In which I envisage using contemporary CBeebies shows for sexual orientation and gender identity educational purposes. Honestly, I kind of wish they would.

Octonauts
Episode in which Shellington, aka the walking encyclopedia, comes out as non-binary.
Kwazii: “Shiver me whiskers! Who knew you could be a boy AND a girl at the same time?”
Tweak, biting meaningfully into a carrot: “Duh, Kwazii.”

Charlie & Lola
Episode in which Lola decides to be a boy.
At the end, Charlie reprises the intro: “This is my little brother Lola. He’s small, and very funny.”

Bing
Episode in which Bing discovers his feelings for Pando are different from his feelings for Sula or Cocoa.
Flop: “Queer love: It’s a Bing thing.”

Clangers
Episode in which it is revealed that Clangers are sexually undifferentiated and reproduce via parthenogenesis.
Narrator: “Somewhere, out there in the vastness of space, there is a species whose stories have resisted being shoehorned into heteronormative human expressions of family life. Up until now, this wasn’t one of them.”

Humuhumu: “Keiki, are you a boy?”
Keiki: “No!”
Humuhumu: “Keiki, are you a girl?”
Keiki: “No!”
Humuhumu: “What are you, Keiki?”
Keiki: “I’m a KEI-KI.” syllables of name drawn out emphatically


[Humuhumu and Keiki in the bath, giving themselves bubble beards.]

It occurs to me that, while I’ve been very slow to begin to read long-form writing (e.g. novels & non-fiction longer than magazine articles) again, I’ve actually been watching quite a bit more new stuff than I have since before Humuhumu was born. Mostly since I no longer have to go to bed before 10 PM every night because I'm so tired. There are some spoilers here for "Planet Earth II", "Frozen" and "Paddington". The other reviews are of documentaries or are spoiler-free.

~~~Television~~~
Planet Earth II: Narrated by Sir David Attenborough, of course. I have to admit, I giggled all the way through the snow leopard sequences because I couldn’t stop thinking of that sketch from “John Finnemore’s Souvenir Programme”, which features a cameraman and a biologist with absolutely nothing in common, stuck up a mountain together for six months. Eventually they find common ground in mocking Sir David for continuing to narrate all these grand BBC nature programmes after retiring from field work. “We should just get an ordinary leopard and Tipp-Ex it!” “Or get an albino serval and do potato prints on him!” Er, anyway, the scope and cinematography of the programme are excellent, as one would expect, and it is fantastic at the end of the day to soar with the eagles, face-plant into the snow with a bobcat, or cheer on a baby iguana as it navigates a treacherous run through a perilous, snake-strewn obstacle course.

The Missing: This is one of those crime drama programmes that felt like it was going to be a two-or-three parter and then wrap up neatly. The BBC does that sort of thing brilliantly. The first two episodes were wonderfully suspenseful and quite scary.

Now that we’re six episodes in, it’s all gone a bit silly. I’m still on the fence with whether I’m on board with that, given how unlikeable most of the protagonists are.

Masterchef: The Professionals: Let’s be real now, I mostly watch this because of Monica Galetti, who pulls the best faces and is also, despite the lack of Michelin stars, a better chef than Mr Beardface aka Marcus Wareing. He thinks he’s the best judge on the show when he’s clearly entirely limited his tastes to fine French cuisine. Monica not only has that expertise, she also has palate that is capable of appreciating more diverse flavours. And she has the best hair.

My investment in this programme is a pale shadow of my love of Bake Off [RIP]. It peaked during the “normal” Masterchef in 2013, the year that Natalie Coleman won.

~~~Film~~~
Frozen: Aaargh. I’ve seen it a few times now. I don’t love it. Too many dreadful sappy songs, not enough ridiculous snowman and reindeer dialogue. Humuhumu likes it, though she thinks the ice monster is too scary, which is why a parent has to watch it with her. Presently I’m being heavily questioned about why Hans wants to steal Elsa and Anna’s kingdom. Gosh it’s fun explaining to a four-year-old what powerful motivators greed and a lust for power can be.

Paddington: Happily, Humuhumu loves this film almost as much as Frozen, though she thinks the naughty lady (Nicole Kidman’s character) is scary. I don’t mind rewatching it with her, as it's a pretty blatant parable about the positive effects of immigration. She asks a lot of questions every time it’s on, trying to understand the moral implications of what’s happening. The last time we watched it, I had to tell her no less than ten times that no, Uncle Pastuzo wasn’t coming back, because a tree fell on him during the earthquake and he died before he could get to the shelter.

The Take: The timing of the cinema release of the film (Bastille Day 2016, the day a freshly radicalised Tunisian man drove a lorry through a crowd in Nice, France) was awful, especially given the premise - terrorism by white people is subsequently erroneously blamed on Muslims. I enjoyed this. It was action-packed, well-paced and featured a lot of Idris Elba. What’s not to like? It was also entirely forgettable; the week after we watched it, I had difficulty remembering the title. If anyone was looking for further proof that Idris Elba should be James Bond, this adds to the already enormous stack of evidence.

The Man Who Knew Infinity: The bloke and I are both great fans of G. H. Hardy’s A Mathematician’s Apology, which lays out the working and personal relationships between S. Ramanujan and Hardy from Hardy’s perspective. This biopic attempts to show the same from Ramanujan’s. There are some great character portrayals of Bertrand Russell and John Littlewood. The film makes an effort to illustrate how the combined impact of Ramanujan’s isolation from sympathetic peers, loneliness at the long separation from his wife, poor physical condition, and Hardy’s drive to make him rigorously prove his theories, drive him to an early grave. It gives flavour for some of the barriers he faced in the form of obvious institutional and societal racism and the more subtle, unintentional racism of his allies, as exemplified by the little scene where Hardy asks Ramanujan if he enjoyed the college dinner (mutton, which Ramanujan didn’t eat because he was vegetarian). But it falls short, somehow.

Hypernormalisation: The bloke and I watched this three-hour documentary in the run-up to the US election. It’s pretty epic in scope as well as length, as it attempts to draw together historical decisions to explain how we’ve arrived at the present stage of “post-truth” politics. Its narrative begins with the ostracisation of the Syrian government by western powers and heavily leans on the use of Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi as a pawn in a game of global distraction as well as the normalisation of the use of suicide bombers in modern warfare. There are a lot of diversions, including Jane Fonda and artificial intelligence research, which feed into the narrative with varying degrees of comprehensibility. The soundtrack is great (lots of Nine Inch Nails), although it feels like there are a few too many lingering shots of dismembered bodies. That said, I’d recommend it if you have the stomach, because it provides a compelling argument for the way ill-conceived political maneuvering has brought us to the stage where Donald Trump proved a viable candidate for the US presidency. It doesn’t offer any solutions, so it’s a pretty bleak viewing experience, although you may derive a certain hopeless satisfaction in contemplating becoming a devotee of nihilism afterward. Watch it for free on iPlayer here. Viewing requires a UK-based IP address.

Humuhumu has begun to drop her T's, replacing them with glottal stops. Wa'er. Beau'iful. Floa'ing.

I presume she's picked this up from nursery somehow, but I haven't worked out from whom. It sounds very peculiar when coupled with her otherwise Brummie pronunciation ("I loike oice cream").

It also sets my nerves jangling. "Floa-ting, darling," I say calmly through gritted teeth, "Not floa'ing." Inside my head there is a tiny rage-filled fiery-eyed Nanila screaming, "IT'S GOT A T! IT'S GOT A FLAMING T IN IT! PRONOUNCE THE T!"

I'm trying to unpack why this gets up my nose so badly. I have mental mechanisms in place for suppressing the confused welter of emotions, including sadness, that assail me when she speaks and she doesn't sound American. I know that once she realises I sound foreign, she'll never be able to un-hear it. I take delight in the Brummie accent, even though I'm fairly certain that in this rigidly stratified, classist, and small-c conservative society*, she will either have to learn to code-switch or train herself out of it to achieve material success. It doesn't bother me - much - when Londoners drop their T's. I have a terrible suspicion that I've managed to internalise a certain amount of class prejudice, given that when she says "free" instead of "three" or "bahf" instead of "bath", I have the same reaction, though reduced in intensity. I don't quite understand why it applies to my child and not to anyone else, though.

* Gross generalisation, #NotAllBrits, etc.

So apparently it's International Women's Day.

I have celebrated by achieving new nadirs in parenting.

Humuhumu is off ill from nursery for the week. The bloke and I had agreed I would look after her today because he had to lecture. (Don't worry, I get uninterrupted working time later in the week. Equality, you see!)

We had received an appointment for Keiki to have his eyes checked for long-sightedness and amblyopia - since Humuhumu has both - several weeks ago. I tried to have it moved a few days ago when we thought neither of us were going to be able to take him in, but was told that because of cuts in local services, the next appointment would not be available for another four months. So we kept it.

It was at a clinic I'd never been to. If I'd known then where it was, I'd probably have decided to take the appointment at the hospital in four months' time.

Humuhumu and I had to pick up Keiki from nursery in the afternoon. The area around the nursery is currently a construction zone and its entrance is controlled by a three-way traffic light. The fun thing about this arrangement is that you can't actually see people coming in or out of the nursery slip road until they appear on the main road, and sometimes they block off the slip road during the day to do work on it. So I waited patiently at the light, observed that the road appeared to be blocked, and drove past and parked along the main road. Never an ideal situation when you're on your own and have two small children to manoeuvre in and out of a car. The walk to and from the front door was long enough that when we finally managed to collect Keiki and get everyone back in the car, we were already late for his appointment. I tried to keep calm and drove off to the clinic.

The clinic turned out to be off a tiny one-lane road with double yellow lines on either side, meaning that there was nowhere to park within 200 metres of the entrance. The metal fencing around the clinic featured a dizzying array of signs, which I tried to parse as I drove carefully through the narrow entrance and manoeuvred into a parking space. The wonderful setup of this car park meant that I was blocking off two other cars, and would have to reverse very carefully indeed in order to exit.

The one good thing about the appointment was discovering that Keiki's vision is absolutely fine. The orthoptist was the one Humuhumu likes best as well, and she monkeyed around the room the way toddlers do when they like someone.

We said goodbye to the friendly receptionist. I discovered that in the twenty minutes we'd been inside, two more cars had arrived and parked perpendicularly behind me. Also, someone was waiting to take my space. In theory, I still had just enough room to reverse all the way back to the gate.

And if I didn't have a toddler and a baby howling at me from the back, and if I were not quite so inexperienced a UK driver (coming up on nine months since I got my licence), I might have been able to do it, but after three attempts to get through the gap between the building and the first perpendicular car, I was very nearly in tears.

The woman waiting to take my space parked up next to the clinic entrance (double reds) and came to my window. Another woman who had just left the building noticed, and came over as well. Both of them were terribly sympathetic and understanding, which made it more difficult not to cry. One offered to guide me out, and the other to go in and ask the person behind me to move their car. I tried twice more to get past with the guide's help, but she stopped me after the second go, saying she didn't think I could do it without taking a wing mirror off.

A third woman exited the building, and after coming over and making a lot of comforting noises, moved her car so I could, finally, get out.

While all of the above was happening, the primary school next door let out, meaning the road and pavements were full of small children. As I reversed very, very slowly past the clinic gates, I managed to read one of its signs. It said, "This car park is for registered clinic personnel and disabled persons only." Ah. That would be the icing on the cake of this EPIC MEGA DRIVING FAIL, then. To any such persons using the car park that day were inconvenienced by me: I apologise.

After we arrived home, I plonked my children in front of the television (don't worry, it gets worse) so I could dial in to a telecon. Usually this telecon takes about 20 minutes, so I reckoned two episodes of the Octonauts would suffice to keep them quiet. But of course, this was the one occasion in fifty when everything was not normal, and people actually had to have discussions about non-routine items. I realised we were coming up to the time when I was going to have to speak just as the emperor penguin episode was drawing to a close. As the end credits rolled, both childrens' heads swiveled round to regard me where I sat on the sofa with my laptop. I cringed as they spoke/babbled simultaneously.

"I'm hungry!" announced Humuhumu.
"BWABAAAACAT!" shouted Keiki.
"Can we have your input now, Dr Nanila?" requested my laptop speakers.

I cast about in desperation and my eyes fell upon the box of Mother's Day chocolates I'd been given on Sunday. Flinging the lid to the floor, I selected two at random and shoved them into my startled childrens' mouths, which allowed me to give my crucial 45 seconds of input after a slight delay. Afterwards, I discovered one of the chocolates contained raspberry liqueur. (I told you it got worse.)

Hundreds of years of women fighting to be allowed equal opportunities in working life and pay as men, and you get days like this. Is it worth it? Pardon my sweariness, but (please imagine me saying this in full American mode): Ab-so-fucking-lutely.

I'm spoiler-immune AND I read the book before I went to see the film, so I will do everyone who is spoiler-sensitive a favour and simply put this entire post behind a cut.

( Spoilers, spoilers everywhere I'm sure )

Still, A++++, will def get on DVD and watch again.

If you have seen me and/or Humuhumu in the past three weeks, please read the rest of this entry.

This Saturday morning, 23rd August, Humuhumu woke with red spots on her back and legs. We thought it was heat rash, but the spots had spread and widened and developed little pimples in their middles this morning, so we made an appointment with the out-of-hours GP at the hospital.

He confirmed that it is chickenpox.

She will have been most contagious the day before (Friday 22nd) and for the next five or six days until the spots begin to heal. However, the incubation period for chickenpox can be anywhere from seven to 21 days, so it's possible she was contagious while we were in London and at LonCon 3.

Please be on alert if you or your children have not had chickenpox previously. Humuhumu was lethargic and grumpy with a mild fever for the three days before she developed the spots (we thought she was just tired from the intense stimulation of the London trip), so the symptoms may not be entirely obvious. People I know for certain we had contact with include rmc28, kaberett, qian, sfred, djm4, purplecthulhu, hano, coughingbear, major_clanger, foxfinial and liv. I offer my apologies to those, and to anyone else we may have exposed. If you know of anyone else, particularly those with compromised immune systems, that we may have come into physical contact with or with whom I was on a panel, please pass this information on to them.

Separately, I have come down with an absolutely stinking cold. It's the worst I've had in years - I normally shake these things off quite quickly but this has had me almost flat for two and a half days. So I apologise for being a vector for Con-Crud as well. :(

jixel asked: How about commenting on the challenges of being a (pretty) woman scientist?

I wouldn’t say it’s actually a challenge to be a pretty woman scientist. It seems to be more of a challenge for other people to get their heads round.

Facetiousness aside, being considered pretty (by a certain set of people applying a certain set of standards, ymmv) has had complicated consequences with regard to my self-esteem and my behaviour. This is relevant because of the significant component of social interaction that comprises the practice of science - a thing that a lot of scientists won’t admit to, because they are far too logical and rational and therefore superior to apply the culturally reinforced biases that permeate society to their professional lives. [insert eyeroll here]

In many circumstances, I have found it as helpful to be pretty as it probably is for any attractive person in any line of work. A lot of people treat you in a particular way when you fit certain standard definitions of beauty. I’m relatively slim (less so than before I had the baby), wear my hair long, wear makeup, spend a certain amount of money on my attire, dress with care, have symmetrical features and smile a good deal (even when I don’t feel like it - hi, social conditioning!). This, I believe, tends to lead others to place me squarely in the “comfortably non-threatening feminine person” zone...

…unless I start talking about science, or photography, or any technical subject about which I have a certain amount of knowledge. I’ve noticed that my tone of voice changes, as well as my demeanour. I’m more assertive, more likely to argue a point and I’ve honed a style of retort that does not come at all naturally to me in other circumstances. I’m a lot more thick-skinned in professional life than I am in my personal one. I’ve found it necessary not only to project an “I don’t care what you think” attitude, but to actually believe it. That’s has been hard graft. It is one of the reasons I opted out of tenure-track academic work. I can’t distance myself emotionally from my work. I would find it crushing if my evaluation were strongly dependent on the reviews of my peers and not just my ability to deliver good documents and data to strict deadlines. So I’ve chosen/fallen into a line of work in which other people’s opinions of my output (other than my immediate bosses) have little to no impact on its worth. It lets me get away with staying in the “comfortably non-threatening feminine person” zone as well as minimising the angst of agonising over dismissive put-downs.

Perhaps, then, my initial statement wasn’t correct. It is challenging to be a (pretty) woman scientist. If you’re going to excel, it requires the acquisition and development of the ability to project complete confidence in your aptitude, as well as actually possessing said aptitude in spades (see: my female boss). It requires the ability to overcome the perceived weakness attached to “comfortably non-threatening feminine person”. It requires the investment of time and energy attached to maintaining one’s “prettiness”, including healthy eating, exercise and a socially acceptable appearance. And, of course, it requires the depth of study and breadth of technical knowledge required to maintain one's status as a research scientist.

liseuse requested: Being an only child. Is there a different rhetoric about being an only child in Hawai'i/the States to the one you've noticed in the UK? Do you like being an only child? (I ask this as an only child, I like gathering anecdata about other only children!)

Uh yeah, so it turns out I may have some unresolved bitterness around talking about being an only child.

I’m unsure whether or not this is related to age, but I have rarely experienced being told, “You probably exhibit X behaviour because you’re an only child”, in the UK. Whereas I remember being told that all the damn time in the States, usually in a negative context. That, plus the, “Oh you poor thing”, attitude from people who seem to think that your parents have deprived you from the opportunity to learn essential life lessons by not providing you with siblings contrives to make talking about being an only child a fairly tedious experience.

I like being an only child. I had the undivided attention of my parents and was surrounded by adults as a child. There was one older cousin with whom I was (and still am) very close. He’s 4.5 years older than I am, and we spent a good deal of time together as children. I suppose these factors have led me to spend most of my life seeking the company of persons either in or older than my peer group and less those who are significantly younger. I never felt as if there were person-shaped gaps in my life because I didn’t have siblings. If anything, I felt like I missed out on more conflict, because that was what I tended to notice at school or at my friends’ houses between siblings. Maybe that conflict would have built my character differently. There’s no way to tell whether that would have been to my improvement or my detriment. At this point in my life, I feel it would make little difference.

The only reason I regret not having a sibling or two now is that my peripatetic youth has landed me quite far away from my aging parents. Of course, there’s no guarantee that [a] sibling[s] would not have had the same wanderlust I did and ended up in, say, Argentina rather than sticking close by home to provide them with care and companionship. But it would have increased the chances.

Request a topic here

Most of the time when confronted with casual sexism or racism, I find myself responding in a manner that leaves me dissatisfied. I'm left instead to contemplate the host of scathing, incisive replies that come to me in the middle of the night, long after they could possibly be useful. L'esprit de l'escalier and that. So I feel the need to record yesterday's cab journey, it being a rare occasion when exactly the right retort leapt to mind and flew off my tongue unchecked by the desire to placate or smooth over.

I hailed the cab from the corner of Prince Consort Road. The driver assumed I was a student from Royal College of Music. I corrected him, being neither a student nor a musician. He spent some time exclaiming over how I must be very intelligent and looked so young to be a member of staff at a university. Suddenly, a woman driving an SUV cut him up. He launched into a tirade about how women are very poor drivers who never pay attention because they're always talking to their passengers or are on the phone.

An awkward pause ensued.

"Do you drive?" he asked me.
"No," I sighed mournfully and untruthfully, "my husband won't let me."