Slap and tickle

She was clad in multi-coloured clashing Lycra. A tea-towel was wrapped around her head and her small belly strained against her swimsuit, which was layered over a pair of knee length cycling shorts. Ducking our heads to enter the changing room myself and my two girl friends stood in our bikinis ready for the wash-down.
As we stepped across into the bathhouse, or hammam, the Moroccan woman, who had earlier been cleaning our room, waved us back with her arms and motioned for us to take off our swimwear. The intense 45 degree heat, the mayhem and dust of Marrakesh, had led us to the hammam. A traditional Muslim bath, the hammam is a social event as well as a deep, skin-shedding clean.After an initial, very British hesitation, we whipped off our bikinis and shuffled into the tiny tiled room wearing the Emperor's clothes. With three of us to be scrubbed down and only one lady to wash us, everything had to be done in turn. This meant the other two women either played a limited game of 'I spy' with the tiled interior of the hammam or watched the third member of our group being covered in black soap, washed down and then scrubbed vigorously with an abrasive pad while lying down completely naked on the floor.
The scene reminded me of a team of environmentalists leaning over a beached whale rubbing it (or whatever it is they do) and pouring water over them in an attempt to keep their temperature from rising before they roll them back into the sea.
We had opted for the private bath, shying away from the public gathering — hot water is still considered a luxury for many Moroccans and weekly bathing rituals are normally performed in public hammams. Rows of dimpled bums sit waiting their turn while fresh-cheeked ones, half their age, stride confidently across the hammam to collect clean warm water. In our hammam, at the bottom of the riad we were staying in, it was just the three of us and the Moroccan woman dressed like Mrs Motivator.
The giggles started almost immediately, erupting as each of us was woman-handled and scrubbed in full view of the others. Buckets of water are frequently thrown over you as rolls of scrubbed off skin get washed away. Arms and hands, which had been making vain attempts to hide busts and other more private parts, began to relax as the pointlessness of trying to hold onto any remaining dignity became apparent.
Mrs Motivator had seen it all many times before. The comedy of the hammam was further fuelled by our difficulties communicating with Mrs Motivator.
Her attempts to instruct us in pidgin French and Arabic ended up with her physically moving us around the room like puppets with arms often left aloft, hanging motionless in the air while we tried to work out if she was going to scrub our armpits. The last person to wash me like that was my mother — and I was very young.
But the subject of the hammam proved an ice breaker as we travelled around Morocco and swapped experiences with other European faces. One handsome blue-eyed Danish man acted out his hammam experience (unfortunately he was fully clothed) and said in perfect English: "I didn't understand what he was trying to tell me to do and so he slapped me on the backside to try to get me to move." Undeterred by having his bottom cupped by a Moroccan pensioner, he was returning to the hammam the following morning. Despite the hilarity largely brought about by embarrassment, the hammam did leave me with impossibly clean skin which was amazingly soft. Only this week I recounted my hammam experience to my two male housemates, as we settled down for a takeaway and movie night. Far from seeing the embarrassment or the hilarity of the situation they immediately banded about ideas for a new porn show and asked if we could introduce Thursday night bath nights at the house. Perhaps we Brits are more liberal than we think.

Loss

I sheet of dust came off the file as I balanced on the bedside table to reach the shelves. The exercise bike, boxes, picture frames, files, books and a rolled up rug spread chaotically over my old bedroom floor. I was searching for my degree certificates in amongst the junk which had been shifted from other rooms, that were in use, in the house. I stumbled upon my creative writing - a long forgotten stash of poems, plays and short stories handed in for inspection by an ageing professor with spidery hand writing and a posh voice...
Cracked, lined skin.
Grey, wiry hair.
Wrinkled fingers fumble, the crinkling of plastic,
that earthy, musty scent.
Folding and filling the small white paper,
his lips wet it, the fingers working without guidance.
Click,
a flame momentarily lights up his face and the lines appear deeper - more troubled.
His brow full of memories.
His strong resonant voice echoes, echoes louder than before.
Smoke collects about him and the tightness returns making it difficult to breath.
Tap,
the ash hits the tray.
His foot rests heavily, awkwardly.
He drinks the cheap bitter coffee - he's not staying, but he has nothing else to do.
His loose change bounces on the hard plastic.
He stands up and finishes his coffee as if he has business to attend to.

The look policy

A 22 year old law student from west London was confined to the stockroom of a Savile Row shop because management found out about her disability. It seems her prosthetic arm clashed with the company's 'look policy'. Abercrombie & Fitch employees have to pass a veritable fit test to tread the boards of their stores. I walked into their New York City store with my friend and we assumed they were all models. It's a cunning marketing ploy. Women queue up to have their picture taken with actual male models perched in the doorway with buff bodies and winning white-toothed smiles. We found ourselves wondering around the store, full of stunning employees, not sure where to look or what exactly we were supposed to pick up. The look policy dictates that workers must wear a 'clean, natural, classic hair style' and 'look great whilst exhibiting individuality'. In short, it's their job to present the American ideal - an ideal portrayed through TV shows and airbrushed images. Riam Dean didn't fit the American ideal. Born without her left forearm, she has worn a prosthetic limb since she was three months old. Her plight follows that of a disabled children's TV presenter, who was the victim of a campaign by parents who complained she was scaring toddlers. They said Miss Burnell, who only has one arm, was not suitable to appear on the digital children's channel. The fickle world of fashion and showbiz dictating that nothing less than perfect is good enough.