The New York Times book review podcast from a few weeks ago featured a book called Moby Duck. Or, to use its correct name: Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them.
I think we can all agree that the full title, which is too long for even Amazon.com to handle, is a bit of a mouthful. The short version, on the other hand, is one of my favourite ever book titles.
Author Donovan Hohn is quick to point out that "it wasn't just ducks." There were green frogs, blue turtles and red beavers too. The toys were in transit between China, where they were manufactured, to the US to be sold when the container ship they were on ran into a storm. The crate they were in fell overboard and broke open, essentially turning the North Pacific ocean into a giant bath tub.
Eleven years and 7000 nautical miles later, one of the ducks turned up, sitting on top of a pile of seaweed in Maine. Word spread among the international beachcombing community, after Eben Punderson (inspired by some ocenographers who, several years earlier had tracked the drift patterns of a container-load of Nike sneakers* which had met a similar watery fate) placed a classified ad in a local paper looking for people who had found them. Dozens of people replied, and ever since then the ducks, and the turtles, and the beavers and frogs have been showing up all over the place.
Hohn is a high school English teacher by trade and first heard of the ducks when one of his students wrote about them for a homework assignment; he was so captured by the story, and curious about the people interested in them, that he left behind his job and his pregant wife, and set off to join the search and find out more. His book (reviewed here) sounds fascinating; there's this Harper's article as well, which gives a taster.
(As an aside, and because Google insists on correcting search terms, I am now desperate to see Moby Dick: The Opera .)
*insert "S.O.S - save our soles" related joke here.
Tuesday 22 March 2011
Monday 21 March 2011
Thursday 17 March 2011
Professor Splash
According to Ch4 news just now, a man called Professor Splash has just broken his own world record for shallow diving, leaping from a height of 34 feet into 12 inches of water. Two thoughts:
1. I genuinely thought people only did this in cartoons. (He was using a plastic paddling pool; in the cartoons it's usually a wooden tub. Watching the footage, I was properly surprised (for the split-second before logic kicked in) by the paddling pool.)
2. Tonight? Really? I know news programs broadcast novelty items like this all the time, but, well.....it's hardly been a slow news week, has it?
1. I genuinely thought people only did this in cartoons. (He was using a plastic paddling pool; in the cartoons it's usually a wooden tub. Watching the footage, I was properly surprised (for the split-second before logic kicked in) by the paddling pool.)
2. Tonight? Really? I know news programs broadcast novelty items like this all the time, but, well.....it's hardly been a slow news week, has it?
Sunday 13 March 2011
Sunday Night Music Club
I went out and bought an album on the day it was released last week. The last time I did that, I was sixteen and it was a cassette tape.*
This one, which was on a boring old CD, was Build a Rocket Boys! - the new Elbow album. I can't stop listening to it and when I'm not literally listening to it there are bits of it going round and round my head. It's properly, properly good.
This is one of the tracks:
And this is another one, with a few words from lead singer Guy Garvey at the start.
As if having THAT voice wasn't enough, Guy Garvey writes the most beautiful lyrics; his songs are full of lines and fragments which are perfect in their simplicity and stop me in my tracks every single time I hear them. I know it's a terrible cliche to describe song lyrics as poetry, but....well, this really is poetry. Pure and simple.
*The Other Side by a group called 1927,since you ask. They're a band you're likely to never have heard of unless you are female, you fall into a very specific (and quite narrow) age group and you spent your teenage years in Australia. This was their difficult second album, released after their debut.....Ish which sold by the bucketload. ; My friends and I were obsessed with 1927, or more to the point with lead singer Eric Weideman. He's on the comeback trail, apparently; but is now Erik-with-a-k not Eric-with-a-c and a completely different band, who are still called 1927. I'm not sure how I feel about this.
This one, which was on a boring old CD, was Build a Rocket Boys! - the new Elbow album. I can't stop listening to it and when I'm not literally listening to it there are bits of it going round and round my head. It's properly, properly good.
This is one of the tracks:
And this is another one, with a few words from lead singer Guy Garvey at the start.
As if having THAT voice wasn't enough, Guy Garvey writes the most beautiful lyrics; his songs are full of lines and fragments which are perfect in their simplicity and stop me in my tracks every single time I hear them. I know it's a terrible cliche to describe song lyrics as poetry, but....well, this really is poetry. Pure and simple.
*The Other Side by a group called 1927,since you ask. They're a band you're likely to never have heard of unless you are female, you fall into a very specific (and quite narrow) age group and you spent your teenage years in Australia. This was their difficult second album, released after their debut.....Ish which sold by the bucketload. ; My friends and I were obsessed with 1927, or more to the point with lead singer Eric Weideman. He's on the comeback trail, apparently; but is now Erik-with-a-k not Eric-with-a-c and a completely different band, who are still called 1927. I'm not sure how I feel about this.
Tuesday 8 March 2011
In which I let the side down, but find an excellent elephant picture. So everybody wins, really.
I feel like I ought to have something interesting or meaningful to say about International Women's Day, what with being one (an international woman) and all*. But..........I'm afriad I've got nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Would you like to see a photo of Batman riding an elephant instead? Yes, I thought so.
This picture comes from the unfortunately named (you probably won't want to open it at work) website http://www.thisisnotporn.net/, which is full of photos like this. If you've ever wanted to see Albert Einstein chilling out in a deckchair, or R2D2 dressed as Darth Vader, or Winston Churchill in his swimming costume, or Clint Eastwood peeling a potato or Robert Plant eating ice-cream, this is the website for you. It's magic.
Here's another one - Frank Sinatra dancing with his son, Frank Sinatra Jr. :
See? Absolutely magic.
*Despite what this website might think. I've given up trying to convince it otherwise.
Would you like to see a photo of Batman riding an elephant instead? Yes, I thought so.
This picture comes from the unfortunately named (you probably won't want to open it at work) website http://www.thisisnotporn.net/, which is full of photos like this. If you've ever wanted to see Albert Einstein chilling out in a deckchair, or R2D2 dressed as Darth Vader, or Winston Churchill in his swimming costume, or Clint Eastwood peeling a potato or Robert Plant eating ice-cream, this is the website for you. It's magic.
Here's another one - Frank Sinatra dancing with his son, Frank Sinatra Jr. :
See? Absolutely magic.
*Despite what this website might think. I've given up trying to convince it otherwise.
Sunday 6 March 2011
Sunday Night Music Club
You know those times when you really, really really want Wikipedia to be true? This is one of those times.
John Phillip Sousa is best known for composing marches and if you've ever heard a marching band, or seen practically any film ever set in an American high school or watched the opening credits of Monty Python's Flying Circus then you've heard a Sousa march.
(You might think if you've watched Bridge on the River Kwai then you've heard a Sousa march, but the march you are thinking of, which is called the Colonel Bogey March (or occasionally, 'that one about Hitler's balls') isn't actually one of his. That was written by a different King of Marches, Kenneth J. Alford (real name Kenneth J. Rickets; it doesn't take a genius to work out why he changed it). Since we're talking about the Colonel Bogey March I may as well mention it's the only march I know of which was a) composed during a golf game and b) named after an imaginary person.
But both of those things are by the by, because Sousa looks like this
which is exactly what I expected to him to look like. The moustache, particularly.
His father sent him off to the marines at thirteen to stop him from joining the circus, then he left the marines and joined the pit orchestra at a theatre (definitely the most fun kind of orchestra to play in), where he learned to conduct, and then he went back to the Marines to lead their band.
After that he started his own marching band which ran for forty years and marched in a total of eight parades. One of the parades was in Paris and the band also toured Australia. (This was a much better story until I realised that, while reading about the band I missed the line about them playing 15,632 sitting down concerts also. For a while I genuinely thought they'd performed once every five years, and managed to turn two of those performances into overseas jollies.)
He wrote a ton of marches (what's a better collective noun - a stampede maybe?) and also a bunch of operettas, most of which had propera opera sounding names like El Capitan or The Smugglers, and one which was called Chris and the Wonderful Lamp, which sounds more like a children's story. Also several novels, and a memoir called (rather pleasingly) Marching Along.
He was around when commercial sound recording was starting to develop, and wasn't a fan of the newfangled technology. "These talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development of music in this country" he said, and I suppose there are a few people around today who'd agree with him about the state of the recording industry. Fewer, I imagine, who'd agree with his prediciton that recorded music would lead to the eventual elimination of vocal chords via the process of evolution. Although maybe that's all part of Simon Cowell's grand plan.
He was also a keen trap-shooter. A line from his Trapshooting Hall of Fame biography:
John Phillip Sousa is best known for composing marches and if you've ever heard a marching band, or seen practically any film ever set in an American high school or watched the opening credits of Monty Python's Flying Circus then you've heard a Sousa march.
(You might think if you've watched Bridge on the River Kwai then you've heard a Sousa march, but the march you are thinking of, which is called the Colonel Bogey March (or occasionally, 'that one about Hitler's balls') isn't actually one of his. That was written by a different King of Marches, Kenneth J. Alford (real name Kenneth J. Rickets; it doesn't take a genius to work out why he changed it). Since we're talking about the Colonel Bogey March I may as well mention it's the only march I know of which was a) composed during a golf game and b) named after an imaginary person.
But both of those things are by the by, because Sousa looks like this
which is exactly what I expected to him to look like. The moustache, particularly.
His father sent him off to the marines at thirteen to stop him from joining the circus, then he left the marines and joined the pit orchestra at a theatre (definitely the most fun kind of orchestra to play in), where he learned to conduct, and then he went back to the Marines to lead their band.
After that he started his own marching band which ran for forty years and marched in a total of eight parades. One of the parades was in Paris and the band also toured Australia. (This was a much better story until I realised that, while reading about the band I missed the line about them playing 15,632 sitting down concerts also. For a while I genuinely thought they'd performed once every five years, and managed to turn two of those performances into overseas jollies.)
He wrote a ton of marches (what's a better collective noun - a stampede maybe?) and also a bunch of operettas, most of which had propera opera sounding names like El Capitan or The Smugglers, and one which was called Chris and the Wonderful Lamp, which sounds more like a children's story. Also several novels, and a memoir called (rather pleasingly) Marching Along.
He was around when commercial sound recording was starting to develop, and wasn't a fan of the newfangled technology. "These talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development of music in this country" he said, and I suppose there are a few people around today who'd agree with him about the state of the recording industry. Fewer, I imagine, who'd agree with his prediciton that recorded music would lead to the eventual elimination of vocal chords via the process of evolution. Although maybe that's all part of Simon Cowell's grand plan.
He was also a keen trap-shooter. A line from his Trapshooting Hall of Fame biography:
"Let me say that just about the sweetest music to me is when I call, ‘pull,’ the old gun barks, and the referee in perfect key announces, ‘dead’."This clip is The Liberty Bell, one of his most well-known marches, but performed in a way you've probably not heard it played before: on an accoustic guitar. It's Sunday night, after all. Let's not go too crazy.
Friday 4 March 2011
World Book Day
Was yesterday, and in a lovely moment of serendipity I finally managed to catch an episode of My Life in Books last night . For weeks now, Anne Robinson has been interviewing celebrities about their favourite books, and for the exact same number of weeks (spooky!) I've been forgetting to watch her do it.
Each week she asks two celebrities (Sarah Millican and Larry Lamb in this case) to talk about five books which are important to them for one reason or another. There is some sort of category system in place but having missed most of the programs and only having seen bits of some others I'm not entirely sure what this involves. Based on what I've seen the first book they pick is a childhood read, the next three broadly cover the teenage years / university / adulthood in that order, but not necessarily one of each, and then finally they choose a 'guilty pleasure'. Dan Snow, who I saw on the iPlayer, picked Love In The Time Of Cholera as his guilty pleasure which makes me think Dan Snow and I have very different definitions of the concept 'guilt'. At the end the celebrities pick one of the five as their absolute favourite (a-la Desert Island Discs) and then finally they are asked to contemplate what their choices say about them.
I've been trying to work out what my answers would be. First thoughts:
Childhood Read: So, so many to choose from. As a kid I harboured ambitions to be either a detective or a spy when I grew up (these vocations were more or less interchangeable in my mind, which seems a little odd in hindsight given they're essentially on opposite sides of the law). So if I was actually invited on to the program I'd almost definitely pick a book called The Spy and The Mission of Staggering Importance; a little known story about a bumbling, inept spy. Mainly because it's out of print now, and when I tried to track down a copy recently the only one I could find was on eBay and cost about sixty pounds. I'm assuming that if I was to appear on the program someone in the BBC production department might have to fork out for one.
Back in the real world, my answer to this question would probably have to be a series: Trixie Beldon, possibly, or maybe Nancy Drew. Perhaps even the Mallory Towers books by Enid Blyton. Anything with a tomboy-ish, independent female as one of the main characters, and preferably one who did some detective work on the side. These books weren't necessarily the best written, or the most influential or the ones which touched my heart the most, but I consumed books in ridiculously huge quantities all the way through my childhood, so books which there were more than one of held a certain appeal.
The Next Three: Here's where it gets tricky. As a teenager I still loved reading but I didn't particularly enjoy English lessons; mainly because by the time we'd spent wringing every last piece of analysis out of a text I was sick to the back teeth of it. The exception was To Kill a Mockingbird, which I read at school when I was about 14 and which I still adore. Just yesterday someone on Facebook posed the question "who is your hero?" and I didn't even have to think twice - mine is definitely Atticus Finch. I have always had a low tolerance for injustice and value compassion over just about anything else; it's only just occurred to me that this book is almost definitely one of the reasons why.
The next book on my list is Memoirs of a Geisha, because it's one which truly astonished me. Twice. When I started to read it I knew next to nothing about Japanese culture or the Geisha world, and could barely believe what I was reading. Not because it seemed unrealistic, simply because it was so far removed from my own experience and knowledge of the world. I was, as mentioned, astonished. Once I'd finished it, I turned to the acknowledgements and discovered the main character was completely fictional. This was my second moment of astonishment, and that second moment is the reason this book makes my list. I should point out, for those who haven't read it, that it's written by a Western man (his name all over the cover), so the fact that he isn't really a Geisha is hardly the sort of realisation which requires an enormous cognitive leap. Even so, it was a cognitive leap I found incredibly hard to make. (It also reminds me of the horses on stage in Warhorse (have you still not seen Warhorse yet? Go and see Warhorse) and how it was still a bit hard to believe they weren't real horses even though the puppeteers who operate them were right there on the stage.) This book makes the list because it made me properly, properly appreciate one of the fundamental things I admire in writers; their ability to conjure up believable people and places with nothing but words. I always knew they did this, but this was the first book which really made me understand it's what writers do.
The last book in this section feels like I'm cheating a bit because it's also one Larry Lamb chose and I'm not sure I would have remembered to consider it if he hadn't. So I'm glad he did. Although I've always had a strong sense of right and wrong, and a propensity to get a bit cross when people cross that line, the goalposts have changed somewhat over the years. When I was younger, it was simple. Taking drugs and committing crimes was wrong. Lying and stealing and cheating was wrong. Now, of course, I know it's a little more complicated than that, and A Million Little Pieces by James Frey is a book which makes me remember just how complicated. It's also a book which reminds me how much I've changed over the years. It's a memoir, of sorts; James Frey is someone who, once upon a time, I would have been very cross with indeed. He's an alcoholic drug addict, who commits crimes and is horrible to people and if you listen to what Oprah Winfrey has to say about him you'll probably want to add 'cheater' and 'liar' to that list as well. (For what it's worth, I don't think you should pay too much heed to what Oprah Winfrey has to say about him.) This account of his battle with addiction, his journey through rehab and his attempts at rehabilitation is graphic and uncomfortable in parts, but also incredibly moving. Whether you view it as a memoir or a work of fiction (and debate has been raging ever since it was published), it's a powerful piece of storytelling, and one which completely altered the way I think. Atticus Finch might have taught me the importance of compassion, but James Frey is someone who challenged me to practice it.
Guilty Pleasure: The book I read for pure enjoyment, and which I have returned to time and again over the years, is Gone With the Wind. I'm not madly in love with the characters and it doesn't say enormous things, but it was the first big, sprawling epic I properly got my teeth into, and I've read it so often now that I can slip into the story almost effortlessly. It's a pure comfort read; going back to Tara is like visiting old friends.
You're not *really* going to make me pick just one of these books as a favourite, are you? If I was really pushed (and it would have to be quite a shove) I'd probably say To Kill a Mockingbird because it does a little bit of what each of the other ones does. As for what my choices say about me? Mainly, I think, that books are part of my identity. Maybe even the most important part.They've helped to shape the way I think, and how I feel and who I've become. Although I would like to make it clear, at this point, that I am not actually a spy. (As far as you know.)
So now you've see my list, it's your turn. Which books would make yours? The rules are simple: one childhood favourite, one guilty pleasure, and three which come in between.
Each week she asks two celebrities (Sarah Millican and Larry Lamb in this case) to talk about five books which are important to them for one reason or another. There is some sort of category system in place but having missed most of the programs and only having seen bits of some others I'm not entirely sure what this involves. Based on what I've seen the first book they pick is a childhood read, the next three broadly cover the teenage years / university / adulthood in that order, but not necessarily one of each, and then finally they choose a 'guilty pleasure'. Dan Snow, who I saw on the iPlayer, picked Love In The Time Of Cholera as his guilty pleasure which makes me think Dan Snow and I have very different definitions of the concept 'guilt'. At the end the celebrities pick one of the five as their absolute favourite (a-la Desert Island Discs) and then finally they are asked to contemplate what their choices say about them.
I've been trying to work out what my answers would be. First thoughts:
Childhood Read: So, so many to choose from. As a kid I harboured ambitions to be either a detective or a spy when I grew up (these vocations were more or less interchangeable in my mind, which seems a little odd in hindsight given they're essentially on opposite sides of the law). So if I was actually invited on to the program I'd almost definitely pick a book called The Spy and The Mission of Staggering Importance; a little known story about a bumbling, inept spy. Mainly because it's out of print now, and when I tried to track down a copy recently the only one I could find was on eBay and cost about sixty pounds. I'm assuming that if I was to appear on the program someone in the BBC production department might have to fork out for one.
Back in the real world, my answer to this question would probably have to be a series: Trixie Beldon, possibly, or maybe Nancy Drew. Perhaps even the Mallory Towers books by Enid Blyton. Anything with a tomboy-ish, independent female as one of the main characters, and preferably one who did some detective work on the side. These books weren't necessarily the best written, or the most influential or the ones which touched my heart the most, but I consumed books in ridiculously huge quantities all the way through my childhood, so books which there were more than one of held a certain appeal.
The Next Three: Here's where it gets tricky. As a teenager I still loved reading but I didn't particularly enjoy English lessons; mainly because by the time we'd spent wringing every last piece of analysis out of a text I was sick to the back teeth of it. The exception was To Kill a Mockingbird, which I read at school when I was about 14 and which I still adore. Just yesterday someone on Facebook posed the question "who is your hero?" and I didn't even have to think twice - mine is definitely Atticus Finch. I have always had a low tolerance for injustice and value compassion over just about anything else; it's only just occurred to me that this book is almost definitely one of the reasons why.
The next book on my list is Memoirs of a Geisha, because it's one which truly astonished me. Twice. When I started to read it I knew next to nothing about Japanese culture or the Geisha world, and could barely believe what I was reading. Not because it seemed unrealistic, simply because it was so far removed from my own experience and knowledge of the world. I was, as mentioned, astonished. Once I'd finished it, I turned to the acknowledgements and discovered the main character was completely fictional. This was my second moment of astonishment, and that second moment is the reason this book makes my list. I should point out, for those who haven't read it, that it's written by a Western man (his name all over the cover), so the fact that he isn't really a Geisha is hardly the sort of realisation which requires an enormous cognitive leap. Even so, it was a cognitive leap I found incredibly hard to make. (It also reminds me of the horses on stage in Warhorse (have you still not seen Warhorse yet? Go and see Warhorse) and how it was still a bit hard to believe they weren't real horses even though the puppeteers who operate them were right there on the stage.) This book makes the list because it made me properly, properly appreciate one of the fundamental things I admire in writers; their ability to conjure up believable people and places with nothing but words. I always knew they did this, but this was the first book which really made me understand it's what writers do.
The last book in this section feels like I'm cheating a bit because it's also one Larry Lamb chose and I'm not sure I would have remembered to consider it if he hadn't. So I'm glad he did. Although I've always had a strong sense of right and wrong, and a propensity to get a bit cross when people cross that line, the goalposts have changed somewhat over the years. When I was younger, it was simple. Taking drugs and committing crimes was wrong. Lying and stealing and cheating was wrong. Now, of course, I know it's a little more complicated than that, and A Million Little Pieces by James Frey is a book which makes me remember just how complicated. It's also a book which reminds me how much I've changed over the years. It's a memoir, of sorts; James Frey is someone who, once upon a time, I would have been very cross with indeed. He's an alcoholic drug addict, who commits crimes and is horrible to people and if you listen to what Oprah Winfrey has to say about him you'll probably want to add 'cheater' and 'liar' to that list as well. (For what it's worth, I don't think you should pay too much heed to what Oprah Winfrey has to say about him.) This account of his battle with addiction, his journey through rehab and his attempts at rehabilitation is graphic and uncomfortable in parts, but also incredibly moving. Whether you view it as a memoir or a work of fiction (and debate has been raging ever since it was published), it's a powerful piece of storytelling, and one which completely altered the way I think. Atticus Finch might have taught me the importance of compassion, but James Frey is someone who challenged me to practice it.
Guilty Pleasure: The book I read for pure enjoyment, and which I have returned to time and again over the years, is Gone With the Wind. I'm not madly in love with the characters and it doesn't say enormous things, but it was the first big, sprawling epic I properly got my teeth into, and I've read it so often now that I can slip into the story almost effortlessly. It's a pure comfort read; going back to Tara is like visiting old friends.
You're not *really* going to make me pick just one of these books as a favourite, are you? If I was really pushed (and it would have to be quite a shove) I'd probably say To Kill a Mockingbird because it does a little bit of what each of the other ones does. As for what my choices say about me? Mainly, I think, that books are part of my identity. Maybe even the most important part.They've helped to shape the way I think, and how I feel and who I've become. Although I would like to make it clear, at this point, that I am not actually a spy. (As far as you know.)
So now you've see my list, it's your turn. Which books would make yours? The rules are simple: one childhood favourite, one guilty pleasure, and three which come in between.
Wednesday 2 March 2011
I'm whichever fruit means "it's really none of your business, actually". A lime, maybe?
I'm all for raising breast cancer awareness. But this is driving me insane:
We are playing a game. Someone proposed that we (GIRLS!) do something special to help with Breast Cancer Awareness. Its easy, and I'd like you to join us to help it spread. Last year it was about writing the color of the bra that you were wearing in your status and it left men wondering for days why the girls had random colors as their status. This year it has to do with your relationship status. You will state where you are, by posting one of the codes below. Remember - don't reply to this message just type your one word response in your status box on your profile. Then cut and paste this whole message into a new message and send it along to your female friends....
Blueberry: Im single
Pineapple its complicated
Raspberry: Im a touch and go woman
Apple: Engaged
Cherry: In a relationship
Banana: Im married
Avocado: Im the "other one"
Strawberry: Cant find the right one
Lemon: Wish i was single
Grape: wants to get married.
The bra game reached TV, lets get this one to do the same, and show everyone how powerful women are.
I was sent the above message via facebook a few days ago. About a month ago I received almost the exact same message but to do with drinks instead of fruit - beer if you were married, tequilla if single, etc.
The bra-colour game actually happened in October 2009. October is breast cancer awareness month so the timing made sense. I've heard recently that the original messages included the suggestion that, since they'd already be in the area, as it were, women might want to do a quick breast self-examination while they were checking to see what colour bra they had on. Hence bra colour specificially, not underwear in general. This also makes sense. And as an awareness-raising strategy it worked. The random colours popping up all over facebook certainly got men scratching their heads. In fact for the first week or so, until the email chain had made its way to my circle of friends, it got me scratching my head too.
Which raises the first issue; the whole "let's keep it a big secret from those silly MEN" business. I just don't get this. Some of my best friends are male. Come to think of it, most of my best friends are male. Don't get me wrong, I like my female friends too; I've just never bought into this whole "them vs us" mentality and have never been a fan of 'girls nights out' or 'girly nights in' or girly things in general. I happily accept that this puts me in a minority; there are plenty of women who worship the sisterhood like some kind of religion, and I can see why the 'no-boys-allowed' element might appeal to those women. And if appealing to that particular instinct is a way of getting more people on board then fair play, I suppose.
Last October there was a similar 'game' where women posted comments like "I like it in the hallway" or "I like it wherever there's room" which were meant to sound like places they liked to have sex but were actually where they put their handbag when they got home. All a bit juvenille, maybe, and not quite as relevant as the bra colour campaign, but with the same whiff of 'let's leave the silly men out'. Still, it raised a few eyebrows, and got people talking, and at least it happened during Breast Cancer Awareness month.
But..... using a secret code to tell people about your love life? In the middle of January? And then again, using a slightly different code, a month later?
I absolutely think breast cancer awareness is important. I just don't think this is the best way to draw attention to the issue. I don't like being defined by my relationship status at the best of times, and deliberately don't include this information in my facebook profile. It's not really anyone else's business. If we're going to talk about general demographic information, what's next after relationships - choose the animal which best describes your current employment status? Rabbit - unemployed, bear - I'm working illegally, giraffe - I have a job but I really hate my boss?
And how on earth does announcing to the world at large that you are having an affair, or just can't find the right man yet, or are unhappy in your relationship, make you more powerful as a woman, just because you've done it using the secret language of fruit?
I know that breast cancer is an issue which affects many people personally, and a lot of people will have forwarded the fruit / drink messages with the best of intentions. My worry is that in doing so, all they will succeed in doing is trivialising the cause. After all, if we start being bombarded with these sorts of emails all year round, pretty soon they'll get irritating. And the bra-color campain will be remembered not as the clever, awareness-raising stunt that it was, but rather as the game which started off the whole annoying business.
There are plenty of other ways to raise awareness. If people want to use social networking as a tool, Breast Cancer Awareness have a really informative facebook page . Why not post a link to that? Or how about using status updates to share personal experiences with cancer, make us think about the issue and why it's such an important one?
We are playing a game. Someone proposed that we (GIRLS!) do something special to help with Breast Cancer Awareness. Its easy, and I'd like you to join us to help it spread. Last year it was about writing the color of the bra that you were wearing in your status and it left men wondering for days why the girls had random colors as their status. This year it has to do with your relationship status. You will state where you are, by posting one of the codes below. Remember - don't reply to this message just type your one word response in your status box on your profile. Then cut and paste this whole message into a new message and send it along to your female friends....
Blueberry: Im single
Pineapple its complicated
Raspberry: Im a touch and go woman
Apple: Engaged
Cherry: In a relationship
Banana: Im married
Avocado: Im the "other one"
Strawberry: Cant find the right one
Lemon: Wish i was single
Grape: wants to get married.
The bra game reached TV, lets get this one to do the same, and show everyone how powerful women are.
I was sent the above message via facebook a few days ago. About a month ago I received almost the exact same message but to do with drinks instead of fruit - beer if you were married, tequilla if single, etc.
The bra-colour game actually happened in October 2009. October is breast cancer awareness month so the timing made sense. I've heard recently that the original messages included the suggestion that, since they'd already be in the area, as it were, women might want to do a quick breast self-examination while they were checking to see what colour bra they had on. Hence bra colour specificially, not underwear in general. This also makes sense. And as an awareness-raising strategy it worked. The random colours popping up all over facebook certainly got men scratching their heads. In fact for the first week or so, until the email chain had made its way to my circle of friends, it got me scratching my head too.
Which raises the first issue; the whole "let's keep it a big secret from those silly MEN" business. I just don't get this. Some of my best friends are male. Come to think of it, most of my best friends are male. Don't get me wrong, I like my female friends too; I've just never bought into this whole "them vs us" mentality and have never been a fan of 'girls nights out' or 'girly nights in' or girly things in general. I happily accept that this puts me in a minority; there are plenty of women who worship the sisterhood like some kind of religion, and I can see why the 'no-boys-allowed' element might appeal to those women. And if appealing to that particular instinct is a way of getting more people on board then fair play, I suppose.
Last October there was a similar 'game' where women posted comments like "I like it in the hallway" or "I like it wherever there's room" which were meant to sound like places they liked to have sex but were actually where they put their handbag when they got home. All a bit juvenille, maybe, and not quite as relevant as the bra colour campaign, but with the same whiff of 'let's leave the silly men out'. Still, it raised a few eyebrows, and got people talking, and at least it happened during Breast Cancer Awareness month.
But..... using a secret code to tell people about your love life? In the middle of January? And then again, using a slightly different code, a month later?
I absolutely think breast cancer awareness is important. I just don't think this is the best way to draw attention to the issue. I don't like being defined by my relationship status at the best of times, and deliberately don't include this information in my facebook profile. It's not really anyone else's business. If we're going to talk about general demographic information, what's next after relationships - choose the animal which best describes your current employment status? Rabbit - unemployed, bear - I'm working illegally, giraffe - I have a job but I really hate my boss?
And how on earth does announcing to the world at large that you are having an affair, or just can't find the right man yet, or are unhappy in your relationship, make you more powerful as a woman, just because you've done it using the secret language of fruit?
I know that breast cancer is an issue which affects many people personally, and a lot of people will have forwarded the fruit / drink messages with the best of intentions. My worry is that in doing so, all they will succeed in doing is trivialising the cause. After all, if we start being bombarded with these sorts of emails all year round, pretty soon they'll get irritating. And the bra-color campain will be remembered not as the clever, awareness-raising stunt that it was, but rather as the game which started off the whole annoying business.
There are plenty of other ways to raise awareness. If people want to use social networking as a tool, Breast Cancer Awareness have a really informative facebook page . Why not post a link to that? Or how about using status updates to share personal experiences with cancer, make us think about the issue and why it's such an important one?
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