Who's helping who?

Solemn celebrity? Check. Cute kids? Check. Roll cameras.....

Last week I was lucky enough to attend a party given by Comic Relief (as a plus-one for my friend Alicia, whose workplace had been involved). It was all very glamorous, with Richard Curtis giving a speech (“James Corden isn’t here, is he? No? Well let me tell you, he is a tricky bastard. It wasn’t worth the hassle....”) and Jameela Jamil on the decks (although her “DJ” style was quite similar to mine: Play a song. Then when it’s finished, play another one.) Later, Scott Mills mixed seamlessly.

Entertainment was provided by “Some of the biggest acts of the 80s!” (Why? Is Comic relief now a 1980s-themed charity?) Still, it excited the 40-somethings to see Toyah Wilcox, Clare Grogan and Limahl (of Never Ending Story fame).

You’ll be pleased to know that the party was sponsored, so donations weren’t used. Lorraine Kelly announced the total takings for this year – £104,496,747. Just in case rows of numbers confuse you as they do me, I’ll repeat that – over 104 MILLION POUNDS. This year. Wowser.

I’ll admit, I don’t love the Comic relief format. To me, it seems weird to provoke tears with footage of starving families, then bounce back to the studio to watch newsreaders throwing custard pies at each other, and then back to skeletal babies again. But this method obviously works (no doubt the rhythm has been perfected with the help of a psychologist). Overall Comic Relief has raised £750 million in the 25 years since it began.

But where has that £750 million gone? There is new footage of emaciated beggars every year. I am not accusing Comic Relief of anything dodgy – to see Lenny Henry filming in shanty towns is to know that he is utterly sincere in his desire to help. and I know that it has made some difference. But for that kind of money, I would have expected a more sweeping change to be apparent by now.

There is a school of thought that suggests foreign aid doesn’t really benefit anyone. Zambian Dambisa Moyo, a former economist at Goldman Sachs, is the author of Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa. She puts it thus:

“Say there is a mosquito-net maker in small-town Africa. Say he employs 10 people who together manufacture 500 nets a week. Typically, these 10 employees support upward of 15 relatives each. A Western government-inspired program generously supplies the affected region with 100,000 free mosquito nets. This promptly puts the mosquito net manufacturer out of business, and now his 10 employees can no longer support their 150 dependents. In a couple of years, most of the donated nets will be torn and useless, but now there is no mosquito net maker to go to. They'll have to get more aid. And African governments once again get to abdicate their responsibilities.”

The trend to buy goats as gifts has also apparently backfired, with critics pointing out that the water-slurping animals will just exacerbate drought. (You would hope that the charities would choose carefully when deciding WHERE to send the animals, wouldn’t you?)

Giving to even the most trustworthy charities sends money through a number of hands before it actually gets to the people who need it... and there are governments even more corrupt than ours (yes, really!).

I cancelled my direct debit to Christian Aid, because they constantly phoned to ask for more cash, and the streets were heaving with their chuggers; I also removed myself from the mailing lists of any other charities I’ve ever given to as they would kindly send me frequent updates accompanied by gifts – calendars, pens, stickers, badges. In cases like this, I doubt my donations even cover their admin costs.

Maybe it would help if charities combined to streamline things – one for African orphanages, one for animals etc. Why waste money creating awareness of 30 different (competing) brands, and designing 30 different letterheads? Perhaps there are too many CEOs with egos and a liking for first class travel.

Events such as Live Aid and Live 8 have been criticised for boosting publicity for the celebrities involved, while actually damaging the developing countries they are trying to help. (BTW, If Bono paid his taxes, he would already be contributing to the £7.8 billion Britain earmarked for foreign aid in 2010/11.) Western aid keeps its beneficiaries dependent on outside help, which in turn encourages shady governments.

At least she didn't say "Jump up and down if you want to feed an African!" 

Dambisa Moyo points out “A constant stream of "free" money is a perfect way to keep an inefficient or simply bad government in power. As aid flows in, there is nothing more for the government to do -- it doesn't need to raise taxes, and as long as it pays the army, it doesn't have to take account of its disgruntled citizens. No matter that its citizens are disenfranchised (as with no taxation there can be no representation). All the government really needs to do is to court and cater to its foreign donors to stay in power.”

Another side effect of big publicity drives is the overwhelmingly negative image we end up with. You would be forgiven for imagining the Africa you’ve seen on TV as one giant cesspool – when it's actually a beautiful, diverse and increasingly successful continent.

Also, a nation with a reputation for being unable to look after itself will suffer when no investors wish to risk money in it. Historically, no country has ever achieved prosperity by depending on open-ended commitments of aid to the degree that many African countries do.

There are success stories, but they are the ones that we have had no hand in; Botswana was poor back in 1966 when given independence by Britain, but now enjoys a standard of living “comparable to Argentina”. How?  By weaning itself off aid and backing enterprise.  

Another successful way to lend assistance has come through organisations such as The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – providing vaccination against diseases doesn’t have to go though corrupt and inefficient governments.

So, how can we really help? 

Look out for this and accept no substitutes

We can start by buying fair trade: http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/ The website describes their mission to “address the injustices of conventional trade, which discriminates against the poorest, weakest producers. It enables them to improve their position and have more control over their lives.” Resulting in sustainable livelihoods for farmers, workers and their communities. What’s not to like?

All you have to do is look out for the Fairtrade logo when you’re shopping. If we choose to buy non-Fairtrade products, when an ethically produced alternative is available, we are essentially supporting a exploitative system.

I also like http://www.kiva.org/  which allows you to “lend” money to people across the globe who don’t have access to traditional banking systems.You can scan through their “catalogue” of “borrowers” – which is actually as fun and tempting as shopping. I want to give money to them ALL!

Loans are re-paid, so if you’re really tight, you can “help” without actually losing any money. (Nicer to re-invest it, though.) It’s cash directly to the people who need it, and it’s helping them to run their own businesses. Empowerment to the people!

Working for four days, what a way to make a living.....

The cold hard facts of life: Any job which penalises you for having 
big hair and a geordie accent ain't worth your time, sister.

Poor Cheryl Cole. While I'm somewhat loath to feel sorry for someone who is going to be paid the full, $2 million salary for the job she was fired from, the glee with which people are treating this news is just MEAN. No, Daily Mail, Cheryl Cole does not have “cankles.” (In fact, you would be hard pressed to find anything wrong with her appearance. Perhaps this is why you like to bitch about her every day? )

After being told that she had “lost her sparkle” (at least they didn’t mock her own catchphrase by referring to her absent “mojo”) apparently the execs are now saying she was never actually sacked, pointing out that an official comment has never been released. It seems this is how they plan to get out of paying her – when she doesn’t show up to work, they can claim she's in breach of contract. I think this tells you everything you will ever need to know about the inner psyche of the VIPs at Fox. 

Simon Cowell confirmed a while ago that Cheryl had the job. But then, I could have sworn that he publicly vowed that Kate Thornton would not lose her job as X Factor presenter, just before, er, firing her. 

So if it isn’t bad enough that her best buddy Simon has left her to the wolves, now her dastardly ex-husband is making a play for her. Haven’t we all had a friend who insists on going back to their loathsome scumbag ex? Unlucky Cheryl did her best to stay married (which must be a million times harder when playing out your relationship dramas in front of millions of people) but in the end Ashley’s general nastiness forced her to file for divorce. Now she’s floundering, it seems that Ashley is homing in on her like a vulture. 

But Cheryl, you can’t let a bad career moment set you back. Not when your manager is so clearly in love with you!

Look how cute they are together!

Ah yes, sweet little Will.i.am. The man who is on record as saying “I just still can't believe Cheryl was ever cheated on. I mean, what has to be going through your head to cheat on Cheryl?”

Actually, Will.i.am is such a dedicated mentor, he has rather a one-track mind....

Will.i.am on Cheryl’s beauty: “She's the most beautiful woman in the world. Once you have her, a man can't do any better. It's just crazy..... She ain't even the sort of girl that's out there flaunting it or anything like that, she's a real good girl.” 

Will.i.am on Cheryl’s value: “When you get a girl like that, you do everything you can to keep her, you don't go out fooling around. I'd move to London if it meant being with her. Cheryl's too nice to be cheated on."

Will.i.am on Cheryl’s down-to-earth personality: “On the one hand, she's growing into one of the biggest, most glamorous stars in the world; then on the other hand you can sit down with a bucket of KFC with her and just not stop laughing... People are going to be like: 'Wow, people that hot usually know they're that hot and walk about like they know it, but here's a girl who can go out without her make-up and still look great and is as happy eating a bargain bucket as she is eating in Beverly Hills'." 

(Actually, Will sounds like he might be somewhat of a bore on the subject of Cheryl. It’s kind of like people’s babies and ipods, you know? They’re cute and interesting and all, but after half an hour of hearing about their best features my eyes start to glaze over. Or, as I like to say, "go into screensaver mode".)

Finally, Will.i.am on his role in her life: 'I'm happy looking after her at the moment. She's a strong girl but everyone needs somebody to look out for them, and that kind of looks like it's my job.... After all she's been through, she needs rescuing. It's crazy the way she was treated and she knows I'm here whenever she needs me.”

And just to contrast, here's a quote from Ashley Cole, according to one of his many conquests:

"I don't need to wear a condom, because Chelsea give us check-ups."

Ew ew ew! 

For goodness sake Cheryl, get a clue and just marry Will.i.am already!

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.