To coin a phrase frequently repeated by anyone who works long hours – “It’s only Wednesday and I’m knackered already!”. This week is passing in a blur of radio and press interviews and of discovering yet more people dedicated to promoting change and stamping out the growing trend for eating disorders – Hoorah!
Read more on Eating Disorders Awareness Week 2010 (Natasha)…
A recent article in the Daily Mail quoted research from the annual British Social Attitudes Survey, which shows that women in 2010 want a husband who'll be the main breadwinner.
There's a striking change in values in the decade since New Labour came to power: The number of mothers with children under 4 who that family life would suffer if women worked full-time fell in the years before Mr Blair came to power, dropping from 43% in 1990 to 21% in 1998. However by 2002 it was rising and in 2006 has doared to 37%.
Read more on Is the Tide beginning to turn? (Mark)…
I must preface this blog by letting anyone reading know that I currently have PMS. As such, my propensity for rage knows no bounds. Every poor soul I’ve encountered has been on the receiving end of it this morning, even inanimate objects (I startled an innocent bystander as I walked out of my flat, shouting “t*sser!!” at my I-pod for daring to run out of battery 4 seconds into Bowie’s “Slow Burn”).
Read more on A Torrent of Unadulterated Rage (Natasha)…
According to an article in Mail Online, Psychologists are updating their bible, The Diagnostic And Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or DSM, and apparently the new version, the fourth, is going to be 7 times larger than the original of 1952 and there’s a bit of a hoohah going on!
Read more on Labelmania!(Mark)…
When I was at college doing A level History, my rather brilliant teacher, Mr Biggins, devoted an entire lesson to educating us about how propaganda didn’t suddenly cease with the collapse of the Third Reich. We might have scoffed at how anyone could be so easily influenced as to be taken in by a cartoon of a Jew/rat hybrid creature, but in fact, we learned, we were being just as manipulated, each and every day.
Read more on Fat-Scapegoating: The New Trend for the Teenies (Natasha)…
As I made my way into the Winning Minds office today, the icy winds pounded furiously against my shivering skin and the depressing gun-metal grey winter sky loomed menacingly over the frosty earth beneath. However, despite Mother Nature doing her utmost to dampen my spirits, I positively skipped through the streets of Stortford, smiling at bemused strangers whilst providing my own imaginary world of pathetic fallacy in my mind– a smiling sunshine wearing sunglasses like in the Vitalite advert, friendly blue skies, birds twittering contentedly in the branches overhead etc.
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Lost Generation
We, the baby boomers have done the damage…to society, to the earth…and our children have to pick up the pieces.
Young people today do indeed feel disillusioned by the world they’ve been brought into. Difficult to blame them really: family breakdown, depression, disrespect, greed, selfishness, environmental degradation are the norm. And yet we’re wealthier than we’ve ever been. There can be no doubt that humanity has taken a hugely wrong turn.
Read more on Lost Generation (Mark)…
Having worked myself up into a veritable frenzy of excitement at the prospect of reading the Times Style Magazine piece on the “curvelution”, I disappointingly found it to be the editorial equivalent of eating a penguin biscuit bar when you’re hankering after a Dairy Milk – It simply didn’t hit the spot.
Read more on An Own Goal in the Beauty Battle (Natasha)…
On the days when I have the time and inclination, I like to create a look for myself inspired by the sirens of the 50s – Strong of brow, long of lash, and pout-y of lip. I like to tease my hair into soft curls and pop on something which speaks of both strength and femininity, enhances my hourglass frame and hints at sexuality, without being overt. Yes, when I can be bothered, this is my “look” (and if I happen to dash out the door, hair still damp, fresh of face, wearing odd socks, furiously typing last minute emails, sending text messages, flinging the curtains back, looking with dismay at last night’s washing up and muttering “b*gger, b*gger, b*gger” under my breath, which is often the case, that doesn’t matter either, because in my mind I’m still 50s siren lady).
Read more on Memoires of a Glamour Puss (Natasha)…
Last week’s Sunday Times article on the film Avatar was a real eye-opener. Apparently the film is causing all sorts of small-minded, parochial outrage particularly in America.
- David Brooks, a rightwing New York Times columnist finds the film offensive with the hero “going native” and leading a “righteous crusade against his own rotten civilisation”.
Read more on Avatar: A Wake-Up Call For Humanity (Mark)…