mamahog 'n the lets

before i even start i promise... NO POLITICS.... just lots of very juicy personal stuff... well smelly anyway.

i'm going off on a camping trip tomorow so i'm busy organising the phenominal amount of paraphenalia that that apparently involves.... elvis it seems is not a good soundtrack to such an event. he just encourages me to go sparkly.

my friends do smile but i sense they are getting a little worried. not only are my poo and shower worries a bit of a palava, but my shoe and bag dilemas appear to be surplus to requirements...

i don't know how this happened to me.
i come from a poor hippy family. living in a chalet on the sand dunes of 4 mile stretch of golden sanded beach. surrounded by hippies and frequenting festivals from a very early age. even accidentaly doing an acid (i tried to steal a vitamin from the cupboard and apparently got more than i paid for!) aged about 4. we had no bathroom. just an outside loo, and a kitchen sink. we also had a tin bath that when it wasn't too cold we would fill and bath in in front of the chalet. it had a picture of bob marley on the door from the kitchen to my bedroom. one day some pampas grass that was behind the oven caught fire (duh huh- hippies!). it burnt the life outa bob and i was mortified.

when my dad went to prison in spain for drug smuggling, my mum married a dangerous square and we moved into a trailer on a farm.

i remember distinctly my first 'tour' of the farm. it stunk. it was muddy and i 'lost' a welly in, well, slop. i cried. i was horrified.
it was dirty!

now i've had sex in barns on hay, i've squatted in hackney, i've camped out at glastonbury and fallen in the quagmire on many occasions.... yet i'm still a fucking princess at least before the event!
why???

on this particular trip, i have borrowed the essential equipment from my latest lover who i should thank for being cool enough for not wanting to come with, but fabulous enough to provide us all with all the gear. i have borrowed the coolest wellies from my millionaire friend. i am as prepared as i can be.

but i am still terrified of the lack of loo (i CANNOT do portaloos.- wish i could honestly but i just cant control the 'gag' reflex)
being smelly. being cold. loving the music but knowing i need to go back to my darlings and relieve friends. and the sunrise.

is it some handicap of a hippie upbringing, that makes 'coolness' imperative? (though i'm sure it would be lots cooler to be cooler about my bowel activity or lack thereof.) or, is it just simple vanity? where did this shit come from?

please don't tell me off too much babes though as i dont really want to change.. its funny sometimes- its become part of my comic charm... or am i kidding myself? THIS DOES NOT REQUIRE AN ANSWER!!

I love my clothes, my shoes, my lets, my showers, my semi private loo, my discreet lovers, my pretense at coolness. my music. ( from darling costello, to my beloved king, as time and alphabetical playlists dictate, morphed into everything but the girl into 'walk the same line'.' listen and you might get it....)
wish me luck darlings.

i will miss you. and pray for a clean loo. here is half nekkid thursday in advance and feel free to talk amongst yourselves....
















ooh shit " walk away renee" is up. do it while i'm away and then google/limewire billy bragg's and cry.

go on it\ll be educational and FUN.
boooooo hoo.

until sunday*

ps. why do i suddenly have to word vericationalise myself??? tonight its actually wierdly apt... its time to get out of the city because its 'ucglist'.
and thanks to my sister, i now moved onto feist. all worry has been integrated into the general 'worry, and been deemed unusual but 'ok'. and shit so quickly to furniture " miss you"- almost greatest/saddest song of ALL time. find it. oops sorry back to.....

i will endeavour to be tentqueen and regain some power.
and i'm drawn oddly to geek NASA scientists, new direction entirely for me......

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Labels: hnt, questionable past lives

oh well, enough about me, back out in the big bad world there is stuff that actually merits some serious attention. time to extract my head from my ______

wiggle wiggle and ooops, up onto my soap box.... ok,

most pressing i think today is this -
(photo from AP)

Afghan on trial for Christianity

today CNN.com also reported,

"Senior Muslim clerics are demanding that an Afghan man (Abdul Rahman) on trial for converting from Islam to Christianity be executed, warning that if the government caves in to Western pressure and frees him, they will incite people to "pull him into pieces.""

i was first pointed to the story today by the lovely leilouta, and by the equally lovely religious policeman, source of many funnies i have stolen for these pages before! sadly this time its far from funny.

he has however written about this already so well, that i will just point you there and also encourage you to join us and contact the Afghanistan embassy in washington or one near you to pressure them to free Abdul Rahman. and lets hope and pray that he can get out without being pulled to pieces by his oh so pious countrymen, women and no doubt children.
sadly even if freed i doubt he will ever see his poor children again.

i am sorry everybody. bummer in the morning but the shit never seems to stop.

BUT WE CAN DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT IF WE TRY!

it just takes afew moments to mail and you'll feel so much better, and proud of yourself that you tried, you can therefore feel secure in the knowledge that you did it for purely selfish reasons.....ggl*

next up, its water.
you know, that stuff kids hate drinking unless its adulterated with brightly coloured tooth rot juice. the stuff we are supposed to drink 12 glasses of a day. the stuff londoners affectionately refer to as 'council pop'. the stuff we wallow in before showering with. the stuff we complain about when it falls from the sky (unless we like gardening- and even then we have limits!).

believe it or not, some people can't get enough of it.

i know i know, coming from england who would want it to bloody rain? its so easy to forget when we're soaked again coming back from work our bikes, or stuck inside climbing the walls.... but really. its time to get our heads out of our asses again.

i'm as bad as the next soaked european. i knew this was crucial a few weeks ago, but as the news stories dried up so did my eyes and my little grey cells... even my chosen charities weren't doing their usual carpet bombing of my email account so i got on with my life and forgot about it again.
until yesterday... (yahoo could be to blame for the lateness of this one though methinks as its dated from wednesday!)

East Africa Food Crisis

it's time to get back on the case guys, before its too late.

and in the longer term we can send another quick email to try to make our government keep their promises WaterAid UK

or in the US you can check out WaterAid USA

....and keep up to date with what we can do to help make water a little more accessible to children who won't be quite so fussy and adults who probably will moan a lot less about getting drenched.

i know you're tired and annoyed and that i'm bumming you out/pissing you off but as a let said so well when crying last night

"there's lots of tiredy bits in me and they won't let me calm down"

i don't know quite what that means but it seems to apply whichever way you look at it!

i'd love to give you a pic of me to cheer you up and lessen the load, but as i need them for thursdays this is the best i could do...
i think it works.

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Labels: rantlets, the wonderlets

wow that interview sure scared you lurkers off! no comments guys?? i know i do go on a bit but hey!

oh well. as i've been letting it 'all hang out' in the writing this week i thought i should reign it in a bit with the photo.

this is from my final taxi ride to antananarivo airport in madagascar last year. its probably the least beautiful photo of the trip, but the most personal. and a little sad. as i said goodbye to my lover from the past summer who had moved there and left me for african skies, colourful fish and lemurs....

but before i crossed my arms and legs and held on for dear life and the journey home, we spent happy days with bumpy bikes and cars under summer rain, scented with frangipani, and the lingering memory of vanilla and kisses.

sweet*



have a lovely half-nekkid thursday darlings.

to find out more about half nekkid thursday check out the link on the right..... i couldn't get the icon thingy to work still. sorry os*

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Labels: hnt, questionable past lives

ok lurkers, this is gonna be a LONG one. its not entirely my fault, blame jericho!

i have been interviewed.

all i can say is thank goodness i never got famous...
and seeing the thought he put into the questions i'm in awe. and by the way- he really did say all those nice things about me in his questions- i did NOT sneek them in later.... he's a lovely man- go check him out!

anyway, thanks, j. its been kind of fun*

JERICHO: I have enjoyed my numerous visits this week to your site. In fact, I want to visit you in Istanbul, as crazy as that may sound. Many interesting things and questions occur to me as I contemplate “you” as I know you. I understand that the past 12 years or so have been busy and full of changes for you. I know that you have stunningly adorable and precocious twin girls. I know that you are eco-conscious, pragmatic, and humorous – at times fondly self-deprecatingly. I know you are an holistic massage therapist. What I want to know: What is your dream job, (no stay-at-home mum, no win-the-lottery answer!) and what is your plan to get it?

I REPLY: thank goodness this starts quite easily. You may not believe it, but I pretty much have it- or at least the beginnings…. Of course I would like to learn more and possibly eventually study to be a counselor, or something along a similar path to use in conjuction with the massage and energy work I do now. i do a job which is physical, peaceful, and which helps others visibly and immediately. and i work from home. i wish i could find a way to makea little more money, but othrewise what could be better? In the future I would Love to open some kind of community clinic where someone else (a GREAT manager armed with an even better receptionist) actually ran it. It would need to be a house or large apartment with at least one very large room for group seminars, exhibitions etc, and smaller rooms where individual sessions could take place. It would be meeting place with therapist from ALL areas. Psychotherapists, nutritionists, open minded doctors, chiropractors etc could work 1 or 2 days a week or whatever they could each, on an appointment basis. We should also have a studio space and offer space to resident artists/musicians etc who would pay small rent but offer workshops or get involved with the local community and we would have exhibitions, parties and trips… I’ll be the ideas woman and 1 of the therapist team. I’m already talking to every therapists I meet about this and me ex is interested if someone else can also put up money…. We’ll see.
Also this blog. Combining my therapy work with something else is very important as I cant physically handle more than 2 or 3 sessions per day. Because I love my job and want to give the best I can to each client, I don’t want to work if I am too tired or bored to give my best. So I need something else. And as the therapy work is very private and physical I need to reach out to world and have more outgoing dialogue with it. Having a kind of community project to immerse myself in keeps me fresh. I wish I could get paid for doing this blog!! (or being clooney or mcconaughey's arm candy....but thats the forbidden dream lottery answer)


JERICHO: You say "so who should we believe, all of us who are left? what kind of god do we want to teach our children about? what kind of world would we like to live in? …having children myself who are half english and half turkish i want to teach them honestly about all beliefs (religious and political- but we all know i'll never get time or the knowledge for that! i will however do my best) and let them make their own way to a faith or not. because in the long run, if they choose to have faith in a God/Allah/Yhvh of any name i would hope that was based on real belief and a desire to really do good, and not just fear of the bogey man or their neighbours.
…despite all this idiocy that is happening around us every day, i for one would still be rooting for benevolence. for a god of charity and love. for there being one god who we can all have our differing feelings about and relationships with, who cares for all the worlds children irrespective of race, position wealth, mental prowess and who would advocate his followers to have compassion and tolerence towards all his creatures. the strange thing to me is that anyone feels any different. but thats partly why i put in the clause about mental prowess. i really must be complete idiot to think many other people would agree no?as usual i do actually think the majority of the world have idealistic dreams hidden deep inside them somewhere but a mixture of selfishness and lack of patience seems to lead to intolerence. mix in a bit of ignorance and we have people threatening death and damnation all over the place.
i can do this.....i can voice my opinions and thoughts and invite debate, and i can raise my children to do the same. i can do my best to raise them to be compassionate, loving, confident, eager to learn and open minded. and most importantly i can raise them to know without a shadow of a doubt that they are loved. be it by a God/Allah/Yhvh or the Universal Energy...or me, or you."

I love the openness of your blog, the sincerity with which you express your opinions, the pragmatism in your expression. In the section above, you express a desire to teach your children about all beliefs so that they can be well-armed to make their own decisions as they mature. Desiring for them to base their beliefs on true belief and not on fear of any societal retribution or bogey-man attack is beautifully and simply stated. You root for benevolence, however, “for a god of charity and love…who cares for all the world’s children irrespective [of any of their differences]… Considering that children hang the coats of their beliefs initially on the rack of their parents, do you believe that you can or should teach your children that such a god exists, a god that is benevolent and loving and caring?

I REPLY: No. belief is just that…. Belief. It is not fact- or even if it is its not ‘proven’. It would be wrong of me to tell my children that a ‘good’ god exists because I can't prove he does. I can only have faith that it does.
What I can do for my children is teach them compassion and charity and tolerance in our everyday lives. I can give them through this a strong moral foundation. If they understand that we are each human beings- irrespective of colour or sex or creed, with the same feelings and fears, then they will know that we should be tolerant of one another. I can tell them stories from the ‘holy’ books and from aesops fables. I can talk about ‘baby jesus’ and tell them that gran believes he is the son of god etc etc. but I will tell them truthfully that I’m not sure, or I don’t think so, or I do think so. I will tell them that I ‘believe’ there is an energy, which we could call god if we liked, that connects us all. And that can guide us if we let it to help one another. Parents don’t have to ‘know it all’ children don’t need that from us. What they need is honesty, love and protection from harm. I hope to teach my children to make their own decisions, by letting them know that its ok to have doubts, and its ok to have our own individual set of beliefs. We should never trust anyone blindly. I don’t know it all. Noone does. All we can do is offer our ideas, and our stories… and our love. (holy universal energy man- i'm such a hippy!)


JERICHO: You say " there are no easy answers. but films and books and conversations which challenge our own beliefs and make us question our motives are crucial to all of us if we are to find the truth and to trust ourselves and our personal visions. learning is a lifelong process and whenever i feel i am being challenged and informed i feel good…watching movies and reading books can be beautiful escapism, but they can also make you think. and thinking is goooood.........just so long as we are never foolish enough to think we know it all!"

Another thing I really enjoy about your site is your desire to bring some artistic relevance to others. You talk of the cinema and of the wonderful films which have meaning to you. Your exposing these to me challenges me. What is the one challenge you need to face but fear the most?


I REPLY: the prospect of growing old without a good man to confide in and hold close at night in the knowledge that he loves me as much as I love him.
Sappy but true. I try to remain optimistic but realize that there is a very good chance I will remain single into old age and I must prepare myself for this so that I can do it without bitterness or regret. It is a challenge everyday to be happy in myself for myself and to find a way to remain open to the world without the spectre of loneliness or the fear of it creeping in!


JERICHO: You say "if we love and respect life then we have a duty to respect the living and their wishes and their health. every action has a consequence, and if we do not think about the consequences of our actions we are to blame, whatever our views. but we can only ever really know the consequences of our own individual actions. we should not dare to force our sensibilities on another when we can have no idea of their individual circumstances.
if we cant act to help the living, the impoverished, the abused, the frightened the sad. if we cant accept peoples rights to control their own bodies and futures so long as that doesn’t involve hurting any other living person then we should be working on ourselves. and finding a way that we can help."

You express yourself well. I thought much about this post (above). I pondered many questions to ask. I decided upon this simple question: What is the one aspect of your emotional or mental self that needs work? (to the extent you are willing to share)

I REPLY: in addition to the answer to the previous question…. The most upsetting thing for me and those around me is that I do get upset very easily. I am extremely impatient and I take things very personally, and I react too quickly before I have a chance to calm down. I take offence, and I seethe with friends and collegues and lovers. With my children I shout, and I boss them about and complain. I do the same on my blog!! It is always a kind of sense of ‘injustice’ that makes me react like this and I get snappy. (And its often about absolutely nothing, or just because I’m tired or busy…) Yet literally 5 minutes later I calm down and feel TERRIBLE. Then I run around apologizing profusely to everyone and hating myself and feeling racked with guilt. I guess it’s a problem of perspective and time. I need to count to 200 and breathe before reacting to anything, but I never get past 20. and the worst part is that as I know this about myself I do occasionally within relationships try extra hard to stop myself, but this then has resulted in me getting walked all over because I stop reacting at all! I need to work on finding a middle ground, and not taking things so personally, and i need to be calmer when i do need to voice any anger.... still working on it...

JERICHO: You say "i have wiped out most of my younger school years from my memory banks, not on purpose but somehow i remember virtually no one. i can recall a few names, but would be extremely hard put to put a face to any of them. i didn’t like those years much. i loved learning. i loved reading, and discussing, but i wasn’t really a swot either so i couldn’t just hide behind the books. i also loved clothes and music, but we had no money, a pretty fucked up family life and we lived in a rural village, going to the rough comprehensive school in the nearest town on the bus. hicksville uk. in many ways it was a beautiful place to grow up…[but] I never fit in… so i blanked out much of those years as i grew up, moved away and reinvented myself, or at least found out i wasn’t a complete freak, and went on with that in a new environment."

I do not believe you are a complete freak, just a partial freak, like most of us! Wait. Unless we factor in the four-day hold on bowel activity. Wow! Now, that was funny – although I am sure you didn’t think so at times. We share much in common, despite the geographic differences. If I desired to be your best friend and wanted to “fit in” with your environment, your life, your children, your re-invented self, what should I do?


I REPLY: Get therapy.
No sorry, um… Be thicked skinned and very laid back when being snapped at. Be energetic and fit or you won’t keep up and I’m tired of carrying my kids on my shoulders all the time. Be reliable- I don’t mean be on time- means nothing to me, but be honest- do what you say you'll do. Be kind and generous and loving, but firm. Be able to massage or willing to learn to massage ME. Be funny and able to take the piss out of me without making me cry. Like staying in bed wide awake in the mornings. Care about the world. Like shoes and clothes and food and my kids and beer and reading and films and loud dance music, elvis, jonny cash and stevie wonder. And have plans and money to build/restore a house in a sunny city near the sea/river with a private garden, pee pee lights running from the bed to the loo so I don’t stubb my feet in the dark, and thick doors and big windows in every bathroom. Ooh and be able to fix stuff and change impossibly high up lightbulbs.

Otherwise you could just try being nice and make me giggle, or think outside my bubble occasionally.

I’m easy really*
thank you sweetie. they really got me thinking... and i really appreciate all your positive feedback. i hope i'm not too tedious an interviewee! again it was rather lacking in laughs*


For those of you who may want to be interviewed in this fashion (though with nowhere near as well researched questions i hasten to add- sorry! but i will do my best*) , here are the Official Interview Games Rules:


If you want to participate, leave a comment below saying, “interview me”.

I will respond by asking you five questions - each person's will be different. - i'll email them to you if you can give me an adres.

You will update your journal/blog with the answers to the questions.

You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post.

When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

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Labels: istanbulundercover, questionable past lives, the wonderlets

spring appears to have finally sprung so this afternoon the lets and i schlepped off to see some art. and failed miserably.



for the last 2 months there has been a picasso exhibition a short ride down the bosphorous in a museum set in beautiful gardens. and each new week i say, "this week we will go" and then something, like snow or work, or ouchy tummies, or films or hideous expanding thighs necessitating emergency trips to the gym or the like have all deemed to make it impossible.

the exhibition ends this week so today we and the rest of the population of north west turkey all finally decided to get our acts together. the queue stretched throughout the winding pathed gardens, out the gate and at least 50metres down the road. now i'm not too bad with queues- i can deal perfectly well with the ones that snake left and right with multiple windows of hope at the end, but long ones that are 3 people wide and go down streets with no end at all in sight freak me out.

the only time i have ever joined one was as a 19 year old outside brixton fridge- and i could actually see the club quite easily from the queues end. i actually had quite a laugh as i was slightly wasted and flirted with a lovely boy named , oooh it'll come to me...

anyway apart from that time and maybe a couple of very short ones at heaven i have always been lucky enough to arrive at an opportune queueless moment or know someone so i can go straight to the front.

no such luck today.

and after umming and aahhing around the gate for a couple of minutes loveday announced that "MY KAKAS COMING OUT".
so we grabbed a security guard who let me in and led me away from the ticket booth and up thousands of steps to the loos right next to the actual entrance where the paintings were. she pooed, we walked back down all the steps to the queue and just as i was about to ask if we could push in somewhere, when yashi doubled over and said the exact same sentence as loveday. i found our man in uniform and up we went again. yashi pooed. this time we decided to walk back the long way following the virtually static line of very patient people (incredible considering they were all turks... art loving turks are really quite unlike the normal common or garden variety in that respect.) about half way down i realised i lacked the essential element.

commitment.

so i pointed to the lovely lush lawn and bushes and trees and said "hey girls, how about we stuff the paintings for today and go run about on the grass for a bit instead?"
and we spent 3 hours doing just that. the lets couldn't believe their luck.

we'll give it another go tomorrow but if i can't find a friend to come with us and share queue/hide and seek duty its just not going to work. and then i realised that this is one of the only situations where being a single person with kids doesn't really work. the only other one was flying before the lets could walk..... believe me that was not fun. standing in a queue for an hour alone or with kids just isn't going to happen.

but, on the bright side, we will now probably take sarah, our helper, she can do the queuing while we get muddy again and then we can all go in and see the pics. she'll probably love it, it beats being inside in this weather, and hoovering. lets just hope she's a modern art lover... and then i'll get them to all do some collages together when we get home while i go lie down and dream of coffee cigarettes and mathew mconaughy.... seriously. two days of running about on grass and waiting on queues will be more than this chronically impatient born again big city girl can cope with no matter how much fun it was*

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Labels: istanbulundercover, the wonderlets

hello darlings.

well after a few mixed bag days of bums, tedious life stories, shoes and gratuitous cuteness from the lets i feel its time to get back to the difficult business of alienating silly people again. apologies if that means you, i'll be happy to soften it to plonker if you like, but only if you comment and tell me why i'm wrong.

there's no real theme here, its a multiple choice of stuff that i've read today or have been following up... so just pick your favourite irritant.

in no particular order:

mikhaela is simply superb.




The Boiling Point
aka Mikhaela's Political Cartoons







there are many more wonderful up to date entries. please check her out. i post this particular cartoon purely because of its relevance to one of my last topical news based posts.
Former top judge says US risks edging near to dictatorship
other mikhaela favourites of mine are "Teaching (In)Tolerance" and "fear factors"


secondly, there's a link in my sidebar to a great group blog, shakespeare's sister.
there are 2 particular posts which are short and sweet and echo my concerns over the whole freedom of women to control their own bodies issue raised by south dakota and the like...and some of the utter nonsense that is erupting around the whole issue. if you get a minute check out A Modicum of Perspective, Please and BYOC*


thirdly, sorry to almost everyone i know here but it seems killing children in the name of god/yhvh/allah or peace and freedom goes right across the board... muslim children in faluja or palestine, jewish children in israel bombed or shot. christian children beheaded and shot in indonesia, and today i hear of mutilation and murder of indian children in the name of "Tantrism, an amalgam of mystical practices that grew out of Hinduism. Tantrism also has adherents among Buddhists and Muslims and, increasingly, in the West, where it is associated with yoga or sexual techniques. It has millions of followers across India, where it originated between the fifth and ninth centuries."
i mean HOLY UNIVERSAL ENERGY DUDE we can't even trust our yoga teachers any more.

ok its nothing new.. and it sickens us all, but why is it so often just dismissed? why do we hear about it days or weeks later, and just blame it on extremists who are not really connected with the religion we believe in?... "oh they are not 'real' christians...", " oh they are not 'real' muslims", "oh those rural superstitious peasants- they don't know what tantrism really means".
someone murders, and hindus murder buddists murder muslims murder christians, murder jews, murder atheists etc etc etc and they all murder kids.
there's no point to me writing this, i have no solution. i just want you to remember its happening and people are doing it in your name and mine. and i don't know about you but that REALLY pisses me off.

anyway sorry rant over ... for now.

lastly....

kate oh kate. i love her...

meaning i find her very beautiful, incredibly stylish at all times and generally kinda cool. BUT. and its a big and painfully obvious one. BUT she's a fuckwit. and she's with an even bigger one, and she does vast amounts of cocaine and she's got a kid.

i love trash gossip mags too, but sometimes trash media really is trash and can be truely scary.
and today i read this in the guardian:

"Few people are in as much admiration of the lovely supermodel as we are, but even we were rather taken aback by her latest nomination for a public accolade. Having already been named the world's most stylish woman repeatedly, she is now in the running for a best celebrity mum of the year prize. She is joined on the list by the Duchess of Cornwall and Sharon Osbourne. Mmmmm."

now as anyone who knows me knows, i'm a firm believer in "if mummies happy, baby will be." being a single mum i'm very concious that i need to balance my own need for a social life and still being an individual 'sexy', independant woman with my childrens need for a loving, reliable, stable role model. its not always easy. but as i seem to say almost everyday- its not that hard either. though i'm sure i'm not perfect. i dont believe i've made any sacrifices, but i have made a few compromises. all of which have been good for me in the long run too.
i know its not easy to be good. i suffer with that a lot. giving up smoking. giving up substance filled nights that saw me arriving home at 7am at least once a week. giving up watching 18certificate movies on a sunday afternoon. giving up dashing out at 7pm to have beers and watch the sunset whenever i feel the urge. not buying that bag, or those amazing shoes that i can still hear shouting and begging me now..
compromise is tough. but i still do get to do most of that stuff- except the fags, just not so often. and you know what i look and feel better for it (except the bag and shoe bit maybe). and look what i get as a consolation prize....(i'm not going to post another photo of the lets... its too obvious!)

we could all do better. noone is perfect. but most of us do ok, and we should feel proud of ourselves. and who am i to say whether she's a good mum or not. but what i do feel is that, she knows she's fucked up. we know she's fucked up, sadly her kid probably know's she's fucked up. so she needs encouragement and help to do and get better. and i really hope she gets it.

what she does not need, and what all the other junkie mums out there need to know is that its not ok to do vast amounts of drugs all the time when you have children who rely on you. its not ok to get in the papers across the world doing shit like that when your kid will have to see and be mocked for it at school. and that we can all do better and deserve better than pete doherty.

any competition about "best mum" is ridiculous anyway. who can know what any child gets from their mother? but if such ridiculous banality is to exist in such a high profile way then it should at least show "celebrity mums" who manage to balance their family lives without excessive drugs drink and threats of social services involvement. its not exactly a great example is it. i for one have never really gone for "role models" as such. i dont aspire to be like anyone else - although i'd quite like a few of kate's clothes.- but plenty of young women do. and thats why 'competition' like this is stupid and potentially damaging. if someone says she or either of the other two are the 'best' celebrity mum, some plonker somewhere will believe it and belittle their own and their childs potential because of it.

...oh in the long run its all b****cks. at least they haven't killed anyone today. i should breath and let it all wash over me....

just don't go getting tantric.

i'm gonna go listen to stevie sing "superstition" and try to forget that he's part of a religion too.

sorry mum on all counts.
and everyone else please feel free to let me know who i've not offended so i can work on that tomoro.

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Labels: the wonderlets

76 including flipflops. the lets have 6 each.















pairs.
alas, 5 pairs no longet fit since my feet were crushed under the combined weight of footballing twinlets and sausage rolls during 9 months of fresh cream and apple turnover abuse 4 years ago.

they get lent out occasionaly to friends, and the lets are practicing 'the walk' red soled in christian louboutin, last worn by me at my beloved papas funeral almost 6 years ago.

today i found a poem i wrote as a skint 2nd year art student, squatting (not literally) in a flat in hackney. amazing that over so many years, and changing circumstance and priorities shoes remain a constant comfort- even in heel induced pain.

'shooz'

size thirtyseven,
what's that in english?
little eee.
silver.
strappy.
nice thick heel.
still make me walk like
somethings protruding from
nether regions.
pretty good though,
slightly seventies, or like some lounge lizard- nineteen fifties glamour puss-
come housewife.
or sunshine cindy
basking barbie.
oh yeah right.

check out my roots!
i know this is rubbish, i was 19! gimme a break.

but i re- type it here to illustrate a point. to myself. we change but we don't. and whatever clean slate i decide to start from, my passions and comforts will remain constant, but with the right footwear i can go anywhere and do anything i like.

shoes are my passion and comfort (along with the wobbly-when-healed hoglets)
what are yours?

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Labels: questionable past lives, the wonderlets

sorry peeps but i couln't resist...

this was the best but you can see more along the same thread here













for some reason the word 'DUDE' always makes me laugh*

ps, as an aside, and only one of many dubious claims to fame i have in reserve to stun and amaze you with later, jean reno touched both the lets hair last summer!
i do assure you however that that is not why we wash it so rarely- that's down to pure slackness*

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well what an amazing community!
i'm amazed (though i probably could have guessed if i'd thought about it at all) at how many visitors were attracted here by my bottom. i thank you from the bottom, and hope you'll visit again, the lets were amused by the photos i posted and rather pleased with all the compliments too.
i have to say the support and positive comments i often see on peoples blogs is incredibly heartwarming. it really is wonderful to witness both the creativity and the constructive feedback that is often so rare in our daily sarcastic and bitchy lives. people really are quite nice sometimes after all.
i am very glad i began this, thanks pelin, for the push*

i guess its time i wrote that piece about how i landed here in istanbul, and why we stay... many people ask and i've still not developed a good snappy comedy reply so here's the long tedious version. feel free to skip past and look at my bum if you're bored *

cripes. i'm regretting this already.
....well, having been too busy trying to study, live in a squat in hackney (pictured here) and make money to eat during my teens and early twenties, i never got a chance to travel. my only trips abroad up until i moved here, were a french exchange trip aged 13 to audiernne where i fell off a bike and never got back on, and a first year (?) art school trip to barcelona, when i was about 19 or 20. i loved france despite the bump to my head, and the barcelona trip was great and my first time flying.

however, being into mixed media work at the barcelona time, i picked up every scrap of paper, tickets, maps, matchboxes etc to take home. being virtually the only non dope smoking student on the trip (i blame my parents... seeing so many stoned hippies as a child put me off the lazy weed for life- though i've not been adverse to more lets say, more energetic substances- i'm not a total goody goody) i was the obvious choice for the custom officials on the way home through heathrow.
i was detained for 2 hours while the jobsworths tore out the lining of my beautiful antique suitcase, the insoles of my shoes and eventually on the evidence of one of those little plastic A (or B) side stickers that came with blank audio cassette tapes in those days, strip searched me.

true to character in a crisis, i didn't get scared but i did get VERY angry. i was THOUROUGHLY DISGUSTED at their IDIOCY right up until i was released- after filling in a complaint form of course.
the poor woman who searched the fully-nekkid me was VERY apologetic. and flinched every time i held an item of discarded clothing etc and anounced what it was called and what it was used for. including a matchbox i had grabbed from the room just before leaving the hotel, which i pushed open and explained were matches.

when i was finally released into the custody of my 'clean' friends (bless them- adrian and rachel and i think christine), i was very suprised (as much by her having stayed as by what she said,,,)when my hotel roommate who's name i have conveniently forgotten, said she was very frightened because she had planned to bring some "stuff" back with her, but had chickened out last minute and left it in a matchbox in the room...
i probably went a very nasty shade of white, and pulled from my pocket the matchbox i had 'demonstrated" to the cowering custom lady. i opened it again- this time apparently the opposite way, and there was a big lump of well, how can i say it...."stuff".

i believe i smoked it.


well that was a classic piece of aversion therapy....hmmm turkey,

at the age of 25 i felt i needed another trip. i was unhappy in my relationship and work. i needed a change. i was offered out of the blue a job in india. my kind boyfriend was upset but supportive, and helped me to prepare. (poor bugger was probably glad to be shot of me!). 2 weeks before i was due to fly it fell through. i was determined to get away by then so having no useful qualifications i scanned the job pages for jobs teaching english to kids. within another couple of weeks i found one. after getting excited about india, i didnt want to go to somewhere in europe or america, turkey seemed perfect. close, but a completely different culture and bridging europe and asia.. i couldnt resist.

the rest in its way is history... i hated the job so left within a couple of months, but was still excited about the place itself.

i took a trip to la, to have a blow out before returning to blighty, and met my future husband. he is turkish but had lived there for 10 years (first in alaska then la), and was also on holiday there, as he had returned to turkey 3 years earlier to live. we fell in love and i eventually decided to stay in turkey witrh him. while we were together i worked doing costume on his commercials, then did fashion editing at turkish cosmo. the media biz is just too bitchy for me though and you get no free clothes here either so i went to england and retrained as an holistic massage therapist. i still do that today and LOVE my job.

we had a 'difficult' realationship, and despite having been trying for a child, after i became pregnant, we seperated. i decided to return to cornwall when i was 3 months pregnant to save myself from the stress of fighting. we tried many times during the pregnancy and after the birth of the lets to save the relationship, and finally i decided to return to turkey whether it worked or not as i wanted the girls to be near their father and having lived in istanbul now for 6 years i figured most of my friends and life was there.

if i'm totally honest, being a single mother of twins is not easy. but it's not as hard as it looks either though- especially here. in the uk i would possibly be near my parents, although i can't imagaine how i would live in cornwall- i honestly don't think i could for long. i've lived in cities now too long, and being single i really need my social life, dancing, live music, cinema. but anywhere in the UK i would have very little money, i'd have to work more hours and send my kids to some kind of full time childcare, have a small flat, which i'd then need to clean etc, and raise them completely alone, as there really is only so much practical help family can give you- even if you do live close by.

here, as there are no goverment benefits, my ex pays my rent and enough money each month to pay my basic amenity bills and most of the food. i need to work to pay my helper, who watches the children whenever i work and cleans, irons and cooks, and babysits evenings when i want to interact with real live adults. i also need to earn money to for all the extras, like transport, clothes, shoes, trips, social life, vets bills, phone etc etc. we have had a lot of fights and hard times to get here, but we now have a good understanding most of the time. and it means i get to combine being a stay at home mum with working freelance. but the big difference- bear with me here, is that despite having no family here and no partner, the lovely lady who helps me costs a fraction of the money i would need to spend just on childcare in the uk. and instead of her playing with my kids while i clean the loo and cook the dinner, I play with the lovelylets while she does the less interesting stuff.

i still find writing that i have a kind of 'maid' difficult. coming from working class roots and having worked hard my whole life (including having cleaned houses after leaving college and nannying) i'm aware of how "spoilt" i may sound. but i still have very little money. i can only afford to visit the UK once a year. i have no family here and although i have friends here they are not very long term. despite the generally good relationship i have with their father, i am still the one to play with them and teach them to read and count, give them dinner each night, bath them (occasionally), read them stories, put them to bed, sing them to sleep, get up to scare away monsters and fatboy the cat when he pushes them out of bed, give them breakfast every morning, take them to the casualty department, and do all the stuff that constitutes "bringing up babies" alone on a day to day basis. without sarah our helper i'd basically be too exhausted after massaging to speak, let alone blog!

so as well as the proper four seasons with real SUN and real SNOW we get here, the breathtaking bosphorous only 100mtrs from out front door, the incredibly dynamic nightlife of istanbul, the authentic village life with its fish stalls, weekly fruit market, street sellers with simit balancing on their heads who pass our house and put the lovely sesame bread rings in a basket for us to pull to our balcony, the local shops and restaurants who all DELIVER and know me as 'the foreigner with the lovely twins', the wonderlets father living just down the road, their 3 mornings a week pre-school just a 5 minute walk and a city which evolves and pulses around me quicker than the eye can see (apart from the parking situation), my maid helps makes this home.

and the belovedlets will grow up with two languages, hopefully 3 if i can get the french in there at school... there are probably as many disadvantages as advantages, but after 10 years here now it is home. so is the uk. i'll probably always feel a little 'displaced' but knowing that we will spend our summers in the sun, and we will fly to be with our family in england is also liberating. i KNOW i will get on a plane sometime soon and be home.... be it in turkey or london or cornwall. and any trips i get to make to anywhere else (since i had the lets, italy, paris and madagascar) are added bonuses. travel leads to travel just like money makes money. i never really had the money to make money, so i'll never get to be a real jet-setter, but by getting on one plane, i made sure i'd be on a lot more... and i find that's liberating.

hooowooo. that was long and lacking laughs i'm afraid. i'm too tired now to go back and edit so i'll just try to be a bit snappier next post.

until then sweet peeps, be well and prosper*

if you're new here, here are a couple of earlier posts that tell some slightly more amusing stories of our daily life here...
hollaback
mood swings

...and yes yashi does have a plaster on her arm in this photo- she fell off a horse last year, but i'll talk about my distrust of all things equestrian another day.

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Labels: istanbulundercover, questionable past lives, the wonderlets

half-nekkid thursday

i dance half naked outside
inside i'm a bear.

a self portrait for half-nekkid thursday. check out the link on the right...


scenes from turklife...

today at breakfast rain again, but the girls are off to the theatre with their nursery.i can't believe how long their hair is.... and also how matted! they are forming dreadlocks. unfortunately dirty lazy mummy that i am i just cant get my act together to bath them everyday. its just not neccessary, not to mention a waste of water. but then, unfortunately we end up going almost a week sometimes, and as their hair is so fine its agony to brush unless its wet- we end up with a matted mess at the back of their poor little necks. oh well, no uber-mum awards for me. we'll slap some conditioner on tonight and noone will know...

thinking of the bathroom again, before i was a mum i was very prissy about toiletry functions. noone who knows me will agree i imagine as i'm usually so 'out-there' about everything else, but its true. i have a dread fear of farting, i virtually never do it (- i manage to burp first as a deterent) and being sick. i wonder how on earth i managed the lets nappies as anything even slightly iucky sends me urging. and i would be able to hold my poo for days rather than let a partner or anyone else know i was in need of release.

i'm still like this, on a trip to paris last year with a lover, i was forced to hold it for 4 days as we were staying in a tiny garret and could hear everything. he was discreet too and used a restaurant loo while at dinner, but i couldn't even do that.. i had to wait until he had a dentists appointment and suggest i came and met him later! its peculiar really as i'm happy to talk about it. we laughed about it almost every morning, but i just cant get over the physical embarrasment.

anyway, probably one of the worst things about being a mum that i've found is that all my best efforts to keep my toiletry functions private are now rendered utterly useless. its bad enough at home when virtually every time i go to the bathroom i am followed by at least one of the lets. even if i manage to slip out in secret, there will soon be knock (if i'm lucky) at the door, followed by "What Are You Doing?" in a very loud voice. followed almost immediately, irespective of my feeble reply by, "ARE YOU DOING A KAKA?". the reply to this is then relayed in an often Even Louder Voice to the let in the wings...

fine if we are alone. not quite so fine if we have guests, and i'm mortified to say, unbearably torturous whilst in the local fish restaurant or coffe shop.
and when i get upset the little buggers look at me with sad confusion and faces that kind of say "WHAAAAAAT?" i'm just waiting for the day when i emerge from the public loo, red faced, and get a round of applause from the room. that might be nice as at least then i could curtsey, thank the crowd and exit with a little dignity.

at least i got the evilets laughing the other day....

i thought it would be a good idea to wax my own bikini line- I KNOW I KNOW...but i often wax my own legs and am a dab hand with both the razor and various creams on the old bikini area so i thought i'd give it a go...

i closed all the curtains, covered the sofa and floor with towels and waxed my legs while we all watched george of the jungle- I KNOW I KNOW- thats even worse but hey.... and then i just though, you know, what the hell..

i not suprisingly only managed to get half a strip off before leaping to my feet in agony and jumping tearfully around the salon half-nekkid, with half a strip of cotton stuck to my crotch. the girls literally fell off the sofa with glee as they thought it was some kind of jungle dance, and they just love a bit of mummy swearing. despite the pain i have to admit it must have looked hysterical and they were very kind and helpful when i had to take a bath to get the bloody stuff off. they chucked in ALL their toys for me to play with*


getting my own back at the modern art museum!

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Labels: hnt, istanbulundercover, the wonderlets

the one campaign to make poverty history asks all US citizens to call 1-800-786-2663 and ask your Senators to support the Santorum-Durbin Amendment for global AIDS funding.
they say,


"Yesterday, thousands of you called Capitol Hill, asking your Senators to keep critical AIDS, TB and malaria efforts running around the world. Today, we have a little more time to make our voices heard and keep up the positive pressure!
The Global Fund saves lives, providing prevention, care and treatment for millions. It’s an effective international effort and U.S. contributions even challenge other countries to do their share, with each U.S. dollar matched by two dollars from other donors."

while i'm here i just quickly want to add.....


thanks to mikhaela's news and cartoon blog
"menstruation is murder!"


and sadly.....

Let's Get Something Straight Here,

Abortion isn't about murdering babies.

Murdering babies is about murdering babies.

thanks to Thesaurus Rex, who originally posted this.


and finally, rest in peace, Tom Fox. yet another exceptionally brave man who died trying to clear up the mess Bush, lap dog Blair and assorted sicko islamothugs have created.

goodnight sweet friends and may we have better news tomorow*

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Labels: rantlets

hi babycakes.
we are all a bit fluey today so stuck in again. the lets are glueing and building stuff with the furniture, while i get down to this after my weekend break. i found a couple of interesting news things last night before bed so i'll let you check them out yourselves:

Baby born, surrendered at firehouse
Mother leaves after birth; son in good condition

and no this is not him!
basically in colarado, "The safe haven law went into effect in 2000 after a baby was found abandoned in the diaper aisle of a grocery store. It allows a mother to surrender her child to medical workers, a hospital or fire station within 72 hours of giving birth without fear of being prosecuted." the woman in this story went one step further and actually delivered the baby at the fire station.
the safe haven law is a great idea though and i would imagine a much better abortion deterent than south dakotas uterine kidnapping effort. and maybe any single vulnerable mums might even get to meet a yummy fireman who could counsel/rescue her and they can all live happily ever after.
a girl can dream.....

secondly:

Former top judge says US risks edging near to dictatorship

"Sandra Day O'Connor, a Republican-appointed judge who retired last month after 24 years on the supreme court, has said the US is in danger of edging towards dictatorship if the party's rightwingers continue to attack the judiciary."
no comment. and no sexy photo either.

my final public service announcement today is this highly educational film on the F-word. no not frappaccino, FUCK.

i am sadly a huge fan of this particular word, and i can guarantee that after this film you too will have new found respect for it. it is just so versatile.
however despite being superbly researched the film does in fact leave out one of my favourite usages and that is the phenomenal "fuckwittage" which we see so many examples of nowadays.
so as my last note in this partcular post today i would just like to say to all the fuckwits perpetrating global fuckwittage in our names, go frappaccino yourselves!

.... and in the meantime i'm gonna enjoy gazing at another yummy parisian fireman, as my friends know well, french lips just do something to me. ooooh and just look at his forearms yum.
sigh...

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Labels: rantlets

.....in my underfrillies as promised previously.

i'd like to add that i do posses less, "loose lady' lingerie, and some is unfortunately almost as practical as the 'polo neck' type you see on yr mums washing line, but obviously they are not quite so attractive to the ever glam lets*








......and these 2 are me in my alter ego of 'invisidancergirl'. taken at a roy ayers (one of my ultimate musical heroes!) concert on saturday night, i was moving so much and so fast that no camera could catch me! now thats magic*

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Labels: istanbulundercover, the wonderlets

some more recent craziness as
First-Grader Suspended For Sexual Harassment

if we really do want to raise a generation of boys who are scared to talk to girls, and who will then almost certainly grow up ill adjusted, resentful and fearful of women. and who's frustration and lack of normal contact with women and therefore poor communication skills will lead to them probably to resorting to rape and violence as their only form of contact with women then WAY TO GO!

there are just so many things wrong with this. the 6 yr old boy allegedly touched a fellow classmate (a GIRL) under her waistband at circle time. he says she touched him first. the principal was informed and called the boys mum, who was aked to take him home as he was suspended for 3 days.

"Dorinvil believes this whole incident is just a big misunderstanding that has left her son confused and fearful of the school he loves.

Downey Elementary would not comment on the case, but have contacted the police and the district attorney.

The mother said she wants her son transferred, but the school is not helping her."

poor kid. in fact poor kids- its not only the boy who has been injured here but the girl. and i don't mean by the initial 'touching' i mean by all the negative attention that has been created. she will be confused and made to feel that any contact with 'boys' or men is BAD. this is sick.
how dare we make children feel naughty and 'dirty' for exploring, showing curiosity and learning from each other. why are we letting a minority of sick minded sexual freaks dictate the way we allow our children to interact?
because some sicko islamic fundamentalist kill us and threaten violence every day do we all convert and cover ouselves up?
NO.
so why, just because some other sickos do bad things to women, are we frightening our children and telling them to be afraid of contact with members of the opposite sex?


it's pathetic and will be much more damaging to our societies in the long run.
we should encourage children to learn about theirs and each others bodies young so that they can feel confident and strong within themselves. we should encourage friendly contact between children and adults and we should encourage conversation about ourselves and our feelings. only then will children have any chance of knowing if and when physical contact is apprpriate or not. only by experiencing genuine, unsexual, contact comfortably with other human beings and being able to express their personal feelings will children or adults be capable of confidently knowing and therefore expressing discomfort when something is innapropriate.


its not rocket science people. its basic human instinct, and if we mess with our childrens perceptions of appropriateness (is that a word? and how do i spell it?) we are messing not only with their ability to relate to the opposite sex but also their safety. how will that boy or girl ever have any idea? if she falls over and a man helps her up she could be forgiven for thinking he was trying to physically abuse her by touching her. if the boy accidentally bumps into a girl on the street he will be afraid she will report him. she might become so frightened of contact that she either wont let anyone near her or maybe even worse she'll realise that she is overreacting and therefore when someone really does act innappropriately she will be too scared or embarrassed, or feel to guilty to do anything about it. i dont even want to think about what could happen to him.

fabulous scenario isnt it? just the kind of world i want my girls to grow up in.

NOT.

i'm all for you show me yours and i'll show you mine, its waht kids have done since time began. i'm all for masturbation- hell my guys did it when they were still in nappies! its hard to know what to do as a parent, all i can do is say "i know it feels good but why not go and do that somewhere private, you'll be more comfy". we dont really need to have the computer guy see that. they know what feels nice, and they control that themselves, with no involvement from anyone else.
we have lots of hugging and kissing but never forced. they see willies when they go swimming with their dad and change in his changing room.
they know whats appropriate and therefore unthreatening. they also know that if anyone does anything or tries to do anything that makes them feel uncomfortable they should say no, and tell me. even if that persons me! (i've been known to want a kiss sometimes when they are just 'too busy mummy')

if all hell broke loose every time they saw a peepee or were touched by a boy/man how confident do you think they would be? hmmmm?

anyway i want my children to grow up doing what kids 20 years ago did. doctors and nurses (though i'd be as happy if they wanted to be the doc as the nurse or vice versa) was a good game.



we should be the ones to improve on how our parents dealt with harrassment and sexual abuse. i should be the one to be aware of the dangers and i should keep my eyes and ears open to real danger. i should encourage them to feel confident and self trusting. and i should talk to them and encourage them to talk to me.

they should be protected, but by us from us, not from themselves and each other. my thoughts and heart goes out to both the children involved and to their poor mothers. their innocence is lost..... i hope my girls can keep theirs a little longer.

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hello darlinks, i now have proof of a regular if shy readership. so wecome back sweeties.

the lets were so thrilled to see spidergirl at the top of the last post that i have been informed i can only post a new piece if i put some 'super flying girl kids' at the top. so here they are.
i'm not a big fan of the powerpuffs. one of the worst films ever made after, pearl harbour. in fact their acting and annoying voices were almost as bad, but at least the ppg's characterisations were slightly more believable than wooden old affleks. anyway i digress. but i do quite like the illustration somehow.

i couldn't resist popping this in too.....

the lets didn't get the skidmark bit, but loved the basic idea and are walking around with my various frilly knickers ("they are called PANTS mum!") on their heads and having a conversation about who's the biggest silly goose and who's a fat bum poophead. i'll post some pics of that later or i'll be here all day!

back to the serious business in hand...or rather on hands...

the bbc have made a documentary about an extraordinary family in turkey from which 5 siblings walk on all fours.

"Three of the sisters and one brother have only ever walked on two hands and two feet, but another sister alternates between a bipedal and quadrupedal gait. Another brother walks on two feet all the time, but only with difficulty.
Calluses on the hands show the behaviour is no hoax
The siblings live with their parents and five other brothers and sisters. They were born with what looks like a form of brain damage.
MRI scans seem to show that they have a form of cerebellar ataxia, which affects balance and coordination.The method of locomotion used by the Turkish children and by our closest relatives chimpanzees and gorillas, differs in a crucial way, said Professor Humphrey.
While gorillas and chimpanzees walk on their knuckles, the Turkish siblings put their weight on the wrists, lifting their fingers off the ground. "What's significant about that is that chimpanzees ruin their fingers walking like that," Professor Humphrey, an evolutionary psychologist, told the BBC News website.
The five quadrupeds grew up in a remote part of Turkey
"These kids have kept their fingers very agile, for example, the girls in the family can do crochet and embroidery."
He added that calluses pictured on the hands of one family member demonstrated that the behaviour was not a hoax.
Professor Humphrey said this could be the way that humankind's direct ancestors walked."

i know i should refrain from any type of comment but its difficult as so many irrisistable things spring to mind.....

as ben who sent me the original link said "what's ironic though is that you probably left cornwall to avoid such
quadrapeds. frying pan..fire...etc" he's right of course coming from one of the (dare i say it) in breeding capitals of the uk now look where i ended up!
all i can say is thats why i moved to the big city!!

secondly, as befits the vain shallow old snob that i try to hide behind my facade of, well, shoes and charitable causes, my first reaction as often happens when i see these kind of turkish women is "how did she ever think that scarf would go with that blouse would go with that skort?"

i know she doesnt really care as she's got more troubling stuff on her mind like "i hope my future husband realises that just because i'm perfectly positioned i am NOT going to lick/wash his feet each time he enters the house. i've got serious embroidery to be getting on with" or most likely "i wish they'd make this darned galley kitchen a bit bigger i cant get my posterior inside." or "does my bum look big in this?"

i know i know i should be ashamed of myself. and i am honestly.

to get away from that awfulness, its interesting the timing of this too though as just today this was in the news

Exam boards bring creationism into science class

i'm not going to comment on any of that.... i'll leave that to you guys.

i will now leave you with a piece of writing i took from this badly named but interesting blog.
its very good and i will be refering to it often should i ever choose to get involved properly with anyone again....

Pre-relationship Agreement
The party of the first part (herein referred to as "she"), being of sound mind and pretty good body, agrees to the following with the party of the second part (herein referred to as "him"):

1. FULL DISCLOSURE: At the commencement of said relationship
(colloquially referred to as the "first date"), each party agrees to fully disclose any current girl/boyfriends, dependent children, bizarre religious beliefs, phobias, fears, social diseases, strange political affiliations, or currently active relationships with anyone else that have not yet been terminated.

Further, each party agrees to make known any deep-seated complexes and/or fanatical obsessions with pets, careers, and/or organized sports. Failure to make these disclosures will result in the immediate termination of said relationship before it has a chance to get anywhere.

2. INDEMNIFICATION OF FRIENDS: Both parties agree to hold the person who arranged the liaison (colloquially referred to as the "matchmaker") blameless in the event that the "fix-up" turns out to be a "real loser" or "psycho bitch". (For definition of "real loser", see "John DeLorean My Story", available at most bookstores, or any picture of Bob Guccione in "Penthouse". For definition of "psycho bitch," see Sharon Stone in "Basic Instinct" or Glenn Close in "Fatal Attraction.")

3. DEFINITION OF RELATIONSHIP: Should said relationship proceed past the first date, both parties mutually agree to use the following terminology in describing their said "dating": For the first thirty (30) days, both parties consent to say they are "going out". (This neither implies nor states any guarantee of exclusivity.) Following the first thirty 30) days, both parties may say they are "seeing somebody" and may be referred to by third parties as "an item". Sixty (60) days following the commencement of the first date, either member may elect to use the terms "girl/boyfriend" or "lover" and their mutual acquaintances may refer to them as "a couple". Under no circumstances are the phrases "my better half," "the little woman," "the old ball and chain," or "my old man/lady" acceptable. Furthermore, if both members consent, this timetable may be sped up; however, if either party "gets too serious" and disregards this schedule, the other party may dissolve the relationship on the grounds of "moving too fast" and may once again be said to be "on the market."

4. TERMS OF EXCLUSIVITY: For the first thirty (30) days, both parties agree not to ask questions about the other's whereabouts on weekends, weeknights, or over long holiday periods. No unreasonable demands or expectations will be made; "rights" or "holds" on the other's time. Following the first six weeks or forty-five (45) days, if one party continues to be "missing in action" the "wounded party" agrees to "give up".

5. DATING ETIQUETTE: For the first thirty (30) days, both members of the couple agree to be overly considerate of the other's work pressures, schedules, and business ambitions. All dates will be made at least twenty-four(24) hours in advance; there will be no "running off in the middle of the night to console an old girl/boyfriend", and both parties agree to strike the phrase "but he/she needs me" from their vocabularies. Further, during the first six (6) weeks each member of said relationship agrees to attempt one spontaneous home-cooked meal or to arrange the delivery of at least one unexpected bouquet of flowers.
Following the first forty-five (45) days, both parties will return to their normal personalities.

6. TERMS OF PAYMENT: It is agreed that -- respective gross income aside "he" will pick up the tab at all dinners, clubs, theaters, and breakfasts until: He considers her suitably impressed, He is broke, or He says, "this is ridiculous, you pay!" Not included in this agreement are meals ordered from the bedroom, which are subject to the availability of discretionary funds on hand at the time.

7. LIVING ARRANGEMENTS (occasionally known as the "Why do I bother to keep my own apartment?" codicil): Should said relationship progress to the point where the couple spends more than four nights a week together, every effort shall be made to split the time between their respective apartments. Further, it is agreed that both sides will attempt to silence the lewd remarks of landlords, or roommates. Both will avoid having their mothers call at 7:30 in the morning. He agrees to "pick up after himself" while in residence at her apartment, including washing his whiskers out of the sink, and assisting with household duties. By the same token, she agrees to respect his right to keep his apartment "a mess".

8. THE 90-DAY GRACE PERIOD: For the first three months, each member of the phrases couple agrees to hold the other blameless in the euphoric use of like "Let's move in together," "Why don't we start a family?" and – using archaic terminology -- "Let's get married."

9. THE "L" WORD: For the first sixty (60) days, both parties agree not to use the phrase "I love you." They may love plants, dogs, cats, cars, concerts, or the way a particular pair of jeans fits, but not each other. Failure by one party to abide by this rule will result in the other party using the "G" word ... "Gone."
10. GROUNDS FOR TERMINATION: Any of the following will be grounds for immediate termination and final dissolution of said relationship:
Infidelity, Running off at any time to console an ex-girl/boyfriend, ending any argument with the sentence "My ex used to do that same ...."

till next time dearest readers, be good.

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unfortunately the relentless headache doesnt appear to like doing nothing either. so i'm back here trying to take my mind off it instead.
in the news:
apparently confident women are more likely to give birth to boys than girls.
makes sense in a way as boy babies are often rather more of a handful than girls, so confident women would probably find them easier to cope with!

secondly apparently all us confident baby poppers should really be setting our sights, not on having boys or girls but raising our sights on pay. they dont of course say we shouldn't reproduce, (though did you read this article i posted yesterday?) i added that, but we have now been told that in the uk

"Female workers suffer one of the biggest pay gaps in Europe - 17% for full time staff and 38% for part time - because they are more likely to be in low paid jobs and then slip further down the career ladder after having children, the Women and Work Commission found."

so,

"Britain must re-educate schoolgirls to chose higher earning careers or condemn another generation of women to the pay and opportunities gap, a government-backed commission warned yesterday.... and Schools should challenge gender stereotypes by teaching all-girl computer classes, for example, while employers should improve the options for women who want to work part-time after having children, it concluded."

but please read the oft marvelous polly toynbee's comment on the report here

and my final words on the whole issue are that by trying to encourage more women to enter so called "male" occupations we are just admitting that fork lift truck operators, plumbers and electricians are valued more highly in our society than nurses, people who care for our elderly and take care of our children. isn't that odd? anyway the answer is not to urge women to leave these low-paid jobs, but to encourage men to enter them- agitation in favour of higher pay would soon follow and probably be met with a lot less resistance!

but until then we'll just have to rely on spiderwoman above. not only is she bound to give birth to boys (if she finds time of course), she's already challenging those stereotypes by working as a construction worker high above a city near you, and saving lives into the bargain! good old multi tasking woman if ever i saw one- oh no of course thats not allowed if we're to be more like men huh. 1 job 1 wage. i must remember to drill that into my girls.....

and in a similar but sideways vein, save the children today anounced that: BLAIR BETRAYS BRITAIN'S POOREST CHILDREN

so if you are a uk citizen or resident sign this petition and send it to blair today.

and i was also sent this from the ONE poverty history campaign on a similar track: "Congressional leaders are deciding how much life-saving assistance the U.S. will give to the world's poorest countries-and they need to hear from YOU!"
so if you are us resident or citizen sign this petition.

now thats all the srious business out of the way for the day.

time wasting boy george

now wassup with this????
first he's charged with having bags of cocaine then he makes a plea bargain (?) so that gets dropped (??) then he gets charged with time wasting(???) then gets a fine and community service(????)
which bit of it don't i uderstand?... all of it. but none of it really matters obviously. i just wonder what really happened....

perhaps, after years of snorting icing sugar and getting fat somebody broke into his flat one night and replaced some of his stash with real cocaine. he finished the bag which then being slightly more potent than his usual sweet scent sent him understandably paranoid. he called the cops to report the switch. they thought the remaining bags must also be cocaine so they arrested him. however, later when the good old boys of the nypd finally got around to trying out georges confiscated goodies themselves they discovered it was only confectionary after all.
they decided to agree to a plea bargain stating that for a price they would keep the fact that the sad old wuss didnt really do drugs and just had a really bad sugar habit.
his community service will be to help out in a local soup kitchen where as a treat for the local poor and downtrodden he'll be baking cakes and running workshops on cake decoration as he's always been a dab hand with icing as he practices on his own face every morning.

one of his more understated designs. this can also be purchased as a hat from his new fashion line in the autumn.

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hello darlings or darling- as despite lots of dots on my new map i have no evidence of anyone else but loyal old pel ever reading this rubbish.
back to it... i have a terrible headache which hasn't eased now for 3 days so i'll try to be
be quick and then move away from the computer.

i had a lovely, brief msg from my very old friend simon today. he was my friend in infant school. we lost touch various times when i left for college, and then stayed in london. but luckily we always bumped into each other back in cornwall somehow every few summers. simon met an australian girl years back and moved out there. he found me a few years ago through friends reunited, and despite loosing touch on and off due to changes of email etc we always seem to meet back in cyberspace. i met his brother in a welly boot shop in camborne at christmas and got his new email once again just to drop the scrap of paper it was scrawled on 2 days later.... and he found me today through google and then here.

as soon as i read his mail i got all warm and squishy. i dont have any really old friends (meaning a few of them are decidedly wrinkly but i met none of them before my university years). simon is my only reference back to school days.
as he was/still is a boy, and i was/still am a girl we didnt really hang out much together even then. just wasn't the "done thing", unless you were an item and i'm happy to say i never had any embarrasing moments behind the bikesheds- or even down the fields with si. at least i dont think i did! did i? no.

the lovely thing is that we've never been 'best friends' or anything, but he has still always been my 'mate'. he's always been someone i would look forward to seeing. someone who's face i can still see distinctly in my mind, and who just by being simon, fills me with a feeling of comfort. and puts a warm smile on my face.

i have wiped out most of my younger school years from my memory banks, not on purpose but somehow i remember virtually noone. i can recall a few names, but would be extremely hard put to put a face to any of them. i didnt like those years much. i loved learning. i loved reading, and discussing, but i wasnt really a swot either so i couldnt just hide behind the books. i also loved clothes and music, but we had no money, a pretty fucked up family life and we lived in a rural village, going to the rough comprehensive school in the nearest town on the bus. hicksville uk. in many ways it was a beutiful place to grow up. we all had gardens, we could walk to the woods and to the local creek to swim- or at least get muddy. but i was unhappy at home and at school i never fit in, like many other teenagers growing up.

so i blanked out much of those years as i grew up, moved away and reinvented myself, or at least found out i was'nt a complete freak, and went on with that in a new environment. simon is the only real seeming connection back to that life and time, and he's moved thousands of miles away too funnily. but our families are still there and obviously our roots never leave. its also a fabulous place to go back and visit for holidays so i'm eternally grateful,for that!

i've been trying to recall now any real memories of us together. i remember vague pubs, i worked at a restaurant in our nicest local, the trengilly wartha inn. simon would come in and we'd have a drink after work often. i remember darkly some scary car rides. i remember some days going to beaches together. i remember him telling me about his landscaping business and how much he loved it. i remember him being knocked off his bike and being in pain for months and having to give up that job and depserately try to find something that didn't cause him constant pain.
and i remember how much i smiled when he first found me again after years and told me he'd met a wonderful girl, moved to oz and had children.

but the memory i remember the best is when once we were both called to the front of class aged about 6 to hand in our homework(?) and he whispered to me as we met there, "your mum's a gypsy coz she wears stripey socks!" and in my memory i hit him, but i probably didn't.

i dread to think what kinds of embarrasements my poor kids might have to endure due to my personal style choices (see this mornings effort below for a vague idea! though i now realise i can at least blame it on my mothers influence), but i was always very proud of my mums style then. it was usually a lot better than the pink nylon staypress and housecoats most of the village was wearing anyway. so strangely i always liked him for saying that even then! i could finally challenge him, get into albeit childish debate (which having until that time been raised among a bunch of hippies, was usually encouraged) and therefore connect with another child. physically or otherwise! in a way i've loved him for that ever since.

so hi simon and your no doubt lovely wife, and new little gabriel. and thanks mate, i hope the memory causes you a fond little smile too* and please feel free to fill me in on any more concrete encounters you may have retained in your probably less abused grey matter!

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Labels: questionable past lives

despite the fact that due to rain, illness (anyone got any good sore tummy remedies?) and cabin fever we've been squabbling all day. despite painting, drawing, climbing the furniture, making origami planes and boats, and resorting to the darned telly, we are still not knackered enough to sleep. despite sometimes really having zero cash, last years coat, and no 'career' to speak of....


















i still manage to look pretty cool most of the time.
i still do exercise so
i still have a pretty good figure.
i still enjoy my job.
i still buy vogue.
i still make money.
i still contribute to society.
i still go clubbing regularly.
i still listen to music.
i still read books & the paper.
i still go to the cinema.
i still have fabulous sex.
i still eat and drink whatever i like. (though i have given up smoking and most drugs- but thats generally a plus!)
i still have (and use) sexy shoes and underwear.
i still believe i'm one of the worlds authorities on how badly celebs dress sometimes.
i still holiday in the sun.
i still indulge in bizzare forms of self expression
i feel more fulfilled than i ever have before

and i have amazing, happy, curious, funny, well behaved children.

and i'm not the only one!
millions of us manage it every day.
honestly its not as hard as it looks.
give it a go if you think you're cool enough.

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Labels: istanbulundercover, the wonderlets

i really am trying very hard to lighten it up guys but i've only today really got the wording of the new bill... and i just need to remind everyone unlucky enough to be reading this that,

Somewhere in America, a woman is raped every 2 minutes, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

About 44% of rape victims are under age 18. Three out of every twenty victims (15%) are under age 12. (Sex Offenses and Offenders. Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, 1997.)

and that this new south dakota

" BAN COVERS CASES OF RAPE, INCEST
The law bans abortion in almost all cases, punishing doctors who perform one with five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. It bans abortion even in cases where a woman is pregnant as a result of rape or incest, or if giving birth would damage the health of the mother.

It creates a narrow exemption in cases in which a physician's effort to save a pregnant woman's life results in the accidental death or injury of her fetus."


the baby's life is therefore put ahead of the mothers but if the baby is accidentaly killed or injured the doc wont be prosecuted. even if giving birth will damage the health of the mother she would still not be allowed to abort. that means even if she has a family- children who rely on her already...... hmmmm.

darlings please bear with me a little longer on this one. i realise i'm appearing slightly obsessional.
i know its heartbreaking, depresssing and probably/hopefully seems completely irrelevant to most of you, but this is something that could directly affect any of us at any point.
women use birth control which doesnt work.
women get raped everyday. it could happen to you or to anyone in your family, or your girlfriend or your best friend.
women discover they have life threatening illnesses.
womens own family members violate them.

this is happening all around us.

they have not only got in for abortion either, many of these loons are against contraception. not just for other religious fanatics like themselves but for all of us! they want to turn america and you can bet the rest of the world into a religious state like saudi arabia only run by ultra right conservatives. promoting incest and slavery for mothers next i dont doubt!

i know i'm talking nonsense now (or at least i hope i am), but if this shit is let go it breeds and gets worse.
it scares the holy shit out of me. sorry mum but....
profanity aside this is sick.
and that its so called religious people who are causing it. i feel the need to continue checking in with this until for a while i see some reactions or see a change.

another report on the same story says
"The bill would make it a crime for doctors to perform an abortion unless the procedure was necessary to save the woman's life. It would make no exception for cases of rape or incest but such victims could get emergency contraception."


however i do feel the need to point out that such emergency contraception is not 100% reliable. in tests at least 2 in 100 women would become pregnant after a 'single act' of intercourse. women or girls in this situation- victims of rape or incest will have little control over how many times the 'act' takes place. and how many people in that kind of situation statistically get help quickly enough? i dread to think how many poor girls could slip through the so called safety net. a situation often made no easier by the fact that emergency contracteption in america and the uk is still only available with a doctors prescription, and not available everywhere as walmart can testify!

anyway, someone else got even more pissed off than me thankfully.

" A woman drove her car into an anti-abortion rally outside of a Planned Parenthood, protesting what she called "vulgar" photos of an aborted fetus.

The incident happened at a local doctor's office where a Planned Parenthood clinic had recently been established. The clinic, which operates out of the office one day a month, does not perform abortions but does offer free birth control and emergency contraception."

its still amazing to me that such narrow minded, offensively beplacarded anti-abortionists would be against birth control as it might actually help their cause, but religious fanatics who want to force everyone to follow their view are getting quite a lot of press the world over.
when will these extremist muslims and froth at the mouth catholics join forces i wonder, they could really force us all back to the good old dark ages then.......

until then all non frothing americans could do .
this to help prevent the need for abortions in the first place

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Labels: rantlets

i was 'forbidden' to access my blog for most of today as there was some kind of server error. or thats their story anyway! i started to wonder if it was because the blog police decided i wasnt being satirical enough and i was guilty of ranting/preaching too much. i can't really blame them obviously.
but as thats just the monomood i'm at at the moment, and the powers of pun have completely deserted me, i thought i should investigate some more upbeat sites from the blogosphere.... and also show that i can be as shallow, bitchy and un pc as you all so fondly remember me being before my most recent obsessions with general global fuckwittage.

so here are some of todays favourites:

from the fabulous
scarypersonals blog....

I also have a Baby New Year costume

I am Cupid, come to shoot you with my arrow of love. Sure it's strange for a grown man to tape wings to his back and run around half-naked with a toy bow and arrow. And maybe the really serious look on my face kind of contradicts the innate goofiness of this picture. And maybe it creeps you out just a little that I not only have this picture, but put it in my personal ad. But it makes me seem whimsical, right?

'R.U.Serious' who finds these ever so scary personal pics also has another website which is the this is a cult blogspot.
the second entry in "what we believe" is:
"While a prophet, R. U. Serious is also a man, and therefore fallible. As such, while his messages from (deity to be named later) are all infallible, not everything he says is infallible. At times he may or may not make pronouncements that are fallible, and that’s OK"

i for one am almost ready to convert he's hard to resist...

secondly, here's

Go Fug Yourself

Charlize Theron goes for her third Oscar nomination in as many years for a role in which she uglifies herself:
Unfortunately, The Sad Tale of the Serial Killer Christmas Bow That Just Wants Union Representation does not have very good buzz.

if you're fond of a bit of "fug•ging (v.)
The act of posting on one's blog in order to identify something excruciatingly ugly. Ex: "Hey, I am fugging Li'l Kim again for wearing only a tiny piece of cloth." you'll just love this!
... and they do do a great line in jessica simpson bashing!

thirdly, thanks once again to the ever marvelous religious policeman, who brought this to my attention.

Israeli Anti-Semitic Cartoon Contest

i quote from Alhamedi yet again "Unfortunately, I cannot enter one of my own creations, as the competition is open to Jews only. Not only is this typical Orientalist Islamophobia, it also guarantees that a Jew will win, demonstrating once more how much smarter they are than we Arabs."

if you are fond of irreverent cartoonery as i am you're sure to have a giggle. btw, here are the original
mohammed cartoons for anyone who still hasn't had the dubious pleasure.

for me personally though, this inoffensive comment from the guardian remains my favourite.

so. here's hoping you enjoy browsing them if you get a minute.
and thanks to the fuggers, i'm off to gaze at and have sweet dreams of dr clooney in a tux.
sigh.

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noone could deny that this is beautiful. its miraculous. i believe each conception is a miracle. when you think of the odds, how unlikely it is and how difficult it often is to become pregnant, we can't deny that its a miracle. then we are born, live, we grow to maturity, another miracle, or many off them, as we defy bacteria and many accidents, many mistakes, until we are old enough to make new life ourselves. miracles every day. and thats why we should cherish each life.
but life is not also so simple. people make mistakes. drugs dont work. accidents happen. evil happens. shit happens.
incest.
rape.
failure of contraception or birth control techniques.
illness, mental or physical.
poverty.
ignorance.
how anyone can believe that a foetus, no matter how much of miracle that is, can be more important than a life which helped create it and now sustains and carries it is truely beyond me. and should be beyond anyone. and if one believes in god, then HE/SHE/IT will be the judge and noone here on earth, noone mortal will be the judge. more so as by judging and acting against, one is often to blame consequently for more death and destruction of life.

i find it deeply disturbing to see the photographs of aborted babies, especially those aborted during the later stages. my reaction whenever i see those horrific images is always tempered by my sadness and wonder at what awful thing must have been happening in the womans life to have made her feel that this action was her only choice. it is not a decision that anyone i have ever met has taken lightly. it always causes heartbreak. we all know what a fetus looks like, how quick it grows, and how amazing it is. we know that unborn babies do at some stage, begin to feel pain and so the likelihood that late stage abortion would cause suffering to the unborn baby is high. that is one of the reasons why abortion after 24weeks is not legal in england unless "two doctors agree that the abortion is necessary to save the woman's life or prevent serious permanent harm to her mental or physical health, or there is a high risk that the baby would be seriously handicapped.". its an awful thing. but sometimes unfortunately there is no other choice for the people involved. most abortions happen before 12 weeks. i personally would prefer that birth control was more reliable and readily availabe to everyone. i think most people would. its not really too much to ask is it? but i would also hope that no fetus would be handicapped that no mother would become ill, there would be no rape.....

one can disagree with anothers actions and one can refuse to actively assist. but who are any of us to put a, living, breathing, human beings life worth below that of an unborn and possibly even unviable fetus. (Studies show that about 10 to 20 percent of women who know they are pregnant have a miscarriage some time before 20 weeks of pregnancy; 80 percent of these occur in the first 12 weeks.)

wierdo, violent, extremist misogynistic activists in the usa often murder doctors, and anyone who attempts to help the living, and the authorities not only back down to the pressure but seem to agree with these dangerous lunatics.
the so called "pro-life" *(who are in fact the exact opposite) work daily to force the living into sickness, psychological breakdown, poverty, suicide or death by the hands of unscrupulous backstreet abortionists.
"DFID asked IPPF to produce a report on the scale of the damage caused by unsafe abortion. Death and Denial: Unsafe Abortion and Poverty, is published today. It reveals that an estimated 19 million women will risk the consequences of an unsafe abortion this year, of whom 70,000 will die. This accounts for 13% of the 500,000 maternal deaths each year. Reducing unsafe abortions is critical to reaching the UN's Millennium Development Goal on cutting maternal mortality, said Mr Thomas."

in fact even the least extreme conclusion that could possibly happen if abortion were generally unavailable would be that loads more children would be born to parents that didnt want them and so were crap parents.
dont we have enough bad parenting already? do we really want to force that on these poor unborn babies? bad parenting can itself lead to neglect, abuse, suffering and often tragically death. and you can google that yourself.

we should all take responsibility. nothing to do with abortion is easy. and i dont believe anyone ever see's it as an easy option- it should never be and never will be. it is painful physically and psychologically, but it is a modern fact which saves real lives every day. not only the lives of women but those of children who might otherwise be born to hardship and suffering that they do not deserve.

i love my children more than life itself. and i would give my life for theirs in the blink of an eye. but i know them now and i met them and they are blessed that i have the means to raise them lovingly, healthy and happy and safe. and i have felt like that since i first conceived.
not every fetus has that. and that is a tragedy. but why force that initial tragedy to become absolute.

if we love and respect life then we have a duty to respect the living and their wishes and their health. every action has a concequence, and if we do not think about the consequences of our actions we are to blame, whatever our views. but we can only ever really know the consequences of our own individual actions. we should not dare to force our sensibilities on another when we can have no idea of their individual circumstances.

if i am ever in an accident where i am left 'brain-dead' or unable to communicate and fend for myself in anyway i would beg my loved ones to tell me they love me, hold me, and then to let me go. if i have a terminal illness and am in so much pain that i can no longer bear to live or if my living makes their lives intolerable or unliveable i would beg that someone be able to put me to sleep without fear of any personal or public blame or repercussion.

if this would send me to hell i say "go to hell!". some religions say any modern medical intervention is sinful as its interfering with gods plan. who are we to say to what extent any of what we now do medically could be seen as interfering or unnatural.
we are usually 'healthier' nowadays due to easier living conditions and better diet than our distant ancestors. they would not have been 'forced' to stay alive nearly so long, and their unborn babies would often have died before, during or soon after birth due to ill health, bad hygeine and ignorance.

if we cant act to help the living. the impoverished, the abused, the frightened the sad. if we cant accept peoples rights to control their own bodies and futures so long as that doesnt involve hurting any other living person then we should be working on ourselves. and finding a way that we can help.
"Women's low status in many poor countries makes them vulnerable to sexual coercion, abuse and exploitation, says the report (from the guardian article above). Almost 50% of sexual assaults worldwide are against girls aged 15 or less."
for anyone who is pro-life, good for you! find a good way to help the living. to support life. help to educate women to practice safe sex. to take care of themselves physically and mentally and financially. help them to live in a safe environment. work on finding a way to stop rape and incest. encourage funding in medical research for more practical, safe and effective forms of birth control. help the poor and vulnerable to get practical help with raising their kids, if they decide to keep their babies. work to empower and assist women across the globe and eventually abortion might even be unnecessary.

"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. (NIV, Matthew 7:1-2)

we are most of us guilty of judging, i judge pro-lifer activists and educated women who are too lazy to use other birth control similarly. both appear to me to rate human life very little, and i am constantly judging myself harshly and otherwise. but i know its a waste of time and that instead i should try to say what i think without doing real physical or mental harm to others. and as we strive to be better each day we should all do that no? and we none of us can 'know it all'! just do our best to try to imagine ourselves in similar circumstances and even if we cant, keep on trying to learn and to assist.

taking away funding and access for contraceptive advice and abortion is dangerous and murderous.

" Last month, South Dakota moved to ban all abortion in the state, even in cases of rape and incest. Mississippi is considering similar legislation." -quote from "Wal-Mart bows to pressure to sell morning-after pill in US"

what good can possibly come from this? birth defects, misery, depression, mental illness, abuse, neglect, violence, suicide... no life deserves that.
if you take away the alternatives, abortion, suicide, abuse, more misery will be the consequences.
we should concentrate on the people already born who are unloved and uncared for - there will be many more now in south dakota so maybe we should start there.....

and before you begin to condemn or tell them to condemn themselves, spare a thought for all the women and girls who have, in pain, sadness, desperation, sickness or fear decided that the best thing for them and their loved ones was to let their fetus go before it could feel any more pain. and give them time to pray that god will give their babies wings to find a family who can love them and raise them as any child deserves to be.
do not stand at my grave and weep

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Labels: rantlets

update for you all....

i finally managed to download some 'feist'. rose rcommended it last week, but as limewire doesn't like my new mac or mac doesn't like limewire its a bit sssllloooowwww nowadays.

it was well worth the wait. especially their version on 'inside and out', and 'mushaboom' marvelous. thanks sweetie*

i'm currently sitting covered in various 'dressing up' belly dance skirts, tutus, necklaces and assorted hair accessories as the girls have decided to make "me absolutely lovaly'*

happy listening darlings.

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i've just been checking up on issues that got my attention recently.

firstly there's the airfare tax. The Air Ticket Levy - the first tax specifically dedicated to fighting global poverty - has just been implemented at a meeting of Ministers in Paris. i placed a link to a petition urging gordon brown to give 'extra finance' to the world poor using this tax, in my hollaback. hoewever i couldn't find in the gurdian anything more recent than this which was published a day before the conference. so i guess we will have to keep praying that gordon does the right thing. its a very interesting article if you are at all interested in the worlds poverty. if you're not yet and are female or a gay man this might help......... mr yummy is 'stamp ou poverty's economic adviser, senior policy & advocacy advisor to Christian Aid UK, International Tax Justice Network, the Tobin tax Network and Jubilee USA. Sony kapoor (yummy's real name) is also a member of the New Rules for Global Finance Coalition. now if he can't get you interested in the business pages and the global economy, or at least in the currency transaction tax which he's busy advocating at the moment, i guess there's no hope for you! not that global money stuff really rocks my boat either mind you, but when someone that gorgeous talks intelligently and with humour about helping the worlds impoverished it does make me sit up a bit straighter and start flicking my hair.

now what else i was i thinking about until mr yummy distracted me??... oh yes..

more charity stuff i'm afraid and its time to bug old gordon again! "UK Treasury coffers were swollen by a massive windfall in January when the government took £800 million in debt repayments from Nigeria, with another £900 million due in March. Yet the Government has said that all the world's poorest countries need full debt cancellation, that Nigeria needs more aid not less, and that this money could save over 4 million lives if spent on poverty reduction!" so to tell Gordon -"don't take the shirt off Nigeria's back!". its a nice idea, you can send an email OR which is the bit i like, send him an old shirt with the slogan "don't take the shirt off Nigeria's back!". hee hee hee.
the world development movement who are responsible for this appeal are also running one about 'dirty aid, dirty water'.....



now... my old favourite what a load of unbiodegradable landfill! one of my first rants on this blog was about the question of disposable nappies. each week in the guardian online in the money section we are aksed a question and invited to send in our advice/views. last weeks question was "can my baby be green on a budget?" and the replies were mostly very positive. from 19 listed replies, 16 were saying you could and should. only 2 said you shouldnt even bother and 1 suggested you wait saying, " I would wait until the baby is here to buy any reusables as you will have more of an idea of how you will cope.". though even she suggested buying biodegradable disposables which if also bought in bulk can be as cheap as the unbiodegradable landfill bound rubbish.

i disagree that you should wait. you have so much to do and its all so amazing and scary having a new baby that the last thing you will be thinking about is going shopping (generally on the internet) for nappies. talk to as many people who have used them as possible. they will all tell you its nowhere near as difficult as the lazy litterbugs like to make out. these experienced green parents will be able to give advice on which systems worked best for them too. using biodegradable disposables or the pads i suggested before from

lollipop uk

.
however what did disturb me was that the replies got more positive the further down you read... meaning the first one was pathetic to the point of insanity....

" Give us a break" she says...
"Speaking as a mother of three children who spent six consecutive years changing nappies on a daily basis, I would encourage you to be environmentally friendly in any other possible way. Recycle all the empty wine bottles that you consume to help anaesthetize your nerves. Recycle all the magazines and newspapers you buy but no longer have time to read. Recycle all the tins and jars since cooking a whole meal from fresh seems a distant memory. Mothers have enough responsibility, hard work and guilt to shoulder. Let them at least, after the sixth nappy change (and it's still only lunchtime!) bag it, bin it, and take a moment to actually enjoy the baby."
Vicki Way, Bournemouth




why do people so often get off on scaremonger -ing and wingeing about how difficult it is to have a baby?
if she is a working single mum of her 3 kids, i would understand that she found it impossible to cope with the whole issue, but why encourage someone who is expecting their first child, and whose circumstanc -es she has no idea of, to use vast amounts on chemical filled, rainforest destroying landfill filling rubbish that will take hundreds of years to decompose? let alone to use jars and tins of food rather than cooking fresh! if you cant be a responsible parent why do it again and again? most people are perfectly capable of cooking with real ingredients, washing a few nappies (most of us are lucky enough to have machines nowadays you know!) and spending time enjoying the baby. after all we all like eating re-heated leftovers dont we?! and i cook in bulk and freeze. and as for guilt, if you want to help take care of your childrens future, both their nutrition and their environment will be crucial. so if you know you have done all you can to take care of that for them, you are saving yourself a lot of guilt.
its too late for vicki and i guess she doesnt feel any guilt so she's 'lucky' but why encourage anyone else to be as blase?
anyway check out the original guardian page here. and remember pampers have never been so stylish- so if you still want to keep any street cred and be chic with your chicks get some washable nappies like these above from puddlepants, or check out other brands on tree hugger mums!

last thing i'll ask you to do is forward this too anyone you know or if you live in the USA or the Middle East, are 25 or under, and could find a use for $2000, I would encourage you to write one of these essays....

Middle East entrants

1. Why are individual rights important?

2. How are non-violent campaigns for civil rights making Middle Eastern societies more open?

3. What is your "dream deferred" - a vision of your society with civil rights for all people?

USA Entrants

1. Why should Americans help civil rights reformers in the Middle East?

2. How can you as an individual support the struggle for civil rights in the Middle East?

3. What might the future look like if Americans partner effectively with Middle Eastern reformers?

ok well thats enough do gooding by me for one day! i hope you didn't get all yawney and drop off n out before we got down here! i'll stay on the lookout for a mrs yummy to post next time to keep any studs out there interested... for now, as they have eaten fresh fish and salad and are capable of peeing in the loo alone now, my guilt is assuaged, and i'm gonna go have some fun with my babies before bed*

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.... and gyms and redail buttons. after a lovely nice dream filled sleep i woke to a lovely sunny spring morning. the lets were in a lovely mood so they went to school and and i to the gym. where i worked on my frustration for a couple of hours, ending with a 30 minute fast uphill speedwalk folowed by 30mins yoga and relaxation. during which i managed to position a way to hold down the redial button of my phone down with my locker key and keep my hands and mind free, and succeeded in calling ayshen the liar/thief/bitch repeatedly the whole time! i realise this sounds insane, but having tried to call her 3 times in the morning and having my call refused each time i just thought "what the hell, i've nothing to lose and maybe some enjoyment to be gained by annoying her a little before i let it go entirely". and i had such a nice time giggling to myself as she had to repeatedly press reject or try to ignore it while it rang. most of us would be able to turn our phone off or ignore it for a while maybe, or knowing us, answer it and do the decent thing... she's way too dishonest for that kind of behaviour, but i know how she needs her phone constantly to work so i know it drove her nuts. and even if she now thinks i'm a total looney i just dont care and am using it as a way to turn around my anger and frustration! everytime i find myself thinking about the injustice i will do it again until she either gets a new number or i forget all about it.
i know revenge is not something i should really be doing and mum will probably be very disappointed, but sometimes it really is the best therapy.... at the moment anyway. the work out also helped as did herbs and a bit of sunshine. i also like any excuse to stick my tongue out while doing a bit of yoga, and maybe, just maybe she'll be a little more reluctant to take advantage, lie and cheat just because she thinks she can hide behind her accountant in the future.

btw, i was so late getting home from ikiteli and the whole shambles that i missed the film i was going to see on saturday night so she's to blame for that too. so i never got to see 'me you and everyone we know'. i do regret that as i'm pretty sure it wont come again. i'll have to hope someone gets the dvd at some point because pel says it lovely!

other films i missed due to me entirely and my last minute laziness, late sleeping by the lets, overly nice weather resulting in visits to the park or common or garden midday inertia, were transamerica (but i'm hopeful thats a big enough film for it to come soon anyway), junebug, nine lives (ditto transamerica), twelve & holding, a way of life, pretty persuasion, the death of mr lazarescu, wassup rockers, mutual appreciation, what the bleep do we know, the 'wolphin'dvd (which i'll ask if anyone has), kaena: the prophecy, serenity, why we fight, estamira, go west, , arakimentari, banlieue 13, survive style 5+ and summerstorm. way too many to stand any chance of seeing them all i know!.....


but i was luc ky enough to see quite a few. on the last day i saw 2 wonderful docs about young boys. 'the devils miner' follows the daily lives of 14yr old basilio and his brother 12yr old bernardino. they work in, and live with their mother and 6 yr old sister vanessa at the mouth of one of many silver mines on the 'mountain that eats men' cerro rico in bolivia. the mines date back to the sixteenth century and it is believed that 8 million people have died in the mines since then. basilio works long hours everyday in the terrifying mines to take care of his family, and then goes to school for half a day. he hopes to learn so that he can leave the mines and get a job and a different home for his familly in the town at the foot of the mountain. it was beautifully shot with increbible sound and completely engaging. for a better review check out this fellows blog. also you could visit the devils miner website, and for more information on child labour in the mines visit
kindernothilfe, they are working to give practical help to the children of cerro rico and their families.


'boys of baraka' was also an amazing story of twenty 'at risk' 12 yr old boys from the rough streets and seriously scary and failing middle schools of baltimore, who are given the chance to travel to kenya to an experimental boarding school. see it if you possibly can and read this interview with one of the filmmakers, heidi ewing. i can't possibly do it justice here but the interview is really interesting and will give you a better idea of the film.

happy veiwing y'all. ooh and everyone says they read this but noone comments! let me know what you think please guys and get me off my moaning by filling me in on whats interesting or happening to YOU.

to all the lovely friends of mine who have also been shafted by bad business, lale and deniz are two more i remembered this morning, well done for staying a lot calmer than me despite being owed a lot more! what was your secret? any more herbs or other anger remedies you can recommend? remembver i no longer smoke!
i miss you guys btw, lets speak soon!

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Labels: istanbulundercover, rantlets

I'd forgotten that this could happen here in turkey, but i have been fleeced once more for the first time in years!
i remember it happening years ago when i was teaching, and i believe it was one of the things that drove ozlem mad and back to blighty, among i'm sure many others.
...... i've not been paid for work i've done!
how is it possible? because i'm a bloody idiot obviously. and i don't expect people to lie to my face.
i wish i still smoked. i have this overwhelming desire to rip someones hair out, this is not healthy! i've cried, yelled and been doing relaxation techniques for the last 15 minutes, but it doesn't still this rage.

and the biggest frustration is that its not the person i massaged who is refusing to pay me, its the production dept of the tv show that he fronts. maybe i'm also being naive there though, but knowing him and having massaged him a few times over the years and having been asked to work with him on several occasions when i couldnt, i do believe that he (and his wife who i recently met too) value the work i do and would pay me what i am due.

the production bitch called me 2 weeks ago to ask how much i would charge for going to ikiteli (out near the airport) 3 times a week between 3 and 7, the days would change and they would call me at 1pm on the days they wanted me. i figured the journey would also take an hour each way, and as it would always be last minute i wouldn't be able to book any other clients just in case m.a.e. (the client) needed me that day. so i said i'd do it for 600ytl, which is really a bloody bargain to basically have a masseuse on call and for me being away from home 6 hours per day, but if you are just figuring in 3, one and half hour sessions a week may seem steep.
(its the equivalent of somewhere around £240 per week. each 1&1/2hr session usually costs 120ytl if i go to the client instead of at my home, thats £45 per session. its a normal price for massage here and in the uk. i have 2 friends here 1 aussie and 1 turk who charge the same or even more. and if you go to any of the health clubs you will usually pay between 120-150 for a hour- and thats not even in your own home or office!
anyway, they didnt go for it, which was no skin off my nose as i do prefer to be fexible really and i was going to be busy for 6 hours a day meaning per 2 hour slot i would be only making 66ytl which effectively means my time would be worth half as much!
2 days later however they called and said he really needed a massage and what did i charge per session. i said 120ytl for 1&1/2hrs, BUT i said i only allow average 1/2hr for travel, if the journey takes a long time and i have to wait i will charge per hour so it will be quite a lot more, and i also charge any taxi fare. she said tamam tamam and that they would pick me up at 3.30.
so then they call and ask me to meet them in ortakoy which costs me 5ytl. i leave at 3 telling the girls i will be back to put them to bed. the journey takes 2 hours, its in a minibus filled with 6 other people all chain smoking during the entire journey. i wait in a cold room, then give the massage which is fine and friendly with m.a.e. and his wife. when i finish, the shows production assistant who i have had all my contact with slips me 120ytl and shouts at a driver to take me home. i said no way thats a third of what the hours will have made up by the time i get home, but that i will go for 240ytl. she pretends to be shocked for a minute, but then says "haklisin" (meaning you're right), but says she hasn't got it now but they will give it to me next time.
i went reluctrantly but whatever. half way home the car broke down, i ask the driver if its serious and he shrugs and tinkers around. i finally have to get out and find a cab. that costs me another 15ytl and i dont get home till 9pm. the girls slept ages ago.

i'm frustrated with myself for being such an idiot to let them do it to me, but figure that m.a.e. will want a session again so i'll just have to talk to him then.

2 days later ayshen the bitch calls again and says can a car pick me up at 1.20. i say ok. the journey is slightly more pleasant 5 of us in a fiat but noone smoking just a loony family who will appear on the show later with the 21yr old singer girl next to me in the back singing celine dion songs at the top of her quite good but unvelievably annoying voice the whole way. fyi, i HATE celine dion doing celine dion songs...
i'm asked to wait again and during that hour i tell ayshen the bitch how much they owe me again, and remind her that todays will also have to be more as i've already been traveling and waiting for 2hours. she tries to argue for a minute but i remind her that i told them the price before and they agreed. i then said i would talk to m.a.e. if there was a problem.... she said no dont worry, he's not the one paying, the production were, and that she would sort it out.
so dumbo here goes and massages him again and doesn't say a word! idiot, i guess for that i deserve all i get!
of course on the way out everyone running for the set as they are cabout to go live, she slips me anoother 120ytl and says sorry i've got to talk to my boss as i dont have any more with me now and we need to get on set now and runs away.
nothing i could do except start screaming and i'm not quite that mad yet (or at least i wasn't then- i quite possibly am right now though!)
soi that it. she said she'd call that night. she didn't. she ignored my calls for the whole of the next day till i used a different line at home. then she said i know i'm sorry i'm having a meeting with my boss now i'll call you back. i asked to speak to him and said i didnt believe she would call me- i heard him say "send it in a car to her now". they didnt. she finally sent me a message promising "your money will be with you before the afternoon". it wasn't. when i finally tricked her with another telephone this evening she laughed and said the accountant said they wouldn't pay me anymore biut she'd ask again and call me aback. i therefore decided to perform telephone terror for a coupke of hours and kept my finger on redial. she finally said they wont pay me, but wjhen i asked her why she had lied to me all along she denied it... how can you do that????
how can you cheat someone else who has done you a days work and lie to them (in writing even- i still have the text message!) and then deny it.
it amazes me still.
i know it shouldn't but it does and always will.
time and money does mean a lot to me as i struggle to raise 2 children. sure kagan helps financially a lot but still i cant afford to work and not be paid.
in the end for 10 hours of my life wasted i made only 220ytl (22ytl per hr- £8) it may not sound that little but when you work freelance and can only usually work 2 sessions per day i need to be paid a lot more than that, and i usually am.
anyway i will continue to piss her off as much as i can without driving myself nuts. unfortunately i don't have m.a.e's number or that of his personal assistant so i can't tell them what has been happening. i'll just have to wait for him or his assistant to call me again in a few months time and then tell the story. i imagine they will be fed some lie also about how i charged even more, or was never available or some tall story like that!
and i'll never be able trust anyone assistant again- i'll double check with the clientbefore i even leave the house!

this helped.

but i still think i might have to pop a valerian or 2 for the next couple of days and practice some better breathing techniques. maybe i'm in th e wrong business after all, overly stressed massage therapist can't be that useful!

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Labels: istanbulundercover, rantlets