In which Clare reads the Guardian, but avoids learning about anything of importance.

[slemslempike]

I rather enjoy reading the Blind date feature on the Guardian. I like all of Life & Style, mostly - it's such a soothingly stereotypical view of an upper middle class Guardianista life. Last week I was advised to buy a £75 vegan duffel bag. (I didn't.) The Blind date feature is pleasantly voyeuristic, though obviously not really, and I like seeing what sort of things people feel they have to pretend they talk about on these occasions. Will anyone ever criticise anyone else's table manners? I liked this one particularly: Kate and Dom. It actually sounds like a very dull time, but almost all the dates end up without a spark being kindled, (usually either both of them saying they'll meet up as friends, or one being keener than another), and this is the first one I've seen where a woman rated a man more highly and wanted to meet up and he politely declined. I just like her for daring to admit attraction and risk rejection.

The Guardian is less pleasing to me in this article where it is claimed that the new sitcom written by three young men is "quasi-feminist". By which, apparently, they mean that it's about a world when women are uniformly competent and together, and the three remaining men, who are the main characters to the women's background context, get to be incompetent and funny. The writers/actors are from The Inbetweeners (which I do find funny, and even though I expect the film to be dire I still intend to go and see it), so I'm assuming they're attempting to distance themselves from the decidedly non-feminist nature of that show. But UGH. Lumping women in together and assigning them a uniform characteristic is not feminist, even if the characteristic is supposedly positive. And I know there's no official test to take to get to call something feminist, but there SHOULD BE, and I SHOULD GET TO ADMINISTER IT.

There is also an article by Judith Butler in comment is free - I don't understand the background enough to properly engage with it, but it was still very interesting. I am also very amused by the comment thanking her for a clear article - clarity is not usually what she is credited with. I am having to restrain myself from making my first foray into Guardian commenting with "I LOVE YOU JUDITH I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU PLEASE LOVE ME BACK AND READ MY THESIS".

I wish I were the sort of person who made good comments on things. However, I appear to be one of life's lurkers, even on things I actually want to engage with. I have been meaning to respond to comments on a suggestion I made on Edinburgh Festival Idea Challenge (about signs for non-wheelchair accesible venues), but I haven't made it yet.(Ooh, I am currently in the top 25 for voted ideas! If the general apathy continues to the end of October I could win festival tickets.) It's a shame about the apathy, it's a good idea, I think, to get ideas about improving the festivals. I encourage people to go and add their own suggestions! (And, of course, if you think my idea has merit, you could vote for it.) I especially like the ideas about recycling bins for flyers on the Royal Mile, having a loyalty card, and the various suggestions for going paperless.

Comments

[gair.livejournal.com]

Oh my God, Butler on Arendt. BEST BRANEPAIRING EVER.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

If you know Arendt, and you steel yourself enough to read the comments, could you tell me if any of them make valid points, or if they are just arses?

[gair.livejournal.com]

I had a look at the first page, couldn't face going any further: looks like mostly people who have THORTS about Eichmann that they want to write down in a free-association sort of way - I haven't seen any serious engagement with Arendt's thought yet, all looks like either 'It's too hard' or 'It's dated', neither of which engages with what she and/or Butler are saying.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

What is new and exciting, let along quasi-feminist, about a sitcom in which the women are sensible and sorted and the men are incompetent? It's practically the definition of sitcom.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I know! And ooh, a show where all the main characters are men, and women just incidental? REVOLUTIONARY!

[oursin.livejournal.com]

On the bleeding EDGE!!!!

[serriadh.livejournal.com]

It's particularly encouraging that they also talk about when they flat-shared and had to decide which one would be the 'housewife' while the others lazed about. HAHAHAA U WAZ THE WOMANZ!!!

[cakesy.livejournal.com]

Oh yay, a sitcom where women are sensible and unfunny! BE STILL MY BEATING HEART.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

To be fair, I obviously haven't seen the sitcom, but when it's explained as:

this idea of us as the only men left and isn't it horrible living in England now it's full of women. But you see, actually, that the women cope very well. It's the men that don't."

"They are three pathetic men in a village full of people that all hate them," agrees Thomas. "Hopefully, you end up empathising with them, because their social prospects are impossible, really. People throw things at them in the street."

I DON'T THINK I SPEAK TO SOON WHEN I SAY NO.

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

So is 'Regal' Dom-speak for fat? Kate sounds great and I hope she finds someone who is more fun than Dom. (Also why do I suspect that she was enthused about his interests, which might well be hers too, but that he was probably a lot less interested in hers.)

I am saving the Judith Butler to read later.

Also I read a lot of Life and Style for the similar reasons, because it sums such a peculiar and specific definition of middle class.

Perhaps 'quasi' means 'not at all' in this context? Also isn't the competent women/incompetent child-men a staple of advertising as well as sitcom. And advertising is hardly known for its breakthrough re-constitution of gender roles.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Oh, I hadn't thought about that! I hope not, and also that Kate finds someone very nice.

Life and Style also seems to have jumped into crafting by offering mostly quite hideous and pointless tutorials.

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

Life and Style also seems to have jumped into crafting by offering mostly quite hideous and pointless tutorials.

They're remarkably Blue Peter-like those tutorials, except the Blue Peter people managed to make their versions of things actually appealing.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Oh, God, has it? The Guardian has many faults, but at least so far it hasn't been foisting knitted iPod-charger cosies on to my vision.

(I have Mixed Feelings about crafting: on the one hand, I generally like and am interested in my friends' projects, and I absolutely approve of the idea of sticking two fingers up at the mass-production / advertising-industrial complex, but on the other, my mother gave up making stuff at home the moment the family budget could take it and took to running a garden design business instead, and one of my grandmothers used to enforce her dominance over her relatives by making them wear hideous hand-knits, and all of this baggage has given me no desire at all to try it myself. And also the house fills up with books all on its own and if it started also filling up with random handmade tchotchkes I would have to go and live in the shed)

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Some of them are okay, but all are overshadowed by the hideous tea cup clock.

[leedy.livejournal.com]

Dear God, that is eye-bleedingly hideous.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Like, REALLY. I just cannot understand anyone thinking that particular example looks good, even if you have already had a moment in your life where you thought "I would like a clock with actual tea cups on it".

Though I kind of now want to host a competition and make all my friends create clocks out of crockery to see who can make the ugliest clock.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

OMG WTF THAT IS AWESOME IN ITS WRONGNESS.

I particularly liked the line 'who could fail to be impressed when you show them your own personalised clock?'

Also, the comment from the original artist 'its great that so many people have an oppinion on crafts and feel they can do better. If Ive got you away from the tellybox and making something even just to prove you would never make something so "awful" or "ugly" then my work here is done' makes me want to stick two fingers up at her and sit down with a cup of coffee and a recorded episode of Mary Portas. Which I think I'll do, actually.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Good. I am not fond of the term "tellybox" rather too cutesy and might also say lappy for laptop and om nom nom WHICH I HATE (apologies to people who are actually very nice and use these, but they are HORRID WORDS). And mostly I knit in front of TV anyway, and I probably wouldn't "craft" if I couldn't watch TV at the same time.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

'Sammy' for sandwich is the one that makes me feel like I have large wholegrains stuck between my teeth. I know it's irrational of me and that perfectly nice people say it, and that I say things that make other people cringe, but I wish I could strike it from the face of the earth.

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

That is not being impressed. It is being polite.

I thought not having to clutter your house up with hideous things made out of recycling and glue was one of the advantages of not having children.

[sam-t.livejournal.com]

I quite liked "You can make it look even more magical with the addition of fake ivy, little plastic birds or even ribbons on your teacup handles."

What sort of magic would result from the combination of plastic wildlife and little bows on one's china I dread to think.

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

Sometimes with a craft project, you want to create something that has a lot of wow factor but won't take a long time to master.

Noooo! This is a view of hand work which I hate. If you are going to make cheap crap, you might as well buy it.

Sorry, inner craft snob took over there.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Ha - I totally am not with you there. I really like things that look awesome with a minimum of effort. And effort doesn't actually correlate with cheap, or even with looks-cheap (though they may well coincide), so I disagree entirely!

[publicansdecoy.livejournal.com]

I like reading Comment is Free but urge you to maintain your resistance to joining in the commenters BTL. So depressing.

-x-

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

But maybe I could make it better and bring happiness and rainbows to BTL in CiF!

I think you're probably right.