Mum would be ten times better at your life than you

A MOTHER has confirmed that if she had been in her daughter’s shoes for every major decision in her life, it would have worked out much better. 

Mary Fisher has made clear to 28-year-old daughter Katie that the way she is living her life flies in the face of everything she herself would do, and is thus a terrible mistake.

She continued: “For a start I would have got into Cambridge instead of buggering up the interview because I was obsessed with some boy going to Brighton. Just to start with.

“If I were in Katie’s shoes – which I often imagine I am – I would be earning more, going on loads more dates and generally living up to my expectations. I’d certainly have my own flat and I’d be having a clandestine affair with an older, sophisticated man.

“Her youth really is wasted on her. I already know all of the things I’d do differently if I had the chance, so it only makes that she should learn from my mistakes and let me make the decisions. She wouldn’t be a size 14 if I were pulling the strings.”

Daughter Katie said: “Her advice includes putting on Tinder that I’m ‘looking to get pregnant before I’m 30’ and that I should take a shorthand course. I’m a f**king software engineer.

“I’d never interfere in my daughter’s life like she does. When I have a daughter I’ll only be helpful, and give great advice she’ll want to follow, and live vicariously through her in a healthy, supportive way.”

Being a winner on Antiques Roadshow, and other TV dreams of the middle-classes

THE middle-classes don’t really approve of appearing on television because it’s vulgar and boastful. But they do dream of appearing on these: 

Antiques Roadshow

You sit, demurely, waiting for the expert to finish rattling on about that porcelain figure from your attic’s history. You get to the money shot: it’s worth £85,000, which you acknowledge without even flinching as that’s nothing. Fiona Bruce congratulates you. You take it as no more than your due.

Grand Designs

You dream of flaunting your middle-class affluence by renovating some sprawling ruin while Kevin McCloud applauds your daring architectural vision. But you fear that if you did take the plunge, viewers would instead watch you pissing your savings away on a half-witted plan while your marriage falls apart.

Time Team

Imagine the jealous looks on your neighbours’ faces as you stand over a trench in your garden, surveying an uncovered Roman mosaic with Tony Robinson. Never mind that in reality the only thing you’ve found in your perennial beds was the skull of a Doberman buried by the previous owner.

Location, Location, Location

The pinnacle of aspirational middle-class living. Your years spent slaving away in management of a regional Barclays office have reached their goal: you’ve pretended to be so naive about property that Kirstie Allsop is showing you around a converted church in Warwickshire. Which you don’t buy because it doesn’t have enough natural light.

Great British Railway Journeys

Any self-respecting secret Tory would give anything for a casual evening with Michael Portillo. You daydream about sharing port in the dining car of the Flying Scotsman as it passes though the Highlands, making pithy jokes about history and discussing the necessity of dismantling the welfare state.