Women who don't bake fairy cakes

[shewhomust]

The Guardian celebrates a recent contribution from Katharine Whitehorn by providing a link to her article on "Sluts". It starts: "This article is dedicated to all those who have ever changed their stockings in a taxi, brushed their hair with someone else's nailbrush or safety-pinned a hem; and those who have not had probably better not read on."

But it ends with a line that I quote so often, I'd forgotten where it came from: "If you're looking for the tax forms, they're under your slippers in the salad-bowl."

Comments

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

That is a lovely article, but women of that sort (viz.: me) *do* bake fairy cakes; just not in a trendy fifties-poodle-skirt-wearing domestic-goddess fashion. The process runs more like 'it's four a.m. and I want some chocolate and can't find the real baking pan and cranberry ought to go reasonably with marshmallow, oughn't it?'

I once found a jack of hearts in the refrigerator, but I think her tax forms beat that.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I once found a jack of hearts in the refrigerator...

Another great line.

Oh, I bake, but for me "fairy cakes" implies a degree of dinkiness and decoration (and it seems that Nigella herself agrees with me (http://www.nigella.com/recipes/recipe.asp?article=145)) which I rarely achieve: I might make a slab of chocolate cranberry marshmallow cake (without the marshmallows, I think) but I'd probably want to eat it before it was cool enough to ice...

[artistatlarge.livejournal.com]

What a great article- I love that it was written over 40 years ago but still rings trie today.

I remember how shocked I was, as a young teen returning to England from Canada, that the term "slut" was so cheerily bandied about at messy housewives! Over 'ere the term *only* means promiscuous (to use an equally antiquated notion) and a unkempt girl would be a "slob", no matter what her sexual mores.

Personally, I'm with rushthatspeaks; I've changed hosiery in a taxi, had dishes lurking in the wrong room, and yet will bake fairycakes and make jam in a wholly un-ironic fashion.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I love that it was written over 40 years ago but still rings trie today.

And that different bits of it chime with the different ages at which I read it!

As for the fairy cakes, see above!

[anef.livejournal.com]

That's wonderful - thank you for sharing.

My particular contribution to sluttishness (ahem) is sticking hems up with sellotape rather than sewing them up properly.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Double-sided?

[anef.livejournal.com]

Not even that, I'm afraid!