stupidity induced haiku

As I have mentioned before here I have seen many people behaving stupidly recently.
A couple of days ago, when I was walking up the road to the local shops I saw a woman walking up a steep side street pushing a pushchair. She was carrying a large number of carrier bags from the supermarket when I saw her stop suddenly on possibly the steepest part of the hill and start loading the carrier bags onto the handles of the pushchair. Once she had completed this task she promptly let go of the pushchair which inevitably tipped straight over backwards, baby included. This excellent example of a parent did not immediately pick the pushchair up though. Instead she searched through her handbag until she found her cigarettes, lit one for herself and then she picked up the pushchair. At no time did she check on the child, who fortunately was strapped in.
Yesterday, as I was walking towards town, I saw a woman at the pelican crossing up the road from me, waiting to cross over. As the green man flashed up an ambulance came into view, sirens blaring, lights flashing. The woman looked at the ambulance, looked at the green man - and started walking across the road! I see this happen at least once a month. Now maybe there is the occasional person who is both deaf and blind and is therefore unaware of the approaching ambulance, but none of these people I have seen appear to fit the bill.
Anyway, all this recent stupidity prompted me to write my first ever haiku:

I often wonder
how all the stupid people
manage not to die

food related humour

Hey up, here are a couple more links I really should have included in the interesting websites post a few days ago:

Pimp That Snack is a website where people have made gigantic versions of popular snacks and food products. It really does display an amazing level of genius and innovation.
For the record we have personally made a giant (milk free) jaffa cake and a giant (milk free) vanilla slice. Unfortunately we ate them before we took any pictures. Although I will have a trawl through my pics folder, on the off chance that one of us did take a photo.
I think that Bill Bailey himself would appreciate this website, I am sure it was he who had the idea of welding 4 kitkat chunkys together so you could pretend to be tiny. Please do correct me if I am wrong though.

Cake Wrecks is a blog which contains photos and commentary on cakes that really should not have been made. Seriously, some of these are just disturbing. You have to take a look and see, I bet you laugh at loud at least once.

Seriously, WTF???

Yesterday evening I came across an article in an on-line newspaper about a muslim man who had been convicted of encouraging children to self-flagellate. I found it astounding that people take part in these kinds of rituals, although I am not sure really why it surprised me since people take part in many other vile and abhorrent practices under the name of religion such as genital mutilation of children. I was pleased to see that the man in question taken to court over this matter, as I think it is disgusting to force children to beat themselves with a bladed whip.
What has astounded me even more though is this response in the guardian online newspaper. Quite why the paper thought that printing this article was a good idea is beyond me, but I find it disgraceful that someone has gone out and written an article praising and condoning this kind of child abuse. Saying it is fundamental to a religion is not an excuse. Under any other circumstances this sort of child abuse would be dealt with harshly, yet if a crime is committed under the name of a religion this country seems to just sit back and let it be.
To put it simply, if an adult were to encourage the self mutilation of a child for sexual gratification we would have them locked up before you knew it, and rightly so. If an adult was self-harming perhaps through mental illness (religion excluded for the minute) they would likely be sectioned under the mental health act. But for some bizarre reason, you can commit these crimes if it is a religious belief.
If I said I was beating, whipping and cutting myself because a 3 inch purple fairy had asked me to there is little doubt that I would find myself detained under the mental health act. Yet if I were to beat, whip and cut myself and then claimed that it was because some mythical figure that lived 1400 years ago had done the same, then it would be viewed as somehow acceptable by the authorities - as long as the kids didn't get involved.
This is wrong. The religious nut jobs carrying out these acts are mentally ill and should be treated as such. We should stop fearing the political correctness brigade when such wrongs are being committed and speak out against them.
It is also interesting to note that the law takes a far more negative view of consenting adults who inflict pain for sexual gratification than those who inflict pain for religious gratification. Is anyone able to explain please the difference between the two as far as this goes?
I think my overall feeling on the subject is:
If an adult, of sound mind, wishes to inflict some kind of pain on themselves in order to bring some kind of pleasure, then fine, it is your own body. However if this impacts on another person in any way then it should not be allowed. Therefore I think that a consenting individual or couple who wish to engage in BDSM activities in their own home should be able to do so. However if they wish to make this a public display, try to coerce others to get involved, or expose minors to this practice then it is wrong. Similarly, if a consenting adult, or small group of consenting adults wish to engage in self flagellation, in the privacy of their own home, fine. But again, if you make this a public display, try to get others involved or expose this practice to children it is totally wrong.
If an adult is doing this due to some delusional belief system, whatever that may be, then they should be treated appropriately for the mental illness they are suffering.
Whatever the circumstances though, to actually force children to take part, then attempt to justify it under your religious beliefs is shameful.

Age Discrimination

I am absolutely sick and tired of the age discrimination in this country. No, I am not talking about the elderly, I am talking about the disgusting discrimination and prejudice against young people in Britain today, something that is condoned, even encouraged at every level, from individuals all the way to the government. Those most affected by this disgusting discrimination are most likely to fall in the 16-25 age bracket and the treatment we receive is appalling. Are you wondering what on earth I am talking about? Well, there are plenty of examples.
Ever been to a shop with a sign on the door saying "only 2 children at any time"? There are plenty such signs near where I live, and there were always several in the town where I grew up. Here is an immediate assumption that if you are under 18 you are going to be causing trouble or committing a crime. So, as adults have unrestricted access, but children can only enter two at a time, one may assume that the only perpetrators of crime are children. Except we know that this is not the case. Therefore this is blatant discrimination against young people. After all, can you imagine the uproar if stores started putting up signs saying "only 2 whites/blacks/asians/women/homosexuals etc at a time"?
Another good example comes direct from the government of this country. on the one hand they say:

"From 1 October 2006, there is legal protection against age discrimination. It is no longer lawful to discriminate on grounds of age. Treating staff fairly and recognising individuals' talents and needs is not just the right thing to do, but makes good business sense as well."

(source: direct.gov.uk)

Yet the minimum wage clearly discriminates against young people. On the same government website you will also find the following information:

"How much is the National Minimum Wage?

There are different levels of National Minimum Wage, depending on the age of the worker. The rates from 1 October 2007 are as follows:

• adults (which means people aged 22 and over) receive the full rate of £5.52 an hour
• a 'development rate' of £4.60 an hour is paid to workers aged 18 to 21 inclusive
• young people (those older than school leaving age and younger than 18; you're under school leaving age until the end of summer term of the school year in which you turn 16) receive £3.40 an hour

Apprentices under the age of 19 are not entitled to the National Minimum Wage. Apprentices who are 19 or over and in the first 12 months of their apprenticeship are not entitled to the National Minimum Wage."

(Source direct.gov.uk)

So here we see a direct contradiction in what the government says. Just to expand a little on this; at 16 one may be legally married and living with their spouse and working full time. You could even be doing the same job as someone much older, and working just as hard. Yet legally, your contribution is worth only £3.40/hour, compared to £5.52/hour. Also, despite the legal term of "adult" usually referred to as 18 or over, 18 being the age at which you can marry without parental permission, purchase cigarettes, alcohol, porn, the age at which you can vote, as far as the government is concerned when it comes to paying you, if you are under 22, the minimum wage is only £4.60/hour. That is nearly a whole pound an hour less. At 21 you could have graduated from university, you could have been married several years, you may even have a family. But your contribution in the workplace is not worth as much? I do not care how you try and argue, this is discrimination, pure and simple.
This attitude that somehow the cost of living is cheaper when you are young is baffling. I am 23, own my house with a mortgage, having bought the place when I was 21, I have worked full time and paid taxes and NI accordingly and have been involved with voluntary work for many years. However a little research has shown that my cost of living is no lower than my friends who are over 25. Indeed, my mortgage payments, utilities, phone bills, TV licence etc are all at the same rate as people older than me. So why are younger people penalised in this way? The trend is also mirrored in benefits payments such as income support:

Personal allowances

Single people:

Aged 16-17: £35.65

or in specific circumstances: £46.85

Aged 18-24: £46.85

Aged 25 or over: £59.15

Couple:

Both aged 18 and over: £92.80

Where one or both partners are aged under 18, their personal allowance will be calculated based on their specific circumstances.

Lone parents:

Aged 16-17: £35.65

or depending on their circumstances: £46.85

Aged 18 and over: £59.15

(Source jobcentreplus)

Yet again, a bizarre assumption that it is somehow cheaper to be a young person. Surely a 20 year old, who has worked since 16, and paid into the system through taxes and NI payments, who may own a property and have all the associated costs does not "need" £13/week less than someone 5 years older. Time and again we see age discrimination from the very top.
Another example of the discrimination against young people is the (in my opinion) evil invention called a mosquito alarm which is a device that emits a painful noise that is only audible to young people. The device works by exploiting age related hearing degeneration - basically as you get older you are less able to hear high pitched noises. The mosquito alarm operates at a range which is normally inaudible to the over 25's, but is very clear, and painful to those under that age. That is, everyone under that age, be they small children, or the vast majority of law abiding citizens under the age of 25. For those of you who do not know what these things are like, perhaps because you are older than 25, they are extremely unpleasant. The noise is so high and so uncomfortable it actually makes you feel sick and dizzy, whilst also inducing a splitting headache. Many shops use them to try and deter young people for this very reason; if you can hear the noise you certainly do not want to be near it. But why is it fair, and legal to discriminate against so many people? According to the 2001 census data there were 18315288 people aged between 0-24. Is it really fair to discriminate against all these people, just because they are young? As I said before, if there were a device marketed that discouraged people of a particular race/sexual orientation there would be a huge outcry and yet because this is aimed at deterring young people it is somehow alright? In February 2008 the BBC reported:

There are no plans in England to ban the use of devices which emit a high-pitched sound to disperse groups of teenagers, the government has said.

(source BBC)

Despite all the government rhetoric on age discrimination, they sadly do not wish to extend those rights to young people. Liberty, the human rights organisation, has spoken out against the use of these alarms, as has the Children's Commissioner. On the Liberty website, the director, Shami Chakrabarti is quoted as saying:

“What type of society uses a low-level sonic weapon on its children?Imagine the outcry if a device was introduced that caused blanket discomfort to people of one race or gender, rather than to our kids.

The Mosquito has no place in a country that values its children and seeks to instill them with dignity and respect.”

(Source Liberty)

I can tell you now, from personal experience that these alarms are painful and cause unnecessary distress. I am a 23 year old law abiding citizen, but I am targeted purely because of my age. There is a shop near where I live which has its mosquito alarm on 24/7. Incidentally this shop is very close to where I used to work - hearing distance in fact, and in the time I worked there I suffered from awful headaches. Unfortunately a house very near to my present address has installed one of these alarm, so every time I walk past I am subjected to this earsplitting noise. Incidentally this house is also next to a school. How nice will that be when the primary age children return next week? Again, this house has been using it's device constantly, the noise being emitted throughout the day and night. I only hope their neighbours are older, otherwise I cannot imagine what they are being subjected to.
There is now a campaign called the "buzz off campaign" which aims to end the use of these awful inventions, so I hope that is successful.
I hope now that you are beginning to see, from these examples, the kind of prejudice and discrimination faced everyday by the young people of this nation.
Seriously, do you really think that the majority will turn out as you would like when we are treated like this?

For more information on the human rights aspects of the mosquito alarm please visit
www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/issues/young-peoples-rights/stamp-out-the-mosquito
www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/issues/young-peoples-rights/human-rights-and-the-mosquito

overheard on a bus (part 2)

I am making quite a hobby of listening in to other peoples bus conversations. Some may call me nosy, but I say I have a natural curiosity about people and society. Plus, it is often bloody funny!
One of the bizarre things I have started to see quite often is people who clearly dislike each other, but who have not seen each other for a while. So you overhear all the "oh its you, how are you, its been ages since we saw each other..." all said with a rictus grin and a look of pure contempt. That always makes me laugh, I mean why not just pretend you have not seen each other, or be rude but honest and blank them?
Anyway, I digress.
I sometimes wonder how it is that people manage to get themselves into so much debt but I am starting to get an inkling as to how some people manage it.

overheard on a bus leaving the city centre, afternoon rush hour, yesterday.
The scene: A very full bus travelling at a snails pace from the city centre. The people sat behind me had this disturbing conversation.
Woman: I think I've sorted our debt out.
Man: Yeah?
Woman: Yeah, I have taken out a loan to pay our overdraft
Man: Cool. How much is your overdraft?
Woman: £3000. How much is yours?
Man: £2000. How much did you borrow?
Woman: £5000. So that means we have enough left over to go on holiday now. We can book it tomorrow.
Man: Cool.

I mean how stupid is that? Firstly, I really would not discuss something like that on a bus. Secondly, although I do not know for sure, they did not seem the type to have compared interest rates and repayments on their different loans, after all they did not even know how much they owed. Thirdly, don't use the money for a holiday, you do not have any extra, learn to count!

So it all starts to become clear how some people manage to get themselves so far in the red. Disturbing though, isn't it?

Speaking of "in the red" my laptop batteries about to run out so its TTFN and I may post later.

Council Workmen

The council are digging the road up outside my house and it is driving me to distraction. Not just the loud thuds and bangs as they smash up the tarmac, or the house shaking, bone juddering headache inducing vibrations that are scaring the life out of my cats and making me totally on edge although all that is bad enough. No, the thing that is really p*ssing me off is the lack of efficiency and the waste of money.
You see earlier this year, just before the local elections, the council re-painted all the road markings down this road, at tax payers expense. And less than 6 months later, the whole road is being taken up. Also it is annoying that it has got so bad that it needs to be replaced - but this is something we, in the "poor" side of town have to put up with. The more affluent areas have roads that are far better maintained. Sour grapes on my part? maybe, but I live on the same road as a huge hospital, which houses the cities only A&E department. Still think its a good idea not to carry out road maintenance before it gets to this point?
The other really irritating aspect to this is the hours the council workmen keep. They tend to start the ultra loud, ultra vibrate-y work at between 7am and 8am. They have usually vanished again by 9am, only to reappear sometime in the late morning. They then work until 12noon, and generally speaking that's the last we will see of them until the next morning. However I have noticed that occasionally 1 or 2 "work" men reappear around 4.30pm and hang around near their diggers until 5pm, when they vanish for good. They will not turn up for at least one day mid week, and then arrive at 7.30 on a Saturday morning to annoy the residents and claim their overtime - paid for by us, the council tax payers.
The notices that have gone up in the area reckon the work will take 3 months to complete. If the work men actually did a full days work it would take half that time.
My theory is this: They turn up first thing so that all the people getting ready for work see them and think "well, look how hard they are working." As soon as the morning rush hour is over the workmen vanish. Although no work gets done in the afternoon, someone in a high-visibility vest shows up to hang around for the evening rush hour. So I reckon that they hang around at these times so that the working tax payers believe a full days work is being carried out, when in fact only about 3 hours of work is done every day.
Call me cynical if you want to, but I think I am onto something here.

interesting websites

I have come across a few interesting or amusing websites recently so I thought I would share them with you as I am often on the look out for interesting or funny stuff.

The Political Compass is a website that aims to improve our understanding of the political spectrum away from the single "right-left" axis and has an interesting test function that allows you to discover where you lie on the political compass, plus other interesting features. Recommended.

TV Go Home is an amusing website from Charlie Brooker which features spoof TV listings for ridiculous programmes. The site is a few years old and it is disturbing how many of the spoof listings are now actual programmes. This had me laughing out loud.

Lovely Listing is a blog of property listings that include photographs that really should never have been taken. Some of the pictures are deeply sinister and disturbing, others will make you laugh so hard you pull a muscle. Well, they did for me anyway. Especially the dog!

Tim Minchin is a genius musical comedian who writes and performs (on the piano) some very amusing songs. A few favourites of mine are Ten Foot Cock and A few Hundred Virgins, Fat Children, If You Really Loved Me, Angry, and all his other stuff too. Buy both his CD's from the website, buy his DVD, laugh your head off and try and get tickets to his show!

Bill Bailey, as you should all know is another amazingly brilliant comedian. If you have not heard of him, or you haven't visited the website for a while then it looks like the new stuff is up so it may be worth another look.

Anyway, have a look and if you know any other good websites then leave me a comment.

My head hurts

Short post today, I have spent the whole afternoon writing on the computer and my head is pounding. If this blasted headache clears up I will write a longer post later. Otherwise I apologise and I will post tomorrow instead.

overheard on a bus

I sometimes wonder if there is an abnormally high number of stupid people living in my city, but I reckon that a more likely explanation is that the population density of this area means that I am bound to come across stupid people on a regular basis.
Anyway, I thought I would share a couple of gems with you, comments that I overheard on buses today and yesterday.

On a bus leaving the city, yesterday afternoon.
The scene: reasonably full bus, early rush hour. A tall man is attempting to chat up a young woman.
Man (after scratching testicles through trousers in an utterly conspicuous manner): So, do you work?
Woman (looking bored): Yeah
Man: What do you do?
Woman: I'm a shop assistant.
Man: Oh, right.
Woman (rolling eyes): What about you?
Man: I am a home tutorerer (sic)
Woman: What do you home tutorerer? (sic)
Man: English and Italian.
Woman (going back to her magazine): Oh. Right.
a brief pause
Man: Do you, er, ever read the papers, like?
Woman: Yeah
Man: Do you ever read the local papers?
Woman: Yeah
Man: I've been in the local papers.
Woman: Oh, yeah? What did you do?
Man: You know that kid that was killed last year? Well, my son was charged with that.

I have to admit, that was really not what I was expecting him to say.

On a bus heading towards the city centre, today, mid afternoon.
The scene: quiet bus with only a few passengers including a teenage girl who obviously models her style on Barbie. Another teenage girl, whose role model is clearly Vicky Pollard(Little Britain) gets on a few stops later and this exchange follows:
Vicky Pollard: The f**king Feds* are after me. Said I nicked a bike. (*I think she means the police, not usually referred to as "feds" in England)
Barbie: Really? Like a bike pedally pushy bike thing?
VP: Yeah. Said I'd nicked it from (nearby town) and ridden it to (nearby village). I mean, do I look capable of riding a bike from ____ to ____? (answer here is quite clearly NO)
B: Oh. Wow.
VP: Yeah. Anyway, they said it was an orange bike. Like, do you really think I'd nick an orange bike when I'm wearing pink?
For the next few minutes they content themselves with singing along very badly to loud synthesized dance music played on a mobile phone until
B: Hey, did you shag _____? He's a f**king freak. I hate him.
VP: I hate him, He's a fat f**king freak, and anyway I only shagged him coz he said he'd buy me a Happy Meal.

At this point I was laughing so hard whilst trying not to draw attention to myself that I nearly pulled a muscle.

The Missing 5%

Here's something that has bothered me today. I popped into my local supermarket to collect a few bits and bobs for tea when I noticed a large sign near the cooked meat counter advertising "ready cooked chickens, 2 for £5. chicken contains 95% chicken."
So, being me I decided to go over to the counter and ask what on earth the other 5% of the chicken was made from.
The woman behind the counter looked at me with a vacant expression when I asked what ingredients were in the chicken, before answering uncertainly "just chicken?"
"well, the sign says it is 95% chicken" said I "so what is the other 5% made of?"
"No" said the assistant "95% is everything, that is a whole chicken"
"I believe that 100% would be a whole chicken, so something else must have been added"
At this point the woman went to get her supervisor to help me.
me: Hi, I wondered what other ingredients were used in the cooked chickens
her: Chicken
me: yes, but what is in the other 5%?
her: I don't know
me: do you have the packaging? that should tell you
her: no, we prepare them ourselves here. we just spray stuff on them and cook them.
me: well, what do you spray on them?
her: the stuff they tell us to. I think its sugary water
me: oh, OK. what kind of sugar?
her: ??
me: I mean is it normal cane sugar? lactose? fructose? what kind of sugar?
her: sugar.
me: never mind.

So I still want to know what else is in the chicken. And how disturbing is it that they prepare it themselves but do not know what they are actually doing. They just spray away with whatever they are given? That is really worrying.
So although I should maybe be feeling a bit sorry for wasting their time, I instead find myself sat at home hours later wondering just what else is in the chicken I had no intention of buying.

baby on board stickers

What is the point of "baby on board" stickers and signs in cars? Sorry if I am missing the point entirely, but why do people have them? Do they really think that people are driving down the road when suddenly they decide to ram the car in front, or attempt to cause a crash until they see the "baby on board" sign in the rear window at which point they think "ah, I had better not ram that car, there is a baby in it"??
I just don't see the point of having one, except that it partially obscures the view out of the rear window.
Unless they are there for an entirely different reason, to warn other road users that the driver of a car bearing a baby on board sign is likely to be paying less attention to the road and potentially driving less well than they would do at other times because they are too busy looking at "mummy's cute little snookums"/being driven crazy by baby's endless screaming/getting distracted because baby has suddenly stopped screaming/going insane due to the awful noise that is "children's music" tapes.
As far as I can see they are completely pointless.
However although I may be sounding like an angry bitch I am an equal opportunities angry bitch, so I will just let you know that I reserve an even stronger contempt for people who have "babe on board" signs in their car, often accompanied by a playboy bunny logo, for people who hang furry dice from the rear view mirrors, people who display huge religious icons in their car (because god will make up for the reduced visibility?), people who have pink furry steering wheel covers, and people who fill the entire parcel shelf with cuddly toys.
But the drivers who I hold in the lowest regard of all? That'd be the ones who black out the windows, affix an extra exhaust, lower the suspension, add neon blue underlights and install a stereo with ludicrous levels of base, that is worth more than the car itself and drive up and down my street between 9pm and 1am, revving their engine and booming out rubbish and distorted music and basically shouting to the world "I have a tiny penis and still live with my mum".

Designer Vagina

I watched a programme this evening on 4oD called "Perfect Vagina" and it made for shocking viewing. No, I am not some prude who thinks the body is somehow shameful and should not be seen or discussed, quite the opposite in fact. The reason why I found this programme shocking was because it highlighted how many women are undergoing painful, expensive and completely unnecessary operations on their genitals. Apparently some private cosmetic surgery clinics have seen a 300% increase in the number of women, some as young as 14, requesting surgical procedures such as labioplasty (the removal of a large part of the labia minora), and it was reported that requests for this procedure on the NHS have doubled in recent years.
The main reasons that women were requesting this procedure was because they thought they were "abnormal" and that their genitals would turn men off and lead to ridicule. I think this is such a sad state of affairs.
I don't think most women even know what other peoples vaginas look like, after all it is not a general topic of conversation, even among modern liberal women. I am not a prude and I do talk to my friends about health, sexual matters, emotional problems yet I do not recall ever having a conversation with any of my friends about vaginas. I imagine that I look fairly normal and as everything seems to work as expected it had never even crossed my mind that some women may be having surgery to change the way they look.
I had heard of people having piercings in the area, either to improve visual appearance or to enhance sexual pleasure and I have read about and researched the horrific practice of female genital mutilation (FGM or "female circumcision", a horrific and barbaric practice which I will post on another day)
I have even read about male to female transsexuals having operations to create a vagina as part of the gender realignment procedure. But I had not realised that there were women out there who were so confused about how their body should look, who lacked in confidence to the point they believed that future partners would judge them solely on their genitals that they were prepared to have part of their body removed under a local anaesthetic.
The programme showed one women, a 21 year old, undergoing the procedure because her sister had bullied her about how she looked, and had publicly ridiculed her. However rather than stop going out with her sister or seeing her GP or nurse about her issues she instead paid a private surgeon to solve her "problem". Most disturbing was when she revealed that she had refused to go for smear tests as she did not want the doctor to see her vagina.
I think this is so sad, and it serves to highlight how many ridiculous hang ups and taboos still exist even in 2008.
All vagina's are different, just as all noses are different, all elbows are different, all feet are different, and if you want the comparison all penises are different. As I have mentioned before sex education in this country is woefully inadequate and it seems that there are many women who are opting for surgery to correct a non existent problem.
Yes, there are some men who are so shallow as to judge a woman on her vagina, but personally I would hope that any woman would get to know the man enough before "getting it on" to realise that he was a shallow ignorant misogynist whose opinion isn't worth diddly squat.
A more disturbing element of the programme was the discussion about hymen replacement surgery, where surgeons "create" a new hymen to give the appearance (and bleeding) one may expect on losing virginity. This procedure seems to have gained some popularity within muslim culture where many men will not marry a woman who is not a virgin, and where the loss of a woman's virginity before marriage brings supposed "shame" upon a family. The programme looked at one such islamic woman who was opting for hymen reconstruction because she was having an arranged marriage and was no longer a virgin. She was genuinely concerned that if her family were to find out they would kill her, and possibly themselves to escape this perceived "shame". It is disgusting to think that within some sectors of our society these kinds of views still exist and I believe that without better integration and without better sex education in schools nothing much is going to change.
If a fully mature woman wishes to modify her body in this way then I think that is fair enough. But I do not think it is ethically right to perform these kinds of procedures on women who do not fully understand the risks or implications of such surgery, on women who are very young, such as the 16 year olds undergoing labioplasty or on women whose issue is a matter which could be easily resolved through counselling without the risks of surgery.
I also have issues with the NHS carrying out procedures such as this one where there is no medical need or actual deformity, especially when there patients being denied vital medications due to cost.
With regards to the surgery carried out for "cultural" reasons I think that more work should be done to educate these people rather than stitching them back together without addressing the causes of the problems. However as the majority of these procedures are done by private surgeons who are being paid handsomely no one seems to be addressing the underlying causes, taboos and shames that are leading these women to undergo unnecessary medical procedures.

I would just like to share with you the fact fact that I wrote this post while listening to "my vagina" by NOFX on my ipod. (I am not quite sure why it has been coupled with Full Metal Alchemist on this clip. However for those who do not know, Full Metal Alchemist is great, probably my favourite ever anime.)

Does anyone else think this is a crazy idea?

Ok, I admit that at present I am reading the Daily Mail, something I tend to do only for the comedy value, and I know I have already shared one story with you, but seriously, this sounds like an incredibly bad idea:

Texas school allows teachers to carry guns to protect against campus attacks

By Mail On Sunday Reporter
Last updated at 10:53 PM on 16th August 2008

Teachers in Texas have become the first in America to be allowed to carry guns at school in an effort to protect against campus gun attacks.

The board of tiny Harrold School – which has only 113 pupils – has approved the plan and parents have not objected, said school superintendent David Thweatt.

Fatal shootings like the one at Thurston High School in Oregon in May persuaded the board of Harrold School to let teachers carry guns

Teachers can arm themselves with concealed weapons when the new term begins on August 25.

They will need a firearms certificate and permission from officials, and must undergo crisis management training.

It is not known how many of the 50 staff will carry guns. The school authorities believe it is better for potential gun attackers not to know who is armed and who is not.

The town of Harrold lies 150 miles from Fort Worth on the Texas-Oklahoma border, a 30-minute drive from a sheriff’s office – which Mr Thweatt said made it vulnerable.

The announcement has prompted furious debate about the pros and cons of guns in the classroom, particularly in the wake of several school shootings in recent years.

But Mr Thweatt claimed: ‘When the federal government started making schools gun-free zones, that’s when all these shootings started.’

from: The Daily Mail

incredibly lazy people

I just came across this incredible story online, in the daily mail newspaper, and I just have to share it with you:

For busy Britons, the orange that peels in just 35 seconds

By Arthur Martin
Last updated at 4:43 PM on 17th August 2008

The orange which can be peeled in only 35 seconds

As lunchtime snacks go, it's hardly the most straight forward option.

Its tough peel and unpredictable squirts of juice make eating an orange on the move a risky choice.

But one supermarket claims to have discovered an 'easy peel' orange, which it says is ready to eat in just 35 seconds.

Sceptical, but ever hopeful of finding an orange which doesn't end up all over my tie, I headed for my nearest Sainsbury's to see what all the fuss is about.

At 59pence each, the 'easy-peel' variety are at the top end of the price range.

But within seconds of peeling, it's easy to see why.

The skin is easier to pierce than that of a conventional orange.

And once my fingers are firmly underneath the peel, it all starts to come off in one piece.

What's also pleasing is the lack of facial contortions needed to prise the peel away from the fruit.

And after a mere 22 seconds, I was left with an orange which is ready to eat and one which hasn't been battered by vigorous ripping.

By contrast, an orange of a similar size - but 24pence cheaper - took 38 seconds to peel.

It took multiple attempts to remove the peel and, perhaps what was more frustrating, was the amount of fruit which remained stuck to the peel.

While the 'easy peel' orange saved 16 seconds and needed less effort, the amount of sticky orange juice left on my hands was just as much as ever.

The other significant claim Sainsbury's makes of it's new Australian oranges is that they are 50 per cent sweeter than other brands.

They certainly live up to this claim and it is probably the real reason why shoppers would want to spend a little more on their oranges.

The supermarket is hoping the 'easy peel' variety will reverse the declining sale of oranges in the UK. Last year the number of oranges consumed in Britain fell by 2per cent - the third yearly drop in a row.

Garry Cirillo, commercial director at suppliers MMG, said: 'In its home market in Australia this orange is big news and has a strong following.

'The proof of the orange is definitely going to be in the eating. If consumer feedback is as good as we expect, we are really hopeful that we can increase volumes and introduce the variety to other growers around the world to increase availability'.

However, because of the imminent end of the growing season in Australia, they will only be available in the UK until September 9.

Comments (6)

Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below?

Well I live in Australia and I have never heard of it

- C Johnson, Perth Western Australia, 17/8/2008 2:48

Judging by the number of overweight people around these days, finding time for food is not a problem!

- Renee, Melbourne, Australia, 17/8/2008 3:52

Who on earth is "too busy" to find a minute to peel an orange?

- Geoff, Birmingham UK, 17/8/2008 7:21

"Big News"? "Strong following"?????
We're in Sydney...and we've never heard of it, seen it - and definitely haven't eaten it!

- Liz Smith, Sydney, Australia, 17/8/2008 8:41

Bet there will be a big profit margin on this too. The lemon flavoured melon on sale in Tesco at £1.99 each, can be bought in Spain 3 for €1! I know there are transportation costs, but that is ridiculous.

- sandra, alicante+spain, 17/8/2008 9:50

So the orange is 50% sweeter than its rival. Years ago when you only bought oranges in season and they were left to ripen on the tree, they were very sweet. They only lost this sweetness when they were picked early to be transported thousands of miles and still look good. Go back to having fruit in season and it will all be sweet.

- Janet, Newton Abbot, Devon, 17/8/2008 10:12

from: www.dailymail.co.uk

I find this astounding. Who is so lazy that they will not take a few seconds to peel an orange? It doesn't take that much effort. I guess the people this product is aimed at are the same people who cannot be bothered to cook a proper meal. And we wonder why a third of the population s obese?

Bloody Animals and The Hungry Cushion

Today I am really really peed off with my cats, or rather with one of my cats in particular. Just for the record I have 4 cats and for the most part I adore them. The oldest 2 came from a rescue shelter and they are 9 years old. They have a little emotional baggage (one of them is freaked out by mens shoes, plastic bottles and tin foil. The other one is terrified of mice, spiders, ants, flies, female cats - basically anything smaller than him that moves. Or anything bigger than him that moves, except for people as they may be bringing him food. He is also occasionally scared by things that don't and have never moved. We call him The Hungry Cushion because he loves food, any food, and will scavenge for anything in the house that may be edible and will even try bananas if he sees us eat them! Anyway, apart from being a bit skittish at times they are generally very well behaved (if a little thick at times, for example one of them seems to think that in order to bury what he has done on the litter tray he needs to bash ten bells out of the shower cubicle door.) It is nice to see how far they have come on from the nervous wrecks they were when we got them.
The other 2 cats I have had since they were 13 weeks old, tiny little kittens, and oh-so-cute. They were seriously ill at first, even the vets did not think they would survive as they were so small and had the flu. For the first 2 weeks I had to get up every 2 hours day and night to give them medication and to feed them cat-formula milk through a syringe, feed them water through a pipette and clean their eyes. Amazingly they pulled through and are alright now, 15 months later but it was a long, hard and very expensive struggle. They are incredibly affectionate, reasonably intelligent (for cats, anyway) and very vocal. The reason that they are driving me mad though is altogether less cute.
At first, as they were so ill they weren't always able to reach the litter tray, so had quite a few accidents, as they could not even get out of their bed. As they grew stronger I began training them, and one of them took to using the litter tray with no problems. The other one however still sometimes refuses to use the tray and I do not know why.
This is driving me crazy as I never know what I will find. Fortunately when she refuses to go on the tray she does it on the tiled bathroom floor, so at least its easy to clean, but I wish I knew why she was doing this. It is not all the time, just every now and again, and she does know how to use the tray as 80% of the time she does use it. I cannot fathom out why she sometimes refuses. The brands and types of food and litter have not changed, I clean out the tray and feed them at regular intervals and all 4 of my cats are neutered. There are 4 litter trays in the house and none of the cats goes outside as we live on a very busy main road and have a reasonably large house.
This situation is driving me crazy. She had been behaving herself for months and then a couple of weeks ago she started up again. I have tried everything I can think of and I am pretty much out of ideas. This is so frustrating and I worry every time anyone visits my house in case they use the bathroom and find a "surprise" awaiting them. Also, as I am sure you can appreciate it is not what you want to see first thing in a morning either.
So if anyone reading this has any ideas on what I can do to improve the situation, please do leave me a comment below. Thanks.

A load of hot air (climate change is not my fault!)

A few years ago global warming was not really a topic of discussion, apart from in certain social circles. As a child I remember being taught a little about global warming at school - basically 'fridges and deodorant were evil and there was a hole in the sky above Australia which was why Australia was so hot. At secondary school a geography teacher explained to me another theory, basically of global cooling rather than global warming. Somewhere along the way we were told to recycle more please, if possible, and my sister was given a magnet so you could tell what your drinks cans were made of. (we stuck it to the fridge and it made a black mark that angered my mother.) We never really went in for much recycling, partly because most of our food was cooked fresh and bought off the market so there was little packaging but also because we lived in the countryside, not near any recycling facilities and it seemed silly to drive several miles with the aim of saving the environment through recycling.
Until suddenly, a couple of years ago "green" issues were everywhere. Now, you can call me cynical but it seems that as soon as the government (who I hold in such high esteem, as you know) realised there was money to be made from this topic it became big news and big business.
I have to admit that I am a little sceptical about all this global warming and climate change stuff for a few reasons; because scientists are divided on the topic, because it is such a money spinner, because there is such contradictory information and advice out there and also because for all the constant assurances that each summer is the "hottest on record", the records, in the grand scheme of things (such as the entire history of the planet) only cover a very short time frame. We know that the temperature of this planet has changed many times - areas that used to be under the sea are now deserts, the ice age etc and although there is undoubtedly some human influence I am unsure how much. We are constantly being told that we each have this huge "carbon footprint" that tells us how evil we are to the planet, that arises from all the CO2 that we are each responsible for. I have a problem with this theory however, in that throughout history there have been thousands of volcanic eruptions, spewing ash, sulphur, methane and CO2 into the atmosphere, blanketing vast swathes of land and blocking the sun. We know that at various times in the planets history there have periods of far greater volcanic activity than we see nowadays. Surely this would have had a huge impact on the environment and is far from being a man-made problem.
That said, I am not some planet hating anti-environment type - I think that the destruction of some of the worlds most beautiful places is vile, the destruction, legal and illegal, of the rain forests angers me beyond words, the pollution of the land and sea by so many factories and companies is disgusting and the constant removal of trees, plants, grasslands and an ever more concreted Britain makes me despair (why don't people realise that plants give us oxygen and remove carbon dioxide and that grasslands allow water drainage?)
I think though, that for all the condescending orders and advice from the authorities, and all the political pontificating on the topic it is not necessarily we as individuals that need to be making the big change.
Take the average office. There will be tens, maybe even hundreds of computers on for at least 8 hours a day, all the heating and lighting, the printers and photocopiers, the always-on tea urn, the air conditioning, the thousands and thousands of sheets of paper printed and then discarded, the mountains of scrap paper produced. Now think of how may offices there are in the country, how many businesses using up resources so quickly and with little thought. The office I used to work in used up whole reams of paper every week, much of it only to be thrown away within a day or two.
We are always being told not to use plastic bags to collect our shopping, yet we are not the ones responsible for all the unnecessary packaging on virtually everything we buy - the stores them selves are. Even bananas are shrink wrapped in plastic at my local supermarket. So yes, we can try and be more aware and reuse bags, but the tonnes of plastic discarded every year that come from other packaging, well, how is that our fault.
I also think that local and central government should also be doing more themselves to help out. For example, my local council only recycles paper. Whereas residents of many other cities are provided with a simple means of recycling their waste, where I live there is no collection except for paper, and only every 4 weeks.
I do think that as individuals we can make simple changes, and ones that will benefit us for very little effort - insulation in your loft, walking short journeys instead of driving and using energy efficient light bulbs are all easy things to do which save us money. But I think for the big things, if they matter as much as the government tells us, should be dealt with by the business and corporations and I think the government should be acting on this, not pressurizing us.

smoking and aerosols

I am feeling quite angry today, as there have been several things/people that have really p*ssed me off.
The main thing though, that is guaranteed to wind me up each and every time I see it, is the constant collection of smokers in the entrance of my local hospital. Now for starters this is now illegal in Britain, smoking in any work place or indoor public place is against the law and this has already been taken to the nth degree in some situations such as the man who was driving his van to the shops one evening and happened to be smoking a cigarette when he was stopped. He received a fine because he also uses the van to drive to work and transport paints etc. Despite the fact that the van was insured and registered for personal use, he was still fined. Outside my local hospital however there is no such enforcement of the law and so on any given day there is always a congregation of inpatients, visitors and even staff stood in the covered entrance puffing away.
I take issue with this for several reasons. Firstly, everyone has to use this entrance and that includes the sick, the elderly, children and even patients arriving in ambulances who are struggling to breathe. So when the only way to enter the hospital is to pass through a choking cloud of fag smoke it is extremely unpleasant. Also, when people stand here they cause the automatic doors to stay open, ensuring that the smoke fills up the lift well on a windy day, and smells vile.
Secondly I have a real problem with inpatients making their way all the way downstairs and outside so that they can puff away, still wired up to all their drips and tubes and often, believe it or not, on oxygen. Aside from the staggering stupidity of going for a cigarette when you are so ill that you need oxygen pumped directly up your nose none of these people seem to have considered the basic fact that oxygen is extremely flammable, and when it is stored in a pressurized container...well, I don't want to be around when they manage to explode themselves, thats for sure. Not only that, but I do feel that if patients are well enough to get as far as the door they should probably go the extra few metres away from the doors and off the hospital grounds.
When I see staff standing there in their uniforms happily sucking on a cigarette this also annoys me. Firstly they should know better (not just about the smoking in the first place, I am fairly liberal in that generally I think you should put what you want into your own body if it does not harm others) after all they know that they should not be smoking here, they know the hospital rules and they should know the example they are setting to others is that it is fine to smoke in the entrance. Again, I am not trying to stop them smoking, but why can't they walk a little further and do it out of the way? It is not exactly difficult to know you should not be smoking there, after all there is a huge no smoking sign right on the door.
Unfortunately though the security staff will do very little to challenge this behaviour and any one who does ask them to please not smoke there tends to be on the receiving end of a pretty vicious verbal assault and most do not bother even asking any more. There was a shocking story in the media this last week about a woman at a train station who narrowly avoided death after she was pushed onto the tracks for asking someone to stop smoking.
I want to make it clear that I do not have an issue with smoking itself, after all it is your body. But why do people feel the need to do it in a way that causes stress, discomfort and potential health risks to others? I have smoked for years but I have always tried to be a polite smoker; not smoking where children may see me, not smoking around other people, asking people if it was ok to smoke if they were at my house or outside. It is not hard to do, so why can't other people show some manners? And I certainly do not think it is right that we should generally be too scared to confront someone if they do behave this badly.
Speaking of bad behaviour, something else that winds me up, for very similar reasons, is people spraying aerosols in confined spaces. In the past few weeks I have experienced people spraying aerosols in changing rooms, in toilets, on trains, in lifts and today on my way home someone was spraying deodorant all over the place on the bus. Repeatedly. At least 5 times on a 15 minute journey. The stuff smelled horrible and made it hard to breathe. I still feel as though I can taste it now over 2 hours later. And do please bare in mind that this was a packed bus leaving the city at rush hour. As usual though, despite the grumbles, coughs and in one case asthmatic wheezing I was the only person to actually say anything. The witty and intelligent response I received? "Hurhur, just 'cause your thin". Does that make any sense at all??

Something to really get angry about

I have just finished reading a book called "The Road of Lost Innocence" by Somaly Mam, about an amazing woman who was sold into prostitution as a child, managed to escape a few years later and who now risks her life helping other girls (children) to escape the brutal realities of the sex trade and forced prostitution.
The level of corruption that her organisation has to deal with in the Cambodian "justice" system is shocking, the horrific abuse of such young girls and the torture they endure is simply vile. Many men there believe that having sex with a virgin will cure them of AIDS so girls as young as 5 or 6 are being sold into slavery.
I urge you to check out the websites somaly.org and afesip.org
Also, read her book if you can. I have not been so moved by something in a long time.

It is shocking to think that despite all the media celebrations on anniversaries of the abolition of slavery there are actually more people held as slaves now than at any other point in history.

I'm back and one year older

I apologise for the delay in posting, it was my birthday on Friday (08/08/08) and I seem to have lost the weekend.
My intention was to win the euromillions lottery draw on Friday night - and I did!!! Unfortunately it was only £7.20, but it was still better than a kick in the teeth. So I have used my massive winnings to purchase 2 lines for next week (it is a rollover after all) and the other £4.20 will be saved for a rainy day.

Anyway, I am in a surprisingly good mood, which makes bitching that bit more difficult, but there is one thing that has REALLY pissed me off today (and to be fair most other days where I leave the house) and that is people who throw their rubbish on the floor.
I mean, why not use a bin - this is a city for crying out loud, there are bins all over the bleeding place and yet time and time again you see people casually toss their crisp packets/drinks cans/cigarette packets etc down on the floor, stuff it into hedges, toss it into peoples gardens...It makes me want to go and shake them. Hard. Unfortunately on the few occasions when I have challenged people on this vile behaviour they tend to be very aggressive. On one occasion in the city centre I had to call the police after a man who had thrown a plastic bag and a paper bag on the floor, when he was sitting right next to a bin, pinned me against a wall after I pointed out, politely I might add that there was a bin less than a metre away from him. After being held against a wall while the man screamed gender based obscenities and spat at me I decided that t would probably be safer to not say anything in future. However it still frustrates the hell out of me to see people littering and annoys me that I am too afraid to challenge people when they do.
I think one of the things that shocks me the most is the people you see littering. It may sound prejudiced but I am not especially surprised to see overweight teens in low income areas chucking their rubbish all over the place. I am always genuinely shocked though to see well dressed, well spoken people throw their rubbish down, it surprises me to see elderly people littering and it dismays me to see parents telling their kids to "just drop it on the floor", or something I commonly hear on the bus "shove it between the seats". I do occasionally challenge people with young children who are doing this, because it is so sad to think of another generation growing up behaving in that way, but when I have suggested they carry the rubbish until they find a bin I am usually met with dazed expressions or aggression, occasionally a comment such as "But why do I want it? It's rubbish"
People can be so dirty and disgusting that at times it horrifies me. I am certainly not a clean-freak by any stretch of the imagination, my house is full of clutter, but at least it is kept hygienic. Why don't people realise that chucking food and refuse all over the floor, especially in the city, is just an encouragement to vermin? I recall a couple of years ago there was a public meeting held near where I live because people were so fed up of rats on their estate. However a quick walk round the area affected revealed litter all over the street, any spare land used as a fly tipping spot, and even peoples gardens loaded with litter and refuse. And yet they could not understand why they had a rat problem.
It reminds me of the old saying "don't sh*t on your own doorstep" - something these sorry individuals never learned.
To put the matter into perspective I used to have 2 pet rats (proper pets from a pet shop) called Fetish and Dave Angelmouse. They lived together in a big cage in the living room and many people were extremely put out by their presence. However, within their cage they had clearly designated areas for sleeping, eating and toileting. When the cage was cleaned out it did not matter which way round you put the base they would shift everything so that they always used the same spots for each activity. Compare that to the idiots who throw their rubbish in the street, in their gardens and presumably on the floor at home. They behave worse than animals.

update:I just saw this on BBC iPlayer, Bill Bryson has also got rather annoyed with the litter louts and has made this programme.
It reminds me actually, the other week I had phoned my local council about a load of rubbish that had been dumped in the woods near my house. When some workers turned up to remove the waste they only had grab sticks and a bin liner, and although they were removing some of the smaller items they were completely ignoring the numerous bin liners and carrier bags stuffed full of rubbish that were lying amongst the trees. When I pointed them out and asked why they were not removing these they claimed not to be able to see them! Needless to say I am still fuming about it now, and several weeks later the bags are still there, with some newer ones added for good measure, along with a smashed up television set.

Shoot the Messenger

How hard can it be to deliver the post?
OK, I will say right at the start that I may be wrong about all this, but as far as I can see it being a postie means getting up early, collecting the post and then walking around delivering it. Yes the post bag is probably quite heavy, yes they have to spend hours walking around in all weathers and yes there is the scary-dog issue but it seems that where I live the most difficult part of being a postman is reading the address on the envelope and then putting it through the correct letterbox. Surely that is not hard? Yet this week alone I have had 4 items delivered that were not for my address and it is an all too regular occurrence. Obviously if I receive the wrong post I either push it through the right letterbox or put it back in the post but I do wonder how many of my neighbours do the same and how many chuck the items straight into the bin, after all I know of several items that have been sent to me and have never arrived.
The second really annoying thing my postie did recently was withhold my post! One morning last week he knocked on the back door to tell me he could not deliver my post because of my hedge. What was wrong with my hedge? Er...nothing. But apparently the postman was concerned that if it was raining, the hedge might make him wetter. So for the next few days I got no post. This worried me as I was expecting a few letters, so we trimmed the hedge right back, so the path is wider than ever...and the next day a stack of mail arrived with "could not deliver - leaking gutter" written on them. Now I can tell you right now there is nothing wrong with my gutter, it was replaced less than a year ago and is certainly not leaking. Also, he never complained about the gutter, he just had some weird issue with my privet. So as you can imagine I was rather angry.
And then today, postie knocked on the door, very very loudly, rang the bell a few times but by the time I got downstairs had vanished. Irritated I went back up. When I went out later though, I was surprised to find a package on the doorstep, in plain view! The postman had not pushed a note through to say there was an item and anyone could have taken it. It also made it look as though the house were empty, and it was threatening rain, so if I had not found it then it could easily have either been stolen, or ruined by the rain that came about 10 minutes later.
So all in all I am thoroughly peed off with my postman.

Big Brother (is anyone else freaked out by this?)

I have just read this article and to be completely honest with you, this proposal horrifies me. Basically the government are proposing the use of unmanned spy planes to monitor the UK population. I thought the whole Orwellian nightmare was bad enough with the amount of CCTV cameras operating in this country (it is thought that there is one CCTV camera for every 14 citizens) but if it has reached the point that there will be unseen, unmanned spy planes, potentially monitoring our every move from up to 50,000 feet then I think it is time I considered emigrating.
The argument for the use of the spy planes is to assist the police, coastguards and mountain rescue, monitor disaster sites and to monitor potential terrorist activities. To be honest with you, the thought of the government and police of this country using this kind of surveillance is what I find truly terrifying, and I am sure that I am not alone.
Civil liberties campaigners have voiced concern over the proposals, and I believe they are right to worry. The government and police are now able to access so much of our information: which websites we have visited, the content of our emails and text messages, they can record and store every singe phone call that you make. There is talk of having a DNA database of every person in the country (there are already millions of peoples DNA on the database, including that of innocent people and children) and it is said that on average we are captured on CCTV cameras 300 times a day. Yet despite all of this crime rates are not drastically different, and officials have lost several documents this year (mainly on trains) containing data on hundreds of thousands of people.
I am wondering if someone in a senior position of power in this country has read 1984 by George Orwell and mistakenly thought that it was a manual, rather than a now disturbingly accurate novel. How long will it be before there is a camera in every single house, monitoring us day and night, to protect us from "terrorism"?
I have heard the counter argument from some people that "if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear" but I do not agree with this sentiment. Firstly, if you have nothing to hide then there is no reason to monitor you and so to do so is unnecessary and disturbing. Secondly, it is a viewpoint that maybe acceptable to some - but what about when the rules change? Suddenly there is mountains of evidence against you. Thirdly, this attitude is chillingly similar to that in 1930's Germany. Fourth, I simply do not believe that it is right to carry out this kind of covert surveillance against a whole nation.
What with our constant surveillance, vanishing civil liberties, 28 days hold-without charge (which the government has proposed be extended to 42 days - one of the longest periods for detention without charge in the world), the loss of our rights to protest and our unelected leader this country is becoming disturbingly similar to a dictatorship.
I think I may move abroad - whilst I still have the chance.

my poor brain and the manhole cover of doom

I am so tired today, I can barely spell my own name, so I think this will be a short post - unless I magically wake up later this evening, which does sometimes happen.
I only had about 4 hours sleep last night, partly because we decided to make a roast dinner at 9:30pm, ate at 11:30 and stayed up until 4 this morning, forgetting we had hired a skip for the day which would be delivered at 9 this morning. Also, one of my cats decided to attack the wall at 4:30 this morning, so I went racing downstairs to see what the noise was and found the cat (not the one with the bad teeth) losing a fight against himself. Anyway, I sorted him out (in the dark - no lights remember) and crawled back into bed, and when the alarm went off this morning I could have cried.
The skip was delivered on time and within 2 hours it was full, so I have a clear patio again. Actually, when I say "again" I mean "for the first time since I moved in".
We did however make another slightly disturbing discovery: the manhole cover of doom. The same people that left the roof to rot, filled the cellar with rubbish and tried to build things they could not get out of the cellar had installed a manhole cover that was supported on only two sides, effectively making a hinged trapdoor with a 6 foot drop, excellent for falling into and breaking your neck. Fortunately we had also found a traffic cone amongst the rubbish, so that has been firmly planted over the manhole. I have always wanted a traffic cone and now I have one as a feature in my garden. Excellent. It is just a good job we discovered our booby-trap without anyone getting injured.
What else have I done today? I went to the hospital with my Dad, renewed my library books and sat around for over an hour waiting for a joiner who was supposed to be coming to give me a quote to restore the Edwardian bay window. He did not come however, and phoned me over an hour after he was due to inform me he had "forgotten" the appointment. I was flabbergasted, I mean I could have potentially taken him on to do a job worth a fair bit of money to him and he forgets to arrive? Well, I doubt I will be employing his services. I think he would have been better off coming up with a plausible excuse, as I may have at least re booked the appointment. As it is, there is nothing to suggest he would be a particularly reliable workman so I will look elsewhere. More fool him, eh?
Right, it is nearly half nine, it is my sisters birthday and I have just realised that I have not rung her yet to wish her many happy returns. So, I am off to make a phone call and then find somewhere comfy to curl up and sleep.

House of Horrors

My house is giving me a real headache at the moment.
I moved in last May and I knew when I did so that the house needed a lot of work doing to it (to be fair the only reason that I could afford this house was because it needed the work doing) and I knew that it was not going to be a quick and easy task to get everything how I wanted it. However over a year later and it hardly looks as though anything has been done.
I suppose this is a little unfair because the roof has been completely re-done, including replacing some rotten timbers, adding insulation and having a velux installed. All the windows on the back and sides of the property have been replaced with double glazing and French doors added onto the patio, and a new back door fitted also. Inside though only one room has been decorated so far and although it looks lovely this has turned out to be a mistake.
Last month an electrician came to check out the lights, as they kept shorting and tripping the switch, almost every time they were turned on. As suspected it turns out that there is an electrical fault - unfortunately it is a more serious fault than I would have liked and the whole lighting ring needs rewiring. Which means lots of money and holes gouged out of my walls. It is likely to cost up to £1000 to rectify, money that I do not have at present, so that means I am spending my evenings sat in the dark because it is not safe to turn the lights on.
The second expense is one I have mentioned before: gas prices. Since prices have gone up so much (and don't worry I am in the process of changing suppliers) I am wary of putting the heating on or using much hot water. So when I have cooked my meal in the dark, and eaten by lamplight, I have the joyous task of washing the pots in cold water in the dark. Fun!
Oh, and it all gets worse. You see before I moved in and replaced the roof, the house had sustained quite a lot of water damage in places. Much of this has been rectified by replacing the roof, but some water had spread into the walls, so although upstairs is now OK, there is still a damp problem downstairs. I had someone out to check this last week and it turns out that there is also rising damp on one wall (you can guess which room - the only one that has been decorated!) and a couple of rotting supports and joists in the cellar which need replacing as a matter of some urgency. So that's another £1000 needs spending. It is not an insurmountable problem, once treated the damp will go away and not bother anyone again, but there is one little issue - apparently once the work has been done I cannot redecorate that wall for another year.
Speaking of the cellar, as I am hoping to at least get the work in there done (after all what use is my house if the floor caves in) we decided to clear it out yesterday. Well that was a barrel of laughs. The people who used to live here had an interesting approach to waste disposal, basically shoving anything they did not want into the cellar. And they kindly left all the junk there for when I moved in, which was so thoughtful of them. So the clear out yesterday has yielded some interesting results - mainly lots of partially rotten wood, old bags, rusty tools etc. However there was one genius find - another idiocracy moment. At some point in the past someone has gone into the cellar and decided to make something out of wood. I am not sure what this item was meant to be, it was badly made and half finished. The reason why? well, when the bright spark who was making it tried to get it out of the cellar they will have realised that it was bigger than the trapdoor! We had to smash it apart with a sledgehammer in order to take it out. I reckon it was either supposed to be a table or a cupboard. Anyway it would have been funny except for the fact that it is so bloody annoying!
The last expense that is worrying me is not so much the house but one of my cats. He is a rescue cat and his teeth are awful. Recently they have got much worse so he needs an operation to take some out. So that's another £250.
So that is pretty much where I am at - spending my evenings in a cold, dark and damp house with an old cat with bad breath. Rock and roll.

about our unelected leader

I am not sure where I am today. You see, I was brought up in Great Britain, a magnificent country, one of the worlds great democracy's, where the people had the right to vote and choose who led the country, where Members of Parliament were chosen by constituents to represent each area and town, where people had the right to a voice, where we could protest against things we disagreed with, where each citizen was represented and listened to. Today I am sat in my house feeling an overwhelming sense of frustration about what has happened to the country. As you are probably aware when our elected former PM, Tony Blair stood down Gordon Brown became Prime Minister. With no election, no vote, hell there was not even a contest within the Labour party. It was just a case of Blair out, Brown in. And I know that I am not the only person who is not at all happy with the situation.
Why were the people of this country not given the chance to choose? Why was there no contest within the Labour party? Why is no body listening to the anger of the population and saying "hold on a minute, this is a democratic country, you cannot just stick anyone in charge without asking people first".
So then I thought maybe there will be some kind of protest, and we can exercise our democratic rights to tell our leader that we are not happy. But no, we cannot do that now because the government has kindly taken away our freedom to protest - if you do so now you are anti-government and therefore a potential terrorist so its off for 42 days of detention without charge whilst the powers that be attempt to find something to pin on you so that you can be locked away. ARGH!!
It is bad enough when the government fail to listen to people anyway, but when it is a government that we the people have not even chosen and we do not have any chance to change things then what are we supposed to do?
I was under the impression that the Queen has the power to tell the PM that the people are not happy and give us the chance to have an election, so why is nothing happening?
I know that I am not alone in feeling like this, so why is nothing happening? I get the impression that the Labour party are trying to run this country into the ground so that whoever takes over has a harder job - but this is totally unfair to the British people.
The situation is beyond a joke and the worst of it is that even if we do get an election, what are our alternatives?
The Labour party, who have gone against everything a left-of-centre party are supposed to stand for and are basically the Tories under another name. They have eroded our civil liberties, taken away our rights and freedoms and are taking as much money as possible even as the average person is struggling financially (for instance MPs recently voted to keep their 20k/year expenses package to run their second homes - shouldn't we the people have been the ones to vote whether our tax money should be used in this way?)
The Conservatives, who do not share my views and are led by a man who comes across as untrustworthy in my opinion, a party who caused untold misery during their last stint in power and laid the foundations for many of todays problems.
And then there are the Liberal Democrats....where did they go? what are they doing? I have no idea what they are up to these days as they seem to have taken a backseat when they should be up there being vocal, telling us how they plan to change things when they have the best chance in years of at least becoming the opposition party. Instead they seem to have just vanished.
So I, like many others, am wondering what has become of the country of which I was once so proud. No use being proud nowadays though - even if I was I wouldn't be allowed to fly a flag for fear of being branded racist.
It would seem that Great Britain is not that great anymore.

The Yeti in my Bedroom

Oh why do women have to have body hair? I am having one of those days when I wish that we were just naturally bald. Surely I cannot be the only woman who stands in front of the mirror some mornings, wondering whether I should contact scientists in order to establish whether or not I am the missing link? Honestly, I looked in the mirror this morning and a yeti gazed back at me, so it was time to get on the phone and book a leg wax and a haircut. And so started that arduous and rather painful routine that so many of us endure. First off, a tidy up of the eyebrows, because once I have noticed my eyebrows I start to worry that I look a little too much like Alistair Darling. Although tidying them up should be a relatively quick and easy job, once I have started I start to worry that I am leaving myself with uneven brows, so I spend far too long deliberating in front of the mirror trying to match them up perfectly. This never quite works however as my left eyebrow is naturally superior to my right eyebrow as it has a much better shape (I am guessing that no one else in the whole world has ever looked at my eyebrows and thought to them self "crikey, that right eyebrow is nowhere near as nice as the left, poor lass", but hey)
Once I am satisfied with my eyebrows its into the shower with a razor and the arms and armpits get a good seeing to. Actually to be more honest what actually happens is I get into the shower, get all soaped up, grope around for the razor, which I then realize I left on the side next to the sink and then have to gingerly step out of the shower and across the tiled floor trying not to fall over and wishing I had rinsed the soap off my feet first.
So, showered and clean I get dressed and pop off to the salon where for some bizarre reason I pay someone else to cover me in wax and then rip all the hairs out. I have discovered however that it is definitely better to pay someone else because whenever I attempt a home wax I slather the wax on my leg, chicken out of yanking it off for too long causing the wax to set and leaving me to painfully pick off the wax from my still hairy skin - a process which is far worse then just waxing in the first place. At the salon I spend the next hour contorting myself into all kinds of positions in order to achieve my aim of having smooth hairless legs. Then of course comes the bikini area, which involves more contortions, lots of under the breath swearing and an infinitely more embarrassing version of "are both sides even".
Once thats all (thankfully) over and done with its back on the bus, this time to the hairdressers, where I tend to sit somewhat gormlessly in front of the mirror, whilst glamorous people do fancy things with their lovely hair. When asked what I would like doing with my hair I inevitably find myself running my hands through it, pulling a face and asking hopefully "make it cool?" (to give her credit though my stylist usually manages)
And finally, several hours after seeing the yeti in my bedroom mirror I find myself back at home, de-fuzzed and skint hoping that the weather will be nice tomorrow so that I can wear a skirt.
Scrap that, it could be -5 and blowing a gale force wind, I am going to wear a skirt tomorrow - all that pain is not going to waste!