Being Cool

As everyone knows I am incredibly street. Like totally. Bo. I grew up on the mean streets of Essex and attended an all girls grammar school. You don’t go through something like that without being proper street. You get me? It’s just how I roll.

However occasionally you are reminded how incredibly middle class you are. For me, it was attending my nieces 3rd birthday on Sunday. All five of my nieces and nephews were there and first they ate lunch, commenting on how much they liked hummus and asking for more cous cous. After some party games Abigail and Evie (3 and 5 respectively) decided to put on a dance interpretation of Peter and the Wolf. With the ipod blaring out Prokofiev’s finest 4 children marched around, Miriam was excused on grounds on not being able to walk, changing characters with the music. It was fairly impressive – I wouldn’t have a clue which was grandfather and which was the cat. Even when Herbie had a breakdown about something and laid on the floor and Monty lost interest the girls continued to dance/march over them.
It wasn’t really like the birthday parties I had when I was growing up. Although I do remember having an Alice in Wonderland theme for one of them so I think I was just as middle class but twenty years earlier.

Over new year some girl I was friends with at school tagged me in a load of photos from that time. Thankfully she missed out the years where I looked really horrendous but still gets the tail end of the crimes against fashion years. Looking at the photos it would seem that I never managed to combine decent hair with a decent outfit, it was always either/or. Wearing school uniform that is fairly timeless? Then I must have insanely bouffant hair with no form of styling. Hair straight and fairly normal – then I am dressed as a member of the Wonder Stuff. Quite why she has done this and why she has left the album open for all to see ,despite me untagging myself, is beyond me but what strikes me most is what a bunch of absolute gimps we were. We were the uncoolest kids in the world. Barely missed a day of school, would have soiled ourselves if a policeman had spoken to us and the worst thing we did was wear jeans on the last day of school (they weren’t allowed). We were as far from being street as it is possible to be.

There wasn’t a hope in hell of any of us getting arrested unless it was for crimes against fashion. Seriously there are some bad outfits in there. In one of them my mate is wearing a suit (on a night out in 1998, why wouldn’t you wear a suit?) which she looks like she has nicked of Ricky Martin. In another we look like the village people going on a night out. I am amazed we made it past the bouncers. I am wearing a one shoulder top and black trousers and it would seem that a friend is dressed as Pocahontas. But we were happy. We may not have been the coolest kids in the world but we do look very happy in the photos.

So I shall embrace my uncoolness. I shall roll the middle class way. Sensibly and in bad clothes. I shall watch the little Sleeps dance to classical music and proclaim the virtues of lentil bake. Although I dislike the fact that they make me feel so old. All of them were able to work the ipod and find Peter and the Wolf, when I was taking pictures on a disposable camera they were amazed that they couldn’t instantly look at the pictures. When I was walking down the street with Abi in summer she became very upset and kept grabbing my arm and telling me that there was a “man stuck in a box, look, look, he’s stuck in a box”. He wasn’t of course, he was simply using a phone box, she’d just never seen one in use before. Still it’s nice to see phone boxes being used properly and not just as a place for the cool kids to hang out. Not that I ever did. I was at Girls Brigade.