Everyday I'm shuffling

There is nothing more Saturday morning-ish than lazing around with a bowl of cereal and MTV, is there? Music videos are one of my favourite art forms, which is why I sometimes feel fatigued by the boring old fail-safes – normally girls in bikinis writhing around a rapper (who will invariably be wearing a fur coat. The poor loves feel the cold, obviously). 

Which is why I LURVE the video for Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO.  I think it's a really clever and original use of the old "Zombies have taken over the world!" genre – and an example of when it's ok to shamelessly rip off 28 Days Later. Not to mention the fact that it’s a top tune.

So why can’t everyone come up with funny, quirky, memorable videos that bear repeat viewings? I work “in the media” as a wardrobe and art stylist, and I’ve been involved in some pretty dreadful productions. Even when you can see something is a terrible idea (or more commonly, that the “concept” makes no sense) you somehow hope that the director knows what he’s doing. Perhaps the miracle of post-production will make it all magically come together? Sadly, no. (In these cases, all I can do is try to fit clothes on the size 12 starlet who insists that she's a size 8, and hope for the best.)

For some reason I always used to think that music videos that were suspiciously similar to each other were the result of accidental copying. Say for instance Beyoncé’s Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It) – I would have guessed that maybe the director’s favourite movie was West Side Story and he subliminally added bits from that. Then when they watched the music video back they'd be like "Hey, it IS kind of similar, how about that!" 

Wasn’t I naive? 

I realised the truth when directors would sent me a youtube link to a music video or advert and say "This is our reference" and then proceed to copy it unashamedly. ("Can we try to find a lamp like the one they used?")

This has made me watch videos more closely – it becomes obvious when they are derivative. For example, compare Christina Aguilera’s Fighter with Girls Aloud’s Sexy! No No No. The girls blatantly rip off the creepy giant moth motif, before moving on to Britney’s Toxic, complete with catsuits and lasers.

Katy Perry’s video for ET veered into Lady-Gaga-style weirdness, but what’s this? A Wall-E style junkyard? The exact same shots used in the True Blood credits? Wondering if anyone else agreed with me, I found this wonderful website which delves into every reference used in the video! Bravo!

 Gaga : Creative trail blazer with a penchant for poison.

When Britney, Christina et al were emerging in the late 90s, the emphasis was most definitely on conventional cheerleader attractiveness. The modus operandi was to be blonde, wear bikini  tops and sing pretty little songs about having a boyfriend. OK, so Britney liked to mix it up with her oh-so innocent school uniform ("People think it's sexy, really? No, that had never occurred to me...” – who was she kidding, the little minx) and Christina was already working her "promiscuity empowers" tagline. Being pretty and scantily clad never goes out of fashion, but these days the emphasis is much more on being quirky. Adele = not blonde, not skinny, not a cheerleader and no trace of a California accent. Katy Perry = relying on cheeky lyrics as well as a slightly mad persona. Amy Winehouse = drunkard. All these people are, ahem, doing it "their way" and this is what we now look for in performers. 

Which is perhaps why the mould of the traditional bimbette is crumbling. If you’re not as creative as Gaga, as pornographic as Rihanna or as ladette-ish as Ke$ha, you’re sunk. 

Check out Britney’s video for Hold it against me. The disappointingly dull track (freely recycling lyrics from an ancient country song) is accompanied by a video which is evidently high budget. Despite all the effort put into it, it’s boring and makes no effort to connect with the lyrics. The fight with herself is probably the most memorable part, and might have been appropriate if it had been more of a soul searching song – it's something you can imagine Gaga or P!nk doing if the song was about fighting their inner natures etc. With Britney it's just a gimmick, teamed with the wrong kind of song.

Speaking of gimmicks.... one such gambit is the wearing of different coloured wigs: Britney made this look iconic in her classic Toxic video; Xtina pulled the same trick for Candyman.  Then Britney repeated it for Womaniser... unfortunately by the time Pixie Lott had got involved with her vid for Gravity, it all became a bit old and tired. To see it now would be to know that the director had no strong vision for the video and thought they could add some interest with frequent changes of hair colour and /or outfits. 

So what else makes for a cheesy, soulless video? Brands often get namechecked in lyrics, and videos regularly show phones and other fancy gadgets in loving close up, which I find bizarre.

Matching the words to what you’re seeing on screen: Ugh. This is a ploy often used in country music, where it is forgivable because their lyrics are more of a storytelling device (The Dixie chicks’ “Goodbye Earl” is a good example of this). In a mainstream pop video, you will rarely see an on-screen kiss coincide with a lyrical one – but it's obligatory in youtube fan vids and cheap homemade music videos. Nothing marks you as an amateur faster than this. 

And the final sign that the director has given up on life and has no imagination: Toilets are used as props. Check out Taio Cruz ft Ke$ha: Dirty Picture, and the Sugababes’ aptly named Easy. I can imagine the director convincing the artists just how “fabulous” a public bathroom would look on screen, but there is no getting away from it, toilets are not sexy. At a stretch, they might remind us girls of the fun we have on nights out (where else can we talk about the boys in private?) but they are still where people go to do their poopies, so dancing seductively around them does seem a little incongruous.

The crapper:  Not attractive.

                          

Incidentally, videos that were filmed in the girls' bogs also seem to the most ridiculous in terms of offensive portrayals of women (lying on bars getting drink poured over them etc) and in the Sugababes’ case, hilarious double entendre lyrics such as “I want sex on the beach and I don’t mean on the rocks.” Brilliant!

Finally; women in bikinis are a shameless means of getting extra plays on those request shows, but as a piece of art, will it last the distance? 

Further to video killing the radio star, Christina Aguilera is currently fronting a new audition show called The Voice in which the judges can't see the singers and are forced to make a decision based on vocal ability alone. The way of the future?

Best of British to you

It’s not often the nation is gripped, but the Royal Wedding has been one of those occasions. Crowds turned out in unprecedented numbers – a million, compared with 600,000 at the wedding of Charles and Diana. Maybe it’s the depressing economic situation, maybe it’s the fact that we’ve all been waiting along with Kate for William to do the right thing, or maybe it’s just that this time, we’re pretty sure it’s a marriage built to last. Whatever the reason, Britain was ready to party.

I think we all surprised ourselves with just how moving we found the sight of London’s streets filled with parties, flags and well wishers. Could it be that there is some patriotism buried deep in our collective psyche?  Perhaps the fact that we started drinking champagne early in the day also helped.

Like any wedding, the hour or so of nervous anticipation climaxed as the car arrived and we got our first glimpse of Kate and THAT dress, looking every inch a Princess. I for one was relieved when she made it up the aisle with no mishaps. (Am I crazy, or was that dress an inch too long at the front? I was terrified she‘d trip!)

Facebook was all of a twitter, and it turns out that I have many more royalist friends than I was aware of – and within minutes, several profile pics had been changed into union jacks. It seems that the sudden freedom to fly our flag has had an intoxicating effect and we want MOAR!

So, does this signal a glorious new era in radical patriotism? That’s not very British, is it?

This becomes painfully obvious when we take a peek at the attitudes of other countries. Watching television in Australia, I was surprised at the number of times they slip in a reference to their country – even if it’s just “Skippy... Australia’s favourite peanut butter.”And America takes national pride to a whole new level, with a rousing rendition of their national anthem at every sports game. (Yes, I know that our sports players mumble along, but in the US, if you sing the wrong words, people actually notice.)

Did anyone else notice that X Factor had a week for “American anthems” (Born in the USA, American Pie, etc) but there was no “British Anthems” week? The best we can offer is a week of "homegrown talent' – there isn't exactly a rousing chorus of Born in the UK, nor a London State of Mind.

If you look out for them, there are plenty of songs which do refer to the big smoke – Lily Allen springs to mind, as does Duffy’s Warwick Avenue. (Check out songs_about_London - sadly missing Soho Nights by the Puppini sisters). So why don’t they make it onto the massive X Factor platform? 

Patriotism has become a dirty word. Lest we forget, back in 1996, Geri Halliwell was told by a stylist that her infamous Union Jack tea towel dress was “racist”. Thankfully Geri (who may be a few beans short of the full can, but I like her anyway) took no notice and created a little fashion moment of her own. Unfortunately when a political party / bunch of mentalists hijack the flag, it becomes something the rest of us are leery about. 

I think the time has come to reclaim it. We have a Royal family which has become cool overnight, and quite a lot to be proud of: 

Brit William Wilberforce – strong campaigner against slavery, resulting in the 
Slave trade act of 1807 (long before some other countries banned it).

Our Comedy

Britain has an outstanding comedy pedigree, with a great history of classic sitcoms and Ealing comedies. Some might even mention the Carry On films. Whether they have attracted a cult following all over the world or they have a uniquely British sense of humour, these are some of our best.

• Fawlty Towers (quoted daily in my family. The nice thing is, most other people get the jokes too. Which makes all the fans a kind of family. Yay.)
• Only Fools and Horses (ditto).
• Monty Python
• The Good Life (hands up who watched this as a child and now keeps chickens?)
• The Two Ronnies
• The Royle family
• Some Mothers Do 'Ave Em
• The Office
• Ab Fab
• Wallace and Gromit (as nail biting as any Hollywood action film!)
• Blackadder
• Mr Bean
• Morcambe and Wise
• IT Crowd
• Spaced

Actors

Britain has produced some of the finest, funniest and most respected actors ever.

• Laurence Olivier
• Helen Mirren
• Hugh Laurie (some American fans of House are apparently unaware of this. I want to be there when they see him as Bertie Wooster)
• Hattie Jaques
• John Le Mesurier
• Audrey Hepburn (ok, so she was born in Belgium, to a Dutch Baroness and an English banker. She made her movie debut in a Brit flick)
• Kate Winslet
• David Jason
• Robert Pattinson (Yes, Brit vampires are the best. Swedish are second best.)
• Judi Dench
• Maggie Smith
• Thandie Newton
• Ian McKellan
• Michael Caine (even if he can only play “Michael Caine”)
• Alistair Sim
• Eric Sykes
• Keira Knightley (I can't bear her, but lots of directors seem to like casting her...)
• Peter Sellers
• Alec Guinness
• Alan Rickman
• Emma Thompson

Not to mention wonderful directors such as Anthony Minghella, Alfred Hitchcock, Danny Boyle, Ridley Scott and the one and only Charlie Chaplin.

Music

I can't even begin to scrape the surface with this. Let's just say, that since the days of swinging London we have been a world force in the arena of music. Maybe there wouldn’t have been a Beatles without an Elvis, but where would we be without the Beatles?

• The Beatles
• Cliff Richard (don't laugh. He was our answer to Elvis, and he's had a number one hit in every decade since the 50s)
• The Bee Gees
• The Rolling Stones
• Pink Floyd
• The Kinks
• Amy Winehouse
• Natasha Bedingfield (she’s freaking huge in the US, despite the irritatingly trite lyrics. Oops, I’m supposed to be being nice….)
• Joss Stone (loony, yes. Talented, also yes.)
• David Bowie
• The Noisettes
• Jamie Liddell (I know, nobody has ever heard of him. I will change this.)
• VV Brown (ditto)
• T Rex
• Some would also rate Oasis, Take That or even those little Spice girls again. 

I suppose I should cite some sportsmen too – David Beckham is good, and so is Lewis Hamilton. But until their salaries are based on how many times they actually win anything, I think I will leave them off my congratulatory list. I bet they feel really small now. 

Find on Spotify. You will like.

Writers

• William Shakespeare 
• Philip Larkin
• C.S Lewis (can I include Irishmen? Well, I’m going to anyway.)
• Oscar Wilde (see above)
• Tolkien
• Wordsworth
• George Orwell
• Roald Dahl
• Ian Fleming (creator of James Bond, the blueprint for every action hero since)
• JK Rowling
• Mary Shelley
• Charles Dickens (somebody out there must like him... Lord only knows why)
• John Milton
• Chaucer
• Jane Austen
• Ian McEwan
• Philip Pullman
• Agatha Christie
• Lewis Carroll (he so wasn’t a paedophile.)
• P.G.Wodehouse
• The Bronte sisters (yes! all of them!)
• Bram Stoker
• A.A. Milne
• Enid Blyton
• Virginia Woolf
• DH Lawrence

There are so many more and I haven’t mentioned any artists. What, do you want me to be glued to wikipedia all day? Here’s one more mini list:

All-round good, eductational chaps

• Stephen Fry
• Charles Darwin
• The Attenboroughs
• Stephen Hawking (don't be fooled by the accent – he's one of us!)
• Winston Churchill
• Joanna Lumley
• Isaac Newton
• Boudica
• Robert Winston
• Margaret Thatcher (ooh, controversial! Love her or hate her, she became Prime Minister in 1979.... Up until 1944 it was legal to sack a female teacher if she got married. That’s a pretty fast turnaround.)
• Desmond Morris

I also count it as no small achievement that we make decent chocolate here. America may be a world superpower, but nobody has taught them how to make confectionery, and I’ve always thought that Hersheys has a kind of “sicky” aftertaste. Say what you like about the disgusting chocolate in Australia, but at least it doesn’t taste like vomit. 

So, as a nation that has been so politically correct that it is frowned upon to even use the word “British.” today we are released. So right now, I want you to go to the window, Network-style, and yell: "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore."

Or you can just drink some more champagne and toast the most Disney-esque Royal wedding ever to make it into real life :-D

The trials of Lent, aka Bootcamp for Christians

I don’t always give up anything for Lent, as I'm generally quite rubbish at noticing when it starts (I forget to eat the pancakes, too). But so far, over the years I have managed to go the distance in a couple of different ways, starting with the sacrifice of tea. Not being able to take part in the ritual of the cuppa was surprisingly hard – as Mrs Doyle would say "You’ll feel left out!"

I recall only vaguely the Lent when I gave up chocolate – I figure I've mostly blanked it out. Strangely, I do remember that when the blessed day came, I WASN’T desperately shovelling chocolate into my mouth the moment I was "allowed" to. Many people claim that "a little bit of good quality chocolate is satisfying". I don’t know if they've been brainwashed by Green and Blacks, or are trying hard to convince themselves, but... a small piece of ANY  kind of chocolate does not leave me satisfied. "A little goes a  long way" may apply to ultra-rich, truffle fudge mocha cake with an inch of icing, but a square of chocolate? No. I want my mouth to be FULL of chocolate. I need MOUTH FEEL. It's the same delicious sensation that you get when biting into one of those ridiculously over-frosted cupcakes. The icing reaches the roof of your mouth and squidges as you bite down. Gah. I just made myself drool a little bit.

I also hit a mental brick wall when people say they don't like creme eggs, or "can only eat one, because they're so sickly". Well, gooey and cloying they may be, but teamed with a cup of tea to balance the super-sweetness, I can comfortably eat two on the trot, before decorum forces me to stop. However, if we ever start substituting drinking games with chocolate games, I am certain that I would be left standing while all around me were collapsing with sugar shock. A meagre talent, but there you go.

During last year's Lent I abstained from Facebook; this created a gap in my daily routine but it wasn’t agony. I was lucky in that I escaped being photographed during this period – I imagine it must be quite traumatic if you’re notified that you’ve been tagged and you’re unable to see the picture that's being flagrantly displayed in your absence. 

I'd say giving up something for Lent is a pretty good way of finding out if you want to make it a lifestyle change; you're got that safety net in the back of your mind that it's only for 6 weeks, yet it's long enough for any physical addiction to have gone, so you can think more objectively about whether you want to continue.

But this year has been my biggest challenge yet, as I have become vegetarian. I was a bit daunted at the idea and thought “Ooh, I couldn’t do that”, which of course made it into a challenge which I then had to take up. My fear was that I would have trouble balancing meals, and would either feel constantly hungry or constantly bloated from a carb overload.  But I have been ASTONISHED at how easy it's been. The hardest part is the lack of choice – when you pop out at lunchtime, instead of having twenty options, you have two.

Interestingly, I had a strange bitter/ sour taste in my mouth from about day 6 to day 15, which I am guessing was some sort of detox. (I generally cringe when I hear people talking about “detoxes” as I think it’s a fairly meaningless term which is bandied about to insult our livers and kidneys.)  But in this case... does this mean that a) meat is "toxic" and b) it was still only leaving my body weeks after I last ate it? Yuck.

I actually feel lighter and more energetic on the whole; I'm suddenly realising what people are talking about when they say that historically, humans have never eaten meat regularly: ie in "cave times" it would be a treat once in a while to catch an animal for food, and for much of the time we’d be surviving on the easier-to-catch diet of nuts and fruit.

Fire revolutionised the human lifestyle because it meant we could cook meat – thus making it easier to digest – and freeing up our time so that we could use our meat-fuelled brains to get on with doing art on our cave walls and drawing up blueprints for the wheel etc.

Despite this, there are those who claim that humans were never meant to eat meat. Physically, we have far more in common with herbivores than carnivores – check out the fascinating list at http://michaelbluejay.com/veg/natural.html

We have a plant eater’s intestinal tract, which is several times the length of our bodies – while meat eaters have short ones to allow that festering flesh to pass through quickly. (Ah, my detox question answered. Lovely.)

One of the points made is that we don’t drool at the sight of a prey animal, the way that a true carnivore, eg a tiger, would. I would question this, as I have occasionally spied a fat little pigeon pecking on the lawn and contemplated just how plump and juicy it would look in a roasting tin. When watching Lambing Live (Kate Humble must be raking it in – she’s never off the telly!) with its array of incredibly adorable lambs, I said “Oh, I could just EAT them!” which was perhaps a little tactless. Also, I have a strange confession to make; my mouth waters if I spent several minutes looking at pictures of cute animals. Weird and slightly psychotic, I know. I have no idea if this has any origins in evolution, I’m pretty sure we have never, as a species, licked kittens. But I kind of want to.

 

Easter bunnies: Don't tell me these little pink noses 

don't make you salivate. I know I can't be the only one.

No matter how much you like your steaks and burgers, I think for most people, there is a part of the brain which "knows" that eating animals is wrong. Looking at the Bible, Jesus may have been a part-time fisherman, but in the original Genesis story, animals were just around for our companionship. It was only after "the fall" that everything went wrong and our symbiotic relationship turned a little one-sided. But according to Isaiah 11:7, there will come another time when the original plan will be restored, and "The cow and the bear will graze, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox."

In the meantime, I guess I justify my meat eating by singing "It's the circle of life....." and the fact that it’s only by purchasing ethically sourced meat that I can make any impact on the market. If everyone but the totally heartless opts out, battery eggs and Danish pork will be flying off the shelves and nobody will be monitoring standards at all. Not buying "happy meat" is like not voting – you may be making your point, but somebody still gets elected.

In a similar way, some of the nicest, most thoughtful and socially conscious people I know have made the decision not to have kids, because the world is over-populated enough. I can't help feeling this might be short-sighted; if the only people reproducing are those who really don't give the tiniest shit about society, it could create an underclass of chavs who become grandparents at the age of 26 and continue to ruin lives by weaving in and out of temporarily set up families. Oh, wait. That’s already happened.

Good lord, I’m right wing and feisty today. Must be all those pulses.

So, casual racism is ok now?

Shocking in 1967, commonplace today, right? Er... no.

As if we didn’t have enough to worry about with Rastamouse (who is actually pretty awesome, although I can see the potential problem with a lot of white 5-years-olds imitating Jamaican patois at kindergarten) we have a new scandal; Brian True-May, executive producer of Midsomer Murders (I think you need to be over 50) has ignited a race row. Mr True-May proclaimed “We just don't have ethnic minorities involved. Because it wouldn't be the English village with them. It just wouldn't work. We're the last bastion of Englishness and I want to keep it that way.”

I can’t really be bothered to examine this nasty little piece of bigotry; let’s just say, if he wasn’t racist, he might have said something like “We’ve researched this and found there just aren’t many ethnic minorities living in small English villages (strange but true) so we were trying to keep the proportions realistic.” Instead, he made it sound like English villages must have be segregated in order to be respectable.

A lot of people seem ready to leap to his defence, although most letters of support seems to run along the lines of “I’m definitely not racist, some of my best friends are black... and even I don’t think darkies should be allowed in a nice ITV drama.”

How is it that in 2011, we are still having these debates? And how is it that the number of black Hollywood stars has barely increased since the fifties? And that Asian nationalities are represented by... well, Jackie Chan and Lucy Liu? And that Indians are rarely allowed on the silver screen unless they are part of a comedy / drama about a stereotypical “Indian family”, or in a slum?

What makes it worse is that when anyone “of colour” does make it into the flicks, changes are made in the script to allow for this. I recently watched Sorority Row (don’t judge me, I have a weakness for rubbishy horror films) and one of the first lines was that of the “snobby bitch” character to the token Asian girl; “I like being your friend, because it makes me multi-cultural, without having to do anything.” Is inter-racial friendship really so unusual that it needs to be commented on? Um... maybe it is.

Dexter and his pal Mazuka:  

"How do you remember that? It wasn't even a homicide."

"Cheung is Asian, bro. He makes us all look bad."

              

Will Smith is one of those gifted actors who can carry a movie single-handedly, and his universal popularity has resulted in a string of varied roles. But I find it frustrating that screenwriters seem unable to resist the temptation to make some reference to his colour. Of course, this may be totally down to him – he knows that calling himself a “brother” and making racial jokes gets laughs. His first line in Men in Black came as he jumped off a bridge onto an open-top bus, telling surprised passengers "It just be rainin' black people in New York!" Now, Chris O’Donnell was originally in line for this role. Perhaps we should count it as a bonus that a non-white actor got the role at all, but... what are the chances that Chris O’Donnell’s first line would have been “It just be rainin' white people in New York!"?

Likewise, JLo may well have signed a contract saying she will not make any films unless she at least mentions being a “Latina”. It’s almost as if the film makers feel some need to “explain” or apologise for the presence of a non-white character.

Sidney Poitier was the go-to guy for racial dramas in the 50s and 60s, Richard Pryor was the butt of the black jokes (even if he was the one making them) in the 60s and 70s, and Eddie Murphy basically owned the 80s with a string of classics. (Not to mention the timeless genius of Bill Cosby.) Considering that the Civil Rights Act was only signed in 1964, and Martin Luther King jr was assassinated in 1968, maybe it’s amazing that we’ve come so far.

But we still have a long way to go. I’ve noticed that a lot of people will make “racist” jokes in a sniggering, Ricky Gervais “You know I’m not really racist, so it’s ok for me to say this,” kind of way. I was recently chatting to some colleagues about dodgy areas of London, rife with drug dealers, and one said to the other “You know about that sort of thing, don’t you? You’re black!”

Of course, it’s 2011, and he was “joking” so it couldn’t possibly be racist, right? Well, it irritated me, and I’m white, so I don’t have to listen to stuff like that every day. But I imagine if you are a member of any ethnic minority*, and people make “jokes” like this all the time, every day, and each of them thinks it’s ok, and you’re not allowed to be offended because that would mean you didn’t have a sense of humour – well, I imagine that must be pretty flipping tedious. (It's also useful to bear in mind that "I was only joking!" is the hallmark of an abuser, in life generally.)

(*I know. "Ethnic minority" sounds kind of patronising, as whether you're a minority or not kind of depends on your geographical location.)

It’s said that Dennis Haysbert’s portrayal of David Palmer in 24 opened up the way for Obama by getting people used to the idea of a black president. Casting agents – you can change the world! Maybe one day we'll see a black guy cast in a Shakespeare play other than Othello, or feature in a horror film without making any jokes about being the first to go. Maybe an Asian girl will play a character who isn't a kung-foo expert or dominatrix. 

Here’s hoping Hollywood will catch up with reality.

Crackpot theories 101

Of course, only a fool would cut their hair while the

 moon was in Aries. It's so dry and barren, y'know?

Following on from last month’s post, I  now find myself aligned with a distinguished group of people – tree huggers, if you will – who may be said to be so open-minded that their brains need to be strapped in to keep them from falling out.

You know you’ve taken the crazy train one stop too far into Kooksville when you cut your hair according to the moon (not to mention when you find yourself saying “Well, don’t MANIFEST it!” when a friend is being pessimistic).

But last night was the “Supermoon” – the biggest perigree moon in about 20 years. I don’t know about you, but I was somewhat surprised to see that it was pretty average looking – from the newspaper’s reports, I think I'd been expecting to look outside and see it looming at my window like  the eye of a T-rex.

Turns out the moon is a powerful force, and it affects more than just our oceans. I think almost every practitioner of “magick” would attest that certain charms work best while the moon is waxing (growing) and some when it’s waning (shrinking). Fans of “biodynamic” gardening use the entire system of zodiac signs – through which the moon passes every month – to give their crops an advantage. Turns out that when the moon is in a water sign, it’s a good time to plant leafy crops, but naturally, earth signs are better for root vegetables.

This may sound a little bit... how can I put it... MENTAL, but hey, it’s no sillier than the idea of the moon pulling the tides back and forth, and we all believe that. Truth is stranger than fiction, that’s fo sho. And the Old Farmer's Almanac has acknowledged the moon's influence for yonks.

When you think about it, it's logical that Lady Luna should have a compelling influence on crops, what with the gravitational pull affecting the water levels in soil. And the fact that humans (and animals) are largely made up of water could explain why so many pet owners and police officers can attest that the full moon brings out the beast in the best of us.

But hair? Rational thought would suggest that your roots can’t be affected by what’s happening to the ends, so how could a cut affect how fast your hair grows? https://morroccomethod.com/lunar-hair-chart goes some way to explain it, suggesting that you can “shock” your hair into growing. Sounds screwy, but who knows?

I am terrible at getting my hair cut – forget 6 weeks, I've been known to leave it for 6 months. But hoping that the moon would magically transform my hair, I booked myself in for a trim to coincide with the Supermoon grand appearance (and so close to the Spring Equinox, too! Bonus).

Being a commitment-phobe and cheap to boot, I’ve never established a long relationship with any hairdresser for long, preferring to look out for special offers or using college students. (Although I haven't used the latter since a slightly traumatic experience; the (BO-challenged) young man had clearly spent most of his time working on model heads which didn’t answer back or say “ow”. Cue four hours of of head yanking and vigorous, painful combing. He kept saying “Ooh, sorry,” every time I winced – I was tempted to snarl “Don’t be sorry, just stop f-ing doing it!” but I didn’t, because I am far too polite.)

Remember those ads with a voice-over which started “We all know blow-drying and styling is bad for our hair, but we still do it....” ? Well, actually, I don’t. In fact, the only time a hairdryer ever comes near my head is when it’s being wielded by a hairdresser. The rest of the time, I use a towel and then air-dry. I think I last used a curling tong about 2 years ago, and I don’t straighten. So, I find it more than a little ironic when stylists recommend (extortionately priced) “caring” shampoos to me while the air is actually filled with the aroma of my burning hair as they scrape it around with a hairbrush and hairdryer to leave it poker straight. It's best not to take them too seriously; I once had one who told me my hair was “really split” the first time I went to see her, before saying a few months later “your hair is so much better since you’re been seeing me”. Ladies and gentlemen, I had done NOTHING differently. Mind games, I tell you!

As for the moon; you have to get your hair cut some time, right? So why not do a scientific experiment, rather than dismiss it because it doesn't "sound" true?

I'll believe anything if it's true.

Stranger things have happened.

My favourite news story last week was that of George Hudspeth, whose sight had totally deteriorated through Macular Disease over the last ten years. After talking to a photograph of his dead wife (as was his daily wont) his sight suddenly came back. The 76 year old was able to see his baby granddaughter for the first time, saying (and this might be my favourite bit) "She has a right chubby little face." 

Now, being healed by talking to a photograph of your dead wife doesn’t particularly fit into my faith (I would describe myself as a Jesus-worshipping, nature-loving, candle-lighting, vaguely panentheistic reader of CS Lewis and M Scott Peck) but I can be open minded. For me, the real kicker came in the quote provided by the Macular Disease Society, “Mr Hudspeth must have been misdiagnosed because recovery is impossible.”

Now, you would think that someone with a scientific bent and inquiring mind would say, “Well, gosh, we THOUGHT this disease was incurable, but this highly unusual event may force us to rethink that theory. Thanks for the heads up!” But the powers that be cannot accept anything that deviates from the accepted wisdom. So, gangster style, they inform us “This never happened. Got it?”

My dad tells me “there is no such thing as an expert,” and I’m inclined to agree. It’s a fairly meaningless term which tells you a person has put some effort into studying a subject – not that they know everything there is to know about it. Unfortunately, being fallible humans means that we inevitably bring our own personal prejudices to the table.

It’s said that science is excellent… at answering the questions it chooses to answer. But being scientific SHOULD mean being open-minded; as opposed to coming up with a theory and then bending all the evidence to suit it (and denying any evidence to the contrary).

(Just to be devil’s advocate  / crazy conspiracy theorist for a moment; “experts” also tell us that there can be no aliens living on other planets because nowhere other than earth can sustain life. Apparently, they are basing this on the idea that any other life would thrive in similar conditions to ours, which seems to me a rather gigantic assumption. Maybe Martians love heat. How the hell would we know?)

(Not that I NECESSARILY believe in aliens. Just sayin’.)

The funny thing is, when stories recounting “miraculous” events appear in the media, a lot of knee-jerk reactions are cynical. It’s as if trusting that THERE ARE NO MIRACLES is the absolute cornerstone of some people’s belief systems.

I once read that healings (the kind you get in churches where people fall over a lot)

which have been properly documented (thus eliminating many of the usual objections) have been explained by a sudden, natural spontaneous healing which was going to happen anyway. Forgive me, atheists, but you’d need an awful lot of faith to believe that. (You could at least call it a placebo effect.)

(Incidentally, why do people talk so disparagingly of placebos? Surely they are less a failure of medicine, more a testament to the awesome power of the human mind…?)

It makes me wonder; in the unlikely event that you could show Richard Dawkins irrefutable proof that God exists, would he say “Well slap my grandma, I had it wrong all this time. I am surprised, but I clearly can’t ignore this new information.” Or would he shut his eyes, stick his fingers in his ears and say “La la la I can’t hear yoooooouuu”?

I think we all know the answer to that one.

Now let's forget our troubles with a big bowl of strawberry icecream

Sexism on the football field. Are we bovvered?

ETA: Since this blog was written, Katie Hopkins has become a professional troll, saying outrageous, hateful things in the knowledge that it will bring more publicity / money her way. I have zero respect for her. However, back in 2011, I agreed with her stance. I don't any more, having seen that some industries are so deeply regressive, that they NEED women / minority-only shortlists in order to force them to become more balanced.)

Back to 2011....

 

Well, I must say I enjoyed the Question Time debate on the "Sky sexism scandal" involving Richard Keys and Andy Gray. (You can watch it here.  I had very little idea who "Katie Hopkins from The Apprentice" was, but found myself agreeing with all that she said – unlike the rest of the studio audience, who maintained a stony silence whenever she spoke and clapped whenever anyone disagreed with her. I expect if she'd said "Women are victims! Men are sooo meeeean to us" she'd have got a standing ovation. Poor old Edwina Currie only put feminism back by about 50 years when her take on women in football was summed up with "Have you forgotten Bend it Like Beckham? Wasn't Keira Knightly gorgeous?!"

Miss Hopkins dared to point out that "women actually don't want equal treatment....What a lot of women are actually asking for – and you can look aghast at this – is special treatment." I agree – and it's silly bints like Edwina Currie and Harriet Harman, who propose "positive discrimination" (no such thing) who do the real damage. When we start having "Women Only" short lists, we are basically saying that women ARE inferior, that they can't get jobs based on their merit, and they need a special leg up, as if being female is some sort of disadvantage.

Similarly, when women are awarded millions because they threw a hissy fit when a fratboy-type colleague said "nice knockers", they may think they're striking a blow for feminists everywhere, but actually they are making women look like humourless wimps, and making bosses understandably leery about taking on such volatile employees. What's wrong with laughing in the faces of these dinosaur-like men? You can't really take them seriously...  can you?

Maybe I see the funny side of these things a little too much, but after listening to the infamous exchange between Andy Gray and Richard Keys, I couldn't help but have a giggle. It's SILLY. It may be sexist, but it was also freaking hilarious, right down to the final line from Mr Keys: "Did you hear charming Karren Brady this morning complaining about sexism? Yeah, do me a favour, love." The spirit of Andy Capp lives on.

I also enjoyed the way they huffed that "of course" women didn't understand the offside rule. I find it odd and sort of endearing that men have made this into some mythical esoteric knowledge that women may never know, even though they are privy to exactly the same information that men are. Perhaps it's revenge for the way women always insist that men can never understand the pain of childbirth? I have to admit, I don't know the offside rule, but then again, I don't care to. I certainly wouldn't consider myself in any way inferior for this, any more than I would call Andy Gray inferior because (I suspect) he could not name Hello Kitty's twin sister (Mimmy). I've never felt any desire to join a men only club, either. It's the "grown-up" equivalent of a tree house with "No gurlz alowd" pinned to the stepladder – let them have their fun, bless 'em.

Giggles aside, Richard Keys shows his non-comical colours on another occasion, when describing an ex girlfriend of Jamie Redknapp – frankly, his description "You could have gone round there any night and found Redknapp hanging out the back of it" is pretty vile. Forget sexism, I'm concerned about the state of his soul. Who calls a fellow human being "it"? Astonishingly, he has a 25-year-old daughter – who claims “Dad’s comments were totally out of character." (Am I the only one who thinks it would be quite funny if she dated a footballer?)

But before Edwina Currie bans it from the airwaves, let's enjoy this clip – if you listen carefully you hear Andy Gray plaintively slipping in "Why do they call them linesman?" and the Creature Comforts-style repetition of the word "Potty."

Keep 'em coming boys!