Character forming

Grit is like Eagle Eye Junior Spy now with all this daily task stuff on the Independent no diet. But my arch enemy is no longer Grimly Feendish. No. Now I must conquer Floppy Belly and her accomplice, Big Bum.

So, today, after eating the newspaper to destroy the evidence, the task for Eagle Eye Junior Spy is to stand up to people, or say they were right all along.

I know this sounds a bit strange, especially if you are not following the Independent no diet, but it is a diet designed to change habits and, by implication, habitual thinkings about tasty jam sandwiches. For example, instead of being cowed into submission by that tasty jam sandwich, so that the only option is to devour it all and make another one, after following the character forming tasks at the heart of the Independent no diet, I can look at that tasty jam sandwich in the bread basket and say, 'Hang on! I don't really need you, do I? No! And not because I have just had three chocolate digestives and no longer need to comfort eat, but because I have changed my habits!'

And so today finds Grit being assertive, or non-assertive, whichever is opposite to what I nomally am.

Well this is tough. For a start, I am quite assertive with some people, and other people get to tell me what to do. For example, I tell Dig what to do, and he ignores me and does the opposite. I tell Shark, Squirrel and Tiger what to do, and they ignore me and do the opposite. Some home educators tell me what to do and I do exactly what they say. They are either better organisers than me, like Michelle, or are so sweet I would never dream of upsetting them by demanding things my way, like San. You can see. All of this changing habits stuff is not easy.

But in the spirit of the thing, I have had a go. Since I normally am assertive about organising things around the house, like shoes, then today I am not assertive, so don't do it. Strangely, this makes Squirrel cross. Squirrel gets very shouty. Squirrel yells 'Mummy! Where are my shoes? Mummy! Where is my book? Mummy! Where is dinner? Mummy! Why does my jam sandwich have no jam in it?'

And Mummy Grit just goes, 'Uhuh. Whatever'.

Now if you got down to reading this far, and probably breaking a habit with Grit's diary in the process, you deserve a reward. But it's not going to be a tasty jam sandwich.

Here it is. Clearly, round our way, Banksy has competition. This is the graffiti that appeared on our garden wall last night in best Crayola paint:

And just in case Mr Saatchi is reading, here's the name to propel onto the international art market: