Some Victoria Wood Optimism

I'm an enormous Victoria Wood fan. I completely 'get' her comedy. Her humour is my kind of humour and I can watch her stuff on repeat without getting bored (I wrote about this years ago here). But while I love her comedy I often feel her serious work's overlooked. Anybody who watched her in Housewife, 49 will know what I mean but it goes deeper than that. While there are plenty of laughs in dinnerladies there are also some poignant moments. The one I'll always remember is from the second series when Stan has just lost his father and writes a poem about him. I actually recited that poem in a presentation on grief I had to do because it mixed the funny with the heartbreaking.

One of my favourite songs at the moment is a Victoria Wood oldie that I've only just really discovered. It's not in her usual vein of laugh-out-loud comedic songs but it's a nice poignant number that basically tells you to take a chance in life and not to miss your opportunities when they arrive. Some of the lyrics are too relevant to my own life to comment on really. It's advice I wish I could take but perhaps it's easier said than done. I suppose that at least my characters will be well-informed and ready to do what I'm incapable of. Isn't that what characters are for anyway?

(Note: Video's a little sticky but audio's fine)

Three o’clock and still awake,
Winding back each dumb mistake. 
Every slip replayed,
Words not said, moves not made.

Five o’clock the sky comes grey,
Another wash, another day, 
Just another life, it’s true,
But particularly yours, particularly you.

If you have a dream, go with it,
Feel the slightest hint, go with it. 
What is there to lose?
Do you dare, dare to choose?

I have wasted years behaving
In a way I thought was proper, 
And it’s hard to do.
No-one cared, no-one knew.

Bus to work, paper shop,
Will it alter, will it stop? 
Take the time to feel,
Is this for you? Is this for real?

Horoscope, your new campaign,
Oh, I'm not so bad, I can’t complain, 
But you do feel bad somehow,
Particularly here, particularly now.

You can struggle on believing,
Other people have the answers. 
Even if they do,
It couldn’t help, it wouldn’t help you.

You may feel there’s more to follow,
Some eternal life, I don’t feel that. 
All there is is now.
You can’t choose when. You can choose how.

If you have a dream, go with it,
Feel the slightest breeze, then follow, 
Follow all the way,
Save yourself from just another day.

Shyness

Jeremy Vine just covered this story on his Radio 2 programme, about whether shyness should be considered a mental illness. While I don't want to get into the specifics of that, I took issue with one of his guests who suggested that shyness is selfish and indicates that someone isn't interested in the people they're communicating with. Rubbish! I'm more interested in other people than I am in myself most of the time. I don't think the level of my shyness and my interest in others have any correlation at all.

Why am I so shy? I can't put it down to one thing. Maybe this is what happens when you're a tomboy with very few friends as a child, one who much prefers to read Enid Blyton than play dress-up for her hypothetical wedding. I was a mucky kid, always out in the garden making a mess, but I can't recall shyness having an impact on my life until I got to secondary school and the bullying started. I was told by one teacher that I was visibly different and therefore brought it on myself. Perhaps that was when it happened. In order to stop 'bringing it on myself', I became ultra-conscious of everything I said and did before eventually evolving into Lucy 2.0: the person who has health problems partly due to her fear of interactions with other people.

It's irritating and I certainly didn't choose to be this way. Plus, I make a conscious effort to force myself into things that set my nerves on edge. I meet up with friends in public places, occasionally I sing karaoke and, later this month, I have to go through my upgrade viva as part of my PhD progression. Does it sound like I'm not pushing myself? Of course, I allow myself my 'me' days. I hide behind the computer - still completely invested in what's going on outside of my bubble - and relax a little bit more than I can when I'm out and about. Writing and study are inherently isolating and this also impacts on my life: these two things take up much of my time and hinder any efforts I might make to combat my shyness. As a distance student, reliant on public transport, I don't really have the option to participate in much that goes on at Sheffield but, frankly, I find much of it pointless. I'd rather be at home researching a political piece for 2020UK than discussing a long-lost poem with some English students. Not that I don't enjoy poetry; I just spend enough of my time on literature and want to focus on something that, I feel, can make a difference in my (rare) spare time.

All this said, I lose my inhibitions on occasion. Nothing makes you less self-conscious than having children to worry about. I've been known to hop, dance and sing my way around Asda in order to keep my twin nieces semi-amused and quiet during a shopping trip. I've had altercations with charity workers accosting me in town centres and, on one memorable occasion, I almost got myself beaten up by arguing with a scary bloke who criticised me at a climbing wall. Something else takes over my body sending my perpetual shyness away for a few minutes. Do I wish I could be that person full time? Well, no, because I wouldn't be me then. Do I wish I could have a few more periods of inhibition? Yes! If only for the sake of my sanity.

You may also be interested in the post I wrote last year on Recluses.