A new Brand of silliness...

It seems as though this business with Brand and Ross has all gotten a little out of hand. I confess to being one of the few remaining in the country who view Jonathon Ross as a treasure instead of a liability. Maybe that's just because my parents have subjected me to too many hours of his radio show, but as far as I'm aware he's done enough hours of reasonably entertaining service to the media to mean that he shouldn't be cast out of good society for a few good natured jokes.

I mean, what Ross and Brand did seems rather akin to what Graham Norton's been doing for years. I recall Mr. Norton when David Tennant was a guest on his show, and them calling up a poor-unsuspecting gay gentleman after Norton advertised "The Doctor" on the personal ads page of a gay magazine. They sent a couple of rude and pointless texts, along with a picture of David with Jo Brand in the background. As far as I was concerned, celebrities leaving cringe-making messages on the answer-machines of the general public in the name of laughs was a perfectly reasonable practise. What we're essentially saying is that there is a new rule when the person receiving these messages happens to be an old, rich celebrity himself. Or rather, just an old geezer with absolutely no sense of humour.

I mean, he can't have missed the fact that his charming granddaughter defines herself as a "Satanic Slut" on her MySpace page and parades around as a member of a burlesque dancetroupe, having suggestive pictures taken of her wielding riding crops and with serious nipple-action on show. No, of course her life choices doesn't give Ross or Brand the right to call up her grandfather and make lewd comments, but it does, unfortunately, make him and his family the subject of discussion, and no doubt at times ridicule.

What this story really proves is that really is one rule for the rich and powerful and another rule for everybody else. It's all well and good to mock people as long as they have no power to get back at you, but the moment you piss off the wrong person apparently your job is on the line. I hope the BBC hold strong in keeping Jonathon Ross on air, because God knows he seems to be the only person left in the country who still has a comedic bone in his body.

First comes love, then comes marriage, and then... uh oh.

Disclaimer: Given the public nature of this blog I am going to commence it with a warning that it discusses issues that some may find insulting to their moral or social code of life. I do not write to inform others of what their opinions should be, only to discuss and clarify my own thoughts on the subject. Any offence given is unintentional on this delicate topic.



Abortion is always one of those tricky topics to blog about. It's simply the kind of subject where people are so easily polarised in their opinions (pro-choice / pro-life) that nobody considers what the best choice for human life really is.

Since it's been brought up in the news with the new embryology bill, I may as well post some thoughts here. I think it's fair to say that I don't fall neatly into either category. Both sides have very powerful and persuasive arguments - if you believe in the sanctity of every human life, then no matter what the argument you're never going to approve of abortion, and no amount of sanctity of the human body is going to change your mind. If you believe that a woman's body is her own, and she has the right to eject anything from her body that is likely to effect her health and future happiness then no amount of ugly pictures of aborted foetuses is going to change your mind.

Personally I can't really discuss abortion without bringing up the subject of contraception as I feel the two are inextricably linked. After all, if the contraception is effective - and generally it is - then abortion would not be necessary in a large number of cases.

So why does contraception fail? I think the first and most popular excuse for failure is simply not using contraception at all. Why some people decide to take a dangerous chance in creating human life by not using contraception is a real mystery to me. What are common excuses? Alcohol? Passion? None of these are good enough excuses for the production of a new baby. Call it a foetus, a mistake, a collection of cells, whatever you want, but however you slice it that's a life you've just created. You can justify it's destruction, certainly, I'm not saying there aren't ways of explaining away the need to destroy life, but when there are ways of preventing it's conception, then why not use them? If you don't use them then you are directly responsible if a child is conceived, and directly responsible for it's abortion. And the destruction of human life, for any reason, is murder. So I understand the pro-life argument. I feel like there should be consequences for irresponsible action, and the government's desire to make abortion even easier to maintain, I feel, may well encourage the use of abortion as a form of contraception, instead of using it in "worst case scenarios" such as rape.

Having said that, as I just said I am in favour of the practice of abortion in cases where pregnancy was unavoidable. I am in favour of abortion in cases where the child will be born with an illness that will damage it's future happiness; Down's, Spina Bifida and so on. The increasing pressure on the government to change euphanasia laws seems to suggest that people living with illnesses that are causing the deterioration of their mind or body do not wish to live through life suffering. Why anyone would choose to knowingly allow their child to be born with such a condition is cruel and unusual. I am also in favour of abortion in cases where the birth of the child will result in the death or suffering of the mother. I do not believe in the exchange of one life for another.

I think the problem is that we already take abortion far too lightly. Parents will storm the Headteacher's office demanding that their innocent little ones should not be hearing about sexual education, and that their scouts shouldn't be given contraception, and yet statistics show that the UK has an enormous underage pregnancy problem. Like it or not, our children are going to hear about sex, whether it's from their brothers and sisters, or classmates, or the television. And as soon as they hear that it's enjoyable, and a part of adulthood, as soon as they get those natural pubescent sexual urges, they're going to want to experiment. You can't "protect" them from sex when it's going to be coming at them from all directions, so you may as well make sure that learning about intercourse comes with a healthy dosage of learning about contraceptive methods, even if that does mean equipping 13 or 14 year olds with a rubber or two.

I suppose fundamentally as a young sexually active woman I just can't understand why it isn't possible to remain not-pregnant until such a time as one might want to conceive. I don't consider myself overly careful, I only use one method of contraception at any one time. I read the instructions on my pill packets, I use extra condoms whenever I'm on antibiotics, I do all the sensible things without going overboard, and unsurprising I've reached the ripe old age of almost 25 without getting pregnant. I believe that given the fact that contraception is FREE on the NHS that this should be possible for anyone from all walks of life. THEREFORE the abortion rate should not be rising, it shouldn't NEED to be made easier to get an abortion. What we need to do is start examining the way sexual education is taught in schools and promote the use of contraception even to those we feel are too young to be using it.

And, in the words of Forrest Gump, "That's all I have to say about that."

You Moss-t be joking...

I am always horrified to see another monument to Kate Moss. She is, without doubt, one of the most overrated figures in pop culture.

I may as well start by saying that I don’t think supermodels are meaningful. I’ve actually seen programmes on TV dedicated to their influence on modern life, fashion, women. Yes, they’ve had an influence. They’ve turned a nation of reasonably healthy, happy teenage girls into a pack of neurotic crazies. It’s like saying that a person who has a body composed of skin and bones; who has done nothing more significant than parading up and down a runway in clothing that literally needs to be draped over their skeletal, emaciated bodies must therefore have something meaningful to say.

You’d hope, wouldn’t you, that that would be true, but it just isn’t. These women are at the forefront of the debate about body image, and instead of making regular appearances to talk about the severe negative implications of the work they do, they instead are snapped and pasted all over the tabloids with “mysterious white powder” poking out of each nostril, a fag in hand, and clearly off their face on the thimble-full of booze it takes them to get wasted. These are, without question, some of the worst role-models that exist, and no one epitomises that image more in my mind than the ridiculous, comical Kate Moss.

And she is, without question, an enormous joke, surely? I keep waiting for some day time TV presenter to pop out from behind a lawn chair and declare that it’s all a hilarious jape. Either that or possibly there is something very wrong with my eyes and when I look at that chavvie moron I see something different from everyone else. I’m not going to push my luck and say Kate Moss is ugly, but she is generic. She has generic, lanky mousy coloured hair, which I never understood, because you’d think someone with that much money would be able to afford a decent stylist for her nights out. If she wasn’t a nasty, common piece of baggage at least I’d think – “hey great, maybe she’s overrated, but at least she’s spreading a good message” – but no. Instead she’s hanging around with losers like Pete Docherty and other ugly twats, and making famously irresponsible comments about staying thin. “Rexy” I think she called it, which for anyone who doesn’t know, is a combination of the words “anorexic” and “sexy”. Real classy, Moss.

So once again some idiot has gone and made another monument to this waste of space, who already takes up too much with her starving little frame, let alone the added space she takes up having a statue of her decidedly average features in Madame Tussauds.

I guess more than Moss herself it’s the notion of supermodel as a kind of celebrity. I can’t figure out why anybody cares about the opinions of walking clothes horses, particularly when they’re so amazingly bad. It’s like Paris Hilton; these people aren’t celebrities; they’ve never done anything to deserve fame or money, and they’ll be out as soon as the next “correct bone structure” comes along. Well, we can only hope, anyway.

Let’s pray the same is true for Moss. After all, if it’s a joke, it’s getting old. Sorry, I meant SHE’S getting old. Get off my TV you wrinkly, manky old cretin.

TV Times

The ending of the seventh season of Scrubs was a massive load of arse on toast. Having still not managed to secure myself a job, I've been watching hours and hours of television, including seasons 2-7 of Scrubs, which generally I've approved of. Okay, so it's formulaic to the point of nausea, but the show's got enough comedy and randomness in it to get me through the schmaltzy emotional bits where we all go home a little bit wiser and kinder to our fellow man. Like so many other series, Scrubs suffered at the hands of the writer's strike, but die-hard fans of the show would surely have been crushed to receive a measly 11 episodes, the last two of which were played in the wrong order. JD and Elliot's relationships were all naturally all over the place owing to the fact that the show's makers are blatantly going to try some messy reassembly of their relationship, despite the fact that they decided seasons ago that it was not going to work. I have to say it's a device in American television that's starting to bore me. Carrie and Big, Mulder and Scully, Ross and Rachel – all of these poor bastards seemed destined for each other despite the fact that the only thing they have in common is the capacity to make each other miserable. Well, maybe not Mulder and Scully. I actually quite liked those two.

Anyway, so I've been watching masses of TV and some of it's good, and some of it's merely okay. None of it's that bad. I'm always impressed that American TV is so often much better quality than British TV in that they've actually got something worth watching on every night of the week. I saw the first episode of "Fringe" the other night, which was gripping if nothing else. It's got enough in common with The X Files to make it good. I'm just hoping it stays on that side of the line and doesn't stray into Ghost Whisperer territory where things get too weird. I always quite liked the framework to the X Files and the way it dealt with cases on a fairly impersonal level. The moment you start bringing demons and other peculiar "underworld beings" you're getting into dodgy space.

Having said that, I've been watching "True Blood" with Dan and it's really good. At least, I like it, but then I'm quite into that vampiric lore stuff, what with having seen Hellsing, read the manga, and watched so much Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's definitely better than Buffy; more gritty, and the theme tune is this really cool blues track that I keep getting stuck in my noggin for hours on end. The only problem I really have with it is Sookie Stackhouse's breasts. I mean, what is up with those bad boys? Fair enough that Anna Paquin isn't overwhelmingly well-endowed, but whoever's on wardrobe duty on that show needs a slap upside the head so her chest doesn't end up halfway up her nasal passage by the time we're halfway through the series. If they wanted Sookie to be voluptuous, they should simply have chosen a curvier actress. There's nothing wrong with Anna's shape, I just can't help but cringe when she's slipped into these overly padded bras. Her boobs don't look bigger, they just look... odd.

I'm enjoying the most recent season of House. That and Grey's Anatomy are filling the hospital drama slot that Scrubs has inhabited the last month or so. Oh, and the new season of ER. It's strange that ER has gone on as long as it has, I remember watching it years ago when George Clooney was still in it. Greg died, which was depressing, and I spent the rest of the afternoon feeling a bit weepy. Given that I'm trying to watch television to improve my mood, I might avoid ER in the future if it continues to be depressing!