Inner eight year old

SSS went out last night and was by far the oldest person in sight. I left the pretty, young and unbearably thin people at a sensible hour (conveniently blaming my new shoes) and was home in time to watch the end of The Spanish Apartment on TV. I'd seen the film before, it's unremarkable and if it wasn't for the subtitles you'd be able to get up and make a cup of tea without losing track of the plot. I was determined to stay up late, however, as the clocks were going back and I wanted to indulge my childish side of staying up 'because I could'. Besides, the bogan neighbours were cackling and I knew that sleep wasn't going to be instantaneous.

Anyhoo, back to the film. In a nutshell - Parisian boy goes to live in Barcelona for year, shares flat with other Euroteens, has girlfriend trouble (probably because she lives in Paris and not Barcelona), befriends fellow Frenchman and shags his wife after gleaning sex tips from lesbian flatmate. Finally gets dumped by Parisian girlfriend, upset by this and sulks. Parisian boy ends his year of shagging, drinking and headfuckwittage in Barcelona and gets a dull office job back in gay Paris. He sees a life of mediocracy stretching out before him, has an epiphany and legs it. He realises that he wants to be a writer and he doesn't want to disappoint the child he used to be. This made me think about how I would look at myself if the eight year old SSS could see the 2008 version.

On a surface level, I think she'd wonder what happened to her blonde hair. She'd be disappointed that she didn't seem to have grown that much taller and she'd giggle at the boobs.

She'd be delighted to find herself living close to the beach. She'd wonder how the hell she ended up on the other side of the planet. She'd love the fact that there is always chocolate in the house and she'd love it even more when she realised that no one was going to tell her that she had to eat all of her dinner before she could have any. She'd be staggered at the 'no sugar' approach to tea drinking.

She'd be ecstatic that she still listened to Abba after all these years, even if she looked more like Frida than Agnetha in the hair colour stakes.

She'd be heartbroken that she no longer had a mother, although not altogether surprised. She'd quite like the living alone bit as well as the overflowing bookshelf. The pink jumpers and cardigans would be a highlight as well. She'd love the amount of high heels. She'd like to see more singing and dancing. Also more pink lipstick. Not that it suits me but she wouldn't care.

I think the mini me would be asking what was missing. "Is this it, then?" Me too, little one, me too. I'll see what I can do about that.

*This has just been brought to my attention by a friend. If you're a fan of Douglas Adams - hell, even if you're not - take a look and join in. I'm off to examine the contents of my linen cupboard.

http://www.towelday.kojv.net/