Real Men Don't Diet

I started a diet - again. I'm always on a diet. I usually start on Monday and then Monday doesn't go so well. Maybe work goes badly or my tyre gets a puncture. By afternoon it has turned out to be a bad day to start a diet, I'm not in the right frame of mind. I have now justified my reason for reaching for the biscuit barrel. I tell myself it's okay, I'll start again tomorrow. But then Tuesday comes and well, it's not the beginning of the week anymore, is it? Who starts a diet on a Tuesday? So then I tell myself it's best to start afresh the following Monday. Oh, then that means I now have 6 days in which to eat as much as possible before the BIG DIET starts. My last fling with the food I will be denied. I embark on eating my own body weight in biscuits and chocolate. And then Monday finally comes and I start my diet with great enthusiasm because this is IT! This is the start of me becoming a new super slim person. Oh, but what happens next? Monday turns out to be a really bad day again so I abandon the diet and the cycle starts all over.
And now I officially hate myself!

Men don't diet. Most of them never seem to need to, which is so annoying. And those that do need to, well they just - don't. They don't care if their belly enters a room two minutes before they do. In fact, they will probably boast to their mates how many lagers it took to grow it. How many women would take off their tops at a football match and delight in showing the world their pasty-white, fat bellies? How many men have you seen do it? They just don't care. The T.V camera is on them. It's the middle of winter and they are standing in the terraces, topless.

No. Men don't do the D-word. That's why soft drink companies call diet sodas names like Coke Zero and Pepsi One because they know men don't like the D-word.

And when they do decide to lose weight they call it getting into 'shape' because dudes don't diet.

But us women, oh we love the D-word. The average woman spend 31 years of her life on a diet. Yes, 31 years!!! All that time trying, mostly in vain, to have a super lithe body. Wishing we had perfect 'celebrity' figures. What a waste of 31 years?

I'm not knocking skinny celebrities. I understand why they think they need to be so thin. But I didn't realise that until I was in New York a few years ago when I saw the country singer, Martina McBride, record an outside concert for the CBS morning show.

Martina was super thin. We couldn't get over just how thin she was. Behind her she had a backing singer who had a lovely figure. A figure to die for. Curves in the right places and not fat - not at all. The next morning we watched the CBS early morning show. Martina looked absolutely perfect. But the backing singer? Well she looked - fat. Seems the camera does lie after all.

We are drilled to think we must be slim. We see airbrushed images of celebrities and are conned into thinking in order to have a perfect life we need to be a size zero. But it wasn't always this way. Look at Marilyn Monroe. Surely one of the most beautiful people - ever.

Today, Marilyn Monroe would make the 'fat celebrity' list.

But there are a few celebs not bowing to pressure and long may they stick it out. Altho I can't see them not caving in at some point. Adele is a normal size 14-16 and says she hasn't time to think about dieting.

Isn't she pretty?

So, you know what? I've now decided not to diet anymore. Come on girls, join me. Let's be like the boys. Life is too short to be living on lettuce leaves and carrot sticks. The important thing is to be healthy. Eat the right food and taked care of your body, If that means you are naturally going to be a size 14, 16, 18 whatever, then so be it. That's who you are.

And if you are reading this, please, please leave a comment about how you feel. And follow me. Or if you have a blog, tell me what it is so I can follow you.

Chester Zoo-licious

The life of a writer is a solitary one. Just you, your keyboard or pen and your imagination. Sometimes that imagination needs a little stimulation. I often feel as if my brain is like a filter coffee machine. It fills up with ideas and then drips, drips, drips into the carafe (a.k.a computer keyboard) below until it's empty and then it has to be filled up all over again. And sometimes, to fill it up, I need to get out and about - anywhere. That's why when I get to visit somewhere like New York, I can write and write until my fingers feel like they are falling off because I've seen and heard so much and my mind is brimming with ideas.

So when I said I needed a day out my son, Stefan, said 'let's go to Chester Zoo!'

Okay, the zoo sounds good - why not?

Chester Zoo is a truly amazing place. One of the best zoos in Britain. With over 7,000 animals - more than 400 species of rare, exotic, endangered animals and a major player in conservation programmes.

Just milling about, listening to snippets of conversation and, of course seeing the animals, set my mind working straight away.

We found ourselves entangled in a group of young, school children on a field trip and got swept along with them. Stefan said he didn't mind because he could see over their heads to take photos!

I kept my ears trained. Kids are always a source of inspiration. They didn't let me down.

Child: 'Miss Evans. I want to be an ostrich.'

Child: 'Miss. I've dropped my camera in the bat cave.'

Child (screaming with excitement): 'Look. Look. I can see the spectacular Bear.'
Teacher: It's Spectacled bear, Simon. Not spectacular.'

* * *

April is clearly a good month to visit the zoo. Lots of baby animals.

Cutest thing ever is a baby Porcupine.

The 'spectacular' bear!

Gotta love Meerkats!

Walking through the butterfly house was like being in a Disney movie. Stunningly beautiful butterflies everywhere. They literally seem to float past your eyes. There is a mirror at the exit to check that a butterfly hasn't landed on you and you about to take it outside.

Ron and Stefan.

Stefan's favourite animals - Okapi. It kind looks like a cross between a zebra and a giraffe.

It was a truly lovely day out. Weather fab. Zoo fab. Lots of snippets of conversation and characters to get my creative juices flowing. And if you want to see anymore of my 'zoo' photos they will be on facebook. Please leave me a comment if you read this blog. I love to hear from you, whoever you are, wherever you are. And if you have your own blog. Tell me so I can look you up.

The Case of the Missing Toilet Rolls

Image via Wikipedia

For the love of God will some one please explain to me why people steal toilet rolls.

I clean a place (I won't say where it is, but the general public go there) and several times a week the toilet rolls are stolen.

Yeah, I get that if you're unemployed, perhaps loo rolls are the last thing on your 'to buy' list. Even though Asda budget toilet rolls are only 13p a roll. But hey, wouldn't want to cut into your tobacco money, would we now?

And yes, you might be a student who is living away from home for the first time and has just discovered that toilet roll doesn't automatically replenish itself, like you thought.

There again, maybe you are like that celebrity on Big Brother who admitted she did it just for a laugh. Perhaps stuffing a loo roll in your handbag or inside your jacket does it for you.

There is even a facebook page entitled: 'I steal toilet rolls because I begrudge paying to wipe my ass.'

And sad though it is, I'm not surprised to find that stealing toilet rolls is #140 on the list of stuff unemployed people like. A site where one person bragged that they stole four rolls in one go!

Don't these people know you can go to jail for stealing? A girl in Iowa got three years for stealing toilet rolls. Do you know what her name was? Suzanne Butt. I kid you not.

This so annoys me that I'm on a one-woman crusade to find ways of combatting the problem. I have two quite brilliant ideas - what do you think?

Toilet rolls could be tagged. When the thief leaves the building the toilet roll screams like a banshee: "toilet roll thief about to leave the building! Toilet roll thief about to leave the building!"

Toilet roll holders could have a magnetic plate (spare rolls to sit on a magnetic plate) and all toilet rolls would contain a tiny dye pack with a radio receiver. This is activated when the toilet roll leaves the magnetic plate. After about ten seconds the dye pack explodes releasing an aerosol of red smoke or tear gas thus compelling the thief to chuck the stolen roll. Okay, the down side is we'd still lose the toilet roll but I'd lay money on it being the last toilet roll that person would ever steal!

Or we could just employ a woman called Ingrid, with the body of a shot putter and a penchant for bodliy contact, to frisk everyone as they left the building. Although it worries me that some would-be toilet thieves might actually enjoy that.

Jeez. Y'know, it's not just toilet rolls, either. Since I've worked in this place, we've had the hot and cold sign on the taps stolen and someone even unscrewed the plug for the hand dryer and nicked the fuse. I mean, who carries around a screw driver?

Well, I have to look on the bright side. At least it gives me something to write about!

Woman breast feeds husband - Seriously???

Normally, I don't buy magazines like Take a Break & That's Life because I find the stories in them sad and depressing. My hairdresser had a colleague who refered to them as 'Murder mags' But as I'm about to have a letter published in That's Life and I don't want to miss my moment of glory, I have been buying it of late.

Now call me old fashioned, but this week there was a story that, quite honestly, made my toes curl.

It was about a woman who was breastfeeding all her children. Very admirable you might say until I tell you they were all teenagers. Reading up on breastfeeding when she was first pregnant this lady decided breast was best. Nothing wrong with that because we all know it is - if you can do it.

Trouble is, once she started she didn't stop. Now her thirteen-year-old son thinks nothing of latching on for a quick slurp. He's down to two feeds a day, she says. Of course then there's the other two kids who she still feeds regularly. And if that's not enough, because she feels breast milk benefits the immune system and her husband has cancer in his family, she has got him having a feed as well!

In fact, if she's a bit off-colour she pumps out a glass for herself.

To cope with this drain on her body she consumes 9,000 calories a day.

She believes it's perfectly natural and she's doing it to help her children. Firstly, let me say. A childs immune system is established between five and eight years and when a child loses it's milk teeth it's jaw changes slightly and the ability to suckle like a baby disappears. So 'natural' it ain't.

She also says her children are all doing well at school because of her breast milk. Well, I have three sons. Two went to university and have law degrees, one is now a solicitor and the other has travelled the world and now works for an international company in London. My youngest, who I home schooled, is amazingly artistic, plays the guitar and is a computer whizz. And I can assure you I didn't breast feed any of them beyond a year!

Come on lady, when your kids can undo your blouse and you've stubble abrasions on your chest - it's time to stop! I mean, what next? They're going to ask you to express for their cafe lattes? And if your teenagers think its normal, heaven help you if they decide to invite their mates over for dinner.

The face of her children were blurred in the magazine but she was there in all her glory, boobs hanging out, because she wants to tell the world that what she is doing isn't weird. Blurred her kids faces might have been, but all their friends and peers are still going to know they are breast fed! Not to mention what her husbands work mates are going to say. Can you imagine what life is going to be like for them now? They might be all be clever and not get colds but their lives are going to be a nightmare.

A shop in London now sells icecream containing breast milk. It's called Baby Gaga. When a reporter asked where they got the breast milk from he was told 'some woman from Leeds' Turns out the lady who donates her milk gets £15 for every 10 ounces.

I'm not being judgemental. They are their boobs and these ladies can do what they want with them. I just don't think the lady in That's Life should have spread what she does across two pages.