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ut festival in we endz, or something like that

'We go ut fest burgess pk dis Sat. u com?' texts my friend.

Although she is a well-educated writer, orbiting 40, and plays the harpsichord (no, really), she is a South Londoner born and bred and as such is inclined to indulge in the patois.

'Txt u wid plan. tink plan is 2 go b4 dem ut get 2 rowdy'

This is how I came to spend this afternoon with a sloe gin hangover battling for my brain's attention with hi volume rappers, beatboxers and MCs with willfully misspelt monikers like DJ Shyne, StreetBreakerz, Indie Flyboyz, Ruff Diamondz, and other names heavily reliant on high-scoring Scrabble letterz. And all of them talking like my friend texts.

The Mix, supported by young person's radio station Reprezent (there they go again) 87.7fm is apparently curated by kidz, for kidz, which explains the aural assault, but not some of the other activities laid on which showed a penchant for retro classics that hinted at It's a Knockout meets Carry on Camping: volleyball, giant inflatable spheres you could roll around inside, comedy sumo suits kids can put on and wrestle each other in,  and popular 70s garden-fun  throwback Swingball. It also explains the correlation as one gets older between the growing appreciation of traditional English fruit-based liqueurs and a tailing off of one's youthful enthusiasm for loud music.

There was also educational stuff (Shakespeare) and healthy stuff (pedal-powered smoothies – the bike operated the blender). And a whole area offering advice on how to set up your own business and succeed in being self employed, with workshops on chocolate making, screen printing, and how to set up your own juice bar (a factory powered by crazily pedalling primary school children seems the natural starting point). Unfortunately this too was directed at teens – even though if they can curate a successful festival, run their own radio station, and perform to crowds, then 'dem ut' clearly don't need the advice quite so much as their directionless midlife parentz. Innit?

Velcro ties!

I don't know – you do your middle class, system-exploiting, pushy-parenting best to get your daughter into an up-and-coming state school that's already hoovered up millions of pounds of government money, been rebuilt by cool London architects, and kitted out with state-of-the art equipment. One that has gone from 0-60 in five years (where 60 is an 'Outstanding' from Ofstead, and 0 is, as one recent local school leaver put it, 'you wouldn't even send your dog there'). A school that now offers Latin, shares playing fields with a famous public school, and even has a house system, for Christ's sake. And what do they give you? Velcro ties!

continued…

Anyone for naked ping pong? It's what the young people are doing these days

A rare late pass and I'm drowning in opportunity, floundering at the prospect of all the possible things I could do with my free evening, and trying to remember what the hell it was I used to do with such liberty.

1. Get Time Out . Online, obviously, not actually buy it these days of course - it's gone up to £2.99, and I no longer get it for free. Plus they've started putting young person's stuff on the cover, like sex and mainstream pop stars. (I've money on there being a Justin Bieber cover within the next 12 months).

2. Apparently Table tennis/ping pong/wiff waff is the thing this summer, with 100 tables installed all over London. Even the NY Times is onto it. 

3. The hot venue seems to be the Ping Ping Parlour (7 Marshall St, until Aug 14) which scores triple zeitgeist points on account of also part of the pop-up craze, and being in Soho, which is allegedly not loud, lairy and full of bridge-and-tunnellers like the last time I was there, but in fact cool again.

4. An outfit calling themselves Stoke Newington International Airport are hosting a quiz night. I like a nice quiz night. Clubbing for the over 40s.

5. Plus they serve Monmouth coffee, which is some of the best in London. None of your cheap muck. And Freedom microwbrewery organic beer.

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A result for midlifers everywhere!

Cuauhtemoc Blanco, age 37, has just scored a goal in the world cup. 37! THE World Cup!
That's a score for midlifers everywhere! Back-of-the-net! Over what hill?
The oldest player in the World Cup ever was Roger Milla of Cameroon who scored four goals, aged 38 in the 1990 World Cup, and played again four years later (that's 1994 if you're struggling to keep up) when, aged 42, he became the oldest player to score in a World Cup.
[I don't know what everyone else did with their evening; I put the kids to bed, had a glass of rosé, ate posh fish cakes, and watched a bit of telly. I didn't score any goals for my country, or indeed do anything remotely heroic. Oh well.]

Manual for the people!*

Our blog has changed its name. Because the book - out in September! Did we say? - has changed its name. Book and blog have to be in sync, you see. And it's not like we'd be doing this if it weren't for the book. We don't like blogging. Only sociopaths like blogging. 

*It's an REM joke - if that isn't a contradiction in terms.

You can't go out dressed like that!

So it's mufti day at school (that's 'home clothes' for those of you who went to a comp) and my eleven-year-old daughter puts together an outfit that makes her look something like Jodie Foster in 'Taxi Driver'. And before I know it, the words are coming out of my mouth; the words that bang another nail into the midlife coffin; the words that officially make me my own mother: 'You can't go to school dressed like that!'
'Why not? It says wear "summer clothes", for goodness sake,' comes the reply, followed by the inevitable huff. For unconsciously, she too has slipped into petulant pre-teen cliché mode, even though she probably doesn't even know what a cliché is, and certainly not how to spell it.
'But you'll freeze to death!' is my next involuntary spasm. It's like I'm watching a low-grade ITV drama where I know what's coming next but am powerless to rewrite the script.
In the end, we compromise with a pair of tights under the shorts, and a cardigan in her bag, and though I try to tell her to be careful coming home on the bus on her own, she's still too young for me to explain exactly why I'm worried.