See You Next Tuesday

During my Book Club dinner in a nice pub in Redbourn last night, one of my party said 'Cunt' really quite loudly at the table, (and, for once, it wasn't me).

The tumbleweed blew slowly through the room and a couple of other tables of diners began to stare at us, in quite a menacing way.  It started quite an animated discussion at our table.  Poor old Heather, who was driving and therefore the only sober one among us, looked as if she would quite like the ground to swallow her up but luckily she was at the furthest end of the table from the 'starers'.

I have no problem with the word.  I think that perhaps people have become slightly over-sensitive about it, particularly women, leaving it with a 'cult' status, making it untouchable and unspeakable and therefore giving it more power than it deserves.  A little bit like people in dramatic circles being afraid to talk about 'Macbeth', although cunt is a little less Shakespearian.

Kate felt quite strongly that it was a justified use of the word by she-who-will-not-be-named-at-book-club as we were talking about an Afghan Warlord who had murdered small children and done a number of other horrific things.  I agree absolutely but I have also realised I'm a bit of a hypocrite.

I throw 'cunt' around in new circles, showing off, loving to shock, etc, etc; but actually if I had been out to dinner with my parents last night, or in fact, my children, I would have taken umbrage at someone shouting it out at a table near me.  Why is it therefore alright to change your values, vocabulary and behaviour depending on the company you are currently keeping?

If someone said that they would give me £10,000 to say 'cunt' at my parents' Sunday lunch table, I would refuse absolutely.  I may consider it for £100,000 but that is only because I would then have the means to leave the country for quite a long time, immediately afterwards.

As a parent myself, I can imagine that I would have a small coronary incident if either of my boys came home bandying it around in my company.  I think that luckily we are a few years off that however as 'poo' and 'wee' are (a) still absolutely hilarious to them and (b) very frowned upon by me.

I think I'm at the extreme end of the scale of different behaviour for different situations. Many of my friends and family act in quite a similar fashion whoever they happen to be with.  I like to think that this makes me interesting, vibrant and exciting but in actual fact it probably makes me an exhibitionist who will develop into a caricature of my former self as I get older and lose my amazing good looks and razor sharp wit. ;-)

Anyway, back to last night.  We considerately moved outside a few minutes after the C-Bomb incident.  One of the gentlemen from the table of starers gave us a wave and a cheery 'Cheerio' as he got into his taxi later.  I reckon he ran a foul-mouthed Book Club back in his day too.