Would You Marry a Genius?

I'm talking to women here. I don't think any man marries a woman more intelligent than he is. Or maybe they do and I'm missing something.  I'd like to hear all about it.
I suppose it depends on what you mean by genius.  I have a feeling that Richard Branson's wife said she didn't like go out to dinner with him because he was impatient to move on within half an hour. But he does own an island and that would go a long way with most women because it conjures up white beaches, blue sea and constant cocktails.
Genius has become a very loose word. Einstein was a genius. I suspect Richard Branson is a very clever businessman, not the same thing at all.
I went to Vienna for a few days last week and there encountered some of the work of Klimt. Oh dear. Talk about an old goat. He had fourteen illegitimate children mostly by his models who were probably poor and weren't allowed to say no. He wore nothing under his painting outfit. He also had a lifelong lover and had it off with many other women. Also he was just ugly. Sorry. Ugh.
Do women still marry for money and prestige?  Does power attract them? Are very intelligent or powerful men more fascinating than a man who can make you laugh and remembers what kind of champagne you like? And if you were married to a powerful rich man would you be upset when he slept with other women, i.e. his secretary for starters.
Power is passing. Money - well, you can only eat, drink, wear one thing or one outfit at a time. Or is his mind so fascinating that you aren't terribly worried about what he does with his body? I doubt that. Most women have too much self respect to share their man.
Men who make a lot of money or invent something tend to be workaholics, bores or just absent most of the time and therefore less than entertaining.
The truth is that women don't need to marry to be rich, have prestige or put up with any man for any reason other than that she cares very much for him. And feels as though she cannot live with out him and of course the other way round.
You do hope men don't marry for beauty. I'd rather a man liked me for my lentil stew. It wouldn't be the first time.  I like men who surprise me, who are funny, clever in different ways and, Lord forgive me, six foot tall and slender. So what do you like in a man?

Pedant reigns

Okay I'm going to go all old lady on you because I'm feeling lonely and grumpy and I've spent my afternoon watching Four in a Bed and Come dine with Me.  I do hope you have found something more useful or entertaining to do. I did plan to go to a bird watching RSPB place on the coast and then decided that considering it's bloody freezing and I would be either walking around or sitting in a hide, changed the idea, went to the co op and a lovely new green grocery and then I spent time considering pit disasters.
 I know, it isn't much of a way to spend your morning.I need a pit explosion, usually caused by firedamp or carelessness. In older times owners didn't give a shit. The men died, the women and children starved and how many days did they spent trying to get people out?  Often they had to give up because the pits were so hot and hundreds of men and boys died and not all of them straight away. It has limited appeal but I have to sort it out because I need it in the novel I'm writing. Yes,  I have written about problems with pits a dozen times but I need something new.
I got to thinking about words. Well, you do when you write novels and you are tired of another episode of Come Dine with Me and I thought of all those words I'd have banned if I could. the first would be the phrase 'it ticks all the boxes' Ouch. The second would be people saying  'you know ' instead of breathing and letting the pause take it.
Then I would ban all those pedants ( like me ! well, worse than that ), who spend their nights worrying about where the inverted comma should be. All I have to say about that is that language is fluid and Shakespeare didn't put his inverted commas and whatever the hell else in the same place as we do. Language is meant to go forward or we'd be stuck forever with people ticking boxes and not able to articulate past 'you know'.
I've got nothing against the word fuck but I look at it the same way as somebody who once said that a man walked up the fucking street, opened the fucking door, ran up the fucking stairs and found his wife having intercourse with somebody else.  Yes, please people, can you not litter your pathetic sentences with fuck It doesn't mean anything when it's every other word.  It's paucity of language or summat like that.
Jilly Cooper once said that the word pardon is worse than fuck. You say  'what' if  you don't hear or don't understand.
Just think about what you mean, breathe first, weigh it slightly and if you can't be original or funny just try to be interesting or ask somebody whether they are reading a good book. That is what conversation is meant to be about, at least it is when it ticks all the boxes.
It's January and everybody is dieting and taking lots of exercise. What about a little exercise for the mind?  Read a decent novel. You can always quote it afterwards. Brighten up the world with good conversation.

Groanary

I hate January. I hate diets and thinking about what we eat and all that stupid stuff. Drink less, Live longer. There is an age old joke about people who don't drink. They don't live longer, it just feels like longer. The new diet I saw today in one of the top newspapers was that you can eat carbs but you must give up red meat. I'm not quite sure where the science is in this but you can know for sure, somebody is making a whole lot of bucks out of it.
Mary Berry shows us how to eat cake, while remaining about six stone and she's posh and a national treasure.  All those biscuits, cakes, sweets and puddings we feel obliged to indulge in while not giving a shit about Jesus. There is something less than wholesome about it all. Okay, I'm going to be smug now. I lost weight over Christmas. No, I didn't diet, I walked my daughter's labrador for miles and ate just what I always eat and that never did include crap like mince pies. Christmases like this were for feasting We don't need to have a festival of feasting, we do it all the time. When was the last time you didn't eat what you wanted? The whole thing is ridiculous.
There were four young people on breakfast television the other day and they have all written books about giving up alcohol and yes, it would be lovely if we didn't need such addictions but there they were, all thinking about the money they'd make and it wasn't as if they'd been alcoholics. Just smug bastards out to make a buck because you are worried about your liver. Ferraris all round.
I suppose the only good thing is that I'm now too old to die young of assaulting my liver or not taking enough exercise or loving butter.
I want to live forever, of course, as long as I'm not pissing my knickers in a nursing home or have lost my marbles but only if my friends are still here and they are not bedwetting, thinking they are Henry the eighth or like my poor aunt, continually knitting without needles or wool until finally their bodies give out.
I'm amazed I got this far. Widowed young, cancer at forty nine, shit on by my family, a difficult job and other people boring the shit out of me over and over again. God save me from other people.
So I will carry on as usual, drinking red wine and eating red meat, hoping I don't expire of a sudden cancer or that my liver disintegrates but let's face it, sooner or later the reaper comes for you.
There is a lovely cartoon which I found on Facebook when on Halloween he comes to the door for a man's soul and then sees chocolate and gives up on the idea. Where would we be without all the things we aren't supposed to be and do and live for? We'd be fucking bored stiff.
Jack Kerouac once said that he grieved over all those years his teachers had stolen from him. I feel the same. My life is for me now and whatever I choose to do with it I'm not going to live forever and I'll be sorry, if I can still be anything.
Shakespeare died in his fifties. And he was the most talented playwright who ever lived and he has given more joy, more pleasure, more fascination, horror and love than possibly anybody else whoever lived to other people, millions of them so if he can die then what does the rest of it matter? He gave us huge bounty, endless incredible words. I even managed to sit through Hamlet last time I saw it.  Three and a half hours. It's glorious, it's what life is all about.  I must have seen Hamlet a dozen times and there it goes again, there it is reinterpreted and shining brilliantly.
One thing I love in January. I go away to some wonderful city and listen to music and this year I am going to Vienna. I have always wanted to go to the opera house and my wonderful wonderful daughter has bought tickets to the opera. Mozart's Don Giovanni. Now that to me is what Christmas and celebration is all about. Music and being with the people who love you, who don't bore you or judge you or expect too much. She's taken me to Prague to the ballet, and to Milan where we couldn't afford the opera and to Athens where we had a hotel room which looked out at the acropolis. She took me to Budapest where we plodged about in hot pools and there we had the opera and the ballet. We went to Paris, which was ghastly, I got the flu and to Rome where she found the most gorgeous restaurants in tiny back streets. We take her labrador to beaches in North Wales and Northumberland and we walk her in Cheshire in the big posh parks and in durham by the railway line. And this is it. As somebody once didn't say a person is  not just for Christmas but for life. To love and be well loved is what it's all about and it doesn't really matter what time of year it is.
Happy January, whatever you are doing. The green shoots of the bulbs which Howard planted for me last autumn are already showing in the garden. He planted lots and lots of crocuses and there are daffodils and tulips. On we go, regardless. Enjoy!!