Insanity, Cont.

 Kristi Kuudisliim (see her at http://www.closemodels.com/modelgallery/defaultaspx?model=598) is considered to be a large sized model.  She is UK size 14, US 10, and very tall.  She is busty, but in no way large.    WTF?  In what alternative universe would she be considered large?  Why, the media/fashion universe of course.  And the sad thing is she considers herself to be large.   We need to stop this insanity, need to stop paying attention to a group of small-minded people who control the media and distort our own views of reality.  Kristi is gorgeous and healthy and normal.  And so, probably, are you.  If you're a uk size 14, or 16, and someone is taking you down for being fat.  Tell them to get real.

Insanity

What is the definition of insanity?  Just look around you.  Today my husband looked up from the paper and told me the head guy from Allied Irish Bank gave big bonuses to management before leaving the company - bonuses funded by bailout money.  Same shit is happening in the US.  One banker purchased his 28 mil. apartment with his bonus.  Again from bail-out money.  This is tax payer money.  Ours.  What you and I pay to the government.  Insanity.

Why didn't the US or Irish government require accountability and oversight when they gave the bailout money?  Why would you trust any institution that was key in bringing down the world economy?  What the fuck is going on?  Whose palm is getting greased?

Is this extreme?  Am I pissed?  Yes.  And I hope I'm not the only one.  Let's do something.

Bla to Botox

God I hate botox and fillers.  I've never gotten the treatments, although I imagine it's painful.  I just hate how it's frozen the faces of so many women.  Who wants to be 50 with a face that doesn't move.  OK, you may look 30, but like a 30 year old wax figure.  I've had forehead furrows since my late teens.  Now in my mid 40's they're deeper but they're a part of me.  Yes, I want to look beautiful, but why do I need to look like a child to do so?  I'm taking as my role models elegant powerful women past and present such as Vivienne Westwood, Georgia O'Keefe, Lauren Hutton, Judi Dench, Emma Thompson, etc.  Let me see wisdom and life in a face, and personality.  Let me see lines of sadness and lines of laughter.  Not just some some sandblasted, blank canvas.

And what's with older women going for younger men.  Not for companionship.  Why would you really want to spend time with a man under 40?  Of course there's exceptions, but I'd much rather spend time with an interesting man my age or older.  If nothing else, they tend to be calmer, more self-sufficient and need less entertaining.  

The Irish weekend papers in general, the Tribune in specific

I've been ragging on the papers of late, but I do want to mention two Tribune columnists I enjoy.  The first is Chris Binchy, especially when he used to do the restaurant reviews.  He introduced me to some inexpensive places I still go to.  I don't know if he wrote the review of Madina on Little Mary St., but it remains my favorite Indian in the city.  And it's by far the most authentic, if not the fanciest.  I don't know of anywhere else you can get a dosa or idlis, or come out paying less than 30 euro for a dinner for 2.  Granted they don't serve alcohol, but they do serve a great mango lahsi.

I also love the Tribune's TV reviewer Patrick Freyne.  He is very, very funny.  Wonderful, insightful reviews done with wit and kindness.  Worth the price of the paper.

The Irish weekend papers in general, the Times in specific

The Times is considered the ne plus ultra of Irish papers, although some people consider it to be a bit too proddy, and prefer the Independent.  Or so my husband tells me.  Take it up with him if you don't agree.  Anyway, he reads the Times, and especially enjoys it on Saturday, which is their Sunday paper, as they don't print on Sunday.  For the most part the paper is not too bad.  Good arts coverage.  Their political coverage seems more considered than others.  Their featured lifestyle columnist, Roisin Ingle, doesn't set my hair on end.  Usually.  

The same can't be said for their restaurant reviewer, Tom Doorley.  How do I hate him? Let me count the ways.  I think we have Ruth Reichl to blame for Tom Doorley's unbearable smug, perpetually self regarding voice.  I believe she was the first, or one of the first, to include a view of her personal life within her reviews.  She's an enticing, honest writer with a rich life and a real appreciation and knowledge of food.  She says "You can be a decent critic if you know about food, but to be a really good one you need to know about life."  A little piece of advice Mr. Doorley could benefit from.

While I always balked at his superior tone, the first review of Doorley's that drove me around the bend was when he reviewed a restaurant that had opened a few days prior, and was working out the kinks.  First of all, what critic would pounce on a restaurant so soon?  He's just asking for a bad experience.  It's a new crew.  There will be mistakes.  That's a given.  Why go in and critique it with the same standards you would a restaurant that's been in business for at least a month.  It was a horrid review.  This man seems to have some power and I am certain his review hurt this new restaurant.  Just mean.

A while after that, he writes that he was going to a restaurant on one side of the Liffey and yet couldn't get in.  This was either because it was booked, or one of the restaurants he was (understandably) banned from.  Now I just want to note here that his photo is published with his column and he advertises wine for local SPAR convenience stores, which have large cut outs of him toasting the unsuspecting customer (probably just in for a breakfast roll) with a glass of white.  Cringe.  Basically, everyone knows what he looks like.  But I digress.  So, he can't get into this restaurant so he goes across the river to a restaurant in a hotel.  One of those restaurants that are decent enough, and are there to serve the hotel clientele.  And of course he reams it in his review.  The restaurant is not putting itself out there as the next big thing.  It's been around for a while, so there's not buzz at all attached to it.  Why review it?  The only thing I can thing about is because of a looming deadline.  Lazy.

In Doorley's reviews, he makes mention of his wonderful (not) life.  He makes mention of his great friends.  He talks, above all, about himself.  Great if you're a good writer with an interesting life.  Not so great if you are a mediocre writer, with what seems like a rather ordinary life.  Of course a good writer can make an ordinary life seem interesting, but likely not in the course of a restaurant review, so perhaps it would be best not to try.  Also, Doorley's interest in food seems to come second to his interest in himself.  He has a lot invested in his readership considering him an expert on food, and life too I guess.  And wine.  Seemingly he's opened a wine shop, or somethings, and is often plugging it.  Or was a while ago.  I can't read him anymore.  It's more than I can take on a Saturday morning.

The Irish weekend papers in general, the Tribune in specific

What has happened to the Sunday Tribune.  There has been some horrid sort of makeover, making it look a bit more like the Independent, yet still trying to retain some intellectual cache.  It neither reaches the Indo's depth of trashiness (which I like and my husband abhors) nor really informs on any level -- rather just rehashes what's been said earlier in the week.  

They have this young, featured lifestyle columnist named Una Mullally.  I don't get her.  She has a weekly column in the insubstantial magazine, and it's usually a re-hash of what she'd read on Jezebel and other such blogs during the week.  Just a reordering of what's being discussed on line with no further insight.  No, forgive me, her take on things is more smug, snarkier than most.  I guess that's her original slant on the news.

Now the Sunday Tribune has also taken to publishing photos of their columnists next to their articles.  A woman named Clair Byrne, who is the most babe-like of the group, gets a massive photo, a full 1/3 of the length of a page of the paper.  Conor McMorrow, the political correspondent, has a tiny picture, and doesn't look too happy in it.  The aforementioned Ms. Mullally's photo is the most concerning.  In it, she is dressed like a clown, sans white face and red circles on cheeks.  She has on a purple shirt and black and white striped jumper and the effect is genuinely clown-like.  She was saddled with a bad stylist, was my first thought, and perhaps they'll change the photo down the line.  However this week I saw how wrong I was.

Ms. Mullally wrote a 2 page article on her experience wearing black lipstick.  Yes.  Two pages.  In the weekend magazine.  Seemingly black lipstick in in vogue, so she thought she would wear it and see how people reacted to her in the streets.  Yes, this really took up two pages.  In short, people laughed and otherwise acted shocked or at least did double takes.  Ms. Mullally concludes that the lipstick was making people react to her like this.  However she did not take into consideration what she was wearing.  Yes, clown clothes again.  Underneath a tiny leather bomber jacket she is wearing what looks like an oversized warm-up jacket with primary colored stars.  Just something a clown might wear out jogging.  It's accessorized with a blindingly shiny gold bag -- oversized, with more than enough room for a wig, a fake nose, perhaps a pair of shoes with really big toe boxes.  Of course the photos don't show her feet, so I can just imagine what sort of treats lurk at the end of her legs.  Glittery purple Doc Martens?  Maybe red, high heeled boots decorated with white straps and diamante buckles.  A girl can dream, can't she?

I Just say no to running

As mentioned before, I often go off on a tear, reading people's weight loss blogs for inspiration.  In general, it's not the most interesting topic.  Most of them list what they ate, and what exercise they did.  Others are a bit better.  Some are utterly bizarre.  One thing many of them have in common is tracking their running progress.  About a year ago I got it in my head I would start running.  I looked up a couch to 5 k plan and began it.  Never having been a runner, even as a child I found it tiresome, I was delighted when I progressed to running 30 or 40 seconds at a time.  Even a minute.  A minute and a half.  And then, that was it.  I struggled and never went past it; lost all interest.  It never made me feel especially good and, quite honestly, I'm not in love with runner's bodies.  Too knotty and rangy.  OK, professional runners.  Ordinary runners look not too bad.

So, now I'm back to doing yoga, which I was quite expert at back in the day.  It keeps me supple, and helps energetically.  I've also started dancing again, which I was decent at back in the day, and which I love.  60 minutes of a dance class flies by.  60 minutes on a treadmill is torture.  And I like the way my body feels after a class, toned, upright, springy.