Shrek in Chelsea

To Jill, I know it’s hard to find work when you’re sixteen. My twillage employs all the young folk in three supermakets and, of course, I don’t approve. But I am not so naive as to think that all the yoof of today will go out and get jobs husbanding trees or picking organic strawberries in the local biodynamic farm. Surviving in today’s climate is tricky at the best of times, but really tough when you are skint and in need of a pint of cider and the fare money for the only existing bus service to take you to the cinema which is now re-located out of town and costs the price of an awayday ticket.

My daughter refused to work in Waitrose, not from any political position but because she hated the fabric of the uniform and thought the dress and blouse, like the job, wouldn’t have suited her. I thought we would never see the back of her, but she trawled the back streets of T’Wells and landed a job behind a bar and kitchen of the local arts club.

I know they are few and far between but sometimes the young folk do surprising things when left alone. Mind you, I’m still waiting for her to pay me back-rent for nine months free board and lodging in my luxury womb with a view.

BB and I have just come back from watching Shreck the Third in Cineworld on the Kings Road. We shopped for some salad first and drove past a house that was so swanky, BB asked me to drive past it again. It was like something out of a Richard Curtis film. All big front doors and white carpets. The family were assembled on the front door mat, the small boys had long shorts and long blonde hair cut into the ubiquitous boarding-school bob so favoured by the independent sector. The men had jackets, shirts and ties straight out of Boden Magazine. One even had a light blue sweater casually thrown over his crisp linen shirt. My daughter crowed with astonishment that tribes like that really do exist.

You cannot tell a book by its cover (although I admit you can get a pretty good idea from the colour scheme and choice of font). I’ve just finished reading Nora Roberts, a romantic novel of such mind numbing predictability that it was one of my most enjoyable reads to date. Her book cover was all pastel shades and big writing. So I could tell that book by its frontispiece. Anyway, my point is that the Kings Road is so affluent that both my daughter and I felt like the poor commoners from the cottages.

We sat near the back row, the light dimmed and six blonde sloanettes came in and nibbled their way through their popcorn. My family wouldn’t know a nibble if it came at them out of Nobby’s Nuts. My lot crunch and splutter and make more noise than an old nag chewing it’s way through a bag of carrots. Even my laugh sounded decidedly sluttish tonight. Ouch, is that a pomme frite on my shoulder? The film was okay. Not brilliant, but a pleasant enough diversion.

Jim is motorbiking back from the Globe. Bethy is grabbing some sleep. She has been up all week working till the wee small hours, and I am exhausted from driving the length and breadth of the M25 to celebrate a family birthday.

Tomorrow I shall prepare for the lunchtime slot -1 till 2- on LBC, but now I am going to slip into something a little more comfortable, like my bed, and ponder global warming which seems to have deserted us. I don’t know about you but South London feels like an autumn night in Alaska.

Pleasant dreams and hopefully cu2morrer.