Ages ago, on the blog “Boobs on the street looking at girls on bikes”

“doctor jones” commented:
“I don’t get it, why all the fuss? If some slappers want to get their goods out on display then why is that offensive to people? It’s not as though most of us haven’t seen a pair of them first hand before. Were I back in Auckland though, i’d give it a miss. Why? Well (apart from the tackiness), as much as I love women and find them to be the most beautiful creatures i’ve ever encountered, there’s just so much sex everywhere that the more I see the more I can take it or leave it. Or, the more I see, the more it becomes just another thing. If I see a woman with half her clothes off, I want it to be because the rest will soon be laying on my floor.”

Western society sure does have a thing about breasts eh?

I just received this in an email about a recent party:

“There were a few girlees there. Oddly all the average ones had men, all the super-pretty ones were single. The prettiest, who I thought would be ditzy, turned out to be really interesting. She was wearing a really nice dress and she had made it  herself!”

This  really rang a bell. Why would we expect super pretty girls to be ditzy? And, in the same vein,  why do we expect rich people to be awful? And good looking guys to be slime bags? And ugly guys to be dorks?

It is actually very wrong. I have been rich (ish) in my time and on the dole too but I was the same person. I had the same values and cared about the same things. And now that I have to cross paths with wealthy people in order to churn out About Town I can vouch that there are just as many horrible people at WINZ as there are on The Rich List.

Ditto for appearance. There is no way in the world you can say that attractive people are in any way inferior to ugly people. They aren’t meaner or dumber or more selfish. Ugly people are not superior.

It’s an old saying:

“Evil prospers when good men do nothing” and it’s really true and so with that thought in mind I think it’s time to start a campaign to get the importation of fur from China banned. We currently have a Free Trade agreement with them so theoretically this is not possible but there has to be a way around it.

I have blogged about the issue before - when I last received a video clip from Peta and got upset.

This time when I got the same clip I got even more upset because the email contained a description  of the clip’s  contents. Part of that was censored on the grounds that it was too distressing for blog readers.

This is part of what I got:

Says Peta:

There is no need to see the video, but be aware, it’s horrible. With a hidden camera, animals were filmed being skinned alive. The video is of excruciating violence. Its painful silences affect us all deeply. If we don’t protect animals from this type of brutality, we become accomplices.

If you don’t care to see the video, please sign and forward to your friends: this monstrosity has to be stopped, we have to act! When the list reaches 500 names, please forward to: PETA2@peta.org

Go to the Peta website and you will find the clip.

I forwarded the email to people and two came back to me saying they actually vomited.

Not only have scientists found out that fat is catching (you hang out with fat people and you get fat), the latest is that they have now found that, according to the British newspaper The Telegraph, “overweight women are more likely to lose their jobs, be a victim of crime and have money troubles. They are are more likely to be criminals themselves. To make matters worse, because of these stressful life events, they are driven to comfort-eating which only perpetuates the problem, increasing the probability that they will be unluckier still. It is already known that stress can lead to obesity but this research now shows that the overweight also suffer the most stress.”

There were over 41,000 people in the study, which makes it very credible. Some of the results were very weird though. For example, “obese women were more likely to face the death of a friend or relative, be sacked or made redundant or face financial troubles.”

Well how the hell would you or me being fat make our friends and rellies more likely to die (except from starvation because we ate all their pies!) - strange.

The Telegraph continues:

I thought this was completely hilarious when I saw it and everyone south of the Bombays is going to LOVE it.

Some young evil-genius called Colin has come up with a website called www.auckland—-ingcity.com (er, without the asterisks). It’s an online magazine and, says the rave:

“We will be documenting this glorified truck-stop we call home, and unearthing some talented (and some not so talented) characters, many of whom would have slipped below radar. . . Here at Auckland****ingcity, we feel objectivity is for the dull and spineless and plan on been a beacon of slander and hearsay in a sea of puff pieces. The site will only be up for six months, as we figure by then we will have exhausted everything vaguely interesting to write about in this shithole.

There will be a piss up to celebrate the launch at D.O.C on the 19th, as no doubt there will be nothing else on that night in this half-horse town.

I don’t expect anyone to listen to me but here goes anyway:

a very dear friend is experiencing a life threatening illness. They are very ill.

VERY ill.

This friend is super clever and super funny and super alternative and there is not much they have not done in their life. This includes massive amounts of partying, huge amounts of cigarettes and alcohol and druuuuugs of EVERY sort and every kind of sex you can imagine (x 100).

I saw this person today and said “Can I bring you anything? Fruit maybe?”

My darling friend started giggling from their sickbed and said “nooooo. I have never liked fruit!….And please don’t offer to bring me vegetables…”

This person has never done any exercise (except chasing sex and drugs) and has never eaten well and has partied like a demon and now….the future is looking bleak (hopefully all WILL be well though) .

I have another very dear friend who behaves in the same manner. I don’t try to curb the bad behaviour. It’s too hard. All I say is..

“ADD IN SOME GOOD STUFF TO BALANCE THE BAD STUFF = eat fruit and vegetables and exercise a bit.”

This friend doesn’t listen either and the last time I saw them they were shaking after a big night. Shivery- shaking. Couldn’t stop either. As in shaking a day later…It was scary.

So what’s the point of this lecture?

Remember that book “The Secret” that everyone was going nuts about a year ago?
The premise was you could have anything you wanted just by believing you will get it and by visualising yourself with it.
Well I got given that book for my birthday and I did my wee visualisations and rah rah, and did a dream board of my fantasy life…

and a year later…..

well, life is good, I am not moaning about anything at all BUT none of the things on my dream board have appeared in my life. Not one.

Sam, the About Town photographer before Mark Barber was headed for New York last year and he needed a good whack of money behind him and someone he knew had visualised getting a great wad and it worked, so Sam was inspired and he stuck a big sign above his desk of how much he wanted to take with him. ($12,000 I think). He left with $11,000 plus.

That was pretty cool. I don’t know if it is proof that The Secret worked though.

What this blog is about is to see if anyone else tried it and if so how did you go? PLEASE tell…..

The book bothered me a bit because it implies that we are all entitled to these Beverly Hills 90210 lives when in fact, we are entitled to jack ****!

This is something I really struggle with.

I really angst over it and feel guilty and hate myself a bit because although I passionately believe in Green values I do still love beautiful things and beautiful things take planetary resources to make and cost money to buy and while there are children starving in Africa (that’s the clichéd but still VERY REAL obvious example but actually there is so much need everywhere that it is heart breaking) how can I spend money on antiques? Or shoes? Or a stylee bowl for The Beasts to drink out of?

How can I be a good person and waste money like this?

I know it is wrong, and you know me doing it is wrong. I still do do it though.

My purchasing is never “throw away”. I passionately despise that. I buy things that I will have for ages or forever, and price is irrelevant. The ‘perfect thing’ can be super cheap or even free. The perfect Beast Bowl for example, came from a trade store in Papua New Guinea and it’s cream enamel and cost about 25c. It’s cool though cos it looks like it’s from about 1940. And last Tuesday I went going to the “Australia” premiere in Sydney (red carpet 8 metres wide and a triple A List guest list)  and I wore shoes that are about 5 years old and cost about $90, a dress that cost about $180 that I have worn heaps, and a belt I made myself.

Kate Moss rarely gives interviews but I read one the other day in a Grazia magazine (it is surprisingly good, I am going to start getting it regularly) and in the interview, drop dead gorgeous, super cool Miss Moss says all men are liars and cheating bastards (something like that – I can’t find the magazine to quote her exactly).

So where does that leave us mere mortal women? If a goddess like Kate says this, how can we expect to fare any better?

My answer, having given the matter a good  decade’s mulling over, is this:

Do not bother much about what he says. Do not listen to sweet talk or promises or nice notes or any of that stuff.

There is only one thing that counts for much with men and that is deeds. It’s what he does that matters

So don’t listen to his words, listen to his feet!

It’s what he does with them that tells you how he feels. If he wants you, he will be with you. If he loves you, he will be with you. It won’t matter if your phone has died or his phone has died or he doesn’t know where you live or any of it. If he is keen he will find you.

Women tend to overthink romantic situations (I am the worst at this) but really it’s pointless. This little factette about The Feet is all we ever need to know.

Fidelity is the ideal. At least for women. Actually it is for men too – for women. (The male ideal tends more towards her being totally faithful to him and him fooling around when he feels like it, don’t you  reckon?!)

The female ideal is that he is soooo faithful that he thinks you are the only woman on the planet.

It’s a nice ideal eh? But that’s what it is….an ideal. The nasty truth is that there about another three billion women around and a good percentage of them are younger, cuter, sexier, smarter and wittier than you and me . (God is a bloke remember!)

Factor in another nasty truth, that FOREVER is a long long time and you get – if not a recipe, then a possibility – for infidelity.

After all, human beings have never lived as long as we do now. Back when Jesus was laying the foundations of our cultural beliefs, men and women weren’t likely to live to 40. Now we expect to live to 95 and feel great till we drop dead of a nice tidy heart attack (preferably while making love).

So to hook up with someone when you are 20 or 30 or 40 even, and expect them to never ever stray is a big ask.