Ani-malpractice

Prepare yourselves, readers - PETA have done it again.

From the (almost) sublime re-branding of fish as 'Sea Kittens', to the ridiculous Ben and Jerry's incident of last year, I really thought that maybe PETA had put the crazy away and started to work on something more realistic, say, saving the severely endangered animals such as African white rhinos or tigers.

Heard of the Pet Shop Boys? Of course you have. What does the name immediately make you think of? Personally, I think mid-80s synth-pop sounds, West End Girls, Dusty Springfield making a comeback. I certainly don't think literally of boys that work in a pet shop. That'd be like listening to Iron Maiden and imagining the medieval torture device.

PETA have decided that the Pet Shop Boys should be renamed 'the Rescue Shelter Boys'.

Now, if I make my hands into fists and squeeze down so hard that I actually break my nails off in my own skin...I can almost see where they're coming from. Almost. Some pet shops - not all, mind, and not any of the ones I've come across thankfully - are guilty of malpractice. But to be honest, that's what the RSPCA are here for in this country, and I can happily say that they're doing a bloody good job. And surely, most people have the common sense to know if you've walked into a pet store where you suspect the animals are being mistreated, and to subsequently do something about it.

How is this going to help? Even if the Pet Shop Boys did change their name, all it would achieve would be media ruckus rather than social awareness. How can PETA supporters stand proud of their cause and not run away from their computers in shame, when they see their 'Animal Friendly' organisation casually step over the important issues and start putting kitten ears on goldfish.

With PETA, it's not "Cut Down on Over-Fishing", it's "DON'T EAT FISH EVER". It's not "Find Out Where Your Meat and Eggs are Sourced", it's "You Are a Killer". It's scaremongering and brain-washing the young and impressionable with tales of death and carnage rather than showing them how to prevent animal cruelty and suffering.

PETA, do yourselves a favour. Stop the ridiculous media circus acts, and really re-evaluate what you think is important. You are making a mockery of yourselves.

Death of a S'Aint

In case you've been living in a cave (or Slough) for the past month or so, you'll have heard about Jade Goody's death. The hubub surrounding her death appears to be a case example of the 'Marmite effect', splitting Britain down the middle, or at least into some odd pie chart - some Britons revere her as some kind of modern-day Saint, some still see her as the racist, ignorant stereotypical epitome of the lower classes or even worse, and this is where most of the jokes have come from.

And then there is Michael Parkinson's view.

This article caught my eye, simply because if it had been any other 'celebrity', I would've closed the MSN window (which I generally do; I have no interest on the Top Ten Most Worthless Lists of All Time, what's going on in Eastenders or Jodie Marsh's new rhinoplasty). But Michael Parkinson has been a successful journalist and presenter for years and years now, he has met some truly influential people and all this without feeling the need to represent himself. His shows are topical and the guests aren't hand-picked from his showbiz friends. So when you read what he says about Jade, do you think he deserves the criticism he gets?

Yes, it is really sad that Jade died, and even sadder that her death has left two little boys motherless, and on Mother's Day of all things. This makes me cringe a little internally whenever I hear (or tell, I'm no saint either) a Jade Goody joke. I know she sold her story over and over again to the papers towards the end of her life to make sure there was a financial windbreaker for her sons. But I also know that there are now 122 pages of sick jokes about Jade on Sickipedia. Telling all to the media caused a mass divide in opinion because every magazine wanted the latest scoop on her; no publication wanted to say the same thing as their rival publications. So why is she so unpopular?

It's fair to say that in her last months of life, she did her best to make up for all she'd done wrong: apologies to Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty, backing the decision to lower the age for cervical smear tests, and also securing personal happiness by marrying her on-off partner Jack Tweed. But can you really believe she'd have done any of that if she hadn't been dying? I know it's a harsh point to make, but I can honestly say that if the doctor told me tomorrow that I had three months to live, you can bet Jade's total yearly income that my attitude would change drastically.

I mean, think about it: regardless of what you've done with your life, wouldn't you want to make peace before you died? If not with others, how about with yourself? Regardless of your religious views, the fact of the matter is we don't know what happens when our bodies die. Why take a chance? If it turns out that you just die, wouldn't you want your last few weeks to be contented ones?

Jade Goody is not, and never will be Princess Diana. Diana did a lot of publically-obvious relief work during her life, but we the public do not know what her private life was like, and it looks like no light is going to be shed on it any time soon. With Jade, there was no in-between, and the media were just as quick to condemn her as they were to martyr her. OK! Magazine even printed a 'tribute' issue before she had even died. This is laughable, yes, but it goes to show that OK! know what sells, and what sells is public opinion. If they tried selling that magazine to people that really hated Jade Goody, they'd make hardly any sales.

So there you have it - Jade is not a saint, she is not a tyrant: she is a human. Bravo to Michael Parkinson for spelling it out.

What an Ome-lette Down

Hello dear readers. I know you're out there now, because Sprog told me you are. By proxy, that means I have readers, ergo I can subject you to pretty much whatever I want. Therefore, welcome to Neety's World of Inane Domestic House-Chores.

Today, since I'm quite busy being unemployed, I decided I fancied a trip out on my bike. Before I did this I thought I'd have a quick and nutritious lunch. I'd already had enough soup to the point where it started to leak out of my eyeballs, so instead I pondered the humble egg. Hence my friends: the humble omelette. Or basically, the use-up-all-the-scraggly-off-looking-stuff-in-the-fridge.


Before I go on, I'd like to direct you to Saturday Kitchen. I quite like cookery programmes, and this specific one has been introduced into my weekend routine due to my mother's deep passion for James Martin. Basically, at the end of each show, they have a different chef in, and they compete to see who can make the fastest omelette. Basically: egg, break, pan, heat, omelette. Thus demonstrating the ease of making an omelette.


So why, ye Gods why did my omelette start off looking like this:

Perfect eggy form, although perhaps a little thin around the sides (it was made with the only one egg I could find in the house, topped up with skimmed milk), and garnished lovingly with chicken, red peppers, spring onions and a sprinking of cheese. Phwoooooar....I could write for Marks and Spencer's commercials, I could.

This is not just an omelette....

This is Neety's omele- oh, dear God, what have I done. That's an abomination.


And that above is the state of the pan afterwards. The quickest omelette on Saturday Kitchen was about 30 seconds. I devoted twelve whole minutes to this poultry-conceived antichrist.

So here's the plan. My next blog will be devoted to the Perfect Omelette. This is a test of your loyalty, blog readers. The reader to come up with the best recipe for a fail-safe omelette that cooks, looks and tastes fantastic will win a cake or pastry of their choice baked by me (I can bake cakes brilliantly, don't worry.) Entries close on Monday at midnight, after which I will try out your methods, culminating in a culinary blog showing how I made them and whose method (and filling) went down best with the judges (myself and erstwhile members of the family, whoever feels peckish enough.)

If you want a slice of the action (har har), comment below with your cooking method, ingredients and any other tips and hints.

Neety - "Part of me can't believe I'm doing this, the other part is polishing the crockery"

Making a Twitter of Myself

Yes, I admit it, I have done it - I have joined Twitter. I now stretch out my arms in a crucifix-style pose and wait for the painful rain of stones, flint, USB mouses and assorted detritus to whack me painfully in the metaphorical Blogger kidneys.

I mean, let's face it. Twitter was probably invented back in 1911 by a sprightly young man named Prof. Albert Ponsonby-Twitter who stormed into the printing presses and interrupted a meeting between some bigwigs in the press industry with a loud; "Forsooth, chaps! I have created a most splendid contraption known as a 'Social Networking Applicating'! All one does is stands in an immensely large edifice with several other of your dear acquaintances and attempts to shout out precisely which activities one is currently partaking in, however mundane and tedious..." Here, he stops to rearrange his cumberbund, "But here is the twist! One does not know whether one's acquaintances are even listening to one!"

Prof. Ponsonby-Twitter is then thrown out onto the streets, naked, covered in potato peel.

Yet...he is without SIN cast the first stone. Yes, SIN = Self-indulgent Internet Nonsense. Look at you all, you great, sweaty pasties. Staring at your screen, reading this drivel; drivel hammered out by a heathen unemployed Troglodyte with a bad sense of taste. I may be taking my interpersonal-relations skills from the School of Piers Morgan (loathe as I am to even mention that name without writing and foaming at the mouth like a snake that's just been fed Pepto-Bismol), so I apologise for calling you all sweaty. And pasties. But I do not apologise for calling myself a Troglodyte, for that is what I am.

I mean, come on. I have no claim to fame, I'm not distantly related to some Premiership 'footballer' or heir to a small chain of Little Chefs, I don't even have particularly good writing skills; mainly I come up with a fairly good argument, water it down a little, add five pages randomly ripped out from the Oxford English Dictionary, whisk together until creamy and then serve. That's what I mean. I don't have the face for glossy mags or even the voice for radio, so I blog. My opinion doesn't matter...yet that's where the internet comes in. You can be famous just by being incredibly opinionated and using the dreaded C-word a lot. There are no live feeds or watersheds to worry about on the internet. Comments can be deleted, friends can be un-friended and messages can be blocked or re-directed to spam.

You may be feeling slightly confused, my dear lovely perspiring meat-filled savoury companions. Why on Earth am I doing this? Why am I writing about how the internet makes exhibitionists of us all? Getting up on a slightly higher platform than the last bloke and shouting your opinions until even your vocal chord nodules have nodules themselves ain't particularly big or clever. Why does anyone even do it? Well roll up, roll up, read all about it and then Robert's your father's brother...there you have it. You're reading it. You do the maths.

Because somewhere, beneath all the violent opinionating that is the WWW, there is a reader for everyone.

Abuse, as seen on MTV

(I was considering titling this post with a pun based on one of Rihanna's many hit singles; but given the subject matter I don't think it quite appropriate.)

Now, I'm not a fan of 'urban' music at all. However, I like to think I'm above the childish jibes of "this music is shit" simply because I don't like it (though I draw the line at Trance etc, simply because it isn't music and is just noise). So it shouldn't really surprise you that I have quite considerable respect for the urban/pop artist Rihanna.

Not only does she generally dress and present herself well, and in my view is not as blatantly exhibitionist as most female performance artists: now God knows I'm no prude but look at, purely for instance, Lady Gaga - in her promotional video for her first release Just Dance she is seen in just a bra. This is all very well in today's media but it just makes me think "Great, I don't know this girl's real name or where she's from but I already have a pretty good estimate of her bra size". Also, Rihanna shows a good example of being able to write and publicise her own material. She seems to come across as a businesswoman rather than a perverse "role model" or media puppet.

I also think the same for her boyfriend, singer/songwriter/producer Chris Brown - he can dance almost as well as the young Michael Jackson as far as some of his promotional videos convey, and he also writes and produces his own (and other artists') material.

So imagine my utter horror to hear that Chris Brown was involved in an incident of assault on Saturday night against a (then unnamed) female companion. I then heard via local radio that his girlfriend Rihanna has declined to perform at the Grammy Awards ceremony, and of course I put two and two together. Surely enough a statement was released late yesterday confirming Rihanna as the victim.

Rare? In 'showbiz', I suppose, yes. In real life, not so: every two minutes a woman is abused by someone she knows. Sadly, sometimes it's even someone she loves.

Personally I don't want to be one to judge. I agree it is terrible, and some of the injuries sustained by Rihanna are horrific (including bite marks to her fingers and arms), but could this unpleasant incident, brought to the attention of the media due to the exposure of the two people involved, be the catalyst? Will women see that no matter where you are and what you do for a living, you are not exempt from your rights to protection? I am of the creed that believes everything happens for a reason, and one way to look at a bad situation is to look at how in its wake people to strive for better.

I believe Chris Brown will have his punishment: as I was just hearing the news, radio stations and music video channels were already pulling his singles and videos, and the worst of it is that he will have to live with the reality of his actions forever. I only hope that no light will be made of this incident, so female and male victims and abusers will know just how serious a situation domestic violence is.

Let's hope the media don't let us down again.