Who’s Gonne Drive you Home ? Not Me!

I don’t like driving, never did, and I actually don’t understand why people enjoy it. What is the great fun of sitting in a machine that could kill someone. Why is it freedom to sit confound in a tiny space where you can barely move? to me freedom is walking.

Why is that enjoyable to drive in a narrow road behind a cyclist that you cannot overtake because you might kill him? The funny thing is that I feel safer as a pedestrian, crossing roads with limited visibility running in between cars on a dual carriage way with no zebra crossing, but when I am sitting behind the wheel of a metal monster then I am scared – why is that?.

Driving brings responsibility: you need to make sure you don’t kill anyone and no one is killing you. You need to check front and back and side mirrors that nobody is overtaking you or just trying to commit suicide – and when you drive you notice that there are a lot of suicidal people who just stroll or cycle underneath your wheels…

The real freedom is using public transportation: no responsibility at all, you just hop on and off in what stop you like, if the train or the bus breaks down you do not need to call AA and wait in the middle of the road to be rescued, you just get off the train and go to another train, cursing at transport for London that they are useless, but basically you have a little bit more time to read that magazine or finish that book, or prepare for your meeting, nothing is required of you –

now that my friends is what I call freedom.

But here is the strange thing that actually made me write this post: like most of you I got my driving licence at the age of 17, as soon as it was legally allowed, and have been driving many years, not with joy or fun but just as a necessity to get me from A to B. Then I moved to London where I completely relied on public transportation and I was free to go from bus to train whenever I felt like it. But after many years of relying on public transportation I had to drive again,

well it is just like riding a bike I thought – NOT.

It’s as if that part of my brain was surgically removed. As if I had never set foot in a driver’s seat, it could be a plane’s cockpit for all I care, completely new to me, I could not even shift the gears!!!!

What happened? isn’t my brain suppose to dig from the back drawers of my memory the driving manual? to dust it a little bit and then Ta Da!! to drive away? sadly not.

I am sitting behind the wheel, affirming every chauvinistic stereotype in the book, baffled trying to remember which gear does what and which button is the hand brake (oh wow there are automatic hand brakes now…)

So if you are stuck behind somebody who is driving at a constant 20 mph  , it is probably me, so relax, take your time, say hello, I will not drive any faster anytime soon!

Plastic Surgery – The Demise of Western Society?

You know the feeling, you already got the Chanel bag, the Cartier watch, you have been to the safari but something is missing, you just don’t know what: so, when there’s nothing else to buy let’s go under the knife!

How bored do we really need to get to decide: today I will go to the hospital from my own accord, I will get under full anaesthetic, and get somebody to cut me open. It is definitely a symptom of over affluent bored western society that we are actually doing something that could be quite dangerous. The latest PIP breast implants scandal was a warning to us all that we can’t just cut our breasts open shove silicone in them and later when we don’t want it anymore cut them again and take the silicone out – it should not have been put there in the first place!!

Before any medical surgery the Dr tells you that there are certain risks involved in going to surgery and that you should only do it if it is necessary, so why would you do an elective non medical one? I understand we are all superficial, we all wish to be young beautiful and thin but the price to pay is so high and the results are usually not worth it.

One could argue that western society does not tolerate old age, that women who want to make it in any business, especially in show business, have to be barbie dolls with large breasts and voluptuous lips. Actresses would say that in this men’s world a woman’s career is over after thirty, and if you don’t smooth those wrinkles, get the boobs lifted or the lips blown you will never get a job. But if you do these procedures you don’t look younger or more beautiful you just look like someone that shoved melons in her bra or got punched in the lips – is that sexy?

Take for example the beautiful Lara Flynn Boyle, who became famous playing the elegant Donna in Twin Peaks, then the roles started to dwindle and all of a sudden one day she appears with bloated lips that cover her whole face! From a beautiful and elegant woman she turned into a plastic doll straight from a porn movie – what a shame. How about Nicole Kidman, she used to have beautiful thin triangle lips and high cheek bones but in the last few years she has got voluptuous lips and perky Jaclyn Smith style plumped cheek bones – she doesn’t look younger or more beautiful she just looks like somebody else – I think it is creepy.

Probably one of the most serious cases was Britney Spears getting breast implants as a teenager, while her breasts were still growing, clearly Britney’s mother did not have her daughter’s best interests in mind and probably all she cared about was how much money she could make out of her daughter – the bigger the cleavage the bigger the pay. I always wondered what kind of a Doctor, who swore an oath to put the interest of the patient first, would perform such a procedure, knowing it is elective and that the breasts would continue to develop. Shouldn’t there be regulation that prohibits doctors from performing elective surgeries on under aged? (excluding deformities, reconstruction post operations, accidents, and such serious cases).

Michael Jackson was another radical case in which a black man turned white under the knife – again the doctors that performed those procedures on him should have put the interest of the patient in front of their eyes – clearly the desire to become white is somewhat crazy and perhaps instead of performing plastic surgery they should have referred him to therapy. But hey, Jackson was a consenting adult, and a very rich one might I add, and no doctor bothered to think whether it is needed or not and just performed these unnecessary procedures and made lots of money out of it. Perhaps in Michael Jackson’s case one could argue that in our society one needs to be white in order to be successful (although I would think that at least in the music industry black men and women are very prominent and successful).

So whose fault is it? Male chauvinists? Our self obsessed narcissistic society? Technology and the “selfies” – not only do we look at ourselves in the mirror all the time, we now send to the whole world pictures of ourselves because we are so great.

It is quite sad if you think about it. Here we are in the western society well off, healthy, well fed, no wars to worry about not a care in the world, yet we would always find a reason to be unhappy, if everything is perfect we would invent something to obsess about, a trip to a third world country should change our proportions and make this idea of plastic surgery seem as ludicrous as it really is.

Is Nicole Kidman more successful after those procedures? I am pretty sure Lara Flynn Boyle isn’t… so what did they actually achieve? Hoards of actresses and wealthy women that straighten their wrinkles and lift their eyes just look constantly surprised with a mouth that moved to the other side of their face – do they really feel younger and more beautiful because in reality they just look like a freak show!

So next time you think about looking younger or more beautiful just buy a cream or make up – and here’s a thought stop being so self obsessed and donate the money to a worthy charity!!!

 

Are we a tad too organic?

With organic shops popping up like mushrooms, organic home delivery fruit, veg and even bread, organic special products and most of all organic baby products. The question is: are we getting too organic??

What does it actually mean? Do we really need everything we use to be organic? If we don’t buy organic products, are we going to get cancer? Will planet earth collapse and our children won’t have fresh water anymore? Or is it just a successful marketing trick to make us the consumers feel guilty if we don’t subscribe to the latest organic fashion.

Back in the old days I used to do my weekly shopping in the supermarket, half an hour and I am done, but now every shopping trip is an expedition or a dissertation: the soups I buy from the organic shop so it has no added preservatives and all ingredients are natural, the fruit and veg are delivered from a certified organic farm somewhere in England, and I get my unhomoginised milk delivered straight from the cow MOOOO.

Am I going mad, is this really worth the effort? Will I really go to organic heaven when I die and will this really prolong my life expectancy or just prolong my shopping expedition? Here’s a thought, the UK is a cold country with very little sun, how much fruit and veg grows here? So how can it be organic? How can I get local sourced oranges when there is no sun here? Or bananas where we do not live in a tropical climate?

So if we need to fly these fruits from warmer countries anyway why do I need to go to specialist organic shops when the large supermarkets can do that just as well, and even add a fair trade stamp so I know no children were involved in my food gathering (this is the only thing that really matters!!) but of course the clever marketing machine already built in the doubt in me and when I shop in a regular supermarket I feel dirty, and when I go to these posh stylish organic shops just by shopping there I feel already healthy and conscious free.

But the worst is the baby organic products – touching a soft spot, I will not jeopardise my baby’s health if the answer to organic healthy living is at the bargain price of £2.99. What is so organic about a flattened dried fruit roll? Can’t I just give my baby the ACTUAL dried fruit? Isn’t that healthiest and properly organic? But it does not have the nice little packaging and it does not say that it is organic – because it is the actual dried fruit!!!!

Recently Which? Magazine claimed that one of the most successful organic washing products is so organic that it does not actually clean!!! Because hey in order to clean you need a bit of soap and chemicals. So I decided to be a bit more organic savvy, and to do a bit of a mix and match, and every now and again indulge in some organic marketing, other than that I am just going to order on line from the same supermarket ALL of my shopping and risk my child’s life because hey what doesn’t kill them makes them stronger!!!!