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AIDS vs. Christianity

By Mum's the Word on May 9, 2013 in Anger, Charity

Husband sent me an email the other day with a link to this photo in it:

I’ll give you a second to absorb the information in that photo…

Can you see the message it’s putting across? The map on the right shows the distribution and severity of the AIDS virus in Africa. The map on the left shows the concentration of religions (notably Christianity, in red) by country. There is an ALARMING correlation between the two maps, is there not?

When are we going to realise that religion is responsible for almost every major world issue that we’re facing today? The Catholic church is sending missionaries to African countries and spreading the belief that not only will they burn in hell for eternity if they use contraception, but that condoms do nothing to halt the spread of the disease which is grossly wrong. The Wikipedia page on ‘Religion and HIV/AIDS’ says “Pope John Paul II strongly opposed the use of artificial birth control, and rejected the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV.^[8] Pope Benedict XVI stated in 2005 that condoms were not a sufficient solution to the AIDS crisis,^[9] but then in 2009 claimed that AIDS “cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems.”"

The irony of the statement above becomes even greater when you factor in the fact that the Catholic church considers AIDS and HIV to be a ‘gay’ disease and punishment for promiscuous behaviour, yet actively blocks gay marriage and the concept of monogamy for gay couples. We’ve let religion dictate our political decisions for far too long.

I’m by no means lumping every Christian into this category, but there are extremists in every denomination and the western world needs to wake up to the fact that telling citizens of a country which has an AIDS pandemic that condoms don’t protect against AIDS is religious extremism in its worst form.

It’s being reported that rape is being used as a weapon more than ever in many African nations since the explosion in infection rates of HIV and AIDS. The Unitied Nations University said “One striking difference between the use of rape as a weapon of war in pre-1990 conflicts and in latter-day wars is the emergence and “willful” transmission of HIV to the victims. Serious questions have been raised in the social science literature about the actual time of transmission and infection, and whether the “intent” of the perpetrators could conclusively be to infect the victim with HIV. Nonetheless, there is evidence from the victims’ accounts confirming the deliberate nature of these acts.

In her 2004 book, The Right to Survive: Sexual Violence, Women and HIV/AIDS, Françoise Nduwimana reported the testimony of one of the many rape victims during the genocide:

“For 60 days, my body was used as a thoroughfare for all the hoodlums, militia men and soldiers in the district.… Those men completely destroyed me; they caused me so much pain. They raped me in front of my six children.… Three years ago, I discovered I had HIV/AIDS. There is no doubt in my mind that I was infected during these rapes.””

People may blanch at the term ‘pro-choice’ but for me, being pro-choice isn’t just about abortion. Pro-choice means that EVERYONE has the right to choose. They have the right to choose to protect themselves against disease and poverty just as they also have a right to follow religious doctrine if they choose to. Preaching anti-contraception propaganda to vulnerable masses is dangerous.

Marie Stopes is doing fantastic work in Africa and other Third World countries to try to eliminate HIV and AIDS by providing contraception and family planning advice, as well as access to safe abortions and sexual health treatment. If you’d like to help them by donating to their cause, or simply educating yourself about the work that they do, you can GO HERE.

Do me a favour. Take another look at that map. Really think about the implications. Then think about the fact that 12 years ago, some Muslim extremists flew a plane into some buildings. 2996 people were killed that day and the USA and UK went to war with Iraq, leading to around 655,000 excess deaths, 601,027 of which were violent, according to The Lancet.

Through reading various publications, I found the following facts: Sub-Saharan Africa is home to 68% of all people living with HIV, however is only home to 12% of the world’s population. The vast majority of people in the region acquire the viurus during unprotected heterosexual intercourse or through breastfeeding as newborn babies. Of the estimated 22.9 million people living with AIDS in the region, 59% are women. Between 1999 and 2000, more people died of AIDS-related diseases in Africa than all the worlds wars combined. In 2010 alone, HIV/AIDS related diseases killed 1.2 million people in sub-Saharan Africa. Almost 90% of the 16.6 million children orphaned by AIDS live in sub-Saharan Africa. An estimated 2 million adolescents aged 10-19 are living with HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. The majority of them don’t even know they’re infected.

Why aren’t we going to war over that?

SOURCES

http://www.stephenlewisfoundation.org/assets/files/Materials%20-%20General/SLF_HIV-AIDS_factsheet.pdf

http://unu.edu/publications/articles/rape-and-hiv-as-weapons-of-war.html

http://www.one.org/c/us/issuebrief/760/

http://www.unaids.org/en/media/unaids/contentassets/documents/epidemiology/2012/gr2012/2012_FS_regional_ssa_en.pdf

http://www.avert.org/worldstats.htm

http://www.globalissues.org/article/90/aids-in-africa

Comments { 4 }

All Bets Are Off!

By Mum's the Word on April 22, 2013 in Anger

Now that we’re living in ‘times of austerity’, a phrase which makes me feel like vomiting violently and is a concept which has now been largely proven to be utter bullshit (although George Osborne is clinging on by his fingernails to it, regardless), I’ve noticed a few things. Firstly, the amount of adverts for ‘payday loans’ on the telly seem to have trebled. That could just be because I’m now a jobless bum and tend to have the TV on during the day, which is when these adverts are usually aired, but there’s a definite increase. (If you’re not sure what payday loans are all about, read this post by Cass).

The other thing I seem to see more and more of is adverts for gambling. Everywhere I turn, there’s online bingo, casinos that you can use on your smartphones, TV channels for roulette…it’s endless. Often, these things are combined with a ‘social’ aspect too, offering people the chance to chat to people while they piss their money up the wall, which makes the whole thing even worse, if you ask me.

Gambling can be dangerous. We all know that. The rush of endorphins when you win, no matter how small an amount can be highly addictive and those with a predilection towards addiction can end up ruined, both financially and personally. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of people are able to have a flutter on the Grand National once a year and never be bothered by gambling again, but that’s not always the case.

But here are the two things that really irk me.

1. Giving the gambling a ‘social’ aspect is preying on people’s loneliness. They’re saying “Got no friends? Come and spunk your money with us and chat to people while you’re at it!” Feelings of loneliness and fragmentation from society are really, really common when people are struggling for money, have been made redundant, have spent a long time on benefits or are generally suffering from depression. Enticing them in to gambling with the promise of a bit of company is so wrong.

2. The fact of the matter is, many people are living hand-to-mouth at the moment. Wages are criminally low in comparison with living costs, benefits are being cut, rents are going up and the cost of a weekly shop has dramatically increased in the past couple of years. The majority of people don’t have the money to gamble, however the lure and prospect of maybe winning a lump sum to help you to drag yourself and your family out of the mire is sometimes enough to make people spend money they don’t have. After all, we have the “you have to be in it to win it” message forced down our throats all the time.

I know there will be people who read this, the eternal unsympathetic, who will say that people should have more self control, don’t blame the companies or the adverts, don’t say addiction is an illness, blah blah…but think about it this way; advertising is psychology – if adverts didn’t work on people, companies wouldn’t spend BILLIONS of galactic credits a year to find creative ways to make you give them your money. These companies MUST take some responsibility for the effect that they have on people…desperate people. They won’t be happy until they’ve wrung us out and extracted the last few pennies from our pockets and I, for one, am sick of it.

A few months ago, I wrote a post about Ladbrokes casino and it occurred to me recently that by offering me free credits and asking me to write about their site, they were dragging me into their world too, asking me to tell my friends about their site, getting average people to part with their cash.

Well, screw you, Ladbrokes and all of the other gambling sites, loan companies with 3999% interest and anything else that’s trying to mug us and Gods bless Martin Lewis and Money Saving Expert and all of the other places who realise that trying to help us to SAVE money is the decent thing to do.

And while we’re at it, George Osborne can kiss my arse too.

Comments { 0 }

Is This Really What Passes for Humour in 2013?

By Mum's the Word on February 20, 2013 in Anger

Sometimes, it’s really difficult to maintain a sense of humour at the same time as upholding certain standards. I consider myself to be a person with a good sense of humour but I do also feel like I spend a disproportionate amount of time in a state of moral outrage. I’ve been told by family members, in the past, that I take things too seriously, which may well be true but I prefer to think that I don’t settle for the bordeline-offensive tripe that some people find amusing.

Sometimes, I see or hear things and I think “Does anyone find that amusing?”. Yesterday was one of those days. I was in the Post Office waiting to pay in a cheque for work and I glanced at the greetings cards. This was one of them:

At best it’s a clumsy, outdated attempt at irony which misses the mark by a mile. At worst it’s a massively misogynistic, insult of a card that I’d shove where the sun doesn’t shine if someone bought it for me. Either way, it’s just not funny and I’m so fed up with this kind of thinly-veiled woman-hatred plied by a MAJOR card company as humour.

On a completely base level, I know I don’t have a single female friend or relative who chose their spouse based on the size of his packet, be it his pay or the one in his pants. I’m sure there are women out there who are ruthless enough to factor these things into their choice of partner, but this card flippantly portrays ALL women like this and I resent the implication.

Maybe this is one of those occasions where I’m taking things too seriously, but my gender has dealt with enough shit over the years and things like this card being blindly swallowed up by the masses are exactly the reason that a glass ceiling still exists and women are overlooked in many fields. As a mother to a daughter, I don’t want her growing up thinking that this is okay, or worse, falling into a stereotype because of what’s expected of her as a female.

It’s about time women were afforded more respect and dignity, which is a shocking statement to have to make in 2013.

Comments { 6 }

Feeling Rather Used…

By Mum's the Word on December 7, 2012 in Anger

So, you may remember last month, I wrote THIS post about an interview I went for? The job was as an Assistant Road Safety Officer for Southend on Sea Borough Council and the interview was a two-part process. I had to answer various questions and do the usual interview bit and then I had to do a ‘practical exercise’ and give a presentation on the following brief:

Drinking and driving is a major concern and high profile campaigns are regularly run to educate drivers of the danger. Despite this, road accidents involving alcohol remain high.

Many drivers are fully aware of the risks from drinking and driving and choose alternative transport when going home but are unaware that their alcohol levels are very likely to affect their driving ability the next morning.

How would you promote an awareness of this issue ? Be prepared to have a short discussion on your ideas for educating drivers including any slogans, events and publicity.

I spent quite a while preparing for this part of the interview and came up with a ton of ideas and even produced a mock-up poster that the Council could use for their hypothetical campaign. I uploaded the poster to my Google Drive account and showed the interviewers on my iPhone, hoping that saving paper and being tech savvy would earn me a couple of extra Brownie points in the process. This is the poster:

I went to great lengths to talk about how, when it comes to drink driving awareness there wasn’t any need to show smashed up cars and gore, that everyone in the country knew what flowers on a lamppost or by the side of a road meant and that it could provide far more stark and striking imagery than anything that’s too in-your-face and shocking.

I didn’t get the job, as you’ll know if you read the previous post, and I was pretty cut up about it, especially as the interviewers had congratulated me on how well I’d done and asked what my start availability was like. Then, yesterday, the local free paper dropped through my door. This was on the front cover:

A lovely Christmas infomercial, dominating the entire front page, using my ideas and imagery pretty much verbatim.

So, I wasn’t good enough to do the job I applied and interviewed for, but I was good enough to have my ideas stolen from me and used in a Borough-wide Drink Driving campaign by the Road Safety Team, the ones who’d rejected me.

When I opened the folded paper, I was really shocked. Then I felt mind-bubblingly angry. Now? I feel completely used. This is the second time this year that I’ve applied for a job with a creative aspect and had my ideas used, despite not getting the jobs. Is this really how things work? People do a recruitment drive with a creative assignment attached to the process and then just use the ideas for free? Is this how our Council is saving money, by stealing advertising instead of commissioning it?

I’m sure I don’t have a leg to stand on, in terms of the legalities of it. The only proof I have that this was my idea is the uploaded file to my Google Drive account, showing the date I saved it and a Facebook conversation where I shared my ideas with some friends in a private group, but I’m not clued up enough on intellectual property to even know if this makes a difference.

Either way, I feel totally used and let down. And STILL without a job. No thanks to Southend Borough Council.

Oh well, if I’ve learned anything it’s that I DO have some good ideas after all…

Comments { 20 }

Mumsnet, a Hospital Visit and A Community-Sized Hug

By Mum's the Word on November 13, 2012 in Anger, Friendship, Personal, Rant

This has been a funny old week in the Parent Blogging community. Saturday saw one of the years biggest blogging conferences, put on by Mumsnet, and for a while everyone was abuzz with chatter of what went on at the conference. Then, on Sunday, the Daily Mail printed an article by She Who Shall Not Be Named, a woman who apparently has no desire to endear herself to anyone, condemning us all as mindless drones who live only to serve their Husbands (who are obviously the only breadwinners in the house) and while away the time (which let’s face it, we have TONS of because parenting and looking after kids is such a doddle) with cupcake baking and crocheting.

I’m not even going to justify her pathetic jabs with any sort of specific rebuttal to the claims she’s made about us as a whole because I have another theory. This woman is well-documented as saying that she doesn’t have any friends and struggles with interpersonal relationships. I think her comments come from a sense of teeth-grindingly intense jealousy. When she attended BlogFest on Saturday, she will have seen hundreds of women, all from different places, all with different lives, different interests, with different amounts of money, different levels of education, coming together to spend time in a huge sisterhood. That’s gotta sting when you’re a friendless crone, right?

I came to this conclusion yesterday night. If you’ve read my previous post you’ll know that I spent a large chunk of yesterday in hospital. I came home and plugged my phone in (fucking iPhone battery, mutter mutter) to find texts, emails, wall posts, messages and group posts from no less than a dozen bloggers who I’ve come to know over the past two years. Offers of help, offers of ears to bend if I needed to. One of them even tried ringing the hospital I’d gone to, to see if they could find anything out, so worried they’d been at my unusual radio silence.

Friendship is something that a lot of us take for granted and although I’m not lucky enough to have all of these ladies living just around the corner from me, although I can’t pop round for a coffee if I have five minutes to spare, although I’ve never met a lot of them on a face to face basis, I know I have a community of women who are rooting for me. If I need a shoulder to cry on or a place to ask for a cheer of ‘good luck!’ before an interview, they’re there. I’ve seen my community do amazing things, help others out when they’re in genuine need and have nowhere else to turn and it’s a very nice feeling to know that they’d have my back if I needed them.

And that, as far as I’m concerned, is why the lonely She Who Shall Not Be Named has taken such umbridge. Jealousy, pure and simple. If only she’d been a bit nicer, she may have made some friends too.

Thanks everyone. You know who you are.

Comments { 8 }

The NHS and Me

By Mum's the Word on November 13, 2012 in Anger, Family, Health, Politics

I’ve got a bit of a tumultuous past with the NHS. When I was 6 I contracted meningococcal septicaemia, my Mum rushed me to our local hospital who sent me home with a diagnosis of a chest infection. It wasn’t until I started to become worryingly ill and Mum took me to a different A&E that it was finally recognised and I got much needed treatment, but it was touch and go for a while and I still have lasting effects of the disease now.

If you look at my medical history, there’s a long line of medical cock-ups followed by relief and resolution and if I’m honest, I’m rather jaded when it comes to my health. I find it hard to sit back and accept diagnoses of ‘we just don’t know’ as I’ve been fobbed off on so many occasions and the less said about the birth of Sausage the better as it’s a veritable catalogue of errors.

But let’s look at this from the flipside.

What about the doctor who DID diagnose my meningitis, before it was too late? What about the nurse who laid on me to keep me still while I had my lumbar puncture? What about the surgeon who made my caesarean incision at 9.16pm and birthed Sausage at 9.17pm? What about the doctors who have helped my various friends and family, brought them back to health or made their last days comfortable?

The reason I’m thinking about all of this is that I was in hospital yesterday. Sausage and I went to the supermarket in the morning and I started to feel extremely nauseous on the way there so we rushed into the loos when we got there and I proceeded to vomit up what seemed like quite a lot of blood. Being the dickhead I am, I finished my shopping and came home to put a stew on to cook before very calmly telling Husband that I needed to go to the hospital.

I took myself off to A&E and spent five hours there all in all. I could moan about how long it took and I ~~DID~~ could moan about how uncomfortable the seats were but I sat there thinking about a documentary that Sausage, Husband and I watched recently about childbirth which, as a sub-plot, followed a couple who lived in an African country. The lady was heavily pregnant and had to walk for 5 hours to get to the nearest clinic once she went into labour. Once she got to the clinic, there was still no guarantee that her birth would go smoothly as both infant and maternal mortality rates were astonishingly high. She made the journey without complaint and gave birth to a beautiful baby.

All I’m saying is, five hours seems like a long time to wait but I got to do it in a clean, warm room with chairs, have free medical attention including x-rays, blood tests with clean needles and results within the hour. Yes, the NHS is an administrative cluster-fuck at the best of times, but can you imagine life without it? Could you afford comprehensive private healthcare in your family budget?

The fact that our public services are being dismantled before our eyes for the private gain of many a politician is genuinely scary and I dread to think of what will happen to the level of health amongst normal people in the UK. We’re ALL guilty from time to time of moaning about the National Health Service, but I really hate to think of the standard that it’s going to slip to before we all realise just how lucky we were to have it. I wouldn’t mind betting that the number of medical negligence cases will sky-rocket, too.

Except, by then it may just be too late…

Comments { 3 }

Rejection Sucks

By Mum's the Word on November 9, 2012 in All About ME!, Anger, Depression, Family

Alternative title: Why I’d Like to Close the Curtains and Eat Cheese Toasties in My Pyjamas For The Next Week…

Let me set the scene:

In she walks, well dressed but professional. Her hair and make-up are well done but not so immaculate that she looks over the top. She’s confident, you can tell by her stride that she knows what she’s doing. She exchanges banter in the lift with the girl who’s been sent to bring her to the interview room and she takes in her surroundings, wondering if she’ll become more familiar with them in the near future.

“Come through, please”

She walks into the room, smiles, shakes three hands and waits to be told to take a seat.

Questions, questions, questions.

She answers most of them with confidence, but admits that there are one or two questions that she’s found tricky.

She makes her presentation.

They lap it up.

They laugh in the right places, they clap, they ask if they can use her material for their own campaign in a ‘jokeybutkindofserious’ way

They’re all smiling.

One of them offers to show her back to the lift.

“You were great” she offers.

The woman tells her that she came across brilliantly, that she’d be perfect for the role, asks what’s her availability in terms of start dates?

She almost skips to her car.

“I’ve nailed it!” she thinks.

She goes home.

She waits.

And waits.

Waits.

Email.

“We regret to inform you…”

“Bollocks”, she thinks.

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Comments { 10 }

Bullies.

By Mum's the Word on August 23, 2012 in Anger, Family, Opinion, Personal

My lovely little sister.

Something happened today which upset me a lot.

I went into town to meet my little sister, she’d been working a lot and hadn’t had a chance to give Sausage her birthday present yet, so we met for coffee, a chat and a bit of toy and nail varnish shopping with the kiddo. It was lovely to see her, we often go weeks without seeing each other as her working days vary and I’m a nightmare to pin down sometimes, and we ambled around the high street for an hour or so, letting Sausage chatter away about her birthday and newly painted nails.

Just after we’d come out of Greggs, where Lil’ Sis’ had bought Sausage some lunch, a guy and his girlfriend walked past us. I noticed them at first because the female appeared to be giving my sister a really filthy look, which seemed odd. Then, as they got closer the male leaned right into my sisters path and said, with real vitriol, “Look at the f*cking state of that…”, before walking quickly off.

I stood, open-mouthed, watching them walk off sniggering to each other.

If I’m honest, my first reaction was to chase after them and give them both a serious amount of verbal, but as I had Sausage with me I restrained myself, although the anger was truly bubbling over in me. That was my baby sister (she’s 19, nearly 9 years younger than me) whose feelings they’d gone out of their way to hurt and I honestly felt like punching the guy. Lil’ Sis’ was naturally upset, but handled it with more grace than me, she just carried on walking and said “Oh well, he’s probably got a tiny willy…!”.

All of this got me thinking about a similar event that happened to me last year, as I was walking home from a hospital appointment. I was standing at a pelican crossing, waiting to cross a dual carriageway when a car full of blokes went past and one of them screamed “FAT PIG” out of the window at me. I was genuinely devastated and spent the rest of the walk home shaking and crying on the phone to my Mum. These weren’t children, they were all guys in their mid-to-late twenties, wearing suits, yet they felt it was appropriate to bully a woman on her own like this.

If I wasn’t already disillusioned, I am now.

The thing is, I am fat. There’s no denying it. But what on earth goes through the mind of a grown person who feels the need to shout it at someone from a moving car? My little sister isn’t average, she’s unique and makes some bold fashion choices. She’s a huge Gaga fan and expresses herself with hair, make-up and clothes and while I wouldn’t choose to wear studded leggings, she’s a really pretty girl and makes an effort with her appearance. But do you know what? I shouldn’t even be explaining that to you, what we look like is SHOULD BE inconsequential in all of this. The real question is – why are there some people in the world who are so filled with bile and hatred feel that they feel the need to bully, intimidate, abuse and attack innocent passers-by?

I can honestly say that I will NEVER get my head around the need some people feel to hurt other people’s’ feelings for their own amusement. There’s just no need and it makes me feel really sad about what our society must have become to allow things like this to happen. I know nobody is perfect but feeling the need to hurt the feelings of a stranger is a serious character flaw and the worse thing is, we’re the ones left stewing over it – the idiot who chose to attack my sister probably doesn’t even remember doing it.

Bullying is a serious problem and it’s not just happening in schools, it seems endemic in most walks of life. I know it probably makes me a terrible person for saying this, but I just hope this bloke says the wrong thing to the wrong person one day and gets a punch in the mouth.

That seems to be the only language that bullies understand.

Comments { 32 }

I Don’t Use The ‘C’ Word.

By Mum's the Word on August 1, 2012 in Anger, Life, Opinion, Politics

What would you think of me if you were reading a blog post and I used the word ‘nigger’?

What would you think of me if you were reading a blog post and I used the word ‘queer’?

What would you think of me if you were reading a blog post and I used the word ‘retard’?

I’m guessing you’d be really shocked and appalled, right? Shocked that a (reasonably) well-educated woman would use such inflammatory, bigoted and ignorant language, yes?

Well, dear readers, this happens to me all the time. There’s a word that I see popping up here and there, from people I consider to be pretty enlightened, that makes me feel increasingly uncomfortable.

The ‘C’ word. No, not c*nt, I’m not that delicate. The word that offends me so is chav.

This is a word that has now made it into the Oxford English dictionary and is defined thusly:

a young lower-class person typified by brash and loutish behaviour and the wearing of (real or imitation) designer clothes.

According to the dictionary, it could be either a contraction of the Romany word ‘chavvy’, meaning child or young person, or from the place ‘Chatham’ in Kent where the word supposedly started.

Either way, do you see the key phrase in there?

‘Lower class’.

This is the point – if you wouldn’t use nigger, queer or retard, you have no place using the word chav. If you’re shocked and offended by racism, homophobia or discrimination against disability, why does classist intolerance not have the same effect? It’s not okay to hate or judge someone because of the colour of their skin, their sexuality or how able-bodied they are, so can someone explain why it’s okay to mock, deride and write off a subset of society because of what they were born into? What they’ve been brought up knowing? What they maybe couldn’t afford or have the resources to remove themselves from?

I think Plan B put it a lot better than me in his TED lecture when he said this:

“I believe that there is a demonisation of the youth throughout the media. And people are falling for it, because if you’d had no direct contact with the kids that I’m talking about how the hell can you judge them? Because you’re only judging them based on something you read in a newspaper, aren’t you?

See, this fuels the fire. If you call kids words that are derogatory to them just because they are unlucky enough to be born into a family that couldn’t afford to give them the education that you had, they’re going to hate you. Of course they’re going to hate you and you’re going to hate them because of their actions. And it’s this vicious circle that goes round. By calling these kids these words you push them out of your society and they don’t feel part of it. You beat them into apathy and in the end they just say: “Cool, I don’t care. I don’t want to be part of your society.”"

So, maybe you should think about that, next time you label someone a chav.

Comments { 12 }

Dirty Flaps and Other Things That Get on my Nerves.

By Mum's the Word on July 29, 2012 in Anger, Politics, Rant

Lately, I’ve noticed that there are little things which really niggle at me, minor annoyances that have been making the top of my head blow off like a volcano (well, almost…) so I thought I’d list them here as a sort of catharsis.

1. People Who Get To The Till at the Supermarket Then Act Surprised That They Have To Pay.

Okay, long-winded title which more or less explains itself, but what the merry FUCK is it with people who do that? You’re in a shop. Unless you plan on committing petty larceny, the chances are you’ll be paying once your goods are rung up. So why oh WHY do people wait until every last item is put away and the checkout operator is looking at them with keen expectancy do these numpties only then get their purse or wallet out. And don’t even get me started on Nectar cards/Clubcards/Advantage cards. I’m so sick of getting stuck behind some tit in a trance who contributes towards making my life at least 10% less efficient.

Look at my filthy flap.

2. Dirty Flaps.

Yep, I hate it when my flaps get dirty.

Okay, so I mean the flaps on the top of my bins. We have two bins, side by side in the kitchen, one for recycling, one for everything else (when the council bother to deliver red sacks, but that’s a different rant entirely) and no matter how many times a day I wipe them down, they always seem to be covered in schmutz. I don’t know what the solution is, but it hacks me off.

3. Discounts That Aren’t Really a Discount.

Last week, Husband took me out to buy me a new laptop and we went to our local PC World as it had a closing down sale on. I found a laptop I wanted which was an ex-display model and seemed to have a really good amount chopped off. Then the salesman came over and, Zombie Jesus bless him, he was very honest and told us that the original price of five hundred and something was only charged for about a week and that it was really worth £299. Right, so let me get this straight. The laptop was only ever worth £299 and has been on display for six months and you’re still charging £269 for it? Jog. On. £30 off for having a million sausage-fingered morons stabbing at it every time the shop opened? Nuhthanks….

4. Bad Drivers.

I know I blogged about this one before, but the fuckwittery I’ve encountered seems to be worsening. The other day, I was driving through a car park and stopped to let a person back out of a disabled space and the person behind me tried to overtake and almost ploughed into the side of the car backing out. I mean, really? Was that bloke in SUCH a rush that he needed to take that risk? I also had a grown man literally screaming out of the window at me while I had Sausage in the car for not pulling out quick enough (just for the record, I pulled out plenty quick enough). What possesses grown people to behave this way?

Yeah. Course you were…

5. Bourgeois Bigotry.

I’m not the biggest fan of the Olympics, it has to be said, but when twats like Aiden Burley MP start going on about the opening ceremony (which, incidentally, was absolutely bloody brilliant and I’m SO proud to have a director like Danny Boyle as part of British culture) being “too multicultural”, what they’re really saying is “go home, darkies”, without actually having the balls to come out and say it. All I will say is, our opening ceremony would have been extremely drab and boring had we not Caribbean, Asian, African and all those other cultural influences mixed in to this melting pot of a country. Keep your veiled racism, it’s unpleasant and cowardly. Oh and also, Aiden, you twat – the Rolling Stones are blues musicians – where do you think blues comes from? Black America, maybe? So you like multiculturalism when it’s served up to you by four fellas from Kent?