Crumbs! Mummy’s toast was killing us
ROEDEAN girls’ school has called in Debrett’s – the etiquette experts – to help its young ladies deal with the social minefield that is conversations about Brexit.
We’ve all been there, that sinking feeling when the talk turns to the backstop and you lose the will to live. Friendships have been destroyed, people (once perfectly pleasant) have gone doollally.
Roedean headmaster Oliver Blond says he brought in Debrett’s after girls told him they often stayed silent to avoid an argument. But what’s wrong with that? Enigmatic silence – when everyone around you is posturing and chuntering – is to be highly recommended.
AFTER my hymn of praise to ITV’s Endeavour last week I was disappointed when one of the characters talked about a car that was “parked up”. No, no and thrice no. In 1969 people simply “parked”.
GUCCI produces a balaclava jumper with a polo neck that stretches up to the eyes and has an opening for the mouth outlined in thick red lips. Burberry sends a model down the catwalk in a hideous coat with a noose round her neck.
It’s no good saying it’s “just fashion” because fashion always makes statements and these are highly sensitive times.
But how come fashion designers who are supposed to have a finger on the pulse are so incredibly thick? Or do they do it on purpose because all publicity (even an apology for causing offence) is good publicity?
A POLL by The Beano comic asked 2,000 children, aged 7-12, for their favourite joke. And the winner? Q: Why is the sand wet? A: Because the sea weed!” Geddit!!? Hilarious isn’t it?
And even if it doesn’t have you clutching your sides it’s wonderfully reassuring to know that lame, faintly lavatorial quips with whiskers on still delight the nation’s sophisticated children.
THE MOST terrifying sound of my childhood was waking up to the relentless scritch-scratch of my mother scraping toast. Though a competent cook in other respects my dear mum couldn’t look at a piece of bread without burning it. Refusing to get a toaster she insisted on laying out blameless slices of Hovis under the electric grill where she promptly forgot about them until alerted by a plume of smoke.
Naturally thrifty she would take the blackened rectangle in a rubber-gloved hand and scrape the soot into the sink with a knife. “It’s perfectly all right,” she would insist, handing me the partially cremated slice with its incinerated crust dangling off the end.
My father and I eventually worked out a tactful system whereby we took control of the breakfast toast production. We never spoke about it directly but on those occasions when we came into the smoke-filled kitchen moments too late our eyes (watering slightly thanks to the acrid fumes) would meet in shared dismay.
Of course mummy could have been trying to kill us. For scientists have now told us that burnt toast exposes you to more toxic air than if you were standing by a busy road. Toasting two slices of bread will cause twice as much air pollution (for 15-20 minutes) as you’d get in a city centre.
Marina Vance of the University of Colorado admitted even scientists found the results “surprising.” She said: “When you make toast, the heating element starts warming up the debris and gunk in the toaster which includes oils. Add to that the bread itself – it’s going to emit a range of things. We found ethanol, a by-product of yeast.”
Crumbs. When I was a student in lessthan-salubrious accommodation we found a dead mouse in the bottom of our toaster so those fumes can’t have done us any good either. But that said, the toast tasted fine.
The safer option, say scientists, is to only have your bread very lightly toasted which – after my childhood trauma – is fine by me.
And it’s not just toast. A Sunday roast causes the release of tiny toxic particles as fats burn and fumes from gas hobs fill the air. Dangerously high levels of particles known as PM2.5 can hang around for a couple of hours. The Committee on Climate Change wants to ban new gas hobs and boilers by 2025, by the way.
But what can we do with this knowledge apart from turn on the extractor fan and open a window? Live on lettuce? Would we all be safer if we did no cooking at all and ate nothing but takeaways? Obviously not. Recently another report highlighted the cancer-causing properties of fast food.
Most human activities have an element of risk. Though until now I’d have thought that making a piece of toast was playing it safe. BACK in the 1970s one idea of feminist fun was a see-your-owncervix soirée where – with the aid of a speculum, a torch and a mirror – you inspected what you don’t normally see. I’ve always preferred cheese and wine parties myself but each to their own.
So I’m afraid I approached Laura Dodsworth’s Channel 4 film 100 Vaginas in a flippant spirit. I had thought it was going to be called Me And My Vulva (which would have been more accurate anatomically) but perhaps would have distressed anyone who, after a cursory glance at the TV guide, had expected a documentary on Swedish cars.
As it turned out, 100 Vaginas was beautifully made and very moving as women of all ages talked about the things that women talk about quite often but rarely when there’s a camera present. If anyone was going to photograph your front bottom you’d like it to be someone as nice as Dodsworth.
Any young girls (or even old girls) worried about what’s going on “down there” would find the film gentle, valuable and reassuring. SQUADRON Leader Richard Churchill, last living survivor of “the Great Escape” (immortalised in the 1963 film) has died at the age of 99. He was among 76 men who escaped from Stalag Luft III in 1944 by crawling through tunnels. Only three men got away; 73 were recaptured and 50 were shot. Richard Churchill was recaptured after three days when he was found hiding in a barn.
He always said that being called Churchill saved his life. The Gestapo thought he was related to Winston Churchill and therefore worth keeping alive as a valuable bargaining chip.
The same applied to Odette, the SOE heroine who in 1946 became the first woman awarded the George Cross. Sent to France, she was captured by the Gestapo along with her SOE supervisor Peter Churchill. She said she was married to Peter Churchill (they did actually marry after the War) that he was only following her orders and that he was Winston Churchill’s nephew (he wasn’t). Odette was sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp but she believed that the fictitious Churchill connection saved both their lives.
Would the mere name of a political leader have such an impact today? I think we know the answer.