"It's ok to screw up your health - so long as you don't look fat..."

I’ve just read a wicked post on Definatalie’s website on how she defines “fat acceptance” and what it means to her. I just love it when other people echo your thoughts and feelings on a subject in a coherent and compelling way when you’re struggling to pin down what exactly the issues are. Nice one, Natalie!

Casual size-ism is rife in every aspect of life and I’m so deeply bored of it and trying to educate or challenge ignorant minds. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve tried to have a meaningful conversation with a smoking/drinking pal in the pub who rants about how “obesity costs the NHS millions and millions of pounds”. At this point, I usually try to explain that smoking and drinking related health problems have more of an impact on the NHS but they refuse to accept this and start moralizing about how “disgusting” or “lazy” fat people are. When people start preaching about issues from a moral standpoint – i.e. eating chocolate is “bad” or “wrong” - it’s generally a cue for me to stop trying to engage.

As Natalie so eloquently states, “…one must understand that human beings have different body shapes, racial backgrounds, medical conditions, and socio-economic circumstances (amongst other things) and fat is not just a result of eating too much or exercising too little.” She also rightly notes that “It is assumed automatically that thin = healthy, and I bet when you actually think about that assumption… it starts to unravel. Do you know thin people who don’t exercise and eat poorly? I do. But those people are not told by their doctors that they need to lose weight, because they might not have any visible markers of fatness (read: poor health). And that’s how fat is pathologized and that’s why this kind of assumption works against everyone, because even thin people aren’t getting the health care they need when their health workers are relying on fat as a measure of health.”

Surely anyone with an aeon of brain power knows all this stuff, right? That ‘thin’ does not necessarily equate to ‘health’ and that there are myriad reasons why some people are bigger than others? Why then, do people insist on clinging to offensive, judgemental and downright incorrect body fascism? A few suggestions:

- we’re utterly indoctrinated by media telling us that the desirable body shape is slim and white, and that anything falling outside of this category FAILS. Even if you’ve been suckered in to this, it by no means justifies regurgitating this nonsense by adopting hateful language

- people are insecure and feel it necessary to pass judgement on other people’s weight to make themselves feel better. Yep; loads of people do this in different ways but dissing someone based on their weight just sets off a red alert in my mind that the person saying it is a class A muppet and should be avoided at all costs

Tsk. I also want to know what the PC word is (if it even exists) for bigger people? If I was asked to describe someone who fell out of the minuscule window of size acceptability, I’d probably use the word “big”, e.g. “she’s a bigger lass, with dark hair, etc.”. How do the aforementioned folk feel about this? I see lots of “fat positive” terminology but this tends to be used by bigger people who (I’m assuming) have reclaimed the word “fat”. I’m not sure if I get to reclaim it as I’m not that big and it could be interpreted as prejudiced coming from my mush. Thoughts?

Thanks to Kathrynoh whose comments on Natalie’s post inspired the title for this post; absolutely on the money.

"Harry, I have no idea where this will lead us, but I have a definite feeling it will be a place both wonderful and strange..."

This bleak and light and rainy and weird weather we've been having of late really evokes Lynchian thoughts and feelings... I'm an enormous fan of David Lynch - Wild at Heart is one of my favourite films of all time - and a variety of factors have got me thinking about his genius recently. I watched the entire series of Twin Peaks earlier in the year and it was absolutely epic... the cinematography, performances, soundtrack, semiotics, location... it really couldn't have been more perfect. It also successfully scared the hell out of me; Lynch really creates exquisite horror.

I "happened" upon the Wikipedia entry for Twin Peaks whilst looking at prices for box-sets (horror and darkness seems an ideal wedding gift, non?) and discovered the location of the waterfalls in the opening credits: Snoqualmie Falls are located between Snoqualmie and Fall City in Washington, USA. They're absolutely gorgeous and whilst looking at the pics, I found this glorious shot:

How wonderful is this? It's so wonderfully sinister and the men in their late 19th century garb are priceless. I want it blown up and framed on my bedroom wall.

We interrupt this broadcast to say...

HOT

(Shameless sleaze on JD Samson)

Everybody loves the sunshine

Now it's Officially Summer, thoughts turn to disrobing and frying oneself in the Grand British Tradition. But, what to wear? I can't get my arse into anything I already own so I've taken to dreaming about wearing this fancy number...

How incredible is this? Only problem is that it's £72.50 - ouch!

Alternatively...

This is £59.50 but sold out in my size. Damnation!

You can find more a-mazing swimsuits here.

Enjoy the sunshine :)

University of Oxford or University of Life?

Although I got over my Woody Allen obsession around the time I discovered he'd hooked up with his adopted child, I'm still a massive fan of his classic films. In Manhattan - a glorious film - he and Diane Keaton are arguing about the nature of knowledge (does it even have a nature?) and in response to Keaton's statement that she has "... a million facts at her fingertips", Allen, in his inimitable way, states that:

"They [facts] mean nothing because nothing worth knowing is understood with the mind. Everything valuable enters through a different opening, if you'll excuse the disgusting imagery."

I'm totally on team Allen with this. Being in Oxford, it's easy to lose sight of this when surrounded with hordes of over-confident and verbose folk who read books whilst walking down the street (this never ceases to amaze me, incidentally. I don't know anywhere else in the UK - with the exception of Cambridge, perhaps - that people could get away with this without getting the shit kicked out of 'em) and quote reams of Latin on command. It's easy to feel cowed and I suspect that most people equate academic achievement and an ability to retain and regurgitate knowledge in books with "being smart". Bullshit, I say. An education and being educated are two very different things in my mini world. I've met intensely academic people who are utterly lacking in emotional intelligence and vice versa. I know who'd I'd choose to share a pint with in this situation.

My darling father is a painter and decorator by trade and one of the smartest, most politically aware and knowledgeable people I've ever met. He also happens to possess an incredible capacity for empathy and social justice. He gets up at 0545 every morning and has a "reading hour" where he sits and ploughs through political and historical tomes. He does night classes in things like "The Civil Rights Movement" and "20th Century Britain before 1979". He's a old-school socialist who knocks on the doors of the muppets who live near my parents and tries to explain why voting for the BNP is not a good thing. When I'm frequently bamboozled by some political motion or grappling with the Israel/Palestine conflict, he's the person I call who can make sense of the madness in a coherent and no-nonsense way. The man is gold.

Despite this, he constantly describes himself as "just a daft painter" and makes jokes about how he "doesn't know 'owt" which equally breaks my heart and makes me fucking furious. He has massive life experience and massive knowledge learned from books but his spelling sucks and he left school with shitty grades at 15 and he's not formally educated, doesn't have the confidence and was never encouraged to achieve therefore he considers himself "thick". He didn't read a book until he was thirty fucking years old. OK; he's much older than a lot of the Oxford kids I'm comparing him to but lots of those Oxbridge kids grow up to be cunts. Sorry.

Wow... just looked back and seen how much I've written and how much I've digressed. This really wasn't meant to be a one-woman ode to my father although it all ties in to my original sentiment(s) which I believe are worthy of a list. Yes!

1) Verbosity is fancy, esoteric bullshit. I do not consider it advantageous. It alienates people and makes them feel inferior and useless. Most people are not academics. The masses are the people most in need of education and reaching out to them in a language them can understand is a skill and a privilege.

2) "Education" means formal academic training (or lack of) and it also means things like learning about diversity, i.e. something that I consider more essential to a harmonious society than all the Shakespeare you can shake a stick at.

3) People who are not in possession of a extensive vocabulary and who get wigged out when asked a question or when put on the spot are not lesser beings!! I'd like to think that most intelligent people would agree with this in theory, but it's fucking remarkable how easily people switch off/zone out/resort to hideous stereotypes when confronted with such a person. Yes; communicating is very important but an inability to do this with ease or coherence does not mean that folk are any less capable of experiencing and feeling things or accurately identifying something as right or wrong. Not possessing the language to express thoughts, feelings and experiences accurately and clearly can be one of the most intensely frustrating and infuriating experiences and something I think a lot of "problem youth" can attribute to their aforementioned "problems".

On another matter, emotional intelligence is something I consider really valuable. I don't really wanna spend time with people who don't know how to fucking behave or treat people with courtesy and respect which is I guess one way to interpret emotional intelligence - the ability to empathise, perhaps. Maybe I'm as bad as the intellectual snobs for my inverted fascism? Historically, those things concerned with the "emotional" tend to be disregarded as unscientific, subjective and frivolous. This might be because emotion is traditionally linked to the feminine. Another reason to fly the flag for it, as far as I'm concerned...

I'm not confident I've actually achieved what I set out to with this post but it's time to chill with a film so I'm signing off now. I suspect I've been shamelessly contradictory and hypocritical but I can't really be fucked to go through it all again. I've also been boozing whilst typing so that might explain the scattered nature of this post. Trying to keep to the original intent of a post without digressing is hard! Does anyone else find this? In conclusion: University of Life for me EVERY TIME.

Enjoy the gorgeous pic of Keaton (and Allen)

This Charming Man...

Yes, yes; I know I'm about twenty years late for the Morrissey obsession, but I simply CAN'T HELP MYSELF. In the pics and films from the 80s, he looks absolutely perfect. Sigh.

*This post is also me experimenting with posting YouTube vids to my blog. Honestly, officer!

Guest blogger extraordinaire (well - not QUITE...)

Whaddup, possee! It's been a while since I've posted as I've been surreptitiously guest blogging for the last month on a popular feminist website. I don't want to say which one because it'll blow my cover, but for those who know: eek!

I've just emailed the editor to thank her for such a cool opportunity, which is exactly how I viewed it. Seriously high drama, mind; getting stuff out there into the world is not for the sensitive! I actually heard something along these lines on Radio 4 over breakfast this AM about how commenting online, and online communities more generally, are like this alternate limbo existence where there's limited potential to cause offence or hurt someone (because it's cyberspace, right?). Bag o'shite. I'd like to think I wouldn't be any more harsh online than I would be in reality, but I'm not entirely sure it's true... Anyway - wicked experience overall! I've got the hunger now...

There aren't enough lists in my life, so to save me precious time to watch 'Poor Cow' whilst the wife's out of the house (she's sick of my penchant for "bleak" films), I'm gonna summarise the latest in a list form. Mint!

Good stuff

1. The sun! After two long months of grim as fook weather, the sun emerged yesterday, on March 1. I'd love to say it's officially spring, but I'm not wildly optimistic...
2. Our new scanner. What can I say? I'm easily pleased. I'm now wasting vast swathes of time scanning every photo in my collection since the year dot.
3. xx Heard their album at my pal's house. Epic.
4. Time for reading. Obviously, this never went away, but over the last month I've just felt way too busy to make time for this absolutely critical of activities. Looking forward to getting back on the case.
5. This wicked new programme I caught the end of on Radio 4 at the weekend about working class representation in literature. More like this, please!

Bad stuff

1. My job. Still kind of sucks. I need to get the hell out of admin pronto.
2. My debt. Got a letter in the post from a debt collection agency upon returning home tonight, threatening to start legal proceedings. Fuck you!! I'm doing my damnedest to make it right.
3. Not seeing enough of my parents. They're wicked and I miss them loads.
4. Eating and drinking too much and not exercising. I'm currently on the fast-track for a heart attack... I need to give myself a kick.
5. Oxford? I have a love/hate relationship with this place. There's loads of things I really value about living here (gorgeous buildings, small enough to navigate on foot or bike, pals living really close by, easy living) but sometimes it just stifles me. Like now, for instance. The capital is calling!