I Can't Stand Nosey Parkers.

I can't stand Nosey Parkers. Real, unashamed Nosey Parkers. The sort of Nosey Parker whose nose twitches like an excited squirrel about to unearth his nuts after a long, long hibernation!

What is so fascinating about what is going on in my living room?

Okay, so we are all, to some extent, curious. I understand that. We're all interested in other people. At least, most of us are. But now I'm talking about those human-twitchers always on the lookout, always nosing into other people's business, and who don't understand the meaning of the word "privacy."

Being on the ground floor, people have to walk past my patio window en route to the car park. I don't mind that. I like people. Most don't trot past with their eyes burning anxiously as they try to peer through my window glass. Hoping to see what?

The case in point is a married couple in my block of flats. They are both irrepressible twitchers of human activity. Rubber-neckers. When I first moved in, before I managed to get my blinds sorted, I felt like a specimen at the zoo. I contemplated putting up a sign. HOMO SAPIEN, (FEMALE) FEEDING TIME 7PM.

Sometimes I had a sense of humour about it. My friend and I would giggle, watching them as they walked past, not realising that we could see them rubber-necking.

He has taken Holy Orders, so maybe he hopes to catch me out in some minor sin that he can help me to repent of. But - eventually - the blinds went up, and the curtains went up. Incredibly their necks remained intact and not dislocated.

Now my blinds and curtains have had to come down again.

The workmen are here doing my damp proofing and plaster repairs. This evening, though, I wanted some privacy. The bookcase placed on its side in front of the window helped, with cushions and table mats on top, and a chair beside, see my photo above.

His Holiness comes up the apartment steps, veers left towards my window and peers through the glass patio door, over the two bags on top of the chair I pushed in front of it.

Infuriating.

Fortunately they will be moving in May. Let's hope the new neighbours will have a life of their own and won't need to rubber-neck mine!

Giacomo Casanova, The World's Most Famous Womanizer, was Born This Day, 2 April

Casanova - by Adriano C. Public Domain

I'm not sure why I'm posting this on Msanthropeonline. After all, he LOVED women, and so, he must have been very charming. Maybe I would have fallen for him if I'd lived in the 18th century and met him. Yes, knowing me, I can be taken in by a sparkling wit and and engaging manner.

But he was ruthless and manipulative and deceitful. And women were his "victims" although possibly that is too strong a word.

He was born in Venice on 2 April 1725 and called himself by all manner of uppity titles, Baron, Count, Chevalier, to impress the ladies and other useful contacts. He hobnobbed with the best of society, Voltaire, Goethe and Mozart, and was on familiar terms with royalty.

His autobiography which he wrote while working as a librarian in Bohemia, was Histoire de ma vie. (Story of my life.) 

The following quote he made about love is courtesy of his page on Wikipedia.

Real love is the love that sometimes arises after sensual pleasure: if it does, it is immortal; the other kind inevitably goes stale, for it lies in mere fantasy. 

So, clearly, this intellectual did have some idea of what real love was; nevertheless he is known for his numerous and brief amorous adventures with women.  

One particularly bizarre incident occurred in Paris. He managed to convince an aristocratic woman, Marquise d'Urfe, that he could use his knowledge of the occult to turn her into a young man, his goal being some sort of payoff. Of course, as he would have known, his plan didn't work and the lady lost interest in his alleged occult abilities.

Why was Casanova impelled to pursue and seduce so many women?  

For a start, he was constantly in debt. As a result, he moved around Europe at an alarming rate. Perhaps he was never able to stay anywhere long enough to develop anything concrete.

There could be another likely cause. At age 9, his mother, a theatre actress who was constantly on tour, packed him off to a boarding house in Padua. (His father had already died when he was eight years old.)  The conditions were terrible and he felt angry and abandoned. Maybe this caused him to go off in search of love - and yet not be able to trust anyone sufficiently to commit to a lifetime relationship. (All this is just speculation on my part. No doubt a deeper study of the man might produce further possibilities.)

If I get around to reading his autobiography I will let you know! 

Casanova died in 1798. 

You can find a short biography with a video about Casanova here.

Girlgate

Six delegates, five men and one woman, are at a business meeting after hours. The refectory is closed and the coffee machine has broken down.

 After a gruelling session one of the men says, "I could murder a coffee."

"Right," says the man next to him. "I'll get the girl to fix it."

Money, Power and Beauty - Curses or Blessings?

   

Jane Austen, Public Domain

Once, a friend said, "I take the view that if I don't go out with the postman, I won't end up falling in love and marrying him." At the time, to the dizzy, Mills & Boon-reading teenager that I was, this seemed unromantic, even calculating. Surely you couldn't choose with whom you fell in love! Yet, she had made an honest attempt at self-analysis about what was best for her. Coming from a fairly wealthy background, love-in-a-garret would not augur well for a future marriage for this particular friend.

Of course, these days women are perfectly capable of earning their own money and setting their own parameters within a relationship. But, just how much have things changed? Do we still look for that extra something that seems to emanate from money and power? What do women really want from men?

Women have been uttering these little sparks of wisdom since the sixth century to the present-day. Here is a selection of some favourite female comments:

Reputation and Freedom

For some women, it was always simply a matter of quietly going ahead, doing what you want, and letting life take care of itself. Here are two examples from women of previous centuries:

“If women want any rights they had better take them and say nothing about it.” ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896)

”Until you've lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is.” ~ Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949)

Women Wanting to be Beautiful

Fifty years ago, beauty was essential if you wanted to “catch” a husband. If not beauty, then you needed to be, at the very least, a woman of some substance, preferably an heiress. Women considered plain were diminished by their contemporaries, female as well as male.

”The Englishwoman is so refined / She has no bosom and no behind.” ~ Stevie Smith, 1937, (1902-1971)

”As she had no hope of raising herself to the rank of a beauty, her only chance was bringing others down to her own level.” ~ Emily Eden (1797-1869)

On the other hand, some attractive women decided to compromise, and learned to use their natural assets to good effect – and were brave enough to say so:

“I had always looked upon my beauty as a curse, because I was regarded as a whore rather than an actress. Now at least I understand that my beauty was a blessing. It was my lack of understanding the way to merchandise it that was the curse.” ~ Louise Brooks (1906-1985)

Others rebelled and decided they were perfectly all right as they were, a lesson many of us are beginning to take on board today as the diet and beauty industries become increasingly under fire for setting standards impossible to attain. At last, such deceptions as air-brushing are deemed unacceptable and many of us demand to be acknowledged for what we are.

“I'm tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin-deep. That's deep enough. What do you want - an adorable pancreas?” ~ Jean Kerr The Snake has all the Lines (1958)

However, there are truisms that work as well today as they did in previous centuries:

“Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty.” ~ Coco Chanel. (Gabrielle Bonheur, 1883-1971)

”A dirty exterior is a great enemy to beauty of all descriptions.” ~ Mary Martha Sherwood (1775-1851)

The Cost and Benefit of Beautiful Clothes

Fortunately, today we are more enlightened and we care much more about wildlife than mink or ermine coats unlike Louise Brooks:

”I was mad about clothes for a time. You know, ermine coats and those things eat up a lot of money.” ~ Louise Brooks (1906-1985)

”The sense of being well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquility which religion is powerless to bestow.” ~ Miss C.F. Forbes (1817-1911)

Money Talks

Back in the seventeenth century, playwright Aphra Benn (1640-1689) said: “Come away, poverty’s catching.” This does rather echo the postman metaphor in this article’s introduction. Some women have always loved men with the Midas touch, for example:

“I have known many people who turned their gold into smoke, but you are the first to turn smoke into gold.” ~ Elizabeth I (1533-1603) to Sir Walter Raleigh.

Who can fail to sympathise with iconic short story writer, Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) when she said: “I must say I hate money but it's the lack of it I hate most.”

Even Jane Austen, (1775-1817) gentle romantic that she was, had plenty to say about money: “A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of. It certainly may secure all the myrtle and turkey part of it.”

The American women’s rights activist and writer, Gertrude Stein, (1874-1946) was actually being rather sneaky when she said: “I want to get rich but I never want to do what there is to do to get rich.” But Stein was already a wealthy woman in her own right, and so, she didn’t have to.

Throughout history, women have had to make many difficult decisions about their multi-faceted lives. What is amazing and often inspirational is their spirited determination to rise above the realities of their lives and the often wicked wit that has surfaced throughout the struggle and the turmoil.

Sources:

• The Wicked Wit of Women, Compiled by Dominique Enright, Michael O'Mara Books Ltd. London, 2003.
• 3500 Good Quotes for Speakers, Gerald F. Lieberman, Thorsons Publishers Ltd. Northamptonshire, 1984.
• Pocket Treasury of Great Quotations, Reader's Digest, London, 1977

Things I Wish People Wouldn't Say

"Don't tell me what I'm feeling. I don't like it."

"I want you to meet my friend, Helen. She's amazing. You'll absolutely luuuuurve her." (No I won't. I can feel myself bristling already!)

Journalist: "A man was brutally murdered."  (Ever heard of a non-brutal murder. Somehow, by definition, murders aren't loving and kind unless it's a mercy-killing.)

Writers in general: "She sobbed uncontrollably."  (Does anyone - ever- sob while in perfect control?)

Stores / Tour Operators, etc: "Get a free xxx000xxx!!!!"  (That is a complete misappropriation of the word "free" which means unconditional. If it was free you wouldn't need to buy something to get it.)

Anything President Trump says.

Hairdresser: "D'you want product?"  Me: "What product exactly?"  "Hairdressers; "Product, d'you want product?"  Rolls eyes at the ceiling. (OMG, doesn't she know "product" means an item and is not procedure-specific?)

My bank / doctor's practice worker / dental surgery. "Hi Janet."  (Excuse me, but have we actually met?)

"How lovely to see you." (Okay if it's sincere but if you're looking over your shoulder to see if there is someone more interesting around, then it's a deal-breaker.)

Anything Nigel Farage says.

"I'm just here to help."  (Last person that said this to me was a retired chap who saw an ad I put on a local site for someone to do a small window-related job for me. He didn't want to do the job, because he was just off on holiday. He wanted me to contact "his man" who turned out - as I guessed - to be a double glazing company. 

No prizes for guessing what he got out of it. If someone says they want to help you, be very afraid!

No, I Don't Believe in Lizard People, Crystal Children or a Hollow Earth!

Image by Android Cat, Public Domain

This planet is teeming with great eccentrics, individualistic types who do their own thing and express themselves freely, a wonderful, liberating, non-judgemental society.  

That ought to be good.

Except - if I meet another psychic I am going to go crazy. I feel inundated with psychics, new agers, conspiracy theorists, followers of mad, mad theories. Mature, apparently reasonable and articulate people, will tell you, quite matter-of-factly, about vampyres and evil spirits and "lower levels of being" and travelling to the "Fourth Level" (Whatever that is.)

That's the worst part of it - that everything seems to veer towards negativity, misery and forthcoming destruction. It's as though life is such crap that some people need something else to fasten onto, or to blame.

Fifteen Foot High Men in the Pale Sunlight!

Conversations take place over breakfast about a hollow earth filled with great cities and fifteen foot high men. And, although one theorist agreed it's unlikely the earth is hollow, he qualified that it was, in fact, a honeycomb. I asked, wearily, how he can base his entire life's purpose around theories that are not only unlikely, but for which there is no evidence whatsoever.  Apparently he can. Apparently physics can help to explain this weird phenomenon.

And if you're wondering how a great city thrives inside the earth, it's because sunlight filters through, palely. Good word that, palely!  Words are the conspiracy theorists' most important tools, especially ambiguous, loose, non-specific words that are flexible enough to be moulded to the theory.

Spare me from the following:

• People whose conversation is peppered with the following terms of reference: healing ~ demonic possession ~ new world order ~ aliens ~ lizard people ~ higher levels ~ lower levels ~ the other side.
• People who think it's okay to try to foist their belief systems on me without ever asking me what I think, which is a typical problem with these overtly alternative types. You can become quite good friends with them without them ever knowing what sort of music you like best.
• People who believe that superchildren (crystal children) are being born. When we start talking about an elite among little kids, it starts to get really sinister. Preserve us from any of these misguided adults from becoming teachers, nurses or nursery school staff.

Weird Belief Rituals

I accept that these theories are genuine religion beliefs, and in some ways are no more bizarre than some orthodox religions. What I do observe is that they almost always lead to stress, anxiety, negativity, obsession, compulsion, confrontation among themselves and with society in general. This is just observation, but in my life I have seen more screwed-up people among the "Weird Belief" community than in any other area of life. I'm not sure if this is a chicken and egg situation, since we could ask what came first, the neurosis and then the religion, or the religion and then the neurosis.

Tell me that energy has just flown out of the top of my head  indicating my - you choose the word: anger, stress, negativity - and that my soul is fragmented and needs putting together again, then I am defriending you, not just from my Facebook page but from my life. There's enough to contend with of a practical and an emotional nature in this life, and plenty of opportunity for rational, gentle speculation, without resorting to these obsessive, attention-seeking rituals that seem, almost inevitably, to lead to disaster, depression and negativity.

Age is just a number ~or is it?

Age is just a number, goes the old platitude. It's true and I don't have a problem with it. The problem is ~ all the others!

Of course, it's great to be fit and attractive, to keep your brain synapses healthy by seeking knowledge and stretching your mind; your body healthy by doing sustainable, appealing exercises. I'm not saying "youthful." I don't want a face devoid of wrinkles as it would make the rest of me look rather odd. 

But - sometimes - on a good hair day (and a good skin/slim tum day) people take me for younger, although that may depend, partly, on the quality of the light and whether they are wearing their specs or not. But if someone says, "You look good," well, that's better than "You look good for your age!" If I look good, tell me so and leave it at that, because actually I'm okay about my age. If others have a problem with it, then tough!

When you think about it, we are probably the luckiest generation, with improved healthcare, more money, wonderful beauty products and clothes, and all the secret little processes carried out in high street beauty salons to fix a flaw here and there. But, sometimes, just sometimes, keeping yourself young and fit can work against you.

Concessions for Seniors

I feel miffed when I ask for a concession at a local theatre or cinema, and the booking clerk wants to see identification. Do I look dishonest? Do I look as though I am so desperate, that I would lie about my age to save a few pennies?  Seething, I wait while my details are checked, then, suddenly, a rush of... well, something approaching self-satisfaction. Because - in a way - it's a compliment. They actually don't believe I'm old enough to be entitled to a concession.

The next time, when the person doesn't ask, or I quickly try to foist some form of confirmation on them, and they say, "Oh, that's all right, don't bother," I think, "Hmmm, so do I look such an old bag you're happy to wave me through?"  Sometimes people just can't win and I must stop being oversensitive.

Bus Passes

One of the most unsettling experiences I ever had on the bus was the day I sat in the front seats, especially designated "Priority Seats for the Disabled, Elderly and those Less Able to Stand."  Usually, I left those seats for those worse off than me, but that day all seats at the back were taken and I was, frankly, exhausted. So, as I settled down in the front, a middle-aged woman leapt on the bus and as she turned to climb the stairs, she shouted at me, "Those seats are for old people."  At the time I was 68! 

I read recently in the paper that scientists have just done a study and decided that old age starts at 69. I'd be interested to see how they arrived at such a specific evaluation, Is it legal to discriminate?

No, I'm not Workshy!

Also, people who see you around a lot, sometimes ask, rather belligerently, "Why aren't you working?" as though they think I am a scrounger on benefits so I can swan around all day, shopping and drinking Brancott with my friends.

Then, of course, occasionally in a pub, a gentleman might want to buy me a drink. Mention, in passing, a class I am doing at the U3A (University of the Third Age) and there'll be a stunned silence and then said gentleman beats a hasty retreat. 

Well, I wasn't interested in him anyway. Prefer them younger, actually.

If you Speak to Me Slowly and Loudly, I Might Understand

One day I went to a new dentist and she glanced at my records and began to talk to me in a very slow, measured and loud voice. For a moment it seemed she had a speech impediment. Poor young lady! I thought. I stared at her in sympathy. Then, as she kept repeating herself, I realised what had happened. She'd just spotted my age on her chart and she'd assumed... what?  Well, one day I might need someone to talk to me like that, perish the thought, but at least, for the time being, give me the benefit of the doubt.

In the end, you have need to have a sense of humour. But overall, it's great, not only looking smart and up-to-date, but also believing that age is just a number.