the provocative cynic

2009-02-22T02:22:00.002Z

Great new Facebook group called "Noisy neighbours should be used as targets in shit throwing contests"

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5831714898

Here's a Facebook group - memorably called "Noisy neighbours should be used as targets in shit throwing contests' - which deals with the whole hideous idiot neighbours thing. Let's all join and get some pressure building on the powers-that-be!

2009-02-12T00:25:00.005Z

Catching Up

Well, yet again it's been a while. My excuse is that I've been back in the workplace - for far more hours a week than counts as any kind of work/life balance. I know this is not the time to complain about having a job, but really - my job stinks - despite supposedly being in a glamorous media environment. It's just like The Devil Wears Prada but without any shoes to compensate. (And it would take one hell of a lot of shoes anyway.) So I'm working on reclaiming my life and returning to doing something more creative, which will hopefully allow more time to blog, as I'm still not short on opinions.

In the meantime, I've just heard (on Channel 4 News) the most sensible question I've heard in a long time, from a member of the US Congress Financial Institutions Committee. He asked a group of (allegedly) top US bankers to explain the culture of bonuses, by enquiring as to exactly what parts of their jobs they would not do if they weren't given bonuses? His point was that most of us in the real world do what we're paid to do and perceive that as the whole point of having a job. Once the job description and the salary are agreed - we do one in return for the other. But not bankers, it seems.

Just how did we get to a point where bankers have to be given bonuses for doing what they are employed and already paid to do? And then when they totally f*ck it up, why do we the taxpayers then fund their bonuses which seem to be payable to reward even spectacular failure? Yes, yes, I know we had no choice - but surely to God it can't be beyond the abilities of either our government or the US Senate and Congress to get some restitution for the taxpayer for the added insult of these bonuses having been paid. The argument that bankers need to be offered "competitive" salary and bonus packages to stop them going elsewhere would be laughable if not so serious. Let 'em go!!!!! I can't see anyone queuing up to employ them anyway.... and it would behove the Government to take the mood of the country seriously on this one - especially when considering the relative proximity of the next election.

Back soon....

2008-09-10T04:20:00.001+01:00

Ha! The Bitch is Finally Back!

I've worked out how to access my blog again - or rather, I worked out (admittedly somewhat slowly) how to request a password reminder. So the Provocative Cynic is back - and with a vengeance, due to all the vitriol I have built up over the years since I last posted......but, as it's taken me 'til 4am to get this far, the first 'new' post will have to wait for another time.

2007-05-16T15:40:00.000+01:00

This blog quoted on Channel 4's Newsroom website

Forgot to say that this had happened - and thanks to Pupski, who spotted it and let me know. At least it means that we're not all blogging into a complete void.

Go to: http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/world/surgery%20for%20obese%20kids/173190 or http://www.channel4.com/blogs/page/newsroom?entry=stomach_stapling_for_kids

2007-04-09T02:58:00.000+01:00

OFFICIAL -BMI UNRELIABLE, NEW BVI WILL TELL THE TRUTH

At last, some common sense may be about to prevail in the overheated and often hysterical so-called 'Size Zero Debate' of which I have been such an outspoken critic in this blog.

It turns out that the BMI (on the basis of which Ken Livingstone and others considered banning thin models from London Fashion Week) is inaccurate and may not mean that someone with a supposedly 'underweight' BMI of below 18 is unhealthy. Well - tell me something I don't know!

An article in today's 'Independent on Sunday' (8 April 2007 Home News http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article2432469.ece) refers to a new measuring system, the BVI, which is a more accurate test of someone's weight as a guide to health. I'll try not to go on (although I am crowing in triumph) but just give you two of the examples quoted in the article:

Maria Sharapova, tennis player. Supposedly underweight with a BMI of 17.6 and therefore both unhealthy and verging on the anorexic by standard criteria - obviously nonsense as tennis is a rather demanding sport, but then when has common sense entered this debate up until now? Under the new, more accurate BVI measuring system, she is perfectly healthy - which should have been obvious from both her appearance and occupation.
Jonny Wilkinson, rugby player. With a BMI of 26.7, he was 'overweght and verging on obese' - a bit of a joke if you've ever seen him. The BVI test would again show that he is perfectly healthy and has no need whatsoever to cut down on his eating.

So let's hope this message gets through to the various idiotic fuckwits who have jumped on this bandwagon. May it also put an end to the media barrage of anti-size zero publicity that has been equating size zero with being anorexic.

The new BVI will apparently show, quite clearly, when someone actually is anorexic. Of course, it would be too much to expect the various special interest and lobby groups with their funding and jobs dependent on scaremongering to be gracious about this. The old Eating Disorders Association (now re-named Beat for some reason that entirely escapes me) were ' cautious about whether people could be helped by the results of a [BVI] scan. "People with eating disorders can know they are severely underweight but are less frightened of death than by the idea of having lunch", said Susan Ringwood, the chief executive of BEAT.'

Then, in classic illogical fashion, and despite the EDA's protracted assault on size zero women as being somehow responsible for causing eating disorders, Ringwood actually confirms what I have been arguing all along: 'The mind is so distorted in these cases so that one cannot apply logic'.

Seems that this lack of logic also applies to those organisations and individuals representing those with eating disorders for whom slim women have, up til now, been the easy target to blame in our nationwide victim culture. Please God, the media and the do-gooders will now realise that anorexia is entirely different to slimness and get off size zero's backs.

2007-03-27T02:34:00.000+01:00

Richard Alston Dance Company.

2007-03-12T02:37:00.000Z

No time for anything tonight except to steal someone else's view of the male of the species.......

2007-02-12T16:25:00.000Z

New Bloody Blogger

Spent hours transferring my account to the new super-dooper Blogger. Now can't seem to leave comments on previous posts, have spent hours simply struggling to log in and my blood pressure is going through the roof.

If you don't get a reply to a comment, apologies - it's not for want of trying, or swearing, or kicking inanimate objects. Why is 'New and improved' always a lie?

2007-01-27T03:04:00.000Z

So, common sense has prevailed - for now.

The proposed ban on size zero models has been dropped in favour of a 'voluntary code'. Reading between the lines of Caroline Flint's comment, she wasn't convinced it was a good idea either - probably because she is saddled with the job of addressing the nation's inactivity and obesity. It wouldn't have lasted long anyway - being completely in breach of all the UK's discrimination at work legislation.

Was amusing last night watching the panellists on Question Time trying to justify why any anti-discrimination law should allow for exemptions - presumably because that is a completely indefensible position. They were discussing the issue of adoption by same-sex couples, but the wider issues were similar. I was shouting at the TV trying to make the idiots hear (amidst all their politically-correct posturing and obvious prejudice) that ALL gay people had straight parents - so presumably a child brought up by gay parents could be more likely to grow up straight, on that reasoning!

I have been working on my Visual Project on the anti-thin agenda all day. Have started to get some interesting responses to questionnaires. In every case so far, the language used about people between size 4 (UK) and 8 (UK) has been unapologetically negative and to the point. Any negative comments about heavier people (and only above size 20 (UK) ) were all bound about with apologies and qualifications - the respondents terrified of causing offence. All admitted freely that they thought they had to be more careful about describing fat people than thin - and then added that they had been surprised to realise that this was hypocritical.

I've been trying to establish some statistics to defend my position in the forthcoming group tutorial next week. It's been surprisingly difficult as deaths where obesity is a contributory factor don't seem to be being logged on death certificates at present in England. The only (presumably accurate) figures I could get on relative mortality rates was from an answer given by the MSP responsible for health at the Scottish Parliament and therefore only apply to Scotland. However, they are very revealing - especially in the light of the recent attempts to ban thin models from working on the basis that they damage others' health. In the years for which figures were available, the maximum number of deaths per year from anorexia in Scotland were.........................................................................................................................................................
wait for it................................................................................................................................................
5. FIVE.

The number of deaths from obesity per year in Scotland during the same period were..........................................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................................................
14,000. FOURTEEN THOUSAND.

That means that, for every 1 death from anorexia in Scotland during those years, there were 2,800 deaths from obesity. And thin models need to be banned?

I rest my case, your honour.

2006-12-16T17:27:00.000Z

Why does this blog make me sound like such a sanctimonious git?

Time to reappraise.

2006-12-12T15:49:00.000Z

Been watching the news about the three women murdered in Ipswich during the last fortnight and the two further missing women, when it occurred to me - what is it with journalists' use of adjectives in headlines?

'The three murdered prostitutes' they screech. Do they ever say, 'The three murdered plumbers'? No, they bloody well don't. Are prostitutes somehow so much less human than the rest of us that they have to be defined, even in death, by their profession?

Which leads me to the other over-used adjective - 'black', as in 'the murdered black teenager' etc etc. This drives me nuts. The death of a teenager is always a tragedy, irrespective of colour and can it really be the journalists' intention always to imply that any murder of a black person must, by definition, be racist? I don't know the figures for murders of black people but am guessing that they probably mirror those for whites and other races, i.e. that the vast majority of murders are carried out by perpetrators known to the victim.

This is all so irritating and cynical. Journalists, of all people, must know the power of words and that the choice of one particular word over another is far more meaningful than it would appear at first glance. Let's hear simple headlines, for Gods' sake, especially on the BBC that we all pay for.

2006-12-12T03:14:00.000Z

From the sublime to the ridiculous.

I have been suffering from a short attention span this last few days but did note a very odd juxtaposition of programmes on Channel 4 tonight. The first was on anorexia - interesting and shocking, not least because many of the young people needing treatment actually weighed more than I do - but who obviously had huge problems around food.

This was followed by another fascinating view of the programme whose name temporarily escapes me, but it's something like 'Walk off that fat' where a fantastic array of characters, all clinically and mostly morbidly obese, attempt to walk 500 miles across Britain in an attempt to change their lives. They were wonderfully varied - some were full of self-pity and endless excuses whilst others were simply stars, most notably a young Londoner, who took no prisoners in placing the blame squarely on his and his associates' own shoulders. He was all the more admirable for that, and for the humour and determination with which he tackled this daunting task - and achieved it ultimately, with a corresponding rise in his self-esteem and confidence.

They were a motley bunch - one woman suffered from cellulitis, without a word of complaint, and was distraught to be told that she could not continue as she had been determined to use the opportunity to turn her life around; another didn't stop whingeing from the moment she arrived and tried every trick in the book to get out of it. Her boyfriend, who obviously loved her and wanted a different life for her, wasn't having any of it and persisted in encouraging her to stay but then, bad news - Daddy arived at one of the rest stops - bearing cake, the stupid man - and an unlimited supply of sympathy and ready-made excuses as to why his daughter couldn't manage this walk, unlike the others taking part. So, of course, with Daddy's pathetic and misplaced sympathy and encouragement, she gave up. Bet her boyfriend was furious. I found myself asking what needs of Daddy's were being served by having a 30-year-old daughter who was so dependent and lacking in self-esteem, and the answers I came up with were not complimentary.

Meanwhile, it blew my mind when one of the women pointed out that each of her legs must weigh 8 stone!!!!!!!!!!!! That's more than I weigh, in total. Another of the guys (my favourite - the determined one) said that his excess weight was the equivalent of carrying around a sofa everywhere he went. Those poor people must be so exhausted all the time.

Still, the programme did confirm all my previously-held views that those worthy of respect are those who face up to their own part in something and do what they can to face it, not those who make the most excuses and never take responsibility for themselves.

On another note, why don't young people know how to party any more? But that's for my next post.

2006-11-20T23:11:00.000Z

So, NICE approves stomach stapling for obese teenagers.

More of the insanity. On the same news bulletin, a feature on the shortages of mental health facilities for teenagers, with the example of a 17 year old anorexic placed on an adult ward in a psychiatric hospital, causing her considerable fear and anxiety.

So, let me get this straight. Anorexia is now being treated as a life-threatening psychiatric condition. Obesity is being treated as a life-threatening medical condition, requiring surgery and not pschiatric intervention. Conclusion - it is sane to eat yourself to death, but lacking in sanity to starve oneself.

NICE - who have refused to approve treatments for both Alzheimers and MS, approve stomach stapling for obese teenagers in a world where there are demands to ban thin role models. Can I really be the only person who thinks that this is utterly demented, not to mention a disgrace?

The reason that anorexics are being referred for psychiatric treatment is because this is a complicated illness, raising many issues including those of perfectionism, pressure, control and anxiety. There are comparatively few anorexics when compared to the vast and ever-growing numbers of the obese, thus the expense of sending anorexics for psychiatric treatment can presumably be borne by society. However, those at the other end of the spectrum - for this is surely what obesity is - are now to be funnelled down the surgical route,(which is cheap in comparison to therapy), with no treatment whatsoever for the emotional and psychiatric issues that led them to eat themselves almost to death.

The justification given by NICE was that this was to be used when all else fails. Well, forgive me for being too stupid to comprehend how someone who cannot discipline themselves to reduce their food intake for the comparatively short length of time necessary to get their weight under control can possibly see it as preferable to eat a virtually liquid and abnormally-tiny diet for the rest of their lives as a result of their stomach being stapled. Could it be that the 'experts' simply cannot spare the time to look at the deeper issues underlying obesity but, faced with a government panicking about the lardiness of the nation and its economic consequences, have just jumped for the cheapest quick fix? Or is is that parents of obese children cannot face their part in this rapidly-growing national scandal? I despair of the number of times I see TV documentaries on family life where there is an entire cupboard dedicated to sweets, chocolate and crisps, (to which the children have access) coupled with a large TV in every room and a Playstation - but no bikes or sports equipment.

I suspect that obesity (like anorexia) involves not only issues of self-esteem but also of self-discipline, control and power, not to mention love and/or the lack of it, aside from the obvious issues around living habits derived from parental behaviour and values. There is also a less well-known link between illness and attention-seeking, in that many people who are chronically-ill do find it a struggle to recover (when it is possible to do so) because often their illness has brought them the support and attention that they previously lacked. Maybe if some support, love and attention could be brought to the lives of these teenagers before they head out on the path of self-destruction, whether by self-starvation or by eating themselves to death, it might cease to matter what the shape of people in the public eye is perceived to be..........but that would, of course, involve all of us in taking responsibility, not just for our own lives but also those of our kids, which would demolish the highly-developed victim culture we now have in this country. No, no doubt we'll just send these fat kids off for major surgery and continue to blame thin celebrities for all the pressures that teenagers face and their sense of utter powerlessness in the society we have created.

2006-10-17T19:38:00.000+01:00

Well - I'm back on my hobby horse. One of the Sunday broadsheets published an article this weekend on thin models being banned from London Fashion Week as they are apparently such bad role models. In the same section, there was another lengthy article on obesity and the government's and Jamie Oliver's efforts to combat it. (There was also an obesity map showing that East Anglia holds 4 of the top 5 of obese towns in the UK).

Am I missing something here? Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London, is apparently opposed to these thin models and designers who use them are being told that some £62,000 of funding for our fashion industry will be with-held if the thin models aren't withdrawn from the shows. The Eating Disorders Association (for whom I have, up til now, had some respect) argue that thin models are apparently powerful and bad role models, and lead many women to hate their own bodies.

Hmmm. I wonder. Is obesity not an eating disorder? I don't see the EDA or anyone else arguing that fat role models should be withdrawn from public view - despite the fact that they are presumably much more effective (bad) role models as this country is in the grip of an obesity epidemic. In fact, it's probably not even PC to use the word fat, although all the negative terms for thin are trotted out yet again. Certainly it doesn't seem that thin people are very effective as role models as the majority of our population are overweight - maybe we need more thin people in the public eye, not less? And do commentators ever consider that the reason many overweight people hate their bodies is probably because they can see the rolls of fat in the mirror and don't find it vastly attractive - not to mention it not exactly being conducive to health.

I think it's about time the worm turned and thin people started speaking out about the fact that they are generally healthier and cost the NHS less money than those who are overweight. Of course, this will mean overturning the well-established convention that we don't use the word 'fat' but tough. I don't notice the (admittedly ghastly) Gillian McKeith being shy of using it when transforming people's lives and health. How dare an elected official (as in the London Mayor) decide that public money cannot be used if thin people are going to be employed as a result of it? Why don't the EDA acknowledge that anorexia and other related disorders are, as I understand it, extremely complex psychological conditions not unrelated to issues of control, rather than jumping on this facile and misleading anti-thin bandwagon? I have a teenage daughter and, irresponsible or not, I'd rather she looked like Lily Cole than Dawn French as I think it would be less likly to damage her health or her self-esteem. I think we are in danger of allowing an obese nation's jealousy of those who are not overweight to dictate employment and funding issues and it needs to stop.

I confess to being a natural size 4-6/US size 0 myself in the interests of balance. I have never suffered from an eating disorder, have never been on a diet, but have always exercised and eaten healthily. I don't own a pair of scales and I don't judge others on their weight, unless they invite me to do so by being rude about mine.

I do, however, judge all the deluded individuals and organisations that can make such ludicrous statements at a time when the political agenda is full of concern about how the economy and the NHS will survive unless something is done about obesity, government ministers included. Mind you, after years spent working for MPs, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised when they get themselves into difficulties by trying to take utterly contradictory positions on topical issues. Bear in mind, oh reader, that Members of Parliament may well run for Parliament in order to try to improve things for the public but they depend on the electorate to put them in a position to do so. Whilst protecting the nation's health and wealth by doing something about obesity is obviously morally the right decision, when the vast majority of your electorate are obese, what's a poor MP to do?

That's it for now - until the next idiotic anti-thin comment. This was supposed to be a blog mainly for the purposes of improving my writing, but it's not happening so far. Must try harder - and have less opinions. My excuse it that I'm still programmed to read all the papers and react to all political commentary.

2006-06-08T02:57:00.000+01:00

Further to my last rant, I have been mulling over an unbelievable comment by Rosie Millard of the Sunday Times back in April, attached here.

Mummy, can I go on a diet?
ROSIE MILLARD

Nobody wants young people to become obese but paradoxically the looming epidemic of dangerously fat children across the West is due in no small measure to western worship of the stick-thin, lollipop-headed clotheshorse. An entire nation focused on Being Thin has turned our relationship with food from a pleasurable, civilised experience into a wholly unnatural affair involving processed meals, obsessive calorie counting, meal replacement drinks, bingeing, fasting and so on; all of which, more often than not, help to pile on the pounds.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8122-2124939,00.html

So now we thin people are not only responsible for supposedly encouraging millions of young people to become anorexic, but we're also responsible for encouraging millions of others to overeat. My God - is the world going mad? I eat what I need and no more. I have never forced food down anyone's neck, nor have I ever refused anyone I know food when they are hungry. Furthermore, I have never touted my own body shape as better than any other. However, I do take responsibility for what I, and my children, put in their mouths. Maybe it's about time others did the same - and also considered that if you don't eat more than you burn off by exercise, you don't generally get fat. I am sick to death of the growing victim culture in this country and political correctness gone mad.

More on victim culture later as I don'thave time for everything I have to say on this subject here. Despite having been in an occupation where political correctness would seem to be a requirement, I think it's about time we started saying the unsayable and returning to a situation where our first step should be to consider our own responsibilities. Now I'm sounding like my grandmother - but hey, maybe she had a point.

2006-02-27T23:50:00.000Z

Now I've started, I can't stop.

Here's another thought for the day - since when did it become politically-incorrect to be thin? Like my contemporaries, I read 'Fat is a feminist issue' and sympathised with the sentiments expressed; I fully-supported the struggle of overweight people to receive the same respect as everyone else.

However, in the last few years there has been a subtle, but definite shift. Whilst it has now rightly become unacceptable to use derogatory comments about anyone carrying excess poundage, the same cannot be said for those of us who are thin. Newspapers and magazines, and even the broadcast media, appear unable to use the word 'thin' without prefacing it with derogatory terms such as 'stick' or 'skeletally'.

As I understand it, obesity poses a greater threat to health than does anorexia, so whilst I have supported attempts to make magazine editors more responsible in their choice of role models for young people, can it really be sensible to make thin people the new bogeymen and women?

As a non-dieting size 6 myself, I am sick and tired of trying to find clothes small enough to fit me outside of the children's department. When I do succeed (rarely and usually only in Topshop) there are hardly any items in that size, but lots and lots of size 16s - and I have to pay the same amount for my small scrap of fabric as someone twice my size. How can this be an incentive to people to avoid obesity? Get thin and never be able to find that dress you love in your size - yeah, great. No thanks.

For goodness' sake, let's not allow political correctness to send us mad. Thin people are generally healthier than obese people. There are fat people and there are thin. All of us are entitled to the same respect we would like for ourselves - so please tell me why, when I would not dream of commenting on a person's excess weight, even strangers feel free to make remarks to me along the lines of 'My God, you're so thin. You don't eat enough' or calling me 'stick-thin' etcetera. Yes, fat people have feelings. Newsflash - so do thin ones!