Warming Up

He went from six hours in A and E yesterday to starring in his class’ nativity play today and you would never have guessed that he had been ill. Even before the show had started Ernie was sitting centre stage and pulling faces and he just got more show-offy from there. Although he was the main part - yes that’s right, my boy was Maurice the Mule, the role that every five year old dreams of playing - Ernie proceeded to peterkay his way through the whole performance, doing extra dance moves, putting on funny voices, shouting out his lines, adding an extra Munch to the chorus of “munch, munch, munch, munch, munch”, taking his donkey-head hat off when it got too hot and mugging to the audience. I’d say I don’t know where he gets it from, but when the cast closed by singing “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” I sang along and added “like a light-bulb” after the first line. He could not have heard me, but was the only kid to sing it (in the correct place) after “you would really say it glowed”. I have created a monster.

You’re so much like me. I’m sorry.

He was in his element and I was filled with pride and shame.

It was especially impressive as obviously he’d missed out on most of the rehearsals but he was on top of all his lines and the songs and dance moves. He’s a little donkey wonder.

I then went into old London Town to visit the offices of Refuge. This fabulous charity does so much for victims of domestic violence (yes, meninists, including male victims) and it was a real honour to be amongst some of their hardest working staff and ambassadors, many of whom have been through almost unimaginable horror and tragedy, unlike me who has just had to spend a few days telling people about November 19th.

Obviously Christmas is a busy time for them (and the economic situation is making things worse) and I was told a heartbreaking story (and this was the least heartbreaking one of the day) about a little boy who has just gone into a shelter with his mum who told them that Father Christmas forgot about them last year. They are of course making sure that Santa turns up this year.

They also told us about how modern technology is increasingly making things tricky for Refuge and easier for stalkers, with tracking devices and recording devices hidden in every day items and stalkerware finding its way on to people’s devices. There seem to be very few safeguards coming in from the businesses operating devices and software. I didn’t realise that if you borrow someone’s bluetooth headphones that you will then have access to that equipment on Find My Device software and thus be able to see where they (or at least their headphones) are at any point after that.

I feel like an imposter in most rooms and was very conscious of being an imposter in this room - a comedian with a few dodgy jokes (depending on your interpretation) and who even managed to upset some feminists with the International Women’s Day campaign which was the reason I was here - but I think there are things that we can all do to help with the terrible situations that Refuge have to deal with - giving them funds is one thing of course, but also encouraging politicians and tech companies to do something about these issues. And another contribution might be to encourage people to call out bad behaviour by men (and women, meninists, though the stats for extreme violence and murder are heavily weighted in favour of male protagonists) and also to get men talking about their emotions and problems. Our bullshit notions of masculinity are part of this problem and helping angry people express their hurt and emotional issues, I think, will help.

We should all endeavour to do better. Yes, women too. But men mainly.

It was a visit that made me mainly feel sad, because the progress on these issues is slow and sometimes non-existent and when confronted with the terrible things that people have endured, it’s hard to be positive. But it’s amazing that these people are working to help others and change things and I am of course very pleased that we (and really you) helped make a difference in terms of funding the work that’s being done.