How to go from Yummy to Slummy in Thirteen Easy Steps or, How to Fail Epically at Motherhood

Step 1: Go out to collect turkey from poncy local farm shop with very small baby. Feed him first to allow at least 2.5 hours shopping time. Cut back on hair/make-up time in order to get out swiftly. So far, so organised.

Step 2: Important - remember shopping list but misplace it somewhere between kitchen and shop.

Step 3: Select a trolley with no wheel control. Try to push this and the pram in the same direction around tiny shop crowded with Boden and Jules-clad countryfolk.

Step 4: Decide on a buy-one-of-everything approach as shopping list still MIA. Spend at least £200 on festively-themed food stuffs.

Step 5: Queue for 25 minutes with an increasingly bored baby at the till. Request fellow queuers to make tutting noises of disapproval for allowing the poor baby to get so bored whilst the mother has a relaxing jaunt around this delightful shop.

Step 6: Make it back to the car with pram and purchases but fail to locate car keys. Spend five minutes in minus 8 degrees searching every pocket of every nappybag/handbag, only to find keys in coat pocket after all.

Step 7: Return to shop for an emergency coffee and second round of last-minute present buying. Make sure the baby starts crying as soon as you are trying to balance a tray full of coffee on the handle of the pram.

Step 8: Sit down amidst the pensioners and other peaceful farm shoppers with crying baby. Realise you have forgotten spoon for sugar. Drink coffee without sugar and try to ignore "poor baby must be hungry" and "neglectful mother" comments from OAPs.

Step 9: Commit fatal error of feeding baby early in order to silence critics/baby. Attempt discreet feeding in public whilst wearing three woolly jumpers and Barbour jacket. Fail (discreetly, of course) but give old geezer at the next table an eyeful of his early Christmas present.

Step 10: Omit to pack enough extra baby clothes to counter the ensuing post-prandial poo-tastrophe. Simulataneously discover the woeful inadequacy of shop baby-changing facility (too small for pram; too cold for naked babies). Baby should now be wailing and queue of other (happier) babies growing impatient.

Step 11: Decide to soldier on with present-buying nonetheless and carry baby over shoulder whilst pushing pram in lieu of trolley. Make sure you time the projectile puking so that you smear as many hand-painted trinkets as possible with sour milk as you walk past.

Step 12: Arrive at till (again) looking unkempt and covered in puke. Wait until you are at the front to discover it is cash only. Insist they let you pay by card, thus infuriating entire world by delaying them two whole seconds when really it is your festive duty to queue somewhere else for another half an hour. Dress baby in 25 layers of outdoor clothing, much to his displeasure, and leave shop.

Step 13: Repeat Step 6.

There you have it, ladies! Your transformation is complete. Alternatively, if you wish to retain Yummy status, stay at home with the baby and send your husband for the turkey.

Egg on your face

How disappointing to see the violent behaviour of those students who trashed the Tory headquarters today in protest against top-up fees. One of the placards held aloft in the crowd outside Millbank was a huge fist with the demanding slogan ‘Fund Our Futur’ (sic) scrawled on it in marker pen. This seems to be symbolic of the aggressive assumption that if the government won’t cough up the funding for universities the students will have every right to don their Leavers 2010 hoodies, cover their faces with Topshop bandanas and kick some windows in. They will also throw eggs and sticks off the roof, which according to Manchester student Emily Parks “shows how angry people are.”

Well, Emily, I am angry about politicians reneging on their election pledges too but if it’s all the same to you I’m going to save my eggs for a higher purpose (banana bread, perhaps) and protest in a manner more befitting a graduate of one of the UK’s hallowed universities.

Take a leaf out of Wilfred Owen’s tattered notebook and write a poem or something that actually demonstrates some level of intellectual thought has been achieved whilst at university. His poetic protests against WW1 echo through the ages and have the power to egg on even the most jaded of fourth year literature classes.

To keep with the Tory theme of today, here’s David Cameron’s favourite Owen oeuvre, Dulce et Decorum est.

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, 

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, 

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs 

And towards our distant rest began to trudge. 

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots 

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; 

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots 

Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! –  An ecstasy of fumbling, 

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; 

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, 

And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime... 

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, 

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, 

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If, in some smothering dreams, you too could pace 

Behind the wagon that we flung him in, 

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, 

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; 

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood 

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, 

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud 

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, 

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest 

To children ardent for some desperate glory, 

The old Lie: Dulce et Decorum est 

Pro patria mori.

That last stanza kicks more political ass than some kid in skinny jeans ever could. And there’s literally not an egg in sight.