Pets

 I know people for whom pets are their beloved children. I find it a little odd. I shall not tell a lie.

I’ve witnessed haughty middle-agers sail through rooms, all pride and hubris to lick-kiss bemused blank faced arse-eating animals.

I have heard words used like child and baby and I cringe for both parties.

If the animal could understand, I wonder if it would think…steady on, let’s not get ahead of ourselves - I want to travel…. I’m 53!

…your top lip does smell of beef though…would you mind if i just?…waste not want not….

I love being around Animals. They make me happy. Ding arches his brow when I say for the umpteenth time as a cat passes, Isn’t it amazing how a completely different species accepts our presence in its space.

I like them - but I never think that They are We.

Yeah? big deal. We do. Deal with it.

Fair enough.

This morning I had the telly on in the background as I was getting Finny ready for school.

Yes! … Says a Dog mother....he’s unfit because he does like his food….curry, fish and chips…ice-cream…he’s gotta cut back..

I look down at my dear old labrador who smells so bad I am loathe to invite in casual callers.

I pictured myself doing the same interview….Tilly?…Oh she doesn’t know she’s a dog…ooh yes, she’s a bit unfit…she needs to cut down…her favourites?…Erm?…meat, fish, cat food, bread for the birds, dirty dishwasher when she can get it…all kinds of food really..

…road-kill, chicken-shit, cat regurgitation…dirt..wood that looks like chicken-shit and do you know?.. when she walks in on someone on the toilet, you could almost hear her saying to you “well, if you’re throwing that away..” …she do like to eat.

We don’t kiss.

Fat jibes drove me to drugs

 Bet that title got some people eager to share my pain….lol

Fat jibes drove me to drugs, reads the bold headline of a red top newspaper gossip column today.

‘Is it any wonder that Keane front man Tom Chaplin had a battle with drugs after the cruel jibes from other bands?’

Laughably, on the opposite page is a full length photo of the lovely Drew Barrymore entitled ‘Drewpy Bits’

You’ve guessed it..she has cellulite and that astounding fact means that we need to be shown it magnified in its half-page glory.

I wonder if she takes drugs - or feels the need now to do so.

 

The irony of these two stories run side by kissing side seems lost to this paper. This paper of the people.

 

 

In the last year we have seen the shredding of Jade Goody’s career. Named and shamed as a play ground bully.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not sad that I am unlikely to share an interviewer’s couch with her again in the near future, but if I were her I would have felt very confused - being rounded on with such great enthusiasm that you could almost smell the little sprays of wee coming out of the circling pack’s urethras’.

In the same columns we read stories of lonely children, their confidence  shattered by humiliations, jeering and name-calling. Whose educations have been curtailed, and in some tragic cases, whose lives have been lost one way or another. We read their stories and we cry hot tears. Stamp out this bullying. Join us.

Kill the nasty fuckers!

 

What is happening to our young people? ponders one writer as the camera closes in on some broken hearted family.

Turn to the supplement, or not even that far and we can regularly read ‘Sorry love. You’re a mess!’

A happy girl has her picture taken on her big night out, and there she finds herself the next day marked as one big ugly zero.

This girl has been sweating, the freak.

This girl has worn the same shoes twice, the slut.

This girl has been dumped, the sad old loser.

Look at the babe now she is 60. Rip her to shreds.

Hey Dolly-shit-dress!

Fat, fat…oh glorious god thank you! She is fat.

 

It turns my stomach . The hideous glee that we are being encouraged to feel in the shaming of another human being. A human being. A human being.

 

And when that writer is a woman it sears my heart two fold. Oh the mindless misogyny from our very sex.

 

 

Spam

Spam used to be pink stuff that I coveted.

When I had a packed lunch as a 60’s child, it was all wholemeal bread and grilled chicken and celery sticks and homemade yoghurt sweetened with pureed fruit. (take note parents of small children determined to feed them fit)

My mates had white packet bread and spam with pickle. I remember thinking that it was because we must be really poor that we couldn’t buy processed. That somehow their parents loved them more to give them cake.

We had home made food, home sewn clothes, camping holidays. Phumph!.. every year I longed for Butlins or just to be home alone like my mates.

Spam now is something you can’t give away and it tumbles into your inbox every time you log on.

This morning for example, instead of grinding my teeth writing this blog, I should be sifting my mail and answering what I know are some really pressing questions.

I cannot be arsed!

Why?

Well…. just because it is like picking up after the kids all over again. I leave a messy living room and enter a messy in-box and I want to turn and walk out of that too.

Who are these people that think  …hehe…we will have them…I have in my hands many email addresses……we are made brother!….we will send them an offer they cannot refuse, in something that approximates their mother tongue…like this!…

“We are most earnest moguls with unfortunately large sacks of dollars currently being transported on sick donkeys for delivery to you, and added to which you have won a lottery $9,000,000,00, and your bank asked us to represent them in wiring to you many things including shoes of your choosing for quick response lady friend. Our church needs a roof Quid Pro Quo Clarice. Send  who you are or a nation is lost.”

 

What is that all about? Do people really respond?

 “Great! Yeah fab, I think we can do something here!”

 

Do these entrepreneurs  have offices and work experience translators and venn diagrams?

If we ever managed to rid ourselves of them, would a premiership football club collapse over night?

 

You would think not.

 

They should try plumbing.

It seems to be a lucrative enough career.

…..and before you go all right-on on me. If they’ve got a sodding computer, they can lay their hands on a wrench.