Jordan vs Jo Brand

Graham Norton interview with Jordan

Norton: "But does your mum, or your girlfriends, or do you ever consider that thing that like someday, Junior, Princess -- they'll turn to you, and they'll kind of go 'What the hell were you thinking that you dragged us through this circus? Why didn't you kind of keep us out of the limelight?'"

Price: "They might do, but I've been doing it since I was 17. I don't push 'em in front of the camera. They like it. Harvey's always saying 'Smile at the camera', and he's always following it about. I would never ever ever put them in that situation, but they don't know the difference."

Norton: "But they're kids, they're kids, I mean, you should kind of be making the decision for them."

(Audience claps)

I remember watching this episode at the time and being shocked by what she said. And thinking that what he said in reply was a good way of telling her to look after her damn children without offending her. It doesn't seem quite so shocking watching it again. What I noticed more this time is how clever and hilarious Jo Brand is (of course, I noticed last time too, but watching this with fresh eyes and after reading Caitlin Moran's comments about Jordan, the contrast between the two women's mental capacities seems enormous). "Hey, that's enough of the 'bleating on', thank you very much. Bleating on about children? Yeah, 'cause they're not important. I don't feed mine, they're annoying." More Jo Brands in the world, please. Also, she looks lovely and she seems to have really found her style. I remember seeing her on an episode of QI dressed in 12th century style clothes and they really suited her. She looked like she had stepped right out of a Chaucer tale. It's so nice so see people being different and looking great. Feels like an 'in your face' to the homogenization of, well, everything. Plus, according to wikipedia, she shares my birthday.

Stuff I found interesting after staring at a screen all day

During what technically counts as research for the 4,000 word report on a publishing company I'm supposed to be writing, I came across this little article on Amnesty's website. It's from their magazine in 2006 and is an article by Patrick Stewart (Sir Patrick Stewart now, I think) on his experience of domestic violence as a child and why he supports Amnesty's campaign to end violence against women. I have to say, I was a bit surprised by this - I think subconsciously assumed that famous actors that have got to the 'national treasure' stage must have had perfect lives, with no problems whatsoever, even though consciously, I know that's not true at all. Here's an extract:

"As far as the authorities are concerned there have been great advances - and there needed to be, because as a child I heard police officers in my own home saying 'well, she must have provoked him', and doctors saying 'well, Mrs Stewart, it takes two to make a fight'. Well, they had no idea."

One of the reasons I keep this blog is to have a record of articles I come across that are inspiring or interesting, and I think this one covers both. Patrick Stewart is pretty damn cool.

Also, did you know that today is International Men's Day? I didn't until about 10 o'clock this evening, having spent all day on the computer inbetween doing work and milling around on the internet and not heard anything about it. Why is this event so low profile when International Women's Day seems to be a lot better known? I guess it hasn't had as long to build up a following. Anyway, their aims sound pretty interesting:

• To promote positive male role models; not just movie stars and sportsmen but everyday, working class men who are living decent, honest lives.
• To celebrate men's positive contributions to society, community, family, marriage, child care, and to the environment.
• To focus on men's health and wellbeing; social, emotional, physical and spiritual.
• To highlight discrimination against men; in areas of social services, social attitudes and expectations, and law.
• To improve gender relations and promote gender equality.

Right, I'm off to bed, and hope I can finish off this awful report sometime tomorrow.

"It's a moral dilemma"

I know my time could perhaps be better spent not reading terrifying articles on the internet, such as this one about honour killing I found through a link from one of my friends, but stories like these remind me that I really do want to do something that makes a difference in the world, and I'm not sure that publishing, if I can even manage to get into it, could ever do that.

I finally had the time to go into the Oxfam shop in Morningside yesterday, and I realised how much I miss volunteering there. Sure, you always get the customers that are real weirdos - inevitably, charity shops tend to attract them. But generally, the vast majority of the customers are friendly, and many are interesting if you can get talking to them. There are lots of reasons that someone might be shopping in a charity shop, and it's always interesting to hear them.

I also loved coming across hidden gems, especially when I was working in the stock room going through new donations. I love coming across books with the previous owner's name written inside the cover. There could be so many stories about that person. What did this book mean to them, how have they lived their life, what have they achieved, and why have they ended up giving this book away? What did it mean to them that it doesn't mean any longer? Pretentious, I know, but I find it fascinating.

And sometimes it was boring, when there was nobody in the shop for an hour and you had nothing much to do, sometimes the people were unfriendly or just busy, but at least it was something to do, and something that was worthwhile. At the moment I sometimes feel that what I'm doing is useless, and that if I wanted to get into publishing in any way, I'd have to move to London and stay there for the rest of my life. And I don't want to live in London. I don't like it and I don't know it. I don't even know where I'll be living next year - that all depends on things I can't control.

The problem is you don't get paid for charity work. So far, I haven't even been qualified enough to get a job in a shop, so who knows what I'll end up doing next year. I feel torn between doing something vocational and doing something worthwhile, and by worthwhile I mean something that makes a difference. Nothing that's worthwhile seems to pay enough, but even for something as seemingly harmless as publishing, I'm always worried that I'm selling my soul. Publishing is for profit. I accept that and I've always known that was part of the deal. What I haven't yet got to grips with is how to reconcile that with my values without selling out.

I hate the world sometimes

This article is shocking, but well worth a read. This is an issue that does not seem to receive the attention that it should, and any talk of it is limited by restrictive gender roles:

"In Africa no man is allowed to be vulnerable," says RLP's gender officer Salome Atim. "You have to be masculine, strong. You should never break down or cry. A man must be a leader and provide for the whole family. When he fails to reach that set standard, society perceives that there is something wrong."

Men should be just as free as women to express the trauma of what they have gone through. The only time I can remember ever coming across something on this subject was in Cloud Atlas, then I just thought it was something incredibly weird and disturbing that the author had made up.

In a general internet surf, I came across this delightful post containing some creepy and downright strange vintage adverts. My favourite one is this one:

Personally, I think it's a good thing we've got more sensitive about calling people fat if the alternative is this sort of casual abuse. Plus, as the author of the original blog points out, the girl in the picture isn't chubby at all.

I guess it's all proof that the industry has always had a casual hatred of women (see #9 where the woman is being hit by her husband for not trying coffee before she buys it, #7 where the husband has locked his wife out of their room because she hasn't used the latest feminine hygiene product, and #4, asking the timeless question "Is it always illegal to kill a woman" for apparently no reason whatsoever), and, indeed, men and children.

This post is really nothing but me writing about the other blog post I found - sorry.

For readers with brains

I don't know if I said already that I'm studying an MSc in Publishing at Napier University. Well today (after a lot of confusion and delay) we had an exercise to make up our own magazine, thinking about the design, target audience, price, subject, tagline and title etc. I really liked the one our group came up with - it was called Real, and we never agreed on a tagline - my suggestion of "for women with brains" was deemed a bit too brutal. It was aimed at professional/career women in their 20s to 30s, and it was an anti women's-magazine magazine (i.e. against the mindless fashion obsession that most women's magazines focus on). It was about being happy with who you are, not about being aspirational. Somebody suggested that there was a gap in the market for younger women who want to read magazines that have substance, like Psychologies, but feel that those magazines are aimed at older women. To be honest, I would love to make this magazine a reality. We had all sorts of great ideas about what should go in it, such as having a policy of only using 'real' women who aren't airbrushed as the models, perhaps even using the readers (although we'd have to have some first). I suggested having articles on charity-shop fashion and upcycling, thrifty ways of making things unique, although that is a vested interest of mine, so of course I would suggest that. I don't know how appealing that would be to the general public. Other great suggestions were having a hard-hitting analysis of the news and current affairs, articles on new technologies, which are normally presumed to only interest men, articles aimed at addressing the culture of self-hatred that women's magazines engender, such as an article on enjoying your own company as well as relationship advice, a culture review section on the latest films, books, tv programmes and music, and an advice page with detailed response to letters. Overall, we wanted this magazine to have in-depth articles and features - we don't want it to be just another brainless fashion promotion. We thought about having adverts from affordable high-street shops like H&M, New Look and Zara. I don't know how ethical Zara is, however, and somebody suggested Primark too which I suppose might be inevitable, although I wouldn't be happy with that. If this was my magazine I think I would like to focus it on being ethical. The trouble is I don't know how many women would be interested in that. Anyway, we also thought it might be a good idea to have Lush advertise in it, as their cosmetics have such an emphasis placed on being 'real', organic, homemade, fresh and good for you. We came across a little problem with the adverts, though - would you have a policy that they couldn't be photoshopped either? Could companies deal with that? Pretty much everything is done in photoshop now, even if it's not airbrushing. That could be problematic.

I've just had the idea that you could do something similar to the thing they do in the innocent smoothies emails, where they include links to funny websites and weird videos. Pointing out websites like cakewrecks could be quite fun, and a good way of getting people to use the magazine's forums and extra video content it would have online. I'm actually amazingly excited about this magazine and quite put out that it's not going to become a reality.

Welcome to the World's Biggest Arms Fair

 Oh wait guys, it's alright, it turns out that we've all been overreacting about the arms trade, and that selling weapons actually promotes peace:

A representative from Pakistan's exhibit, Major Ali Asghar Mushtaq, says his country is here selling weapons to help bring about a more peaceful world.

"The aim of Pakistan's army is that everything manufactured and sold should not be for killing and terror activities," he says. "It should bring peace on the whole world, not wars." Does he really believe manufacturing arms en masse will help bring about peace? "It's obvious," he says. "Once one country and the other country both have weapons, no one is going to use the weapons against each other. So there will be more stability.

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/09/arms-weapons-world-defence  

The chances are, if you're over five years old you might have spotted a little flaw in that argument. Nevertheless, arms traders and those who profit from them continue to delue themselves that what they are doing is not only necessary, but good. Take a look at this video, where a journalist from Amnesty International informs an employee of RBS that they are investing in the companies that make cluster bombs.

"How do you think you get paid your benefits or whatever? Your university or your healthcare. How do you think the banks make money?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW3Y56uEADU&feature=player_embedded

Is this the only way that banks can make money? Surely that's a flawed system. If the only way our banks can make money is by investing in a trade that relies on killing off people, then why are we still supporting them? I know I may sound like an idealist, but I believe that it is possible to invest in ethical causes to generate the income necessary for the welfare state, and to support people through university (which sadly looks like it's a thing of the past, but is completely necessary for a country that wants to make any steps toward progress). Why must we rely on wars in other countries to support our banks? That means that banks and businesses in this country will always have a vested interest in promoting conflict abroad, or else their business will run out.

 (Source: http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/beautiful-quotes-project-15)

Seneca said that he who profits by a crime commits it. That means that if I put my money in a bank that invests in the arms trade, I am profiting from the arms trade, I am gaining from the deaths of others and I am complicit in that crime. I don't want that to be my only option. I want to be able have the choice to invest ethically (ethically here means 'something that does not involve hurting or killing others). I just don't know what to do about it. The whole thing is so entrenched and corrupt and so big. How can you hold a bank or a company to account when others don't agree that people's lives should come first, and that instead, they 'have a duty to their shareholders'?