anguish

It’s enough to make me give up writing

Sitting drinking truck loads of coffee while the cupboards are bare and the heating is off and the purse is empty.
Hoping beyond hope for a sale while watching those around me yelling their joy to the world at the wonderful new book they just bought that cost them 5 times as much as mine.
Foreign holidays to plan, new homes to buy, iphones to subscribe to and satellite telly.
Dinner at the Ivy, lunch at the local and nights at that new club in the High Street.
Gotta get that latest Kindle, y’know the one with all the gadgets?
And just look at those shoes baby, yes I know I have 40 pairs already but they’re shoes.
Let’s pop into Starbucks and try that new vanilla coffee toffee thing with a swirl of artificial cream on top and little choccy bits and screw the $4.50 price tag.

Oh I can’t afford to buy books right now dear, times are hard y’know.
Except of course that new one that’s almost but not quite but really is quite porno, we must have that.
And the sequal, and the sequal’s sequal too.
You wrote a book? Wow that’s great, well done. Is is free cos I can’t afford to buy books right now, times are hard y’know.
Oh look, that floppy green thing will go lovely for our trip to Jamaica

Dear Santa

Dear Santa

I’ve never written a letter to you before, although that’s not because I’ve never believed in you.  My mother remembers me as a four year old waking everyone in excitement at 3am because you had called and left our presents at the end of our bed.  That made you angry though, because you came back and took them back and made me go back to sleep until the morning, sorry about that.

I don’t know why I’ve decided to write to you now.  Maybe it’s because I’m 50, which is one of those important milestones that make you take stock of your life and think about stuff.  Maybe it’s simply because I’ve had a couple of glasses of wine tonight, I don’t know but anyway, here I am.

So what do I want to ask you for this Christmas?  Where do I start?  Actually I know what I don’t want more than what I do want.  I don’t want stuff.  I can save up and get stuff for myself.  No, what I want can’t be bought and only a miracle can bring it to me, so that’s where you come in.

Santa, I want to be loved.  I want to be adored and I want someone to adore in return.  I want to stop being someone only fit to be hated.  I want to be able to look in the mirror and love the woman I see staring back at me.  I want to conquer my addictions and enjoy living.  I want to love myself and love life and cherish every moment.  I want to laugh every day and forget the last time I ever cried.

I’m talented, clever, intelligent, imaginative and funny but y’know Santa, I’d trade it all for one day of being beautiful.  To be able to walk down the street and have people look at me and smile because I’m so beautiful would be so wonderful.  I’d trade all my gifts for a minute of beauty.  I’m sick of being ugly, I’m sick of being the one who is funny but nothing to look at and I’m sick of all those ‘it’s the personality that counts’ cliches when we know all men judge by looks first.  Please make me beautiful for just one day Santa and I’ll trade all my talents and gifts without complaint.

In that one day I might find love, I might discover how to smile or even a reason to go on living.  Beauty is everything today Santa, and without it you’re nothing.  We live in world where you are judged  by the way you look, not by the content of your mind.  It’s wrong I know, but that’s the way men are.  I can’t change them so I have to work with the system or die.

Santa, if you can’t make me beautiful, then bring me a blind man to love.  A  man with no eyes cannot judge me by my looks.

Thank you Santa

Happy Christmas, love to Rudolph.

A milestone I didn’t want to reach

Something just happened that I’ve been dreading for years.  I knew it had to happen but somehow you always think that a miracle will occur and it’ll pass you by.  I’ve reached a milestone.  A milestone that all of us reach at some point; some earlier than others.  I’ve been lucky to get to 50 before reaching it; I’ve known people who had to deal with it years earlier than me.  It’s a milestone that not only brings anguish but questions.  I now have an important decision to make and I haven’t a clue what to do.

I found my very first grey hairs today..!

So now I have to decide – to dye or not to dye, that is the question.

The problem with dyeing is that grey hair takes colour in a very different way than naturally coloured hair.  My mother once decided to try a coloured mousse that advertised itself as ‘semi permanent – washes out in 6 washes’ and she went bright orange; I’m talking day glow here.  It didn’t wash out in 6 washes either and she had to go around in a headscarf for months until it faded and grew out and I teased her mecilessly.  In order to dye grey hair well, you need a salon do and they’re expensive.  There’s the roots problem, which entails a continuous expense that I don’t know I can guarantee to afford.  There’s also the hassle of it all; worrying about the roots and looking like a skunk if you let them grow out too much.  At least if you’re all grey it looks better than looking like a skunk with grown out roots.

If I choose not to dye, then I have to get used to looking like an old woman in a world where being young and beautiful is everything.  My problem is I’m neither young nor beautiful.  I’m 50 and physically ugly and being grey as well is going to be too much to bear.

I simply don’t know what to do.  I hate getting old.  It wouldn’t be so bad if I was beautiful to begin with.  Ugh, I wish I was dead…!

Is Blood Thicker than Water?

It’s one of the most familiar sayings ever, blood is thicker than water, but what does it mean and is it really true? Well we all know what it means, don’t we? It means that whatever our views and opinions, morals or standards, where family is concerned normal rules may not apply. It means that we are prepared to put aside the normal moral standards we live by when interacting with others and the world in general if a family member is concerned. Adherance to this belief can, if taken to extreme, mean that murderers are shielded by their family members who would never dream of turning them in because ‘blood is thicker than water’ and you don’t dob on family!

Why is that we are expected to put our normal rules aside just because a family member has done something wrong or stupid or illegal? Why should we be expected to pretend we don’t know anything when there is a parent mourning the loss of a loved one somewhere out there? Why is it okay for someone to behave badly and get away with it just because they’re genetically related? It’s happened in my own family a few times during my lifetime and it always irritates me to see someone getting away with bad behaviour because the other family members don’t want to cause a stir. My grandmother was a horrible person, the whole family thought so and times without number she said or did things that really upset whoever was her current target (often it was me) but never once did I see any other family member say anything to her about her behaviour or bringing her to task over something she’d said.

I remember once many years ago during a family get together my nephew trod muddy footprints all over the hostess’s pale carpet. I lightly chastised him (verbally) about it and my grandmother immediately started shouting at me to shut up and be quiet. The whole table went silent, everyone was too embarrassed even to breathe. After a minute or two conversation gradually resumed as if nothing had happened but not one of the relatives came to my defence either in public or private. This episode was a turning point for me and since that day so long ago, I’ve made the conscious choice never to have any contact with any family member other than my mother. I’ve never regretted the decision and I’m sure they haven’t either and I’m still curious as to why many more people aren’t doing as I did.

Recently we have seen one or two examples of people turning in their criminal family members and this has delighted me no end. Since the recent riot troubles there have been a number of parents turning in their children after discovering them having been a part of the looting and rioting. I’m so pleased to see this happening because it means that at least a few kids will grow up with the knowledge that you can’t do wrong and get away with it and that there is no one who will put up with such behaviour, not even family.

My own mother is one of those who believes that one doesn’t ‘wash one’s dirty linen in public’, which I take to mean she doesn’t want the embarrassment of other people knowing that there’s a criminal or nutjob in the family gene pool. My response to that is simple; if more people showed that they’re not prepared to put up with such behaviours, less people would do it and society would clean up a bit. Maybe I’m seeing it all too simply. Maybe it’s a far more complicated issue than I’m able to understand but then I do tend to live in something of a black and white world. My thinking is that if I can exist happily enough in a black and white world, then you should be able too as well.

As humans we are pack animals and our family is our pack. In order to grow and develop well we need a strong and supportive family unit around us. Each person within that unit would ideally have their own unique experiences and their own take on life which they would pass on to the growing child to help them form a well rounded view of life in general so that each new experience adds to their growth in a positive way. As we’re all too well aware though, this doesn’t often happen nowadays and most families are fractured in some way or another and many young people are largely left to bring themselves up with only their peers or movie stars to look to for guidance or as role models. Most of their peers will be doing exactly the same and it becomes a classic case of the blind leading the blind and we all know where that ends up.

So what is the cause of all this moral breakdown and is there really more of a moral breakdown now or has it just been more widely reported lately? I often hear older folks saying “when I was young this never happened” and words to that effect and I’m inclined to believe them. When my mother was a girl there was a war on and those left at home had to keep things going as best as they could so folks tended to work together more. Families were much more disciplined in those days and there wasn’t the political correctness then that there is now. The fashion nowadays is not to discipline your children at all and they even have the right to prosecute parents now for trying to bring a bit of discipline to their kids. When I was young my father used to dish out the punishment when I was naughty and he had a very effective way of doing it. He would stand sideways in the doorway and call me inside and as I went through the door he would slap me hard on the backs of my thighs, and god did it hurt! No matter how I ducked, twisted or tried to rush through quickly, he always caught me square on the back of the thighs and it was enough to act as a deterrent to me.

Another thing we’re seeing nowadays is a much higher birth rate and much younger people having children. Nowadays, kids are having kids before they’ve finished their own growing up and without the right kind of family influences around them, they’re bound to get it all wrong. Kids nowadays are not much younger than their own parents and often they act more like friends to their kids than parents. It’s like a sort of gang culture where everyone is genetically related. Similar rules apply in these families as apply in gangs and with the employment situation being what it is at the moment, many of these families have two or three generations who have never worked or known a work ethic. Large numbers of them live in sub standard housing in areas that are fast becoming no go areas for anyone who values their life and so crime becomes a normal and accepted part of their lives.

So what can we do to change things? The first thing is to stop breeding like flies and let the population decrease to a more sustainable and healthy level. There are just far too many people, full stop. Better education, more employment even if it means pseudo employment to qualify for state benefits and an end to the politically correct human rights compensation culture we’re living in now. Punishment needs to fit the crime and families need to start realising that blood may indeed be thicker than water, but a crime is a crime and whoever you are, you’ll be turned in for it.

I know I make it all sound so simple but it is really that simple. It really is just a case of being brave enough to make the changes, strong enough to see them through despite the protests of thousands of armchair bound single parents. Of course such measures won’t be popular and nor will the brave politicians who bring them in, but they will sort out our society before we anihilate ourselves. Or maybe we should just let society commit suicide and then just start all over again? Maybe that’s the answer to it all. It would certainly be the easiest way for the politicians.

I often think to myself how lovely it would be to find myself washed up on some uninhabited desert island out in the middle of nowhere like a modern day Robinson Crusoe. I could at last find some semblence of total peace from this terrifying world where I cannot go out after dark for fear of being mugged, raped or murdered, where I cannot go out to a bar for fear of date rape drugs or kidnap and torture and where it is even unsafe to remain inside my own home with the rise in burglary, breaking and entering and murder. At least on my peaceful paradise I could walk around in the dead of night without fear of being accosted by a criminal in nappies who can’t be punished due to his/her age.

Blood is thicker than water? Not in my house it ain’t!

The Power of Positive Thinking

There is a trendy new buzzword flying around the internet. One that claims to change your life for the better and help you to realise all your wildest fantasises while not having to actually work to bring them into being. There have been many books published on this subject, websites galore and even a dvd telling you how to do it. All you have to do is think differently, then sit back and wait for the money to come rolling in. What this new treasure? Positive thinking.

It goes by many names, The Secret and Cosmic Ordering being two of the latest but at the bottom line it’s just positive thinking dressed up in the latest fashionable garb. Like an ageing actress past her prime trying to cover her wrinkles with the latest new face cream, positive thinking has been given a makeover to bring it into the 21st century and make it desirable for today’s troubled young and trendy.

When I was a girl our grannies used to tell us to keep smiling and to remember that every cloud has a silver lining and to believe that everything will be all right in the end. That sort of home grown wisdom just doesn’t cut it in today’s hi tech, fast paced, action packed, new age world though. In order for a new idea to take a hold today, it needs to be offered in a glossy, full colour package with fancy typeface, icons and plenty of airy fairy language. Even better if it comes with additional extras like double disc dvd sets, cd’s, flashcards, workshops in swanky Covent Garden shops, mousemats, baseball hats and mugs. All at additional cost of course!

The basic priniciple of this new modern version of positive thinking is that in order for it to work, you must totally believe it. Any shred of doubt and those dollars won’t come rolling in, that Ferrari will stay in the showroom and that hot guy won’t be calling you up. And that’s the rub; the most basic rule for the whole thing to work, is the most difficult to achieve. Of course there’s always the additional workshops you can attend to help you get the hang of it – at additional cost of course. You could also buy several more books to help you understand where you went wrong.

Why is it no longer okay to believe that what happens in your life is what is supposed to happen? Why is it no longer okay to struggle a little for an achievement? Why are we all expected to be filthy rich and drive sports cars in order to be seen as successful and why does it take money and ‘stuff’ to make us happy? Why do we turn to these new age ideas like positive thinking with the sole purpose of getting rich and famous anyway? So many of the rich and famous end up ruining their lives that I wonder if the pursuit of fame and riches isn’t more like a negative thing than a positive. I can name so many household names – actors, singers etc who have problems of various kinds all due to those very things we admire most in them – their fame and wealth. Some are luckier than others and get through their lives with just a few anxiety issues, panic attacks and zero self esteem. Others aren’t so lucky.

Take the actor who doesn’t become a genuine household name until his mid forties for instance. Up until he becomes really famous, he is driven and hard working although broke. He has his goal and he works tirelessly to achieve it and his best works are those he created during those early years of striving. Then he suddenly becomes world famous and gets rich and then his problems start. He has no experience of coping with fame or large quantities of money and because he’s been broke most of his life, he goes a little wild. Women fall at his feet and he sees no reason to say no or be discerning and he ends up with several kids by different women, none of whom he is a proper father to. Facing middle age and the ever present tide of younger, firmer, tight assed guys coming up bhind him, he starts to worry. He doesn’t know how much longer he can be the main attraction. He’s never seen the need to settle down and get married, there’s been too much fun to be had to shackle himself to one woman and now the only women that want his company are brainless teenagers who think that bedding an actor will help their careers. He trawls the seedier nightclubs of eastern Europe with his ever present entourage of enabling hangers-on who all help him ruin his life because he pays them well, and picks up teenage art sudents who then sell their stories to the papers and upload videos of their interviews to youtube. Their budding careers get a temporary but welcome boost and they get their fifteen minutes of fame for having met ‘so and so’. This actor really exists by the way and he is lonely and suffers anxiety attacks. He’s middle aged but still tries to act like a seventeen year old. He was so much happier before he got famous, when he was struggling to be noticed. Once he found fame, he couldn’t handle it.

Others find fame and money ruin them in different ways. Some are ruined by drugs, alcohol, gambling or even crime. There are also a few who find the sudden abundance of money and fame enables them to live out their innermost desires and bring the stranger of their perversions into a living reality. Again the entourage of hangers-on all eager to help their master or mistress to achieve whatever they want, so long as they continue to pay well, ensure that they never have to listen to reason. It’s a downward spiral that ends either in their suicide, early death from alcohol or drugs or they end up broke and lonely and still refusing to realise that they’re not still the hottest, latest thing. Unfortunately stories like these are ten a penny today and the actor/entertainer who uses his money wisely and still works hard and creates a genuinely good product and adapts his work as he ages and matures, is in the minority. The famous person who doesn’t find themselves the subject of shameful tabloid stories of drug taking or seedy sexual endeavours is becoming harder and harder to find.

Why does no one use the power of positive thinking to bring themselves better powers of discernment, more patience and understanding of others, better decision making or more insight into people and their needs? All of these things are useful tools in the drive to succeed and can help ensure that when we do achieve our goals, we have learned the necessary skills to help us handle the results properly when we do achieve them. We are such a money driven society now that anyone who doesn’t have it is a nobody, a loser. You can be the nicest guy on the block, the one whom everyone loves the most because of your kindness and generosity but if you’re broke and not famous, you’re essentially a loser. Those whom you’ve helped to achieve their own goals with your wisdom and inight will turn their backs on you without a thought, for the chance to spend the night with an ageing actor with a good body and get a video of themselves telling all the sordid details on youtube.

The power of positive thinking is just that, a power and one that should be used wisely and with insight into what the ramifications of getting what you want might be. If people put as much effort into believing that their life is worthy even if they’re broke, as they do in spending time and money on shiny dvd’s that promise them wealth and fancy cars, then the world would be a happier place for everyone. Positive thinking requires that you have an insight into what is missing from your life and focus on this rather than on what you already have in abundance. The people that make these programmes and write these books know that everyone wants to be rich and many want to be famous and so they focus their ‘package’ on these materialistic pursuits. By spending so much time focussing on what is missing, you’re actually being negative rather than positive.

Wouldn’t it be more positive to spend some energy and time focussing on the abundance of experience you have that can be used to help others in similar situations? Wouldn’t it be more positive to use these self development programmes to ask for more opportunities to grow in self awareness? At the end of the day, the only ones getting rich by using these so call development programmes are the ones selling them to you! I would love to have more money and I know that a lot of good could be done for many people if I had it but I’ve had many years of experience being broke and having nothing. I’m old enough and wise enough to know that sex, drugs and rock-n-roll wouldn’t enhance my life one little bit and that if I came into a lot of money, I have the self awareness to use it wisely for my own good and that of many others.

All that, and I haven’t spent any money on positive thinking books or dvd’s!

The Internet – its power to heal or hurt

I am on facebook every day, for quite a significant amount of time. If I’m not actively working my page, then I’m checking it every half hour or so just in case. Just in case of what I don’t know but facebook is addictive as we all know and, well you have to check your page often don’t you…?

One thing that constantly amazes me is the way people are hurt or offended by the actions or words of other people. It’s as if the general population really do expect everyone to be nice, friendly and helpful all of the time and when they’re not, they’re surprised, hurt and angry. The thing that people just don’t seem to grasp, is that people aren’t nice, friendly and helpful. In fact people are normally the opposite and I’ve found that to expect otherwise is idiotic at best, and downright suicidal at worst. It’s a dog eat dog world out there and the internet revolution has enabled us to be more vindictive than we ever thought possible back in the day when we had to actually converse with people face to face. When I was growing up I had to actually talk to people and if I had a problem with anyone I had to deal with it and them physically. Being a non confrontational sort of person meant I tended to let things slide more often than not but conflicts did occur from time to time and when they did, I had nothing to hide behind. Nowadays the internet allows us all to be brave, pro active and downright aggressive if we desire to be, and the temptation must be extreme if you are the sort of person that has never had the balls to actually confront anyone in person. It’s so easy to be assertive online that anyone can do it.

People are now able to show their true colours like never before and so many are taking full advantage that an average day on facebook is tantamount to going into battle. Each and every day I piss at least one person off and get pissed off by at least another couple. Facebooking is fast becoming a stressful way to spend my spare time. There are so many weird and wonderful people on the internet and the popularity of social networking sites such as facebook make it so easy for these people to make their presence felt. when I was growing up, each town had it’s fair share of weirdos and oddities and they tended to keep themselves to themselves and everyone knew to keep out of their way, but nowadays the internet has given them the opportunity to scream their weirdness to the masses worldwide and they are taking full advantage.

With the ability to create completely false identities, social networking sites allow us to be whomever we want to be without the ever present chance of being found out that we had to worry about back in the day. One can create any number of facebook accounts and every one of your alter egos gets it’s voice heard..! Equally astounding is the fact that so many of these weirdos have entourages of willing and flaccid hangers on who make all the right noises and so encourage the weirdness even further. Many of them are just so weird that they are funny and it is not these that I worry about. The ones that worry me are the ones who use the internet to bully and demean others who may not have the ability to stand up for themselves. I have been bullied a few times on facebook and I admit that at times it has upset me to know that there are people out there who get a kick out of having influence on the emotions of other people without the possibility of a backlash. As time goes on I get more used to it and am able to brush it off more easily these days but I often see others who are obviously terribly upset at something one of their ‘friends’ has said to them. When you don’t have to worry about whether you are going to get a knock on the door, it’s so easy to express your darkest emotions at the expense of another and for every one that disappears off your facebook ‘friend’ list, there are ten others who will agree and laugh with you.

It’s as if we, as a species, are losing the ability to converse naturally. Nowadays we don’t write letters, we don’t phone people and we don’t talk and it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if we didn’t soon evolve without mouths at all…! With texting, e mails and now social networking, what use are mouths..? Without the visible feedback from conversing face to face, how can people learn how to behave socially? Human beings are social creatures; we are pack animals and cannot survive alone but today’s lifestyle seems to be trying to make us into solitary creatures. This can only lead to our downfall and at worst, it could mean the breakdown of society in general as we continue to do our interacting virtually and without the instant feedback that physical interaction gives us. I now find myself feeling more at ease communicating via text, e mail or social networking than I do on a face to face basis and that is worrying.

In order to try to counteract this, I have a little thing I do sometimes that helps me. Whenever I have to pop out to the shop I make a pact with myself that I will make myself actually converse with someone, anyone, about anything at all before I get back home. This has become easier over time and now it’s not so much of a problem for me as it was when I first tried it. Even if I just say a couple of words to someone at the checkout, so long as I actually talk and make something resembling a conversation, I go home happy with myself. Conversation is a dying art and I want to try to keep it alive if I can.

So what’s that got to do with being aggressive online..? Well it’s all about being real as opposed to being fake and that’s the relevant point here. Most of us wouldn’t have the nerve to be aggressive to people face to face as quickly as we do online. That’s because when we talk and interact face to face, we have to consider the other person’s feelings and we have to be aware that if they react badly to what we say or do, we may get either embarrassed or hurt or both..! Because most of us are cowards at heart, we don’t want to be embarrassed or punched in the face, so we moderate our language accordingly and that is what is missing when we interact online.

It is human nature to be a bit competitive. We have this inner need to keep up with the Jones’s and be better than the next person but when it’s done online without the usual signals that encourage us intuitively to moderate our language or actions, it quickly and easily gets out of control and that’s when people get hurt. When you are constantly having your feelings hurt by comments online, it can influence how you interact when you do meet people face to face and any reactions you display then influence the other person, who then has their feelings hurt and so they carry that to their own interactions, and so on and so forth. In this way, the social structure of modern society slowly and inexorably begins to crumble until we have de-evolved into the grunting savages that we so proudly proclaim to have left behind.

The one thing that you can never get across online, is the subtle meaning of your words. You may have meant it as a joke, but your written words alone often don’t get such subtleties across and more often than not, people get the wrong end of the stick and take offence even where none was intended. I’ve had this happen to me many times and have learned to make an effort to make sure the intended meaning of what I’m saying, is obvious in my comments. I’ve had my jokes and funny comments taken completely the wrong way and have had irate ‘friends’ sending me angry emails more than once. Conversely, there have been times when someone has pissed me off so much that I have fully intended to piss them off in revenge, but they’ve either refused to take the hint or just ignored it.

It just goes to show that the human ego is a fragile thing and the internet gives us a never before seen opportunity to take advantage of that. Whether we do that with good intentions or bad, is down to each individual at the end of the day but I fear that now the revolution has begun, there’ll be no going back. I fear for our social structure and am noticing more and more that the internet is making me more reclusive each and every day..!

Where’s the Dignity?

I’m not often at home at the right time to watch the Jeremy Kyle show and when I am, most times I don’t bother to watch it. When I do watch it, I find it compulsive viewing for all the wrong reasons. This is the kind of show everyone says they hate but they can’t stop watching it and I’m the same.

I like Jeremy Kyle himself; I like his style and delivery. He’s not like those other talk show hosts who dither and faff around his guests. He tells them direct, he says what we’re all thinking and he takes no prisoners. He’s funny with it and sensitive where and when sensitivity is called for, most of the time. There are times though when he annoys me. Sometimes I feel he goes too far with his aggressive act and there are times when I feel he belittles people just a bit too much.

It is a constant source of amazement to me what people will happily admit to just to get on the telly. Everyone wants their fifteen minutes of fame and even if it means you have to admit to having anal sex with your girlfriend’s brother’s friend’s landlord’s dog walker at seven thirty in the evening on the common whilst your eight month old triplets are left alone to fend for themselves for a fortnight, that’s okay so long as you get on the telly! Really, have these people no shame at all? If I’d done anything remotely similar to some of the stuff the folks on this show admit to, I wouldn’t go out of my house for a year and when I finally did, it would be after dying my hair, donning a huge sombrero and enormous sunglasses! Maybe it’s just me being overly shy but where the heck has dignity gone?

Some people say they pay people to over act and make their situations more dramatic than they are already and that may be so, we’ll never know but it certainly is compulsive viewing. I find myself doing what my parents used to do when I was young; what used to make me think of them as right old fuddy duddies. I sit here and shake my head sadly as I say to myself “jeez what has happened to the youth of today.” I now sound like my mother, which is a frightening thought but I have to admit I now finally understand what she meant all those years ago. Sorry mother!

The first tv show of the Jeremy Kyle ilk, was that one run by Robert Kilroy Silk, remember him? Didn’t he vanish from our screens after some kind of scandal? I can’t remember but I loved his show. It was revolutionary at the time and it was great when things got a bit heated and some of the audience started shouting and ranting at each other. We’d never seen such things on our screens before and we were captivated. I will never forget the one where the old guy in the front row didn’t realise his flies were undone and no one else bothered to tell him.

Then we had Vanessa Feltz and her show that ended in scandal after she admitted they paid people to act up to increase the drama. That was a shame as I liked her show alot; her style of interviewing was witty and light. Tricia was another one, although I didn’t like that show as much as the others. She was the first one who was actually qualified to do such a show, as she was a trained psychologist or psychotherapist or something along those lines.

Then along came the American versions of these shows with their loud music and razzamatazz. Oprah, Ricky Lake, the old guy with the blond hair, the black guy with the funny name and the older gal with the glasses, Sally something her name was. The trouble with lots of shows of this type is that they often fall into a pattern of same old same old and not enough variety of topical issues we can all discuss and learn about. With Jeremy Kyle it’s DNA and Lie Detectors, with Ricky Lake it was makeovers and with that black guy it was reunions – too much of the same that quickly gets boring.

The thing that I have learned through watching Jeremy Kyle is that no matter how low my self esteem may get and however dire my material circumstances may become, I have more self respect and dignity in my left earlobe than most of the guests on his show seem to have and just knowing that fact raises my self esteem a few points. There was one episode where a gal wanted Jeremy and his team to help her alcoholic mother to stop having one night stands every night. Jeremy interviewed a tearful mature daughter about her mother’s escapades before announcing the mother and bringing her onto the stage. In walks this pensioner of 62 wearing a far too large sleeveless t shirt, which she then proceeds to raise above her head and give everyone a full frontal view of her naked breasts that were hanging down below her waist. She had no teeth, her face was very wrinkled, she wore no make up and obviously hadn’t shaved her legs in over a decade, but she was somehow able to have one night stands nearly every night after raising a few jars in the local of an evening. If that was my mother, rather than take her on national tv to broadcast her exploits to the world, I’d move to the other end of the country and change my name!

In the old days of Robert Kilroy Silk and Vanessa Feltz, when this type of tv show was a new concept, they discussed things, shared opinions and tossed ideas around but now it’s just ‘hop in, do a DNA test, into the next room for a lie detector and hop out again’. It’s boring now and we’re more than ready for either a change of tactic with these shows or a change of show altogether. These shows no longer stimulate my brain, they don’t make me think about how I’m living my life or whether I’m doing as good for myself as I could be. They just make me angry at my fellow man, embarrassed to be the same species as these numbskulls and sickened by how low my species can sink!