Newsflash: Britney Spears found to be human

Today smacking: An insensitive media

So, Britney Spears shaved her own head, which according to psychologists who have never met her, may or may not be symptomatic of a full-scale breakdown.

In light of that, I was going to write this whole diatribe about how ashamed the media should be of itself for turning Britney’s obvious difficulties into such amusement. But then I realised I couldn’t really be angry at a media that is just doing exactly what we expect it to do, as fucked up as that is, and as disgusted and nauseated as it makes me.

I feel nothing but sorry for the poor girl. Never mind that she has the paparazzi on her back all the time, or that the whole world is interested in her private life, or that she just split from her husband, or that her career may never recover: what I feel is the most salient issue here is that she just gave birth to her second child. How could anyone possibly feel normal in her situation? Even in a stable, loving relationship with financial security and family for support, a new mother can find herself beset by feelings of incompetence and depression at the very best of times. With some help this, in some cases, will be diagnosed as postpartum depression, after which a new mother can hopefully get all the support and understanding she needs. Poor Britney has no hope of psychological stability with the hounds of fame nipping at her heels. The world seems to have forgotten that the girl's body is surely still in the grip of the after-effects of pregnancy, and it will be a while yet before even her body – let alone her life – feels normal.

So I am championing Britney Spears, the mother and the human, whom none of us really knows, and whom I suspect doesn’t really know herself. I sincerely hope she gets all the help she needs and finds herself on the sunny side of the street, with the world at her feet, sometime soon.

Mum and dad - now with sticky marshmallow centre

Today smacking: Spineless parents and their rambunctious spawn

This subject is doing the rounds on reality TV with Supernanny and her ilk, and with good reason: quite possibly the single most annoying thing in the world since Nigerian spam e-mail is when you see children, in public, out of control, whilst under the watchful eye of parents whose disciplinary skills, quite frankly, suck donkey balls.

I’ll start by flagrantly NOT providing a caveat for not having kids of my own. For this paragraph would be the part where lesser folk say, “I don’t have children, so I don’t necessarily understand what it’s like to raise them, however… ” but those people evidently have a sludge of melted marshmallow where a spine should be, and are so afraid of their own opinions that I can only conclude they believe that forming a coherent thought might cause gas to burst out of their ears, react with the opinions of others and cause an A-bomb OF THOUGHT. I will make no such apology. I may not have kids, but I have to exist in the same public spaces as them, and they and their parents have no more right to fuck up the surrounding environs than I do.

I referred to Supernanny above. Her disciplinary premise is simple. Is the child acting up? Give them a warning and a clear threat of punishment. The child acts up again? PUNISH. No ifs or buts, and under no circumstances will there be any bargaining with the child.

I have a lot of sympathy for parents, but not enough that I will go easy on them when they make paltry attempt to keep their kids under control. I do not understand this phenomenon I see of parents who have absolutely no idea how to discipline their children. Child-rearing, much to my disappointment, does not come with its own manual, but surely this one is a no-brainer: tell your kids what they have to do, and if they don’t do it, punish the fuckers. How else they gonna learn?

I was in a shop recently which is kind of like a department store except that when you want to buy something, you have to order it, take a number, and then wait among the grimy masses until some pimply kid with dead eyes retrieves it from the warehouse for you. I purchased what I needed, took my number, and proceeded to wait, but this did not turn out to be the kind of calm, glazed-expression waiting one usually accomplishes in this store. Oh, no. For in the queue, ready to raise hell, was a smaller-than-knee-high little spawn of Mussolini and her painfully Incompetent Mother.

Little Mussolini was named Zoe. How do I know that? Oh, only because, every 2.4 seconds, Incompetent Mum would call her sugar-addled, hyperactive child’s name in a futile attempt to grab her attention and stop little Zoe from doing whatever she was doing. ‘Whatever she was doing’ would be any number of the following at once:

• running between the legs of people standing in line, causing them to almost trip over her;
• grabbing fistfuls of brochures from the store’s counters and sticking them in her mouth before returning them to their receptacles;
• climbing on all furniture including the cash desk and, once there, leaning over the desk and pressing buttons on the keyboard while the stunned cashier looked on, speechless; and,
• crawling around on the grubby floor even though she could clearly walk, run, and competently organise a fascist regime in Italy.

This was all to the tune of, “Zoe, come here; Zoe, stop that; Zoe, come to mummy; Zoe, be a good girl,” and on and on. Then when these simple orders, delivered in a weak and un-commanding tone, failed to control little Zoe-lini (and if there’s anything every mother should master, it’s the “COME BACK HERE BEFORE YOU GET YOUR ARSE SMACKED SO HARD CHILDREN WILL FEEL ITS EFFECTS ALL THE WAY BACK TO THE FIFTH CENTURY” tone), Incompetent Mum then began with the threats.

What did I say above? That you have to give a child a warning and a threat of punishment if you want them to behave? Yeah, well that only works if you intend actually to deliver the punishment. So it went, “Zoe, come to mummy or you’ll not get your toy.”

Ahem; mum was actually in the process of buying the toy for little Zoe-lini as she said this. Do you think Zoe’s going to co-operate when this first threat is blatantly empty? No; this served to show the child that she could go on about her merry way ruining things which were not hers. So then it was, “Zoe, behave yourself or we’ll not go to the fair.”

Does Zoe think this threat is going to hold up? Certainly not, when mum has just picked up the toy from the counter and given it to her. So what a surprise when Zoe doesn’t even turn her head to listen as mum says, “Zoe, stop running around or we’ll not get any fairy floss.”

Yeah, uh, did you not just say if she continued to be a little streak of shit she wouldn’t be going to the fair?

Goddammit, Incompetent Mum, millions of Europeans are going to be persecuted and tortured because of your complete and utter failure to show a child the very simple and essential concept of delayed gratification. Zoe-lini will grow up to be one of those fucking horrible people who have a sense of personal entitlement so large they end up, at 15 years old, defacing MySpace with eye-gougingly horrible emo poetry; at 25 years old, marrying some testicle-free schmuck with a fat wallet and proceeding to make his life miserable; then she will have her own kids, utterly fail to discipline them, and ruin another generation.

“Really, Zoe-lini was fucked from the start,” I want her eventual epitaph to say (presumably, her own offspring kill her, motivated by their own un-sated and overblown senses of entitlement), “having never learned how to be okay with not always getting her own way.”

Let me make this clear: punishing a child for bad behaviour does not indicate bad parenting. It does not indicate a parent who does not love their children. The child will not think mummy or daddy doesn’t love them. The child doesn’t even know what this ‘love’ thing is. Kids under the age of six are hard pressed enough to see their parents as much more than taxi and food services, let alone individual beings worthy or unworthy of affection. If you teach them that the level of punishment for bad behaviours is tantamount to how much love is in the relationship, guess who is to blame when they start emotionally manipulating you later on?

Punishing a child for bad behaviour in fact indicates actually having a pair of balls instead of two dried prunes between the legs. Not only that, it indicates having the wisdom and insight to know that nobody, in the history of the world, ever benefited from getting their own way all the time and never being reprimanded when they were being an utter twat.

How do we learn not to be complete dicks? By having it very clearly indicated to us that we are, in fact, being complete dicks and that we cannot continue being complete dicks! Think of the most selfish, socially retarded person you know; you can bet your arse there was some soft parenting going on back in their history of sticky fingers and eight more rides on the Ferris wheel and all the McDonald’s they could eat. Soft parenting is not loving and sympathetic; it’s cruel and inconsiderate. An adult who does not understand generosity, respect, delay of gratification, working for a reward, self-discipline, or that life just isn’t fair sometimes, will be an adult ill-equipped to deal with their peers and the world at large. Imagine how awkward it feels to realise you’ve been the coddled kid playing in the sandpit while all your well-adjusted friends have grown up and figured out how to, you know, Deal With Shit. How angry are you going to be at your parents then?

Kids. Must. Do. As. Parents. Instruct. Okay? They can scream and kick and yell profanities all they want, but if you’re the parent, you’re God as far as a child is concerned, and your word is law. So stick the fuck to that law which is your word, and follow through on the punishments. Maybe the next generation will, despite the prevailing odds, be normal human beings after all.

Paging Doctor Durr Hurr Hurr, Shoes On My Noes

Today smacking: A select few trainee and qualified doctors

Dear some of the trainee and qualified doctors I run across,

To paraphrase the immortal words of Dr Perry Cox, "How DO you put your bra and panties on in the morning?"

No, really. Because some of you are, quite inexplicably, fucking retards. It boggles the mind how, in the exam room, a special few of you managed to master the complex thought path needed to pick up a pencil and not snap it in half, let alone the logical and reasoning skills required to sort through the mazes that must be your exam papers, and all this before actually having the knowledge base to answer the questions, pass the exams and call yourself doctors.

Anyone who deals with doctors in settings outside of the clinical setting (to wit: conferences, training courses, etc.), will have come across those one who are life- and commonsense-incompetent dicks. Brilliant genius dicks maybe, but when you e-mail us asking what the ticks, crosses and colours mean on a very simple excel spreadsheet, or you ask us where a room is when the sign is right in front of you, or you completely fail to grasp how to fill in a simple form that a brain damaged monkey could correctly complete blindfolded, or you ask if your Scottish qualification will be valid in England (do you even know what ‘UK’ stands for?) or you ring us asking how to download an envelope (!?), I worry to my back teeth about your future patients.

Who the fuck handed out your degrees? How do you even stand up amongst your competent trainee doctor colleagues? And how dare you look down your noses at us, the people who are making your entire field of training possible?

Sick of your brain-dead, logically and socially inept fuckery,

An NHS employee.

Since bulimia is the new black

Today smacking: People who find it appropriate to comment on strangers’ eating habits.

You know what really fucks me off? Well, a lot of things, clearly, but today let’s narrow it down. It really fucks me off that it’s rude and patently Not OK to make comment to an overweight person about what they’re eating, but it’s acceptable to do the same to a lean person.

Think about it. If you see a considerably overweight lady waddle up to McDonald’s and order a Big Mac Meal, large size, you will quite likely think to yourself, “Damn honey, you do not need that extra roll under your chin.” But are you going to approach her and jokingly ask how she plans to burn off those calories? Like hell you are. It's none of your damned business, and you know that.

So why does nobody gasp and shove their fists in their mouths for fear of choking on their own disbelief when someone casually asks a slender girl, “Wow, do you even eat?” Like it’s less rude to imply someone has an eating disorder than it is to imply they eat far too much?

You know, it says a lot about how fucked up our culture is when it’s considered a compliment to imply a girl is commendably bulimic. I’ll say that again. It. Is. Fucked. Up.

I speak from personal experience here (obviously), and I really get a stick up my arse when people do it to me. You see, I’m not a large girl. I’m by no means unnaturally thin and I have a sneaking suspicion my linebacker's shoulders mean I’d never be accepted by a modelling agency, but I am 5'7" and not even close to overweight. I exercise regularly and I’ve never dieted in my life, because diets are stupid and misguided. So occasionally I get an amount of stick about being slim, even though I eat for the nation. I swear to God, you do not know anybody more motivated by food than me. My day is a series of miscellaneous inconveniences I will probably not remember highlighted by the various meals that bring me untold joy. I love food, and because I genuinely love healthy foods and get a good amount of exercise, I don’t ever deny myself the pleasure of eating.

So picture this scenario, if you will: a few weeks ago I was walking to a bar for after-work-drinks with a colleague I don’t really know, but with whom I sometimes hang out because we share a nationality and she is a little lost in this city. This colleague mentioned she needed to get a sandwich before we got to the bar because she’d had no lunch and didn’t want to drink on an empty stomach. Let’s note at this point that the reason she has an empty stomach is because she’s been crash-dieting for the past two weeks, and bemoaning the fact that she has actually managed to put on weight. Being the foodie I am, I see diets as an Abomination unto the Lord, especially stupid ones where you have to deny yourself reasonable foods and end up so malnourished and food-obsessed that you turn into a cranky, bitter husk of a human being.

But drinking on an empty stomach is a dangerous endeavour, so; “Good idea,” says I. “Personally I’m still full from lunch, actually. I had this really filling pasta and I think I ate myself stupid.”

“Oh, right,” says she. “What’s ‘filling’ for you, like, two mouthfuls?”

Excuse me?

Ms. Bitter Colleague, I'll have you know IT IS NOT OK TO SAY SUCH A THING. You’re making assumptions on my eating habits just because I happen not to be a heifer. Hey, fuck you and your starvation rage.

“I eat more than anyone I know,” I replied curtly, not sure why I was defending myself. “It’s stupid to deny yourself of food; it makes you food-obsessed, and your body goes into fat-storing overdrive. Plus I eat because I love to.”

And then I mentally smacked her upside the head.

Of course, within the office it’s wise to keep the peace. I’m not always so diplomatic when someone comments on my food. My food is my shrine, and to disrespect my love of it is to disrespect me, and find yourself eternally banned from my very thin Good Book.

One banning in particular stands out in my mind. As part of my job I once had to act as support staff at a public health-related conference. Attending this event were a few pharmaceutical representatives. Now, one pharmaceutical rep was a youngish, smarmy fellow who had tried to slime on to me a few times throughout the morning, presumably for professional gain. I thought I would get away from him at lunch time, and I took the opportunity to pile my plate high with food from the buffet; I was starving from running around for hours, and besides, why shouldn’t I eat to my contentment?

Unfortunately Mr. Smarmy managed to locate me and sat himself down right next to me as I ate. Now, I am very uncomfortable eating with people I don’t know, such is my affection for food. I’d like to be left to my private pleasure, thanks. So I was not in the finest of moods when Mr. Smarmy tried to gain my attention again. His conversation starter? Oh, just a marked glance down at my plate, an even more marked glance at my figure, then the comment he thought was certain to get him in my Good Book, great compliment that it is: “Wow, that’s a lot of food! Where on earth do you put it?”

Excuse me?

Mr. Smarmy, I'll have you know IT IS NOT OK TO SAY SUCH A THING. Imagine if I had been on the hefty side and he had found fit to ask why there were fried spring rolls on my plate instead of salad? A punch in the nuts and a discrimination suit for him, likely. But it’s OK to comment on a skinny girl’s eating habits, because she’ll take it as a compliment, right? Oh, will she?

Listen, it is every bit as inappropriate to imply someone eats too little as it is to suggest they eat too much, and while Mr. Smarmy intended to curry my favour, it’s not exactly stirringly flattering to know that someone is scrutinising every morsel that passes your lips.

So I turned to him with the straightest face I could muster, plastered on a professional smile and replied, “Oh, don’t be silly. I throw it all up afterwards.”

Christians: giving the gift of cancer – but at least you’re not immoral

Today smacking: Christian fundamentalists

So last year there was an amount of hoo-ha in the news about the very real possibility of there being a cancer vaccine on the horizon. “Cancer vaccine?” I hear you ask, your brow at an impressive altitude upon your forehead. Well, effectively, yes; a drug has been developed that acts as a vaccine against the human papillomavirus (HPV) – also known as genital warts. Studies have shown that HPV is responsible for over 90% of cases of cervical cancer (see Wikipedia link, below). The HPV vaccination, if provided to girls before they become sexually active, can almost totally eliminate the chances of their ever developing cervical cancer. Pretty fucking cool, huh, considering cancer of the cervix is the worldwide second-most-common cancer in women.

Now, there’s this big idea that maybe the HPV vaccination could be added to the list of compulsory vaccines that USA schoolchildren are given. If girls are vaccinated against HPV at roughly age 6, when they assumedly are not yet sexually active (ahem, assumedly), then it follows they’re highly unlikely ever to develop cervical cancer. Yay! Right?

No, according to the religious right in the USA (excuse me while I shudder and spit), it is not Pretty Fucking Cool that we can stop women from contracting cervical cancer. They have vocally asserted that being able to avoid Sexually Transmitted Infections only encourages promiscuity and the idea that women can engage in any kind of sexual activity before marriage without consequences. (Apperently, rape doesn't exist in their world.) Because God forbid (literally) that the human race, in particular women, engage in any kind of fun without being punished. You see, some Christians see STIs and unplanned pregnancy as God’s way of punishing the lassies for being immoral whores. You have sex before marriage? That’s a sin. You deserve a big ol’ case of the warts, apparently. Oh, and a long, painful and humiliating death after the HPV leads to cervical cancer, you become unable ever to procreate, you lose all your hair through chemotherapy, and the Christian fundamentalist community spits on your grave.

Why they don’t think God can just get on with punishing us all for our sins by eternal damnation and hellfire the way he always has done is beyond me.

In summary, there is opposition from the Christian right to young girls being given a potentially life-saving vaccine that, let’s face it, they’re definitely going to need, since the US government also completely fails to teach its children about contraception, STIs, and any other emotional, social or otherwise consequences of having sex at any time, ever. So to prove my allegiance to the Christian right I have decided to sew up my vagina.

Oh, and in light of this fucking ridiculousness, I devised a quick script for a play I am going to submit for the local church’s Christmas pageant this year.


EXTERIOR - DAY
LITTLE GIRL and CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALIST DAD stand outside a primary school, watching young girls line up outside the medical bay for vaccination. THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT is ever-present.


LITTLE GIRL:
Daddy, why aren't I having this vaccination that all the other girls are having?

CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALIST DAD:
Because you don't need it, sweetie. You will be modest and pure and protect your honour, which means not playing with boys until you're married. Girls who play with boys before marriage are punished by God. It's not fair to escape God's punishment by getting that evil vaccine.

LITTLE GIRL:
But what is God's punishment, Daddy?

CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALIST DAD:
It's something called an STI, sweetie.

LITTLE GIRL:
What's an STI?

CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALIST DAD:
Oh, honey, I can't teach you about STIs. That would just encourage you to sin.

LITTLE GIRL:
But how do I fear the punishment if I don't know what it is I'm supposed to fear?

THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT (offstage):
Beats us!


END


For more information about the above, please check out the following:

Evangelicals And Some Creepy Guy Named Doctor Finger Try To Stifle Cancer Vaccine

The HPV vaccine at Wikipedia

Not that I'm advocating wearing formal shorts with leggings

Today smacking: Ye with little fashion interest

Last night as I sat on the bus heading for home, I watched a not unattractive, but stupendously boringly-dressed woman making her way off the bus, and I asked myself, “Why do some people not give a flying fuck how they look?”

Let me start by clearing up your first standard argument; the one that’s been flogged so many times there are bloodstains on the courtroom floor. I know we’re not meant to judge a book by the be-duffel-coated cover. I know there’s supposed to be this big ideal that if we all stop caring about, and judging people for the way they look, then the world will be a big happy fairyland free of, at the very least, the pre-judgement that comes along with exterior appearances. But you know as well as I do that the world doesn’t fucking well work like that. Every single one of us, every day, judges people by how they look. Whether we judge them harshly or favourably is down to circumstance, but we are always undeniably taking subtle (or unsubtle – thanks, Burberry-clad chavs of Britain) hints about a person based on how they look. It’s human nature; it’s essential for survival. How would we even function if we did not take and process social information from the visual cues we are given?

So it staggers and astounds me that so many people dress and in general present themselves as though, when pawing through the wardrobe in the morning, they were attacked by Dame Edna wearing a fuchsia, paisley-patterned frock and cracking a whip fashioned from woven gladiolas, crowing, "Pink is the new black! Pink is the new black!" so loudly that they were forced to silence her by stuffing her own wig into her mouth, after which they fell into the foetal position – the only way they could erase her visage from their assaulted eyes – and were so traumatised by the whole incident that they vowed never to let fabric in any shade other than black or brown touch them again, lest the memory of the Dame be painfully rehashed.

Where’s the fucking imagination? The world is not going to collapse if you wear something just a tiny bit outlandish, or that at the very least suggests you have more personality than a wet sponge. People like Trinny & Susannah from What Not to Wear and that severe-looking waif from 10 Years Younger are making a mint from the fact that there is a whopping demographic of women out there who are so busy/depressed/daunted by maintaining their own appearance that they cover themselves in black sacks disguised as all-weather jackets, top it off with nondescript brown, stuffed-to-the-brim handbags (for fuck’s sake, STOP PAIRING BLACK WITH BROWN. Black does not go with everything; in fact black goes with almost nothing except maybe red or white, and even then black should only be worn sparingly, or at night) and slink about trying very hard not to be noticed or acknowledged as human beings.

That song, Mr Cellophane from the musical Chicago comes to mind:

"Cause you can look right through me
Walk right by me
And never know I'm there"

What really disgruntles me (getting to the point, four paragraphs on) is how many people are in fact discrediting themselves; writing themselves off as unworthy of notice and unremarkable, simply by the way they dress. Every single episode of 10 Years Younger includes a scene where Nicky Hambleton-Jones (see severe-looking waif, above) pushes her latest victim – usually a middle-aged woman whose will to live has been so trod upon by the horrors and tribulations of life with four children that she no longer ceases to see her own reflection let alone allow interesting fabric anywhere near the body she has all but abandoned – in front of a huge mirror and asks, "Why do you dress this way? You have a decent body under there and you’re hiding it in layers of oversized, beige man shirts and baggy jeans!"

At this point the victim usually dissolves into tears (Nicky’s eyes shoot lasers) and sobs, "I guess I’ve been trying not to stand out, because I feel so fat and ugly and I don’t want people to look at me."

Then there’s this whole bit where Nicky shouts at them about how they are not as fat and ugly as they think, and the only way to feel better on the inside is to brighten up on the outside, and there are more tears and usually some sob music until the sarcastic narrator returns with some stupid and insulting pun, and, fuck her – as much as I hate/am jealous of her skinny little waist-belt-wearing ass – Nicky’s right. How can anybody expect to be seen as a vibrant and interesting person if they’re not presenting as potentially vibrant and vaguely interesting?

The world sees what you choose to present. You want people to think you’ve got less on your mind than a dead squid, then go ahead and wear a beige t-shirt and shapeless jeans for every occasion. Sure, there are time when it’s appropriate to dress down, but there’s ‘dressing down’ and there’s ‘oh, are you supposed to be at an archaeological dig today?’ and let’s face it, if you were an archaeologist then this outfit would be the perfect presentation of yourself – understated, functional and hardy – but you’re not, so think about what you’re putting out there. Is it you? Do you want it to be you?

I’m not advocating that we all wear purple velvet blazers and tulip skirts and big, garish flowers pinned in our hair (unless that’s an accurate reflection of your personality, in which case, get on with your bad self, etc.). I’m just so fucking stunned by how many people out there are literally terrified by wearing anything with colour or shape, and what it might say about them if they do.

Me, I say stop being a simpering coward about the person you put out there in public. Embrace who you are, and for fuck’s sake, show the world who that person is. Show some pride and show some fortitude. If you find that the world doesn’t like who you are and what you show, start up a ranting blog and tell the world about it. And you know what the world can do then? It can just back. The fuck. Off.