How come brown isn't just called brown?

We are currently in the exciting process of doing up our new house. Well, my husband and various labourers are. I am stuck babysitting. So, there are advantages to having children after all! However, the stresses of making sure everything looks just right and is done at the right time, is getting to me. Hence why I was lying awake earlier this week worrying about whether we were treating some beams correctly. As if it really matters. Clearly, the domestic (controlling) goddess syndrome strikes again. How can my life be perfect without a perfect house? And God help the child who dares to put their greasy fingers on our (by then) newly painted walls. We opted for the colour "soft stone" in the end. Simply because it was the least poo-like of the many browns we tested. The poo browns were definite no-nos - who would want their bathroom to resemble a toddler's first excited foray into the world of poo painting?

One of the poo browns, rather mystifyingly, was called "baking day". Rather than evoking soothing memories of happy children and perfect cakes, it reminds me of the reality, round ours: A shouting, stressed-out mum begging her children to stop arguing over whose turn it is to stir the dough next, while constantly wiping clean their newly-licked fingers and telling them that no, they can't lick the bowl yet, because it is in fact still full of dough.

God knows what happy associations the manufacturers of "elephant breath", "mole's breath" or "mouse's back" were hoping to invoke? I haven't tried, but since even human beings can have donkey bottom breath in the morning, I am pretty sure elephants must have horrendously awful breath, even at a distance. What about moles? Can you imagine moving in close enough to kiss one - its pointy little teeth at the ready, blind eyes blinking at you? As for "mouse's back" - if I ever spot one of those in the kitchen, I am more likely to whack it with a stick than paint it on the wall.

I guess the manufacturers name the paints, hoping to evoke warm and aspirational feelings in the buyer. How much more comforting though, if they gave them more familiar names. Mine would be: "Vomit on t-shirt" (a vibrant yellow perhaps); "mould round sink" (greeny black) and "crusty old tissue" (a pleasing creamy colour). What would yours be?

How come they need our help?

"I heard that if you take it off, then it calms the person down. It keeps her calm like - rather than being a supermarket that's open to everybody, it's just, she's cooled down. That's just what everybody's thinking." The young man looked at the camera as he explained his position in "The Cruel Cut" - a documentary shown on Channel 4 earlier this week. He was talking about FGM - Female Genital Mutilation.

This is a cultural ritual, which involves holding down a young girl and doing one of 3 things:

(1) Removing part or all of the clitoris

(2) Removing part or all of the clitoris, as well as the inner labia

(3) Cutting off part of the inner and outer labia, laying them across part of the vaginal opening and stitching up part of the vaginal opening, leaving only a tiny gap. This effectively seals up the vagina. The future husband is then meant to "open" his wife up during sex.

FGM also covers any other damage caused to the genitals by cutting or burning.

All these procedures, by the way, tend to be carried out WITHOUT anaesthetic. "The Cruel Cut" featured Leyla Hussein, a Somali Brit building support for her campaign to stop FGM. As part of this, she showed some people a video of a child having her genitals cut. Although the viewers could not see the video, we could hear her desperate screams. Just imagine that was your child being held down and cut.

FGM causes a series of physical and mental problems, such as pain, bed-wetting, infertility, difficulty in labour, painful sex, depression etc etc. It is done in the belief that the girl will be cleaner and will also remain a virgin until marriage. The cutting is sometimes arranged by grandmothers, behind the mother's back, to ensure someone will want to marry their grand daughter. However, I don't understand how anybody can inflict this terrible pain and lifetime of problems on a child.


Even though this practice has been illegal in the UK since 1985 and the crime carries a maximum sentence of 14 years' imprisonment, there have never been any convictions here. Some communities here pay cutters to come to the UK and some communities abroad actually send girls to the UK to be cut!

In France, they routinely check girls for FGM, which has so far led to over 100 convictions, while Holland has spent 4.2 million euros on FGM education in the past 7 years. The reason the UK is not doing enough to stop this practise is partly because we as a country are too politically correct to challenge other people's cultural practises, and partly because FGM falls under 4 different government departments.

The young Somali men who took part in the documentary, one of whom I quoted in the beginning, were shocked to find out what FGM actually entails. They decided to join the Stop FGM campaign #stopFGM. Will you? Please click on http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/52740 Once you add your name, you will be sent an email link. Please click on this to sign the petition. Thank you