Soft Power

If you haven’t yet watched the beautiful, cheesy, romantic, tropey, mental pleasure cruise that is Amazon Prime’s weekend film release, Red, White, and Royal Blue, based on the novel by Casey McQuiston, go do that now. Then come back. You’re welcome.

First of all, as a connoisseur of the romantic comedy and a former screenwriter, I’m so happy they made this. Every iteration of romance deserves representation on screens of all sizes. But it’s truly a story for everyone in the time-honoured tradition of all enduring romances, without feeling like a remake or a rehash of anything else. It’s a gay couple that gets to be gay without pedestal equality or a ‘this is for them’ mentality. Sexual health and HIV prevention are discussed as casually as birth control pills and Plan B. It happens to be gay, and everyone will like it.

There are a couple of other equally important things that it does really well. Yes- love stories, international relations, and global civil rights are equally important. I said what I said.

As the former head of PR and politics for a British consulate in the US, it was 0% surprising that I watched this film the minute it was released, and while I expected a good ‘special relationship’ joke and some fun with cultural stereotypes on both sides of the pond I was NOT ready for the public diplomacy masterclass that was served up, for those in a position to hear it. If, say, you’re aware that the UK and the US haven’t had a functional free trade agreement since Brexit, despite going a highly publicised five rounds of negotiations in 2020, then the discussion of a deal between first female President, Uma Therman, and the female PM of the UK is a rather epic burn. In the fictional world, the biggest hurdle to establishing global digital financial standards and critical mineral trading is a snafu with a big cake. Out here in reality it’s a snafu with big egos while both sides publicise gutless MOUs and the largely decorative Atlantic Declaration, until some real rope is fit to be tied between the home of the scone and the land of the free gift with purchase. Turns out one is a lot easier to ice over with a tandem story hour than the other (is it too soon to use ‘story hour’ innocuously again?). It’s simply factual at this point in time to say that Brexit has been bad for British trade. And I, for one, would like to see Jaffa Cakes on American shelves. BUT, Henry and Alex can help.

The UK and the US have some sparkling public diplomacy gems to work with. And in recent memory they’ve been languishing in a box. The Royals are an obvious draw. For every wedding and Jubilee the American public rediscovers the fascinator and remembers they don’t like scones that much (because they’re making them wrong). RWRB, as the kids are calling it, serves up all the royal sparkle from the first frame and Nicholas Galatzine’s Prince Henry gives us all the tortured gilded cage vibes we held close with Prince Harry with the added angst of a gilded closet; with a King leaning on the door. In an interview, the lead actors said that it felt important to see these men not only struggle, but to see them in positions of power and massive influence setting a standard for equality and acceptance (I’m paraphrasing). That’s a rather well shot arrow into the gaping hole of protections for queer people in both countries.

A little over a year ago, the UK’s much lauded ‘Safe To Be Me’ conference – its first-ever international LGBT+ conference as the nation attempted to show leadership in supporting queer safety in the workplace globally – was very abruptly cancelled very last minute. Boris Johnson refused to include trans people in the government’s ban on conversion therapy. Over 100 organisations and sponsors pulled out and the event was cancelled. In the US, we’ve had the pulse shooting and just, like, FLORIDA. And more recently the Supreme Court let the queer community know that it’s a-okay to discriminate against them.

Alex’s speech in the White House press room, after the couple is forcibly and publicly outed, in RWRB is beautiful and poignant but also reminds us of all the things both governments are not saying to us. That no matter who you love, or make out in a polo shed with, you are a person deserving of respect and privacy and safety and healthcare and kindness. For what it’s worth, there are very dedicated people on both sides of the Atlantic working hard to make space for diverse voices and enact real change and I’m very proud of my work in this area that I did while working for the British government. It simply isn’t enough.

More immediately on this path to constitutional change (with or without the monarchy), is the very simple lesson that forging bilateral relationships and engagement can be fun. It can be silly, and pretty, and easy, and based on nothing more than a cowboy hat or a rather fit statue at the V&A, and still have immense value and potential. On the inside, this is reluctantly referred to as ‘soft power’ but it’s the kind of low hanging fruit you can bake a whole pie out of. And Red, White, and Royal Blue certainly serves it hot.

Whipped Cream

I have this theory. The salient part of the theory is that life is an ice cream sundae.

That’s also the most important part of the theory. Regardless of which toppings are present, or what flavor is in the bowl, your life is a pile of ice cream with extra goodies.

The other key part of the theory is that men (in my case) are the whipped cream in this sundae. I quite like whipped cream. But to make my ice cream sundae better than it would be otherwise it had better be some top notch, hand whipped, heavy duty cream with a touch of cinnamon and Madagascan vanilla bean. Because I’m going to eat that amazing sundae every single day, with or without whipped cream. If you’re not adding something to the bowl I’ve got cherries and sprinkles and caramel and maybe the odd gummy bear or, like, a cookie.

In the UK whipped cream in a can is called ‘squirty cream’ which is fantastic and we will refer to it as such from this point forward. Squirty cream has its place. Can be lots of fun and gets the job done in a pinch. Mostly doesn’t make your sundae worse unless you leave it too long and it kind of melts into a film… which is the argument for squirty cream men. They have their place. But mandatory sundae topping they are not. Priority additions must contribute to a dessert more than the sum of it’s ingredients.

You don’t leave a perfectly lovely sundae to turn into soup for lack of whipped cream. You grab a spoon and lick the bowl. And when that really great, perfect swirl of cream-of-the-crop whipped topping comes along, your sundae is that much sweeter.

I’m not turning down a bowl of strawberry ice cream with no toppings at all either. Eat up.

Rebound

It is human nature to try and find patterns. In what we do, what other people do, in your peas at the dinner table.

When I got my fifth ‘Thanks, but no thanks’ text from someone I had been seeing (which was also the third ‘I’m getting back together with my ex-girlfriend, see ya’ text) in the last couple years I couldn’t help but think it might be me. This, despite every assurance that it was not me. Unfortunately, none of these gentlemen advanced past the cliché. My taste is possibly the problem.

As a results oriented person dwelling on the problem was not going to be enough. The potential solutions appeared to be market myself as a professional reunite-er:

“Take me out and your Ex will take you back in two months or less – guaranteed!”

Or, I could try my best to interrupt the pattern. Doing the same thing and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity, so this seems the healthier, if less lucrative, option.

I’m not totally sure what that looks like yet, but I feel as though not being quite so nice about being set aside like last week’s box set is a good place to start.

And so, to keep to this new resolution I decided to forgo my usual ‘It’s alright, no hard feelings’ response. It might be true, and, clearly, none of them were my soul mate, but that doesn’t mean I have to make it easy.

When I finally texted back this last time I said the only thing that could be said,

“I’m not wearing any underwear”

A Cautionary Fail

There are so many things that girls do when they are getting ready to go out. And a few extra things when getting ready to go out on a first date. Even with hours of preparation, part of you is always ready for something to go, if not wrong, then not quite right. That’s why you bring three different lip products, a pen, and a bottle opener (just me?). But there are some things you do not worry about. Things you take for granted. Things like your ability to open doors.

It’s the sort of thing that I would normally chalk up to being the kind of incident that would and could only happen to me, except that is not the case. My first thought when I realised I could not open a door was that a friend of mine had been in the exact same situation months before and I hadn’t really understood what she meant. But I did now. So, of course I texted her to let her know that she was not alone. But I was. Trapped on the wrong side of a door I could not open.

How did I get from first dates to locked doors? And were the authorities involved? No, legal action was not taken against my date, but a friend did later suggest that I was technically a hostage. I feel it is important to share this story for the sake of preventing its repetition and simply making you feel less alone if this was once you and you thought you were the only one. Since the evening did include interaction with another person, who possibly does not want moments of their lives explicitly detailed on the internet, I hope you will forgive the necessarily vague descriptions.

Boy asked out girl. Girl met boy at restaurant. Boy and girl ate food. Boy and girl had drinks. Then they had some more drinks. Girl came in for one more drink. She was then more surprised than she should have been that drink was not only thing on boy’s mind. She very sensibly made her way to the door… and could not, for the life of her, open it. The knob turned but the door did not open. The lock flipped, but the door did not open. Boy could not conceptualize that girl couldn’t open a door (nice of him really) and continued wooing efforts. Girl used wiles to get boy to open door for her and ran away home.

Don’t be that girl. There’s no living it down. I still have no idea how he opened the door.

I Am Not Raspberry Jam

Just because you get to know a person does not make them any less a person. And just because you like a person does not mean you use them for the things you like and leave the rest.

Too many people are treating the romantic interests in their life like their own personal stash of flavoured jams lined up on a shelf. Strawberry for Mondays. Grape on the weekends. Raspberry for special occasions. But putting people back on the shelf when you’ve had enough, and have a taste for something a bit different, and then picking them up when you remember how nice they were, is a pretty shit thing to do. Because while jam comes with a handy lid that maintains the status quo while your off on a multi flavoured jam frenzy, people do not.

I get it. They are all sweet, and colourful, and shiny in their own special way. And every time you open a new one they make that really satisfying, sucking, pop sound. But if you take a few bites off the top and set it back down again you are left with someone who feels a bit hollow and can’t help but wonder why you picked up the spoon in the first place.

So, you don’t like seeds. Or pulp. Fine, no problem. Pass it along to someone else. Don’t leave the jam on the shelf, missing all the good bits, until it’s lost all the appeal it ever had. It isn’t fair to the jam, or your new jam, or other jam lovers. Sure, life isn’t fair, but that is no excuse to go around buying up every flavour of jam you can find only to let it sit in the pantry until you are in the mood for it. I know you take a bite here and there to keep it shiny on top, and honestly that’s worse. Pass it along to someone who really really likes apricot. There are starving children in the world.

People are not meant to sit on shelves waiting for willing spoons. Don’t be that spoon. And don’t be that jam. You are not raspberry jam.

Do Not Open Until

Pretend for a second that these are your favorite pair of underwear (this may be awkward for you if you are a male person, but just go with it). What scenario would justify wearing them? A date? Your birthday? Tuesday? Not until your 20th wedding anniversary?

How we include our favorite things in our lives can be very telling about how we are as people, I think. For a very long time I have had a favorite everything- shirt, plate, lipgloss, scissors, pen, and, of course, underwear- and got a weird sense of satisfaction out of not using it. I would come up with elaborate fantasy scenarios for the circumstances that would give me the permission to use or wear whatever it was. This nail polish is so perfect and beautiful, and cost three dollars more than any other nail polish I own, so I will only wear it when I go out for strawberry milkshakes with my true love. Cut to finding this four dollar bottle of nail polish in the back of a drawer (which it was fused to) looking semi-exploded and a completely different color than it started because it is so old and gross.

I do still believe it’s nice to save some things for special occasions, but what qualifies as a special occasion should be something that is likely to occur in the regular course of your life at least two or three times a year, or more depending on the longevity of the item. The logical reasons for this include expiration dates (not always just a suggestion), value, and the very nature of indulgence. Lots of things are at their best when they’re fresh, and not just the perishables. Clothes go out of fashion and handbags get much less dusty if you use them. And if you’ve bought something because you love it more than the usual things in your life then it’s purpose for existing, and your purpose in buying it, are squandered by it’s being put on a pedestal of seclusion.

It took me a long time to realize this was stupid, and even longer to do something about it. Now that I have consciously become someone who does and uses what they like I’m extremely aware of it and hyper appreciative when I do. And I have to say it’s so much better than not doing it or using it- as you probably knew, because you are not a freak with a five year old sample pouch of luxury shampoo.

While “you’re worth it” (and you are), “life is short”, and “YOLO” these extreme philosophies shouldn’t be necessary to get into the practice of enjoying your life. Definitely keep a nice bottle of champagne in the fridge in case something exciting happens, but if no one has commited their lives to you or decided to give you more money by the end of the year, then drinking it while you eat pie and watch your Buffy the Vampire Slayer box set in novelty leggings is a worthwhile special occasion.

Hillary and the Royal Mail: A Love Story

She walked onto new shores, with that glint of hope in her eyes. She thought the mail would be just like her postal service back home. Respectful, always there when she called, putting everything she needed and asked for in her box at a convenient and predictable time (except on Sundays). Hillary would come home to her messages in a nice stack. Some words of love, others asking for money, but no one’s perfect. She hadn’t even thought to imagine that service would be so different in her new home.

Recklessly, she ordered boxes and boxes of things she needed for her new flat. “They’ll arrive at my door!” she thought, “I don’t have to carry thirty square feet of mattress pad across three boroughs on the tube!”. Little did she know this relationship would not be like her last. That she would be shackled to her home for days during regular business hours to have even the hope of a chance to see her mailman and receive her packages.

First, it was an email. “We’ll be by with one of your parcels today.” So she waited for three hours (mostly catching up on youtube videos) until, finally, she couldn’t take it anymore and thought she must take a shower or go mad. Naturally this is when her postie chose to arrive and her hopes of hanging up her clothes with the new coat hangers that were due to appear, were dashed. Another email came through minutes later, “I failed to deliver your order. I’ll try again tomorrow.” She knew what that meant. Hillary had heard of his kind. Just like the cable company. Keeping you waiting all day. Never vacuuming or doing dishes for fear you might miss the knock on the door and sentence yourself to another day of this anxious, anticipatory hell. She even went so far as to change her clothes in hopes that the temptation of being both half naked and trapped in her shirt would be too much for fate to resist and a knock would sound at the door.

She can’t help but wonder, how does a country that once ruled the world function this way? Building relationships based on fear and blackmail is no way to find love, or operate a postal service. She now sees why we had that revolution. The windows, the paper, the tea, and wasting your life away waiting for the Royal Mail. She ordered coat hangers from Fife. Hillary can only imagine waiting for all of your worldly belongings in Jamestown, wondering if they’re coming via freaking rowboat across the Atlantic while you fend off native peoples with nowhere to bloody sit down because all your chairs are in the parcel!

In the early afternoon the knock finally came! (And there was actually a person on the other side of the door, unlike the first three times she answered it to no one) And just like the desperate neglected girlfriend she had become she thanked the postman profusely and took her package into her warm embrace. He doesn’t know there is another way. And she still has five more boxes coming so she really needs not to piss him off. This controlling relationship will continue so long as she lets it. Or until she stops ordering things. Or moves back to America. But he still has something she wants, namely her stuff. And so she waits. Peeking through the curtains and running to the door at every noise until she gets what she craves.

True Love

I love my boyfriend so much. We are really good together. He’s always there when I need him, and I love being close to him when I feel bad, and when I feel really good. There is no one better to celebrate with or have with me after a long week.

Things aren’t perfect. When I was younger I couldn’t get enough of him and I never got tired of having him around. But as I got older that constant attention took its toll. I started to gain weight and get headaches, until I could really only be around him every once in a while. But ultimately we found a balance in our relationship and moderation really has been the key to our everlasting love. He understands when I need him and I know he’s there for me, even when I have to handle something on my own.

As Valentine’s Day approaches we have very special plans together. On this one special day there will be no moderation, only indulgence and excess. We will be with one another constantly and I look forward to every minute. And when the holiday is over we will return to our well-honed relationship based on trust, understanding, and love, and he’ll give me just enough distance that I still crave him at the end of the day.

Because our love is true. And my boyfriend is sugar.

New Year

While it is refreshing and noble to make grand declarations of all that we will do and change with ourselves in the coming year, I present a new kind of resolution: Give yourself a break.

I have no idea how all of the people I have heard about giving up alcohol for the month of January plan to pay their credit card bill from the holidays without a cocktail in their hand. Perhaps you have had time off or been spending time with your family (whether that’s a pleasant experience for you or not). Does this really seem like the ideal time to give up carbs cold turkey? Because you are going to be miserable if all you are eating is cold turkey.

This is not to say that goals are not a good thing, because they are. And goals should certainly be in the spirit of self-improvement, but they should also manifest with a nod to humanity. Moderation and exceptions for reality are everything. Of course we should all be working out more regularly, but you’re going to need to use your legs tomorrow and thirty minutes on the elliptical totally counts. When you said you were going to be more patient, considerate, and kind you have to include treating yourself that way as well.

We do not live in bubble-like microcosms where we can do whatever we decide instantaneously. Other things and people are going to get in your way, and the least you can do is not be one of those obstacles. Have an overall goal, then break it up into smaller goals, then break those up again. If you accomplish sixty percent of your tiny goals this year then you are doing amazing. And you get to have extra cake and booze. Confidently allow yourself to enjoy your life, make mistakes, and fail.

Be good, be better, be yourself.

Happy New Year.

Black Fri Lady

Yes, I’m aware the wordplay does not completely work. But the sentiment stands true. There is nothing ladylike about elbowing your way to an eighteen dollar sweater at five in the morning. There is no reason to pay more for something than you have to, but the value of your time and character also have to be accounted for. The spirit of gift-giving is to think about the people in your life you want to show appreciation to and what it is in your power to give them that they might like.

The spirit is not to dive in to the dollar bin grabbing everything within reach, only to decide later which unfortunate cousin is going to get a battered copy of Die Hard, and who gets the stuffed reindeer with the jingle hat. Shopping on Black Friday is not relaxing, so you can’t even claim retail therapy.

The only ladylike way to shop on the Friday after Thanksgiving (the day after you have dedicated a whole uninterrupted twenty four hours to connecting with friends and family whilst consuming twice your body weight) is online. There are some incredible sales, that no reasonable person can expect you to ignore, but the pursuit of a bargain should not take over your brief respite from work and other distractions. Pick a time to commit yourself to the pursuit of a reasonably priced coat, or set a cellphone alarm for that Amazon lightning deal you just can’t miss, but limit it to an hour or two. Then read a book, curl up and watch a movie, or even take a walk with your aunt or other relative you don’t get to see very often.

As we get older, and advertising agencies get evermore overeager during the holiday season, we seem to forget that celebrating is meant to be about spending time and making memories with those we love. Whether it’s taking the time to tell one another what you’re thankful for, or making sure gifts are both thoughtful and personal, make sure you take full advantage of your time away from the obligations of work to play a little bit.

If your idea of play happens to include a quick tirade through Target with your mom, then so be it.

Happy Thanksgiving! And Happy Hanukkah!

Hillary of Troy

Tag: love