I don't know what made me think about this. I'm lying here attempting to nap, and for some reason Lily Allen's stage set-up at Glasto came into my head. I tweeted at her at the time, probably a little bit sanctimoniously, but I was a bit taken aback by the light-up giant baby-feeding bottles! The blokeface was also disgruntled, especially on discovering that rather than it being some weird tongue-in-cheek thing it was actually a homage to her husband's contribution to parenting their children. My problem at the time was that there are loads of ways for dads to parent babies, why focus on bottles? Now, though, a month later, my thoughts on this are a bit more complex.
First up, while it might seem nice of Lily to publicly thank him for his help, the way I see it he was simply being a partner. If we as a society want to argue for equality in parenting we have to drop this idea that men who are actively involved with their children's care are special. How many tributes do we see from male artists lauding their baby-mothers' assistance in raising their kids? Barely any, because that's the normal way of things. Lily I'm glad you appreciate Mr Cooper but he's not Superdad, he's just a dad.
Secondly I know that Ms Allen breastfed for a certain amount of time. I wonder if she realises how hard the various breastfeeding support organisations have worked in the past to make it even possible for most women to even try to breastfeed, how low rates were, how close we were to losing the skills and support needed. I wonder how much help she had to be able to breastfeed. Part of the work of the support organisations has been to encourage partners of breastfeeding mothers to find ways to parent without interfering with breastfeeding, all the countless other things that babies need other than feeding. For Lily to so publicly say 'hey my man's brilliant, he does night feeds' just kicks all that work, all those volunteer hours, in the face. That just seems ungrateful and rude, to me.
This is what happens to my blogs. I keep up for a while then a post gets long and drawn out, and I lose track, and stop. I will try harder. And now back to a post from 2 months ago... oh good grief, it's last year now! Oh well, might as well post it anyway...
Rather than drag my post for last week out, I figured it would be easier to give a damn good night out the justice of its own post.
A while back, I bought an offer for a booth at Mix Karaoke, they come up cheap on Groupon and Living Social from time to time. (Karaoke, they all scoff! There's a snobbery about it, I know. The stereotypes of the TV talent show wannabe, the drunken tourist somewhere in Asia warbling their way badly through My Way and the pub dj hamming it up, yes they're all there in public karaoke bars. But a) so what? If they're enjoying their 3 minutes of spotlight and not getting tomatoes thrown at them, good for them, and b) a private party in a karaoke booth isn't really like that. It's more like having a jukebox full of cheesy songs to belt out, or not, and dance to, or not, as you see fit, and there's only your group who know or care whether you can hit that high note. It's a blast, really. Go do it.) Anyway, I thought that half term would be a good time for most of the people I was going to invite, a group of fellow mums from around Leeds, and some a bit further afield. Sadly only 4 of us could make it, but by the time I'd got yesses and noes from everyone, one of the further-afields, Yvonne, had booked a hotel and I said I'd go halves with her, so that nailed down the day, which happened to be last Friday.
The only slot I could book the booth for was 7pm, a little bit early, so I aimed to meet Yvonne from her train, check in and grab some quick food. I thought that somewhere at a food court would be reasonably quick, and the nearest thing to that in Leeds is the Trinity Kitchen, which has a branch of Chicago Rib Shack, among other things. I figured that would be the best thing for not triggering my gluten intolerance! And yes, their baby back ribs are gluten-free, hurrah. They're also very, very messy to eat. Why I bothered putting make-up on before I ate, I do not know, because I had to wipe half of it off to get rid of the bits of sauce from my face. And my hands were completely covered, thank goodness for M&S citrus hand wipes that I don't go anywhere without these days! (They're the best thing for getting diesel smells off your hands.) Oh, and when they say 'spicy chicken burger' apparently they do mean spicy.
From there it was a quick walk, via a couple of shops to try to get some plasters as I was attempting to break some new shoes in, haha, to the karaoke bar, where Suzanne was waiting for us. We hung around outside for a little while until Jay turned up, and then went inside... Suzanne and I had been before so we knew that a private booth meant a room, with a door, with its own karaoke machine and big-screen telly. Jay was expecting a reserved table in the main bar, so the room was a pleasant surprise for her. I hogged the mic a fair bit, because I do like to sing, and I know others aren't so fussed as me, lol. We did a fair number of classics, Take On Me and Fat Bottomed Girls being good examples, and had a riotous time with our fizzy wine and nibbles, before being turfed out to finish our drinks in the main bar, where we became backing singers to the guy doing The Great Pretender.
The night was still fairly young when our time was up, so after finishing our drinks in the main bar, doing backing vocals to one of the regulars' rendition of Somebody To Love (I think that's what it was! Memory problems you know) I suggested wandering up to the Belgrave, a super-hip bar and music venue, which has a really nice roof terrace, where we drank ale and cider, and got chatting about geeky stuff with a couple of women from a leaving do at the table next to ours *waves over the interwebs to Hannah and Kirsty*
All in all, a brilliant night, must do it again.
