:: The Wendy House ::

The Reading Chronical reports that the astrology section could not be published due to unforseen circumstances.  The Reading chronical clearly has a very highly developed sense of humour,  excellent!

The Observer,  also known as The Gaurdian, reports that:

Reading is ‘worse than Beirut’, claims Terry Waite

Former hostage Terry Waite stunned Women’s Institute members in Reading by telling them that dealing with their town’s traffic was worse than being held captive for almost five years, after being delayed on his way to speak to them.

Do I think Terry is exaggerating a bit at the detriment of our glorious town’s already overly maligned reputation? 

OH YES! 

The town traffic may indeed be a bit slower than the executive’s posh car, or Fiat Panda,  can travel.  It is, however, a reasonable, leisurely, pace for the good and even-tempered people of the town to go about their honest toil. 

Even the BBC doesn’t cite Reading’s roads as main UK traffic black spots.  No wonder those members of the Women’s Institute were stunned to hear such ill considered twaddle uttered from a professional public speaker and humanitarian. 

Outraged-Wendy-citizen-of-Reading

Just incase there is any residual doubt amongst my readers that generally women are not considered praiseworthy, or enabled to take-on prasieworthy roles beyond those condoned by patriarchal values,  the BBC reported an analysis that confirms that celebrity females are more likely to be HATED and less likely to be LOVED than celebrity males:

In a nutshell, despite years of equal opportunities, the media - and the people who watch and read - prefer the stay-at-home mother over a woman who lives her life in public, particularly one who is overtly ambitious or successful in making money. There is great satisfaction among many people in seeing them humbled

I do hope no one is terribly suprised or shocked by this result.

Excerpt from BBC article:

A woman who was seen being punched by a police officer in CCTV footage has said she is disappointed after it was confirmed he will not face charges.

Punching a female suspect (guilt undetermined) five times while the suspect is on the floor after having fallen down a flight of stairs, while colleagues watch, is legally acceptable according to the ‘Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC)’ who stated that the police officer being investigated used

“justified and proportionate force”  

Watch the BBC video footage which includes a brief explanation of legitimate subdue techniques that include punching.  I had naively believed that the Police are trained to act in concert to restrain suspects using a range of effective techniques prior to resorting to punching.  

The BBC article is at pains to state that the victim boes not think she has been racially abused.  Unsuprisingly, whether this is an act of hate against females is not raised.

Sunday Times and  online Times article ‘Sex and the Sixities’  by India Knight includes the following rousing calls to womanhood:

“the essence of modern womanhood, the one hard-to-define component that makes us all want to cheer the loudest…“  is  “…possibility that we may, at 62, perhaps look like Helen Mirren in a bikini”

“a 62-year-old woman looking hot – properly hot, not “hot for her age” or hot as in “fanciable, even though you know you shouldn’t” is a thing that simply can’t be celebrated enough.”

‘Mirren in her red bikini says more, more succinctly, about what women want and can achieve than any amount of turgid feminist preaching ever could’

Gosh, I don’t think I know people who think spending time and skill to dress for the occasion is shallow,  but India thinks that view might be held by some Times readers because she considerately quashes it “if you think that’s shallow, I would humbly posit that you understand nothing at all about real women’s hopes and ambitions.”  Trying to following India’s humble reasoning,  leads to the suspicion that if I don’t want to look like Helen Mirren in a Bikini then I may not be a real woman,  Ooops!  I think I may have fallen over.

Apparently the social construction of ‘woman’ once meant “no longer being “a girl”, which translated into bad clothes, bad hair, bad make-up and, if you were especially unfortunate, a bad figure.”  and “Worse, having reproduced meant that in the eyes of society you no longer existed as a sexual being“. It seems that India believes promoting yourself as a ’sexual being’ , sexbot, should be an aspirational goal for real women and it is equated to looking young. If you don’t look sexy you look old.  Whhhooooops!  I definitely fell over this time.

India’s view also implies that, normal, aspiring real women have no financial or legal obstacles to not looking youthful and sexy because ‘deregulated’‘ ‘minor surgical procedures’ are ‘nothing that is outside most people’s league’ .  It is all part of the groundwork for achieving ‘a triumphant assertion of easy, carefree femininity’.  While fake women should embrace the freedom and “life-changing power of hair dye“.  As a self-identified, terminally-fake, woman I  ”might know better if they [I] made an attempt at living in the real world“.  Maybe downtown Reading is actually a figment of my nasty, demented, Ivory-tower, imagination?  Deary me,  I  must get out more and take my zimmer-frame.

If ‘looking good’ is primarily equated to looking youthful and sexy I have no intention of developing an interest. or skill, in it.  When looking good is constructed to promote wrinkles and twisty silver hairs ideally with a dash,  or spring, of surrealist creativity,  then I’ll be swinging my funky-stuff with the melting clocks but not with the people who aspire to portray themselves as sexbots.

For now,  if I place myself in India’s analytical framework I find that I am:

• Preaching (turgid?) feminism.
• intelligent, a blue stocking.
• a frump because I don’t pride myself in being fashionable.
• Living in an ivory tower (in Reading). 
• not recognising the equivalence of the value of having a face-lift with the right to paid maternity leave.

At least India has clearly given me the escape route to achieve real-woman status that luckily I can choose not to aspire to,  I must

• maintain my already abundant confidence.
• promote my sexual potential. 
• develop and interest in whatever the current fashion defines as looking good.  
• have minor surgical procedures so that I can look good in a bikini. 
• Die my hair.

Unlike Alan’s outstanding advice I wont be aligning the value-set outlined in India’s article.

* the sound of me and my zimmer-frame colliding with the ground when dropping out of our Ivory tower.

According to get Reading:

“She then fled downstairs and tried to call 999, but he grabbed the phone off her and punched her twice in the face.  She began screaming so he put his arms around her neck so she couldn’t breath“  she was “in fear of her life” and “honestly believed she might die”,

This behaviour is reported as ‘out of his normal character’ and he says

“He is dreadfully upset about what has happened,”

Whether ‘in’ or ‘out’ of character he chose to stop her seeking social support (calling the police),  punch her in the face two times and throttle her when she tries to get support locally by screaming.  He could have chosen to ignore her or do a silly dance.  It was his choice and he did choose extreme violence.  Evidently he ‘lost it’ (self-control?).  Lost it appears to be part of a socially acceptable storyline to excuse violence.  Psychologists label loss of control as a psychological disorder and use it to explain the curiously termed domestic violence.  

“perpetrators of domestic violence rarely receive adequate psychological treatment, because they are viewed as criminals, rather than individuals with psychological problems.“

In the above case the offender got a suspended sentence and fined the cost of a good night out,  60 quid.  No requirement for a psychological assessment or treatment with the fine hardly touching the actual expense of the social services his behaviour drew upon (e.g. Police, NHS). 

How safe do I feel in a society where the legal system thinks I can be justifiably (for 60 quid) be repeatedly punched in the face and throttled when I try to call for assistance if the agressor claims its not habitual and they regret it?    

OOOOPS!  the BBC reports that the UK govenment has mislaid the indentity information of people who claim child-support benefit.  Everyone with a child under 16 is entitled to this benefit. 

Alistair Darling does have a fabulous name,  at school in the 1970’s my teachers referred to boy-pupils by their family name,  can you imagine referring to him as Darling in class.  Character building all around I’d say!

Actually,  this Telegraph article is used to present Professor Anya’s  personal opinion that  girls are genetically predisposed to liking pink in the context of reporting a comparative study, mislabelled as an experiment, comparing young adult male and female reported colour preferences.  The study discovered,  and hold onto your hats because you’ll be shocked by this,  that girls preferred pinker colours.    As reported, this study reveals nothing about the genetic vs socio-cultural determinants of this disposition.  The news article does not detail the implications of the research for any practical application,  there is no clear value proposition. 

What can we conclude?

People that want to play to the visual experiences of young adult girls should consider wearing more pink.  Use this knowledge wisely.

The MG Rover group (Rover) crawls to it’s death in April 2005. It represented the remnants of the UK’s home grown mass production car industry.

The short story is that it was gradually asset stripped by BMW and the ‘Phoenix 4′ for over a decade with questions about management competency and organisational culture.

The Long(bridge) story reads more like a Greek (Hollywood?) Epic. It moves from the UK car industry as a cottage industry through mergers to Nationalization and beyond! It covers political turmoil with the demise of Unions, evolution of ‘New Labour’ and differing government involvements in this industry. The SWP (extreme) socialists blame the ineffectiveness of Unions and Labour government for Rovers demise. There are international players (Honda) and big money wheeling and dealing buy-outs (BMW), sell-outs (BMW) and government inquiry’s. Throw in somequestionable accounting practices and an infamous controversial home-grown team “Phoenix 4” who bought the company for £10 from BMW in 2000. Add an impending pension scandal for the estimated 6,000 employees at the company, impacting even more dealerships. The impending pension scandal ensures the story will stay live for years to come. Where-as the Warkwickshire county cricket team will probably have to return their cars gained from a sponsorship deal in the near future.

The BBC reports: “An estimated 15,000-20,000 jobs in the area are supported by business from Longbridge.” Apparently there is little left of value. Even the name “Rover” was licensed from the German company BMW.

There are lots of potential hero’s and bad guys, often the same guys… …while the Local Longbridge employees are undoubtedly the worst impacted victims.

Jeremy Clarkson, provides his epitaph, uniquely in all the summaries, based on the quality of the recently produced cars.

Wendy

Today is International Dawn Chorus Day.

The Gaurdian newspaper reported that songbirds imitate mobile phone ring-tone back in 2003. Excerpt:

“Starlings have begun to imitate the ring tones of mobile phones. Researchers at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), and in Denmark, had noticed over the past year that the birds are adapting their mating calls.

Starlings, well known as mimics, are members of the same family as the mynah bird. But until now they have limited their mimicry to that of other bird songs or, in some cases, shepherds whistling at sheep dogs. “The birds incorporate the sounds because it is believed that the richer the sound, the variety of tones it has, makes the male more attractive to the female,” says a spokesperson for the RSPB. ”

The phenomena was reported in Australia in 2001: Wierd news

Nature imitates technology, technology then imitates nature. As ringtone providers include Birdsongs in their repetoire.

Wendy loves-a-story-that-spirals

Charlotte, NC #2

In American cities they have brightly coloured plastic or metal newspaper dispensers. These dispensers can hold anything from free ‘events’ and ‘housing’ papers through to expensive National or international newspapers.

The photograph below shows a row of them on South Tyron St. in downtown Charlotte.