Fucking NTL

If this gets through let me just say that I'm posting blind. Due to our crap NTL system I cannot access my own blog nor any blog that has been created with blogspot.com. NTL, I would like to pour more vitriol on you but for all I know this will be bounced back to me and I will KICK my computer screen in if it is.
Yours, changing to wordpress as soon as you get the problem sorted out,
FMC the annoyed (but with super runners)

Huzzah!

Observe fellow runners! Feast your eyes on these. Allow me to present my newest and fancy pants silver springy runners! I scampered off with the advice to my nearest sporting goods store where upon a gum chewing base-ball wearing youth agreed with poster aquaasho that 'Yer, dem are de best one fer runnin' and support that ye can buy.'
'Zounds!' I said, 'They're super light.'
'Yer' He said and moved his gum to the other side of his mouth.
'They make my other ones seem like carpet slippers.'
'You wanna box?' He said trying hard to stay awake.
'Surely.' I said, turning my foot thither and yon.
He wandered off at minus one mile to the hour and returned a century later with the box. So I"m photographing that too.

I'm super smitten with them and plan to take them out for a spin in the morning. Are they not swish?

Women, what are we doing to ourselves?

It was with a heavy heart I read this article earlier this morning and it made me wonder, what is it that makes us despise ourselves so?

"Half of all women - including some girls as young as 17 - would consider plastic surgery, a survey has revealed.
And nearly a third of women who are a size 12 believe they are overweight or fat, according to the poll of nearly 25,000 people
The survey results come after it was revealed yesterday that a controversial plastic surgery group is offering interest-free loans to patients.
The offer by the Transform Medical Group means women can have a face lift or breast enlargement and not pay interest for 12 months.

The latest research, carried out for BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat, quizzed people of all ages, but 85 per cent of respondents were aged between 18 and 35.

Half the women taking part said there was 'lots they would change' about themselves while more than one in 10 said they 'hated' their body.

This was in contrast to 49 per cent of men who said they were 'okay' with how they looked. One in 10 men claimed they were 'very happy' with their appearance - and less than a quarter said they would opt for cosmetic surgery.

Almost half of the female participants admitted they had skipped a meal in attempt to lose weight, while eight per cent had at some stage made themselves sick after eating.

Of the girls aged between 12 and 16 who took part, 53 per cent believed their body image prevented them from getting a boyfriend or stopped them from relaxing in a relationship.


Of those women who said they would consider plastic surgery, 36 per cent were thinking about having a breast enlargement while 32 per cent said they would opt for liposuction.

The survey also asked people whether they were on a diet. More than one in five women said they were - compared to less than one in 10 men.

Weight Watchers proved to be the most popular, with almost 20 per cent of dieters following it, while only one per cent were following the Atkins diet.

Dr Dee Dawson, who runs the Rhodes Farm eating disorders clinic in North London, said the results revealed how unhappy women were with their bodies 'They feel that they are overweight even though they are really not, and they are feeling despondent about it.

They think they should look like those models but they are people who are starving themselves and are not healthy.

Quite clearly, plastic surgery or skipping meals is not the way forward. People need to realise they should not be trying to look like these girls."

Well of bloody course women are unhappy with their bodies.
We are constantly being subjected to image after image of airbrushed prefection no matter which way we turn. Every magazine contains reams of photos depicting size two models who have no visable flaws and who are quite frankly are digitally altered.
Hollywood women are for the most part skin and bone- I'm not including Jennifer Hudson Jessica Biel or America Ferrera- in this, but Jesus, Nicole, Paris, Christina- Ciara? These are the women our teenagers are trying to emulate, and when a teenager starts out thinking she's flawed you can be damn that she's not going to change her mind the moment she hits young adulthood.
There needs to be some balance. On the one hand obesity is rising and our diets are growing poorer and poorer, saturated in fats and high in sugar and sodium, cash rich time poor, we're breeding probems that we may not be able to solve.
But god dammit, on the other hand what's wrong with looking like a female, what's wrong with having breasts? Hips? Buttocks? Who says size two is beautiful? Why do we care so much? Who are we dieting, starving, sucking, altering ourselves for?
So you have stretch marks after your baby? So what? Why can't you wear them with pride, you gave birth didn't you? So your breasts are a bit smaller than your friends, are they soft? What makes two hard balls sexy? Vagina lips untidy? Well guess waht, you can get them nipped and evened out now too, why? Because porn stars have neat labial lips and waxed bleached ass-holes, and they're the height of feminine guile are they not? No? Are you sure? They so pink and clean looking?
I'm fed up with the pursuit of fictional perfection. I think people should be healthy and happy. I think people should embrace their uniqueness- who the bloody hell wants to look like they came off the assembly line?
I'm not perfect and chances are neither are you. I'm nobody's clone and neither are you. To plunder 'The Life of Brian' we are all individuals! Yes, we are all individuals!
That is all.

Running.

A question for the runners out there. I've been upping the training a little and am poodling at roughly five miles every other day, and an extended eight miles once a week.( not particularly fast, but steady pace) However my right knee is sore. I've rested it since last thursday, but I can still feel a twinge when I walk up or down stairs, and even in bed last night there was a definite dull ache. there seems to be a bit of a fluid build up over the cap too. Is this from running on concrete? And should I be wearing some kind of support?
Cheers in advance.

Killing with kindness.

From to days UK Independent.

"The mother of an eight-year-old boy who may be taken into care tomorrow because of his excessive weight has condemned her local health authority for threatening the drastic measure without offering enough support to deal with her son's weight problem.

The boy's mother, Nicola McKeown, who has suffered from depression, said her family would be devastated if Connor was taken away. She accused the authorities in Wallsend, near Newcastle upon Tyne, where she lives in a council home with Connor and his sister, of failing to support her.

Speaking to the Tonight with Trevor McDonald programme, which has been following Connor's case for a month, she said: "I was given a diet sheet when he was five-years-old, stuck to it for a whole year. There was supposed to be a follow-up appointment, nothing. Carried on, stuck with it as long as I could and for the amount he was eating, I felt sorry for him.

"He lost a stone in a year and for the amount he was living on at the time, it should have been a drastic weight loss, not just a stone." She added: "The worst case would be Connor getting taken into care. He is well cared for, well looked after between the family.

"It is just the fact that he has totally demented me wanting feeding constantly. It is so hard."

Connor has reportedly broken four beds and five bicycles. He has difficulty walking, washing and dressing himself, and often has to miss school because of health problems.

His grandmother Barbara Bake said: "He is walking pretty bad at the moment because the strain is all on the knees.

"[I'm] extremely worried because if he ever gets taken into care, I think that would be the finish of me seriously. I love that little boy so much really. I would give my life for him, willingly."

The family has been summoned to a child protection conference tomorrow to discuss his future. The conference, which will be attended by two specialist obesity nurses, among other professionals, could result in his being placed on the child protection register, or the less serious, children-in-need register, and lead to him being taken into care.

Obesity experts believe the intervention is justified. Dr Michael Markiewicz, a consultant paediatrician, said: "I think we are looking at a child who is going to be exceedingly unhappy, exceedingly unhealthy and probably will face an early death. They love him but they actually love him to death, literally ... through the way they are treating him and feeding him, they are slowly killing him.

"As far as I'm concerned this is a form of child abuse. Not done intentionally, but the result is child abuse."

Dr Colin Waine, chairman of the National Obesity Forum, which campaigns to raise awareness of the impact of obesity on the NHS, said in extreme cases removing a child from his or her family would be justified. "The long-term impacts of this child's gross obesity are frightening," he said. "He has great risk of diabetes and coronary illness. His life expectancy is severely prejudiced. So action is required if his health is to be safeguarded."

Ms McKeown maintains she should have been helped earlier. "I don't see how they can say we are not doing enough," she said.We have all got Connor in our best interests. These are people that have never helped us before now. I asked to have a social worker to help me and this is what it has come to." "

I don't know if this woman is deluded or an absolute lunatic. She's bleating on about how unfair it is that the 'authorities' are threatening to take her son, instead of facing up to what she is doing. This is an eight year old that is so overweight he can no longer make the five minute walk to his school.
He's 8 years old and he weighs 14 stone.
"I don't see how they can say we are not doing enough"
It's unreal how self- pitying this woman is. Her son has no friends, eats an unbelievable amount of crap a day and is slowly but surely killing himself. At eight years old this boy cannot make decisions regarding his own diet and his own health, that's a parent's job. Just as it is a parents duty to protect, provide for and care for their child. Even if fulfilling that duty sometimes means saying 'NO'.

This is Connor's diet.


BREAKFAST: Coco Pops cereal

11am: Three slices of toast with turkey ham

LUNCH: Two sausages, burger, chips, fizzy pop

DINNER: Takeaway (two nights a week). Roast will include four Yorkshire puddings

SNACKS: Every 20 minutes. Intake will include four packets of crisps, three packets of biscuits, several bars of chocolate.

I could hardly believe what I was reading. 3 Packets of biscuits? four packets of crisps? His snacks alone probably exceed 2000 calories.
I'm against kids being taken from their parents if there is another way to resolve an issue. But in this instance a care order for this boy might just be the only thing that can save him. From himself and from a family that are too blinkered and head in the sand to realise that while they doubtless love their boy, they are doing him immeasurable harm.

Saturday Morning Trickery!

My sister and my mother have just this very moment departed to Kilkenny. But what's this? Skullduggery is afoot, or was a foot..or, ah fuck it, we was duped and I only discovered it when my mother went to the bathroom.
My sister- 'Thanks a bloody heap.'
Me- 'Ow! Why are you pinching me?'
'Because of you I have to spend the day with her in Kilkenny.' My sister jerks her thumb at the ceiling.
'I thought you wanted to go!' I squeak, afronted and moving out of reach.
'What the hell would make you think that?'
'She told me you did, only you were short a baby sitter.'
'Short! I told her my mother-in-law couldn't mind them because she was in Naas today.'
'And isn't she?'
'Of course she's not. She's at home.'
'Shit.'
'Shit.'
We hear a flush and a moment later my mother appears in the doorway 'Are we all set? We'd better be on our way.'
She turns heel, pats the boy on the head and glides on a cloud of lilac towards the door, ignoring our glowers as only she can.
'Shit.' My sister repeats, picking up her car keys.
'Shit' I say.
'The baby's teething, so she's got a touch of diarrhea. There's Calpol in the nappy bag. Don't bother with the teething ring, she hates it.'
'Shit.'

So that's than then, I've got a full house-complete with teething angry pooing baby (sleeping red faced, fists clenched in her cat seat for the moment). I've got to go actually, I can hear from the outraged screech upstairs that the boy has managed to stuff the bigger of the cats into the linen basket.

Morning has broken.

Now I'm going to strangle it.
Getting up this early is...well it's ungodly, isn't it?
Besos
FMC.

Britney Spears could be a little nuts.

'You drive me crazy, I just cant sleep..ooh' Or whatever is was.
Anyhoo, Brit turned up at the home of her soon to be ex-husband Kevin Federline earllier this eveing and and rang the doorbell. When old Kev showed some excellent judgement and didn't show up, Britney lost the plot and attacked a white truck with a green umbrella. Shortly thereafter she booked her self straight back into rehab for the 3rd time.
Sigh, and to think I just broke a phone. How lame am I?

Glasgow.

Loathe though I am to travel, especially on a Friday, sometimes there is simply no getting out of it. So tomorrow I will be gadding about Glasgow for much of the day. If anyone knows of a reasonably priced restaurant, seafood-y in tone, I would much appreciate it.

My mother. May a Jellybaby explode in her mouth.

How I have never taken an axe to the back of my mother's head before now is a mystery to me. She annoys the ever living shite out of me and always has done and I suspect I do the same to her.
The rest of my family don't seem to have the same level of aggro with her so it must be just me. Right?
Maybe I'm not as tolerant as them, maybe she doesn't rub them up the wrong way like she does me, maybe we just have a personality clash.
Or then again maybe not.
Maybe she's just a miserable old bitch who takes great delight in ruining what was otherwise a very fucking pleasant -if mildly painful -evening.
Last night I was sipping on a Baileys, ice packing my knee and waiting for 'Dead like Me' to start when the phone rang. I picked it up becaue it was on the arm of my chair.
'Lo?'
'There you are,'my mother said in a voice that made me twitch. 'You didn't tell me your (very best friend) was buying a site.'
'No?'
'You know you didn't!'
I shrugged, but then remembered she couldn't see that, so I grunted instead and moved the icepack higher on my knee.
'I saw her there last week, up there, her and that other fella.'
'And?'
'So there's a site notice gone up on the gate yesterday.'
'How do you know it's her?'
'Her name's on it! Hers and his.'
'So what, they're building a house.'
'Well you should see what type of house they're planning!'
'How do you-'
'I was in Wicklow town planning office today.'
'And you looked at their plans?'
'Well sure aren't they there to be looked at! And it's up the road from me... it better not effect my line.'
'Jesus, how the hell could it effect you? It's three miles away!'
'So you DID know about it!'
'She said they were THINKING about building up there.'
'I can't believe you didn't think to mention this to me.'
'Can't you?'
'What's wrong with you anyway? You're so cranky this evening.'
'I've a swollen knee.'
'From what?'
'Kick boxing.' I glace down at my leg, 'Or it could be from running on concrete actually.'
'Tut.'
I stiffen. 'Excuse me?'
'Don't you think it's time you gave up all that ould nonsense?'
'Which nonsense woud this be now?'
'All that ould fighting and stuff. It can't be good for you, you're always getting bangs and scrapes.'
'I'm planning to do the Dublin marathon in October.
'So I hear.'
'Who told you? Etheline?'
'She mentioned it. I think you're mad.'
'Why?'
'Ah, at your age, starting that now... you'd need to be running the whole time.'
'Night and day?'
'What?'
'I have nearly eight months to train, that's plenty of time.'
'Pffft.'
'Excuse me?'
'You'll do yourself an injury, that's what you'll do.'
I grip the phone so tightly my knuckles go white. I resist saying anything that might be deemed as cursing, imflammatory or down right rude.
'Was there anything else? There's something I want to watch about to come on.'
'I asked your sister to come down to Kilkenny with me on Saturday.'
'Right.'
'Only she can't can she, not with the children.'
'Um.'
'It wouldn't hurt you to take them off her once in a while.'
'I do take them.'
'Well.'
'She didn't ask me to mind them on saturday, if she had asked I might have taken them.'
'You should offer.'
'I'm not a mind reader. If she asks me I'll mind them.'
'Sure I'm asking you now.'
'Fine, I'll mind them.'
'Oh you needn't bother if it's putting you out.'
'I just said I would, didn't I?' And now my voice is starting to rise.
'It's the way you said it.'
'It's the way you asked.'
'Well I'll call her back and tell her you were kind enough to take them for a couple of hours.'
'Do that.'
There is silence. I don't break it and neither does she. After a second or two I hang up.
Then I fucked the phone as hard as I could across the room, breaking it in the process and wrenching my knee.
ARRRRRRGHHHHHHHHH!
And Dead Like Me didn't didn't come on! Some show called Heroes came on instead.
And this morning I must go into town for a meeting, and I don't like meetings. No, I do not.

Tears, Tempers, Tiaras, Tylenol.

OH, I feel it, a snuffly wuffly teary smeary sensation. As I gather my bag up and make sure I have taken some pre-Memnoch painkillers, my heart is heavy.
Today is my last class with Memnoch, that vicious being who mocks me, rolls his eyes at me, and-on occasion- puts me in hospital with concussion. Here is a man, a cold stone brute of a man, who quite frankly, let's not beat around the bush here, does not really like teaching women and thinks we are too pathetic to be in his dojo, and I'm upset over his departure.
At the start of my path with Memnoch I was outraged by this sexist nonsense. Furious over his confident air that we ladies wouldn't last long and that he was only humouring us by letting us stay. There were five of us ladies and anything the lads could do we could do! I said it so it must be so!!
As the months progressed there was ample time for me to reconsider those views.
As the five whittled down to four, then three, then just me and Claire I was forced to deal with something my brain refused to accept but my body already knew.
Memnoch was right. Memnoch is always right.
Once I had learned this the hard way- rounds with the Canadian flinging me about lie a rag doll, pad holding for Memnoch, where he would strike the pad so hard I would be forced backwards and my head would ache at the sheer force of the blow, conditioning where after circut laps my leaden legs would wobble and my bile rise, occasional ceiling watching-I felt liberated. I started to accept other things too, Most men are stronger than us, so what? We have only one third of their testerone, of course they are! We're not in direct competition with each other.
How liberating.
No longer did I worry about being tougher than the lads. Claire and I shut out yaps and decided to learn what Memnoch had to teach us. And new calm washed over me.
And now, having broken us and rebuilt us, our master, our tormentor, the man we -male and female alike- respect deeply, fear greatly, and bow to equally deeply- is leaving us.
For sodding Hamburg.
If he notices I am a bit teary today I will tell him there is something in my eye. Like Claire's fist for example. He'll like that.
Stupid change.
I am totally and utterly against it.

Balls, scrotes, vaginas, roscoe rules, censorship.

"An award-winning children's book about a 10-year-old girl seeking answers about life has provoked an uproar in America because it uses the word 'scrotum' on the first page.

Susan Patron's 'The Higher Power of Lucky' is being barred from school libraries in parts of the country - even though the actual reference is to the scrotum of a dog.

The book won America's top children's book award, the Newbery Medal."

Coming very swiftly along behind the recent waffle and spit over the Vagina Monologes -the play title was changed briefly to the 'Hoohaa' Monologes at the request of some one who perhaps didn't realise vaginas were a natural occuring body part and therefore not 'yuccky'- libraries all over America are getting busy and whipping up storm of protest over the inclusion of this most offensive of words, 'scrotum'.

The book’s heroine, a scrappy 10-year-old orphan named Lucky Trimble, hears the word through a hole in a wall when another character says he saw a rattlesnake bite his dog, Roy, on the scrotum.

“Scrotum sounded to Lucky like something green that comes up when you have the flu and cough too much,” the book continues. “It sounded medical and secret, but also important.”

The inclusion of the word has shocked some school librarians, who have pledged to ban the book from elementary schools, and reopened the debate over what constitutes acceptable content in children’s books. The controversy was first reported by Publishers Weekly, a trade magazine.
Reached at her home in Los Angeles, Ms. Patron said she was stunned by the objections. The story of the rattlesnake bite, she said, was based on a true incident involving a friend’s dog.

And one of the themes of the book is that Lucky is preparing herself to be a grown-up, Ms. Patron said. Learning about language and body parts, then, is very important to her.

“The word is just so delicious,” Ms. Patron said. “The sound of the word to Lucky is so evocative. It’s one of those words that’s so interesting because of the sound of the word.”

Ms. Patron, who is a public librarian in Los Angeles, said the book was written for children 9 to 12 years old. But some librarians countered that since the heroine of “The Higher Power of Lucky” is 10, children older than that would not be interested in reading it."

Which is rather like saying only pigs and spiders really want to read about Charlotte's Web. Or that an adult might not be interested in Oliver Twist.

“I think it’s a good case of an author not realizing her audience,” said Frederick Muller, a librarian at Halsted Middle School in Newton, N.J. “If I were a third- or fourth-grade teacher, I wouldn’t want to have to explain that.”

No no, God forbid a child might learn that the old ballbag is actually called a scrotum, let's stick with peepee and goolies or doodysack or whatever other nonsensical word we can find. Let's not mention vagina at all or... oh I don't know, toes. I'm going to call my toes feet fingers from now on.
Actually kids, being kids, like nothing more than reading books that adults tell them they shouldn't be reading, so carry on banning and getting offended over nothing, draw as much possible attention to it in fact.
Now, I really must get on, my stomach-er..interier food recycler, is rumbling and this post is starting to get on my dirty pillows.

Running a marathon.

Unlike Finn, who is clearly a gifted and brilliant runner I have always had love hate relationship with running. I hate starting off but I love the feeling at the end of a run. I am further hampered by the fact that is seems to take me an inordinately long time to warm up. Neither am I designed for speed, distance sure, but speed nope. I have two gears, walking, ground skimming joggy trot. That's it.
Bearing this in mind I am considering entering myself into the Dublin City Marathon. It will be on the 29th October. That gives me the best part of eight months to get my act together and train.
So, if anyone has any tips, or has run a marathon before, I would appreciate any and all advice. Currently I can skippity bob along six miles (about 10k) without falling down. I 'm wondering is it better to run a little every day and run long once or twice a week or does that put too much pressure on joints and so on. How much should I be looking to extend that distance and in what time frame and what is the best 'fuel/food' for running.
Cheers.

Britney Spears is bald.

This kid needs someone to drag her cootchie showing ass off to rehab as soon as possible. She has become completely unhinged. If hanging about with parasite Hilton was bad, shaving her bloody hair off and getting ink all over her bloody body is a bit of a plea for help wouldn't you all agree?
Meh, I don't really care, but it's like watching a car crash, you just can't help but stare and point.

Parental skills needed.

Some people do not deserve to have children, it's just that simple.
From today's quality paper, The Sun

"FOUR cruel women forced two sobbing children to fight each other — and made a sick home video of it, shocked magistrates heard.

The seven-minute tape, found by social workers, shows a crying boy of two being hit in the face by his three-year-old sister. The laughing adults, all from the same family, are heard telling him, “Don’t be a wimp and a faggot” and urging him to retaliate.

The terrified boy tries to hide his head in a sofa — but the women tell his sister to punch him again.

The boy sobs, “No, I don’t want to” and the girl begs to go to the toilet. But as soon as she returns she is urged to attack again and the fight goes on until one woman says “that’s enough”.

A relative alerted social workers when she saw the film — and staff called in police. The women, all aged between 19 and 49 and from Plymouth, told cops it was a play fight and would be “character-building”.

One said: “I couldn’t see any harm in toughening them up.”

The women, who cannot be named, admitted child cruelty at Plymouth Magistrates Court. Sentencing was adjourned for reports. Social workers are now working with the family to ensure the children’s safety"

I would dearly like to practice some 'toughening up' on them and see how they like it.

In the jungle, the mighty jungle...

the cats creep to-er, this morning. Puddy and The one eyed one investigate the great outdoors. The bigger of the cats has vanished to investigate further afield, but fear not, he will be back. Possibly dragging a wood pigeon in his wake.

Bottom is the one eyed one rolling on some minging table. I just want to point out that this table is not mine and 'came' with the 'garden'.

For The Swearing Lady!

Okay, a bit beardless, but wadddayagonnado. The dudette abides.

Cancer, everyone can get it,

even strippers! Gasp.
Who knew that strippers were real women too? I thought they ranked up there with prostitutes and blow up dolls and 'sex workers' as some species of sub-person.
I was going to write about releasing the cats today, and possibly how fucking rude some people are on Valentine's night, but then this piece of crap caught my eye and my dander-thusly raised- forced me to abandon my mild mannered screed and steer the outraged car across the road to a subject that bothers the ever living shit out of me.

I hate the trite sexualisation of women.

I despise that in order to make a point some woman somewhere generally has to strip off and either stand around looking uncomfortably naked or stimulate a sexual act.
I hate that fucking pole dancing, as well as becoming a 'cool and perfectly normal' way of life, is now used to advertise and showcase just about everything.

Want to lose some weight? Slid down a fucking pole in a suggestive manner at a gym somewhere. Tee hee. It's fun.

Want to spend a good night out? Go to a strip club, it's ironic dontcha know? Look at Dita von Teese.

Want to release a rap video, get a shit load of strippers to dance around making their asses 'clap'.

Want to release an indie video? Get Kate Moss to slide up and down, only do it in black and white, cooler that way, more arty.

It's not just pole dancing.
Want to say fur is bad? Get two girls to strip off their clothes and stand freezing their goose-pimpled arses off while a large group of men stand around them leering and taking photos with their camera phones. Or get them to do a faux 'State of the Union' speech while stripping naked.
Yeah! Isn't this all just fun? Right on! How liberating. Come on, show more cleavage, it's for a good cause.
And now! Drum roll please...want to show that cancer effects us all?
Bring on the stripper.
Well I'm fucking sick of it.
If this was a campaign for testicular cancer would we expect to see a male stripper dancing about on stage, oiled up, wearing a dicky bow and slapping his winkle about sans a ball or two?
Of course not, that would appear to be making light of his illness. No, if it was a testicular cancer, we would probably see a family man-possibly with kids playing in the background, telling his wife the bad news. There might even be sad background music.
Why? Because cancer is a disease that can show no mercy. Cancer can invite itself in and destroy a whole family. It can effect the young and the old, men and women and children alike.
It's not really very sexy now is it?
This campaign reeks to the high heavens.
We don't need to sexualise cancer, or glorify stripping to make a point. We don't need to objectify women at every turn to send a message.
Cancer, everyone can get it, but only women need to strip off and get jiggy with it to make you understand. Right?
There is nothing sexy about breast cancer, there is nothing sexy about lung cancer, there is nothing sexy about cancer period. And fuck anyone that might triviaize it and 'sex it up'.
That is all.

For Fat Sparrow!

Observe, the creeping horror of it all.

Addition-I should point out that the above picture is of Jared Leto and his 'band'. I will always have a soft spot for Jared Leto because of his delightful 'oirish' accent in Alexander, which he clearly picked up-along with an eye-liner habit- from that other 'oirish' rap-scallion Cottle Farttle.
Oh what laughs oi had when de spoke to each udder in the fil-um.
'Conker yer fear and youse can conker det!'
Huzzah Cottle, iod follu you aniwhere so I wood in all.

Some minor quirks and foibles.

Despite my general bon homie and splendid love of life there are a few things that bother me. I'm sure everyone has little things they do that others find odd or not as the case might be.
For example- I don't like my feet covered when I sleep. I just don't. Even on the coldest night of the year they get too hot. Pretty much the same goes for gloves, I can wear them for about five minutes then my hands get too hot.

I don't like my food mixed up on a plate. I like it in separate piles ( not touching) which I will then eat least favourite first. (actually this could be a bit over the top, even with mixed vegatables I always eat the carrots first, then the brocceli, and so on)

I don't kill or like other people killing spiders. Just catch them in a glass and put them out.

I don't like repeating myself AT ALL. (if you didn't hear me the first time just guess what I said, you're probably right anyway)

I don't like to be late. I don't like other people to be late. If we say we're meeting at five, I will be there at five to five, what I won't be is wandering along at ten past five and saying things like 'See! If you had a mobile I could have called you and told you I was running late!' This is what I call 'The Blame'. You are late but it is my fault because I don't have a phone. Right.

I don't like talking on the phone-or answering the phone, or having a phone. I could very cheerfully live without one. I don't own a mobile and this is increasingly becoming something of a joke in Ireland. Why this should be met with such incredulity is beyond me.

I don't like eye boogers.

I don't like it when people stretch and loads of cracks and fizzy noises emanate like ooze from their bodies, super hella vile.
Ditto people who crack their knuckles- they should be made go live on an island somewhere.

I don't like talking to people who have phlegm in their throats and need to clear it, but don't and carry on talking in a weird voice. Just stop and go 'harrrrummmpphh harruun' and then carry on speaking normally! Don't just keep talking as though you're underwater. Bleeee.

And so on, you get the picture. Just your average set of quirks that most of us have.
Right?
Well today, on this the most 'romantic' day of the all I wish to add another.

I do not like to find underpants in the bathroom sink.
It's going on the list. Maybe not at the top, but it's up there.

Underpants being left in sinks! I'm totally against it!!

The right to die.

I come out every now and again with some opposing notions. I realise that, but hey, no person is made up of black and white views.
I'm against legalising drugs, on the fence about abortion (when I was younger I was totally pro-choice, but as I got older my views have changed slightly, I still consider myself pro-choice, however I despair at the numbers and casual attitude to it)
But I am down right enthusiastic about the right to die.
I figure if an adult, mentally sound, but terminally ill person decides they don't want to live anymore then their decision should be respected.They should be allowed to end their life with as much dignity as possible.
My mother -on the other hand- thinks this is quite possibly the stupidest line of thought I have ever engaged in and thus far this morning we have rowed about it twice. (she's here, we're going into town to look for curtains)
It's not something I usually give a lot of thought to and doubtless we are going to bandy it about furiously this morning as we scope fabric, but I'd like to hear what you think.
From today's UK independent.

"A 30-year-old woman who is terminally ill has launched a campaign to overturn Britain's euthanasia laws by compelling her doctors to increase her dose of morphine and let her die.

Kelly Taylor lives in constant pain with a congenital heart defect and a spinal disorder. She says she has struggled with her condition all her life and wants release. She has been told she has a year to live but doctors have been unable to control her pain.

"Enough is enough," she said yesterday. "I don't want to suffer any more. I'm not depressed - I've never been depressed. I am a happy person. But my illness is now at the point where I don't want to deal with it any more."

Her case is believed to be unique in launching a double-pronged challenge to the law that forbids doctors from helping patients to end their lives. She wants the court to rule that doctors may sedate her and then withdraw tube feeding so that she dies.

The only treatment for Mrs Taylor's Eisenmenger's syndrome, which leaves her short of breath, is a heart and lung transplant, but she has become too frail for the operation. Her spinal condition, Klippel-Feil syndrome, restricts her mobility.

Last December, Mrs Taylor, who is looked after at home in Bristol by her husband, Richard, asked her doctors to increase her dose of morphine sharply. She had been receiving monthly prescriptions of the drug, to induce a deep, coma-like state of sedation, so that she no longer felt pain. She also made a living will asking doctors not to feed or hydrate her artificially.

Her doctors - a cardiologist, palliative care consultant and GP from Bristol Royal Infirmary and St Peter's Hospice - refused her request, saying that it amounted to euthanasia.

Mrs Taylor said: "My consultant has told me that he does not expect me to live for another year. In that time I will deteriorate and that deterioration will become quite undignified. I want to avoid that."

Last July, she attempted to starve herself to death but abandoned her effort after 19 days. She also considered going to the Swiss assisted suicide clinic, Dignitas, which has helped more than 60 British patients die. But she disliked the idea of relatives having to face police investigations.

"I don't want to die in a foreign country, I want to die at home. While I have respect for people who go over there, it shouldn't be necessary. We should have a law over here," she said.

Her lawyers, Leigh Day and Co, say her doctors have a duty to provide her with adequate pain control even where it shortens her life. The case is expected to focus on whether increasing the morphine dose can be justified in this way or whether it amounts to an assisted death.

A consultant in palliative care said "terminal sedation" was carried out but only when death was imminent - within a week or two. "This girl is up and about. She may have a terminal diagnosis in the sense that she is not expected to recover but she is not dying. I would find it very difficult to say this was about symptom control."

A judge yesterday ordered a full hearing into the case next month."

This woman is going to die, she is in constant pain, she has lived with this pain for a number of years. Doesn't she have the right to say stop. Does she have the right to demand an end her suffering?
We see it with cancer patients all the time. Anyone who has ever lost a relative to cancer knows that in the final days it is the morphine that finally takes them. This woman does not want to worsen. She wants to die now, while she still has some final quality of life.
So the question is, does she have the right to insist on her own death through medical means in her own country?

Where does the buck stop again?

What do you make of this story?

"THREE girls who were imprisoned by their mother in a house littered with their own excrement for seven years may never recover from the ordeal, experts said last night.

The girls were shut away from the outside world, existing in almost complete darkness, playing only with mice and communicating in a made-up language.

When they were discovered, their home in a smart, upper middle-class suburb was filled with waste and excrement a metre high. The floor was corroded by mouse urine.

The case has stunned Austria, still reeling from the Natascha Kampusch kidnapping, and authorities were struggling last night to explain how such a horror story could have gone unnoticed.

The girls' ordeal was apparently sparked by their parents' divorce, after which their mother, a 53-year-old lawyer, suffered a breakdown. But she won custody of the girls - then aged 7, 11 and 13 - and withdrew them from school, claiming that she would give them private tuition at home.

Her husband, a local judge, was not allowed to see them once, despite his claims for access reaching court nine times.

The girls, Viktoria, Katharina and Elisabeth, were rescued only when police broke into the house after a neighbour, who had reported his suspicions several times, threatened a local council official with a lawsuit.

Although that was in October 2005, and the three have been in a specialised therapy centre since, the scandal was only revealed at the weekend.

The mother is now being held in a special remand prison branch for the mentally unstable. She will appear in court in a few weeks on charges of grievous bodily harm and torture and faces between five months and five years in prison.

She had ensured that the blinds were constantly shut, and that all but one light bulb had been removed in the house. When the three girls were released, they had white skin and could not endure exposure to natural light.

The mother was said to have been summoned to court nine times during the seven years after complaints by the father and neighbours, but officials never found a reason to investigate the case more closely.

Waltraud Kubelka, a therapist who is now treating the three girls, said that their psycho-social and physical development was "catastrophic".

"In the first weeks after their release they were hiding under a bench in the kitchen (in the therapy centre) because that was the darkest spot. They could not endure light."

Okay, at first reading this story shocked the hell out of me. I thought of the poor girls emerging from the darkness as the police kick down the doors, terrified and half blind.
But after reading it again I have nothing but questions.
Firstly, whither the father? What does it mean he was not alllowed see his girls again? How was this possible? Custody does not mean ownership. Why did he leave it up to the courts? Why did he not kick the bloody door clean off his hinges and demand to see his children?
I wonder about the made up language bit too. If girl were in school at 7, 11, 13, chances are they spoke fairly well already, why would they forget and revert to using a non-language? What happened to them? Were they not allowed speak?
What of the mother? Does she not have family, a sibling, cousins, parents? If her break down was as bad as they say how did the family function at all? Who shopped for food? Who paid the bills?
Why did the courts not insist this woman attend? Why did they not send an officer of the court to speak with her when she did not attend even one of the nine court dates?
How can three girls effectively disappear for 7 (!) years and no one do anything at all about it?

Yuck it up Wood Pigeon.

Huzzahs all round then.
We have proper lift off, the nice man from Telecom called at ten past eight this morning and all things interwebby were sorted. Huzzah! I tried to use dial up a few times during the week but it was like trying to perform open heart surgery with a butter knife.
What a strange week, moving is really quite horrible.
I don't know where anything is and I keep waking up because it's so quiet here. The movers got all the furniture out of the apartment-eventually and after taking the top off my bookcase- but couldn't get my desk in here! The hall is too narrow to turn it in so I had to put in into storage. This is verrry annoying as I am now reduced to tippity tapping away at the end of the dining room table. Vile.
The bigger of the cats has tested just about every window and door to see if there is anyway he can get out into the garden. There are big fat slow moving wood pigeons out there, mocking him. It's like watching Clarice and Lector. They wobble around the green thing we laughingly refer to as 'the lawn' looking all superior and shit. He spent a goodly part of yesterday sitting on a window ledge chattering at them and swishing his tail. They spent a goodly part of the day lumbering about right under his nose, like fat grey Boeing 747s.
They're toast as soon as he gets out-especially the one with the limp.
Puddy-who has moved many times- is unperturbed by this one and seems content to laze about under the radiators. She went to the vets yesterday and got her manky ears cleaned out and x-rayed. Although she spent the evening off her trolley, the news is good, no tumours growing.
The one eyed one hid behind the couch for a day and a half after the move but curiosity and bacon won the day and he has now totally bought into the newer greener housier life. He has discovered stairs and thinks they are great crack altogether. He spends most of the day running up and down them, emitting happy cheeps and beeps to himself.
The paramour is talking about building a 'bar-b-cue' and seems to be of the opinion that we will be eating nothing but 'bar-b- cue' as soon as the cold snap ends. This is an alarming development as he never really showed much interest in 'bar-b-cuing' things before now, but he seems very intent. We are heading to Homebase this avo to look at 'bar-b-cues' and talk about 'bar-b-cues.'
There are no shoes involved in this trip. I might cry off and head into town for lunch. I don't like the way his eyes get all shiny whenever he talks about 'bar-be cues'. Next thing he'll be looking for a shiny novelty apron that makes it looks like he is wearing a bikini.

Beards.

Okay, the man is tapping his foot. I must unplug the 'putor and get going. Be back onling hopefully in a few days, until then I will leave you with some photos of Ryan Reynolds. For no particular reason. None whatsoever. Did I ever mention I like beards? I do.
Ciao folks.

Moving woes.

Won't be posting much this week, as I'm buried up to my neck in moving boxes and crates, dust and bags of crap. No broadband in the new house yet either, but it should be in this week some time. This computer and my desk will probably be the last thing to leave. Cats are going this evening, their little boxes are lined up side by side in the hall. I've never seen a more curious Puddy, bushier tailed Bigger of the cats or more nervous one-eyed, Nelly.
The chap who came to eye up the furniture for removal keeps insisting he can get my desk-a massive big thing- out the window in the living room, despite the minor fact that I know it won't fit out said window. Not that I know anything about moving furniture, but the chaps that delivered couldn't get it in that window.
Neither will my big bookcase fit. I mentioned this, but he says it will, so that's that I suppose. I gave up and nodded. Might as well leave him to find out for himself.
Now I've got to go take inventory of everything I ever owned for the insurance. Then sellotape all the cutlery into different groups. Then clean out the hotpress. Then dismantle the bed the bed in the spare room and make sure I stick the screws to the heardboard in a plastic bag so that I don't lose them like the last time.
Isn't moving the biggest pain in the arse ever?
Besos.
FMC

Fat Camp Folly.

From today's independent.

"A FAMILY had their home repossessed after they missed mortgage payments in order to send their son to fat camp.

Linda Morris-Finn (44) said she took the drastic decision to risk the family home in Highbury Vale, Nottingham, because she was "desperate" to help her son Carl.

It cost £1,500 (€2,270) to send the boy who, at age 10 and 4ft 10in weighed 13 stone, to attend the Carnegie Camp for obese children in Leeds for two weeks last summer. The family was evicted two months later.

"It was sheer desperation," Mrs Morris-Finn said.

"He is a happy-go-lucky chap and he wasn't bothered about his weight. But I was, especially from a health point of view."

Mrs Morris-Finn, a support worker who now lives in a rented flat after divorcing husband Alf, discovered the 'fat camp' when she turned to the internet for an answer to her son's problems.

She then approached Carl's paediatrician at Nottingham City Hospital with the idea, in the hope that she could secure funding from the NHS - but ended up paying for it herself. "My ex-husband Alf knew I was missing payments on the house but we decided Carl was more important."

"Then, with one thing and another we just couldn't make up the mortgage payments and the house was repossessed in October.

"I now know there is NHS funding for this kind of thing so I'm trying to get it to send him back next year.

"Carl's a lot better than he was. He is more interested in food in terms of the calorie content and fat content. He is aware of portion control and wants to help prepare things," Mrs Morris-Finn said.

Carl did not lose a significant amount of weight during the two-week camp but has maintained a steady weight since, despite growing more than three inches."

This is madness.
Not only has this woman lost her family home-and ergo the home of her son, can you imagine the immense
pressure she has placed Carl under? He must know that he is the reason she sliped behind in her mortgage payments. That's a lot of guilt and unwanted anxiety to put on the shoulders of a young lad who is 'happy-go-lucky'
Why could she not have done something about this boy's weight herself, she is his mother after all. Why did she not restrict his calories, get him involved in sport and cooking at home. Where was his father in all this?
How unbelievely ridiculous is it to lose your home-and his- in order to send the boy to a two week 'fat camp', where basically they restrict calorie intake and get the kids to partake in more exercise.
I don't understand parents who cannot say 'no' to children. I don't understand a parent who on the one hand claims they have the best interest of their child at heart, but then allow their child to become more and more unhealthily obese. Children do not become obese over night. You wouldn't allow your ten year old sit around the house smoking or drinking Scotch, so why would you allow him to eat himself to ill health.
And then, after everything, the poor boy didn't even lose so much as a pound.
Crazy.

Sylvia Brown + Shawn Hornbeck=

psychic shite par excellence!
EEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, I totally enjoy for this kind of thing, you just don't know how happy this makes me. No really you just don't. Don't even bother trying.
Follow this please, come join with me as we laugh the laugh of the skeptics, dance the reel of the unbelievers, drink the blood of, no wait...


"'Psychic' Sylvia Brown blows big prediction

Shawn Hornbeck's parents received the best possible news when their son was found alive more than four years after his abduction.

For self-proclaimed psychic Sylvia Brown, however, the news was not so good.

In February 2003 on "The Montel Williams Show," Brown told the Hornbecks that their son was dead. She described his killer and even said where his body could be found.
His abductor was-according to Brown"…a dark-skinned man, he wasn't black -- more like hispanic [with] long, black hair that he wore in dreadlocks and was really tall."
(Ye-ah, nope)
Browne told Pam and Craig Akers their son "is no longer with us" but she had the impression his body was in a wooded area about 20 miles southwest of Richwoods. She said it would be near two large, jagged boulders that seem out of place in that area.
(Ye-ah, wrong again lady)

Yes, as it turned out, Shawn Hornbeck wasn't dead, his abductor looked nothing like the man Brown described, and Shawn's body, obviously, wasn't buried anywhere. That's three strikes right there.

Of course, Brown's standard disclaimer is that she isn't perfect and only God is right 100 percent of the time. But you would at least expect a person with true psychic powers to be able to predict the future with greater accuracy than you'd get by pure chance.

For years, James Randi, a professional magician and debunker of paranormal claims, has offered a $1 million prize to anyone who can demonstrate psychic abilities under scientific, controlled circumstances. So far, he's had no takers. Brown once agreed to take Randi's test but later backed out, he says.

Brown's response is to attack the scientific method. In a message posted on her official Web site, Brown writes, "The very nature of (Randi's) work is negative; i.e. one that tries to disprove the very nature of spirituality. Can God be 'proven' by scientific methods?"

But in her book "Prophecy: What the Future Holds for You," Brown claims an accuracy rate of near 90 percent. So, why the fuss about someone else testing her rate?

Perhaps it's because others who have kept track of Brown's public predictions give her far from a passing score. You'd be better off flipping a coin. Maybe that quarter in your pocket is psychic?

Give credit to CNN's Anderson Cooper for being willing to take on Brown, and for apparently forcing the issue with his colleague Larry King, who too often has given Brown an unchallenged platform for her predictions.

Of course, the Hornbeck case isn't Brown's first high-profile miss. In 1999 on "Montel," she told the grandmother of Opal Jo Jennings that her granddaughter had been abducted by a white slavery ring and taken to Japan. Opal's remains eventually were found not far from where she disappeared, and an autopsy determined she had been killed soon after her abduction.

Brown, of course, is just one of many self-proclaimed psychics claiming the ability to see the future and talk to the spirits of the dead. But there is no evidence any of them, from John Edward to James Van Praagh, is doing anything more than cold readings, an old carnival trick any halfway competent magician can perform.

The trick is to throw out pieces of information and slowly draw more information from the person being "read," allowing the cold reader to make educated guesses based on the information he has learned.

With practice, you can learn cold reading, too. But being a good cold reader doesn't mean you have paranormal powers. In fact, it probably means you don't.

Only Brown knows if she really believes she is psychic. But if she does, she shouldn't object to having her abilities submitted to a scientific test. Hopefully, there won't have to be another Hornbeck case before TV personalities like Montel Williams decide to stop giving people like Brown a free ride."


YAH! I hate psyshits almost as much as I DESPISE Reiki frauds. Not quite as much, but almost, and this kind of blow to the whole poppycockery is enough to make me want to go out running and be nice to my fellow man for at least 24 hours.
Up yours mumbo jumbo.
Huzzahs all round!

Smoking Ban.

I'm not a smoker. I used to smoke, but gave up when I turned thirty. Like a lot of ex-smokers I bemoan my stupidity for every starting to smoke in the first place and am extremely anti-smoking. I think it's a pointless, expensive and ridiculous habit. I'm delighted to see France are planning a ban on smoking in public places, and I love that I can go to a pub here and not come home reeeking like an ash tray. I laugh heartily as dudes and dudettes standing shivering outside trying to suck the smoke from their sodden fags. Bleaugh I think, then snarf.
However, as is always the way, sometimes good ideas are hi-jacked and turned into really annoying ones.
Observe.
From today's Independent.
"IRISH smokers may soon have nowhere to hide.

Hot on the heels of the success of the ban on smoking in the workplace, research scientists are now urging the Government to examine the possibility of banning smoking at home. The first target of an extended ban is likely to be apartment blocks and other "multi-occupied buildings".

The recommendation is contained in a study carried out by researchers attached to the Department of Public Health and Health Promotion Services at the HSE West. Among the authors is Principal Environmental Health Officer, Maurice Mulcahy, an international expert whose ground-breaking research on smoking in the workplace was a key factor in the introduction of the workplace ban in March 2004.

While the ban has had a significant impact in reducing exposure to second-hand smoke in the workplace, it has been unclear up to now what effect it has had on smoking in the home."

To all this I would say, my house is my home. Your house is your home. What I do in my home is none of your damn business Big Brother.
If you want to smoke, watch television, eat cheese naked except for nipple tassles than so be it. If you suddenly decide you're going to paint the front hall tangerine and three in the morning so be it. It's your house. You pay the mortgage. Rented accomodation, okay, maybe you and your landlord have an agreement, I don't know, about not painting wall tangerine, but you can probably still do the cheese thing.
Smoking-we hates it, oh yes.
But Big Brother in homes?
I'm against it!