The selfishness and oddness of the modern world.

My morning run took me to Uppermill today, as it does most Wednesdays. As I approached the square where the market is set up I thought I might have mistaken the day. The fish-man’s van was there but apart from the chap who sells shoes and slippers the square was otherwise empty. I commented on this to the fish-man who told me that the veg-man and the cheese-and-biscuits-woman had been but had had to leave as they could not get onto the square because of parked cars.

Why did that happen? Anyone who lives locally is well aware that there is no parking on the square on a Wednesday morning and besides there are notices all over the place. Plain and simple thoughtlessness, selfishness and lack of consideration for others!

 No baking apples or ginger biscuits for me this morning. But, more importantly, a morning’s trading lost for the stall holders.

Crazy parking was in evidence along the route my bus took on the way home. It seems that some kind of exercise class has recently started up in a small industrial complex just around the corner from where i live - pilates or some other, even trendier sort of thing. There is insufficient parking space in the industrial complex so the exercisers park willy-nilly along the edge of the road on a rather dangerous curve.

My bus driver had to pause to allow a couple of white-van drivers coming in the opposite direction. According to the right of way code these should have given way to her. Another example of the selfishness of the modern world!

And now for an odd twist on modern feminism, courtesy of journalist Hadley Freeman:-

“A thrilling new trend has emerged, and it’s as seismic as the New Look was in 40s fashion, or the emergence of Mediterranean cooking in 90s Britain: it’s called being a housewife. Now you might think: “Ummm, that doesn’t sound THAT new to me.” But all fashion trends are rehashes, and “tradwife”, as this one is dubbed, is housewife with a social media spin. It’s like bringing back 90s style, but swapping that brown eyeliner for contouring makeup. It’s just so much more zeitgeist, you see?
So a “tradwife” is a woman who doesn’t work so as to look after their children, their husband, their home and then talk non-stop about how great this is on social media. Who knew being so traditional was also so modern? And so busy!
Last week alone, there were interviews with tradwives in the Daily Mail, the Times and on the BBC, This Morning, Victoria Derbyshire and, for all I know, piped 24/7 across all channels. I’m afraid that – being both non-trad and a non-wife – I am less plugged in than these women.”

It seems that this is modern feminism because the women concerned have “chosen” to live this way. And because they are modern women, they Instagram and blog about it, making much of the joy if ironing their husband’s shirts and buying onions. (Okay, I know I go on about buying stuff at the local market but I don’t quite fit the trad-wife model!)

Hadley continues with a bit of a warning about tradwives in the USA:-

 “And it’s also about something else. Rather awkwardly for the British tradwives – who like to suggest their movement is just about dressing in Cath Kidston and letting their husband choose where they are going on holiday – in the US and elsewhere it is very much part of the “alt-right” movement. It is especially popular among white supremacists, who are extremely down with the message that white women should submit to their husband and focus on making as many white babies as possible. British tradwives insist this has nothing to do with them: “Someone even said, this type of housewife was promoted by the Third Reich. And it’s like: ‘Really?! I didn’t even know that!’””

Hmmm!