Star Struck

Ruffled

Astrology. What in the fuck, I must ask, is this all about? Because while I have never believed in this rape of the heavens via the Daily Mirror puzzles page, I've always been happy to let believers carry on their merry way. However, this week I was privy to a stunning display of astrological insanity via Radio 2, where some star-botherer or other attributed various Olympic successes to whether Uranus was being intruded upon by Neptune.

This makes me want to run through the nearest astrology convention with a sharpened telescope. Apart from the fact that astrology is a load of old cock, it's even more old and cockish when its used to explain modern sporting prowess. If you want to believe that your 40-something love life is shit just because your mother's waters broke on the 'wrong' date, you go for it. Knock yourself out. But if you want to believe that Bolt or Ennis or Dujardin won gold for the same reason then you are as bananas as Fifes's head office.
For a start, to believe that medal-winning Olympians are successful only because of their star signs is the equivalent of believing that you'll only pass your exams if you wear your lucky knickers. It's taking a sport - the product of science, discipline and arse-splittingly hard work - sprinkling it with fairy dust and announcing that success is down to the 'little folk'.
And if that's not enough to set you in retrograde motion, it's also deeply and pitifully patronising. Jesus, imagine being a sportswoman, nurturing your talent, practising for hours every day, travelling to meets and nursing injuries until you win an Olympic medal only to be told that the win was all down to you being a fucking Capricorn? I dunno about Pluto being in transit but I'm as sure-as-shit that my fist would be. Then again, the guilty astrologer would know this because they'd have predicted it in Grazia a week earlier.
In fact, such is my disdain for astrology that I don't even know Kraken Junior's star sign. That's partly because it has as much relevance as a bird taking a shit three thousand miles away. It's also partly because, for me, looking at the stars is about science. You know, the evidence-based pursuit that means one fuck of a lot more than the fictional representation of the night sky. Show me evidence that being a Taurean has influenced my career, depression and love of anchovies and I may start to listen. 
Until then, chart-twiddlers, no. Just no. Astrology does not have influence over the Olympics because, unlike the Olympics, astrology is based upon fuck all. Unless, of course, you want to line up the runners, swimmers and pole vaulters according to their star sign rather than country. But that would never work because astrology would also be put to the test and, by Christ, would it lose.

Bird Brains

Laydeeez

No. Just no. I declare here and now that if one more Olympic commentator refers to the female competitors as 'ladies' rather than 'women' I will not be responsible for my distinctly unsporting javelin-based actions.
This isn't 195-fucking-4. It's 20-fucking-12 and the Olympics is populated with women who have sweated more viciously in the last seven days than most of us have in the last 15 years. They are powerful, competitive, driven, successful women who make 99.9% of the global population look de-boned and yet they're still spoken about as if they've tripped daintily from a Jane Austin novel.
Man, I despise the term 'lady'. It's as patronising as a pat on the bum and an enquiry as to if it's "your time of the month". And if it's not outdated enough in everyday life, it's as sure as shit outdated in the Olympic arena. You can almost hear the guilty commentators grumbling about how the sexual revolution was just down to hormones. Christ knows what shocks they've experienced as the competitors have lined up in lycra rather than crinolines or girdles. I dare say the 'ladies' have offered up their smelling salts and lace hankies to help revive the traumatised telly-botherers from their fainting fits.
Put it this way. If the women are ladies then how come the men aren't gentlemen?  You never hear the Olympic commentators banging on about how the gents are waiting for the starting gun or harping on about the chaps picking up the pace. Instead they're called warriors, strongmen, gladiators. All while the women - equally as supreme - are chucked under the collective chin like fucking kittens.
And yeah, I know there are blokes out there who are just bewildered by the whole thing. I've met plenty who think that the term 'lady' is a perfectly respectable way to address someone with a muff. Problem is that the word carries more connotations than Monty Don's wheelbarrow. For a start 'lady' attempts to segregate the 'good' women from the 'bad' whoever the fuck they're supposed to be. Then it bestows upon the unlucky recipients of the title the responsibility of having to behave in a particular, socially acceptable way. Finally, it's the equivalent of walking into a room full of women and shouting "Tits!" because the first thing you're pointing out is their gender. 
All of which means that the next commentator to refer to ladies will be the beneficiary of my more than unladylike behaviour. On second thoughts though, it won't be unladylike at all because ladies no longer exist. Krakens do, though, and this kraken is already sharpening her javelin.

The Point

The trifecta

Sod storytelling. Last night’s bedtime chat with Kraken Junior included her question, “What’s the point of me?”. Then she asked what was the point of I, The Kraken, and of Conjugal Kraken. I spluttered out that the point of us is to love each other but you know what? I could have gone one fuck of a lot further. Much further. But then KJ would have had nightmares and scratched out her eyes. Here’s what I wanted to say but, in a rare fit of diplomacy, didn’t...

The point of Kraken Junior:

To provide our local pharmacist with an early retirement to Antibes; to put my bras on her head; to make me hysterical with exhaustion; to marvel at the size of her turds; to squash bogies under my fingernails; to make me wonder what the fuck I am doing; to squander our savings on Tinkerbell costumes; to make me holler “eat your frigging mash!”; to ask me what water is; to weep with laughter at yellow cars; to scream with fear when I cut her toenails; to shout “bloody marvellous!” when she enjoys her food; to call the planet Uranus Uvuranius; to repeatedly try to bite my nose; to grill me about my periods; to limp theatrically and hysterically for hours after grazing her knee; to taste paint; to obsess over bubbles; to poke the cat; to call Hello Kitty, Kitty Hello; to shout for quiet when she’s concentrating; to go profoundly deaf when the telly’s on; to get sand on her teeth; to make us gigglingly happy.

The point of I, The Kraken:

To wonder what the fuck I am doing; to fold tiny clothes; to religiously shout “I’ve only got one pair of bloody hands!”; to be terminally confused; to never take a shit on my own; to clutter up the local psych unit; to ingest fistfuls of mentally stabilising medication; to provide our local pharmacist with an early retirement to Antibes; to read aloud The Gruffalo 361.3 times; to pretend to enjoy tea parties; to pick peas off the kitchen floor; to mutter “for fuck’s sake” under my breath and, occasionally, aloud; to drink rum exactly three minutes after bedtime, often from the bottle; to panic at rashes; to despise the beach; to hate other children; to explain why I’m screaming at other drivers; to worry about KJ becoming a whore/ junkie/ Tory; to hide on the doorstep; to ask “have you lost you bloody mind?”; to rage at the colour pink; to know that I’ll never fail to use contraception again; to become hooked on snotty cuddles.

The point of Conjugal Kraken

To stop our cave from forming its own chaos-based black hole; to teach KJ to count; to separate KJ and I during particularly hysterical periods; to keep KJ supplied with Cocoa Pops; to forget what a boys' night out feels like; to simultaneously watch cricket, build a marble run and mop up snot; to spot my imminent mental collapse long before I do; to shower with a small face pressed against the glass; to have no time to cut his toenails; to have his pate and his high forehead meet in the middle; to partake of a large slump at three minutes past bedtime; to moderate the mash-eating battles; to have greater patience than the rest of us put together; to agree that other kids are hideous; to be the administrative centre of the kraken universe; to suck his teeth with fury; to count the grey hairs on his chest; to have KJ stare at his knackersack; to weep with laughter at Viz; to have obsessively documented every episode of Disney’s Imagination Movers; to explode with pride.

Yup, on second thoughts perhaps I gave KJ the right answer in the first place.