A Man Kissing A Man !? Oh, My !

I recently saw Heinz new mayo advert and kinda liked it. I know it conformed to the pretty little nuclear family stereotype, but it raised a smile. And so much advertising just ticks me off.

I thought no more of it, as I generally do with adverts. Unless they bug me and then I resolve not to buy the offending product. Yeah, I remember your name, but you don't get my money.

Back to Heinz. Apparently the ad has been pulled, 'cause 200 people claimed it was offensive. It's inappropriate to see two men kissing, you see. Mum is played by a bloke in who is supposedly a New York deli guy. I get it, the new deli mayo products make it seems like a genuine New York deli guy is making your sandwich and that's better than plain old mum and mayo.

I don't understand what's so offensive. Even if it was a full on snog I wouldn't have a problem, but it's a peck. Their lips meet. That's it.

The Guardian article about the removal of the ad, as well as the ad, can be found here. See what you think.

Have A Risotto. No ? You Racist !

Sound insane ? Of course it fucking does.

But according to The National Children's Bureau that children as young as three who "react negatively to a culinary tradition other than their own by saying 'yuk'" could very well be racist.

They are also plotting to overthrow the government to protest the limited time the Tellytubbies have on screen. Really.

So my friends toddler who had serious issues with vegetables hates vegetarians ? Wow, that's not gonna go down will with the kids vegetarian father.

Couldn't be anything to do with the fact that toddlers are just like that ? They like stuff, then they don't. That they can be fussy. I think people who have a clue know have recognised that as fact. That toddlers are also asserting independence and that might be related.

These people need to get a frickin' life.

I did like this comment;

" Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:

Knowing when to come in out of the rain; why the early bird gets the worm; Life isn't always fair; and maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.

It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an Aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.

Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason. He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, I Want It Now, Someone Else Is To Blame, and I'm A Victim.

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on.

If not, join the majority and do nothing. "

Common Sense will be sadly missed.

Sometimes I Do My Head In

I've added Shapely Prose to my blog roll. I can't remember how I found it, I think I was searching on body image or something similar.

Anyway, I've really enjoyed reading the various entries, so I added it. And then I had an horrible reaction. I felt the need to explain why I have added it. So I thought about why.

It comes down to this, I'm happy for you if you're happy with you. I don't have issues with other peoples weight. I do have an issue with mine. So you could even say I'm envious of those you can accept their body, what ever size, who are happy to be healthy and not worry about shit as superficial as weight. There's no "I need to bitch at/about you 'cause I'm insecure" here, it's more like "Why can't I be like you ?", in a longing, whiny kinda way.

I accept that health and weight are not necessarily related. They can be, like my hangover and the need for pizza, but it's not automatic, sometimes all I want it a big bowl of fruit. And water. Lots of water. Weight and health can be related, and that's under and over. Nobody is ever gonna convince me that starving yourself to be thin is even close to healthy.

I hope I'm not biased, rude, ignorant or intentionally hurtful about weight but when you start to think about it and your attitude to it, you start to second guess yourself. Or at least I do. One thing I learned from Shapely Prose was that I need to watch I what I say about my self image issues to other people. While I might be targeting the criticism at myself, other people can be hurt by it. It's unintentional but that doesn't excuse it.

Edit : Is fat acceptance an acceptable term ? Should that be body acceptance ? I have no idea. Arrrrgggghhhhh. I don't know what the terms of reference are.

Edit, the second: What does it say about me that I even posted this ? I have never explained any other blog on my roll. Does this mean I should remove this post as it is inherently biased ? Or that I should leave it, and further examine the reasons for it ?

Books, Books, Books

The following was nicked from someones live journal that I stumbled across in my internet travels.

Except my answers, obviously.

According to a LibraryThing survey, these 106 works are the ones most often marked as “unread”, That is, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded.

Bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones you started, but didn’t finish.

Final touch: denote (*) the ones you liked, and would (or did) read again or recommend. Even if you did read them for school in the first place.


Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell*
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights*
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel*
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey *
Pride and Prejudice*
Jane Eyre*
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife*
The Iliad
Emma*
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran: a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha*
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked: the life and times of the wicked witch of the West Sorry but this was CRAP
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein*
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula*
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys*
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible: a novel
1984*
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility*
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park*
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time*
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes: a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon*
Oryx and Crake: a novel
Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion*
Northanger Abbey*
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything*
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down*
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit*
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences*
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

Looks like I need to read some more. But I'd have to buy them first.

One Weird Ass Mood

Not even amused by lolcats.

Shit.

Changed, Again.

I realise that no one will have noticed, since it's only been an hour sine the first time, but I have now changed the template six times. Nothing suits so I'm going with plain.

How boring am I ?

(Please note: that is a rhetorical question, I am well aware of the answer).

Needed A Change

Somethings just need to change sometimes. Now I just need a new picture too. Somehow the gun thing just doesn't seem to work with the new look. Mind you, we'll see how long it lasts. Kinda in a changeable mood today.

Possibly. Maybe. I don't know.

More of a fickle mood perhaps.

Oh, I don't know.

I was just going to get rid of the blog as I have been very inconsistent in my blogging and I'm not actually sure that the whole thing is for me. I'm not in to detailing my life for people, can't see how that would be terribly interesting for anyone. I expect my life is much like other peoples. Then, of course, there is the whole anonymous blogging thing. I don't want to say too much 'cause I don't really want anyone to know who I am. If I wanted you to know who I was I'd tell you straight out. So I generally write about silly things I've found, stuff that pisses me off or just a bit of what ever is in my head. And sometimes I'm too busy for that.

I'm going to stick it out a bit longer, not entirely sure why.

Stubborn ? Perhaps.

Stupid ? Possibly.

To fill a desperate need for acceptance and approval from people I don't know and will never meet ? Unlikey.

Reality Check For Me

The world is alot stanger than I thought.

And I already thought it was pretty fucking strange.

A Question I Was Asked, And An Answer

You've rented a sky-writer to propose to your significant other, but it's completely overcast. What will you do?

I wouldn't rent a sky writer in the first place. Carbon footprint alert ! Oh and I wouldn't propose. Don't believe in marriage. Neither does he. That's that dealt with then.

A Plan

I have a plan. Well . . . more of an idea, and I'd like to share it with anyone willing to read it, and put up with my probably inconsistent blogging on the topic.

I am going to attempt to come up with a theory of happiness.

Over ambitious, no ? But what the hell, I going to try.

"Why ?" I hear no one ask. Well, why not ? I fairly sure that being happy is a good thing. Although it probably depends on your definition of happy, among other things. I'm not advocating happiness for serial killers, for instance, as I think that has to including killing people. And that's a bad thing.

So this will be about finding my definition of happy, and how to get there. Hopefully.