Is It Just Me? (32 page)

But now, at the age of thirty-eight, I’m coming to realise that my ignorance of all things cultural and ‘newsy’ (please note that even though I call myself a buffoon, I have just coined another brand-new word), can at times render me a little bit of an outsider. This marvellous, information-rich and enlightened society seems to be stuffed to the gills with single, professional, switched-on BlackBerry-wielding men and women who quite simply know stuff about stuff. Lots of stuff. Stuff that makes them sound, to me, as if they’re speaking in Portuguese: ‘Proportional representation’ and ‘New Deal-style economic stimulus packages’ or ‘Post-modernist architecture’. It’s the done thing to crash through the door at a drinks party with the words ‘So! Libya, eh? What a shower! Still, at least I’ve got that new Miro exhibition at the Tate to cheer me up and help me forget about that ghastly new sustainable farming policy. Ha ha ha.’

At some social events, this ignorance can prove tricky. I refer to the kind of events I wouldn’t particularly want to be at anyway. Professional networking events, perhaps, where you’re supposed to make a grand impression on a variety of fascinating new people, but more often than not find yourself spending the evening locked in the Ladies with a magazine and a packet of Kettle Chips, praying for home-time. I often come a conversational cropper at such events, simply because so many people have conversations that – MDRC, you’re the first person I’ve ever shared this with –
I simply don’t understand.
I don’t know what they’re talking about.

Now, if this one
isn’t
just me – I dearly hope that it’s not – then on this life conundrum I suggest you feel free to use any of the following conversational techniques in order to get things moving. Again, consider them my gift to you. You’re very much welcome.

Firstly, if someone mentions something that you know nothing about (examples could easily include the Middle East, fisheries or land tax), and someone else responds, ‘Don’t get me started,’ you must respond, ‘Oh, I know! Don’t get
me
started either.’ If anyone then subsequently asks for your opinion you can respond with, ‘No, I said
don’t
get me started. Seriously – watch out. I will blow.’ The people around you will then think that a) this woman knows exactly what she’s talking about and b) she feels so passionately about it that’d we’d best not mess with her.

It really works. I know, just call me brilliant. As an addendum (good word, like ‘kerfuffle’, it keeps on giving) to this technique, you could then try saying, ‘Let’s be frivolous and discuss
Strictly Come Dancing
instead,’ in the hope that someone bites. Alas, however, this approach rarely works. People tend to think you’re being ironic and break into peals of drinks-party derisive laughter. You join in, but you know you’d like nothing more than to have a big larky chat about
Strictly
, ideally involving a series of demonstrations and some drawing of costumes on napkins. Ho hum.

Secondly, you could use ‘The Repeating Trick’. Here’s how it works: if you find yourself in a group of people discussing, say, economic stimulus packages and you simply can’t join in, then just hit on an appropriate-sounding sentence you hear, and – repeat! For example:

Loud, intimidating person X: ‘I mean, he’s budgeted seven hundred and twenty billion over three fiscal years!’

Braying cultured person Y: ‘Seven hundred and twenty billion?’

Sweaty-palmed YOU (eagerly): ‘Yep. Seven hundred and twenty billion. Over three fiscal years. THREE!’

Of course, you don’t know whether ‘three’ is good or bad, but by giving it emphasis it will work either way. Repeating things you don’t understand will sound like you have a full grasp of this cultural and political issue. Again, if I may be so bold – brilliant. Consider me your ghastly-drinks-party manual. Your Miran-ual.

Your third nugget from the Miran-ual is: joining in with laughter. Now, this is key. There’ll come a point in any conversation, however dull, when a big laugh will naturally occur. Of course, you’ll have no idea that what they’re laughing at is supposed to be a joke: as far as you’re concerned, they might as well have said, ‘FDRMMNNXXXXXQUYRABBIT’, but you should join in the laugh anyway. Perhaps even laugh a little louder than the rest, allow yourself a small headshake and an ‘Oh yes, jolly good, jolly good.’ This will make it abundantly clear that you’re extra plugged-in and absolutely on top of all the subjects being covered.

Finally, if none of the above works, pretend your phone is ringing and say ‘Excuse me!’, look at your phone and then say, ‘Oh, I don’t want to take this, but without my input now it will be total chaos in the office tomorrow morning – you know what it’s like,’ ending with a hearty laugh. Then walk quickly and professionally away doing fake important speaking in the phone, turn the corner, open the front door and RUN, run away, run away very fast indeed.

The worst time, I found, for trying to keep up with brainy conversations was during the whole Bank Crash thing. I couldn’t cope. Suddenly everyone I knew – including friends who’d previously thought that Mrs Thatcher was still the prime minister – seemed to have a burning desire to discuss economics in great depth. Once, at a dinner party, somebody started talking about ‘derivatives’. I misheard, and thought, ‘Ooh, lovely, finally something I can join in with.’ I duly piped up with, ‘Well, they’re alright I suppose, though to be honest I prefer chocolate derivatives. So much better to dunk in tea.’ A stony silence fell upon the table. I made a mental note that from then on I should perhaps attend social functions in a big pointy dunce hat, to avoid confusion.

You might be thinking, ‘At least it can’t get worse, Miranda.’ But I would say to you this: do you know me at all, MDRC? Of
course
it gets worse. My real intellectual trough came during a party being thrown by my then-boyfriend’s new boss. It was all pretty high stakes: I wanted to do my man proud in front of his colleagues, play the erudite girlfriend and make a positive impression on all concerned. We were still at the relationship stage of ‘Lying to Impress’, so the boyfriend was yet to realise the level of my buffoonery. Things were going well. The conversation was about Saddam Hussein (at that time still on the run, as I remember it), and I was repeating sentences, joining in the laughter and shouting, ‘Don’t get me started!’ like a pro. At which point the cheese-board was passed in my direction. I do love a good cheese-board and I picked up what appeared to be a curly, affected bit of Edam, and punctuated a hearty pretending-to-understand laugh by popping it in my mouth. Everyone fell silent and looked at me a little bemusedly. MDRC, what I had popped in my mouth wasn’t curly Edam; it was a knob of butter! (Yes, I did just say knob – get over it, this is no time for jokes.) I had just stuffed a curly hunk of neat butter in my gob. Yet another of life’s scenarios one isn’t taught how to deal with.

I decided that the only way to move on was to ride it out: ‘Oh, I do love butter,’ I exclaimed. ‘Who doesn’t love butter? I mean, it’s only one stage away from cheese, isn’t it? It’s
pre-cheese
, if you like! Anyone want to try some pre-cheese? No? Losers. You’re all losers, ha ha!’ The group remained silent and stared as I sat there chewing wildly, butter dribbling down my chin, feeling frankly sick as a dog. Then I remembered my Miran-ual. Out came the phone, cue the line about the office needing my help, then run, run, abort, abort.

Hello?

Oh, hello, eighteen-year-old me, how’s the Freud going?

I might have got a bit distracted by some friends having a water-balloon fight.

Quite the little bluestocking, aren’t we?

Oh, shut up. I’m eighteen. I’m allowed. You, on the other hand, have no excuse. You’ve not got children, your love life is a disaster, you don’t do any exercise – SURELY you should have spent your free time (of which you clearly have lots) becoming a cultured and refined woman about town. It was my final hope: we’d be going to art galleries and book launches and having lunch on the South Bank with an Attenborough and pulling off a beret and a tweed waistcoat. You know, all chic.

Little M – time for your penultimate life lesson.

Do you remember in chapter two of this fine tome, when we discussed the issue of music? When I told you that you’re simply not a trendy muso? That it’s just not in your genes. It’s not who you are.

Yes, and I thought that was OK until I auditioned for the school musical (because that’s more my taste), and I was given the Waltzing MAN in Ballroom Scene.

Really, Little M, you HAVE to let that go.

Have you?

No, fair enough. But listen up, as with music, the same is true of culture. We’re just not that into it. We’re a bit more ‘light entertainment’, and we’ve pretty much accepted that about ourselves. Each to their own, I say. There are obviously enormous advantages to being really engaged, on every level, with the society you live in. I’m not dissing that; it’s a healthy aspiration. If that’s the way someone’s wired, I would say to them gleefully – go for it. Become a friend of the Tate. Campaign for local government. Go on a protest march (if you’re brave enough).

Wait – you’ve never been on a march? But we’re doing Politics A-Level. We must march!

Actually, I did accidentally go on one march. I was coming out of Peter Jones on Sloane Street, having just bought some very lovely new cushion covers. A vibrant floral fuchsia if I remember . . .

Not interested.

Soz. There was this big march going past outside, and I got caught up in it. I tried to duck out, but someone gave me a flask of tea, which was hard to refuse, and the next thing I knew, I’d marched all the way to Trafalgar Square. Exhausting.

I suppose that’s better than nothing. What was the march in aid of?

I’m not entirely sure; it was definitely either pro-drugs or anti-drugs. And someone was waving a placard about not hurting mice in laboratories, but that could have been a metaphor for Palestine. It’s very hard to say.

Oh, you DISGUST me!

I thought it better not to know. That way, when telling people anecdotes about ‘my day at the march’, I could change my story according to the company I was in: amongst Home Counties-types, it was the Countryside Alliance march;
Guardian
-reading metropolitan folk it was UK Uncut; the local dog show – PETA. It was perfect.

You are a massive dweeb and everything I never want to be.

Hang on, I have a point to make. As I was saying before we veered off into march anecdotes (or ‘marchecdotes’, MDRC – another new word. I really am a linguistic pioneer), you’re
not
Selina Scott, I’m afraid, however much you’d like to be. For now, you are socially The Silly One.

What, like The Stupid One?

My goodness, no, don’t even think that. You’re as smart as they come. You’re just not especially serious-minded, which means that you’re uniquely valuable to the world. It’s brilliant being The Silly One. Once you fully accept this as your role and decide to make the most of it, you can relax and have fun.

What kind of fun?

At a dinner party you can initiate rowdy games of ‘Would You Rather’ at one end of the table, whilst people are earnestly discussing the new wave of young women playwrights at the other. So as they’re asking, whilst leaning forward, glasses on nose, mouth puckered: ‘But don’t you think that the whole concept of a new wave constitutes a ghettoisation of female talent?’ you’ll be asking, leaning back in your chair, giggling, a bit pissed: ‘Would you rather have an elbow on your ear, or an ear on your elbow?’ Which is a question that does need asking, I rather strongly feel. Other questions in the ‘Would You Rather’ category might include: ‘Would you rather have squirrels for feet or hamsters for hands? Or a face for an arse, or an arse for a face?’ Fascinating stuff.

Oh God. We’re the village idiot.

I’ve tried high-end culture. I tried ballet, but I just couldn’t get along with it. That might have been because it spurned me as a teenager, but if I watch it now, it just makes me laugh. It’s the men, if I’m honest. Call me ballerina-ist, but I’m not sure I can take a man seriously if he does those split-leg-run things for a living. So funny. And, bear with me, MDRC, but what about the ‘ballet – how to put it – bulge’? The manly ballet bulge. Very hard not to remain focused solely on that area I find. Just me?

Do you remember when me and Sis put two eggs down our tights to pretend to be male ballet dancers?

Unnecessary information sharing. Shush now. I’ve tried opera too, but watching fat people warbling in Italian just isn’t up my street. I mean, I’m sure there’s more to it than that but, to be honest . . . snooze. And as for art galleries –

Oh, PLEASE say we drift knowingly about in art galleries. I’d love to become an Art Person.

You’re just going through a phase of wanting to be one of those History of Art girls.

They are SO cool. Tallusha always wears a floaty bandana in her hair and looks brillo.

If you wore one, you’d look like Rambo. You don’t want to be one of those girls, Little M, you really don’t. You don’t want to be called names like Tallusha and Barrunka and Petrouchka and Candida and waft about talking rubbish about how Monet is really a case of the Emperor’s New Clothes and how light influences beauty. We really aren’t one of them.

When the laws of Miranda-Land come into effect, art galleries should legally only be used for the following: