Back when Margie Thatcher declared higher spending taxes and spending cut, Britain was in an uproar. People always go in a huff when what was theirs get taken away.

Well, history repeats, doesn’t it? Whenever a Tory comes into power, boom goes the spending and it preaches what used to be a British virtue – frugality. Germany is following suit.

And then after everything Thatcher had done, they tagged on the fruit of the work to Tony Blair. Poor Margie was viewed as the fiscal Nazi of the twentieth century.

James Bartholomew seems to have an optimistic outlook on British economic future. I am inclined to disagree. Has he seen the recent company value of BP? I think not.

British and the Germans were spending money when they didn’t have any. I think it’s time for them to start paying back or else default. (Actually, what is the primary export for Britain?! After all these years of being fed Economics, I still have no idea whatsoever.)

I’m pretty sure France is gloating over this…

I had an odd dream. In it, I was Lestat de Lioncourt; right after Magnus made him his heir, I guess. I was at Versailles, attending a ball, in which a maiden fair (or I’m assuming that was what she was) was pleading for my attention. I, on the other hand, was rather uninterested in courting such maidens’ pleas, and went off to a small room to sample some wine…

I’ve been reading too much Anne Rice and playing Vampire: Masquerade. Mayhap ‘tis time for me to stop.

“Oh, Louis, Louis… still whining, Louis… have you heard enough? I’ve had to listen to that for centuries!”

-Lestat de Lioncourt

I’d like to start of today’s post with something that is completely unrelated to the post title. I was talking with JB when the conversation slowly drifted to my obsession with my body (or as he put it, my abuse of) and how difficult it is to find a middle between very skinny and very err, chubby.

“Don’t you want me to be pretty?”

“Of course I do, darling. It always feels nice to walk with a beautiful girl.”

“Why?”

“Well, for one thing, your self-esteem goes up threefold, not to mention the envious looks of other men. We really are a competitive lot.”

“So it’s like carrying a Kelly or Birkin bag.”

“I’m assuming that’s one of those bags that cost more than an average man’s monthly pay.”

“That’s correct.”

“Then yes, it’s like carrying a bag.”

“So I’m your Birkin bag.”

“You can say that, yes.”

I’m not going to go into the feminism approach of “JB is a chauvinistic bastard who thinks women are handbags”, simply because I always had a feeling the majority of the fashion industry strictly caters to men in the sense that women buy the products to cater themselves to men. If men all said in unison that they can no longer view any female with a waistline of less than forty inches to be female or desirable, I have a feeling Lays and Nestle and Mars. Inc would suddenly see their stocks skyrocketing. SO yes! It’s the men’s fault that I can now fit into a size double 0 and can wear a size 0 jeans on top of another!

Anyway, then we moved onto American obesity (although British women’s average BMI is more than their American counterparts’… who would have guessed?) when Jack mentioned this monstrosity:

If you want to know, that is not some kind of a monstrosity from the planet Mars, but rather, it’s supposed to be edible. It’s called “Kentucky Double Down Sandwich”, and instead of a bun it utilizes two fried chicken patties in the place of bread. The calorie isn’t awful – 540kcal, which is around the same as a Big Mac – but still this looks dreadful. My guess is that it’s about the size of my hand, but fried chicken, cheese, bacon, and then fried chicken?! I might need angio after eating this thing that masquerades as food.

Then:

“It was greasy.”

“YOU ATE IT?!”

“Well, I had to! IM did too.”

JB and IM ate this work of art… I’m not entirely certain what possessed them, because I won’t go near this thing with a three foot pole. After a steady diet of raw vegetables for nearly two months, just looking at this thing gives me heartburns. What on earth has possessed KFC to create this nightmare-ish food? I know that they cater to young men (aka JB and IM) but let’s see… carb, fat, protein, more fat, fat, fat, protein. Which, by the way, no one in the 1st world country is lacking, certainly not here. This baffles me.

I also fail to see why JB had to eat it. But anyway…

IC has officially gone down the drain. Or more like a ditch. Or a toilet. Or one of those very unsavoury places that I sincerely hope I’ll never visit. Not only was he a borderline alcoholic last year AND had an emotionally unstable girlfriend (MORE than me, which is quite a feat), he’s been doing drugs. Since… oh, god knows when.

Now, I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I certainly do not do anything that is not condoned. I don’t have tattoos. Even in the eyes of the Mormon church there’s not much they can condemn about me. And then this news.

May I say that I feel it was perfectly natural for me to panic? And there he was, in Ghirardelli’s, calmly sipping chocolate milk shake and telling me this as if he was telling me that he got a new iPod. I did not go into a new bout of hysterics, but at that moment, our relationship – or what was left of it – was O.V.E.R.

I don’t consort with druggies, thanks very much.

Here are the comments from my friends about this incident:

IM: He’s a fucking seaweed. Leave him alone.

JB: Just leave him alone. You’d rather spend your time with more worthwhile friends, wouldn’t you?

RB: You can’t do anything for him but pray.

J: Il est un connard.

I understand that my controlling nature is a problem as well, but his lack thereof is another problem by itself. One thing is certain: he will make a wonderful addition to my novel. People really do love to see someone who has everything have a mighty downfall and end up with nothing. Schardenfrude, as Germans say.

Apparently in Britain they take the BP incident as the US bashing Britain. I fail to see how. I have no doubt that if the US spilled a million barrels of oil in Dover strait, they’d be all over the place trumpeting about how un-environmental the US is.

It’s rather infuriating. Hayward blurted out that he “wants his life back”… right. What about the lives of those who died? Or perhaps the LIVES OF THE PEOPLE WHO LOST THEIR JOBS BECAUSE OF THIS? Then some git commented on Reuters that “BP is a multinational company, why are the British the only ones getting beaten? ‘Tis unfair.” Umm, let me think… maybe it’s because BP is a British company. Hell, it even has BRITISH in its name. Or perhaps it now stands for “Barrels of Petroleum” [in the sea]?

Then: “Britain is a good friend of the US. Why is the US beating on its good friend?”

If you haven’t noticed, oh Britain, America befriends someone with MONEY. If Mexico suddenly became an economical superpower overnight, trust me, America would be sashaying over to Mexico in an instant. I’m not too certain what they are thinking.

I can say this: this is NOT America’s fault. This is NOT anyone’s fault but BP’s, since Deepwater Horizon was under BP’s control when it exploded into a fiery inferno. Not to mention they did not put necessary safety measures, despite several warnings from the US government.

Oh, and did I mention BP’s pipeline in Alaska rusting and causing severe trouble? I thought that kind of mishaps were too elementary to occur…

Upon my quest to return to my former part-time job (here’s a hint: It does not involve children), I had gone through many revelations, the foremost of which was this:

If men liked bigger women, we’d be bigger too.

In a simple matter of logic, here it is: we preen ourselves to be more attractive to the other gender. It’s a simple, biological impulse. Since we can’t really feather ourselves like a peacock or produce smells like other, more fortunate animals, we must dress and colour ourselves. Right?

So what if the clothes only flattered stick figures? More likely for men to pick the twig-made woman who probably has no time of the month at all. And hence… the stick figure models are born.

Most men say “nonono, we like full figures, like Sophia Loren”. Well, tough luck. If you lot didn’t hail Twiggy as the mini-skirt queen, we may not have 6 foot 100lb pre-pubescent girls strutting down the runway (which, by the way, can’t be healthy. But what can you say when a perfect Barbie-looking Ana Carolina Reston decides to starve herself and flops dead? Nothing.)

So the sample sizes shrank and shrank to the point that the waist size is tailored for 23 inches… and apparently, unless you went through some odd transmogrification (like me) or you have no ribs beyond the seventh, tough luck. And apparently, all women must aspire to looking like a model, because apparently now that is biologically possible. So size zero is the new “in” size. Everybody’s wearing it, from Daria to Gisele! (Actually, my guess is Gisele is a size four, but who cares?)

And then they persecute the hapless mannequins, who are completely blameless and are just trying to meet the requirements so they can make a living, that they are “bad influences” to the youngsters and they should gain weight. Never mind that those people who are saying these things WILL NEVER pay a model’s rent. Ever. So they irresponsibly say “here, you look unhealthy and there’s a twelve year old trying to look like you, so gain a few stones”, and then promptly ignore the said girl when she loses a shoot at Armani for gaining two pounds. World is a fair place, isn’t it?

In fact, if models are giving bad influences to the youngsters, why not sue Mattel? They’re making Barbie dolls, which have even more impossible measurements than a fashion model. She would be 5’9”, 110lb, with a waist of 21.5 inches (it used to be 18 inches…) , a bust of 36, and a hip of 33. I’m sorry, but you can’t be 5’9” and have a hip measurement of 18 inches. You are not Cathie Jung. It’s just not possible, unless you went through some sort of bodily transmogrification. But nobody’s shooting darts at them. It makes one wonder why.

Here’s a good quote from the ever-decadent (and ever-failing) Goldmund of the era, IC:

“You’re a model, ergo you’re hot.”

What? Since when? Isn’t that like saying even this synthetic leather bag must be of good quality, since it has a huge Fendi logo emblazoned on it? That’s just silly.

So there. Even those who are not brand-conscious are fooled.