Just when you thought it was safe to go back into your email client

Evil Becky Answers Your Mail #10

Hi! Evil Becky here, Becky's long-lost identical twin sister of the evil persuasion. I'm occasionally wheeled out (strapped to one of those sack barrows like wot they carry Hannibal Lecter about on) and allowed to answer the more moronic emails Becky receives, using a pencil carefully gripped between my maniacally grinning lips.

Kim writes:

Hi Becky,

I just surfed up on your site and thought you looked like the hairdresser Nicky Clark.
Your not him are you?

Hope to ear[sic] from you,

Kim

Evil Becky replies:

Dear Kim Jong-il,

ZOMG! You've found us out. Becky is actually celebrity hair stylist Nicky Clarke, and I am his twin brother, Evil Nicky Clarke (I do the styling for evil celebrities, mentioning no names... but hasn't Jeremy Clarkson's perm been looking great recently?)

It's amazing that we've got away with it so long, without someone twigging before now. Especially when the wig Becky normally wears has slightly less hair than he has as Nicky.

So anyway, going anywhere nice on your holidays?

Hope to nose from you,

Evil Becky

Cognitive Dissonance - Part 3

Part 1 | Part 2

The final part of what makes up "trannying" for me...

The Social Network - I've never been a person who found it easy making friends, and when I do make them I have trouble hanging on to them. Friendships form, in my experience, when there's a social "glue" binding you to a group of people. You all share something in common, whether it's living or working or doing any activity in the same place at the same time. Among that group of people, you find one or two people with which you have even more in common, the same tastes, world outlook or background, and hence friendships are formed.

Reading that back to myself I don't wonder why I find making friends so hard, when I over-analyse it so much.

But anyway, trannying was no different. I started to get involved with groups both online and in real life, and in those groups there were people that I clicked with. Those people are mostly still friends today.

The trouble I've found throughout my life is that once social situations change (as they inevitably do) and the social glue that bound me to a group of people faded away, it was very hard to maintain friendships that were based on that glue.

With myself and my tranny friends all finding pastures new at the same time, it's increasingly hard to maintain those friendships, but I'm determined to do so. Partly because I've made mistakes in the past by not valuing friends enough, but mainly because the friends I've made over the past few years are some of the most fantastic people I've ever met. Dammit, even the ones I didn't like were pretty fantastic people to know.

In many ways, though, friendship is just part of it. It's also about being part of a group, having "peers" and contemporaries. Sharing information and learning from others. That activity in itself is very rewarding, just rubbing shoulders and sparking off others.

There's a void in my life at the moment and it's labelled "something I enjoy doing, I'm good at, and want to share with other people". In other words, something I can blog about, twitter about or pontificate on forums about. My job (for example) while satisfying, isn't the kind of thing that I feel a great urge to witter endlessly about. I have a feeling that there's something just around the corner that will be, but we'll just have to see.

I read something in the news a few days ago about how online social networks are actually detrimental to your social life. The artificial socialising acts as a poor substitute to real human contact, the type of contact that actually makes us happier and healthier. I think I agree with that. I wouldn't go as far too say online social network "damages brains" as the Daily Mail's typically hysterical headline put it today, I think that can safely be filed with "MMR gives you autism" and "mobile phones nuke your noggin".

However, about a month ago I deleted my male profile on Facebook. Before any of you read anything into the fact that I kept my female profile, it wasn't for any tranny-related reason. It was mainly because I felt it was acting as a substitute for actually making an effort to keep in touch with people. That and I felt that one day Facebook would own my soul in the form of every bit of personal information I ever had. But that's by the by.

So of the three facets of my trannying that I've explored, it's actually the last that I miss the most. It's heartening to see all the people that still take the time to read what I write here, and it does go some way to keep me feeling part of something. I miss the face-to-face contact of the old days. So just because my social circle is expanding by one Small Person in 3 months time, doesn't mean I won't make the effort to keep in touch with the rest of my mates too.

Maybe it's right for me to feel in two minds at the same time. It's making me analyse what I really want from life.

Cognitive dissonance is a bad thing, it's a good thing too. I hold both these truths to be valid.

Cognitive Dissonance - Part 2

Part 1 here

Let's get back to the list of things that made up "trannying" for me...

Clubbing - Unlike some (most?) trannies, I never really dressed at home. The peacock-like male in me never saw the point of making any effort if no-one was going to see it. I also never really found any appeal in getting dolled up in twin-set and pearls and tottering off to the back-room of a village hall for tea and a chat, and a display of do-it-yourself macramé breastforms.

Which meant most of my trannying revolved around clubs and bars; tranny-centric clubs, gay clubs, groovy regular clubs when I was feeling particularly adventurous, but basically clubs.

I think the sum total of club visits I made between the ages of 16 and 30 is somewhere between zero and one. I just wasn't interested, and didn't socialise with people who were interested either.

So my first real experience of clubbing was through trannying, and I loved it. Some people talk about having a second childhood, trannying was my second young-adulthood, and I had a lot of catching up to do. So clubs were a lot of fun, at first.

Then I noticed something about me and my circle of friends. At tranny events, we'd increasingly gravitate towards "the quieter bit at the back where you can hear yourself speak". We were all going through an accelerated process of growing out of clubbing, the spirit was willing but the flesh was 30-something and quite fond of going to bed before dawn and getting up on a Saturday before IKEA gets too busy.

So much so, that by the end I think we'd have been happy with a quiet pub that pretends to be a club by pumping muffled dance bass-lines through a speaker behind a locked door marked "dance floor". Just so we could pretend we were actually clubbing.

Some tranny clubbing impresario should set up a place like that, he'd make a fortune.

So do I miss clubbing? Yeah, kind of, partly because it is a lot of fun with the right people and the right music in the right atmosphere, but mainly because of the next thing...

Cognitive Dissonance - Part 1

Forgive me, I'm going to write another blog post about the state of being a lapsed tranny. Getting things down in words, as always, helps clarify them in my own head. And if I'm going to write things down, I might as well make a blog post out of them, eh?

I'm suffering from cognitive dissonance, brought about by not caring at all about something, and simultaneously missing it terribly. That "something", for want of a better word, is "trannying".

Now the logical part of my mind tells me that it's not wise to maintain two differing beliefs at the same time. The reason that it's hard to resolve my feelings on "trannying" is it's just too big a thing, and a thing that is made up of lots of smaller things. I have differing levels of desire for each little thing, which it's impossible to pin down my feelings for the whole thing.

Still with me? Good.

Wow, this logic thing is good isn't it? Lets look at the big thing that is "trannying" and try and tease out all the little things that went into it. Then we can examine them separately and decide if they're the parts that I miss, or the parts that I "meh", and maybe even why

Things that "trannying" is made of:

Dressing Up - Uh, yeah, obviously. The defining characteristic of being an active transvestite is the actual wearing of women's clothes. But do I actually miss not doing it? Well, no, not really. I still think like a transvestite, and there's still a sexual thrill about the concept.

Sexual thrills are a funny thing though. I could reel off a long list of things that I've heard are turn-ons for folks. Heck, half of the internet exists to cater for them. Name a completely random activity and chances are there are a thousand people who get their kicks out of it; but for the thousand people who want to (excuse me while I spin the Wheel Of Random Turn-Ons) ... "Make Love to Baroness Thatcher", how many have actually done it?

I'd hazard a guess at somewhere around zero. They've probably read fiction about making love to Baroness Thatcher, they've probably written fiction about making love to Baroness Thatcher, some of them probably even have Baroness Thatcher "Real Dolls"... (excuse me while I just go vomit) ...

Anyway, that in some way is the point of sexual thrills, the idea is often more enjoyable than the reality, and most people can survive quite happily toying around with the idea in their heads. Maybe there's merit in trying things out in reality, if only to "get it out of your system" in which case count your lucky stars if your secretly held fetish is possible, socially acceptable, and most importantly legal.

I was lucky that my personal spin of the wheel came up "Put on Ladies' Things", which is possible, legal, and possibly more socially acceptable these days than it's ever been. For a given value of "socially acceptable".

So I "got it out of my system", for now. It may come back. It's funny how it hangs around in the corners.

Case in point: in the bottom of our laundry basket there's a pair of undies that belong to a maid costume. They've been their for ages, because we tend to only wash stuff when there's enough items of that type to make a load, and I can't see us needing to do a "black PVC items" wash any time soon. Plus, I kind of like the idea of having a pair of PVC maids undies in the laundry basket; it makes me smile every time I get to the bottom of the pile.

This was going to be one long blog post, but it's shaping up to be three. So I'll stop here for a while to let you digest and make astute comments. Or just say something tangential about PVC knickers, you choose! :)

Retro-Acronyms

Please tell me, dear Reader, why it is that some people seem incapable of accepting the idea that words can come into existence without having some amusing kind of back-story? They seem to think that our ancestors weren't happy naming things unless they could thick of a witty reason for calling it that.

Picture the prehistoric scene...

"I'm going to call that friendly wolf that keeps hanging around the cave eating scraps and scaring away the bears 'Dog'."

"Why? Does it stand for something?"

"No, just that dog hasn't been used as a word for something yet, and it's short and snappy. I like it."

"Oh, that's disappointing. I thought it was for some clever reason."

But speak to some people and they'll tell you something like "Oh yes, Dog is an acronym for 'Drinks Our Gravy', due to the fact that the first dogs used to be fed left over meat juices"; and they'll believe it, because it Sounds Plausable and Therefore Must Be True (SPaTMBT).

These kind of people love nothing more than acronyms, as they neatly explain away words which don't otherwise have a good explanation. And these people don't like things that can't be neatly explained away with a nice little story. They're often very similar people who think Intelligent Design is a jolly good idea that explains why there are two types of elephant, without having to worry about all that messy DNA stuff.

On three separate occasions recently, I've seen people in the media giving acronyms as the origins of words. Each time they were stated as fact, and each time they were patently bollocks.

The most recent example was part of the furore surrounding the uttering of the word "Gollywog" in a BBC green room. The news article explained the background of how the Gollywog doll started off as an innocent child's toy, but gained offensive overtones over the years as it came to be seen as a racial stereotype and the word "wog" entered the language as a racist term for a black person.

The piece went on to say that it was debated whether "wog" and "gollywog" were even related, as many people thought that "wog" was originally an acronym for "Wily Oriental Gentleman".

Errr... no I don't think so! Firstly, black people aren't oriental, they're mostly of African orgin. Secondly, who on Earth could possibly believe that people went around calling every black person they met "that wily oriental gentleman", until some smartarse said "I know! Lets shorten it to wog!"?

During an interview on the news the other morning, a golfer stated as fact that "Golf" was originally an anagram for "Gentlemen Only - Ladies Forbidden". As if the original golfers felt it necessary to think up a name that was the acronym equivelant of putting a sign on a treehouse reading "GIRLZ NOT ALOW3D"; and as if 16th centuty women would have even wanted to hit a small ball around a Scottish heath anyway.

Finally, I was watching a daytime antiques show recently, one of those ones where you buy stuff and they flog it for a huge loss. They were doing a piece about garden gnomes. The so-called expert (a fey gap-toothed arse with a cravat) said "do you know where the word 'Gnome' comes from? It's from 'Guardian and Nurturer of Mother Earth'."

Makes you wonder if he even bothered to engage his brain when he said it. I certainly wonder if maybe I should have disengaged mine before watching any form of daytime telly.

So, in summary, when ever anyone tries to tell you that word that's been around for a century or more originated as a clever acronym, punch them squarely on the nose. Then tell them that the word "acronym" is short for "punch me squarely on the nose and walk away", and walk away before their feeble brain works out the obvious. It's the only way they'll learn.

Survival of the Thickest

200 years ago today a man was born who went on to work out that species changed over time, and that only the fittest flourished. That man was Charles Darwin.

37 years ago today a man was born who went on to work out that cheese on toast is less soggy if you put the Worcester sauce on after the cheese. That man was... me!

However, Darwin is dead, but I'm not. Explain that with your clever clogs theory, Charlie!

Happy birthday Lincoln too, who's also coincidentally 200 today. Plus also dead. 2 - nil to me!

Frankly, that's taking the HIPS.

When we signed up with a local estate agent to sell my place, the issue of Home Information Packs reared it's ugly head. At the time we were reasonably confident the place would sell quickly, so we agreed to the agent's offer whereby they would do the HIP for us, and add the cost to the final bill once we sold the place.

Several months down the line, with virtually zero interest in the place, we've taken it off the market to rent it instead. This meant paying off the cost of the HIP to the estate agent.

They've just sent me the bill. £450! Four hundred and fifty pounds for... what?

Well, I remember a woman came around for half an hour and measured our loft insulation, and I filled in a great long questionnaire asking me all kinds of questions about the house. So basically it seems like the money pays to buy that lady new tape measures, and for someone to type up my questionnairre answers and make it look all nice.

All in all a complete and utter waste of time, something that could be done so much better with, perhaps, a web-based system where you chuck in your details and it automatically stores them in a central register. Considering you can even apply for a driver's licence online these days, the army of middlemen required for a HIP seems hopelessly antiquated.

Yes, you can put together a HIP all by yourself, but it's not easy and most people will opt for the easy option of letting someone else do it, especially when it's just one of the costs that slosh around during a house sale and purchase.

I can't shake the feeling that the only people who thought HIPS were a good idea were the people who were destined to profit from them. Someone is making a lot of money from these things, unfortunately that someone isn't me.

Back, Packing, Backpacks

...aaaaaaaaand we're back.

Despite being hopelessly uncommunicative and not bothering to even acknowledge I'd contacted them, BT actually made good and delivered a shiny black wifi router today. So I'm back in the land of the broadband enabled. Not particularly fast broadband, but about what I'd have expected a bit further out from civilisation.

Unpacking is proceeding apace. There's still a mountain of boxes and sacks in the spare room, but now it's looking more of a Ben Nevis rather than a Kilimanjaro.

I went with Jane for her final ultrasound scan on Monday. The baby was much more co-operative this time and the nurse was able to measure all the bits to her satisfaction. Speaking of bits, we're now pretty sure of which set of bits it has. Not that I'm the sort of person who'd be huge on enforcing gender roles, natch! But at least it means no more fretting about names, because we'd already chosen a name if it was going to be of this gender. Is my tortured English giving you a clue that I'm not going to let on which it is yet? :-)

And on the dad front, I've signed up with Odadeo which is a promising new social network for dads, and I've been pottering around the rather useful dad.info site, which has lots of advice for prospective fathers. I'm thinking of buying one of these. Because it's red.

Moved

Greetings from the new HQ. After a long looong weekend of back breaking effort we're finally moved. The new place is brilliant, a nearly 200 year old building that was originally part of a brewery. Over the decades it's been a garage workshop, and even a shop, before being turned into a house back in the seventies. It's most recent renovation has just been completed, so we're moving in to a more or less brand new interior.

After a year or so living under each other's feet, Jane and I finally have all the space we need. Space for living, space for baby, space for friends, space for parties!

Apologies for the probably awful quality of the prose in this post. It's being written on an ipod and broadcast via a 2g mobile link, which is all we can manage until broadband gets sorted.

So, blog posts might be a bit thin for a while, while we bed in. But then I'll be back with a vengeance. Who knows, despite the building's original purpose, and my reputation... I might try organising a piss up. ;-)