Posts Tagged ‘ ‘It’s ’

Miracle Pregnancy – It’s Your Turn to Get Pregnant – Reverse Infertility and Have Healthy Children

February 16, 2011
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Have you heard of names such as: Lauren Ross, Daphne Silvertsen, Christal Graham, Beth Carrigan, Kelly Sauer, Nicole Terry, Alice Berger, Irene Williams, Wendy Simpson, Mary DeCherney, Karen Devitt, Susan Wilcox, Vicky Gregoire, Miriam Little, Mary Siordia, Irene Caldwell, Imani Lombardi, Holly Preston, Barbara Emile, Jody Gonzales, and a host of others?

These are just a few women who were able to overcome all odds to achieve miracle pregnancy within 2 – 4 months without spending thousands of dollars on expensive and complicated procedures like assisted reproduction, medications, inseminations, and IVF or IUI to get pregnant. Now, it is your turn to become pregnant, reverse infertility and have healthy children no matter what your doctors have made you to believe.

These women took certain risks and broke new grounds. They decided to embrace success and took to an ancient and holistic approach to get pregnant. If they have succeeded, you too can succeed.

It is your turn to get pregnant, reverse infertility and have healthy children. You will experience miracle pregnancy through the demonstration of the ability to do what your friends and family members say is impossible. When most women give up, you must press on to show your uncommon ability, faith and belief. You must go ahead to disobey your doctors and turn their impossibility into possibility. You can get pregnant naturally and easily.

You must have seen the statistics that the U.S. have a high infertility rate of 18 percent! Do not let this frighten you. I want to assure you that within two months, you should be able to get pregnant, reverse infertility and have healthy babies as long as you are ready to delete the word impossible from your memory.

I know your doctor must have done some complicated test on you by just placing emphasis on the sperm count and quality of your partner, eggs and your reproductive organs and passed a verdict of “you cannot conceive.” Most of these tests do not consider the overall health of the woman. Jump up now and shout for joy, because in two months time, you will become pregnant!

I have good news for you today. There is a secret ancient and holistic way to reverse infertility. This approach takes into account everything about you and your partner, your diet, how much physical activity you engage in everyday, how much rest you get and other health issues.

Truth is, if you want to achieve miracle pregnancy as quickly as you want, you will need to correct some deficiencies in your kidney, liver, blood stagnation and the accumulation of phlegm or damp heat in your body. This is something all the doctors you have visited will not tell you because they were not trained to know this.

If your desire is to be counted among women with healthy children, I need to tell you that it can be achieved through doggedness in pursuing your goal to reverse infertility without giving up.

 

 

As a first step, to reverse infertility and achieve miracle pregnancy within two months, you must click here now to get started. Do not delay! Start early to correct the imbalance in your body system that is preventing you from getting pregnant. It is your turn to get pregnant!

If you have wasted your time and hard earned money on all the hype, claims and “quick fix cures” that did not deliver on its promises and you are ready to do it the right way, then this is the honest and effective infertility cure you have been searching for!


Article from articlesbase.com

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Atkins Diet Plan – It’s Really Not Easy

January 23, 2011
By
Atkins Diet Plan - It's Really Not EasyEnlarge Image

You can easily be bored with the limited carb choices but it does get better as you reach the last two stages. Your doctor can explain the possible health risk associated with the Atkins diet. The Atkins diet plan is not easy but if you stay with it the results will amaze you. An internet search for Atkins diet will yield hundreds of results.

The Atkins diet tries to trick your body into burning fat for energy rather than carbohydrates. If the Reactions are really troublesome you should seek treatment. You can find ways to ease these reactions on the internet and in books about low carb diets.

You might get dizzy, have cramps, and other physical effects because of the changes in your diet. It is possible to ease the dizziness and cramps. There are things that can be done to ease the discomfort of leg cramps and other symptoms. Remember minerals like Potassium, are flushed out of your system quickly.

Take a 90 milligram supplement instead of a banana to replace potassium. Relief from symptoms should be felt in about an hour. While on Atkins follow these suggestions for staying healthy. Listed below are some suggestions that might help you get through the time it takes your body to adjust to the diet.

If your weight loss slows or stops before you are close to goal weight, check how many calories you are taking in. Water is also necessary to your kidneys functioning properly. Drinking enough water to equal half your body weight will keep you out of the kitchen and in another room all day. Not drinking enough water can lead to buildup of ketones which can cause serious health problems.

Weighing yourself more than once a week will only frustrate yourself. If you don¡¯t see a drop in inches and pounds, check for hidden carbs and sugars. You will feel your best when you eat the right amount of carbs. Make sure the carbs you do eat are chock full of nutrients. Sugar is off limits on the Atkins diet. Regular exercise improves your general health.

Beware of promises that you will lose huge amounts of weight without exercise. Convert food into energy faster with exercise. Strive for a balance in exercise if you aren’t a little tired after a session, you probably aren’t doing enough and if you are too tired to move you probably did too much.

The doctor can tell if your post exercise aches and pains are normal or not. To gain maximum benefit from your exercise and dieting, slowly build your routine. Don’t take more than the recommended doses of any supplement without your doctor’s consent. If you are tempted to cheat, checking your journal will remind you what happened the last time you did that.

Some people overeat and some eat barely anything when under stress, recording what you eat will explain weight loss or gain. If you go off program, don¡¯t beat yourself up, just get back on track as soon as possible. Anything significant should be entered because good stuff affects you too.

Knowing you have to list everything is important especially for diabetics so they can see how foods affect them whether it’s negative or positive. Recording your blood sugar levels in the journal is an obvious fact. Doing this will teach you to recognize patterns such as when your levels are highest or lowest.

You and your doctor can use the journal to recognize what you have been doing right and to build on it. Try to choose foods made from whole grain flour. If your weight loss stalls or slows significantly, try eliminating all caffeine. Having short term goals will keep you motivated.

The amount you lose in a week or a month is not as important as a steady weight loss. Losing more weight than that is potentially dangerous. Yo-yo dieting , losing weight and gaining it back to get out of starvations mode, than losing, etc. may be as dangerous as being overweight.

With the Atkins diet, you have the maintenance phase to use for the rest of your life, so you don’t have to return to the old way. Only use diets that suggest a slow to moderate weight loss and possibly some nutrient supplements. So the element of a safe workable diet are balanced meals, exercise and supplements.

Not all supplements can do what they claim, so do your homework before you buy. All natural ingredients have one advantage. Supplements and medications often don’t mix well, it might be a good idea to take them separately a few hours apart. You won’t need supplements if your diet is well balanced.

‘It’s fat, fat and more fat’

January 21, 2011
By

Sharon Krum on the 19-stone American man who is taking four fast-food chains to court for making him obese.

If Caesar Barber dreamed of winning fame, he probably didn’t think it would be due to his obesity. Doubtless he had something more heroic in mind. But, since the 120kg (19-stone), 56-year-old maintenance worker from the Bronx, in New York, filed a lawsuit against McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Burger King last month – seeking damages for selling him food that made him obese – Barber’s 15 minutes are proving as painful as the two heart attacks he has had.

“Does anyone really believe that Mr Barber was too dumb to know that gorging himself on saturated fat was less healthy than ordering, say, a fruit dish or a chef salad?” snapped Steve Dasbach, executive director of the Libertarian Party, when Barber outed himself as a junk-food junkie.

Actually, Barber contends he was in the dark about the nutritional content, or lack thereof, of the fast food he was eating up to five times a week from the 50s onwards. Incredibly, he didn’t even stop gobbling burgers and salty fries after his first heart attack in 1996.

In his lawsuit – the first of its kind in the US – he contends that deceptive advertising misled him about the nutritional value of the food, until a doctor pointed it out.

“Those people in the advertisements don’t tell you what’s in the food,” he said. “It’s all fat, fat and more fat. Now I’m obese. The fast-food industry has wrecked my life. They said 100% beef. I thought that meant it was good for you.”

For days after Barber’s public lament, attacks on his character and IQ became a sport in the media. Barber wasn’t clueless, columnists and radio hosts shrieked, just out to make a quick buck by failing to take responsibility for his diet. Americans love fast food – a staggering 75 million people eat it every day – but who, they asked, doesn’t know that too much will turn you into a Teletubby?

But Barber, a diabetic with high blood pressure, is convinced the chains hooked and then hospitalised him. “Mr Barber honestly didn’t know what the dangers were when he got hooked on fast food in the 50s,” says his lawyer, Samuel Hirsch.

“The fast-food chains made no effort then, and little today, to inform consumers about the dangerously high fat, cholesterol or salt content of their food. Nobody is saying that Mr Barber doesn’t accept some responsibility for his situation, but it is comparative.”

Hirsch says Barber was shocked by the ferocity of the attacks against him, (he is in hiding) but he himself was not. “Unlike the tobacco companies, who are viewed as malevolent groups who lied to Congress, people love the fast-food chains. McDonald’s is an icon in America. We are attacking a beloved icon.”

He is also at pains to point out that Barber’s goal is not money – Hirsch has told him that the case is a legal minefield and he may only get medical costs – but to get the chains to inform customers that their food is guilty of expanding their waistlines.

“The public have not been educated to the dangers of fast food, they think it’s economical to have it. We want the chains to disclose the calorie, fat and sodium content of all their products. We want warning labels on certain foods for people with existing health problems.”

In the US, pre-packaged foods in supermarkets must carry nutrition labelling. Restaurant food need not, although a number of chains, including those Barber is suing, agreed to post or provide nutritional information after pressure from consumer groups. But many, says Hirsch, flout the agreement or display information in dark corners. “Or they produce them in difficult to understand language. You need to be a rocket scientist to read those charts.”

Hirsch’s legal strategy will be similar to that used by anti-tobacco lawyers in the 90s, who argued successfully that cigarette makers willfully withheld information from consumers that smoking posed a serious health risk.

Specifically, Barber’s lawsuit says that fast-food restaurants negligently and recklessly engage in the sale of food that is high in fat, salt, sugar and cholesterol content, which studies show cause obesity, diabetes, coronary heart disease, high bloodpressure, strokes, raised cholesterol intake and related cancers.

But unlike cigarettes, where levels of nicotine were found to be spiked by tobacco companies to hook smokers, Steven Anderson, president of the Restaurant Owners’ Association and no fan of Barber’s lawsuit, argues that chains do not spike their food to keep you coming back. You do that, he says, of your own free will.

“To say his obesity is just due to the fast-food chains is twisted logic. Being overweight is a function of genetics, exercise and diet. Mr Barber should have exercised common sense. What’s next, putting warning labels on the sofa and the remote control so that we don’t watch too much TV?”

But not everyone in the US thinks Barber’s case is a joke. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine rushed to applaud the lawsuit. The committee’s research coordinator, Brie Turner-McGrivey, says, whether Barber wins or loses, the hype surrounding the case has been a windfall for doctors, spotlighting America’s obesity epidemic and the role fast food plays in it.

Today, one in four American adults is obese, almost double the rate in 1980. According to the American Obesity Association, obesity is characterised as a body mass index of 30 or higher. The association claims that the condition, which is often a precursor to diabetes and cardiac failure, causes about 300,000 deaths a year, costing $117m (£76m) a year in healthcare costs. “What this case highlights is that even if you think choosing fish in a fast-food restaurant is a healthy choice, it isn’t,” says Turner-McGrivey. “At McDonald’s, a ‘fillet of fish’ contains 26g of fat. (The daily requirement is 65g). I think women would be surprised to learn that some of the supersize hamburgers contain the equivalent of an entire day of their calories.”

While Turner-McGrivey admits fast food isn’t addictive in the same way as cigarettes, she claims the high levels of sodium, sugar and fat make it so palatable consumers get hooked. Which is why, she says, Barber is right to demand labelling. “Labelling would limit people ordering larger servings. Once they saw how much fat was present, they would order the small fries instead of the supersize. That’s a good start. I think this lawsuit is going to create a conversation about obesity and the link to fast food that is long overdue. The debate will also probe the way the chains market heavily to children, because getting them young sets up a lifetime of bad eating habits.”

Speaking of children, Hirsch is to file another lawsuit in the coming months in which three obese children sue the fast-food chains for ruining their health.”The argument that people are responsible for their actions is a bit harder to make with children,” says Hirsch. “Yes, parents are responsible for them, but children are exploited through aggressive advertising and toy promotions. At a certain age, they start to go by themselves. These restaurants market themselves as benevolent friends of the kids, when the bottom line is really profit.”

But Steven Anderson of the National Restaurant Association says public awareness about balanced eating – due to government schemes and a culture obsessed with being thin – has never been higher, and anyone suggesting that McDonald’s has duped them into having a heart attack has to be joking.

“For Mr Barber to blame his health problems solely on the restaurant industry is really a stretch. Nobody held a gun to his head, and fast-food chains do provide alternatives like veggie burgers and salads.”

It’s Her Wedding but I’ll Cry If I Want To

January 11, 2011
By

By Leslie Milk

Published by Rodale

February 2005, $15.95US/$22.95CAN; 1-59486-001-7

When you think “mother of the bride,” maybe you picture a proud, serene woman, pulling a neatly folded hanky out of her purse to discreetly blot proud tears from her welling eyes. Well, perhaps this is what you see at the final stages of Operation Wedding, but underneath that tasteful-but-not-too-flashy-and-certainly-not-white dress is a guerrilla deal maker/politico who’s been to the edge of madness and has the battle scars to prove it.

Leslie Milk has been in those shoes (and that dress), and now she’s written the ultimate survival guide for other mothers of the bride. Packed with hilarious stories of weddings gone awry and rescued from the point of disaster by quick-thinking moms, this book will prepare you for all the emotional, logistical, and financial challenges of being the second most important woman of the big day.

Author

Leslie Milk is the lifestyle editor of the Washingtonian, a monthly magazine covering the nation’s capital. She has written about subjects ranging from caring for aging parents to Washington’s most powerful women and from climbing Mount Everest to losing weight.

In the interests of full disclosure, Milk admits that she wrote about someone else’s climb and, judging by the results, she probably should have written about someone else’s weight loss.

Previously, Milk was a columnist for the Washington Post and the Journal newspapers. She has also written for Glamour, Shape, and Woman’s Day magazines. She has appeared on Nightline, ABC’s Turning Point, Entertainment Tonight, CNN, and BBC News.

Reviews

“Leslie Milk knows that every mother of the bride is like a four-star general. She plans the strategy, defends the deficit, dispatches the troops, and negotiates the peace. For any mother of the bride who wants to declare victory on the day of the wedding, this book is MUST reading.”

–Kitty Kelley, New York Times best-selling author of The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty

Excerpt

The following is an excerpt from the book It’s Her Wedding but I’ll Cry If I Want To: A Survival Guide for the Mother of the Bride

By Leslie Milk

Published by Rodale; February 2005, $15.95US/$22.95CAN; 1-59486-001-7

Copyright © 2005 Leslie Milk

For Love or Money

And they lived happily ever after . . .” That’s the ending you envision for your daughter and the love of her life. The last thing you want is for the newlyweds to return from their honeymoon to a stack of unpaid wedding bills. Many couples spend the first year or two of their marriages paying down their wedding debts.

But what about you? You want to live happily ever after, too. It is easy to get so consumed with wedding planning that you lose sight of the mounting expenses. However, before you’ve brushed the birdseed — or whatever politically and ecologically correct wedding toss showered the bride and groom — out of your hair, a mountain of bills may be landing on your doorstep.

The average wedding in the United States costs $22,000. Since that average includes the couples who couple-up at city hall and head off for lunch with a few friends, there is a good chance that the cost of your daughter’s wedding will be way above the average.

Why do weddings cost so much? A friend of mine attributes it to the “Ralph Laurenization of weddings.” Middle-class brides now expect nuptials with a lavishness once confined to the aristocracy.

Benjamin was stunned by the modest budget that I prepared. “That’s more than we spent on our first two houses,” he said.

“When your daughter gets married, you’ve got to figure the wedding will cost the same thing as a year in college,” a friend told Benjamin. “When your son gets married, it’s only a semester.”

Or, as another father of the bride put it, “It’s like buying an expensive sports car, driving it for five hours, then throwing it over a cliff.”

The wedding day has grown into a wedding weekend with multiple events to be arranged and hosted. Rehearsal dinners have been “upgraded” to include all of the out-of-town guests as well as the wedding party. One Florida bride had four parties leading up to her wedding in Jacksonville — including a Mediterranean rehearsal dinner for 117, a Friday night dinner for 70, and a Middle Eastern buffet luncheon for 375. The morning after the wedding, she had a Sunday brunch.

“Stay and play” weddings, whether far afield or close to home, reflect another trend. Now that more couples live together before the wedding, the novelty of the wedding night is less compelling. Rather than “alone at last,” it’s “alone again.” So it is not surprising that couples see their wedding weekends as a chance to spend time with families and friends rather than going off by themselves.

One Minnesota couple got married on Maui and took both sets of parents along on their island-hopping honeymoon. The bride filled every day with sightseeing excursions. By the third day, the father of the bride was begging for mercy and hoping the newlyweds would want some alone time so that he could take a nap.

The bride and groom may welcome multiple wedding shindigs and activities as more opportunities to interact with every one of their guests. However, each additional event can approach the cost of the wedding itself in some cases, other friends or relatives host the “warm-up” parties. The uncle of a New York groom ferried 185 guests to a party on Ellis Island. They were served a 10-course dinner while a band played.

With a warm-up like that, who needs a wedding! Imagine the pressure that mother of the bride must have felt!

Even without such posh preliminaries, there is pressure to ratchet up in every area — more courses, more flowers, hand calligraphy on the invitations.

Caterers even claim that people eat more at weddings. This makes no sense. Everyone is wearing fancy, formfitting clothes that discourage overeating. The guests don’t get to order what they like. The wedding feast is constantly interrupted by dancing and other rituals. And, if you dare to leave the table, a waiter whisks your half-eaten plate of food away.

What caterers really mean is that brides are conned into ordering more food at weddings — much of which is wasted.

Weddings also inspire a lot of nonwedding expenditures. It isn’t fair to include them in the wedding budget, but you’re bound to incur some additional expenses like the cost of your personal trainer for six months, the price of a new tuxedo for the father of the bride, or your dancing lessons.

That’s fine, if you can afford it. But now that brides are marrying later in life, parents of brides are more likely to be nearing retirement age when their daughters say “I do.” Do you really want to keep working well into your 70s to pay for your daughter’s dream wedding?

There are alternatives. If they are willing and able, you can split the cost of the wedding with the groom’s parents and the couple themselves. You can offer the couple a hefty sum to elope. It’s bound to be cheaper than an actual wedding. Or you can work with the bride and groom to create a budget for a wedding you can afford.

There is an assumption that, when it comes to weddings, common sense flies out the window on wings of love. Many mothers of brides seem to believe that weddings always operate like the Pentagon — cost overruns are inevitable.

It ain’t necessarily so! You can make a wedding budget and stick to it, as long as you estimate costs realistically and operate on a zero-tolerance rule. That means “just say no.” Draw a line in the sand. Pick the tough cliché of your choice and stick to it. Once you exceed your agreed-upon budget in any way, it is easier to justify the next splurge and the next splurge and the expense after that.

Start with your mother-daughter prenup. That agreement spells out who is going to pay the bills and what the grand total will be. Then you and your daughter should use the budget sheets in a bridal magazine or on a wedding Web site to create a preliminary wedding budget. These worksheets help you cover all of the bases. But don’t trust their estimates on the cost of photography, flowers, and other services. Unless you live in Timbuktu, you’ll have to pay more for everything associated with the wedding.

For example, theknot.com estimated that Meredith would need $1,658.18 for photography. In the Washington, D.C., area, many photographers charge triple that amount. Some of the well-known shooters won’t take off their lens caps for less than $7,000 to $10,000.

The wedding industry breaks down the typical wedding budget this way:

Reception — 50 percent

That includes the site, catering, bar and beverages, wedding cake, parking, and transportation.

Music — 10 percent
Flowers — 10 percent
Wedding attire — 10 percent

That includes only clothing for the bride and groom.

Photography — 10 percent
Stationery — 4 percent

That includes invitations, announcements, thank-you notes, postage, programs, and placecards.

Extras — 6 percent (at least)

That includes attendants’ gifts, favors, rehearsal dinner, wedding rings, marriage license, officiant fees, and church or synagogue fees.

These allocations may not mesh with the bride’s priorities. What does she care most about? Food? Music? A place big enough to accommodate all of the Tri-Delts from University of Wisconsin in Oshkosh?

My daughter put the setting at the top of her list. She wanted to be married in a garden. We paid more than we planned to rent the atrium at the botanical gardens operated by the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority. The gardens were beautiful and the atrium has trees and flowers growing inside, so weather would not be a problem. We also saved on flowers because there was no need to decorate the room. The park authority had planned the facility for weddings. It was equipped with tables, chairs, and a catering kitchen, which saved us the cost of rentals.

We also splurged on photography and food. That meant economizing on reception music – hiring a deejay instead of a band. We had a simple wedding cake, baked by the caterer. The invitations were printed, not engraved, and the envelopes were addressed by machine. I would have shot the first person who dared to mention chair covers.

“Spend money on memories,” one wise wedding planner advises her clients. “A fantastic photographer is your best investment.” After that, she stresses the site and the music. Food is less important, she believes. “Most people come to a wedding to party. They are drinking. As long as the food is good and beautifully presented, it doesn’t have to cost a lot.”

Once you get estimates for the things that matter most, plug those numbers into the budget and see how much money you have to spend on everything else. You’ll soon find yourself over budget — on paper, at least. That’s when you and the bride have to start paring down the low-priority items and eliminating nonessentials.

Your daughter may say that everything is essential. But if you show that you are serious about sticking to a budget, the two of you will find ways to cut.

For example, favors aren’t essential. Ask the bride to think of the favors she’s collected at the weddings she’s attended. Weren’t they all impractical, insipid, or fattening?

Food is essential. Regardless of the hour of the day or night, wedding guests expect to be fed. If you are serving anything stronger than lemonade, you want to feed them. Otherwise they begin to teeter, bellow, and commit unsocial acts. These can result in damage to their reputations and, more important from your perspective, damage to property for which you can and will be held responsible.

However, you are not required to serve food in such quantities that guests have trouble getting up from the table or to offer a midnight snack when the final dinner course was served after 10:00 p.m. This is a wedding, not a cruise!

Chairs are a necessity. Chair covers with bows that match the bridal color scheme are not.

Invitations are a necessity. Engraved invitations in double envelopes and protective tissue are not.

The groom’s family is a necessity, even if they are not contributing one dime toward the cost of the wedding. The groom’s father’s business associates are not.

Reprinted from: It’s Her Wedding but I’ll Cry If I Want To By Leslie Milk © 2005 Leslie Milk. Permission granted by Rodale, Inc., Emmaus, PA 18098. Available wherever books are sold or directly from the publisher by calling (800) 848-4735 or visit their website at www.rodalestore.com.

With Love Comes Hate… Or Maybe It’s The Other Way Around – Part 2

January 3, 2011
By

“Oh sweet mercy, who is that!” said Kai, my dark haired, curvy, best friend. The rest of the table, including me, whip their heads around for a look. Now as the of those smitten girls began to fawn over the “hunk of man” Kai called out that had entered into my beloved school cafe, I glared. Staring down the jerk who pulled my precious hair and left me alone in some random apartment.

I pushed up from the table and all the girls thought I was about to make a move, more like a scene. “You!” I shouted, pointing my newly manicured finger at him. The entire cafeteria turned and looked at me, but I didn’t care. I watched as a slick smile parted those enticing pouty lips. Damn him! I marched through the crowded tables and straight up to this undeniably cute guy, who pisses me off and say,

“Who the hell do you think you are?” The lunchroom gasped, well the people in it did.

“Joby King.” he said, cooly brushing his hand through his honey locks.

“Oh, so now you have a name! Well… well, I don’t care. Willa Preston doesn’t take kindly to being left in strange rooms. Nor does she like being ignored.”

“But it seems she likes the sound of her own voice, though it’s killing my ears.” Stifled laughs rumbled around the cafe and I shut my mouth from the shock, feeling like I had just been slapped. People say I have a lovely, sweet, kind voice, so I was down right offended at his statement.

I could feel red burning at my pale cheeks. I did not get embarrassed. I was too popular, too cool to be embarrassed. “Screw you.” I said turning away. I didn’t have time to argue with a clearly dimwitted jerk-face, butt-wipe.

“You already did that, and frankly speaking, I’ve had better.” Now he said this loud enough for everyone to hear. I pause mid stride, turning to face his triumphant smile. Better? No one’s better than the best, and I, Willa Ray Preston am the best.

I smiled, coyly, flipping my brown hair, crossing my arms. I was so going to get him for that. “I’m sorry it wasn’t good, but… but I really didn’t have much to work with.” I said winking, making it a point to stare directly down at his “pants”. He looked down with me and awkwardly shifted. I threw my head back and laughed. I win. In the words of Danity Kane: Baby I’m just a bad girl. A bad girl, a bad girl. I settled back into my seat and Joby disappeared from the cafe. I guess he couldn’t take what he dished out.

“So it’s safe to say you climbed that mountain.” Ally, a cute redhead with mood swings of a menopausal fifty year old woman, another friend said. I nodded.

“Yes, and I’d climb it again if he wasn’t such an ass.” I said scooping into my yogurt. I don’t know if I mentioned this or not, but this all went down at breakfast.

“So, it was good, but you just said it wasn’t. I’m confused.” This is Jenna speaking, a girl I hate to say follows her stereotype to a tee. I big breasted, slow witted, blond. Probably the sweetest girl you’ll ever meet, but unbelievably, well, stupid, if I may be frank.

“Yes, it was good Jenna.” I said now. “I only said it wasn’t because he was trying to embarrass me, so I had to get a little payback.” She nodded as if she understood, but I’m not completely convinced she did.

Let’s skip ahead a few hours to my free period, which I had alone. Unfortunately for me and my friends all our free periods fell at different times, so we each were on our own at some point in the day. Now during this time I always chill in the library, doing my homework. Yes, I do homework. I don’t want to be stuck in my parents’ wallet my whole life. I can be independent too. So I walk into the library, past the front desk and first stream of tables to the corner table. It was nestled behind a row of bookshelves and across from the abandoned computer lab with all the old computers from the nineties.

I tucked my khaki skirt under my butt and settled into a chair. I pulled out my books and I got to work. I might have been sitting there ten minutes when a tall figure walked through the aisle of books, thinking a school issued bag onto the table.

“Hmm, so she can read.” said an annoying voice. “Oh, and write too. I’m impressed.” I ignored Joby and concentrated on the work in front of me. I didn’t have time to play games. Breakfast was one thing, but I did, as you can see, value my education.

“Not speaking, huh?” he said sitting down opposite me. “That’s a first. So, what are we working on?” He reached over and lifted the side of my open textbook.

“Calculus, very strenuous. Are you sure you have the right book?” More ignoring on my part, but my pen strokes do get more haggard. “Willa? Are you ignoring me now?” I then thought something along the lines of: Yes, glad you can tell, idiot.

“Willa, speak to me. Willa, talk to me. Willa, why did you say my-” I slammed my pen down, full force. I hated when people constantly called my name, not unless it was at a moment of climatic pleasure.

“Joby,” I said his name as calmly as I could, or manage through gritted teeth. “Why are you here?”

“I go to school here, silly.” he said flicking my nose like I had done him. Clearly someone had slipped something into his milk at lunch, for him to be speaking this freely and friendly to me. Or I could have been wrong about him being an ass, but I wasn’t ready to take that risk just yet.

Guard up I said, “Shouldn’t you be in class or something?”

“Shouldn’t you?” he retorted. “Anyway I have a free period.”

“Well, me too.” I said picking up my pen again. “And usually like to take this time and get some work done.” I fanned at my books and he nodded.

“That’s good. Knowing you’re studious, I mean.” he said. “That means I can get mine done too.”

“Back here?”

He nodded again. “Yes, back here. It’s prime studying area. I scoped it out yesterday when I had my tour of the campus.”

“I don’t think the both of us back here is going to work.” I said, because I really didn’t feel like arguing with him everyday.

“Why? We’ll both be working, and this is a library so there is no need for talking.” I sighed. Really the thought of us being in the same room quiet was impossible. Something was bound to happen and it did, but you know how these things go. Nothing is ever as it seems.

‘It’s fat, fat and more fat’

November 30, 2010
By

Sharon Krum on the 19-stone American man who is taking four fast-food chains to court for making him obese.

If Caesar Barber dreamed of winning fame, he probably didn’t think it would be due to his obesity. Doubtless he had something more heroic in mind. But, since the 120kg (19-stone), 56-year-old maintenance worker from the Bronx, in New York, filed a lawsuit against McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Burger King last month – seeking damages for selling him food that made him obese – Barber’s 15 minutes are proving as painful as the two heart attacks he has had.

“Does anyone really believe that Mr Barber was too dumb to know that gorging himself on saturated fat was less healthy than ordering, say, a fruit dish or a chef salad?” snapped Steve Dasbach, executive director of the Libertarian Party, when Barber outed himself as a junk-food junkie.

Actually, Barber contends he was in the dark about the nutritional content, or lack thereof, of the fast food he was eating up to five times a week from the 50s onwards. Incredibly, he didn’t even stop gobbling burgers and salty fries after his first heart attack in 1996.

In his lawsuit – the first of its kind in the US – he contends that deceptive advertising misled him about the nutritional value of the food, until a doctor pointed it out.

“Those people in the advertisements don’t tell you what’s in the food,” he said. “It’s all fat, fat and more fat. Now I’m obese. The fast-food industry has wrecked my life. They said 100% beef. I thought that meant it was good for you.”

For days after Barber’s public lament, attacks on his character and IQ became a sport in the media. Barber wasn’t clueless, columnists and radio hosts shrieked, just out to make a quick buck by failing to take responsibility for his diet. Americans love fast food – a staggering 75 million people eat it every day – but who, they asked, doesn’t know that too much will turn you into a Teletubby?

But Barber, a diabetic with high blood pressure, is convinced the chains hooked and then hospitalised him. “Mr Barber honestly didn’t know what the dangers were when he got hooked on fast food in the 50s,” says his lawyer, Samuel Hirsch.

“The fast-food chains made no effort then, and little today, to inform consumers about the dangerously high fat, cholesterol or salt content of their food. Nobody is saying that Mr Barber doesn’t accept some responsibility for his situation, but it is comparative.”

Hirsch says Barber was shocked by the ferocity of the attacks against him, (he is in hiding) but he himself was not. “Unlike the tobacco companies, who are viewed as malevolent groups who lied to Congress, people love the fast-food chains. McDonald’s is an icon in America. We are attacking a beloved icon.”

He is also at pains to point out that Barber’s goal is not money – Hirsch has told him that the case is a legal minefield and he may only get medical costs – but to get the chains to inform customers that their food is guilty of expanding their waistlines.

“The public have not been educated to the dangers of fast food, they think it’s economical to have it. We want the chains to disclose the calorie, fat and sodium content of all their products. We want warning labels on certain foods for people with existing health problems.”

In the US, pre-packaged foods in supermarkets must carry nutrition labelling. Restaurant food need not, although a number of chains, including those Barber is suing, agreed to post or provide nutritional information after pressure from consumer groups. But many, says Hirsch, flout the agreement or display information in dark corners. “Or they produce them in difficult to understand language. You need to be a rocket scientist to read those charts.”

Hirsch’s legal strategy will be similar to that used by anti-tobacco lawyers in the 90s, who argued successfully that cigarette makers willfully withheld information from consumers that smoking posed a serious health risk.

Specifically, Barber’s lawsuit says that fast-food restaurants negligently and recklessly engage in the sale of food that is high in fat, salt, sugar and cholesterol content, which studies show cause obesity, diabetes, coronary heart disease, high bloodpressure, strokes, raised cholesterol intake and related cancers.

But unlike cigarettes, where levels of nicotine were found to be spiked by tobacco companies to hook smokers, Steven Anderson, president of the Restaurant Owners’ Association and no fan of Barber’s lawsuit, argues that chains do not spike their food to keep you coming back. You do that, he says, of your own free will.

“To say his obesity is just due to the fast-food chains is twisted logic. Being overweight is a function of genetics, exercise and diet. Mr Barber should have exercised common sense. What’s next, putting warning labels on the sofa and the remote control so that we don’t watch too much TV?”

But not everyone in the US thinks Barber’s case is a joke. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine rushed to applaud the lawsuit. The committee’s research coordinator, Brie Turner-McGrivey, says, whether Barber wins or loses, the hype surrounding the case has been a windfall for doctors, spotlighting America’s obesity epidemic and the role fast food plays in it.

Today, one in four American adults is obese, almost double the rate in 1980. According to the American Obesity Association, obesity is characterised as a body mass index of 30 or higher. The association claims that the condition, which is often a precursor to diabetes and cardiac failure, causes about 300,000 deaths a year, costing $117m (£76m) a year in healthcare costs. “What this case highlights is that even if you think choosing fish in a fast-food restaurant is a healthy choice, it isn’t,” says Turner-McGrivey. “At McDonald’s, a ‘fillet of fish’ contains 26g of fat. (The daily requirement is 65g). I think women would be surprised to learn that some of the supersize hamburgers contain the equivalent of an entire day of their calories.”

While Turner-McGrivey admits fast food isn’t addictive in the same way as cigarettes, she claims the high levels of sodium, sugar and fat make it so palatable consumers get hooked. Which is why, she says, Barber is right to demand labelling. “Labelling would limit people ordering larger servings. Once they saw how much fat was present, they would order the small fries instead of the supersize. That’s a good start. I think this lawsuit is going to create a conversation about obesity and the link to fast food that is long overdue. The debate will also probe the way the chains market heavily to children, because getting them young sets up a lifetime of bad eating habits.”

Speaking of children, Hirsch is to file another lawsuit in the coming months in which three obese children sue the fast-food chains for ruining their health.”The argument that people are responsible for their actions is a bit harder to make with children,” says Hirsch. “Yes, parents are responsible for them, but children are exploited through aggressive advertising and toy promotions. At a certain age, they start to go by themselves. These restaurants market themselves as benevolent friends of the kids, when the bottom line is really profit.”

But Steven Anderson of the National Restaurant Association says public awareness about balanced eating – due to government schemes and a culture obsessed with being thin – has never been higher, and anyone suggesting that McDonald’s has duped them into having a heart attack has to be joking.

“For Mr Barber to blame his health problems solely on the restaurant industry is really a stretch. Nobody held a gun to his head, and fast-food chains do provide alternatives like veggie burgers and salads.”

It’s Not Your Fault if You’re Fat: It’s a Virus!

October 29, 2010
By

By Anastacia Mott Austin

First we were blaming our friends. Recent studies revealed that social connectivity could cause close friends to become fat together.

Now there’s even more proof that fat really is contagious.

Researchers from the Pennington Center in Louisiana presented their findings this week at the American Chemical Society conference.

Dr. Magdalena Pasarica, the lead author of the study, said that a particular type of adenovirus called AD-36, which causes respiratory infections in humans, may also be responsible for turning stem cells into fat cells.

Pasarica and her team examined stem cells which were isolated from fat removed in liposuction operations. They exposed some stem cells to the virus and left others alone. After a period of time, the stem cells infected with AD-36 developed into fat cells, while the others did not.

“We’re not saying that a virus is the only cause of obesity,” said Dr. Pasarica at the conference. “But this study provides stronger evidence that some obesity cases may involve viral infections.”

The research team stated that the findings offer hope for treating obesity, as anti-viral drugs may have some effect on the fat cells infected with the virus. However, in animal studies involving AD-36, mice stayed obese for as long as six months after the infection had been cleared.

Pasarica added that not all people infected with AD-36 would develop obesity. Also not addressed was the fact that the stem cells studied came from the fatty tissue of people who may have already been obese – since most naturally lean folks don’t have liposuction.

Some experts expressed little patience for the findings, stating that the last thing people need is another excuse for why they are overweight.

“A vaccine won’t stop people from eating the food put in front of them at fancy restaurants,” said Dr. David Haslam of the National Obesity Forum, to reporters. “It isn’t going to change people’s lifestyle. Even if a tiny part of obesity is caused by a virus, the food you put in your mouth and the activity you don’t do is the key.”

It’s Ridiculous to Talk About ‘freeconomics’ When We’ve Already Given Ourselves Away

October 29, 2010
By

Freakonomics is so 2005. This year, it’s all about freeconomics – the idea that the internet can deliver something for nothing. There’s a great deal of excitement about a new book by the editor of the US edition of Wired magazine, Chris Anderson: Free: The Future of a Radical Price, as my colleague John Naughton notes on page 8. The notion that companies – including media businesses like the one that owns the Observer – should give away high-quality content that is expensive to produce has greatly enriched the likes of Google, but risks driving the newspaper and music industries into the ground. New media businesses are barely any better placed: Facebook and Twitter are hugely popular, but have yet to find a path to profit.

The idea of “free” seems attractive – Anderson’s title even sounds faintly alternative in a Sixties sort of way – but it is a dangerous and self-serving myth. Incidentally, his book costs £8.54 on Amazon (why not £0.00?), so he doesn’t practice what he preaches.

The free fallacy goes way beyond the internet. Scratch the surface of the largely illusory New Labour boom, and you will find that much of it was driven by the belief that it was not only possible to get a free lunch; it was our right.

Gordon Brown, despite his socialist roots, was a true convert to the Thatcherite credo of free markets and an enthusiast for the privatizations she pushed through, abetted by a 1980s army of Sids who believed they were going to make risk-free profits. No wonder he was hailed by former Federal Reserve supremo Alan Greenspan as the Iron Lady’s spiritual heir.

But the result is that the London to Edinburgh railway line, run by National Express, has been nationalized along with the banks; the privatisation of Royal Mail has been kicked into the long grass; and former state-owned companies like BA and BT are groaning under mountainous debts and pension deficits.

Misconceived building society demutualizations were a similar story. Members received free share windfalls, but not a single one of the incompetent, over-reaching former mutuals is left on the stockmarket after Northern Rock, Bradford & Bingley, Alliance & Leicester and, of course, HBOS made such outstanding contributions to the credit crunch. Anyone foolish enough to hang on to those shares has lost heavily.

The twin housing and credit explosions were also built on an implicit belief in unearned rewards: people blithely juggled zero-interest deals on their credit cards and overstretched themselves with extreme mortgages on the basis that property prices would keep rising, so that home buyers earned more just by sitting on their leather sofa, bought on four years’ interest-free credit, than they did at their jobs.

Consumers were playing out their own micro-version of what was happening on a grand scale in the City, where the private equity barons were apparently conjuring large gains out of thin air, though it subsequently became all too clear that leverage played a far bigger part in this than genuine operational improvements.

The banks’ behavior was equally bad: as Andrew Haldane of the Bank of England said last week, when they couldn’t generate the profits they wanted, they just geared up, and up, and failed utterly to distinguish between “good luck and good management”.

Hardly surprising, since the ultimate prize in something-for-nothing Britain was the big City bonus: despite all the talk of performance-linking, the rewards bestowed on executives and investment bankers bore little relationship to what they deserved or needed. Outsize bonuses undermined the work ethic by severing the relationship between effort and returns, and brought a lottery culture to the workplace. Even the Madoff scandal owes something to the “free” mentality: his victims were ready to believe they were getting one over on lesser investors in the form of improbably high returns.

And so it goes on: bailed-out bankers, who have been handed a get-out-of-jail-free card by governments, have the gall to boast that bonuses are back and to conduct a guerrilla campaign against tighter regulation. Employers are turning into disciples of freeconomics by cajoling their staff to work for nothing, with Willie Walsh of British Airways leading the charge.

The problem with that, as the feminists of the 1970s noisily proclaimed when they demanded wages for housework, is that if you toil for nothing, that is what your labour is deemed to be worth. We’ll all be doing women’s work soon.

Any well-functioning economy, or society for that matter, relies on the ability to make fair and transparent bargains. Free is fine when you are on the receiving end, but not so great when you are the donor. We have pumped money into the economy in response to the crisis, seemingly just with the keystroke of a computer, but we cannot expect a free ride out: rebalancing the economy so it is more resilient and sustainable will be a long and arduous task. The idea of restoring the banking sector to its former self is ludicrous: the Treasury can’t put Humpty Dumpty together again. Nor can, or should, we go back to Seventies-style socialism, as some in the labor party seem to want.

Whichever government is in power needs to address not only the crunch but long-term challenges such as climate change and demographics. Both pose threats but could also create huge opportunities – developing the next generation of renewable technologies, for example, and expanding the market for healthcare products. Building a more resilient and balanced economy will involve far better support for manufacturing, a proper industrial strategy and a huge investment in improving education and skills. Recovering from the recession will not be free, and it will not be easy.

Why taxpayers deserve a new-look Royal Bank of Sustainability

Stephen Hester, chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland, deserves a small cheer for agreeing to a concession on his £10m pay packet. He will not cash in shares and options worth up to £3.4m for two years longer than initially planned, which is at least a tip of the hat in the direction of long-termism. But it still doesn’t address the issue of what Hester, pictured below, is being rewarded for.

The majority owner in RBS, the UK government, is being singularly uncreative in its view of the stake it holds on our behalf. UK Financial Investments, which manages the taxpayers’ holdings in banks, is behaving like a conventional fund manager who just wants to see the share price go up – but shouldn’t it be trying to effect real change?

I like the idea of transforming RBS into the Royal Bank of Sustainability, a suggestion put forward by environmentalists, but sadly the notion that some good could be salvaged from the credit crunch seems to be falling on deaf ears at the Treasury. In correspondence with green groups, mandarins wrote that environmental and human rights issues were not relevant to their management of the nationalized banks and implied that paying attention to such concerns could jeopardize the bank rescues.

So it has been business as usual for RBS. According to green group Platform, in the six months after the bailout the bank has been involved in financing loans to coal, oil and gas companies worth nearly £10bn, and is supporting oil companies expanding their operations in politically sensitive regions.

Objecting to this isn’t just sandal-wearing soppiness. The public is increasingly climate-conscious and is unlikely to want to see its tax pounds used on dubious projects. On the positive side, green tech is one area many experts see as having huge potential for our future prosperity. Unlike the old, ruthlessly commercial model espoused by Sir Fred Goodwin – which seems still to hold Hester and the Treasury in thrall – it might actually be profitable.

It’s Not Your Fault if You’re Fat: It’s a Virus!

October 25, 2010
By

By Anastacia Mott Austin

First we were blaming our friends. Recent studies revealed that social connectivity could cause close friends to become fat together.

Now there’s even more proof that fat really is contagious.

Researchers from the Pennington Center in Louisiana presented their findings this week at the American Chemical Society conference.

Dr. Magdalena Pasarica, the lead author of the study, said that a particular type of adenovirus called AD-36, which causes respiratory infections in humans, may also be responsible for turning stem cells into fat cells.

Pasarica and her team examined stem cells which were isolated from fat removed in liposuction operations. They exposed some stem cells to the virus and left others alone. After a period of time, the stem cells infected with AD-36 developed into fat cells, while the others did not.

“We’re not saying that a virus is the only cause of obesity,” said Dr. Pasarica at the conference. “But this study provides stronger evidence that some obesity cases may involve viral infections.”

The research team stated that the findings offer hope for treating obesity, as anti-viral drugs may have some effect on the fat cells infected with the virus. However, in animal studies involving AD-36, mice stayed obese for as long as six months after the infection had been cleared.

Pasarica added that not all people infected with AD-36 would develop obesity. Also not addressed was the fact that the stem cells studied came from the fatty tissue of people who may have already been obese – since most naturally lean folks don’t have liposuction.

Some experts expressed little patience for the findings, stating that the last thing people need is another excuse for why they are overweight.

“A vaccine won’t stop people from eating the food put in front of them at fancy restaurants,” said Dr. David Haslam of the National Obesity Forum, to reporters. “It isn’t going to change people’s lifestyle. Even if a tiny part of obesity is caused by a virus, the food you put in your mouth and the activity you don’t do is the key.”

It’s a Little Early to Sanctify Steven Gerrard

October 25, 2010
By

Interesting to behold the canonisation of Liverpool and England player Steven Gerrard, as he awaits trial for ABH and affray, after an alleged incident in a Merseyside bar, involving several others, which left a part-time DJ with a tooth missing.

Gerrard faces a maximum five year sentence if convicted, but there is support for his innocence and good character everywhere. Liverpool manager Rafa Benítez is standing by him. England players David Beckham, Wayne Rooney and Rio Ferdinand are all said to have sent messages of support. The Football Association has no plans to bar Gerrard from the England squad.

Then there are the headlines (“You’ll never walk alone!”), with quotes ranging from “He’s so nice” to “He’s really nice”. OK, we get it – Gerrard is nice. Shortly before the incident, he was organizing charity work with Kenny Dalglish. One wonders what Gerrard was doing at a bar in the first place – couldn’t he have turned water into wine at home? And so we come to the “sick parrot” hanging upside down in the aviary of national reaction. On what actual grounds has Gerrard been tried by the media and the public and granted what amounts of a full, unofficial pardon?

I’d be as amazed and disappointed as anyone if it turns out that Gerrard is guilty. I am also aware that this Mexican wave of sympathy could amount to nothing more complicated than not wanting to lose a decent England player mere months before World Cup qualifiers. Still, you’ve got to admit, this impromptu anointing of Saint Steven of Huyton, straight after an alleged bar ruck, represents a pendulum swing in public perception of the national game.

It wasn’t so long ago that Premier League footballers couldn’t stub their toes on a nightclub bar stool without being condemned as multimillionaire thugs, social pariahs, touch papers of moral decline etc. For a time, our press could have amalgamated into the “Daily Roast”, so numerous seemed the stories of love and respect movingly expressed between young ladies and their footballer lovers, as well as the other footballers who mysteriously appeared halfway through, presumably eager to “express their love and respect” too.

Only a few years ago, this was the public face of off-duty Premier League football: drunken, violent, sexually predatory pond-life, good only for vomiting into ashtrays and keeping Gucci in business, a lot of which was class-biased codswallop. However, the avalanche of bad press never managed to wound British football mortally. And that’s because, while other sports (cricket, tennis, rugby) are important, football is the UK’s masculine heartbeat, with footballers among the most vital role models we possess. That’s how powerful football remains, and this fact should be celebrated, but surely only up to a point?

What is it with footballers that we have to keep up this simplistic lurching between :They can do no right” and “They can do no wrong”, when the truth so often lies somewhere between? No one could deny that Paul Gascoigne was a football superstar, with a love of Mars Bars and pranks. But he also became a drunken wife-beater, whose 12-year-old son will be shown in tomorrow’s Cutting Edge saying he wishes his dad would “go away” and doesn’t want to “waste tears on him” . Who saw that coming with lovely, cheeky Gazza, the original cartoon fat lad, in the early 90s?

As much as Gerrard is a totally different entity, until we have the full facts about what happened in that Merseyside bar, it is ludicrous how automatically he has been exonerated, how unquestioningly he has been assured he will “never walk alone” by an over-sentimental public. The last time I looked, “nice” and “good at scoring goals” had yet to rank as synonyms for “not guilty”. Just as it was unfair when footballers were bombarded with criticism when they were just young men getting drunk and having a sex life, it must be viewed as equally suspicious when the pendulum swings too far the other way.

Of course I’m compassionate – unless you’re a man

One hopes that everyone has recovered from the myriad types of flu going around. Especially the men. It never fails to amaze me what death-bed drama queens men are. Only this morning, I received a message from my partner, thanking me for caring for him during his brave battle with man flu.

There was more than a whiff of sarcasm, with lots of references to “tough love”, which probably alludes to my resentful trudging to get the 11th plate of Marmite on toast, booting him out of bed so that I could upgrade the sheets from the Turin Shroud or telling him to “die quietly” because Miss Marple was on.

Flo Nightingale’s crown is safe. In my defence, men are never just sick, are they? It’s always touch and go – him touching the remote control, you going to get another snack. Then there’s the am-dram. Men are such hams when they’re ill, all that swooning back on to pillows and clutching the wall on the way to the bathroom. It’s Illness, a performance by Laurence Olivier. They say that behind every great man lies a great woman. To this I would add that behind every ill man there’s a woman rolling her eyes, pleading compassion fatigue.

It’s all very timely as a government thinktank has just decided that “compassion is in short supply from NHS workers”. Many reasons are given for this sympathy shortfall – shorter patient stays, work pressures, more complicated ailments. Curiously, there’s no mention of what would appear to be the most obvious reason of all – a lot of NHS workers are overworked and underpaid.

Looking around, one wonders whether compassion is evaporating generally. The primary school teachers discovered on Facebook calling a little girl a “chav”. The ambulance men overheard during a 999 call allegedly debating whether a disabled man was “worth saving”. These disturbing stories make you wonder whether Britain has become trapped in a dark version of those topical New Year future trends lists: “Not giving a toss about anyone else will be huge in 2009!”

Is the world really getting harder, less compassionate? Or, more likely, are these just extreme versions of the very British safety valve, of bitching and venting, and indulging in black humor to get through? As in, where compassion is concerned, whether within the NHS, or elsewhere, the heart is still (sort of) in the right place, even if the mouth isn’t. And even if you are unfortunate enough to get tough lovin’ from someone like me.

It’ll be no joke if we take the controversy out of comedy

Confusing to hear that Celebrity Big Brother bosses have given the first post-Shilpa housemates lectures about “controversy”. Watching them enter the house, there was La Toya least-known Jackson, Ben boyband bloke, Lucy model thingy … I have a hunch it’s going to be “non-controv” (read: throat-slashingly boring).

Let’s hope Ulrika, Tommy Sheridan and Mini-Me, Verne Troyer, will liven things up. Admirible really for CBB to include a person of restricted height to make society confront its inbuilt prejudices. But enough of Terry Christian.

As if the CBB dweebs would dare to be “controv” anyway. Look at the cautionary tale of Jonathan Ross. He definitely deserved public censure over Sachsgate, mainly for the bullying.

However, he did not deserve the subsequent media stalking. Comes to something when a man can’t ride a bike without headlines screeching: “UNREPENTANT!”

Also worrying were TV bosses ordering Ross to tone down his style on his return – comedy manacles would be unfair. On all of us.

Maybe this is what I see in the CBB house – for the most part, non-offensive, over-careful, focus-group-proof, Z-list celebrity plop-plop. When people asked for Ross to be punished, it happened. That should have been the end of it. Should popular culture become neutered, we’ll have more to worry about than a dimly recalled radio prank, however ill-conceived.

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