Year: 2009

In general I think there is far too much plastic surgery being performed, girls as young as 10 and 12 are getting work done

In this case her breasts do look quite large for the rest of her body. They also appear to be escaping whatever bra she’s wearing – they’re kinda spilling out on the sides which must be so irritating

large breasts also cause a lot of back pain and as she gets older they could cause even more complications

I didn’t see anywhere in the story where she talks about discomfort, she only mentioned wanting to be faster – is that what has everyone’s panties in a knot?

I truly can’t blame the girl – when they showed a close-up of her back you can see all the straps and hooks and she’s still bouncing – trust me – that is not at all comfy.

(editorial insert before the rest of the post – this one started laughy and then dived foot-in-mouth into heavy stuff – I think this Reg story touched a nerve!)

One of my daily reads is The Register. They’re an online techie news website that goes for the highly cynical point of view. But they also have a lot of fun with the news they’re reporting.

Latest Hottie topic is this one on the tennis player Simona Halep. It’s a curious story for a couple of reasons (ok, mebbe for more than a pair).

There’s more than two good reasons why cosmetic surgery’s been developed. I’ve actually benefitted from it myself in the past in what I refer to now as Nose Job Number Two. (The second was surgical, the first was agricultural.) I know what she’s getting at too, from experience with trying to move my body fast while the ballast around my middle just wants to stay put.

(I checked the video and yep, she’s got a great pair of reasons why she thinks she needs this done)
(Erm … I only watched about a minute of the 5 they have on there … honest !)

(ok, ok – the Whack-Thud was interfering with the Snow Patrol album I have on)

Doh – I think I digressed there … Yep. I can see why she’d want to have breast reduction surgery in order to get more comfort (they must hurt!) and speed around the court but all my brain is seeing is a young girl looking to have unnecessary surgery performed that amounts to not much more than a mutilation. Mind you, the Amazons used to do something like it and I wouldn’t argue with them.

Maybe there’s other ways to tackle it, like different emphasis in the diet or using different gear to keep them under control. I’m a bloke, so I’ll apologise for not being familiar with the ways the ladies stay abreast of this issue. My ballast problem (ok, when in an honest moment I’ll admit I kinda look pregnant) could be dealt with by surgery (little bit of lipo 🙂 but a far more effective way of tackling it would be to balance my diet and do rather more exercise than I do now.

Plastic surgery’s a necessary option for those for who it was intended. Like me with a nose which I had trouble breathing through or the lady who was in the news recently having had a full face transplant. That lady will now be looking forward to a future that’s benefitted from the lessons learned in the rest of the plastic surgery field.

There’s also the case of the lady who had post-mastectomy pictures removed from Facebook (big long link to BBC!), because Facebook deemed them “sexual and abusive”. I caught this story on Radio 5 this morning and I think I heard (was driving, my attention snaps on and snaps off as required by the road) that she was considering cosmetic surgery in the future. From the limited amount I know of the implications of breast cancer, it’s to restore confidence. From how she sounded on the radio, I don’t think she needed that confidence boost 🙂

And that shows – beauty isn’t just what’s on the surface. Some of the most beautiful people I know do not conform to the Hollywood Ideal or the Catwalk look. Their beauty is in what’s inside. How they act, how they move, how they treat other people. Whether they work for their figure or get cursed with SkinnyGenes. I know someone who’s a little bigger than she wants to be and despite all the work she’s putting in, is having trouble reducing to the size she thinks she should be. Do I think she’s fat ? Definitely not – she’s healthy. Do I think the exercise makes her drop dead gorgeous ? Yep. The exercise enhances coordination and fluidity of movement. And she’s blessed with a very warm personality too.

Ok – maybe I’d better get back to the original thing … It raises the “what’s really necessary?” question. I’ll quite happily support plastic surgery to correct things like my battered nose or to give a lady recovering from major surgery the confidence she needs to help her fight for health. But cutting off bits to help someone run around a tennis court faster seems both rather unnecessary and a dangerous shortcut that’ll damage a healthy young body.

However, it’s her choice. From what I’ve put above, you’ll probably gather that I’d advise a different course of action but it isn’t my body that would be under the knife. (I have a few people trying to get me to go in to get my shoulder sorted – it hasn’t happened yet partly cos I hate hospitals)

Before the PS, I’ll add in another note 🙂 I usually support Yorkshire cricket because my ancestry is up there. Getting to like Somerset too cos they’re locals (I almost put yokels ;-). I’ve got my fingers crossed for Middlesex County Cricket Club this year, who have adopted Pink as part of their One Day game uniform in support of the Breakthrough Breast Cancer charity.

Cancer in all of its forms is a vicious illness. I knew someone my age who disappeared from work for about 4 months. We didn’t know why, he just stopped answering the “Lunch Mob” emails. He came back after a few months and showed us his scars. My initial thought was “crikey, what happened to the shark that did that to you ?” With what they’d cut, it must have been touch and go there. It was good to see him back to his old bouncy self, albeit with the experience shadow that comes with a brush with death. He left the place I work at to move back to nearer his family. Hope he’s still around and causing trouble 🙂

Talking of cricket – the Yorkshire v Lancashire game is starting, so it’s time for me to hit “Publish Post”

PS I’ve put a lot of cliches in that would get me in trouble with the Equality and Diversity people – I really couldn’t resist and all cliches are meant in jest 🙂 But I have gone far deeper into the Breast Cancer angle than I originally intended. Maybe it’s cos I’m keeping an eye out for news about a couple of people ? 🙂

When I had my cable TV fitted, I had the radio commentary coming over the internet 🙂 The telly commentators get the advantage of being able to show things with replays but the radio commentators are great to listen to. They’re intelligent people who get a kick out of watching a game and they pass on that fun to the listener.

Cricket and football are a curious contrast. Cricket is a laid back game, football is hustle n bustle. But whereas 90 minutes of football only tends to have a couple of incidents which change the result, they happen every ball towards the end of a cricket match.

I get bored watching football but get glued to when a cricket match has a close finish 🙂

PS Test Match Special people are legendary in their ability to fully describe cakes.

As a cricket philistine it seems to me you can watch cricket for days and nothing much happens! 😉 I used to share a flat with a chap who used to watch cricket on TV but turn the sound down and listen to the radio commentary. It was quite amusing listening to them talking about birds flying overhead, the buses outside the grounds, people in the crowd etc. 🙂

… It’s Twenty20 season again 🙂

After watching England batter the West Indies over the weekend, I’m moving into seeing my Going Home Times from work get dominated by the Twenty20 cup. Tonight’s game is between Somerset and Warwickshire and we’re already seeing the Howitzers make life dangerous for the crowd. They’re playing at Taunton which is actually not too far away. Surprised they’ve got a game on cos it’s been quite damp here.

Don’t know if I’ll actually get to see a game this year, as the Yorkshire games aren’t on at convenient times for the family to go see one. I’m not too far from the Gloucestershire ground but for various reasons I won’t be going to a game there. (Let’s just say I get irritated when ignored and the Gloucestershire people completely ignored the works cricket club when we tried to organise a second season of pre-season nets there)

So :
Tonight – Somerset v Warwickshire, got my fingers crossed for Somerset as the local team, although I do keep an eye on Warwickshire cos I was born there.
Tomorrow – 7pm start, so I raid Sainsburys before the game starts.
Friday – Yorkshire v Lancashire – go Yorkshire !

And then we have two ICC World Twenty20 competitions, one for the men and another for the ladies. Looking forward to it, although the recorder in my cable TV box may end up screaming for mercy 🙂

Curious how I’m looking forward to watching as much of the English and World Twenty20 games as I can but had almost total lack of interest in the IPL games I could have seen. I guess it’s how “connected” you feel with the teams on show. I’ve followed the English leagues for a couple of decades now but know nearly nothing about the artificially set up IPL teams.

Got an interesting combination on show at the moment. The bowler’s a fella called Max Waller who bowls legspin, with a livewire keeper called Craig Kieswetter. Legspin is a bowling discipline that is incredibly difficult to pull off. Whereas normal offspin gives just two options – turn in and no turn – legspin opens up incredible variation. The standard delivery will move in a bit in the air before turning away but with not much change in the bowling action you can do one that goes in (googly) and one that stays straight. Even more dangerous is the topspinner, which doesn’t just go straight, it speeds up after bouncing. Very nasty. I caught out my village team skipper with one while messing around at the end of practice. I was practicing my spinners, he was looking to whack ’em. Out comes the topspinner, skipper goes for a Big Whack, ball rolls … Old cliche is “You Miss, I Hit” and the stumps rattle.

I used to be able to bowl the basic legspin action but couldn’t get it to do much more than turn in (googlies). So my offspin was a far better thing to develop as I could get that to turn in with accuracy and also had a vicious topspinner (it had a tendency to roll :-). I also had a couple of other weapons with my spin bowling. Never really used that in a game though cos my medium pace swing bowling was far more effective.

Those are days long gone now though, as my long term shoulder injury means bowling is not a good idea now. I can move through the action but there’s a blockage in there that means :
a) it hurts ! (which means more damage is being done)
b) no accuracy whatsoever
It started out with my shoulder dislocation but I reckon it got finished off by me doing a Typical Bloke by not asking for help when installing my 28″ CRT telly a few years ago. Yep – not particularly strong or big person attempting to drag a big telly out of it box and put it on a stand. (I’m also blonde and occasionally do Dumb Blonde things)

The other fella is the keeper, who’s pulled off a couple of excellent stumpings in this game. With the indoor matches (see Blog Part 1 for some match reports 🙂 I used to do the wicket keeper’s job as well as doing the captain thing and a little bowling. Keepers are always in the game and it’s a fun job. Their role is to stand behind the stumps and catch anything that gets past the batsmen. They look to take catches but if the batsman isn’t careful, they’ll stump them. Fast reactions essential (or you miss things and it hurts less to catch cricket balls than drop them).

I used to be good enough in the indoor games to turn game results around with more than my fair share of stumpings, although I rarely did that job in outdoor games. I preferred to terrorize batsmen with speedy fielding from reasonably close. I’m a big too fat though nowadays to do much of that.

Hey ! I’m missing the game and it’s almost half time … One advantage of cricket watching is that it doesn’t demand your full attention all of the time as you wait for something to happen. Instead, you can tap away at a keyboard for a while and look up as the bowler is running in. It’s similar with baseball, look up when the pitcher throws, look away when a new hitter is coming out. So even though the game has inspired this post, I’ve not missed any of it 🙂

One of my favourite themes is the music post, not done one for a little while. I like doing them because it gets me hunting Youtube for videos. I listen to a lot via iTunes, although that’ll slacken off a little over the next few months because the cricket season will get me watching the telly instead of having a listen.

So what have I been listening to ? Here goes and as usual, lots of Youtube links :

I have a weakness for ladies with long dark hair and Natasha Khan of Bat For Lashes really does fit that stereotype. Excellent voice too. Here’s an excerpt from a Later show of them doing Sleep Alone.

Time for another couple of snippets from Later, which had two ladies on last week, Lisa Hannigan and Little Boots (aka Victoria Hesketh). If you go by the stereotype, I’d have been looking to find out more about Lisa Hannigan. Yep, pretty with long dark hair and while her voice isn’t as good as Natasha Khan’s, it’s still enchanting. Here’s Lisa Hannigan’s I Don’t Know from Later Live. It didn’t get to the Friday night Later show, which is a shame because the two tracks that did weren’t as good. It’s as if she got blown away by the other one who caught my eye on Later. Lots of potential here, needs more confidence to know that she is pretty good. The album’s still a little more than I’d like to spend so I’ll be waiting on this one.

Who’s the other Later show lady ? Well, there were actually 3 ladies on Later, Lisa Hannigan, Annie Lennox and Little Boots. I do like some of the tracks that Annie Lennox and Eurythmics came out with but there’s a phrase that says “retire gracefully”. And that’s all I’ll say about Annie Lennox … Little Boots on the other hand is just emerging into the pop scene and Remedy is one track from Later.

And because I think she’s so good and because this one’s been rattling in my head since I first heard it, here’s Boyfriend. There’s plenty more too at LittleBootsVideos. Incredible voice here and I’ll be getting the album when it gets released in a couple of weeks.

Ok – to the complete surprise of all who know me, that’s Sleepypete ignoring the highly cute dark haired girl to go chasing the blond one.

Who else has been gracing the playlist lately then ?

Been pleasantly surprised by Katie Melua and KT Tunstall, although I’m not too sure how much more Katie Melua I’ll be buying. Bit bland … although Shy Boy which I’ve linked in the last sentence touches a bit of my soul. On the other hand, KT Tunstall will keep me interested cos of the energy she injects into songs like Saving My Face.

Oh dear – that’s the hair stereotype coming in again … So to show I really go by the voice instead of the hair, here’s a track from Lene Marlin’s latest album. There’s more available too from LeneMarlinTV on Youtube. And while I’m on incredible voices, here’s Alison Goldfrapp singing Utopia. Truly incredible voice here.

Right – time to close with “something completely different”. I’ve had this double album for quite some time now but haven’t listened to it enough. The War of The Worlds by H.G. Wells has spawned quite a bit in the scifi world but this is one of the highlights. Thunderchild from the Jeff Wayne musical version.

Carmi said: Everyone who’s gone – fan and non-fan alike – can’t stop raving.

Oh… I’ve been *raving* alright…. [grinds teeth] [laughs]

I so need to go see this movie. Everyone who’s gone – fan and non-fan alike – can’t stop raving.

I think we may have that too, although it's not given a name …

Every year, UK cars over 3 years old need to take the MoT (Ministry of Transport) Test, which checks all points for roadworthiness. Things like :

Brake condition, tyre condition
Body condition (rust)
Pipes & hoses & bulbs

All sorts – one relatively new thing is emissions … If the engine's not too healthy then it'll get picked up on that.

Different name, similar test 🙂 Bit more discreet though, we need insurance and a valid MoT to get our tax discs, which is a 2 inch thing posted in the windscreen.

Here in Ontario, they have something called DriveClean which ensures cars don’t spew more pollutants into the atmosphere than they absolutely must.

You’re obligated to have such a test every couple of years, and they’re nice enough to tie it to your plate registration – which is equally conveniently connected to your birthday.

So….on your birthday, you must pay for DriveClean, pray the car makes it through, then pay for your new plates. Happy b-day from your government…now pay up 🙂

(Thankfully, everything was perfect this year. The wondervan performed as new. Whew!)