Category Archives: health & happiness

what if . . .

15 Tuesday May 2007

Posted by in health & happiness, home

≈ 45 Comments

. . . we had bought the IKEA sofa cover?

As I mentioned over here, we didn’t buy it in the end because it looked too big to fit into the washing machine. And so we decided to use the same cotton throw we’d had on the old sofa, which was no problem as it looked fine and did the same job. But then we had to get that quilted waterproof mattress cover as well (what if there had never been any ‘pee wars’?) which now means that the cotton throw doesn’t tuck into the overlap where the top bit of the mattress folds over onto the bottom bit (see photo). This means that it needs ‘smoothing down’ and arranging after someone has been sitting on it. And Sunday evening was no exception after Nog had been sitting on it for ages with his laptop …
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secret? what secret?

26 Thursday Apr 2007

Posted by in books & writing, health & happiness, media, rants, video, weird

≈ 6 Comments

secret-seal.jpg

Decoding ‘The Secret’

Oprah lives by it. Millions are reading it. The latest self-help sensation claims we can change our lives by thinking. But this ‘new thought’ may just be new marketing.

Reading some of the excerpts in the Newsweek article, you’d almost think it was a spoof book if not for the millions of copies sold and the public support of celebs like Oprah, Ellen DeGeneres and Nicole Kidman. Are people really so desperately needy and pathetically gullible? The mind reels …

You’d think the last thing Americans need is more excuses for self-absorption and acquisitiveness. But our inexhaustible appetite for “affirmation” and “inspiration” and “motivation” has finally outstripped the combined efforts of Wayne Dyer, Anthony Robbins, Dr. Phil and Mitch Albom. We have actually begun importing self-help—and from Australia, of all places, that citadel of tough-minded individualism…

wtf?

24 Tuesday Apr 2007

Posted by in health & happiness, life stuff, media, politics, rants

≈ 5 Comments

toilet-paper.jpg Crow calls for limit on loo paper

In my opinion it’s ‘celebrity environmentalists’ like this who give a bad name to the whole global environmental movement that is seriously trying to make things better.

By making such an idiotic public statement and suggesting that this is a way to help us ‘save the planet’ only serves to possibly make others who have dedicated their lives to the preservation of our environment look like cranks.

Crow has also commented on her website about how she thinks paper napkins “represent the height of wastefulness”.

Which again only shows how uninformed this person is. Paper napkins are the height of wastefulness??? What fucking planet is she living on? One where she is always served with the finest of linen napkins I suppose.

The 45-year-old, who made the comments on her website, has just toured the US on a biodiesel-powered bus to raise awareness about climate change.

And no mention of the many flights she’s taken on both private and public jets to promote her music career? How, um … hypocritical?

I am very concerned about the environment and do as much as I feel I can by recycling as much as possible. But using one square of toilet paper per bathroom visit? How is that even practical? I’d just end up having to use the bidet more often and waste water.

Presumably Ms Crow neither menstruates nor ever gets the trots, and also has the ability to always pee straight down every time without ever splashing … gee, lucky her.   🙄

misery lit

17 Tuesday Apr 2007

Posted by in books & writing, culture, health & happiness, life stuff, media

≈ 8 Comments

misery.jpg Misery lit… read on

Waterstone’s now has a “Painful Lives” shelf which features the newest such examples; Borders has a “Real Lives” section.

What lies behind the speedy rise of the “misery memoir”? Is the popularity of these books a healthy sign that Britons are shaking off their stiff upper lips and finally talking out loud about painful events? Or is there an element of voyeurism, even salaciousness, in the snapping up of such memoirs?

I’m of two minds about this new ‘misery lit’ phenomenon. First of all, I do believe it can help people who have been abused to read about others who have gone through similar experiences – reading Alice Miller’s Drama of the Gifted Child when I was in my 20’s helped turn my life around at that time.

But having a section in a bookshop called “Painful Lives”??? Is it just me or is that more than somewhat cringemaking? And beyond the suggested elements of voyeurism or salaciousness involved in buying these books, what about the author’s ‘jumping on the abuse victim bandwagon and laughing all the way to the bank’ element?