried hanging it in the crook of my arm. That meant keeping one arm bent. It was sickening. Why did I ever buy such a stupid item? Same reason as when I was thirteen: to look grown up. Idiot me.

I thought of slinging the two straps around my shoulders and trying to make a rucksack of it. Straps were too short.

Ultimately nothing worked. When my phone rang, I couldn’t get to it; to extract my wallet I had to unzip a flap first and then dig around in it. It was dark in there and I couldn’t see anything. A handbag with a light in it that comes on when you open it awaits to be invented.

Ironically, I left it on a bench in the middle of Stockbridge once. My subconscious saying, ‘Get rid of it, you’re not qualified to carry a handbag. I mean, you’ve only just learned how to change your ring tone.’ A kindly Christian gentleman returned it to me via the police. The bag went on to a shelf and hasn’t been invited out again.

Now, who likes fat free food? Or those healthy eating varieties. When I see chocolate bars or puddings or any food that would normally have 25,000 calories for every 100g, and it says, ‘Only 99 calories’, that’s it. I can already taste the revoltingly, watery flavours.

I’ve assumed the producers have made an effort to synthesise the real thing. In which case, I conclude it can’t be done. There does not exist a rice pudding with only fifty calories per tin which tastes delicious.

The only way for things to taste good is to have fat and calories, I’m sure. And it’s becoming increasingly difficult to buy fat and calories.

So much these days is lean, fat-free, supposedly healthy food. I understand that we need to look after their health and watch what we eat. And just in case we don’t, food producers (led by government?) will. The choice itself is decreasing and I think we’re sacrificing taste for those healthy options.

And if this is in pursuit of healthy population, then why not get rid of the entire sections in supermarkets that shelve crisps, fizzy drinks, sweets, alcohol, Easter eggs, lard, oven chips and convenience foods?

You can’t force the population to eat fewer calories in their savoury foods (because allegedly we’re not intelligent enough to decide what’s fattening/unhealthy etc.) and then let us fill our trolleys with bumper bags of salted peanuts and booze. This half-hearted regulation of our diets baffles me.

So, even if money is no object, there aren’t foods which are both low in fat and tasty. Apart from grapefruits and natural foods like that. Healthy alternatives are completely different foods to ones they’re imitating.

Only Champagne (the drink from that region) is allowed to be called that. That’s because it’s really Champagne. I argue that only real, authentic dishes should be called by their proper name.

So you can have Lamb Hotpot (fat, calories and all) but you shouldn’t be able to have ‘Healthy Eating Lamb Hotpot’ because it’s not the same dish. That’s if honest labelling means anything.

Last on my list is convenience. I uphold fervently that you can’t buy it. From dishwashers to home shopping, there’s always a catch.

Convenience is sold to us in everything we buy. Handy little phones that are address books, cameras, PCs and play music to boot. Cars with cup holders, sat navs, CD players, fold down seats, places for the kids to put their empty crisp packets while you’re busy map reading and driving. Even something you put in your washing machine when you can’t be bothered to separate colours from whites. It ‘catches’ the colour. Clever.

“Then I have to put up with slow websites, bad programs and – oh, junk emails. That polite wife of an ambassador who wants money sent. Or those Russian girls who want to marry me”

What about the car? Yes I most certainly do depend on it. But when I think of what it costs each year in insurance, tax, MOT repairs and petrol I‘m horrified. If I put that money into myself and the family and some good walking clothes for us all, couldn’t I manage without it and all the trouble it gives me?

The same for my computer. Again, I rely heavily on it. I like it. Some of you will be huffing and sighing thinking, ‘Uh-oh, she doesn’t; know how to use her PC’. But it’s a very unpredictable ally. It can serve me loyally for weeks and then just go off me. It’ll flash messages at me which scare and confuse me threatening to lose data and menacingly telling me to shut down properly next time.

Then I have to put up with slow websites, bad programs and oh – junk mail. That polite wife of an ambassador who wants money sent. Or those Russian girls who want to marry me. And those ‘You’re our lucky winner!’ messages which mean I’m eligible for 250 free business cards. Or do I want to enlarge my organ? (I don’t have space for an organ, do they think I’m a church?)

Or maybe they mean my heart or liver...Really, I don't know. I'd have to think about it.

I think all I can say now is that convenience is negotiated: your gadget or service might provide you with something you want quickly and you might get that.

But much of it is an illusion or it means the time or effort you saved initially will be debited from your time/convenience/money account in life and demanded back later.

Of course there are many other things that money can’t buy. When I told my husband of my intended blog theme his first response was, ‘Verrucas, you can’t buy those. Or love.’ No doubt I’ve overlooked hundreds of other things too. A pain-free birth, second chances, eternal life...

I find some comfort in this. There are things which are out of the reach of every mortal. In that sense I detect some equality. I won’t look at that woman with the stunning handbag who probably eats healthily and has all mod cons with envy ever again.