Remembering the 15th April '89

Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough Disaster. For those of you that don’t know about this, it was when a football stand in Sheffield, England, collapsed six minutes into a semi final match and killed (ultimately) 96 people. It was terrible and to this day remains the worst event in footballing history, in the UK and internationally.

I vaguely remember seeing it on the telly on the day, but seeing as John, my Mum’s boyfriend and subsequently hubby, had taken us away for a weekend in Great Yarmouth, I remember the weekend for something else entirely.

I was 15 and John had paid for me to have the room across the hall in the hotel we were staying at. I was in heaven. My first every hotel stay and I had tea and coffee making stuff, my own bathroom, a telly and two single beds. I picked the bed by the wall, put Brian the ginger teddy bear on the pillow, he was my teddy bear named after a boy I had a crush on when I was eight. We had spent the day on the beach, it had been sunny. We’d had dinner and about 10pm I’d said goodnight and sat on the bed watching telly for a little while. I imagine that Muv and John had also started watching telly, because parents don’t do anything else, especially on a dirty weekend.

I don’t know what time it was when I went to bed, but at about 1am I was awoken by a man climbing into bed next to me. This is going to sound strange, but I remember my Dad climbing into bed with my brother when he was unwell to comfort him, and my brother going nuts. I thought that perhaps John was doing the same to see if he’d get the same reaction (I would like to state, John never did anything inappropriate). As he climbed into bed the man said, ‘I don’t care if your Marilyn Munroe, I’m going to sleep.’

Now, I was a fifteen year old girl that just so happened to be having ladies things that weekend and as accidents happen, so had one that night. I was embarrassed by the warm red patch in the bed and climbed out of bed over the large sleeping stranger. Sat on the edge of the other bed was another man. I walked past him and went into the bathroom. Went to the toilet and then walked back into the room. There was a large man asleep on my bed, a pair of trousers on the floor next to it. The man on the other bed, looked at me and said, ’come here.’

I just turned and walked out of the room and knocked on the door opposite. I’m not sure how long I waited for a response, but I do remember hearing the telly on. When the door opened, John was standing in front of me.

‘There’s a man in my bed.’

My mum appeared at the door.

‘Jodie says there’s a man in her bed.’ John said.

John walked across the hall and into my room. I was taken into my Mum room. There was some shouting, before John appeared and walked down the hall, then returned with Hotel security or management. Could have been either, I was sitting on my Mums bed telling what happened, which, really was nothing, but could have been so much more.

I slept in my Mum and John’s room that night.

The next morning I asked if I could get my stuff from my room. I was told by John that he’d it all. I wasn’t allowed back into the room.

I asked for Brian, my Mum wouldn’t let me have him, ‘he needs washing’.

They told me later that the man who had climbed into bed with me had been a family man with three daughters around my age. He and his friend had come from the oil rigs and had been drinking. His friend (the one seated) had thought he could get his mate to let his guard down. The family man woke up about two hours later because Brian was wedged under his hip. This was the point where he realised what could have happened and being drunk didn’t know if it had, when he had beaten the other guy up so badly that my accident was a drop in the ocean of blood that covered the room. Light fittings where broken off the wall, pictures smashed and the window had been broken. Brian was blood soaked and needed to be washed at least twice before he could be returned to me. The ‘mate’ ended up in hospital.

For years afterwards, whenever this story was told, my Mum always thought it was hilarious that I was so casual about it when the hotel manager lady nearly lost her teeth coughing and spluttering at my reply to her question, ‘Are you OK my dear, nothing ‘bed’ happened to you?’

I replied with the innocence of a mid teen, ‘Oh it was alright, I just thought it was John.’

Crepuscular Light

A few years ago I read ‘The DaVinci Code’ by Dan Brown. I followed it with ’Angels and Demons’. I enjoyed them both for what they were, adventure novels that kept you turning the page because of a good fast paced story. Our hero moved across continents, religion got a bashing, people died or were badly injured, but in the end the good guy came out on top. When during Uni classes these books where held up as bad examples of writing I would always jump to their defence with the argument that they have got people reading. Surely, I’d follow up with, any reading is good reading?

In May last year I was readying myself for a trip back to the UK for an extended period. I needed reading material. A visit to my local bookstore saw me purchasing the first three of the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. I liked the look of the covers and the blurb had me sold. I like a good vampire yarn.

I read the first book and got a tad irritated with being told Edward was amazing, Edward is luminous and Edward is gorgeous. I wanted to slap Bella for being such a big girl’s blouse. I did however make it to the end of the first book even though I wished it would hurry up and get on with the story already. I wasn’t in a hurry to know what happened next though. There was a four month gap before I started reading the second book at Christmas. Just after the Twilight movie came out.

I saw the movie in the cinema and found myself thinking, ‘where’s the fast forward button?’

I only made it half way through the second book and came perilously close to throwing it out of the window during my Christmas road trip. I knew what was coming, it had been hinted at so many times, but the author never seemed to want to tell us anything for sure. Was Jacob a werewolf? Of course he is, so why not just bloody tell us, it’s not like we can’t work it out for ourselves by page 10.

A friend of mine borrowed the books from me and loved it. She said it was like a soap opera, she had to know what came next and as such kept turning the pages.

I don’t watch soap operas. I don’t watch Eastenders, Neighbours or Days of our Lives. Maybe this is why the slow pace annoyed me so much. I don’t want to wait six weeks to see the main characters have their first kiss. The duh duh duh music at the end of an episode rarely leaves me on the edge of my seat. I like them to just get on with it, if it’s going to happen. Sexual tension and threats are all well and good, but if you know it’s never gonna happen, what the point in having it there in the first place?

Maybe if I was 16, as I believe is the intended audience age for these books, I would have persevered. Maybe if I needed a lesson in abstinence and the consequences of loose living (as I believe are revealed in book four) I would have enjoyed them more. As it is, I see people (both men and women) on the train, heads buried in book three or four and feel like giving them a round of applause for making it so far.

I now see where my fellow students were coming from. It’s not a case of any reading is good reading. Only good reading is good reading. Bad reading only dims the lights further.

Tea

I’ve just finished drinking a bottle of Lipton Ice Tea White with Raspberry. I like this tea, it’s refreshing and not too sweet. I don’t know how many of these I’ve drunk, but I looked at the label for the first time ever, today.


Ingredients:
Water, sugar, tea extract (10.8%) [green tea extract 9.7%, white tea extract 1.1%], flavours (contains wheat derivatives), raspberry juice, food acid(296), antioxidant(300). Contains wheat products.

I have two questions; first surely with a higher level of green tea extract this should be marketed as a green tea product and second, how do they manage to get wheat into a drink?

Why so hard?

We all have electronic items that require batteries. Some are completely innocent, others not so. Last night I had to replace the batteries in my heater/aircon unit remote and having purchased some during the day I went to work. As usual through, this seemingly simple task, turns into mission impossible as you try to free the little metal cylinders from their plastic and cardboard prison.

I know the manufacturers and shop keepers don’t want these items being stolen, but is it really necessary to make it harder to open this packet than a bottle of childproofed painkillers?

It seems that no matter how many perforations they put in the cardboard, they only go half way through which means you end up with a tiny pile of hairy cardboard before you break a nail, and then, finally, the batteries fly across the room, because you are pushing and pulling so hard you loss all control.

How the hell...

...did these pieces get between the two panes of glass?

When did manners and courtesy disappear?

Was it with woman’s lib? Meaning men no longer give up their seat for a woman wearing heels?

Why don’t people say ‘excuse me’ anymore and instead stare at the back of your head expecting you to know they want to move instinctively?

Why is it that an train aisle full of standing people doesn’t inspire someone to move their handbag and feet off the seat next to them?

When did a queue become just a way of standing before turning into an all out bun fight to get through a door?

Why did I have to ask to sit down, when I was on crutches?

Why, when paying for an item, does the next person feel compelled to stand so close to you, you can feel their breath?

In a world where personal space is becoming more and more precious, I say we need, more than ever to regain some of the basic manners and courtesy with which we are furnished as children. Of course, in saying this I am assuming that manners are actually taught to everyone. Based on the evidence from public transport, public events and your average shopping centre, I reckon it’s a subject that needs to be put on the school curriculum.

Reliably Unreliable

We all have one. Be they a friend, a mate, a buddie or acquaintance, we know if they are invited out they will say, ‘yes, I’ll be there’ with such convincing gusto, that you actually believe, for once, they may actually turn up.

When they call you, email you or text you at the eleventh hour (usually after they have been prompted) they let you down. It will always be an imaginative and creative excuse that rings true, and despite you having doubts, you say, ‘that’s OK, maybe next time’. When they do turn up to something, you are surprised and so happy you forgive the previous let-downs.

I have two such mates. I still invite the first one, but I know she won’t turn up. I know it’s a waste of paper, bandwidth and effort, but in the name of friendship I still make the effort. I’m dangerously close to plonking the second in the same basket.

At what point do you say, enough is enough and give up altogether?

Join the Cult

Yesterday I joined a cult. Nothing that promises to beam me up at the end of the world, just one that suggests for $20.95 per week I can have health, fitness and happiness. They even gave a branded backpack, water bottle and cap to share my new found faith with the world.

A couple of weeks ago I attended a yoga class put on by work, in work hours. I walked into the class with pain in my hip after a rather adventurous weekend and I wasn’t sure the mellow looking chick at the front of the room would be able to convert me. An hour later, I was pretty much pain free and feeling just a tad floaty. I decided on the way home, that I liked yoga and was already looking forward to the next lesson. This week, however, they changed the session time, taking it out of work hours. It wasn’t a big time, but I did the calculations and realised I could be home by the time I was half way through the class. And seeing as Home is truly where my heart is, I decided to give it a miss.

Yesterday I walking back to the office after having my annual flu vaccination when a cult minion stopped me by waving a ‘5 for $10’ leaflet at me. He tried to convince me that the best way to start the day was to attend the church of exercise between 7 and 9am, I told him, that no, the best way to start the day was sleeping ‘til as late as possible. I told him that unless he could find a way to fix my duff hip, my hypertension and sort out the ceoliac disease (currently being investigated by doctors), I was only interested in casual yoga. He told me I should commit to coming three time a week. I told him, that wasn’t gonna happen.

Peter in his navy blue branded robes asked to me to come and have a look at the facilities, have a chat. He told me I didn’t have to commit to anything and that I should look at the website for timetables. I’d forgotten about Peter by the time I got back to my desk, but my interest in Yoga was firmly at the forefront of my mind.

During a mini brain break later in the day I looked at the website, it revealed that there were two churches within a five minute walk of my office. So I looked up the yoga classes in both. The one Peter represented only had two weekday classes and they were both outside of office hours. The other one had six classes, five of which are over lunch time. Bingo!

I dug out the leaflet that had been pressed into my hand like a one sided drug deal and rang the number on the back. Peter answered on the second ring. Moments later I found myself walking away from my desk carrying only the leaflet and my mobile (in case hostage negotiation was required).

A brief chat where he tried to convince me that treadmill, stationary bikes and spin classes were good had me sat back, arm folded. Then he changed tact.

‘Yoga’, he said, ‘good for the mind, body, soul, it is. Relax it will help, strength it will build, muscles it will tone, weight it will reduce.’

I already knew that, that’s why I want to do it. And why was he talking like Yoga?

‘You don’t have to book classes, just turn up 5-10 minutes in advance and you can attend any of our nearly 90 branches across Australia.’

I signed up.

I’m pretty sure Fitness First (or Finance First, as most Aussies call it) is a safe cult to be a member of. I just have to be sure I don’t turn into a built up gym bunny who can’t put her arm down by her sides.

Never gonna happen!


PS. Attended a BodyBalance class today. Couldn’t do half the moves (hip restrictions) but I enjoyed it, and will go again.