Wreck of the Hindenberg

This young man has been getting a lot of press recently. He is 8, he weighs 14 stone. Now, I'm not a nutritional expert but even I know that weighing more than your age is not a good thing.

The powers that be are worried that his excessive weight may adversely affect his health, which is akin to wondering whether driving into a brick wall will adversely affect your car.

The debate is whether what his mother has done to him is child abuse and therefore if he should be taken into care. My response would be definately yes to the first and definately no to the second.

Turning an 8 year old into an enormous, piggy-faced gut bucket is undoubtably abuse but if he gets put into care the enormous food bill may well cripple the welfare state on its own.

Maybe I am a cruel an heartless person but, this is Darwinism in action and I think it is our duty to stand back and watch for the good of the species.

That meme that's got everywhere.

Seven things I have wanted to be (in chronological order, roughly):

1. 10
2. Anne of Green Gables
3. Hawkeye
4. An olympic swimmer
5. Someone's valentine
6. A bass player in a punk band
7. A polymath

Seven things I have been:

1. Gawky
2. A prefect
3. A barmaid
4. A (very crap) DJ
5. An assistant at a liver transplant
6. A GP
7. Disillusioned

Shouting at the radio, the first sign of madness.

I am back, having been deprived of internet access for 4 days whilst in London. Despite the fact that I am definately NOT addicted to the internet I did find myself getting a bit twitchy by the end. A lot of stuff has happened in the interim and I am particularly sorry that I missed any discussion on the carcrash that was the Brits.

So, apropos of nothing at all, I am going to rant on a bit about the Today programme on radio 4, Mr. John Humphries in particular.

As first thing in the morning, I like to be lulled into consciousness, rather than harangued by a fat misogynist with inner child issues, I waken to the Today programme. This has been my routine for at least 10 years. Recently, however, I am finding the programme increasingly irritating. I don't know if it is the insufferable 'Thought for the Day' ,(my thought..if I wanted to be lectured on my morals I would go to a philosophy lecture and not listen to a patronising load of bollocks spouted by a sanctimonious cleric with inner child issues.) or the invariable items on the demise of the sparrow. No, the thing that winds me up the most is the unbearably smug Mr. Humphries. You may recognise the tone, you know, self-satisfied and utterly devoid of humour or self-awareness.

This progamme is meant to be the flagship discussion and news programme on the BBC and all we are given is Mr. Humphries whining on and on about everything......why oh why.... ad nauseum, interspersed with the so-called tough questioning of various government representatives. In fact all he does is loudly express a personal belief and then sit back and ignore everything that is said to him in reply.

I was unlucky enough to hear him on some other programme talking about music the other day and it was obvious to me that he is one of those people who just doesn't 'get' the point of it, it's just background noise to him. Whilst I'm on the subject he is also patronising towards his fellow presenters, especially the women. Also he's about 60 and he has a little kid, yeuchhh. And he's always going on about how he wants it to rain, for the benefit of the farmers, when it's been pissing it down here for about 6 weeks.

Now I am not young, I am proudly middle-aged. What that means is that about half the population are younger than me. Mr Humphries is either speaking for the older demographic and is quite happy to be out of touch with the rest of us, or I am just a bit touchy*.

Anyway, I would like to listen to a current affairs programme in the morning that informs and entertains without being patronising. I would like to hear a presenter who isn't an old-fashioned, misogynistic, creepy, egotist. Is that too much to ask?

*Rhetorical, obviously.

I'm not dead I just blog as if I am

Despite evidence to the contrary I am not dead but the much over-rated, and hellishly inconvenient, real life keeps getting in the way of my blog. I am still reading everyone's stuff but not always commenting. Hopefully I will be back with a vengence soon.

I will be in London again this week visiting the in-laws for half-term. (I know, I know my carbon footprint is the size of a small African nation). Unlikely to see any of you though, as I will be accompanied by the kids and a grumpy consultant radiologist. The itinerary is thus certain to include:

1. A visit to the only specialist sylvanian family outlet in the UK (in the wasteland that is Finsbury Park in case you're interested) with baby realdoc.
2. Top Shop Oxford Street with petulent teen realdoc. (feel my pain)
3. The Science Museum to see the first CT scanner (again).
4. (if I get to choose) A trip to Divertimenti to slaver over the lovely kitchen accessories which would look perfect in my embryonic new kitchen but will prove too expensive for Mr. realdoc to agree to purchase.

Give us a wave if you spot us.

Oooooo look, Ryvita with pumpkin seeds and oats.

The other day I was browsing the aisles in Tescos. I'm terrible in the supermarket*; I tend to buy a selection of interesting things rather than anything that might conceivably be combined to produce a meal. I digress, I was looking at the cracker section and noticed that ryvita have produced an number of interesting new varieties.

This took me back to the days when I was young and the signal that my mum was on a diet was the presence of ryvita in the house along with this stuff.

All tasty titbits were banned when mum was on a diet, not that they were much in evidence anyway, so when I arrived home from school ravenous I was reduced to eating what was available. Now a meal of ryvita and PLJ tasted like house bricks washed down with battery acid but I still remember thinking it was exotic, somehow, to be eating it.

The, admittedly somewhat lame, point of this story is that food must have got a hell of a lot more interesting since the 70s.**

*For example it takes me an age to choose bananas, too many difficult dilemmas you see:

green vs yellow

organic vs non-organic

free trade vs ?nasty capitalistic

big vs small

**Not interesting enough for me not to buy the new ryvita though.***

***Although I will never buy that acid stuff, oh no!

I fart in your general direction...

After a shitty week this managed to make me laugh out loud. Enjoy.