I love Lucy. Not.

I have an irrational hatred of a Lucy. Not Lucille Ball, no, she was sweet and kooky in a comforting way, even if I didn’t find her particularly funny.I am also not referring to Lucy “too top heavy to walk in real life” Ewing.
I’ve always been suspicious that Charlene Tilton is actually Dolly Parton, or worse Sharon in Eastenders. Think about it, you’ve never seen them in the same room at the same time. (Although if you’re a boy I am sure its crossed your mind)
Spooky huh?

This Lucy has had my blood quietly boiling for sometime now.
My fury must be felt.
I hate Lucy Mangan.
There I’ve said it. Hooray.
I feel better.
Ok so maybe hate is too strong a word, after all she is no real threat to anyone or anything, so why does seeing her name at the bottom of a column annoy me so much?
Her biog states: Lucy Mangan is a columnist for The Guardian and occasionally The Telegraph. She has also written two books.
I say: Lucy Mangan is a Thatcher loving closet Tory who pretends to be a right on Labour supporter, but underneath the girly exterior Lilith is pulling the strings.

I surprise myself at how resentful I am of this slave of Satan. It wasn’t always this way.
In the beginning, Lucy & I had a slightly more palatable relationship.
I pretended she wasn’t there by ignoring her tiny insignificant column in Weekend and she pretended I didn’t exist by, well not knowing I exist.
This arrangement worked without fault, until one day they went and gave her a whole bloody page, and worse still she’s an agony aunt! I almost puked into my coco pops.

You know that eerie period when you buy something new, lets say a white car, then all you see are white cars?
It’s the same with Man-a-gan. She gets everywhere. Like scabies.
Not quite an STD, but a close cousin.

One piece about Lucy in her local community includes chummy pictures of Lucy getting down in the hood with pukey captions that all start: Lucy Mangan happy Playing tennis with her mother Or Lucy Mangan happy Kicking leaves in the park and finally Lucy Mangan happy learning to spatchcock a chicken. I don’t believe the last caption to be true as you couldn’t see her face, just her fingers up a chicken.

In her favour there have been a few good articles, the one where she stuck up for Cerrie Burnell was great, but to be fair it wasn’t a very hard topic to get right.
There is also her book corner column about choosing books for a young child’s library.
Hmm.
My girls have a massive library already with books ranging from classic fairytales and Dr Seuss to Harper lee, George Orwell, Anne Frank and Aldous Huxley.
Their favourite bedtime book next to the fabulous The Gruffalo’s Child is Dylan Thomas’s Under milk wood which they love me to read, in a bad welsh accent.
Obviously, at three years old they are not quite ready for Ken Keseys One flew over the cuckoo nest, but they will not be reading Dimsie goes to school any time soon.
Whilst some of the books on the list are well known to all parents I find far too many are middle class reads.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Little black Sambo pops into the list at some point.
It is a booklist that can only increase the widening poverty gap in today’s society.
Targeting children via their weak and pretentious parents is just plain evil.

In an attempt to rationalise the irrational I typed, “Lucy Mangan is shit” into Google and waited for my righteous redemption.
What I found was love. Yes love, all around, in people’s fingers, in their toes, filling up the room until it almost bursts at the seams.
Lucy=Love.

Eventually I found some damning comments, but it took time & perseverance and came from a blog of little importance.
I particularly like:
“Her articles read like she's articulating a stupid, half-quirky thought she had about herself on the bus that morning, but has made heavy use of a thesaurus to justify its lack of substance”

The trouble with that statement is that it is true of almost all column writers. You have a whim, an urge, a disgruntled moan, whatever takes your fancy, and you write about it.
Whether you receive applause or rotten fruit depends on the way you write.
Lucy it seems, appeals to more of the population that I first thought.
The only way to resolve the hardening in my heart would be to go deeper into the mind of Lucy M.

I grudgingly decided to buy her book Hopscotch & Handbags and set about wasting sixteen hours of my life and almost six whole pounds.
I have to admit I quite enjoyed the first five chapters; in fact, I laughed aloud more than once, especially the bit about Bodyshop perfume.
The chapter on living with boys is brilliant. The “are sausages chicken” conversation was inspired.
After that though the books becomes smug, preachy, bitter, and dull. I think I missed out the last chapter completely as it seemed to be written by someone else.

The thing that strikes me about Lucy’s writing style is the bitterness.
The nearest Lucy has come to trauma is having a flat chest, so where does this rage come from?
Your life is hardly West Side story Mangan, you charmless witch, what is your problem?
My conclusion is this. Lucy Mangan is a fake. She is the writing equivalent of a weekend raver, a plastic Mod, or a part time drug addict.
In clubs like those your either in or your out.
Lucy is definitely out, yet so very far in. Her arse that is.
Still, as I read back over the article I feel my anger subside, replaced by a small but heavy sigh.
I am over it. In fact, I’ve actually learnt something.
Everybody loves Lucy. Deep down. Probably even me.