I have a really shitty cold. It's only a head cold - scratchy sore throat, sneezing, runny nose, blocked ears - which is even more annoying as the rest of me feels fine(ish). To put it into perspective, annoyingly it's one of those colds where you're not quite sick enough to justify a day in bed feeling sorry for yourself, but you're also not feeling up to scratch and as you sit at your desk working and really all you want to do is go back to bed. I'm so conflicted right now.
However, I am trying my best not to be totally pathetic (which I usually am when I'm ill), so have endeavoured to see the bonuses in my current not-so-healthy state. Here's what I've come up with...
Hot Toddies
Bollocks to mugs of sickly tasting Lemsip, the only drink worth having when you're ill is a hot toddy, preferably just before bed as the shot of whiskey/brandy/gin (that's right, you can make them using gin as well) will mean you sleep just that little bit easier thanks to the warm booZZZe. Lovely.
Stuff Yer Face
It's a well known medical fact (maybe) that you should 'feed a cold and starve a fever'. I'm not one that's usually conscious about my calorie intake anyway, but for those who are on a health kick, here is your perfect excuse for a guilt-free face stuffing opportunity. Eat, eat and eat some more until you feel better! It is for exactly this reason that I am allowing my friend to cook me a lasagna tonight and I intend to eat the majority of it (sorry fellow dining-friends). On the down side, I've found chocolate doesn't help, it just makes your throat feel worse: why is that, when obviously it's supposed to be the ultimate comfort food?
Do Those Little Jobs
There's no way that when you have a head stuffed full of cold that you can tackle that big assignment/project/annual report, so leave it to the side for a day or two until you're less fuzzy feeling. However, we're not slacking, there's still work to be done! Instead let yourself finally get round to doing all those little, less important admin jobs you've been needing to do for aaaages, but can't justify the time. It's still getting work done, so that's definitely a win.
Use A Nasal Spray
Honestly, they're just hilarious and make you pull the stupidest faces (or, is that just me...?).
Early To Bed
Being sick is a great excuse to be tucked up in bed and watching crap on NetFlix by 8pm and asleep by 9pm. Usually you can't get away with this, as your so-called "friends" refuse to believe you're getting old even though you've explained time and time again that "things are different when you reach your late twenties. I like being in bed and sleeping for longer on a school night."
*Le sigh*
Monday, 28 April 2014
Tuesday, 1 April 2014
Ah, Nuts!
So, Nuts magazine is apparently closing after over a decade of offering us boobs, boobs, tits and a smattering of sport and 'news'. Admittedly, I've not picked up an issue of Nuts since Johnny Vaughn's celebrity was considered worthy of being on the front-cover. That's right, a long time ago. This comes only a month after the announcement that Front was to shut-up shop too. What's happening to the male magazine market?! More importantly, should I be worried?
Erm, well, yes and no.
There are many things the closure of Nuts could signify - another nail in the coffin of "lad culture"; a "win" for those radical feminists (a.k.a rad femmes) that believe these magazines existed only to objectify women; proof that if you fuck with the Co-Op then they will break you.
Personally, I was never that bothered by Nuts, or Zoo for that matter. As a woman that writes for a handful of well established porn magazines (good grief, don't let too many women's magazine commissioning editors hear me say that!) it would be difficult for me to say I was ever offended by them, but nor was I aroused. It was just a bit of titillation, a bit of fun. Bear in mind I write this from the point of view of a body confident female, that has the luxury of not being swayed so much about how my body should look compared to that of the women in the magazines. Anyhoo, the models I met that shot for them were always happy, contented and excited about being in the magazine, so fair play. However, I did always think Nuts were a bit in limbo after the height of laddishness had passed.
They weren't welcome on the middle-shelf, because kids might see cleavage, but nor were they really welcome on the top. Compare an issue of Nuts to the latest copy of Escort that I got through the post and it's fairly obvious why the two shouldn't sit next to each other. As a friend of mine so eloquently put it when she saw the pornography lying around my office: "This is well in-yer-face stuff. Don't see that in Nuts!"
Correct, you don't. If lad mags started showing full frontal pussy in their pages I don't think they would have got within 10 feet of the Co-Op. Ever. Let alone being taken off the shelves just last year. (That was the "no" I'm not worried part of the answer, they're just too different areas of the market to really compare them, alas people do, which leads me on to...)
I find it odd, then, that there have been (mostly feminist-led) suggestions the reason Nuts is closing is because of that cliched argument: there's too much free porn on the internet. Cue next wave of internet porn hysteria in a few days time (this will be the "yes", get worried, part of my answer).
In advance of the "too much porn" debate being raised for the umpteenth time, and while I don't want the magazines I write for to be the next target for feminazis, I'd like to say...
Stop grabbing on to the sad demise of one magazine to stir up more arguments about our supposed porn saturated culture. What young 20-something men want today isn't the same as what the 20-something lads of 10 years ago wanted from their media. Quite why we jump to the conclusion that it must be sex related is beyond me? Men stop looking at tits in magazines, so it simply must mean that they're replacing it by watching hardcore online? Give over.
Show me the definitive proof that's where their readers have gone before we start pointing the finger.
Also, if online porn is to blame for the closure of this magazine, then why haven't actual porn mags become extinct? Surely that should have happened long ago?
It's the fact that the publishers are running at a loss. It comes down to cold, hard facts and figures that generally speaking, as the internet grows, you're print figures are going to decline. It's then up to the publisher if those figures keep them happy or not. Realistically, I suspect the decision and reasons to close had very little to do with where blokes go these days for their wank-fodder.
Whatever may have caused the circulation to drop doesn't compensate for the fact that around 30 people, plus all of the models that posed for the magazine, are currently at risk of loosing their jobs and a form of income. As someone that has been through redundancy consultations, where the life of your much-loved magazine is hanging in the balance, I can say that it really does suck. Hugely. Try to explain to any one of them, "internet porn made you loose your job" and I think they're well within their right to tell you where to stick it.
Erm, well, yes and no.
There are many things the closure of Nuts could signify - another nail in the coffin of "lad culture"; a "win" for those radical feminists (a.k.a rad femmes) that believe these magazines existed only to objectify women; proof that if you fuck with the Co-Op then they will break you.
Personally, I was never that bothered by Nuts, or Zoo for that matter. As a woman that writes for a handful of well established porn magazines (good grief, don't let too many women's magazine commissioning editors hear me say that!) it would be difficult for me to say I was ever offended by them, but nor was I aroused. It was just a bit of titillation, a bit of fun. Bear in mind I write this from the point of view of a body confident female, that has the luxury of not being swayed so much about how my body should look compared to that of the women in the magazines. Anyhoo, the models I met that shot for them were always happy, contented and excited about being in the magazine, so fair play. However, I did always think Nuts were a bit in limbo after the height of laddishness had passed.
They weren't welcome on the middle-shelf, because kids might see cleavage, but nor were they really welcome on the top. Compare an issue of Nuts to the latest copy of Escort that I got through the post and it's fairly obvious why the two shouldn't sit next to each other. As a friend of mine so eloquently put it when she saw the pornography lying around my office: "This is well in-yer-face stuff. Don't see that in Nuts!"
Correct, you don't. If lad mags started showing full frontal pussy in their pages I don't think they would have got within 10 feet of the Co-Op. Ever. Let alone being taken off the shelves just last year. (That was the "no" I'm not worried part of the answer, they're just too different areas of the market to really compare them, alas people do, which leads me on to...)
I find it odd, then, that there have been (mostly feminist-led) suggestions the reason Nuts is closing is because of that cliched argument: there's too much free porn on the internet. Cue next wave of internet porn hysteria in a few days time (this will be the "yes", get worried, part of my answer).
In advance of the "too much porn" debate being raised for the umpteenth time, and while I don't want the magazines I write for to be the next target for feminazis, I'd like to say...
Stop grabbing on to the sad demise of one magazine to stir up more arguments about our supposed porn saturated culture. What young 20-something men want today isn't the same as what the 20-something lads of 10 years ago wanted from their media. Quite why we jump to the conclusion that it must be sex related is beyond me? Men stop looking at tits in magazines, so it simply must mean that they're replacing it by watching hardcore online? Give over.
Show me the definitive proof that's where their readers have gone before we start pointing the finger.
Also, if online porn is to blame for the closure of this magazine, then why haven't actual porn mags become extinct? Surely that should have happened long ago?
It's the fact that the publishers are running at a loss. It comes down to cold, hard facts and figures that generally speaking, as the internet grows, you're print figures are going to decline. It's then up to the publisher if those figures keep them happy or not. Realistically, I suspect the decision and reasons to close had very little to do with where blokes go these days for their wank-fodder.
Whatever may have caused the circulation to drop doesn't compensate for the fact that around 30 people, plus all of the models that posed for the magazine, are currently at risk of loosing their jobs and a form of income. As someone that has been through redundancy consultations, where the life of your much-loved magazine is hanging in the balance, I can say that it really does suck. Hugely. Try to explain to any one of them, "internet porn made you loose your job" and I think they're well within their right to tell you where to stick it.
Tuesday, 25 March 2014
#Nomakeupselfie update
So it seems that vanity does pay. To be more specific it pays for 10 clinical trials to go ahead, which a week ago didn't have money for funding.
According to the latest statement from Cancer Research UK, the #nomakeupselfie trend has raised £8 million from people texting BEAT to 70099 or donating at www.cruk.org, which, as much as I snubbed the trend and continue to question the narcissism behind it (especially even after all the publicity I am still seeing people simply posting 'here's my selfie, I nominate X, Y and Z #cancerawareness'), it can't be doubted that it has achieved something amazing.
The trials that now get the go ahead are nine clinical trials and one tissue sample collection. The trials will look at new treatments for sarcoma, acute myeloid leukaemia, abdominal neuroblastoma, liver, head and neck, breast, prostate, bladder and oesophageal cancers.
According to the latest statement from Cancer Research UK, the #nomakeupselfie trend has raised £8 million from people texting BEAT to 70099 or donating at www.cruk.org, which, as much as I snubbed the trend and continue to question the narcissism behind it (especially even after all the publicity I am still seeing people simply posting 'here's my selfie, I nominate X, Y and Z #cancerawareness'), it can't be doubted that it has achieved something amazing.
The trials that now get the go ahead are nine clinical trials and one tissue sample collection. The trials will look at new treatments for sarcoma, acute myeloid leukaemia, abdominal neuroblastoma, liver, head and neck, breast, prostate, bladder and oesophageal cancers.
Friday, 21 March 2014
Not so made up about #nomakeupselfies
What
the hell is all this #nomakeupselfie thing about? I was nominated in
a Facebook post to take a photo of myself without any make up on and
plaster it all over social media to help raise awareness of cancer,
although, how exactly this will help to beat cancer was beyond me?
Having
recently lost someone very close to me to cancer, I am all for active
promotion of cancer awareness and fund-raising initiatives, but I
failed to see how this social media trend would help to make a
difference. Looking through my FB feed there was image after image,
but very few of them at the time contained any information on how to
donate, or any knowledge of how doing this will actually help to
raise cancer awareness in a positive light.
Before
taking a snap and adding myself to the #nomakeupselfie
#cancerawareness trend, I wanted to check the background. Where had
this come from and in aid of what exactly?
WHERE'D
IT START?
The
idea of the 'selfless selfie' was capitalised on by act!onaid. The
idea was to buy a t-shirt, the funds of which went towards the
Typhoon Appeal, then take a selfie while wearing your charity
t-shirt. Escensual.com beauty retailer also launched a selfiecampaign back in September 2013 to help raise money for Breast Cancer
Care. This seems to be the most similar campaign so far to the trend
we've seen in the last few days. Elsewhere, it's reported that the
viral trend began when author Laura Lippman posted a photo of herself
without make up as a way to support actress Kim Novak, who was
slammed in the press for how she looked at the Oscars.
There
has also been the launch of a new app this week, Put Yourself In The Picture, by Jo's Cervical
Cancer Trust - the only dedicated cervical cancer charity in the UK - encouraging women to take a selfie with their reminder
to go for a cervical cancer test. The app has been launched following new research* which looked at the reasons why women in the first (25-29 years) and last (60-64 years) screening ages had delayed or not been for their cervical screening. Thirty percent said that a friend reassuring them about the procedure would encourage them to attend.
I get this, more than I initially understood the social media selfie trend.
Like
with most internet virals, it's hard to pin point where it began. I
did double check with Cancer Research UK (CRUK) press office,
thinking Perhaps this was something they started? Carolan
Davidge, director of communications at Cancer Research UK told me:
“The #nomakeupselfie Twitter trend isn’t something Cancer
Research UK started – but it’s great to see so many people
getting involved to help raise awareness of cancer amongst their
friends and family. If people would like to choose to support our
work to beat cancer sooner, they can visit www.cruk.org.”
Please
note the last bit about where to go to donate, because the odd thing
with the current trend is that people were forgetting to actually do
anything. It became, for some, an exercise in narcissism: taking a
photo without make up and posting it and putting the correct hash
tags doesn't mean you've done your bit for charity. You've aided
nothing. Added nothing. It's just a picture and a comment that (well
done you), you know cancer exists. Text a donation, go out and buy a
Marie Curie daffodil; buy a pink ribbon; donate some clothes to your
local Cancer Research Shop or hospice; donate some money to the
cancer ward at your local hospital, because that's when it starts to
make a difference.
HAS
IT ACTUALLY HELPED?
Luckily,
in the last 12 hours and since I've started writing this blog, many
people realised the flaw in the plan and (finally) started to post
details on where and how to donate to various cancer charities –
the most popular being CRUK. Many cancer charities aimed to
capitalise on this awareness viral too and began to promote all the
ways and means people can actively donate. Soon, selfies were
appearing with people adding in a snap of their text confirmation to
show they'd donated.
The
latest update I have received from CRUK says, “Thanks to people
choosing to donate to us as part of the #nomakeupselfie trend, we’ve
been overwhelmed with donations and support in the past 48 hours.
We’ve raised over £2m so far, and the #nomakeupselfie is still
going strong! If people would like to choose to support our work to
beat cancer sooner, they can text BEAT to 70099 to donate £3 or
visit www.cruk.org.”
SO,
WHAT'S MY PROBLEM?
Although
the money raised is staggeringly amazing, there is one particular
aspect about this whole thing that really grinds with
me: the use of the word “brave”, the wider issue of how much
attention is created when a woman publicly appears without wearing
any make up and then the crude link of associating it with 'cancer
awareness'.
It's
a sad sign of the times when women after posting a photo of
themselves sans slap were being told how “brave” they are. I
couldn't agree with this more if we were having a conversation about
the societal conditioning of women and what is 'expected' of them in
terms of appearance. It's crap that it's surprising, 'not normal', or
brave to see a woman without foundation and blusher. But that's not
the debate we're having. We're discussing cancer and I believe the
word “brave” means a lot more than the choice of whether or not
to forgo wearing make up for a single picture.
Some
context of what brave and cancer means: brave are the patients that
have to undergo painful treatment, sometimes trying new, mostly
untested drugs; brave is finding the words to explain to your loved
ones that you might have less than a year to live; brave is the word
to use to describe those carers that do all they can to make sure the
person suffering from cancer is as comfortable as they can be,
despite how painful it is for them to watch a loved one slip away.
One
friend I was discussing this issue with summed it up well: “To
me, 'bravery' or looking like yourself, vs what someone with cancer
goes through is staggeringly offensive comparison.”
Like I said, I'm all for raising awareness and the promotion of
fund-raising initiatives, but why in this way? Why when cancer is
such a degenerative disease that strips away and changes the
appearance of someone, sometimes to the point where they no longer
look like the person you know, did this have to run?
Think
I'm being over sensitive? Please take a minute (literally) to watch
the following video: a series of selfies taken by EmilyHelck who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2012 and took a photo
each week for a year while undergoing treatment. This is why I will
not be posting, because my face without make up is not a big deal.
* Research conducted by Censuswide, with 2,021 women aged 25-29 and 60-64 during 6th-12th December 2013. Surveys were conducted from a random sample of a representative panel across the country. Censuswide employs members of the Market Research Society and abides by its code and rules.
Tuesday, 11 March 2014
What's In A Kiss?
Kissing is one of my most favourite things. A kiss can be loaded with so much, or so little. Kiss for love, kiss to greet someone, or to say goodbye, or goodnight. You can kiss anyone: a lover, a friend, an acquaintance, a baby on the head and even a stranger as this really touching, smile-inducing short film by Tatia Pilieva shows.
Posted yesterday on YouTube and with over six million views already you may well have spotted this on another site, so I apologise if I'm repeating it. However, last week I was writing a science based article which included some research on how a first kiss can make or break the chances of a relationship, so this film was too beautiful a thing and too relevant to what I read last week to not comment on. Pairing up 20 strangers, they were asked to share a kiss and it was captured on film. It's super interesting to see which type of kiss some of those couples chose to share. Enjoy.
Tuesday, 25 February 2014
3 Sex Facts I learnt Today
Some days it's a complete pleasure to be a journalist, because all you have to do is sit, read and immerse yourself in research to prep for an upcoming feature. Today was one of those days for me and it probably won't come as much of a surprise that what I was researching involved sex.
Here are three tid-bits of super interesting sex things I learnt today, that sadly won't make the feature, but I didn't want to let them go to waste!
1. Sharks and vagina's - like two peas in a pod
Well, sort of. Very vaguely. Luckily it doesn't have anything to do with razor sharp teeth and vagina dentata. Both contain squalene: a substance found in shark livers and natural vaginal lubricant.
2. How To Make Fake Spunk
Sometimes scientists need to make artificial semen. Masters & Johnson reportedly did this to try and disprove the 'up-suck' theory (which they did). Apparently to make something of the same consistency of actual semen you need a cup of flour mixed with water, although, apparently, cornstarch works just as well.
3. Discovery of Human Sex Pheromones
Knowledge of animals using pheromones to attract a mate has been known to scientists since the late 70's, but it wasn't until 1986 that they discovered that humans give off pheromones too. That was the year I was born and is a super cool fact. I'm miffed as to why that was never included on my "year you were born keyring"?!
Here are three tid-bits of super interesting sex things I learnt today, that sadly won't make the feature, but I didn't want to let them go to waste!
1. Sharks and vagina's - like two peas in a pod
Well, sort of. Very vaguely. Luckily it doesn't have anything to do with razor sharp teeth and vagina dentata. Both contain squalene: a substance found in shark livers and natural vaginal lubricant.
2. How To Make Fake Spunk
Sometimes scientists need to make artificial semen. Masters & Johnson reportedly did this to try and disprove the 'up-suck' theory (which they did). Apparently to make something of the same consistency of actual semen you need a cup of flour mixed with water, although, apparently, cornstarch works just as well.
3. Discovery of Human Sex Pheromones
Knowledge of animals using pheromones to attract a mate has been known to scientists since the late 70's, but it wasn't until 1986 that they discovered that humans give off pheromones too. That was the year I was born and is a super cool fact. I'm miffed as to why that was never included on my "year you were born keyring"?!
Thursday, 20 February 2014
The Perfect Mess
I am in turmoil. My other half has just cleaned the office, thus affecting all of the positive creative energy within the room, which I use to feed off and come up with all of my wonderful, world-changing ideas. As he faffed and put-away, I felt myself getting more anxious. I need that magazine there, and leave that bit of paper so I know where it is and yes, I do need that receipt. ARGH!
The (intelligent) git has just pointed out the paradox of the situation: that by cleaning and "ruining my creative environment" he's just given me something to write about in this blog.
What a bastard.
We have a "shared" office space. It's not equally shared, it is more mine than his. He only works from home once a month for a week, whereas I am here all of the time and even the week that he does work from home, he only uses it in the evenings when a work related call comes through. Essentially, it is my office and in my office I like a certain amount of organised mess. It's nothing OTT, it's not like I have coffee cups piled high or newspaper clippings everywhere. It's more just a few magazines dotted about the place that I haven't got round to putting away, or am constantly referring to in the week that I have a deadline, and the several notepads - each assigned a different feature - that I need to have on the desk at all times until my deadline for said feature has been met.
To the untrained eye, it may look messy, but it's organised mess and there's actually some positive research about organised mess.
Take this 2012 study for example, where a group of two students we're placed in two different rooms: one insanely neat and the other with a bit of chaos. Asking the students to dream up new uses for ping pong balls, the ones in the messy room came up with much more imaginative uses (and no, I'm sure none of them had anything to do with popping out of body parts). Just one example that mess equals creativity.
Or this book, A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder. It argues that too much neat encroaches on productive time. "If you devote all your time to organizing, you won’t get anything done. If you don’t spend any time organizing, the resultant mess bogs you down completely. When you find the ‘sweet spot’ between messiness and order, then you have a perfect mess," explained Eric Abrahamson, one of the book's authors. That's what I have...sorry, had! A perfect mess.
Tomorrow could have been the day that I sit in my organised messy office and dream up my blockbuster novel. I guess now we will never know!
The (intelligent) git has just pointed out the paradox of the situation: that by cleaning and "ruining my creative environment" he's just given me something to write about in this blog.
What a bastard.
We have a "shared" office space. It's not equally shared, it is more mine than his. He only works from home once a month for a week, whereas I am here all of the time and even the week that he does work from home, he only uses it in the evenings when a work related call comes through. Essentially, it is my office and in my office I like a certain amount of organised mess. It's nothing OTT, it's not like I have coffee cups piled high or newspaper clippings everywhere. It's more just a few magazines dotted about the place that I haven't got round to putting away, or am constantly referring to in the week that I have a deadline, and the several notepads - each assigned a different feature - that I need to have on the desk at all times until my deadline for said feature has been met.
To the untrained eye, it may look messy, but it's organised mess and there's actually some positive research about organised mess.
Take this 2012 study for example, where a group of two students we're placed in two different rooms: one insanely neat and the other with a bit of chaos. Asking the students to dream up new uses for ping pong balls, the ones in the messy room came up with much more imaginative uses (and no, I'm sure none of them had anything to do with popping out of body parts). Just one example that mess equals creativity.
Or this book, A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder. It argues that too much neat encroaches on productive time. "If you devote all your time to organizing, you won’t get anything done. If you don’t spend any time organizing, the resultant mess bogs you down completely. When you find the ‘sweet spot’ between messiness and order, then you have a perfect mess," explained Eric Abrahamson, one of the book's authors. That's what I have...sorry, had! A perfect mess.
Tomorrow could have been the day that I sit in my organised messy office and dream up my blockbuster novel. I guess now we will never know!
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