secret high school diary

Now, I’m not really into the teen tv scene. I know what Hannah Montana is, but I’d never heard of this Zoey 101 until she turned up knocked up. Minor relatives of washed up musical celebrities, anyway…

I assumed that Zoey 101 was an American only thing, ’cause I’d only heard of through blogging world. Good for her for keeping her baby. Bad for her, ’cause she’s a role model, etc. etc. etc.

OK, then.

Well, as far as I knew she wasn’t on tv here in the UK. But since we have 10 year Sally Jesse Rafael’s in endless rerun on British tv, why wouldn’t a current teen phenom also have some place on children’s channels? Anyway, she must be on Brit tv somewhere because today I saw a Zoey 101 part series advertised on tv.

The part series

I don’t think Americans do the “part series” – at least I never noticed it. Anyway, these are things where you buy a part of a model of a sailing ship or a toy dinosaur skeleton, a chunk of mineral, some beads and gew-gaws or improvised explosive device each week and each part is accompanied by a magazine explaining the wonderful world of pirates, dinosaurs, geology, jewelry making or insurgency or some such and further instructions for the use of the part you bought.

The first “part” is usually at some knock down price and then once they get you hooked, the price jacks up. And these magazines with crap attached in a plastic bubble are available at your local newsagent.

Like Zoey 101, these things seem to be aimed at the 8 to 12s. Anyway, the Zoey 101 part series and magazine advertises “tips from Zoey” like “get the Zoey look” and “Zoey’s secret high school diary”. I don’t know why, but that sort of cracked me up.

Dear Diary

I wondered what was in Zoey’s secret high school diary…

16 August 2006

My sister thinks she’s so hot, but she’s not. Ever since she got pregnant she got fat.

10 February 2007

Now that I’ve got this tv show, I’m earning enough money to live in my own apartment. I’m 15, so I think I’m old enough to live on my own. It’s not like I won’t have my boyfriend with me.

11 October 2007

I think I might be pregnant. Thank goodness my tv high school has one of those in school day care centers, although I plan to raise the baby in Louisiana where it can have a normal life. At least, now I can show the world that I can be better than my sister at something.

Coals to Newcastle

Apparently there’s a writer’s strike in America. The only way I can tell, is that we no longer get our daily dose of the Daily Show. It will be months before it bites here, since series are lagged by quite a bit.

Unlike the last writer’s strike, we now have a host of reality tv formats to fill the viewing hours. NewsComa has some great ideas for more.

And I have another idea.

Since America has given the British many, many, many hours of American talk shows (Jerry, Maury, Ricki, Phil, Montel, Sally and Oprah are on each day) – I think it’s only fair that y’all should get to watch back-to-back reruns of Trisha and the Jeremy Kyle show. It ought to strip the anglophiles among you of any notion of British culture and aplomb.

We all have our diversions

That’s Cletus playing with his toy, while I watch some trashy daytime tv. Jeremy Kyle, who some say is the British equivalent of Jerry Springer. I say he has the tiniest touch more class. Every day is a DNA test special.

Who’s the daddy?

I never knew that the daytime talk shows essentially drive the DNA paternity testing industry. It seems like everyday at least one show features are paternity testing special. And as sick as this is, I never get tired of it. I watch a lot of talk shows while nursing a baby. And while I’d like to say I spend my time watching documentaries – that just wouldn’t be true.

I’m getting pretty good at guessing if daddy really is the daddy. Mostly by judging the demeanor of the mom. On American shows, they often show a picture of the child next to the daddy which does provide a clue. On British shows, small children aren’t shown or brought out, so it’s all down to the body language of the purported parents.

Recently I saw a show where the baby was cute as a button. He was about eighteen months old and dark as a berry. I mean this kid was black. Well, that’s fine. But momma was white and so was daddy. Both parents were blue eyed and dirty blond. I know that genetics is a weird and wonderful thing, but I really think that maybe Daddy ain’t daddy. Mom had brought him on the show to reveal the secret and dude was shocked. I mean shocked. And when the DNA results were read out, the man was devastated. The power of denial. I know it’s a tragedy and to this man, in a way, it was like his son had died – or at least the dream of his son. But I had to laugh. There weren’t no way that kid was his – at least not in a biological sense – and he’d managed to convince his heart that his eyes couldn’t see. Of course, the really sad part is that the apparently the bond was broken and he no longer sees the child.

Sometimes more than one man is tested, and none of the candidates is the father. Ooops. That’s got to be pretty embarrassing – unless, of course, you have no shame. No shame and the desire to see New York one more time on Maury Povich’s dime. Do you feel sorry for the fifth man tested, the poor schmuck who’s alleles match up? Maybe you shouldn’t – I mean if you don’t want unintended consequences maybe you should keep your trousers zipped. But I know a guy this happened to. One of my brother’s friends got tested in the third round up of suspects. The one night stand with the extra strong swimmers. And he’s a nice kid*.

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*Well, actually he’s coming up to 30 now – gosh, I’m old.

Bringing up baby

Channel Four has been showing a series called Bringing Up Baby, which features six sets of parents trying three different baby care methods.

• The 50s method of Truby King which is all about strict routine, seems similar to Ferber or BabyWise methods.
• The 60s method of Dr Spock – trust your instincts.
• The 70s continuum concept – basically hard core attachment parenting, wearing the baby all the time, co-sleeping, etc.

The parents were supported by mentors who espoused these approaches. Each of these women was completely nuts on her own approach, so although this was called an experiment it was really about pitting these opinionated women against each other. It was supposed to stir strong feelings, and it did. (For example, two of the three mentors though that breastfeeding in public – even discretely, was simply beyond the pale.)

The 50s method, which involved only cuddling your newborn for 10 minutes a day and letting the baby cry it out from birth, and leaving the baby in the garden for “fresh air” for four hours unattendend made people on my British parenting forum go insane. And rightly so. To me it seemed like the sort of treatment doled out in Romanian orphanages. But if you keep the baby to a strict routine but painful routine at first, apparently you can get it to sleep conveniently from 7pm to 7am and take naps and generally not cause too much bother. That does sound tempting in a way, but the whole thing strikes me as a bit pointless. Why did you have a baby if you were simply planning to shut it up in some other room like some pet you don’t like?

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One of the things that’s surprised me about the whole child rearing lark is that there actually isn’t any consensus on the best approach. That it seems like doctors and health visitors and everyone else have a variety of conflicting information that they’d like to force upon you. Feeding, schedules, weaning, bedtime routine. There are no answers. I know that every baby is different, but we have been having babies for quite some time and we’ve also had the scientific methods of observation and even experimentation at our disposal for a while now, too. So why haven’t we actually put the two together to come up with some decent answers. It seems like the only thing there is some scientific clarity on is breast milk is the best thing you can feed a baby – advice which most of the population in the English speaking world ignore. Of course, that’s probably because you get so much conflicting advice about what’s the best way to go about it.

Anyway, I’ve decided that it’s probably more about what the parent finds appropriate than what the baby will thrive on. After all, the little mite knows no difference.

Bear baiting

Being on maternity leave and nursing means that I watch a lot more daytime tv than I used to. I could say “Yecchhh, I hate daytime tv,” but it wouldn’t be true. I’ve always liked some aspects of daytime tv. I never was a huge fan of the soaps, but I do love me some talk shows and detective show re-runs. I never sleep so well or so soundly during such a brief napping period as I do during a Rockford Files, a Columbo or a Jeremy Kyle.

American readers may not be familiar with Jeremy. He’s a British talk show host. He specialises in bringing on trailer trash to establish the paternity of their little sproglets. Of course, they’re not trailer trash, being that poor people are housed on council estates in the UK (like US housing projects).

Jeremy is not as vile and provocative as Jerry Springer – and all the physical fights are edited out. But he is a bit stern and often gives his guests a good talking to. And if all you saw of British tv was Jeremy, you’d be wondering why all infants in the UK weren’t given a DNA test at birth since there seems to be almost universal doubt on the question of “Who’s the Daddy?”

Recently Jeremy’s received a slating from a district judge – he called the show human bear baiting that goes under the guise of entertainment. A former guest of the show was in court for attacking his wife’s lover beneath the unrelenting eye of the Kyle cameras.

In his sentencing, Judge Berg was reported in the Manchester Evening News as saying: “I have had the misfortune, very recently, of watching The Jeremy Kyle Show.

“It seems to me that the purpose of this show is to effect a morbid and depressing display of dysfunctional people whose lives are in turmoil.”

Morbid, yes. Depressing, hardly. At worse, it’s a bit disheartening to see folks who suck from the public teat have little other than stirring up conflict to occupy their time.

I agree with Judge Berg that it is all a bit sordid, but his views are just as insulting as the show is exploitative.

“It should not surprise anyone that these people, some of whom have limited intellects, become aggressive with each other.

I guess the Jeremy Kyle show, Judge Berg and the viewing public (including myself) should remember that these are people, not rats in a sack.

Unstoppable vs immovable

“What would happen if Perry Mason defended one of Columbo’s suspects?”

I think I’ve been watching too much daytime tv.

Sucking the words right outta your head

We don’t have any Baby Einstein DVDs. Just hadn’t gotten around to getting any. Someone I know swears by them, keeps her little rascal captivated. And they’re so educational, what with their shapes and their colors and their classical music and all.

Except apparently, they’re not. Oops.

the [University of Washington] research team found that with every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs and videos, infants learned six to eight fewer new vocabulary words than babies who never watched the videos.

We can’t be having Baby Einstein now anyway, as Disney bought it out not that long ago and that would go against my husband’s one-man Disney boycott.

But there’s no need. Two out of our hundreds of channels are full of bright colors and simple tunes designed just for baby. And I tell you, ol’ Cletus is already entranced.

And is one hour of silence worth 6 to 8 words?

Could be.

This is your Jerry Springer moment

A couple of years ago the Vol-in-Law and I went to see Jerry Springer, the Opera in the West End. The content was about as blasphemous and offensive as it comes, but all good fun – really. Much more fun than the Jerry Springer episodes currently aired on British cable which all seem to run like this:

Guest 1 tells Jerry and the assembled baying crowd a secret which will upset Guest 2 if Guest 2 has any shred of decency.

Guest 2 comes out on stage bewildered and bemused and bracing for the worst (as one Guest 2 said in a show I recently watched – You didn’t bring me on the Jerry show to tell me good news?)

Guest 1 -suddenly hesitant – reveals all with the encouragement of Jerry.

Guest 2 lets fly with a flury of ineffective punches and security steps in just that little bit too late.

The secret varies – but only slightly – from show to show. Guest 1 is:

• a lesbian sleeping with her cousin
• a boyfriend sleeping with the cross-dressing best friend of his girlfriend
• a bog boned gal is sleeping with anyone who has a six pack and twenty-five dollars cash much to the shock of her husband.

Back to the opera – one of the numbers – which becomes a bit of a leitmotif – was This is Your Jerry Springer Moment – essentially describing that point in time when your life becomes so trashy that your role as Guest 1 or Guest 2 is instantly defined.

I thought about this, because well, I’m watching a lot of daytime tv these days and because of the comments about Australian sex workers on this post – which reminded me of a moment in time when I told a friend “Man, you coulda a been on Jerry Springer with that tale.” Which, in retrospect, may not have been the most supportive thing I could have said.

Turns out this friend of ours – an Australian – had a girlfriend who turned out to be a sex worker. Well, he being the understanding sort who always saw the better side of people he said that while this needn’t be the end of their relationship – she did need to find a new line of employment. Which she did not. And then there was another whole sad sorry tale of a pimping boyfriend and an abortion and a legal consultation – and even though this had happened some time before he related the tale and in a land far away – it was obviously still very painful. And I said “Man, you coulda been on Jerry Springer with that tale.”

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I’ve racked my brain, but I don’t think I’ve ever had a truly Jerry Springer moment. I did have a boyfriend who cheated on me – but she was just a normal girl (hmmmm…as far as I know). Oh, but looking back on it – she did live in a trailer – so maybe it was just a brush with a Jerry Springer moment.

I did meet my husband through the Internet – but that was like sooo mid-90s that it barely attracts comment these days.

California emissions standard

I used to love to watch The Price is Right with VolBro – especially sitting in the easy chairs in my grandparents bedroom – but anywhere really. VolBro was a natural – he was usually right – even when he was a little tiny kid with no money or shopping experience of his own.

He was very good on guessing the price of cars – often guessing what I thought was quite high. When I’d voice my doubts, he’d pipe up in his little 6 year old voice “you can’t forget the California emissions – that always makes it higher.” And he was right.

I can’t say that I built my life around TPIR (as my grandmother sometimes did), but I really enjoyed it.

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When I moved to the UK, I had to leave behind TPIR. Well, sorta. There is a British version of the show, but it’s only a half an hour. There’s no showcase showdown – the showcase contestant competes against a randomly selected margin of error (though of course, one can never go over on the price). There’s no reminder to spay or neuter your pets. California emissions do not come as standard – and there’s no Bob Barker.

Sure, there’s Plinko and the other little games I knew and loved. But there’s no Bob Barker. And I can’t but watch the show without thinking “Hey, this guy isn’t Bob Barker.” The show has since been cancelled and I can’t help but think – without the refined dignity of Bob Barker (the British version always seemed kinda sleazy) – it’s no wonder that it didn’t work out.

Now America will have to watch TPIR with the interior monologue running “Hey, this guy isn’t Bob Barker.” Although, there’s some speculation that folks may be saying “Hey, this gal isn’t Bob.”

Bob retired this month – his last show airing on Friday. It makes me a little sad.

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My cousin Blake won a car on TPIR. He gave it to his mother. It had California emissions standard.