Wendyl Nissen: Playing with fire

Lighting the fire is something I'm sure most people can do in a matter of moments.

For me, it takes a good 20 minutes, a great deal of smoke, lots of blowing and crossing of fingers.

Once it catches, however, I am rewarded with the warmest, toastiest most glorious sight you can see on a cold winter's afternoon.

And instead of fighting the 20 minutes, I've come to make it a bit of a ritual.

At 5pm every day I drag my sheepskin-covered stool and sit on it in front of the fire.

To my far left is the newspaper, a little to the right is the kindling and behind that the wood in order of size. I screw up the newspaper into little balls, arrange the kindling in a tepee on top and set a match to it.

At that point I glance at the television to entertain me for the five minutes it takes before the fire needs me again.

Which is how I became irretrievably hooked into the E! channel reality series Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

Kourtney, Khloe and Kim are sisters who spend their time bickering over borrowed clothes, boyfriends, shoes, snogging and have equally vapid parents, a stupid brother and two younger half-sisters, Kendall and Kylie, who look just like them.

"Why do we care about these women?" I asked my 12-year-old daughter who was lying on the couch behind me watching with great interest. "And what's with the 'K' names?"

"Kim did a sex tape."

"What kind of sex tape?"

"I have no idea. I'm only 12," she replied.

So, let me get this straight. None of these three women actually do anything or have achieved anything in their lives, yet there is a TV series about them?

"It's fun. Light the fire."

I threw on a suspiciously damp log of wood.

"What kind of role models do you think these women are for you?" I continued. "What part of their insipid, plastic, meaningless lives do you hope to emulate?"

"Mum, can I just watch it in peace? Sometimes I just need mindless entertainment, a bit of wallpaper to rest my brain."

"Oh, I'm sorry, how is the PhD going?"

"You have no idea how hard it is at school at the moment. My task work is particularly challenging."

I suddenly felt guilty. Even I watch mindless wallpaper sometimes.

"I'm sorry darling, you know I'm here to help with that."

"And anyway, I'd rather be watching Holly's World but someone deleted it off MySky."

"And who's Holly?" I said enthusiastically.

"An ex-Playboy Mansion girl."

I put my head in my hands.

"She's actually quite intelligent. She worked at Hooters so that she could go to college."

I gave up on lighting the fire and launched into a mini-lecture about the importance of inspirational role models for young girls and how I was greatly influenced by The Mary Tyler-Moore Show at her age.

"An independent, single career woman forging her way through a male-dominated newsroom. She is the reason I became a journalist."

"I sometimes watch the Documentary channel," she said in defence. "I sat through the entire Stephen Hawking series about the universe and I would watch Air Crash Investigation except it's on repeat and I've seen all the episodes."

"Tell me this, then, which women do you admire the most?"

"Lady Gaga and Lourdes," she replied. "She's Madonna's daughter," she added thoughtfully, in case I was under the impression she was impressed by a pilgrimage site.

"Why would you be in awe of a rock star and the daughter of a rock star?"

"Because their style is amazing. They are fashion icons, Mum. And I live for fashion, it's my calling."

I returned to the mass of ash and damp wood and applied myself to my fire as Khloe and Kim bitch-slapped each other and Kourtney intervened, all without a hair out of place or an eyelash falling off.

And I realised that being an independent, single career woman was no longer a novelty or an ambition. For my daughter and her generation it was an expectation and all she had to do was get the look right.

"Never mind Mum, when I'm editing Vogue, it'll all make sense."

The fire leapt to life, and I left the room wondering if the mothers of Vogue editors can afford someone to light their fires for them.

-Herald On Sunday / View