Jam and Jamiroquai

Last night my friend J announced that she is going to start up a branch (chapter?) of the Women's Institute and that we would all be receiving an invitation to join. She thinks a W.I. in our suburb would be fairly cool, though not quite up to the standard of urban W.I.'s such as "The Shoreditch Sisters" (average age 30) or "The Borough Belles". We are to meet upstairs in a pub, enjoy talks, bop about a bit, drink and go on outings.

J emphasised many times that it would be non-religious and "inclusive". She made a circular motion with both hands (or a semi-circular motion with each hand) everytime she said "inclusive". In our suburb "inclusive" means that women who don't have children will be invited, and, to show that she means this, J has already signed up a single lady called C who used to have a posh shoe shop on the High Street until she was forced online by a rent rise.

Two head honchos from the W.I. Middlesex Federation are coming on an inspection visit on Friday and will be taken to the pub. The Middlesex Federation are all, apparently, pretty advanced in years, which is not surprising as Middlesex was wiped from the map in 1974 and hadn't been awfully rural for quite a few decades before that. I imagine a plucky rump group have clung on somewhere around Pinner waiting for Heathrow to be laid down to arable again. The call from J must have been unexpected.

H, who works for a trade union, looked quite appalled throughout the discussion. She eventually asked J why she didn't just start a book club if she wanted to drink and chat. But J is pursuing her genetic destiny: her mother is President of the local W.I. in West Yorkshire and her grandmother also did the gig back in the 60s. J is nearly 40 and obviously feels she can't wait much longer to have a W.I.

As it happens I am not as not up on W.I. matters as I ought to be. My mother-in-law is a member in Wales and I have read her mags in the toilet. So I was able to put forward the suggestion that we would soon be stripping off and smearing ourselves in ketchup and lying down in the High Street to protest about domestic violence. J gave me a beady look. She does not expect me to be on the committee but I will be required to talk to my friend who runs the Farmers' Market and fix her up with a good pitch for when the jamming season commences.