My first reaction was, ‘No, I’m not’ but I have a horrible feeling that I am, now I come to think of it – and I
definitely
was when I was a child.
I used to do all that jumping-over-the-cracks-in-the-pavement stuff, throw salt about with gay abandon (alternating shoulders as I could never remember which one I was supposed to throw it over), and try to befriend every black cat in the neighbourhood, only to then reject them when I realised I wasn’t entirely positive that they weren’t
un
lucky.
When I reached my teens, I decided to fight back by becoming a compulsive risk-taker, so I would deliberately walk under ladders, cross paths with people on the stairs, and put shoes on tables just for the hell of it.
I then became the world’s most accident-prone adult, so now I’ve gone back to being careful – or
superstitious
, if you prefer to call it that!
What can’t you live without?
My husband, my children, earplugs, thermal underwear and piles of books. Oh, and an inexhaustible supply of cups of tea. (I’d have added pink shrimp sweets to the list, but I
refuse
to let them control me any longer.)
Which five people, living or dead, would you like to invite to a dinner party?
This is a bit of a tricky question as, if you invited a whole load of big personalities to dinner at the same time, that would just be asking for trouble – so theoretically, I should pick some guests who are listeners, not talkers, except no-one’s likely to have heard of
them
.
Also, I know you’re probably supposed to choose people who’ve made a massive contribution to the welfare of nations, or who are really saintly and good, but what if they turned out to be tediously boring? Then someone might notice what an appallingly-bad cook I am.
I clearly need to give this careful thought.
Priorities for dinner guests:
- Must be good conversationalists, to divert attention from the food.
- At least one or two should be dead or fictional. Then I won’t have to feel guilty if I poison them, and can concentrate on keeping a close eye on the ones who were alive when they arrived.
Prioritising’s always so helpful, isn’t it? Now I’ve almost completed my list:
- Dorothy Parker, writer
- David Mitchell, comedian
- Niles Crane from Frasier, psychiatrist (played by David Hyde Pierce, but he has to attend in character)
- Clive James, writer and critic
I’m stuck on the fifth guest, though, so maybe readers could help me decide who that should be? Here are the candidates:
- Fran Lebowitz, writer (‘Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he’s paying.’)
- Karl Pilkington, moaner and philosopher (‘The Elephant Man would never have gotten up and gone,’ Oh God. Look at me hair today.’)
- Nora Ephron, writer (‘When your children are teenagers, it’s important to have a dog so that someone in the house is happy to see you.’)
- Stephen Wright, comedian (‘If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.’)
- Paul Merton, comedian (‘My school days were the happiest days of my life; which should give you some idea of the misery I’ve endured over the past twenty-five years.’)
- Basil Fawlty, hotelier (‘A satisfied customer: we should have him stuffed.’)
We thought we’d also include some suggestions for points of discussion for reading groups, so we asked Molly Bennett what she most often asks herself, and then reproduced her questions below.
(She’s even had a try at answering them – in brackets – but says your opinions are much more likely to be right than hers.)
Love and Marriage
Long-term Marriages
- What happens when a marriage is stuck in a rut? (Nothing. That’s the point.)
- How much sex is everyone else having? (Much, much more than me. Definitely.)
- Is love cyclical, i.e. can married people recapture their feelings for each other? (God, I hope so.)
- Which is preferable: excitement or contentment? (I must admit, excitement can be very tiring.)
- Do you see the person you’re married to as others see them?
- Just because he doesn’t talk about it, does this mean he doesn’t love you? (It’s hard to remember that this may be true.)
- Is
everyone
cheating? (It bloody well seems that way.)
- How often do married people imagine being with someone else? (More than they admit.)
- Is an affair ever worth it? (Not sure, but my guess is no.)
- Is it still love, or just hard labour at the coalface? (How can you tell?)
Divorce
- What are the effects of divorce and stepfamilies on the children, including in their adulthoods? (See Philip Larkin, then multiply by ten.)
- How does divorce affect you: as a child, as a parent, as a married person? (Ditto.)
- Is it ever worth it? (That depends on who you ask.)
- Is it too easy to get divorced? (As above.)
- Is divorce a selfish act? ( “ )
- Discuss toy-boys, trophy wives and Thai brides amongst yourselves. (I myself have nothing to add.)
Internet dating
- How realistic are people’s expectations? (Do I really need to answer this?)
- Are men trying to find love, or sex? (I’ll let you know when I find out, though early indications suggest the latter.)
- How do participants judge suitable candidates? (A picture speaks a thousand words.)
- Does anyone tell the truth when internet dating? (Of course not.)
- Does it really matter if you have shared interests? (D’uh. No.)
Family Matters
Sibling Rivalry
- Why do children agree that their parents are guilty of outrageous favouritism, even though they cannot agree on which one of them their parents prefer?
- Do brothers and sisters ever grow out of sibling rivalry? (Please God they do.)
- How do you balance familial demands, within your immediate and extended family? (Haven’t mastered this one yet.)
- Is the family a fixed or a mutable thing? (Note: you argue this one differently if you’re trying to justify your own divorce.)
- Why are teenagers capable of such lunacy and yet of giving such sage advice on occasion? (It’s a complete mystery - unless they’re watching and learning while you think they’re glued to Facebook and the X-Box.)
Am I a bad mother?
- Why do mothers always feel guilty? (It’s part of the job description.)
- Why do mothers always feel responsible? (Ditto the above.)
- Why can fathers sleep through everything to do with the kids? (It’s a mystery.)
Am I a bad daughter?
- Why is it so hard to be sympathetic to your parents, when you’re a parent too? (Must try harder.)
- Why is it so easy to forget that your parents are people, even while wishing your own children would envisage you as a human being and not just “Mum”? (See above.)
Political Issues
The Reality of Politics
- To what extent does the personal affect the political, and vice versa? (Much more than you would think possible.)
- Are politicians really how we envisage them? (Should they be?
Can
they be?)
- How much power do politicians really have? (Answer: much less than they expected, or would ever acknowledge.)
Care in the community
- How many people are suffering from mental illnesses, whether diagnosed or undiagnosed? (See the usual suspects for further information.)
- What is their impact of the lives of others? (Let’s just say that I’d look ten years younger …)
- What are the effects of people having too much time on their hands, or of living solitary lives? (De-stabilising, without a doubt.)
- Are MPs policy-makers, or social workers? (In theory, a); in reality, b) - despite lacking any training in the subject.)
- What are the dangers to staff working with the general public? (Under-estimated.)
Money Matters
The Gap Between Rich and Poor
- How do we even know what life is like for anyone else? (We don’t.)
- Is being broke a matter of perception? (The difference between “I can’t afford a holiday this year” and “there weren’t enough coins down the back of the sofa to buy a pint of milk”.)
Money
- Can
everyone
tell your clothes have come from Primark? (Of course not. No-one here has ever been to Primark.)
- Why do people assume all their friends can afford to attend weddings in far-flung and expensive locations? And why does the hen party have to be in Cuba? (What
do
these people earn?)
- Am you a bad parent if you don’t earn enough, or are your children learning valuable life skills by having to work their vacations, and going to the local school? (Please say yes to the latter option.)
- Will your son inevitably end up in a young offenders’ institute because you sent him to the local school? (Required answer: no.)
- Will your daughter’s career progression be hampered by your lack of funds, despite the fact that her brain is the size of a planet? (As above.)
Getting Older
Significant Birthdays
- What do they symbolise? The end of life as we know it – or a new beginning? (God, I hope the latter is true.)
Ageing
- How do we hold back the years?
- Is it worth the effort? (I bloody well hope so.)
- Are women doomed to be replaced by someone younger? (Oh,
don’t
.)
- At what stage do women become invisible? (It happened so suddenly, that I missed it.)
- Is it really different for men? (Yes – they have all the luck. Beards hide a multitude of sins, and men are
supposed
to have them.)
- Is hypochondria an inevitable feature of getting older? (God, I hope not.)
- How do you cling on to your self-esteem? (How?
How
?)
Philosophical Questions
Success and Failure
- What makes us a success, or not? Career? Relationships? Getting through the day? Doing it differently from your parents? All, or none of the above? (Please don’t say money or status, or a smooth forehead.)
- Do others determine whether we are successful or do we decide that for ourselves? (Next question?)
Life in a Bubble
- Do we ever really know what is going on in someone else’s life? (Though would we want to?)
- Can we ever be sure what someone else is thinking? (Note: mind-reading can get one into trouble.)
- Is life always greener on the other side? (Actually, I can’t answer this. Given that I can’t be in two places at once.)
Guilt and Innocence
What constitutes cheating? (The answer to this appears to be rather variable, depending on whether we’re talking about someone else, or oneself.)
- Is guilt or innocence a matter of degree? (Um …)
- Does it depend on who makes the rules? (Most things do.)
Acknowledgements
No thanks are due to the owners of the unbelievably-noisy building site at the end of my street. (
Ten years
to build a small estate? I’d complain to my MP if I thought it would do any good.) I do owe
huge
thanks, however, to those of you who were regular readers of my blog and Twitterfeed. The way you engaged with Molly’s life so wholeheartedly made writing about it much more fun than I’d expected.
Even so, I don’t think I would ever have believed that I could write a ‘proper book’ about Molly, had it not been for the incredibly generous help and encouragement of Judith O’Reilly and India Knight. I cannot thank them enough for their kindness to a stranger.
I am very grateful to the judges of the 2011
Orwell Prize for Blogs
, Gaby Hinsliff and David Allen Green, for shortlisting me, as well as to Jean Seaton and Gavin Freeguard. Thanks, too, to all those who nominated and voted for me in the BOTY and
Total Politics
awards.
Only another writer can know what it feels like to suddenly decide, half-way through a book, that you are
rubbish
at writing, hate doing it, and want to run away and do something –
anything
– else instead. In those moments of meltdown, I’d have imploded, were it not for the helpful advice and understanding of Sue Welfare, Ben Hatch, Marika Cobbold, Harriet Cobbold Hielte and Alex Marsh. Thank you all, very much.
I also owe a considerable debt of gratitude to others in the literary profession who have helped and supported me along the way, namely Patrick Walsh; Peter Straus; Simon Trewin; Scott Pack, and the very lovely Claudia Webb.
The same goes for people from a wide variety of fields who’ve been equally generous with encouragement, practical help, or advice – and sometimes all three. A big thank you, therefore, to Sean O’Mahony; Peter Black AM; Adrian Masters; Kaliya Franklin; Fiona Laird; Lily Bradic, Damian Greef; Jo and Phil Crocker; Tim O’Shea; Christopher Tuckett, Julia Kitt; Elspeth Barker; Ashley Stokes; George Maclennan; Mischa Hiller, Becke Parker, Maria Roberts, Rachel Trezise, Andrew Mackey, Charles Christian and Sally Willcox; as well as various councillors, MPs and their staff.
A number of journalists, bloggers and tweeters attempted to ‘out’ me, but without success (which must mean they weren’t
really
trying). I’m grateful to them for being so good-humoured about it, anyway – and for continuing to take an interest in what Molly has to say. Thanks, too, to FleetStreetFox, Kit Lovelace, and Biscuit and Toast of the
Wed or Dead Wager
for inviting me to join ‘Bloggers Anonymous’, and for making the early days of the blog far less lonely, and a lot more fun.