WHAT WOULD CHARLOTTE DO?

Slash Of The Titles

People’s job descriptions are getting ridiculous. Gone forever is the single description – writer, artist, designer, meerkat-wrangler. Occupations now always seem to be listed as career slash career or in terrible scenarios a three-parter with two slashes.  What’s this obsession with proving to the world that you can do lots of things? Maybe it means you’re not very good at one thing so you have to compensate by adding additional accomplishments? Or maybe it’s just smugness that says look how clever I am, I can do all these things?

Heading this catalogue of heinous hybrids is of course the ubiquitous actress/model, or model/actress, or even worse actress/model/singer. Oh look, I can stand still, smile vacantly for the camera and get my pic in Grazia. Or I’m so talented I can speak a few lines on cue - look at me I’m acting. And by the way Kate Moss, singing a backing track for Primal Scream doesn’t make you a singer and frankly I’ve seen better pole dances (than the one you performed in The White Stripes video) in Shoreditch on a Saturday night – and they were just my drunk friends. I know she’s a much-loved institution and hate mail will be coming my way for this but I just don’t get it. Kate Moss in her day, was a beautiful clothes horse. That’s what she did and she did it extremely well. What she is not is a role-model, fashion designer, actress or singer. And she’s a terrible pole dancer.

The male counterpart of model/actress is footballer/model however, this particular diversity should obviously be encouraged at all costs. The attractions of getting to see Freddie Ljungberg and Becks in their underpants more than compensates for any annoying descriptive soubriquet.

Newly emerged from the career slash sub-division is a monstrous new category – actress/model/tv presenter. These dubiously talented parvenus not only can do all the standing and pouting required by the aforementioned actress/model group, but can also ask guests inane and puerile questions, in the belief that their cutesy looks qualify them to conduct a probing and insightful interview. It really doesn’t girls.

So maybe it’s a matter of gravitas in your profession of choice. After all you never see combinations like aerospace engineer/hairdresser or historian/stand-up comedian? And before you all write in yes, I know Harry Hill’s a doctor and Ben Miller’s an astro-physicist. Maybe it’s the quality and validity of the work you do that determines whether it warrants a stand-alone description. And maybe it’s when you’re doing something vapid and unsatisfying that you just have to group several work skill sets together for your own self esteem and self-aggrandisment?

So think carefully about it next time someone asks you what you do. Because how you describe yourself says way more about you than what you do.

Peace

Charlotte Wilde

Former model/writer/voice-over artist/events manager/life coach/interior designer/actress/singer/all-round interesting girl to know.

IT DON’T MEAN SQUAT

Look at the beautiful ice-cool sculpture in the pic above and your first question most likely will be, I like it but what is it? Is it a decadent foot spa? Is it an exotic drinking fountain for pampered pooches whose owners have more money than sense? Wrong, it is in fact a toilet (or if you’re upper class, a lavatory bowl). It’s called GO WITH THE FLO and it’s the winner of an ergonomic toilet design competition.

The toilet is a squat design that the inventors claim strengthens abdominal and back muscles – sort of like prone yoga (not to be confused with prune yoga which quite frankly is very sticky). It’s got no moving parts, uses only a half gallon of water to flush and re-uses water from hand washing. Hold on, did I hear correctly? Firstly, you have to squat on the floor to use it? Are you kidding me? At a push that might be ok for ladies, but what if you’re a less than accurate marksman guy? The bathroom will be awash with pee. Then there’s an electromagnetic ball valve that re-uses your hand-washing water. You wash your hands in other people’s dirty water? Eeeeuw!

The whole concept while laudable in intent is really quite gross, and I just can’t see how it’s going to catch on. Cute puppies with floppy ears are just not going sell it to us this time. The toilet’s design team leader hopes that every home will have one by the year 2030 – is he crazy? Over my ballcock Baby.

Cyber Stalker - Moi?

Hello, my name is Charlotte Wilde and I’m a cyber stalker. I’m not proud of this and I’m working my way through the twelve step recovery programme. With only a few notable slip-ups - damn you Google Analytics, my recovery and rehabilitation have been going well.

It started off so innocently. I was being stalked by a boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend. Third party friends would tell me things she’d told them about me that could only possibly be dredged up from some serious stalking. She’d talk to them about modelling shoots I’d done in my teens, or productions I’d acted in. She’d suddenly turn up at venues where I said I was going in Facebook status updates, wearing clothes similar to mine.

Somewhat freaked and with echoes of ‘Single White Female’ resounding, I checked myself out and was amazed at how much I found out. Even down to the You Tube video of me singing ‘You’ll never walk alone’ at Anfield (25,000+ hits thank you very much). Thankfully for society my recipe for salmon with marmalade and hazelnuts is nowhere to be found, although I fully expect it to make an appearance on one of Heston Blumenthal’s restaurants’ menus one day.

I meet a lot of creative people and when I do, I tend to check out their credentials online. I tell myself that it’s because I want to be informed and keep my finger on the pulse, but I have a suspicion that I’m just astonishingly nosey. So exploring the net segued into my normal modus operandi. I was however totally in control right up to the point that the Google Gods handed me the cyber stalker’s dream tool – Google Streetview. No longer would I have to depend on route planner to work out where I was going. And if I inadvertently slipped in a prospective boyfriend’s address, under the pretence of objective house-hunting, what was the harm? You can guess the slippery slope this self-deluding predilection produced.

My rock bottom moment was when I had to pause a DVD I was watching so I could check out the actors on IMDB and Wikipedia to see what they’d previously been in. Goes without saying that there was much tight-lipped frustration from those watching the film with me, followed by mutterings of ‘intervention’. So it all had to stop and I had to undergo cyberspace cold turkey to stop all the madness. I’ve now been six weeks clean of cyber stalking and I’m up to Step Five – thou shalt not Google new acquaintances.

Not looking forward to Step Six - Thou shalt not Facebook search…help me!

Sexy Times

So let’s get this out of the way first, I like the sexy times. Excluding skinny-dipping and massages, it’s the most fun you can have with your clothes off. But you can’t open a newspaper or read a blog these days without some harridan pontificating about how unreasonable it is that women and men have such high expectations of sex. Er….hello?? My response to that would be why not? Why shouldn’t we have high expectations?

Now putting aside exhausted new parents (that’ll teach you for your unsolicited nauseating stories about the messy birth), and people with certain medical conditions, there’s no reason why the rest of us shouldn’t expect or even demand decent sex – it’s a basic inalienable right. Lost your job? Lost your soulmate? Work getting you down? Well, there’s nothing quite like a good shag for obliterating some of life’s contemptuous disappointments is there?

However, if we’re to believe a recent survey (and isn’t there always a survey?) nine out of ten people feel their sex lives could be better. Now call me cynical, but I believe that a lot of these surveys are commissioned with the required result in mind. Nine out of ten people feel that their sex lives could be better?? Try these all-natural libido-boosting Priapusberry tablets. The priapusberry only grows on the side of Mount Erectus in Outer Mongolia and has for centuries enhanced the desires of the indigenous population…blah blah blah.

I just don’t understand why anyone should have to make do with second-rate unsatisfactory sex or God forbid – no sex at all. Now a lot of my male friends would argue that for a guy there’s no such thing as bad sex – if you’re in his bed and you’re naked – woo hoo! Hmmm… bravado-fuelled gender stereotypical comments aside, I would say that maybe you’d be astonished at how much more gratifying the fuzzy tingle times can be with a little effort, and a lot more intellectual curiosity.

Good sex is not simply just a question of instinct. It’s influenced by social and cultural preferentials, and also prevailing conformities. It can be profoundly emotional, and it can be bloody hilarious. However, now that watching porn is well and truly socially acceptable for both men and women, it does raise questions about appearance and performance. Maybe that’s why so many totally intimidated people appear to prefer a cup of tea, and a chocolate HobNob (not in our house obviously, we can think of better things to do with a chocolate HobNob – references on application).

Good sex isn’t difficult, and lacklustre or inferior sex is just not acceptable. You don’t have to be a world-class athlete with a six-pack or a supermodel with no cellulite. You most certainly don’t have to be a nymphomaniac or a sex-addict but like any skill worth having, you have to learn. There’s no excuse not to – it’s not rocket science, and it’s a lot more fun than learning how to drive or play tennis.

So buy the latest version of the Joy of Sex (no longer sporting the off-putting hairy participants), lock the door and practice practice practice.

Off to the shops now – mysteriously out of chocolate Hob-Nobs…

With Bells On

Imagine ‘Strictly Ballroom’ meets The Countryside Alliance. Add in some erotically-charged folk dancing, sexy Dorset accents, and the lure of destiny calling, and you’ll have the gist of the film Morris – A Life With Bells On.

Yes – the film’s about morris dancing, that mainstay of village fetes the length of England. Morris dancing is back – but not as we know it. Some say Morris Dancing was brought back from the Crusades by the Knights Templar, and others say it was brought over from France by William the Conqueror. However it arrived, Morris Dancing is perceived as the epitome of all that is quintessentially English. With circumscribed routines quaintly named Tubs of Lard and Leeks on Fire, its regimented sequences are generally considered to be sacrosanct.

Morris – A Life With Bells On is the story about a highly-talented and maverick Morris Dancer called Derecq (Charles Oldham) who wants to free-form morris dance, re-interpret the sequences and introduce new elements to the genre. Don’t want to include any spoilers but all does not go well and as a result, Derecq finds himself in Los Angeles dancing with the outrageously flamboyant morris dancers of Orange County – the OCMs. Cue swathes of tight lycra and a disturbing Svengali in the form of Miloslav Villandry (Greg Wise) complete with pony tail and saffron robes. In Los Angeles, Derecq finds artistic freedom and falls in love.

Morris is an exceptionally funny and low-key British film made for the absurd sum of only £500000. There’s big names like Sir Derek Jacobi, and a proliferation of other excellent British actors who will be instantaneously recognisable. Everyone should see this film however, the chances are that most of you will never see it because the producers and director can’t get a mainstream distributor to distribute it. The Suits say it’s a niche market (thereby totally missing the point), and they don’t think people will go and see it. If it wasn’t for independent distributor Movieloa who’ve been showing it in South of England cinemas, no-one would have seen it at all.

I can’t over-emphasise that this not a documentary film about morris dancing, it’s a rollicking funny film about one man’s dream to maximise the full potential of the art. If you’d like to see this film (and believe me you’ll love it), then log on to http://www.morrismovie.com/ and sign the petition to get it released nationwide.

Twitter

Twittering – even the word makes me shudder. Conjuring up as it does a gaggle of old ladies gossiping round a tea table groaning with fondant fancies. And in a way that’s what Twitter is only on a global scale.

For those of you who’ve been living in a vacuum for the past few months Twitter’s a social networking blogging service that lets you send and receive user updates. Its popularity has steadily been gaining momentum, and it’s now in the top three alongside Facebook and My Space, with approx 60 million visitors a month. The updates which can only be 140 characters in length are called tweets (ugh). Users can send and receive updates via the Twitter website, SMS, RSS, or through applications nauseatingly called Tweetie, Twitterrific, and Twitterfon. Now this worldwide cyber-space phenomenon sounds wonderful and technocratic and very ‘Jeux Sans Frontieres’ – you know, a sort of ‘by the people for the people’ dialogue, but is it really?

In these days of crippling recession, redundancies and negative equity that threaten to irrevocably divide us into a society of those who have and those who have not, surely any device which unites us and promotes unity is a good thing? Well in theory yes, that is of course until you actually take a closer look. Then you have to ask yourself is your life really enriched by knowing that Alan Davies spends a lot of time worrying that the tits have stolen his lard pole (don’t ask - you don’t want to know), and that for an erudite man who’s supposedly got a brain the size of a planet, Stephen Fry does tend to use the words, wee, poo and piddle quite a lot. Don’t even get me started on Ashton Kucher and his wife Demi Moore’s facile twittering.

It’s the banality of the tweets that’s so tedious. Say you follow 20 people and they each tweet 5 times a day, well that’s 100 tweets you have to wade through. And the thing is that most of us don’t live very exciting lives so you end up reading ‘Had porridge for breakfast’, or ‘Saw a dog wearing a hat’. There’s no self-edit button, whatever mediocre thought comes into the twitterer’s mind ends up on your in-page. Now sometimes they’ll take a pic of the dog in the hat and that makes it mildly more interesting however, sometimes they’ll post a pic of their bowl of porridge, which is not so fascinating. Maybe 1 out of the 100 tweets might direct you to a titillating website, but is that worth all the time you need to invest?

I don’t want Twitter in my life, I don’t have time for Twitter in my life. I’m having enough trouble coping with Facebook’s sinister change of status questions. It used to be ‘What are you doing right now?’, now it’s saying ‘What’s on your mind?” What’s next? ‘How are you feeling?’ or maybe disturbingly ‘Facebook is not agreeing with the choices you are making’.

No, Twitter appears to be for people who have given up and are looking for ways to pass the time – a panacea for the populace as it were. I think I can do without it. For those of you who disagree, my twitter address is…

Charlotte Got Her Groove Back

So here I am again. As some of you may know I previously had a What Would Charlotte Do website. I loved writing for my website which I started as a showcase for my published work. It became a platform for me to air my views on particular subjects, and with a handful of quirky photos it became what I hope was a provocative place to visit.

That was until the world went blogging mad. It seemed to me that irrespective of merit, everyone was blurting their ill-formed opinions into cyberspace. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have to agree with you for me to enjoy your blog but for God’s sake exercise the self-edit button, and make it coherent. Using spell check occasionally wouldn’t go amiss either. Suddenly the world was saturated with opinionated ramblings, and having the website seemed to perpetuate that ‘look at me’ culture which I felt was just a bit contemptible.

I became a bit disillusioned with the whole ‘blurt out what you’re thinking’ ethos, and decided to suspend the website. To be honest, I felt that blogs were stupid. So instead of indulging in endless dialogue, I went out and had some real life adventures. I have to say they proved to be more enriching than my cyber life.

Now I’m back and I must admit that I miss writing my columns. I’m hard at work on a screenplay, but it’s not the same. So responding to reprise requests, and with a self-deprecating ‘I couldn’t possibly – oh well go on then’ tussle with my conscience, here’s my new blog. I’m only going to update it as and when (probably monthly) because to be honest, I do have a life. E-mail me at hello@whatwouldcharlottedo.com with your comments or just to say hello.

Enjoy my stupid blog.