2013 is the New 2012

Have you taken a look back over my New Year archives recently?

Although I try to actively encourage you to read my blog, I'm going to have to ask kindly that you don't have a look back at any entry dated around December 26th or so. Everyone has an old shame - mine are my three-tone pink poncho, my dating history from age 18-21, and these old New Year blogs.

I'm not saying I was wrong to post them, and in fact I didn't always have the nicest start to quite a few new years. But now, with my impending wedding, my improving health and a job I love, it's a lot easier to see in the New Year.

With that in mind, I thought about resolutions. The end of December becomes a bit like a weird game of musical chairs; each chair is etched with hopeful slogans such as "Lose Weight" or "Quit Smoking" and when the music stops at midnight on the 31st everyone rushes for their pre-picked chair.

Like the desperate rush for the last seat, maybe we are treating our resolutions as a mad dash to an achievement. All of my resolutions fizzled out by roughly January 15th - when I failed to keep them in the first week, I pretended that I was 'against' resolutions anyway, or I sulked and gave up. Not the best start to any year.

With this in mind, I decided to look through my greatest hits of resolutions past, and have a re-shuffle. Who knows, it may help. Maybe it'll help one of my readers too.

"I Must Lose Weight"
Replace with: "Get Body Comfortable"

Pressure is never comfortable, and pressure to lose weight isn't going to produce a lasting result. It may be the catalyst for a drastic change, but if we rely only on stress as a motivation, it will disappear as soon as your target is reached and will only return when you put weight on again.
Think about who or what is pressuring you to lose weight. Is it a person - your friends, your partner, a doctor? Is it coming from a good place ("I'm worried about your health") or a controlling place? Sadly, I can't tell you how to deal with negative peer pressure simply because everyone's situation is different.
Do you have a wardrobe full of clothes you can't quite fit, or an event coming up that you want to look and feel confident at? Whatever your destination is, aim to be "comfortable", not "three stone lighter" or other such high-pressure goals. "Comfortable" might be 7lbs, a stone, a dress size. It's up to you to find that out.

"I Must Stop Smoking/Drinking/Spending"
Replace with "What Could Help Me Quit?"

As a fervent non-smoker, I don't know many of the reasons why people smoke - I understand it can be a social thing, or a habit, or a means of appetite suppressant.
I do know a lot of people who have quit, or are looking to quit. The first step that all of my successfully smoke-free friends took was to seek information. Do you think you'll miss the social aspects, or the ritual of lighting up? Maybe e-cigarettes are your thing. Even if you just visit a help site or speak to a friend who faced a similar struggle, you've already achieved your resolution.

"I Will Try Something New" aka. The Bucket List
Replace with "Figure Out What I Want To Achieve"

'Bucket Lists' make people feel different things: personally I find them a little bit tricky. I'd feel bad if my list ended up 'unfinished'.
Long-term goals are fine, but nobody knows what could happen. Swapping a list of ten things out for a shorter, one-item-at-a-time goal system might work better - for example, if you want to go travelling, break that down into smaller items such as 'head to the travel agents on my day off' or 'use ten minutes of my lunch learning a new phrase in a new language'.
If you want to do a Bucket List, my advice would be to keep it down to 10-15 items and leave it open-ended. This takes off the time pressure aspect which will stop you blaming yourself when life gets in the way.

Resolutions in General

If you've had a bad year, the easiest thing to do is look back over the gone months, picking out the worst things that happened and basing your resolutions around prevention methods - that's what I've done, and it's made me less happy come end of January. It's where all the negative words like "Stop" and "Quit" and "Don't" come from: closed-end words with no room for wiggle or evolution when your situation changes. What happens you vow to lose weight, and then you start a new job that takes up a lot of time and energy? If your resolution is 'Lose Weight' and you stay the same throughout January, you're going to see it as a failure.

Whatever your resolution is, make sure to steer clear of these words: "stop", "don't", "avoid", "quit", "give up". Instead, rework your resolutions so they contain more positive notions. If something seems like a mammoth task, chop it up into more bite-sized portions - break it down into stages and give yourself a proportionate amount of time to complete each task. For example, if you're dying to write a novel, make your first goal something like "Plan my Novel" or even "Search the internet for planning ideas".

When You Fail Your Resolution

Firstly, did you fail to keep your resolution,  or was your resolution inpossibly hard to keep? Re-evaluate your goal over time and figure out whether you can start right over from scratch or if you need another couple of days/weeks/months. You needn't be ashamed of your efforts.

And finally, have a happy new year. Do something that makes you glad - January can be a long month!

(As a side note, I'd like to say that one of my resolutions is to tweak this blog until I am happy with it. Changes will be occurring over the next month,  and as always, LADYBLOG appreciates your feedback.)

I'm An Animal, Get Me Out of Here

        “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”

        Gandhi’s words imply, then, that Britain is not particularly great or noble, because we as a nation are more than happy to poke, prod, annoy and distress our merry way through the animal kingdom.

        For many people, the start of ITV’s stalwart reality show I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here is a depressing time, with animal rights champions such as Chris Packham of BBC’s Autumnwatch and charities such as RSPCA repeatedly criticising the show. OFCOM received massive numbers of complaints in 2009 when camp mates caught and killed a supposedly wild rat - so why can’t they treat all of the animals with the same respect?

        I’d like to clear two things up. Firstly, I consider myself to be an Animal Activist. I’m reclaiming that word as of now, and re-defining it to mean “a person whose chief concern is the welfare of ALL animals, domestic and otherwise, in ANY situation.”

        Secondly, without naming names, not all charities are as morally upstanding as they seem. In my opinion, any charity that uses scare-mongering to brainwash children,  chases down high-profile names such as Game Freak or Ben and Jerry’s ice cream with ludicrous, headline-grabbing stunts and ignores the real plight of animals, even to the point of neglecting or even culling animals in their own care, is NOT for animals. I am sure that there are people affiliated with these companies that feel the way that I and many others do about animal welfare, but unfortunately they appear not to be in charge.

        So tell me this: if it’s not acceptable to catch and kill a live animal on TV, why is it acceptable to force a young woman into a room with a live ostrich, especially when you consider that ostriches are classed as a ‘dangerous animal’ here in the UK? In other ‘Bushtucker Trials’, spiders and snakes have their fangs removed and alligators have their mouths bound (don’t even get me started on that) but there was no way to ‘weaken’ the ostrich - bind its legs together, perhaps? Then we’d have had trouble. If an animal is not safe to be near a human, don't place it in a bloody great box on top of their head.

        In other trials, contestants thrust their hands into covered boxes to retrieve small star tokens that guarantee them and their camp mates luxury food items, but are also filled with various lizards, snakes, spiders, scorpions and certain other animals that would make the average viewer cringe. I’m told that these animals are very well taken care of during the time that they are not in the boxes. Emphasis on the last part of my sentence there. So because the handlers take care of them during the many hours they are not in the box, it's OK to have someone grab at them? You cannot sit a lizard down and explain it's all for entertainment purposes and they won't be hurt - the majority of them will be terrified when a groping hand comes into their enclosure suddenly. Is it really acceptable to stress them out for twenty minutes if we treat them with respect for the rest of the time?

        I know people don’t really care as much about non-domestic animals, and it’s not everyone’s fault. We’ve been conditioned to think that puppies are adorable and spiders should be killed on sight. But is that really the way a person or in this case a TV programme that claims to have ‘all animals’ in mind should behave? You can’t claim to be kind to all creatures if you overlook the vast majority of them. It’s like that famous saying that begins with “I’m not racist, but...”*

        There are plenty of other tasks that the camp can do that don’t involve animal cruelty - they’re in Australia, for crying out loud. Get them cooking an authentic Aussie dish, or working together to create some Aborigine art, or crossing a stream without getting wet. But then it wouldn’t be sensationalism, would it? And sensationalism apparently makes good TV. What a shame that we’ve regressed back to nothing more than bear-baiting.

        They say every dog has its day, and I think that I’m a Celeb’s day has definitely long gone. I really hope that next year, ITV will come up with a new format...but I don't hold out much hope.

*I would like to explain - I am likening the idiotic attitude of believing that you can deem yourself ‘100% not racist’ and then follow that up with a racist comment to claiming to care for all animals when in fact you only care for one or two. If you think I am implying anything else by that statement, think again RIGHT NOW.

^ "Chris Packham Attacks 'I'm a Celebrity's' "disrespect" of Animals", The Mirror Online, 22 Nov 2012. Retrieved 25 Nov 2012

Rename Me

I'm interrupting my usual blog posts for a quick (and hilarious) message.

Despite everything, I've decided there's not enough wacko in my life, and so I'm auctioning off my own NAME for charity.

The charity involved is the worthiest ever - last Christmas my Mum was hospitalised. It was quick, horrible and unexpected; but the staff at the Hospital were so supportive and brilliant. In order to do such a stellar job they needed specialist equipment which is only available in certain parts of the country. One of these was a NovaLung, a blood re-oxygenator. If we can raise enough money for them, they may be able to afford their own. It saved my Mum's life: no doubt it can save others.

And now for some FAQ fun:

Why are you doing this?

I’m raising funds for the Critical Care facility within Poole Hospital. Hopefully if we raise enough they will be able to afford a NovaLung, which was a vital piece of equipment in helping Mum through her stay in the hospital last year.

How do I submit a name?

You can talk to either Brawny or Xel when you see them, or you can visit my JustGiving page and donate online and email your suggestions to renamerebecca@gmail.com

Submissions will cost £1 each, with all funds going towards the Critical Care facility.

Are you changing your whole name?

No, just adding THREE middle names.

What are the limitations?

According to Deed Poll UK, there is a list of restrictions:

-         No obscenities (including slang or biological terms)

-         No titles e.g. Lord, Sir, Doctor

-         No punctuation, symbols or numbers, e.g. @

-         Nothing pertaining to criminal activity, racial or religious hatred

The restriction on first and middle names is 250 characters, leaving you lot 237 characters to play with. J

On top of this, I encourage you to be creative but not cruel – “Monkeyface” is funny, “Fatty” is not. Brawny and Xel will be vetting the submissions.

  

Can I name you after my favourite celebrity/product?

Yep! According to Deed Poll, I can be named after a celeb or a brand/trademarked name as long as I don’t start releasing material under that name.

What happens if someone has already picked my suggestion?

If you nominate a name that is already on the list, you can either think of another one or you can choose to re-nominate that name. You can’t knowingly enter the same name several times, otherwise it isn’t fair on others.

When is the draw?

My new names will be drawn at 8PM on Wednesday 30^th November at my local. Video will be taken of the event, which will be posted here and on Facebook.

Prior to the draw, each name will be placed in a bag. I will then draw the names out of the bag one by one. I am picking THREE names in total. There’s no going back, and I’m stuck with what I draw whether I like it or not! To soften the blow, I will decide what order the names go in.

What happens after the draw?

After the draw, I will sign the Deed Poll forms under my new name and send them off. I will then receive the documentation to change my name legally with the UK Passport office and the DVLA. My Facebook name will be changed to display my new name.

Come on guys, get thinking!!!

I'd Do Anything For Privacy...Including 'That'

I like Meat Loaf a lot. I'm actually talking about the actor-slash-singer, but given the size of me you'd think I was on about the foodstuff.*


Let me set this post up for you right here. I've always been a sucker for theatricality: in fact I'm writing this before I dash off to rehearsals. I like fantasy and romance; stories where the guy conquers adversity to be with the girl who will love him for eternity (and dresses like an Ann Summers mannequin). I also like huge hairy guys. So although he's roughly between the age of my father and grandfather, I still have a bit of a soft spot for Mr Loaf.

And get this: Meat Loaf changed his name. TO MICHAEL. O_O

I'm not the type of rabid fan that saves up to buy chunks of their idols hair on eBay, but I do make it my priority to check out anything that Meat's been up to recently.

I went through it all: downloading his appearance on gameshow screamfest Don't Forget The Lyrics, watching his alleged meltdown on Celebrity Appentice USA, catching him as a flustered bureaucrat on Glee's homage of Rocky Horror. I decided I'd have a little look on the web and find out what he's been up to recently.

I did begin this sentence with "imagine my horror", but that's a bit hammy. However I was frankly disgusted to find that there were videos of him fainting. Actual videos. People genuinely had nothing better to do while watching a gig that had been cut short due to Meat Loaf collapsing, so they filmed it while it happened.

As someone who frequently faints in public, I can honestly say that I feel incredibly angry about that. When someone faints, it's often a traumatic and upsetting experience: not just for the person who is ill but to those around them. It's often really shocking, because the last thing most people expect to happen in a normal situation is for someone else to just drop lifelessly to the floor.

Once it happened to me in a shopping complex, and my at-the-time boyfriend actually chased down and tackled a kid who had whipped out their mobile phone and started taking pictures of me.

How utterly humiliating!

I read an article of Charlie Brooker's detailing a man who had filmed his friend kicking a woman who had collapsed, while bellowing "THIS IS YOUTUBE MATERIAL". Thanks to that, I'm quite scared of becoming ill in public. What if I end up on the internet? What if someone robs me? What if my fiance isn't there to protect me?

Maybe I'm panicking a little. But when does whipping out your camera phone become acceptable behaviour? Obviously, being famous doesn't stop it: if anything, it makes it worse.

Fans might argue that they were doing Meat Loaf a favour. "We're highlighting his plight," they might say (in my head, as I try to reason with my white-hot fury). No, you're highlighting an unconscious man receiving medical attention. If he was conscious, don't you think he'd yell at you to stop?

But they don't know any better. I'm half expecting Sky News to run a feature on this, which ends like this: "Well that's all we've got time for, but remember: if you have any snaps of unconscious or injured celebrities, please send them to celebritybloodbath@mediatwunts.com."

You think I'm joking? The other day I was browsing news sites, and I managed to see a photo of the late Amy Winehouse's dead body. She was covered in something thin, possibly a bedsheet, but the contours of the body were very visible. It was incredibly disturbing. The next few photos depicted Big Brother contestant and Amy's close friend Aisleyne Horgan-Wallace breaking down. Not 'breaking down' as a figure of speech, actually falling to the ground and weeping.

Wow.

I'm not going to call for all-out boycott of the news. What I will say is this: the media has crossed boundaries, and has somehow justified the treatment of public figures as shallow entertainment vessels, even when they are in moments of dire need. And that attitude is spilling over into the public, so that the label now applies to all people. Someone collapsing in the street is now an "event".

I'll just leave you with this: the next time a person passes away or passes out, I don't want to hear it. I don't want to see it; I don't want to see their friends and family crying, I don't want 'tributes' to them comprising of stock image photos of them and vox-pops of the coroner. Time to stop. NOW.




*That ain't a dig at myself there; I like the way I look. If you'll pardon my conceit.



^ 12/6/09 YouTube, user 'PattiRocksVideos', retrieved 9/9/11


^ 3/4/11 YouTube, user 'Amordril', retrieved 9/9/11

News Bump

Twitter was rife with activity on the night of MTV's Video Music Awards.

Not that I knew anything about it - despite owning a smartphone, whenever big news goes down on Twitter, I seem to be miles away from it. The only thing I did catch was comedian Peter Serafinowicz's fake-joke back at the beginning of the year. (Google it, go on, I dare you).

But apparently people were using their 140 character limit to tweet about Beyonce Knowles; thankfully nothing involving Kanye bloody West this time but because she is pregnant with her and husband Jay-Z's first child. Which is truly lovely. No, it is! The world of celebrity is fickle; weddings never go without a hitch (pardon the pun), marriages dissolve like a urinal cake in a monsoon and people indiscreetly whack their neighbours and steal each others' offspring. It's like Eastenders, only with less David Essex.

All right, so maybe it's not quite that bad (although all of that has actually happened on Eastenders). But no sooner did she announce her pregnancy did some big mouth come along and accuse her of padding her bump.

Celebs have been accused of worse - remember the "has-she-hasn't-she" debate over whether or not Britney Spears had a boob job? Or if that really was Jennifer Aniston's real hair? But as I read this story I could hear the "AW, CAAAAHMAAAAAAAAHN!" building up inside me.

Here's the thing: pregnant women, from my limited experience, are not 'textbook'. There is no guide saying "This is what you will look like at six months", because it will all vary. It depends on the mother's height, shape, size, amount of body fat, how big the baby is, etc. It differs.

I'm not that naive. She may have padded her bump for extra exposure. But I'm willing to bet that her team of stylists knew she was going to announce her pregnancy that night, and tried their hardest to dress her in a way that showed her bump prominently. I'm betting that if it was padded, it was padded in order to draw more attention to the area - if she did only have a tiny bump when she announced her pregnancy, would the responses have been any less mean and disparaging? Instead, I might be writing about a blog that said "She's not really preggo, look at her tiny bump".

At the time of writing this, Beyonce has yet to comment - and good on her. She's spent her life in the media circus so she's learnt to neatly step over great big turds like this. Plus, the next few months will be crazy for her and Jay-Z, right up to the birth. Everything she does, says, wears, buys and eats will be picked apart. And I imagine she will be looking down at the flying comments and remarks, throwing her head back and laughing.

And as for the people who still think she's padding: OH NO! This is the first embellishment anyone has ever made, EVER!!!! Does this mean that Lady Gaga didn't really die on stage? Does this mean that Eddie from Iron Maiden isn't real? They all deserve to be, like, humiliated publically! Because we plebs have never worn push-up bras or suck-in underpants or fake lashes or anything like that, EVER!

(I'd like to point out that although I have linked to GLAMOUR Magazine online, I am not accusing them of anything at all. If you read that article they have provided a fair account of the story, and coincidentally are one of my favourite magazines.)

^ Article from Glamour Online: Jenn Selby, 08/09/2011