Growing up stuff!

Yesterday I watched a teenager, Cori Grauff, in her first ever game in her first ever Wimbledon, defeat Venus Williams, whose successful tennis career had been one of the reasons why the teenager had begun to play in the first place. What are the chances of defeating your idol on your very first opportunity to play against her?

No wonder she burst into tears on winning! If she continues to have a successful tennis career, no doubt it will figure largely in the film of her life!

What a way to grow up!

Stand-up comedienne Lucy Porter was writing in the Guardian about how she wishes there were organisations like the Brownies for adults:-

 “I wish I could earn badges for grownup achievements. I’d work really hard for my “I haven’t cried once today” badge. Or one for “Finishing that documentary I started on Netflix.” What about a badge for emoji use? Sometimes I don’t know whether to reply to something with a crying with laughter face, a shock face or a thumbs up. Turns out it was probably more appropriate to just write: “Sorry for your loss.”
The scout movement has moved with the times and they’re actually quite hip now. You can genuinely get Brownies badges in Speaking Out, My Rights, Zero Waste. These are Greta Thunberg Brownies. I hear they even have a “smashing the patriarchy” badge and if you earn it your dad has to sew it on to your uniform.”

Like me, Lucy Porter was a keen Brownie but gave up the whole thing not too long after”flying up” into the Girl Guides. In her case it was because she wanted to be one of the cool kids playing computer games. In my case it was the arrival of television in our home. Even that might not have mattered but for the fact that a new and exciting science-fiction series, “A for Andromeda”, coincided with the night that our Girl Guide troupe met. So I took the thirteen-year-old coward’s way out and pleaded pressure of homework as my reason for leaving, much to my father’s disgust.

Interestingly Lucy Porter’s little daughter doesn’t go to Brownies but to Cubs which is now apparently co-ed. Does this mean that moving into Girl Guides, or probably nowadays co-ed Scouts no longer involves “flying up”? This was ceremony where the Brownies progressing upwards “climbed” a “ladder” formed by the other Brownies sitting in pairs with their legs making the rungs. You “flew up” because the “sixes”, i.e the mini groups within the troupe, were called by fairy names: Pixies, Elves, and so on. No Goblins as far as I can remember.

Nowadays it is probably considered to be too sexist to give such girly names to the sixes. Having said that, our smallest grandchild told us recently that she likes pink because pink is a girls’ colour. Now, where did that come from? Probably someone at nursery, we suspect. Certainly not from her mother, who takes great care with what influences her small daughter’s view of the world. Mind you, this has not prevented her from wanting to be a princess and to wear her Elsa-from-Frozen dress as often as possible.

And finally, for the insectophobes, here’s a link to a story about an international flight invaded by ants, which seemingly escaped from a passenger’s luggage. The stuff of nightmares!