A Burden on the Parish II

'Rentawomb'

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Addendum:  I gotta say for someone who has churned out thirteen brats and has one firmly ensconced inside her Theresa Winters has quite a decent figure. Shapely legs and no sign of bingo wings.  You certainly can’t accuse her of letting herself go.  If I were you though, Theresa, love, I’d grow that fringe out because it simply doesn’t suit you and ditch this dress (Did the stylist at The Daily Mail suggest  you wear it?) – that’s most definitely not you.  Why doesn’t the Daily Mail fix Ms. Winters up with their middle class readers who’ve found it almost impossible to dispose of the blubber that was their new born baby’s gift to them?  And that many of the columnists whine about incessantly.  Funny, isn’t it?  How some ‘chav’ on the dole can work out how to get rid of her baby blubber and yet many female Daily Mail columnists still have it, firmly cleaved to their bones when their brats are off to university – Oxbridge, of course.  Anyone ever noticed how every middle class brat is Oxbridge bound?* They’re not, of course. That would be a statistical impossibility.

And here’s another business proposition: why doesn’t  The Daily Mail try and hook up Ms. Winters with a few middle class readers who can conceive but can’t carry the baby full term?  I can see it now: ‘Rentawomb.’  Now I’m off to draw up a business plan.

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*http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-1178070/8216-We-stand-skunk-8217.html

Remember the Myersons. Proof, if ever proof were needed that the Middle Classes aren’t infallible and omnipotent to a man, as the Daily Mail would have you believe.  ‘Jake Myerson had been a straight-A student destined for Oxbridge; skunk addiction had made him menacing, unmanageable and morally erratic.’ Sure you were, mate, sure you were. Oh, and another thing: I grew up in a working class family and my parents would never permit my brother or I to ‘smoke a spliff’ in their house (or anywhere else for that matter) just so they could look ‘cool’ in front of their offspring. ‘Ooh, look how liberal we are!’ They adopted a zero tolerance approach to drugs. And I knew no one in our (working class and even ‘underclass’) circle of friends who would offer their younger siblings drugs. This is exactly what Julie Myerson asserts that her son Jake did to his younger brother.  So, a question directed at my many social superiors.  Should I still emulate my betters?

And I bask in the warm glow of schadenfreude. Is that a bit mean of me? Well, damn it – I’ve earned it!

I Just Had to Look…

At The Daily Mail. The delightful Amanda Platell asserts in her column that the ideal role for any woman is ‘standing by her man’: ‘Basham argues that by using all your talents, skills, education and qualifications, you can make your husband’s career a stellar success, and your family life spectacularly happy.

We’re talking an equal professional partnership, where the woman gets the best of both worlds — enjoying using her honed professional skills to enhance her husband’s career, but at the same time having the freedom and pleasure of spending more time with her children.’

So, Ms. Platell, when are you resigning?  And yes, I know you have neither husband nor children to stand by (and how that must sting) but you are depriving a man with a family to provide for of employment.  And your colleagues will probably be glad to be rid of you too.  I imagine they tire of having to frisk you every morning for hidden cameras.  Once a traitor…*

Because you gave ‘career women’ such a good name with that nasty little stunt.

*The first article to come up when you type ‘the treacherous Amanda Platell’ into Google.

Don’t take my word for it:

A Criminal is a Criminal

 

I often derive bitter amusement from what Erwin James of The Guardian calls the hypocrisy of prison barbarism. I am also perplexed when I hear people who profess to be ‘tough on crime’ defending the right of prisoners to mete out vengeance whenever they see fit.  The advocates of media fuelled prisoner-on-prisoner ‘justice’ seem to forget that prisoners declaring themselves judge, jury and executioner have committed crimes too.  Many of them have children. Where are their children now? And what are they doing? These people don’t know because they are in prison. They committed crimes in the full knowledge that there was a strong possibility that they might be convicted and incarcerated and that, as a result of this, their children would be deprived of a parent. They themselves brought children into the world and then abandoned them. Are such people really in a position to judge the parenting skills of others? 

We are told that convicted prisoners hate nothing more than ‘child killers’, implying that there are victims who have reached an age at which it becomes acceptable to harm them. The men responsible for the killing of Rhys Jones aren’t branded ‘child killers’ although that is exactly what they are. It is worth remembering that Rhys was only a couple of years older than Shannon Matthews and yet there is no indication that they are facing reprisals in jail. One of the accused commented, ‘All this fuss over a kid.’ No. Only some kids. It’s amazing what a difference a couple of years can make.

Damned Cheek!

“The unexamined life is not worth living”

– Socrates

“The unlived life is not worth examining”

– Anonymous.

‘Life has not ravaged me because I have never lived’

– Me

‘I do think the right wing press is evil’

Michael Portillo

Amanda Platell’s ‘contribution’ to the ‘Karen Matthews’ debate can be found here.  It is referenced on this blog.  Ms. Platell proceeds to label ‘Formula 1 champion and Swiss resident Lewis Hamilton’  ‘hypocrite of the week’.

This is the same Amanda Platell who was press officer to William Hague from 1997-2001. No, it is Ms. Platell who is the hypocrite of the week. Hypocrite of the century. Those of us with a half decent memory recall how she betrayed the Tories after the general election of 2001. She kept a ‘secret video diary’ of the election campaign and then unleashed it on the world when the Tories, to whom she had pledged her loyalty, lost.  She exploited their downfall.  What motivated her then? Greed and the desire for fame would be my guess which makes her, ultimately, no better than the ‘terrifying underclass’ she condemns.  Karen Matthews, she asserts, is the ‘personification of that terrifying growing phenomenon: a feckless, amoral, workshy, benefit-dependent underclass’.  Ms. Platell is, in my humble opinion*, the personification of the lack of personal loyalty endemic in the ‘political class’.  And, if those people can’t be loyal to one another, then how can we expect them to honour their commitments to the public?

*A phrase that will probably never emanate from the keyboard of Ms. Platell.

Addendum: And, according to this blogger, every member of the ‘underclass’ is a clone of Karen Matthews.  This is what she has to say about Ms. Matthews’s neighbours: ‘I know all the neighbours ‘rallied round’ but these are exactly the same people who would also get up a lynch mob in a nanosecond, were there even a whisper of paedophilia in their area.’ (Let’s rephrase that sentence: ‘these are exactly the same people who would get up a lynch mob in a nanosecond, were there even a whisper of  ‘a member of the underclass’ in the area’.  That’s more like it.  The words ‘pot’ and ‘kettle’ spring to mind for some reason. Cool header/graphics though!)

My Response: ‘I can’t see how you could possibly know that.  And the ‘lynch mob’ mentality you refer to can be found in our mainstream media, in newspapers staffed by (mostly) middle class journalists.’

Addendum 2: :  the nihilist in me, however, finds it hard to disagree with this: ‘It’s hard for me to imagine being so brutish and de-sensitised, living each day totally in the moment, like a hyena. If that is the direction we are heading in as a species then we may as well just nuke the lot just now and leave it to the cockroaches.’  I don’t believe, however, that people who live their lives in this manner are confined to a particular social class.  If you want proof of that then look at the antics of the so-called British ‘aristocracy’.  And I derive hope from stories such as this. The sentence handed down by the judge was pretty derisory and this case received relatively little publicity in the British media.  One fact the journalists picked up on was that reading was for this girl a ‘passion’. I hope she can carry that with her into the future. I hope she succeeds in spite of the abuse that was inflicted upon her by her so-called parents. No one should be written off and many people from abusive backgrounds can and do make a success of their lives. No one is ‘doomed’ to failure and, if society believes that they are and condemns them to a state of eternal victimhood, then it is compounding the injustice inflicted upon them by those who were supposed to care for them.  And this, heartbreakingly, is the future that certain people seem to be wishing upon Shannon Matthews.  That is the last thing this little girl needs right now.  What she needs, more than anything else in the world, is for people to believe in her.

And for some reason every time I think about the Matthews children a phrase enters my head: ‘Done because we are too menny.’

In case you’re curious, my opinions on ‘mindless procreation’ and promiscuity can be found here and here.  In the meantime instead of  ‘paying people to have brats’ (not my words) we should pay people to have cats because they’re cooler and cheaper to keep and you don’t have to spend half your life looking like a beached whale!

A little late but while I was on my travels I came across this on Deborah Lipstadt’s blog.  Channel Four never had much of a mind to lose. Controversy at any price.

Yet Another Freaking Addendum: I wonder if people regard the behaviour of the bloke in this article as being ‘typical’ of the ‘educated middle classes’ aka the Übermenschen.  A rhetorical question really because we all know they wouldn’t and I’d be prepared to stake my life on that.  And they’d be right not to.  Unlike Karen Matthews he is not expected to be ‘an ambassador for his class’. Funny that.

‘Welfarism’

In response to this although it probably won’t be printed:

Most of the people I know on ‘welfare’ have very serious mental health problems. In the past such people would have been inhabiting long-stay mental health wards in traditional psychiatric hospitals. They do not exist anymore because they were closed down and the land on which they were built was sold off at rock-bottom prices to private industry. Who was responsible for this? The last Tory government. You say you have been a doctor for twenty years. Did you approve of this and, if not, did you protest? Just curious.

I am also curious about what the good doctor thinks of middle class people who abuse their children.  When I was on an eating disorders unit I heard some pretty nasty stories* of  middle class parents maltreating their children.  What causes this?  These people most certainly were not on welfare.  And, if the actions of Karen Matthews reflect the morality and ‘values’ (or lack thereof) of an entire class then is the same true of their social superiors who subject their own children to abuse? And, if not, then why not?

*And I am prepared to admit that my fellow patients’ stories may have been exaggerations or even outright fabrications.  But these people are middle class.  They wouldn’t do a thing like that, would they? They are, after all, innately superior.  But in the unlikely event that my fellow patients were lying, whining attention seekers then that must mean that all middle class brats are lying, whining attention seekers because for the concept of collective guilt to have any validity then it must be applicable to all groups of people, right?

Addendum: You may be aware that more and more working class girls are now suffering from eating disorders. Anorexia, in particular, used to be an illness confined almost exclusively to the middle classes. Still, the lower classes have always been urged to emulate their ‘betters’ and I guess that is exactly what they are doing. Good on ’em, huh?

‘Manuelgate’

I don’t get Jonathan Ross. I never have and probably never will. I am simply unable to see his appeal. Perhaps his humour is far too sophisticated for my humble tastes. I most certainly don’t believe he is worth six million pounds a year of license payers’ money. Russell Brand is more talented but given that I don’t credit Jonathan Ross with any talent at all, that’s not much of a compliment.

One person who appreciates them both and credits them with an abundance of talent is Vacuous Bimbo Extraordinaire Polly Hudson. In her column in that bastion of intellectualism The Daily Mirror she claims that those who do not appreciate the gruesome twosome’s ‘unique’ brand of humour are either too old or devoid of a sense of humour. Now, I’m guessing that Ms. Hudson is not celibate. I’m also guessing that she has at least one living grandfather. If someone telephoned her grandfather and informed him that he had ‘slept with his granddaughter’ would she find it quite so amusing? Somehow I doubt it. Perhaps one of her former boyfriends could put that sense of humour of hers to the test sometime.

Ms. Hudson goes on to claim that: ‘The most annoying thing is that the person who’ll benefit from this saga the most is the only one involved with no talent.’ Don’t knock it, sweetheart, lack of talent doesn’t appear to have hindered your progress. You have the journalistic acumen of my dead cat. If she were even remotely perspicacious, she may well have spotted the subtext which was that Ms. Baillie had dumped Brand and this was his thoroughly nasty revenge.

Ms. Hudson omits one crucial fact: Jonathan Ross (or ‘Jon’ as she calls him) is 47. He is not young in anyone’s estimation. He is also a father. Someday he may well be a grandfather. I wonder what reaction such a telephone call would provoke from him. What goes around comes around, Mr Ross. What a neat little piece of poetic justice that would be and if that day ever comes I will be convinced that there really is a God.

Addendum: Oh yeah, and FYI I couldn’t give a toss what Ms. Baillie said to The Sun because it is irrelevant. I am not subsidising her.  I am not compelled, on pain of imprisonment, to purchase that truly repellent ‘newspaper’.  I am however forced, on pain of imprisonment, to subsidise the twuly wepellent Wossy and, fwankly, that pisses me off.  Comprendez-vous?

Another Addendum: It would appear that the young woman at the heart of this saga is making the most of her fifteen minutes of fame. Unlike many I don’t have a problem with this. She didn’t initiate this unfortunate episode. When life hands you lemons, you make lemonade. As for Wossy and Bwand, expect to see them soon on a TV near you, starring in Celebrity Strictly Come In My Mouth closely followed by I’m a Celebrity, Give Me a Lethal Injection.  But they won’t, they’ll carry on as before because they’re blokes and blokes are expected to be foolish and juvenile.  They even get paid for it. None of this is their fault, it’s all down to the way they were made. The women in this affair, as always, are held to a much higher moral standard.   As they say, ‘Cherchez la femme‘.  And we do – time after time.

Can’t Stay Silent Any More

I won’t stay silent anymore. I won’t provide a link either. The people concerned know who I am.

Kate McCann is indeed a disgrace – by your standards, Mr. Hirst. Let’s analyse the situation. One woman is defending the honour of her husband (a role, I am sure you will agree, that was designed for women). And the other (Ms. McCann) is strong, articulate, successful, independent of her husband and has a (gasp!) career. Yes, I can see why you would prefer the woman who lives vicariously through her husband to the woman who has forged an independent path for herself in what remains an essentially misogynistic society. And then there is Gerry McCann: a heart surgeon from a working class background who, like his wife, became successful and overcame every barrier thrown across his path. Yes, you have very good reasons for disliking them both. They succeeded where you comprehensively failed. (As, if I am honest, did I).  No wonder you’re bitter, envious, twisted and vengeful and these feelings which, I can imagine, you cannot control, are consuming you from within. Please get some therapy, Mr. Hirst, before you do something that you and the sycophants who cleave to you may regret. Regards, A Well Wisher

Addendum: This was posted in the comments section of a blog entitled ‘Justice for Madeleine’ (I’ll stick to my policy of not providing a link but it’s not that hard to find.) and it wasn’t published. I think I may have touched a nerve there.  Someone doesn’t like criticism, that’s for sure.  The self-appointed ‘Voice of Madeleine’ is some bloke who was recently released from prison after having served twenty-five years for the manslaughter of his elderly landlady in 1979.  He is ‘on license’.*  Yeah, I know, you couldn’t make it up. All I can say is ‘consider the source.’

*And now he spends his days productively ironing sardines and emitting streams of utter goo.

Yet Another Addendum: Gotta say though that whatever I may think of the bloke referenced above, using his dog against him is TOTALLY SICK and those park keepers should be shot or at least given a slap.