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Battle of the sexes/The Alternative Feminist

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Edited by Aideen Devine, Thursday, 1 Sept 2022, 16:09

Today guys you are going to love me!  In the battle of the sexes there is one issue that it a complete mystery to me, leaving the toilet seat up. Seriously, what is that all about? So the guy comes in, lifts the toilet seat, does what he has to do and leaves without putting the seat back down. That's it, no big deal. Woman comes in puts seat down and does what she has to do, then leaves without putting the toilet seat back up.

You see this is the core of the issue and this guys shows that you're not giving it enough thought. I am now going to give you the return argument if the toilet seat is an issue in your relationship. Where is it written in stone that the toilet seat has to be down? Why can it not be up? Nowhere because, realistically, men you could make this an issue if you really wanted to.

'No she never leaves the toilet seat up when she finishes and I always have to come in and put it up. Next time I'll just not bother and splash all over it'. See what I mean - end of argument.

And, ladies, sorry but if this is an issue for you in your relationship, then my advice to you is to go live in a Sudanese refugee camp for a week or two, it might help you get a little perspective on it. Because the only real issue in the bathroom is - do we have toilet roll? 

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The Alternative Feminist/ Austerity

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Edited by Aideen Devine, Friday, 2 Sept 2022, 15:08

(Contains strong opinions, she's angry today, you have been warned!!)

I am angry today, very, very angry, about bankers and the whole austerity package that has been dumped on everyone, everyone that is, EXCEPT bankers and tax-dodging millionaires and billionaires. 

I watched the news during the week about Greece, and it really upset me to see people in such distress and to hear how the suicide rate is soaring. This part of Ireland had the dubious honour of the highest suicide rate in Europe at one time, and if you had to live here, believe me you would really understand why, but it's Greece and the banks we're on today, we'll get back to Ireland (North and South) another day.

What I don't understand about the whole austerity/economic crisis is this.

The bankers lent money, recklessly, to people who couldn't really afford to be borrowing on the scale that they were allowed to, BY the banks. Then the banks failed and they were bailed out of the public purse. Now the 'public purse' is your tax money, which I am sure you all know because I'm sure anyone who reads this blog is intelligent, knowledgeable AND politically aware!!!!

So when they failed, we bailed them out, (by the way do you remember anyone asking you, if you wanted to bail them out, no, neither do I). So the banks lost all the money, were given all our taxes to 'save' them and they still get to keep all the defaulted property. And now, they are busy throwing people out of their homes and taking back properties that rightly belong to us, THE TAXPAYER!!!! 

And here's another thing, why are they not paying back the money they received in the bail out FROM THEIR PROFITS? WE all have to pay our loans back so WHY DO THEY NOT HAVE TO????? This is wrong morally, ethically, politically and logically.

So why is no-one else asking these questions and challenging these bail outs? Why are the left and the socialists not screaming from the rooftops????

I'll tell you why, it's because the so-called party of the left, sold it's soul under Tony Blair and dumped the working classes. Tony Blair was no child of Labour, he was a Thatcherite, born and bred!!  And if you’re expecting Ed Milliband to do any better, then forget it, because he really needs to grow a pair and start standing up for something more than trying to out-soundbite bloody Cameron. (Wasn’t it great to watch him squirming at Leveson this week??? The whole thing, to quote Baby Herman, ‘STINKS LIKE YESTERDAYS DIAPERS!!!’)

And how did this whole rotten mess begin, well, it wasn’t with Gordon Brown as the Tory party would try and have you believe, it began with Thatcher. She smashed the working class political power base, the Unions (I know they needed some reform but they have been annihilated, helped in no small measure by the whole rotten Murdoch media empire and those other right-wing rags, you know of whom I speak), and then brought in the so-called Free Market Monetarist policies, which of course led to the opening up of the markets so we all could get rich, lifted all the banking controls and let the market take care of AND, regulate itself, and we all know how that turned out now, DON’T WE??!!!  Yes, because now we’re all rich and happy, aren’t we???  Oooops!

(Just on the subject of the Murdoch rags, it’s amazing how many ‘Irish Republicans’ buy The S** (it pains me to even mention it) and have the satellite dish up on the roof. They are quite happy to contribute to the media empire of Maggie Thatcher’s old mate and staunch supporter, funny that, but politics is a funny old game, innit?)

Anyway, back to the bankers and the spineless politicians who won’t stand up to big business and do the job WE ARE PAYING THEM TO DO. Remember that, AS LONG AS YOU ARE PAYING TAX, DAVID CAMERON IS YOUR EMPLOYEE, YOU PAY HIS SALARY, maybe, we all need to remind THEM of that.

So, what can we do about it all anyway, Greece, the whole mess? Well, here’s an idea to help the Greeks, why don’t we give them the Olympics to keep. Instead of this faffing around the globe every fours years, let the games stay in Greece where they began. I wonder do they have a copyright on them, or even if you can copyright them, and give them back the Elgin Marbles while we’re at it.

And why should we?, (I can hear Thatcher’s children cry) well, again, I will tell you why, because they are HUMAN BEINGS and they need help. They didn’t cause this mess, just as most of you didn’t either, but they are paying for it, big time, and let’s be thankful, the REAL Labour men of the past who set up the Social safety net, (so despised by the Right and which Cameron and co desperately want to get rid of) which just about keeps us from being completely crushed by austerity.

And let’s start talking politics again, turn off that drivel, X Factor, Y Factor, who gives a crap factor and lets start DEMANDING that OUR EMPLOYEES start governing this country for ALL the people in this country and not just for their friends and cronies, and REMIND your Labour politicians of what their party used to stand for before they were infiltrated by the Thatcherites, and remind yourself daily, (or at least monthly) of the working class struggles of the past, re-discover the writings of ORWELL, (read Animal Farm and dare to challenge the myth that it doesn’t apply to capitalism) find out about PETERLOO, TOLPUDDLE, the CHARTISTS, teach your daughters about the SUFFRAGETTES: remember the Miners and the Liverpool dockers, and the UNIONS who used to fight for the working classes, and how and why they began.

And if you do all that, you can be sure that when the revolution comes, you'll definitely be on the right side.

And finally and MOST importantly, when you have done all that, put on  a black beret with a star on the front, and shout out loudly and clearly while punching the air -

POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!!!!

(And if you don't know what that means, make it your business to find out, or else, just ask someone who lived through the 70's!!)

 

 

 

 

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The Alternative Feminist/Marriage

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Edited by Aideen Devine, Friday, 2 Sept 2022, 16:08

Strong opinions are expressed here. You have been warned!!

Ahhh marriage, that great old institution, the bedrock of a civilised society, the foundation upon which all stable families depend and……..Oh what was that !!!  I must have fallen asleep and been dreaming, it’s ok, I’m awake now!!

Marriage, well it certainly is an institution!  Having indulged and been lucky enough to have escaped with all my faculties intact (just about), I have to say that the institution analogy is very appropriate.  As a matter of fact, I think we should replace the wedding rings with something more symbolically appropriate, like a straight-jacket and a frontal lobotomy for her, and a remote control and a lifetime’s subscription to Sky sports for him. 

Because that’s what seems to happen to couples after the rings go on. She disappears into herself and forgets that she used to have life outside of housework and children. Every day merges into the same miserable drudgery until you’re living in some nightmarish Groundhog day scenario, with each day as monotonous and soul destroying as the next. 

And as for him!! Well, what can I say, all of a sudden the antics of some football team and ownership of the remote control becomes a life or death struggle in getting through the daily round of mutual loathing and  contempt that your marriage has become. 

You look at him/her and try to remember what it was about this person that you used to profess to love for.  LOVE?? You say to yourself, bitterly, what does that even mean? How can something that was supposed to be so wonderful, turn so quickly into this seething hotbed of petty power struggles and sneering asides; where trying to agree what DVD to watch on a Saturday night can quickly descend into a trade-off of insults where her mother’s overbearing intrusion is voiced for half the neighbourhood to hear, and where his father’s personal habits are dissected with a venom that sends small animals and children running for cover; where all those little annoyances, like hanging the toilet roll the wrong way, can escalate into an issue of such magnitude that the UN put a platoon of special forces on stand-by, just in case! You finally agree but agree isn’t really the word is it?  What actually happens is that someone has to back down, adding another layer of contempt to an already expanding portfolio of her f**king whinges and his all-round uselessness.

In time, you’ll look back and wonder if you were suffering from some sort of mental pathology, as you remember how you actively pursued this state. You’ll recall how you wanted this, how you dreamed and planned for it, saved every penny to pay for it, maybe even borrowed thousands of pounds because you wanted to make your day special, and now, all you can think is ‘What the hell was I thinking, why did nobody warn me?’

You could have travelled the world several times over, had great holidays to exotic countries, met more windswept and interesting people but no, you got married instead. You look over at your other half and can barely contain the sneer quivering on your top lip. Stuck now with children and a mortgage, you’re trapped and the worst thing is, YOU DID IT TO YOURSELF!!!!!   

Yes, marriage, don’t ya just LOVE IT????!!!!

Which makes all the controversy over gay marriage seem a little unnecessary, don’t you think? Personally, I don’t have a problem with gay marriage, far from it, I really think that gay people should be allowed to get married. I mean why should the heterosexual community be the only ones to suffer!  After all, the only people who complain about not being married are people who never were and, believe me, a few years of marriage will certainly cure them of that.

 So if you’re thinking about getting married and reading this is making you nervous, GOOD, you have been warned!!!  But never fear, it’s not all doom and gloom, there is an escape clause, it’s what divorce was invented for. And finally if the worst comes to the worst, remember, marriage may be grand but divorce can be SEVERAL!!!

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The Alternative Feminist / Madness

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Edited by Aideen Devine, Friday, 2 Sept 2022, 15:49

I read this book the other day, The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson. It's about madness or what is, or is not, madness and it raises as many questions as it answers. 

Going insane might be one of our worst fears along with serious illness, or something terrible happening to our children but after reading this I am now feeling highly reassured. I am never going to worry about going mad at all again because after reading this, I figure we're all a little bit crazy anyway, and some of us may even be a whole lot crazy but if we're not really harming anyone and managing to function in our lives, well, where's the problem?? Because what is normal anyway?? Does anybody even know?? 

Well you could say that it’s normal to get up and go to work every day. Ok then, think about this -  is it really normal to get up and go to work every day, the way we do? 

To slog your way through crowds and traffic, to sit in a building doing stuff for a company or corporation, to make money for them so they can pay you money to buy stuff, most of which you don’t really need, for a house, you didn’t really want, to begin with. 

Then you take on a mortgage to pay for the said house which will ensure you have to keep your nose to the grindstone for the next thirty years when you can finally look forward to retirement (which by this time you will be too worn out and too tired to do anything) to find that the company CEO has raided the pension fund and disappeared into the ether and you are destined to spend your old age in fear and poverty after spending most of your life working your bollocks off for someone else!!! 

AND, along the way, you missed out on most of your children’s growing up, your partner is now a complete stranger with a life of their own, that doesn’t include you, and all because you had to be at work, in order to pay your taxes to a government that basically doesn’t give a crap about you anyway!!! Yes, THAT'S normal!!

If that's normal, then I embrace my insanity with glee!!  Hee, hee!! Because inside all of us, there is a little streak of insanity. It may not manifest itself as a medically recognised psychosis (although if the American Psychiatric Association has it's way, it may very well soon be) but it might just be a little obsession about collecting stuff, or how we dress, or cleaning; something along those lines, because let's be honest, we all have our little obsessions, don't we?

And what harm are we doing?  Ok if your shoe buying habit is the reason you haven't paid your rent in six months well, maybe there’s a little bit of a problem there that you need to think about but still, you're not crazy are you??  And what about the girl up the street who goes out to work every day dressed up like Mary Poppins, or the old lady who walks around like the queen on LSD, are they really harming anyone?  Because the truth is, isn't it our little insanities that mark us out as individuals? Aren't these the hallmarks of our uniqueness in the world?? 

Because what I now realize is that THERE IS NO NORMAL. We’re all crazy in some way and some of the so-called most normal things are the craziest of them all!!!

What I see happening within the world of psychiatry is similar to what happened back in the 19th century, when the Victorian's did a study on sexual habits and labelled everything that wasn’t the Missionary position as sexually deviant. 

Basically the same thing is happening now with all human behaviour.  Anything that deviates from the norm (because we all know what normal is??!!) is now being diagnosed and labelled as mental illness and comes with its own line in pharmaceuticals. 

Roll up! Roll up!  Get you behaviour modifiers here, an emotionally-deadening pill for every little ill!!

‘WHAT YOU HAVE AN OVER-ACTIVE CHILD???’ (Fake shock and horror)

Here, don’t you know that a little Ritalin a day, will keep the pharmaceuticals in pay!!!’

If you think that’s a bit exaggerated, then I urge you to read this book, (if you haven’t already) because the really scary part of all this, is what is happening with children in America and, here too, so let’s not get complacent. Children are being diagnosed with all sorts of mental health problems. We’ve all heard of ADD and ADHD, ( I always had huge reservations about those two, even more so now!) but what about childhood bipolar disorder?? Now, there’s a happy little threesome, to label a child with!  Add to that, the huge rise in autism diagnoses and soon you will find that children everywhere are being medicated out of childhood. 

So, if you have an active child, don't take them to a doctor and definitely don't take them to a psychiatrist, take them to the park and let them run around, stop feeding them crap and let them dig that hole in the back garden and get mucky!! Who cares what the neighbours think!! Let them swing from trees, even better, join in and swing from the trees with them and, basically, go have some fun!!!! 

Because that’s what’s wrong here, we take ourselves far too seriously and have forgotten what it is to HAVE SOME FUN!!!! So let rip and let a child be a child and remember that you were once one too!!! Life’s too short to let it drift by on prozac and Ritalin. ENJOY IT!!!! .LIVE IT TO ITS FULLEST!!!! Because in the words of Noddy Holder -  ‘MA MA, WE’RE ALL CRAZEE NOW!’

So stop worrying and embrace the insanity because we are all in this one together!!!!! YEAHHH!!!

 

 

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The Alternative Feminist/ Robbie Williams and shopping

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Edited by Aideen Devine, Thursday, 1 Sept 2022, 11:55

In society there are guy things, and there are girl/woman things or rather these are supposed to be the girl/woman things like Robbie Williams and shopping.

For the record, I just don’t get the whole Robbie Williams thing, I am a woman, as red-blooded as any other but ROBBIE WILLIAMS??? I mean come on, ROBBIE WILLIAMS??? He has as much sex appeal as a bull terrier, come to think of it he even looks a bit like one and yet the female population seems to go brain dead at the mention of his name and lose all sense of well….anything. 

I mean, as a person, I don’t dislike him, I’ve seen him on chat shows, he seems like a nice enough bloke but that’s about as far as it goes, he’s just a bloke, nothing special.  I mean put him next to Hugh Jackman or Viggo Mortenson, (now we’re talking!) or even Ralph Fiennes (phew!), and well Robbie just doesn’t compare does he?  He just looks like an enthusiastic schoolboy - no big deal. 

And there’s another thing, his music is shit, I mean, ok Angels was alright, I’ll give you that, but seriously, Rock DJ??  Wasn’t that just about the crappiest song you ever wish you had never heard?  It was garbage,

‘I doo wanna rock DJ cos you’re BORING ME TO TEARS!! and  if I have to listen to that song one more time I’m gonna slit my freaking wrists!!!.’

It was just shit!

Anyway, here’s another thing, what is the shopping thing about?  Again, I just don’t get it, trailing around shops looking at stuff, trying stuff on, into another shop, the same thing, the music is too loud, I thought this was a shop not a freaking disco!  Your back starts to hurt, your temples start to throb, you can feel your brain disintegrating, you’re starting to lose the will to live, your life is passing you by, you start to forget that you had a life outside of the shopping centre, the walls are starting to close in, you might never get out of here again, 'Weren’t we in this shop already?'

They’re all starting to look the same, the all have the same stuff,

'Just buy the freaking jeans so’s I can get out of here!!'

…your chest starts to tighten….you can’t breathe….you’re trapped in hell…you thought it was a quick look to see what’s there and it’s turning into an episode of Eerie Indiana….you’re going to be trapped in the shopping centre for the rest of your life and you just have to keep shopping forever and ever!!!!!!  Ahhhhhhhh!!!!!!! 

 And then, just when you are on the verge of cracking you spy the book shop, you almost cry with relief, you’ve been saved, just in time!  You walk in and make straight for the classics section, nothing like a few Dickens or Bronte’s to restore your equilibrium. 

You remember, that’s right, I did have a life before this, I read books, yes books...like Great Expectations, Wuthering Heights, you glance around, you’re starting to feel better, your eyes fall on the TV/Film section….and there on the top shelf you see,

The Wonders of the Universe by Professor Brian Cox, ….YES!!!

You have been saved…you feel safe again, your breathing has steadied, you walk over and lift it off the shelf, you stroke it’s cover and console yourself with the thought that yes, there is intelligent life out there and one day in the future PEOPLE WILL THINK AGAIN!!!  And so just to nudge the world in that direction you take as many copies as you can and place them over Robbie Williams autobiography before you leave.

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The Alternative Feminist/ Men and football

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Edited by Aideen Devine, Thursday, 1 Sept 2022, 12:38

There are guy things like football and Nick Hornby novels and, you know, all those mass slaughter computer games where it takes three thousand rounds to kill one person. It positively encourages psychotic behaviour in the general population, as if they’re weren’t enough nut jobs running around already, and it seems to me, looking at what passes for men around here, that evolution seems to have stopped, not just stopped, if anything it seems to have gone into reverse and there’s another thing, it’s not just about football with guys is it?   

I mean what is that about, all that anally retentive stuff about who scored, who passed it to them, at what point in the game and from what position, what the weather was like and if the goalie was distracted by that slight touch of diarrhoea his cat had that morning, and what should the left back have ordered in the restaurant last weekend when his mother in law came to stay (steak not prawns, since you ask). You know all that kind of stuff that men seem get off on. Yes, I know women like football too, I do myself, but my interest runs to did they win or lose, it’s that simple. 

‘How did they do today?’ you ask someone.

‘They won two nil’

‘Great’ you think, ‘they won'. Nothing more to know, but no…men are never satisfied with just knowing the score, it’s all in depth analysis of the game, who did what, who didn’t do what, who should have done this, why wasn’t he taken off at half time, that free kick was a joke, that asshole couldn’t score in a whorehouse, that referee’s a prick…you know all that macho stuff. I mean, what are they trying to prove, what does it all mean, I’ll tell you what it means, it means nothing at all, just a load of empty vacuous claptrap that no-one really gives a damn about and, in the great scheme of things, has about as much significance as a pimple on an ant’s ass in sub-Saharan Africa on a wet Wednesday in April!!

           

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