Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Yog Hurts

I feel like this is one of those things that should never have needed saying, it's up there with:

"Maybe choose Scouts over Hitler Youth" and "No, there's nothing in vaginas that makes voting democratically difficult" but, it seems I'm going to have to go ahead and say it:

THERE IS NOTHING SEXY ABOUT YOGHURTS.

Stop trying to make yoghurt sexy through the power of advertising.

Not a single woman in the country has watched Nicole Hertzybertzy tucking into a champagne yoghurt and raced to Co-op for a cornery pot of disappointment.

Yoghurt is boring and unsexy.

The closest yoghurts come to being sexy is in treatment of downstairs problems. And that is not sexy at all. It is only even vaguely in the sexy corner because it's near the sexy area. BUT IT'S AT THE OTHER END OF THE SEXY SPECTRUM EVEN THOUGH IT'S PHYSICALLY VERY NEAR THE SEXY AREA.

Yoghurt is wet, cold and gloopy and usually fruity. Fruit is not anywhere near chocolate or other comforting foods. Yoghurts are not carby or meaty. They are yoghurty. BORING BORING YOGHURT IS NOT SEXY.

STOP TRYING TO MAKE ME THINK YOGHURT IS SEXY.

Yoghurt is boring.

The next yoghurt advert you make needs to be a lady and a man eating a yoghurt because they like yoghurt. Not for any other reason. Buy yoghurt because you like yoghurt. If you're doing it for any other reason then you are not being true to yourself.

Yoghurt needs to be loved for what it is, not what you want it to be. Don't be a dick about it.

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Eggs is Eggs

Yesterday I was quite unintentionally privvy to one of the single greatest conversations I've ever heard. There were 3 wealthy ladies in the shop I sometimes frequent (I mean, I work there but I'm not meant to make a big deal of that so that people think I'm a much more prolific comedian than I acutally am) and they were buying an egg poacher. They then had the following conversation:

Lady 1: Have you switched over to duck eggs now then?
Lady 2: Oh yes! Oh, they're so much better. I couldn't live without them.

My Thought: You definitely could... unless you were, like, a goanna, or something. Eggs = not essential.

Lady 1: Oh I know! They're so much better. I don't regret the switch at all.

My Thought: Who has ever "regretted" a switch to duck eggs? 1. Duck eggs are excellent. 2. If you didn't like the first one you tried, you wouldn't consider it a regrettable switch, you'd just say "I tried a duck egg, it was yucky." and not have another one.

Lady 2: How did you get on to them in the first place?
Lady 1: Well, we were in America, and we were eating these eggs. And they had white shells, and they just tatsed like the eggs we used to have as children. You know how eggs have changed flavour over the years...

My Thought: Uh...

Lady 2: Yeah.

My Thought: Are you kidding? What has happened to the genetic make up of a chicken over the last 30 years that has significantly changed the flavour? I suspect you are a tedious prick.

Lady 1: Well, they had white shells. So the people we were with said, try eating white shelled eggs. Because of course, everyone thinks they want brown eggs these days...

My Thought: Do we?

Lady 1 (cont): ... but really that's just all the flavour going into the shell.

My Thought: Hold up. Hang on. All the flavour going into the shell? Are you mental? How is this flavour getting in the shell?  Is evolution telling chickens that if the shell is tastier they're less likely to get their shells goanna'd? Give over. Also, which unlucky bastard are you imagining had the job of eating a bowl full of white egg shells followed by a bowl full of brown egg shells to test whether eggs shells were getting tastier as these ladies got older?

Lady 1 (cont): ...So I went to Sainsbury's to get some white eggs but they didn't have any. But they did have duck eggs with white shells so I bought those. And they were right, my American friends, because they are SO much better.

My Thought: Sweet Jesus what is wrong with you? Of course they were better - they're a different product! That's like someone saying, "Ooh, a Prius is a good car." and you going and buying a Bugatti and saying "You're right! This IS a great car!"

Lady 2: I don't even care that they're twice the price - they're worth it.
Lady 1 (To me, winking): You'll be on to duck eggs now, won't you?!
Me: Ha. Here's your receipt. Good bye.



Author's Note: The third lady didn't say anything. I suspect she hates her friends.

Saturday, October 12, 2013

I Shall Do As I Please

And then, it was Saturday, that merry day where all/both of the little blogger girls readers were out merrily frolicking with family and friends or lying in front of the television with American junk pouring into their eyes, ears and mouths like coke spray after a Mento.

What with all the excitement of the Saturday having arrived, the little blogger girl knew that people would be too busy to read her blog post and so she could write anything here with no consequences. During the week all/both the readers were desperately seeking solace from their jobs via the medium of internet distractions. Today, they had lives.

The little blogger girl felt alternately powerful and scared. With Saturday having arrived she could write anything, ANYTHING. She could write about farting in the bath, which, even with the recent venture in 27 year olding, she still confessed shyly was her favourite past time. She could write about Beowulf and how Judaism has lasted longer than anyone thought, eh? But she knew nothing, absolutely NOTHING about either of those subjects. She could write about diet tips or naked ladies and free iPads and watch a cascade of Twitter bots come to keep her company in the black out that was the Saturday. But she didn't want to write about any of those things.

Sadly, the little blogger girl looked out of the window as the train carted her towards Brighton and home. No one would be home for the little blogger girl to share her Saturday with. The freedom of a free blog post and a free house was too much for the little blogger girl and she began to cry. With no one to read, and no one to greet her at the front door... what was the point of it even being Saturday? It might as well be Monday.

IT MIGHT AS WELL BE MONDAY! She screamed into the confused and fashionably misguided carriage of Brighton daytrippers.

But then, as the 14th Saturday tear dripped down her cheek, she realised something... there may not be anyone around to share the beauty of Saturday with... but that shouldn't stop her. So what if she didn't even have a bath to fart in when she reached her house? There was a washing up bowl wasn't there? And dang it if the little blogger girl wasn't perfectly comfortable squatting over a filled up washing up bowl to get her kicks while the sun shone.

And who cares if no one was around to read the blog post? Quite frankly with the quality being as it is in this current edit, that can only be a good thing. The little blogger girl smiled, realising that so long as she had Fairy Liquid, a washing up bowl and access to a keyboard then the world was a good place.

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

The Body Beautiful...ly Covered Up

This morning I was walking behind a woman in a train station in London and I could see her pale full moon inspired buttocks shining through the leggings she had managed to stretch across her ripe posterior. My instant thought was "Dear lord, woman, let's invest in some trousers...". Because I am always searching for ideas to write about here, I thought to myself that it might be a funny post to talk about the modern desire to get away without wearing inappropriate covering on your lower half. I am of the opinion that a t-shirt and leggings only constitutes half an outfit however shapely your thighs. As for wearing leggings a few sizes too small so we can all see you underwear beneath the 0.5 denier covering, well, that just makes me worry for the declining standards in seat sanitation. One good fart would tear through that covering like a windshield into a moths daydream. It doesn't bear thinking about.

It got me to thinking about a few months ago when my boyfriend and I went to our local field (typing that feels weird - does everyone have a local field? It's not really a park because it's just a field but it's a recreational field - we don't just go and sit in some furrows and mellow.) and there was a woman sunbathing there in a shiny gold bikini. A small, shiny gold bikini. Now, that wouldn't fuss me at the beach - and we live in Brighton, so there's a perfectly good beach that I could go to in order to be disgusted at scantily clad females. But it did fuss me in a field, partly because there was a local school PE class using the field, but partly because I guess I just didn't think it was appropriate.

When I mentioned this out loud my boyfriend reminded me of a discussion we'd had previously where I'd said that I thought illegal nudity was wrong. It was an interesting cross point. I do think nudity being illegal is wrong; I think it's one of the biggest injustices in the modern world. I think to be born into a society where your natural state is illegal is forcing you into subscribing to the state in some way. Unless either nudity is legal or clothing is free then it is an injustice in my opinion.

So, how can you think a lady in a bikini is wrong, but nudity in public should be allowed?

My argument is, that with the current approach to clothing and legality and society's modes of dressing, under dressing equates to sex. The naked body becomes a sexual object rather than just an object. If a body is clothed in some way you read it as preparing for an activity of some kind, if it is scantily clad to nude then you read it as preparing or ready for sex.

I believe this is wrong. I think if nudity was more readily and widely available for all body types, then we would start to unpack this belief that the body being naked is somehow a sexual thing; it isn't, it's just its natural state. At the moment, I think we have a situation where the most frequent naked shapes we see are women's and they tend to be sexualised in some way. Either through TV or magazines. If you could see naked people just doing regular things, it would help us to see that a body is for more than sex.

My male friend said to me once that he would find legal nudity in every day life difficult because, unlike the male body, "the female body always looks ready for sex to the naked eye". I found this a really alarming thing to hear. I'd never thought that before and found it unsettling. My body is my body that I use for a long list of things, sex of course being one of them, but I use it for 100 things a day that are not sex. I found it alarming to think that someone would look at my body and their first thought would be that I could be mated, not that I could ride my bike or climb a hill.

I certainly wouldn't be comfortable wearing a tiny gold bikini to a field or the beach, I am not proud of my body. And here comes the kicker, I'm not proud of my body because I don't believe it to be sexy enough. Instead of being thoroughly thrilled because I am healthy, fit and a good size, I would not bare my skin because I don't look like the vast majority of naked ladies I have ever seen. But would that be different if I'd been brought up looking at a variety of nude women instead of just the sexy ones?

I think it is the same for men too, although male bodies vary a bit I think because to be sexy for a man is to be muscular and toned, whereas for a woman it is more often than not to be very slim and curvy. My argument is not solely a feminist one - it is for all humans.

Could we embrace the body as a living tool and hope to shirk the sex only labels that go with a naked or scantily clad figure? Or have we covered up because the naked body can only ever be an icon for sex? I don't know, what do you think?

Whatever the answer though, I think we all know leggings solo are not the answer.

Saturday, October 5, 2013

A Love Story

I'm afraid of being in love.
Some days it takes all the effort I have not to leave you.
Some days it takes all the effort I have to make eye contact with you and not shudder when you touch me.
Not because I don't love you, but because I am who I am.
Being in love has been wonderful, but it hasn't changed everything.

Some days my main thought is suicide.
If a driverless car were to go past I would take my chance with its bonnet and go.
Some days I think of all the ways I could kill myself and make it look like an accident so it wouldn't upset anyone.

Some days I am so apathetic towards leaving the house that I cry at the thought of the front door.
The duvet becomes a sullen friend who holds me tight but isn't really helping.
Some days I wish I wouldn't wake up and I cry when I do because I can't cope with my thoughts.

The truth about my life is that some days it bleeds,
And I sit motionless, unwilling to stem the flow,
Or shield you from the blow.

Every twinkling persona I've developed is leaden,
I sit, buried in my own frown - glued to the feeling,
Shying from healing,
Rhyming despite reeling.
I'll stop rhyming now - it isn't helping anyone.

Falling in love isn't magic, well, it is, but not all encompassing.
It's film magic - you can change the colour of a cat but the Weasleys are still poor.
Love gets between the bricks of your life and sures them up; but it can't afford new bricks for you.

Please don't think I am downplaying my love for you.
I love you to the point where some days I forget I have a boyfriend because you are so much a part of me that I've forgotten you are something so fickle as 'boyfriend'.
You are every hero in every film I weep at; you're Rhett, it's our ship going down, we fall in love again with every No. 1 ballad I hear.

But I don't have a script writer.
Sadly, Richard Curtis was unavailable to pen my gradual thawing in the aftermath of loving you.
I apologise that we won't have an Oscar winning screenplay, but I should get some marks for originality.

Girl meets boy. They fall in love. The world still caves in from time to time.

Imagine if your chest crumpled, not like paper or something delicate,
Imagine if your chest of bone and muscle and blood squeezed itself until it crumpled and then lay there.
You'd expect people to notice.
People would want to help.
Imagine trying to tell them not to help because if you wait, and think, and sleep and eat right, it will re inflate itself and you'll be fine.
People would still want to help.
Imagine the third and fourth time it happened, you'd want to stop showing it to people so you could wait by yourself until it re inflated.

I'm up there in the hundreds now. Hundreds of those crumpled days.
And I can't hide from you like I can with people. Because nowadays we love each other.
Believe me when I say it breaks my heart teaching you to wait for my chest to re inflate.
I am thinking on those days, behind my blank eyes and my vicious comments, I am watching you crumble and wonder if I can pull myself together.
I watch a timer above your head counting down to the day you can't cope with me any more. And I just have to hope I re inflate before you reach 00:00.
But I am far away, under a layer of rock, under an ocean, under so many thoughts, under tears I don't have the energy to spill or hold back. I'll come back as soon as I can. And I'll always come back to you.

If you'll have me.

I'm afraid of being in love.
I'm afraid of still being in love when you no longer are.
I'm afraid that one day I'll re inflate and you'll be gone.
I'm afraid you deserve better.
I'm afraid I can't be better.
I'm afraid you'll start to believe the crumpled days are the real ones.
I'm afraid one day I'll see a driverless car.

The love magic hasn't stopped the bad days.
Like it didn't save Dumbledore's life.
But it gives me an oil painting to talk to, once I've gone behind my eyes, so you've come with me.
So, even though I'm rude and I'm difficult and I'm comatose, I've snuck you in.
And I'm so grateful. You'll never know how grateful.

Friday, October 4, 2013

An Open Letter

Dear Wiley,

I'm writing this letter as I am growing increasingly worried about the future of your career and the damaging impact your behaviour is likely to have on other coyotes. You need to be more aware of the impact that you have on the young coyotes who look up to you - if any of your recent actions have been done in the name of coyotism then you need to be aware that you have got this very wrong.

It's not right for a coyote to be allowing himself to be filmed butt naked, running round gorges and canyons after a bird who is literally named after what he is extremely good at. You are allowing yourself to be prostituted by people who only want to make money out of you. Do you think they care every time you fall 1000 feet under a huge rock? No, and you should fire anyone who has not expressed some concern over your safety. People in the slapstick cartoon industry are only there to make money - they do not give a shit about you.

You have so much natural talent as a hunter and a tracker, you're a great coyote and you don't need to be flaunting yourself in such a degrading way to get attention. Let your natural talent shine through. Every time a young coyote sees you running face first into a wall that some Road Runner has slyly painted, it just teaches them that it's OK for coyotes to be exploited in this way by Road Runners who don't respect you.

Put some clothes on, go back to your den and maybe take a leaf out of my book - I'm about 100 years old, I'm still going strong and I've always worn at least shorts to show I am in control of my own career. I'm in a stable relationship and have become an icon because I wasn't willing to allow myself to be exploited for my physical degradation. I hope you get some people around you soon who care about you to get you the help you need. You're a great coyote and you deserve to be respected.

Yours,
Mickey Mouse

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Fart in a Haystack

But actually looking for a fart in a hay stack would be very easy because you could just look for the bits of hay that were billowing in the fart wind.

Some things are easier to find than others.

I find it much easier to imagine farting into a hay stack than be doing some important darning near one. I might have visited the hay stack to do my farts so that no one elsewhere smelled them, or I might have been stuck really high up on one and farted and so nestled into the hay to deliver it carefully. I can't imagine any reasons why I'd be mending cloth on a hay stack, it'd take a really big life diversion to make that happen. Hay is soft there's no way you could have ripped your clothes on the way up to the top, unless your clothes are made of gossamer, in which case I don't think your average needle is the right implement for mending.

You'd probably need a spider or a silk worm or something.

If the spider or the silk worm farted, now that would be harder to see in the hay stack. But I'm not even sure they fart - I don't have much idea about the digestive systems of insects. Hay stacks are my area of expertise, hay stacks and things that can and can not be easily found in them.

Thanks to my copious amounts of free time today I've really been able to give this area a lot of thought and I have made big break throughs. I believe by the time this publishes I'll be neck and neck with Putin for the big one.