Monday Miscellany :: Missing

Last night I watched a programme called The World Strictest Parents. The title was a complete misnomer, tabloid tosh, designed to pull in plebs like me.

The programme featured two ostensibly awful teenagers – Charlotte and Sam – who were sent to Jamaica to live for a week with the Roses, a good Christian family who believe in Jesus, discipline and mucking in together. In reality, denied the opportunity to beat the English children as they obviously wanted to, the Roses weren’t really that strict at all. But that’s not really what the programme was about. It was more about what happens to teenagers when they’re taken out of their comfort zone (I hate that term) and given a taste of a very different lifestyle.

Both of them quickly learned to appreciate what they have. Most importantly, both of them quickly learned to appreciate their families.

At the end of the programme, they returned home to their families and the boy, Sam, a ginger who had previously been outwardly hideous to his mother, hugged her with all of his might and repeatedly told her that he loved her.

I surprised myself by weeping openly like a giant scab.

It was marvellous.

But then, I am a big girl’s blouse at the moment, and rather prone to bouts of debilitating self-indulgence.

What I should do of course is stuff my fist in my weeping maw and – much like those spoilt whining adolescents – realise how lucky I am.

Speaking of which, I recently discovered an astonishing blog, of which I have only, shamefully, read a small part. I started reading it from the beginning a couple of weeks and it made me laugh and cry in record time.

This, I thought, is exactly what writing is all about. Actually, this is what life is all about.

I’m talking about Alright Tit, which is a blog about what to do when life throws something hideous in your face. And this is not just something as trivial as an ugly mug and a pair of loveless parents. This is serious.

Basically, when Lisa Lynch was diagnosed with breast cancer, she decided to fight it, and she decided to write it. Thankfully she’s a glorious writer, and a fantastic fighter. And when real tragedy one day comes into my life, I hope I can handle it with such astonishing grace, aplomb and humour.

Read her blog at once. It starts here, with an apology.

I shall be reading the rest of it next week.

Also worth a visit is this guide to inter-gender communication. It doesn’t always hit the mark but there are some golden moments.

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Finally, I have a question:

If you had to track someone down – someone no one in your family had heard of for almost 30 years and who, let's face it, could very well be dead – how would you go about it?

Thoughts in the comments, please.

Thanks.