Aimless

Well today I have fiddled with the blog and its almost the way I want it to be (with a little help from Spoon). After a restless day full of absolute aimlessness and almost complete mental breakdown, I feel I have achieved something.

Only kidding. I felt like that after I had hacked at two bushes in our garden :)

One day I will actually write something on here, properly. But until then, something mostly half-baked from before:

I am a woman. Not sure if this has been said somewhere, but I am 100% female. And because of this, I am targeted for a *brilliant* range of adverts. Recently, it seems women as a whole have become plagued with digestive problems – bloating, diarrhoea, a lack of ‘good bacteria’ . I’m sure men also suffer from these issues, but you wouldn’t know it from the adverts. It seems like my husband and I can’t turn on the TV without having to watch another 40 something housewife rubbing her belly and going ‘oooooh’, or rushing back inside the house to take a huge, messy shit (not that they show you that part). Often they’re slotted between adverts urging people to use acid on their faces (see below).

Is this really necessary? If you do suffer from bloating or the squits, surely you don’t need a character in an advert to directly match your life/demographic before you seek medication? “Oh dear, I’m not 43, live in a detached house and go for coffee, can’t use that pill.” Just waiting about for the perfect tablet: "Susan Millar, No. 7 Canterbury Place, Bedford - this pill is for YOU!" It's a tad creepy - we've been through your bins, we've bought your medical records and we know just what you need.

No. So why be so specific? Surely the companies who are marketing the drugs want to get as many people as possible identifying and using the product – of both sexes. By this reasoning, they will stop males from buying the product, as it is made to look like a female problem (for whatever reasons; I could speculate, but I've just stopped feeling grumpy).

I find this annoying.

A few days ago I was watching TV, and an advert came on for another ridiculous facial cream which supposedly ‘turns back the clock’. I find these adverts sinister at the best of times, with their middle-aged women spinning about glass-walled rooms, grinning manically and going to the beach/shops. The ever so considerate effort to spare us from complicated science. But this time, I noticed something at the end:

“Until you’re ready for a permanent lift, try .....”

What the fuck? Suddenly, slicing your face open is now mainstream and accepted as a part of a ‘beauty regime’? This seriously disturbs me. It’s bad enough constantly filtering out media telling you to slather acid on your face twice a day (the creams make your skin swell, puffing out wrinkles....that part's not in the "science bit"), now they are subtly enticing women to think of surgery in the same league as an over-priced cream?

Why not just try “Until you’re ready to have your whole face replaced, why not try this state of the art paper bag over your head?” It’s sure as fuck cheaper.

Grrr.