Mugging muggins for a mug.

Dull, dull, dull! With the best will in the world one cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear and by the same aphorism one cannot magick an entertaining article about one's life when has done nothing. Of course do nothing is a sphere of excellence for me but, all the same, there comes a point when one is forced to the conclusion that nothing is actually the description best applied to what is left to talk about on the subject. Nothing interesting happened today might well be succinct and truthful but it hardly lights any fires, does it?

Yesterday I shook hands with my MP. Actually I pressed flesh with a number of local luminaries but only the parliamentary representative for one of the Black Country's constituencies was already known to me, but only because I live in his 'manor'. It certainly isn't because I vote for him. (At the last general election, I was so disillusioned with the political process I intended to deface my ballot paper with the words 'NONE OF THE ABOVE' ... but at the crucial moment a deeply ingrained conservative streak within me restrained my impulse and I concluded the business of exercising my franchise by depositing an x-less ballot paper into the black steel box. Ha! That'll fool 'em! Not.

There is a computer game I play, sometimes too long and too often. It is called The Sims. It is a deliciously pointless game, there being no need to win and there is no way to lose. One simply guides simulated people through simulated lives; it sounds boring but it is rich with potential for humour and tragedy and I am by no means alone (in my sixth decade) in my semi-addiction to the game. One aspect of the game has always intrigued me. Sims may improve their skills by studying or practicing in various ways. Improving their charisma generally involves talking to and posing in front of a mirror. Now since most of the activities of The Sims are based in real life I have been forced to wonder a lot about this mirror thing ....

Is that something that real people do? It wasn't something I ever did. Mirrors and I have a love hate relationship; mainly hate actually. A mirror was a necessary accessory for the successful tweezing of eyebrows of rainforest luxuriance; it's not safe to rely on proprioception when arranging one's tresses. A full length mirror is also good to confirm that one's overall ensemble more or less conforms to expectations; in my case aspiring to a D- is enough. I haven't much vanity. I have some of the bodily dysphoria of an anorexic in that my self-image is larger than the mirror's; and a mirror image is no more real than the one in my mind and I prefer to trust my mental friend whom I have known for ever.

The idea that people might spend time practising facial expressions in front of mirror is, then, entirely new to me. The only memory I have of any reference to such behaviour is from a novel I read when I had chickenpox; I was a precocious reader and at age 8 I was reading a stack of teen material. I have no idea where it came from. One quote stuck in my mind without engaging any other gears ... it is peculiar the way this happens, but it does, at least to me. The quote:

Gwen was upstairs glued to her dressing table mirror practising trying to look like Judith Chalmers.

So, I was aware that people used mirrors for purposes other than to assure that their parting is straight. I just never enjoyed seeing myself in a mirror; so much so that it never occurred to me that if I could only stomach the horror for a while I might make myself over into a something I could come to like. I hate being photographed for the same sort of reasons only with a photo the image is more alien. Not being a mirror image, a photo shows me exactly what I look like. If I am smiling I look hideously deformed and if I try to look serious the image is too uncomfortably reminiscent of Myra Hindley's hauntingly arresting police mug shot. And that is not a comfortable thought ....

Imagine then how fascinated I was as I observed the honorable member for my part of the world posing for the camera. His face was the model of studied conentration as he gave his full attention to the photographer's intructions. As he and the fawning lesser celebrities arranged themselves he was serious-faced as he ensured that each element of the picture was in place and then at the crucial moment a smile appeared on his face as unexpectedly as sunlight bursting through a slim gap in a cloudy sky. It was a comfortable smile. Its wearer felt supremely confident behind it. I had seen it before, of course, it was on all the posters last election time, but then it had looked like it was permanent; it was a winning smile. It was very apt for the occasion as he handed out the prizes ... but more of that another day.