Wedding belles and feminist hell

I don’t know whether I have shared this piece of lovely but ultimately useless information with you yet but I’m getting married next year.  Don’t worry; I’m not about to morph into one of those dickheads who constantly rambles on about wedding dresses, seating plans and table tat.  I wouldn’t be mentioning it now if it didn’t provide me with a context for my latest rant.

So, today my partner and I went to a wedding fair.  I had visions of it being full of over-enthusiastic business proprietors trying to flog their wares, most of which are very pretty but largely inconsequential, to a load of overenthusiastic wannabe princesses and their pushy mothers.  I wasn’t far wrong.

On arrival, we were greeted by the sight of a Bentley and some other classic vehicle, which were suitably blinged up for the occasion and flower arrangements that would have made Chelsea Flower Show look woefully amateurish.  There were also the cursory bewildered looking fathers and boyfriends who had presumably been dragged there against their will (I felt their pain).  All this was set to a soundtrack of wedding ballads being played by what were, admittedly, two very talented violinists.  Thus, I was choking back my disdain before even entering the building.  Things didn’t improve any when we actually entered: we were greeted by a very jaded looking woman who didn’t seem all that interested either in us or in the event itself (though, to be fair, by this point she had probably overheard more than enough ridiculous conversations to last her her entire lifetime), who duly handed us a prize draw form.  My main issue with this was that it asked for the names of the bride and her partner, which is both heteronormative and very presumptuous.  For the benefit of any non-British readers: civil partnerships are now a relatively common occurrence in the UK, which means that the people getting “married” could be of the same or opposite gender and yet this form appeared to make the assumption that the couple in question would either be lesbian or heterosexual without stopping to consider the possibility that two men might be getting married.  EPIC FAIL.

The rest of the event went pretty much as I anticipated.  There were plenty of businesses present, all touting their services.  There were the novelty juke box people; the wedding dress people and the photographers.  However, my all time favourite had to be the cake people.  Not people who were made of cake, you understand.  Although this would have made the day that little bit more bearable and even mildly entertaining.  No, these were local bakeries who had cakes that were so big that they could have made rather spacious dwellings.  Thinking about it, this could be the answer to Britain’s housing crisis: instead of buying the couple gifts the guests could all contribute towards a colossal wedding cake which the couple could then live in.  It might suffer from the odd problem with mould but it would probably last a lot longer than many of the new builds you see being thrown up all over the place these days and you probably wouldn’t need planning permission!  OK, so it’s technically a stupid idea but it’s no more stupid than spending a stupid amount on ONE DAY.  Seriously, why on Earth would you need stupid table decorations?  Do you seriously think people will question the validity of your marriage if you don’t have them?  In one hundred years time when some random descendent is looking back through their family history, do you actually think that your lack of centrepieces is going to be apparent?  Probably not.  All these thoughts were whirling through my little head as I wondered round the place, dutifully avoiding the hungry eyes of the predatory sales people.

Then there was the fact that they targeted me rather than my partner.  Even when my partner instigated conversations with company reps, they aimed their responses at me.  Like I am going to know or even care about how many people to cater for.  If I had my way, they would all be paying for their own lunches or at least being fed gruel (I desperately wanted a Charles Dickens themed wedding but, alas, my partner refused on the grounds that it was a stupid idea).  Besides, I felt a little uneasy discussing the merits of cheesy filo pastry thinglets whilst I know that at that present moment, there would be some poor Ethiopian child dying of hunger or some Bradfordian pensioner dying of the cold.  In light of such suffering, deciding which overpriced decorative horrors to inflict upon wedding guests seemed to be a pretty pointless exercise.  I was on the brink of asking whether we could forfeit the buffet and send the cash to Oxfam or something but I’m pretty sure this would have gone down as well as a turd in a vindaloo. All these thoughts were occurring to me as the catering rep was talking at me about the various options available.  I wasn’t entirely sure why you would focus all of your attention and information on somebody who was blatantly not paying any attention to what was going on.   I’m sure there is a reason for this that does not involve me being a woman who has dreamed about her perfect day since girlhood but I just can’t think of what this would be.

Needless to say, we didn’t stay too long.  My exasperated partner had to give in gracefully and concede that I probably wasn’t going to stop being facetious after I snubbed a poor lady who was trying to sell cake lollies to me.   I think it is fair to say that I will not be accompanying him on his next wedding related excursion.

GTA 5

Sorry I haven’t been around much (ok at all): I’ve been busy with stuff.  I appreciate that this is rather evasive as excuses go and that may seem unsatisfactory but that’s the only excuse you’re getting.  Anyway, I’m back....

Sooo not much of note has happened, apart from the usual recession related crap and I’m presuming that you really don’t want to read about that.  Or maybe you do.  Either way, I don’t want to write about it so you will have to go elsewhere for your fix of doom.

Of course, two weeks ago they released Grand Theft Auto, much to the delight of nerds everywhere.  To be honest, I haven’t played the game so I’m not entirely sure what the point in it actually is.  From what I understand, it revolves around shooting at people whilst driving badly: something that nerds everywhere probably wish they could do and get away with.  Ah if only.

I’ve heard many complaints about the game, mostly from abandoned partners of GTA obsessed nerds.  I am one such partner as mine is, right at this moment in time, barricaded in the study playing the game whilst I am typing up this blog post and listening to Alice Cooper.  Rock and roll.  Anyway, I seem to be in the minority of partners who is actually relishing the freedom that this game has bestowed upon me.  Below is a list of freedoms that have come about as a result of the boyfriend’s newfound obsession:

1.       Eating on the sofa.  My boyfriend normally hates this so I try not to do it when he is around or conscious enough to notice what I’m doing.  However, not only has he barely left the study in the past two weeks; when he has left he is so focused on his game that he’s not really paying attention to what I’m doing.  Therefore, I can actually eat my meals on the sofa without him noticing.

2.       Watching bad TV.  In an attempt not to appear too inane, I tend not to watch anything that has been broadcast by channel four or five in the presence of my boyfriend.  This means that I usually have to wait until he is out before I dare tuck into any guilty pleasures and even then I am always a little worried that he might reappear before my programme has finished.  However, now he is distracted by GTA I can watch such gems as “My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding” and “The Undatables” until my heart’s content.

3.       I can leave my stuff lying around the house knowing that he will have neither the time nor the concentration to tidy it away.

4.       He’s not around to nick my chocolate, Doritos and other confectionary.

5.       I can write facetious blog posts safe in the knowledge that he is far too busy to read them.

6.       Endless happiness.  My boyfriend is currently experiencing unprecedented levels of euphoria and I HAVEN’T HAD TO MAKE ANY EFFORT.  I’ve not had to go out of my way to be nice, buy gifts or massage his ego.  He is just happy.  And I haven’t had to do anything apart from leave him in front of a games console to stare at a screen and moan in pleasure every few seconds.  This appeals to my emotionally lazy side.

I’m sure there are more benefits to this new addition to this household but I’m far too lazy to try and think of them just now.  Back to “Don’t Tell The Bride” or whatever drivel channel 4 are currently broadcasting.

Bridget Jones Tax

Just when you thought that this country could not get any more hateful towards singletons, the Labour Party comes out and suggests that they should be paying more council tax.  Just in case you don’t already know, single occupants currently enjoy a 25% discount on their council tax, which may sound like a lot (especially given the fact that local councils are feeling the pinch due to cuts that have been imposed by Westminster).  However, you need to remember that single people won’t produce as much waste as couples or families.  They probably won’t use schools (well, unless they are a single parent family) and, above all else, they get sidelined by policy makers and think tanks alike.

Despite the fact that single occupant households now make up 29% of total households in the UK, singletons are repeatedly ignored when it comes to designing services or offering financial help, with the majority of financial help being offered to families and pensioners.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating leaving children to starve or pensioners to die of hypothermia.  I’m not totally heartless.  However, I do feel that more could be done to help those who are trying to survive on one (often moderate) income. 

I’m not entirely sure why this inequality exists.  I certainly think that as a county we are so family centric that we fail to understand that there are those who live alone, be it through choice or through circumstance.  We are socially conditioned to believe that in order for an individual to function socially, they must be part of a family.  Preferably that family will be a loving, nurturing one in which every individual is loved and supported and whilst society acknowledges that this model does not always work out at times, we still champion the family as the basis of a functional society.  After all, a society is made up of individuals and so healthy individuals make a healthy society.  Thus, it seems to be a commonly held belief that even the most dysfunctional family is better than no family at all.   That a person who lives alone is in some way sad and deficient.  It is also a challenge to what society deems as being normal. 

Or perhaps it is purely because nobody stays single forever, right?  After all, everyone so wants to meet the perfect partner, get married/ have a civil partnership, buy a house in the suburbs with a double garage and neatly manicured lawn, have or adopt lots of kids and continue their onward march towards middle-age and an ever expanding waste line.  When you think about it like that, who the hell would ever choose to remain single?  No, singleness is a stop-gap.  A transition period between the not so perfect partner and the partner to whom you will eventually surrender your sense of self and independence.  You don’t actually think anyone believes it when you say that you really enjoy your own company and could never imagine having to share your space with another person, do you?  Thus, if singleness is “just a phase” and one that most of us, at some stage or other, are to grow out of, then why should the government and the rest of society make exceptions and provisions for it?

Maybe because we live in a country that claims to respect individual life choices and because we need to stop being so darnright patronising.  Just because somebody does not want to waste their Sundays in B&Q or running around after smaller versions of themselves; it does not make them non existent.  It also doesn’t mean that they don’t need help.  Things like fuel bills, rent/mortgage payments and insurance all have to be paid.  Many of these costs are ever increasing and would cost as much for one person as they would for three.  OK, so maybe if you’re on your own then you could get away with smaller house, which would cost you less in terms of rent/ mortgage payments but still....

Then there’s the fact that married couples get tax breaks.  Why?  Apart from conforming to the whims of society, I really don’t see why a piece of paper should automatically mean that you qualify for tax breaks, especially if you have two incomes.  It’s simple really, the more your household earns, the greater your tax bill should be.  No ifs.  No buts.  Relationship status should not come into it.  Single people who live alone and earn less than married or cohabiting couples should not have to surrender their council tax discount.  Likewise, married couples should not get preferential treatment.

RIP equality

So last week we waved goodbye to Margaret Thatcher and some people were, predictably, more thrilled at the occurrence than others.  Reactions to her passing seemed to vary; some were literally dancing in the street, others were openly venerating her and talking about what a fantastic person she was, whilst others just couldn’t give a shit.

I have to admit that I did actually watch bits of the funeral.  Whilst I cannot claim to be her biggest fan (OK, I thought that in many ways she was an absolute disaster for this country and for the working classes in particular), I found it interesting from a modern history point of view.  I also like to see where my taxes are going and since I was generous enough to contribute to the funeral fund I thought I should at least show some interest.  By contribute I mean that part of my taxes had been creamed off in order to pay for the anger inspiring vomit fest.  I’m still not entirely sure why I was forced to contribute towards the funeral of somebody I didn’t even know or like.  If you ask me (and nobody did), it should have been something that was conducted in private for her family, friends and colleagues rather than as a grand media circus.

I haven’t actually been to or witnessed that many funerals but I couldn’t help but note the contrast.  The limited number I have attended have been simple affairs in a church or a crematorium with very little fuss.  I know that this is probably going to be the same for my own goodbye.  I certainly won’t be hauled onto a gun carriage and paraded through the streets of London accompanied by police and members of the armed forces.  David Dimbleby won’t be narrating my coffin’s progress or interviewing my friends and colleagues about what a wonderful person I was.  I won’t have flags flown at half mast or an adoring public clapping as I make my final journey.  In short, nobody will give a shit because not being pretty, rich, powerful or famous, I am just not that important.  I am just a number and when I finally do give up the ghost not that much will change as a result. 

We tell children that everyone is important but the older I get the more I realise that this clearly is not so.  We have had governments that will happily surrender tax payers’ money to fund lavish royal weddings and lavish funerals for royals and ex prime ministers, whilst allowing ordinary people to die of cold and lack of food.  All around us, the poor and disabled are dying because of cuts to benefit and the disgusting prices being charged by greedy utility companies.  Yet, very few people are out on the streets bewailing their deaths.  The BBC are not reporting on their suffering with the same vigour as they did the royal wedding or the death of the queen mother.  One would almost think that, unlike the parasitic royals and evil politicians, these people do not matter.  

When I’m Big I Want to be a Pwincess

I think I may be having a mid-youth crisis.  Having suddenly realised that I am inching ever closer to 30, I have suddenly found myself in a desperate bid to reclaim my idyllic childhood by gobbling through endless plates of jelly, flicking through photos of family fun days out (what was I wearing) and stocking up on Disney films.  I realise that as a feminist, this poses a problem.  Behind all the sparkle, magic and catchy tunes lurks a negative message and that is that girls and women need men.  We need them to help us to escape from whatever hardship life has thrown at us and to elevate us to a position where we will never have to worry about evil stepmothers, poverty or wicked witches ever again.  All we have to be is beautiful, feminine and charming.  Things that the “average” girl or woman doesn’t believe that she is or can ever be, which leads to low self esteem. 

Sooo...this leads to a conundrum, particularly for a feminist.  On the one hand, these films are well put together, beautifully crafted masterpieces that offer some escapism in dreary times.  Yet, on the other, they peddle a belief that a girl’s sole ambition should be to marry a prince and become a princess.  Not exactly a teaching that is in line with feminist thinking, which centres around a woman being independent, self sufficient and appreciated for her capabilities and achievements rather than her physical beauty.  After all, most girls and women are not Disney princess material so what do they do?  Oh that’s easy.  We go to university, study hard and get jobs as doctors, teachers, solicitors, librarians, journalists, business leaders and scientists.  Some of us may even get married/ enter into civil partnerships and procreate.  Others may adopt, cohabit or remain single.  We may have once dreamed of being Ariel or Belle but life, common sense and lack prancing ability intervened and we decided to try and be something more sensible, such as meteorologists, estate agents and call centre workers.  No longer can we envision jamming along with singing crabs and happy woodland animals (not without a ready supply on hallucinogens and my employer tends to frown on this sort of thing).  True, some facets of the Disney experience have carried through into real, adult life.  There are still evil villains (otherwise known as the Conservative party) just begging to be defeated and lured into a fiery pit.  However, many of us have already come to terms with the fact that there is no handsome prince to rescue us from the drudgery of everyday life and that even if there was, he probably wouldn’t be interested in us.  Sigh.

Are we disappointed?  Obviously, I can’t speak for every woman ever.  I am guessing that most women are probably not too disappointed in the lack of a two dimensional poser with a blinding Colgate smile.  Furthermore, those princess dresses look tight and uncomfortable.  Such a far cry from our comfortable dungarees and summer dresses! 

So is Disney harmful?  I really don’t know.  Certainly, the message that in order to achieve anything in life a woman must be beautiful, is harmful.  We live in a world where beautiful women are celebrated over and above women who have contributed to fields such as science, politics, art, literature, law, business, technology, sociology and medicine.  If you don’t believe me, try this simple test: ask a random sample of people who Marilyn Monroe is.  Then ask the same person who Anita Roddick/ Harriet Harman/ Anne Lister/ Constance Briscoe/ Rita O’Grady/ Marie Curie/ Emily Davidson are.  I can guarantee that more people will be able to tell you who Marilyn Monroe is, whilst comparatively few will be able to tell you who the others are.  This is despite the fact that these are all women who have contributed immensely to their own field and to the wider world.  Furthermore, these are strong women and examples of people who we should want our daughters to emulate.  Yet, they are not celebrated as they should be.  As children we look for people to look up to and emulate.  We can only look up to those we know about.  Young boys have their male role models in footballers, business leaders and politicians.  Young girls have models, actresses and Disney princesses.  That is it.  Every other female role model is kept away from them or ridiculed as being unfeminine and unnatural.  Therefore, young girls look to those examples of womanhood that are accepted and celebrated in the hope that they too will be accepted and celebrated.  I would argue that the existence of Disney is not harmful in itself.  However, when you combine it with the severe LACK of representation of strong women within society, you do have a very dangerous situation indeed.

Sssssh

It is an oft repeated gag: elderly relative bursts forth with some very un PC comment in a room full of people, which probably includes those who belong to the group being mentioned/ discussed.  More often than not, it is their very presence that has inspired comment.  For example “Oooo look Jenny, there’s a (insert offensive term here).”  Shocked at their apparent lack of embarrassment and self censorship, you desperately try to tell them that they shouldn’t say such things whilst glancing around to make sure that nobody overheard.  You are conflicted.  On the one hand, you know that such words/ phrases are offensive and shouldn’t be said at all, let alone in public.  Yet, granny is 86 and such words were not deemed offensive in her formative years.  When she was growing up gay meant happy rather than homosexual.  Words that we now consider racial slurs were probably nothing more than descriptive terms.  No harm intended.  Furthermore, she’s got this far and lived her life using these words and isn’t liable to change at this late stage.  So does this mean that we should merely accept it when older people use language that we deem to be sexist, racist, homophobic etc?  Is age really a valid excuse for saying things that other people may find offensive?

The reason I ask is because an eighty year old soap star is currently being slated for saying that victims of sexual abuse are paying for sins committed in past lives.  Not surprisingly, this has caused outrage, particularly amongst victims of abuse and organisations that support them.  However, there are those who are leaping to his defence and stating that he should not be vilified for this abhorrent point of view because of his age.   Call me a social fascist if you like but I don’t think that age is any excuse, unless of course there are other underlying medical things going on (such as Alzheimer’s or autism).  To me, if a person fully understands what they are saying and what is going on in the world around them then they are responsible for their behaviour.  This rule should apply whether the person is eighteen or eighty six.  To say that they are simply too old to change is ridiculous.  As humans we never stop learning and part of the learning process involves adapting to the changing world around us.  It may well be disconcerting to learn that certain words, customs and beliefs we were brought up with are redundant or no longer acceptable but that’s life. 

If we want a more tolerant and accepting society we need to challenge prejudice wherever we find it, even if it feels mean or uncomfortable to do so.  I mean, you can challenge without being offensive or condescending.  You don’t have to necessarily have to treat them to a lecture about how not to behave in public but it is always a good idea to patiently explain that some people may find their words offensive and/ or upsetting.  Of course, if you do this you lay yourself open to being criticised for being intolerant.  You may even get the whole “I fought a war so that we could all be free to talk the way we like” speech.  And yes, this may be the case.  I am not for a second disputing that the older generation have made and continue to make a valuable contribution to society.  However, this does not exempt them from having to consider the possible ramifications of what they say.  Just like the rest of us, they should (as far as is reasonable) ensure that what they say does not offend and upset other people.  Surely this is not too much to ask of anybody.

That horse has bolted

I fear I may be trying to jump onto a long departed bandwagon here, given that the storm over the Tesco debacle has been raging for a good few weeks now.  A more with it blogger would have taken straight to her computer to pound out a few pages of outraged diatribe the minute the news broke but not I!  This is mostly because I like to see whether something is really truly worthy of my consideration before I blog about it.  At first I thought that this was just going to illicit a few hysterical headlines and some horse gags before finally dying down and disappearing but I was wrong.

Not only are we still talking (and laughing) about it all; yet more food related screw ups are coming to light.  It now transpires that Findus is amongst the brands whose ready meals are thought to contain horsemeat.  This is one of those scenarios that I wish I was surprised by but I’m not.  The fact that big corporations pack their ready meals with just about anything, package it and then sell it onto an unsuspecting public really does not amaze me in the slightest.  Sure, we have laws that are supposed to protect the consumer by discouraging these kinds of shenanigans but when did the law ever stop big corporations from doing anything.  If recent times have taught us anything it is that the law does not apply to you if you are rich and powerful enough.  And Tescos is both very rich and very powerful.  When it comes down to it the only thing that these companies truly care about is making a profit and as long as they are still doing that then everything else is of secondary importance.  I very much doubt that this horse meat fiasco will have made that much of an impact on Tesco’s profit margins because people do still need to eat, however pissed off they may be that what they thought was a juicy beef burger is actually Black Beauty slathered in BBQ sauce. 

The only bit of the whole episode that took me by surprise was the outrage.  Apparently, people were perfectly at ease with tucking into cows and pigs but were practically hysterical once they realised that they may have inadvertently eaten a cute little horse.  Why?  Surely if you are perfectly at ease with gorging on the flesh of one animal, eating another animal wouldn’t be that much different.  At least, the principle is still the same.  The animal was once alive and now it isn’t because it is on your plate glistening in all its gravified goodness....yum.  Plus, I’m assuming that many of those who purchased and ate the offending products didn’t actually realised that they had been duped since a large proportion of those would have purchased said products multiple times.

Then it dawned on me.  It is not necessarily people being squeamish about eating horses (well, ok it largely is); it is more about the fact that people thought that they were getting one thing when they were actually getting something different.  If they have been fooled once then how many times and with how many other products has this happened?  What else is in our food that we don’t know about?  Cats, frog’s eyeballs, dinosaur bollocks?  Who the hell knows? It is Tesco’s after all.  There could literally be anything in your gourmet microwavable spaghetti bolognaise.  It genuinely doesn’t bare thinking about.  Plus, it is an issue of trust.  Nobody likes being lied to, especially if those lies are about things that we are buying and potentially feeding our families. 

I’m just hoping that Tesco’s don’t establish a used car arm of their business because God only knows what they’d try and sell you; hearses masquerading as people carriers, pushbikes with no wheels, etc.  You just never know what they will think up next (and you probably wouldn’t want to) but hey, that’s part of the fun, isn’t it?  It could be the start of a whole new dinner party game: guess what’s in your burger!  

Love is in the air

I really didn’t want to dedicate an entire blog post to this mushy nonsense but tradition and a bizarre sense of obligation has forced me to do just that.  Anyone who has not been fortunate to live in a cave without Internet access and/ or other connections to the outside world will have noted that International Make Singletons Everywhere Feel Bad Day (otherwise known as Valentine’s Day) is almost upon us.  For the less commercially enslaved readers among you, Valentine’s Day is that special time of year where we all forget to nag our partners about the gigantic pile of washing up that they have still not done and the toenails they have left wallowing in the bath.  Instead our nagging endeavours turn to hints about overly expensive meals in “intimate” Italian restaurants and “romantic” Valentine’s breaks in some country manor house.  We approach the day with rising anticipation and a sense of certain expectation; surely, this time he or she will have pushed the boat out and have planned something really special.  You know they have been avoiding the whole thing BUT that is just so that they don’t give away the surprise.  You have booked the whole weekend off work and told anyone who cares enough to pretend to listen of your impending Valentine’s treat.

Then the day comes round.  You awake to no breakfast in bed.  Indeed, your partner is still grunting and snoring next to you whilst whispering something lewd about Kate Middleton/ Prince Harry/ Russell Crowe/ Harriet Harman/ John Prescott/ Anne Hathaway (delete as appropriate) and licking their lips.  Naturally, you go downstairs expecting that they have somehow miraculously smuggled in your surprise the previous night and have left it somewhere obvious for you to find.  Like a child on Christmas morning, you dash downstairs unsure and excited about what you might find.  A mad dash around the house reveals nothing.  Not a sausage.  Only a headless mouse (at least Tiddles has remembered) and a puddle of cat piss next to the fridge.  You turn from this feline trail of destruction to see your dishevelled looking partner squinting at you through eyes full of sleep and fresh morning sunlight.  Outraged you demand whether they even know what day it is.  Nonplussed, they reply that it is Friday and run off to get ready for work.  Almost hysterical you yell after the that it is Valentines Day and demand to know why it is that everybody else’s partner ALWAYS does something romantic and yet they always forget to.  You then follow said partner to the bottom of the stairs where you proceed to list the various wonderful things that friends’ partners have done for them for Valentines Day.  Every intimate meal, every surprise holiday gets a mention.  All the while your partner seems way too preoccupied with where they have left their shoes/skirt/belt/handbag, which just gets you more enraged.  By the time you have said your goodbyes you are wondering how you can ever admit this embarrassment to your friends and colleagues, who will now think you are a complete failure because your partner couldn’t even be bothered to show how much they love you by wasting their money on a piece of card sporting a pair of smooching teddies and a vomit inducing verse.  Woe is you.  The fact that they have spent the past year holding back your hair as you vomit after consuming your bodyweight in tequila and listening to you as you pour out your latest workplace drama pales in significance next to the absence of a creepy looking teddy holding an embossed love heart. Because when it comes to relationships, it is the small manufactured things that count.

Later on that evening you return home to find a battered looking bouquet of roses and a large soppy card with the 99p price tag still attached.  You peek inside just to see a generic soppy verse that has been seen by countless other people that very same day and your partner’s name at the bottom.  Still, you are not happy.  They did this only because you nagged them to do it and even then, it was done in a rush and with very little thought.  It was done purely to placate you and to give them an easier life.  Just look at the state of the flowers! 

I have spent so much of my adult life hating things like Valentines Day.  I celebrated it a couple of times when I was a teenager and had my first boyfriend but that was before I realised how stupid the whole thing was.  I understand the whole thing about wanting to tell somebody that you love them but why does that have to be done on an allocated day and why does it have to involve buying them random tat and insisting that they do the same in return?  If you genuinely love somebody, why do you need an allocated day to remind you to spend time with them?  Surely, it means more when somebody does something because they want to rather than because they know that you will expect them to. I don’t know, maybe I am just being a tad naïve here but I’m not really sure how a person’s willingness to contribute towards Hallmark’s profits and their feelings towards their partners are linked.  

For those of you who have reached the end of this post and are still wondering whether I will be celebrating this pointless waste of a day: the answer is a resounding NO.  The only time I will ever celebrate valentines day is if I end up owning a business that manufactures cards and random tat.

Gaga baby names!

What is the deal with baby names these days?  Seriously, why do parents feel the need to inflict a lifetime of embarrassment and emotional torture on their innocent offspring by burdening them with stupid names?  I seem to be encountering more and more youngsters with names that just make me flush with embarrassment on the poor child’s behalf.  I can tolerate names that are unusual or inventive.  Some of them are really lovely creations.  However, there are others that are just plain cruel.  There are far too many to recall in the space of one blog post so I have listed a few that stand out:

11)  Kamden (not only is this a place name but it is one that has been misspelled.  Whether this is a deliberate attempt at inventiveness or because the parents cannot spell is not quite clear)

22)  Brynlee (what?)

33)  Tihnita (where to start and finish with this monstrosity)

44) Bristol (again, place name)

55) Preston (if you’re going to pluck your spawn’s name out of the A-Z rather than an actual baby name book then please make sure that said name refers to a nice place and not a post industrial Lancastrian shithole)

66) Bradford (mostly as above)

77) Presley

88) Ferrari (no, I shall resist the temptation...)

99) Brooklyn (it wasn’t good when a halfwit celebrity couple named their son Brooklyn)

  10)  Apple (great in a crumble but not so good as a baby name)

111)  Anus (if you need me to explain why this name is a bad idea then you should really not reproduce...ever)

112) Blue bell

113) Peaches (fresh or tinned...you decide)

114)  Willie (NO)

115) Santa (this child should consider taking some form of legal action against its parents when it is old enough)

I have no idea what possesses parents to do something so cruel.  I suspect (and hope I’m right) that they are just intending to give their spawn a nice, original name rather than inflict a lifetime of misery, resulting from the relentless teasing of school bullies and the hours spent having to spell their stupid names phonetically to all and sundry.  And, like any half baked craze, I strongly suspect this one is partially the doing of idiotic celebrities.  As my boss pointed out, celebrities and their children can get away with having names like Rocco and Peaches.  Infact, it is almost a requirement to have a name that takes its origins from a piece of fruit/ make of car/ other inanimate object/ city.  However, if you are a council worker/ barmaid/ doctor/ other invisible nobody then naming your offspring something outlandish is certainly NOT a very good idea.

 

Ok, so you might argue that Blue Bell is a cute name for a baby.  Fine.  I don’t necessarily agree with you but there you go.  The point is: can you imagine a thirteen year old Blue Bell?  A twenty three year old Blue Bell?  A fifty year old Blue Bell?  It goes without saying but usually one’s Christian name is for life.  Do you really want your child to wonder into adulthood blushing every time somebody asks what their name is? 

And you know those pieces of card you keep in your wallet?  Yes, your bank cards and driving licence!  The things that you use to prove who you are....the things that have your NAME printed on them?  Well, in approximately seventeen years time little Talula Hula will be able to apply for one of those.  Oh, I can just see the look on the admin assistant’s face when that application lands at DVLA HQ.  Still, if nothing else it will brighten their day and will give them a story to go home with (“Dude, I got an application form for a new provisional licence and you will never BELIEVE what the poor sod was called.”)  I’m not picking on the DVLA.  I don’t think they are nasty, evil people.  But they are people and, like school bullies, bank clerks and potential employers, they know a stupid name when they see one!  Moral of this paragraph: one day your precious little bundle of vomit will be a grown up with ID.  That ID will contain his or her name.

It goes without saying but kids (and adults) can be cruel.  Children get bullied for all sorts of reasons; being too short, being too smart, wearing glasses, having a speech impediment, liking Justin Bieber...the list is endless.  Some of these things are unavoidable traits.  Others aren’t.  Take it from me, being bullied is an unpleasant experience at any age and one that can haunt a person into adulthood.  No parent wants their child to be the object of playground taunts, which is why every parent should refrain from naming their child with creations like Santa, Chardonnay and Sambuka.  That is, unless you desperately want to be having to explain to your child why the cashier in the bank has to stifle a snigger every time they emerge at the counter, snotty little bank book in hand.