Equality street

A young man got in my taxi last night and after musing thoughtfully about the State of the Country, announced with conviction: I don’t think that women should be paid as much as men.

It is some considerable time since I have encountered anybody with such little regard for the zeitgeist that they are prepared to own up to such opinions, and I was so charmed and intrigued I questioned him further.

He went on to explain that he and The Lads, by whom I supposed he meant Windermere Football Team, could beat Windermere Ladies’ Football Team even if they, being The Lads, had been at the pub the night before and got so hammered that they couldn’t walk.

I refrained from remarking that as far as I was able to tell, this was the way most of the members of Windermere Football Team prepared for all of their matches, and listened with interest. He went on to explain that no matter how hung over and tired they were, they were still better than girls, and so it was just a joke that women should ask for equal pay when clearly they couldn’t cut it.

I supposed that this was unarguable, and encouraged, he went on to explain that at work, the girls in the office were completely useless when it came to answering engineering questions, and therefore quite clearly incompetent.

I wondered if this might be a result of differing educational choices rather than the possession of a uterus , but he was firm. No, he said, it was quite obvious. Women just couldn’t do bloke things, and shouldn’t be encouraged.

I charged him a tenner, which I am afraid was easily as much as any of the non-uterus-possessing taxi drivers would have, and drove away, feeling entirely elated.

I have been watching the current national agonising over the male/female divide  from a remote distance, but with some profound concern, and it was the first time that I had realised that it has had so little impact in Windermere. Here, we do not yet need to concern ourselves with whether or not gender-dysphoric men should play on women’s football teams because of the offputting rufty-tufty masculine nature of the boys’ team. In Windermere it would seem that the issue is whether or not women should be permitted to play football at all.

I suppose there is always the worry that it might interfere with their cooking and childbearing.

In other news, I have shaved the dogs. They are now so bald that we will be able to see a flea twitch from ten paces away.

I have not stopped being anxious about their potential roles as flea-bearers in an otherwise respectable and aspirationally middle-class household, and when Roger Poopy was discovered scratching himself the other day, something had to be done, so I pinned them to the table in the conservatory and removed their fur. This is a prolonged and tiresome operation involving a great deal of force of the elbow-in-the-throat nature

I did not find any fleas, but I am not yet confident that the crisis is completely over, and have sprayed and washed all of their bedding yet again. Mark bathed them, much to their disgust, and they have spent all of their spare time curled up tightly together in their warmest basket, looking woebegone. We are going off in the camper van tomorrow, and so I do not care. The camper van has been sprayed and scrubbed and I am jolly sure there are no fleas in there

We have started packing it. Oliver and I chugged off to Asda today to purchase about a hundred quid’s worth of chocolate and crisps with which to replenish his tuck box. Going anywhere with Oliver has taken on a different tone now that he is learning to drive, because he is keenly interested in what the driver is doing, and why. I am reluctant to say: because it is a long time since I have read the Highway Code and I can’t remember what I am supposed to do, so I am having to think hard.

He has earned a considerable fortune washing dishes over the holidays and now wants to buy a sports car.

Mark is encouraging him.

I have told them that they can purchase anything they like as long as it is sufficiently roadworthy not to need bringing home on the back of a low-loader, but I am not sure that they are actually listening.

I am going to have to supervise this activity closely.

I will keep you informed.