By Sandra Parsons
Last updated at 7:59 AM on 29th December 2010
Are you one of the GAT (Guilty All the Time) generation? Do you reproach yourself each day for failing to spend enough time with your family, for neglecting your friends or for having eaten unhealthily? Are you feeling remorse this Christmas for not having been nicer to your mother or for not having gone to the gym?
If you answered yes to any of the above, then you are almost certainly a woman. As Erica Jong famously said: ‘Show me a woman who doesn’t feel guilty and I’ll show you a man.’
Now, we learn from a new survey that almost all women — 96 per cent — feel guilty at least once a day. Naturally, we are somehow expected to feel guilty about feeling constantly guilty, but in fact it is cause for celebration.
A new survey has revealed that 96 per cent of women feel guilty at least once a day - but Sandra Parsons argues that this is a cause for celebration, as it makes women nicer than men
Guilt is what makes us nicer than men. It’s the spur that drives us to ease the daily grind for others because we’d rather do that than feel guilty about not doing our bit. It impels us to do the family ironing, put on endless loads of washing and fret over how to create the perfect festive occasion whether for Christmas, a birthday or a wedding.
It’s why we play endless games of dolls’ tea parties or cops and robbers with small children, even though we’re exhausted and want nothing more than to slump in front of the TV with a glass of wine.
It’s why we answer the phone and say ‘No, no, of course I’ve got time’ when a heartbroken friend calls just as we were planning an early night with a good book.
And yet a ghastly and highly profitable industry has been built around encouraging women to feel that guilt is somehow bad. Only yesterday the author of a book called Escaping Toxic Guilt was explaining that the reason women feel guilt is that they’re brought up to be ‘good’. Well, I’m afraid I simply fail to see what’s wrong with that.
Yes, I know that the fashionable notion today is of ‘me-time’, the holy grail of those whose personal mantra is ‘Because I’m worth it’. The spa industry is eloquent testimony to the perception that we guilt-ridden, harassed modern women need to unwind, revive and think about ourselves.
Heaven knows we all deserve some time to relax — but for most women that means not a week at a luxury spa but a pilates class or half an hour with a cup of coffee and a glossy magazine. What I really object to is the way the ‘Because you’re worth it’ industry constantly encourages us to escape our responsibilities, as if me-time were the most sacred of human rights.
Real life is difficult. The irony is that happiness lies in battling through despite the difficulties, not avoiding them. The reward is in the glow of satisfaction you gain from not giving in, whether that means sticking to a diet or doing without a new dress so that you can pay for your child’s karate lessons.
In theory it would be lovely to treat yourself to an expensive spa holiday. But if you’re anything like the women I know, you’d find it impossible to spend a week just thinking about yourself (and you’d be feeling far too guilty about your children to enjoy it anyway).
When we’re older and our children have grown up, we can expect to have plenty more ‘me time’ — endless hours of it, stretching into what we pray won’t be a lonely old age. Until then, let’s hang on to our guilt — because those we love really are worth it.
My father is delighted with his Christmas present, a mobile phone called John’s Phone with extra large buttons which can only be used to make and receive phone calls. You can’t text with it, play games, take pictures or listen to music on it, and its address book is a notepad stuck on the back. It’s pure genius and isn’t there a fortune waiting to be made, surely, for the person who creates a similarly straightforward computer?
My lightbulb moment
For some weeks I have been wrestling with how best to entertain, on New Year’s Eve, a gathering encompassing three nine-year-olds, five teenagers, a couple of sophisticated, glamorous single women, an assortment of middle-aged mums and dads and my 82-year-old father.
Then, in a shop shortly before Christmas, I saw a karaoke machine for £50 and had a lightbulb moment: we would have an X-Factor karaoke party, with everyone dressed as someone from the show.
Great entertainment: Sandra Parsons has found a great way to keep her family happy on New Year's Eve (file picture)
My husband agreed only on condition that we never tell anyone. Which I would have stuck to, had I not read how Simon Cowell spent his Christmas Day — with his fiancee and two ex-girlfriends, having an X Factor karaoke party.
His was at the $5,000-a-night Sandy Lane Hotel in Barbados. Ours will be taking place in a suburban terrace house. They say the rich are different. But actually, they’re just rich...
Helena Bonham Carter,known for her eccentric dress sense, says her husband always tells her not that she’s put on one item too many, but seven. I would have said the opposite. Every time I see a photograph of her she seems to be wearing one item too few — leaving her impressive cleavage on prominent view.
Sorry, but Upstairs can't top Downton
It grieves me to say it, but Upstairs Downstairs has been a crashing disappointment. I’ve yet to find anyone who thinks it the equal to the original, but it’s also not a patch on Downton Abbey.
For a start, the house is too empty. Sir Hallam Holland and his wife Lady Agnes (pictured) are too young and frankly, rather dull. Compare and contrast them to Lord and Lady Grantham, who have not only three grown-up daughters to add to the action but also a gripping back-story involving the possible loss of their estate.
Crashing disappointment: The revived version of Upstairs Downstairs has failed to live up to expectations and is not a patch on the original - or Downton Abbey
And when it comes to formidable matriarchs, Downton far outclassed its rival. Eileen Atkins (co-creator, with Jean Marsh, of Upstairs Downstairs) as Lady Maud seemed altogether too relaxed and never seemed truly to inhabit the part. Maggie Smith, by contrast, hammed up the acid-tongued and totally terrifying Dowager Duchess, Lady Violet Grantham, but she unashamedly made the character her own: once seen, never forgotten.
But where Upstairs Downstairs really fell down was with the characters of the staff. Now promoted to housekeeper, Rose just isn’t a strong enough character — and there’s no one to hold a candle to the brooding presence of Downton’s Carson, or anyone who comes close to the inexplicably sexy and mysterious valet, Bates.
Over-acted: David Suchet's performance as Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express was a travesty
Sick as a Poirot
I’m in mourning for Hercule Poirot. As a devoted Agatha Christie fan, I adored David Suchet’s portrayal of the Belgian detective. He perfectly caught Poirot’s vanity and fastidiousness but also his cool, calm logic. The new version of Murder On The Orient Express was a travesty.
Suchet over-acted and portrayed an out-of-character Poirot, by turns darkly dramatic and exploding into anger. I can only assume his success on the West End stage in Arthur Miller’s All My Sons has gone to his head. As one TV critic put it: it’s Agatha Christie, dear, not Graham Greene...
I’ve never understood the attraction of a cruise. I know the ships are the last word in luxury and I applaud them for being possibly the only places left which insist on guests dressing for dinner. But there’s no escape from the briny, or your shipmates.
Now we learn there’s an even worse fate that can befall you: being stuck on board with John Prescott, whose lame speech and risque jokes have not gone down well on the Queen Mary 2, where he has been booked as ‘entertainment’.
He’s reported to have since been confined to his cabin with the vomiting bug norovirus, but I have my doubts. Far more likely is that other passengers have taken matters into their own hands and poisoned him.
The photographs of Rachel Weisz walking hand in hand through snowy country lanes with Daniel Craig certainly looked idyllic.
But I don’t see how a romantic holiday — even one with James Bond himself — can be worth leaving your four-year-old son behind in New York for Christmas.
Oprah Winfrey has revealed she has become something of a mentor to Fergie, with whom she’s making a documentary.
When the broke duchess sent her an email earlier this year complaining about having to give up her annual break in a Spanish villa, oprah sent one back explaining: 'you have no money. People who don’t have money don’t go to Spain on holiday.’
It seems beyond belief that after all these years of financial incontinence, fatuous
Fergie still can’t work out such basics for herself.
