The Daily Telegraph Friday 16 August 2019 *** 19
Multitasking, men
and myths on the
road to the isles
y the time you read this I
should be off on holiday
in our venerable estate
car loaded with children
and dogs. The shouting
over too many suitcases
and the whole “why the hell are you
bringing the pasta maker to Scotland?”
imbroglio will have finished.
The simmering fury and the silent
reproach over leg space versus
waterproofs and who gets to play their
music will be abating. In fact, I would
like to think that by 6pm we will
embark the ferry to Arran wreathed in
smiles and radiating Instagram family
togetherness.
The calm after the storm will have
once more descended. Until next time.
Any woman reading the news story
about multitasking will know exactly
what I mean when I say the giant gulf
between the sexes is never greater
than at moments of domestic chaos.
A new German study has exposed
the accepted wisdom that men cannot
multitask is, in fact, a myth. They can.
They just choose not to.
OMG. Imagine, ladies, if we adopted
the same “I can cook for the kids
while ringing my mother-in-law and
changing the bed linen, I just choose
not to” attitude to life? Not an option.
Really, so not an option.
Researchers at Aachen University
put 48 men and 48 women through
a battery of tests, and concluded that
men were just as capable of switching
between tasks as women – and there
was no difference in performance.
On learning this, I immediately
telephone my spouse at work and
demand to know whether he secretly
can multitask and has been hidingthis fact for three decades? His rather
equivocal response is as follows.
“If by multitasking you mean doing
a lot of things in slapdash haste rather
than one thing properly, no, I can’t do
that,” he responds. “It’s illogical.”
“Does that mean you can’t because
you haven’t got the ability? Or can’t
because it offends your sensibilities?”
“I can’t. Because. It. Makes. No.
Sense,” he replies. “Besides, why are
you calling me? Haven’t you got a
fish tank to clean? Holiday clothes to
launder? Papers to cancel?”
Yes, yes and yes. I’ll do it all because
otherwise it won’t get done. Or it
might get done by my husband but
very, very slowly.
In the time it takes him to wash
the dishes at glacial speed, I can have
accomplished six or seven slapdash
tasks. In truth, he relies upon it. Thewhole household does; and, let’s not
pretend, also because it’s MY thing.
Or I thought it was.
This new research shatters one of
our most fundamental certainties.
Women the world over have been
brainwashed into believing that we
can’t read maps but we alone can
multitask. What nonsense! At least the
multitasking bit is.
Men on the other hand have been
left thinking it’s easy to check the air
pressure in the tyres but they can’t
quite be trusted to simultaneously eat
a sandwich and look after the baby.
Absolutely true!
I must admit I still chuckle at the
now banned Philadelphia cream
cheese advert featuring the dads who
get so distracted eating their snacks
that their charges end up being carried
off on a sushi conveyor belt.
The Advertising Standards Agency
has just axed the commercial following
complaints from po-faced members of
the public that it reinforced harmful
and offensive stereotypes. For pity’s
sake; it was just a gentle dig, not a
calculated act of misandry.
No actual men were harmed in
the making of the ad and the kids
were rescued long before they were
wrapped in seaweed and served up to
punters.
I’m baffled as to why and who
would bother to make such a prissy,
humourless fuss? It was funny because
it was recognisable.
The sexes are different. Equal but
different. Or at least equal if doing one
thing with pointless perfectionism
is valued the same as doing loads of
things well enough because you need
to be on the road by 6.30am.
When it comes to holidays it is my
role to plan, find and sort everything,
while chivvying our two daughters
into doing the same. My husband’s sole
area of specialism is packing the car.
Packing the car makes those
interminable arguments over stacking
the dishwasher look like date night.
I’ve consulted with friends and they
too find their husbands become
weirdly territorial over what goes into
the boot.
Every item must be accounted for
and justified. It’s like being given the
once over by the North Korean border
control guards; do you need all these
clothes? If so, why?
I once went on a camping trip with
two other families. At one point we
womenfolk went off on a jaunt and
stopped by a garden centre. I had
to hide my friend’s plants in my car
because she knew her partner would
hit the roof (not easy in a field) if she
tried to sneak them into the footwell.
Not because there was no room, but
because – well who knew?
She later returned the favour by
stowing away a pair of stone lions I
found in an antique shop. I didn’t need
to explain. She just knew.
Heading up north this weekend I
can already anticipate the points of
multitasking friction. As we reach the
motorway, my beloved will wonder
whether “we” have remembered the
torch or the phone charger cables or
the address of our accommodation.
Later, he will inquire about the
packed lunch, the binoculars and the
whereabouts of the dogs’ water bowl.
We did bring it, didn’t we?
Of course we did. Cramming all that
stuff into my head (pink job) means
that he can order it oh-so-neatly in the
boot (blue job).
Does that make us an offensive
gender stereotype, or just a normal
couple muddling through? Answers on
a postcard, I have a ferry to catch...C
ongratulations to all those
parents who survived their
children’s freshly terrifying
A-levels. I salute you, particularly if
you – I mean your offspring – were in
the maths cohort.
In the topsy turvy world of
education policy, the push to improve
standards means exams are now so
difficult, the grade boundaries have
had to be gerrymandered or very few
would pass, much less excel.
In what sort of universe is 55 per
cent a grade A? Edexcel, that’s where.
If those are in the top set, God
help the rest of them, weeping into
their pencil cases as they scramble to
achieve 34 per cent in order to get a C.
I went through this last year
when my daughter, not a natural
mathematician but not exactly in
the dyscalculia league either, sat the
rigorous new GCSE papers.
Again and again, her teacher
coached the class that “up to the
staples” was their goal. She literally
meant “you lot have no hope of
answering anything beyond that
point, so give everything up to the
staples a go”.
Mercifully she passed, thanks to the
heroic amount of extra tuition.
But can it be sensible – or even
sane – for tests to reduce children
to the wretched prospect of leaping
dementedly from question to question
hoping to pick up a mark here or
there?
We are supposed to be educating
children for life, not presenting
them with wilfully difficult exams so
politicians can mendaciously claim
standards have improved.
There must be a better way to
go about boosting numeracy than
creating blind panic in the exam hall,
followed by cynical manipulation in
the marking room.
The best course of action is to take
education away from governmental
control where it is subject to the
whims of individual ministers. Let
educators decide how to educate.
It doesn’t take an A* student to
recognise this current parlous state of
affairs simply does not add up.Today’s exams
do not educate,
they just create
a blind panic
B
S
tarvation and stress. What
a nightmarish way for
15-year-old Nora Quoirin
to die, alone and confused in
the Malaysian jungle.
As her parents come to terms
with the terrible truth about
her final days, my heart breaks
for them. How will they ever be
able to smile at their beloved
Nora’s memory knowing
what they do about her last
anguished moments?
“She is the truest, most
precious girl and we love her
infinitely,” said the family in a
statement. “The cruelty of her
being taken away is unbearable.
Our hearts are broken. We will
always love our Nora.”
Their daughter disappeared
on August 3 from the eco-resort
where the London-based family
were spending a fortnight’s
holiday. From the very first
photograph released at the start
of the search, her unguardedexpression conveyed her
unworldly vulnerability.
Nora, the eldest of
three siblings, was born
with holoprosencephaly,
a neurological disorder
that limited her speech,
co-ordination and intellectual
development.
She never went anywhere
alone, say her parents, Meabh,
who is Irish and Sebastien, who
is French. They were convinced
she had been abducted.
A search revealed she had
been barefoot and just in her
underwear when she left the
hotel room, where a window
was found open.
There were inevitable
echoes of Madeleine McCann,
who disappeared from the
Portuguese resort of Praia da
Luz in 2007 and Ben Needham,
who went missing on the Greek
island of Kos in 1991. Neither
has been found. The franticsearch for Nora involved more
than 350 people, including
police officers from the UK,
France and Ireland, local
tribespeople and hundreds of
volunteers.
Tape recordings of her
mother’s voice were played into
the jungle to encourage Nora to
come out of any hiding place. It
was a harrowing move born of
desperation. To no avail.
Then, 10 days after she
disappeared, Nora’s body was
discovered unclothed in a
stream 1.2 miles from the resort.
Her underclothes have not
been found.
A post-mortem examination
concluded she had died a week
after leaving the resort from
“internal bleeding”, possibly
caused by prolonged hunger
or stress. There was no sign
of violence or sexual assault,
though tests are ongoing.
Her parents have been given
permission to take their child’s
lifeless body back to the UK. It
is not the homecoming any of
them could have foreseen in
their darkest imaginings.
All the rest of us can do is
hold our own children close,
and say a prayer for a family
broken by grief.My heart breaks for
beloved Nora’s family
Cheesed off: the
Philadelphia advert
poking fun at dads
was a gentle dig,
not an act of
misandryNo actual men were
harmed and the
kids did not end up
wrapped in seaweed
udith Woods
Online
telegraph.co.uk/
opinion
Email
Judith.Woods
@telegraph.co.uk
Twitter
@judithwoodsDAVE J HOGAN/GETTY IMAGESBreakfast
feast made
me like
lovely
Amanda
even more
Amanda Holden
is officially
our highest
paid female
television and
radio star,
overtaking
bubbly Holly
Willoughby.
The 48-year-
old mother of
two gets paid
£5 million a year,
for things like
being a judge
on Britain’s
Got Talent,
co-hosting the
breakfast show
on Heart radio,
modelling
for Marks &
Spencer, a new
record deal (yes,
honestly) and
so forth. It’s
an awful lot ofmoolah just for
being Lovely
Amanda Holden
but as none of it
comes out of my
licence fee, I’m
not entirely sure
it’s my business.
I’ve always had a
soft spot for her
because she’s
quick-witted,
a grafter and
doesn’t appear
to take herself
too seriously.
She also
has the Midas
Touch – hence
the seven
figure salary- and knows
how to rock
an outrageous
frock for
maximum
impact, if
not always
maximum taste.
Lovely
Amanda
most recently
appeared on the
Shopping with
Keith Lemon
chat show on
ITV, when the
pair went across
to Calais on a
booze cruise.
On the way
she tucked
into a cooked
breakfast with
the un-self-
conscious gusto
of a ravenous
stevedore.
And you
know, it only
made me like
her more.
How lovely is
that?Making records:
Amanda Holden
on the red carpetРЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS