Healthcare and ramblings

I think I'd like to dedicate this blog to the NHS.
I mean, I didn't believe I would wake up this morning and have quite an overwhelming urge to sit here typing a blog that speaks wholly about our National Health Service, but apparently, i have...
I think that although there are still a hell of a lot of issues with cleanliness in our hospitals, the fact that treatment for various illnesses, for example: cancer, is extremely prompt, it's like a single flutter of the wings of a butterfly, waiting for treatment, from diagnosis.
Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating? But seriously, that's the experience I've had with the service.
When my dad took ill with cancer, although the diagnosis was a little slow, as soon as he had been diagnosed, the tests on him followed very shortly afterwards and treatment should be soon too.
He was treated extremely well and his needs were looked after, which obviously, as a daughter, knowing my dad, my idol, is being looked after exceptionally well, frees a hell of a lot off of my mind.
However, I know that there are a lot of disgusting cases of people who have been neglected in hospitals, whilst terminally ill, which makes my blood boil. Any cases of neglect makes my blood boil.
Thinking that people who have paid taxes their whole lives, take ill and are neglected by people who've been trained to care for them, is absolutely terrifying. But there is no excuse for it. None at all. Even for people who do not pay taxes, they deserve the best treatments available too.
Also, although i am careering dramatically off of the subject, in most fairness, there are a lot of cases of people within the much loved British public that say that smoking related diseases and people who smoke (you know, those demonic people that use their freedom of choice to pick up a cigarette, light it and smoke it) do not deserve health care off of the NHS because they've caused their illness them selves.
Firstly, that is extremely inhumane, because we all deserve to be cared for when we are sick and secondly, please do a bit of research and see how much revenue smoking puts into the economy and compare it with how much money is spent on treating smoking related illnesses, because, seriously, a lot more is put into the economy than what is taken out.
I am not saying that smokers are superior to non smokers or that people don't deserve their opinions on this highly controversial topic, but I am saying that people should get off of their high horses and realise that we are all going to get ill and die at one point in our lives and it doesn't mean that we have caused the illness just because we may have had vices in our lives such as smoking and alcohol.

Rest In Peace Jade.

I guess I just want to say that I'm quite sad that people are being so cruel about Jade Goody's death, posting groups on Facebook saying good riddance and that she deserved to die of cervical cancer because she was a reality TV star and because she made some bad decisions in her life. Haven't we all though?
Yes, I know thousands of people die of nasty and terminal illnesses every year and I also know they are not in the spotlight like Jade was, but it doesn't mean their deaths aren't tragic too.
I am not going to sit here and pretend that I worshipped Jade Goody, because I didn't. And no, I didn't have much time for her in general. But she was so amazingly brave and she didn't half give that cancer she was riddled with a fight. I am in awe of that smile that was on her face every step of her gruelling battle. I don't know if I would ever be that strong if I was ever faced with having to say goodbye to everyone and everything I love in my existence - especially in the spotlight like she was.
So what if she wanted to make a few million pounds before she died to ensure her young boys had the things she didn't have as a child? Does that make her a bad person? Would it be unfair to say that everyone in that situation would want the best for their own children?
I actually feel so proud to be a Journalist, to see what my fellow Journalists have achieved through following the Jade Goody story. They have in effect, saved millions of lives, because, since Jade got so much coverage from her horrific illness thousands of young females have been getting smears and they are apparently lowering the smear age down too. Now isn't that a fabulous outcome out of such a bleak occurence?
I would just like to say that I am so sorry that she was misdiagnosed because she could have survived this illness and I am so inspired by her for not showing bitterness about a tragic mistake that shortened her time with the people she loved the most.
I thank the British Media and I thank Jade Goody.
Rest in peace girl!

What R'n'B means to me!

I was brought up listening to The Beegees, The Beatles, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, old Rod Stewart, Motown music and other general legends.
I used to love (and still do) sitting in the living room with my dad, putting some vinyl on and chilling out, having the odd dance and having a sing-song. I even used to wear a little leather skirt and waistcoat that my mum made me to sing along and play my guitar to Suzi Quatro and her feisty, wild songs.
I'm now nearing 20 years of age - still listening to sixties and seventies music. However, now my music taste is widely eclectic and I'm a firm lover of all genres - I can honestly say this, with the exception of drum and bass and orchestrial - even though I do see why people love these genres... they're not for me!
Anyway, my newest musical love has got to be R'n'B music. I adore it. I remember the days when I was a secret lover of certain genres, but would never admit it because that wasn't cool, but I can safely say I will never hide who I am again.
R'n'B music can be really trashy in many ways, repetitive, cheesy, tacky and many people would class it as music that black people produce, that in most cases is full of drugs, sex and misogyny - however, when I listen to it I hear soul, expression, life experience, lust, desire, emotion, meaning, love, reasoning, self belief and motivation - wrapped up in a funky beat.
Yeah, women are spoken about in an extremely sexual way by the male R'n'B artist, but it's representing instant lust - the type you sometimes feel for someone when all you want to do is rip their clothes off. Everyone has felt or will feel lust, so why not sing about it? Why not talk about a beautiful woman you were instantly attracted to in a way that is a little bit x-rated?
Another thing I love about R'n'B music is with some R'n'B artists, such as Ne-Yo, his music is especially soulful - he reminds me of a modern Marvin Gaye, even though he sings about topics that are far from the respectful love songs that Marvin belted out years ago. A signifier that music is becoming more and more daring!
I love R'n'B music because on the surface it's just some funky and upbeat tune you can listen to when you're driving in your car on a really nice day and have a sing-song too.
But it has hidden depths. The jolly, happy, vibrant music can sometimes mask what they are saying in their lyrics. I sometimes hear a good R'n'B tune and disregard the lyrics, except the catchy chorus, because the music is so fantastic. However, when I listen properly to what they are actually singing, 9 times out of 10 I am absolutely mesmorised by the story I am being told.
My favourite R'n'B artist, Akon, has this effect on me. His songs are always really catchy and I love a good sing song to them, but when I listen to the lyrics I am quite astonished. I am actually being told about his previous life, his hardships, his fight to get where he is now, his culture, his lust for women and I thank him for allowing me to come inside his world and experience a life that is worlds apart from my own.
I also thank him for letting me sing and dance while I have this experience!

A rant about the Government!

I would like to make it public how disgusted, disgraced and angered I am about the new government proposals to make social networking sites like our generations' beloved Facebook and Myspace to retain details of their users' movements on the internet.

These obsessive proposals follow plans to store information about every single phone call, email and internet visit made by anyone in the extremely democratic United Kingdom, on a central database.

I think this is absolutely absurd. I suppose I should be able to understand that social networking online is extremely dangerous, especially with the fact that there are so many creepy people saying they are who they most definitely are not and because of this, the younger members of our generation, such as my little brother could be in danger. However spying on everyone for the sake of it, just isn't on.

The government are obsessed with all these databases that contain every tiny detail about each and every one of us - it's actually scaring me stupid how oblivious most people my age are to what is happening and how serious it is.
It disgusts me. They take all of our money, they take away our freedom of speech - the freedom of speech of the Media and they are well on their way to taking every little ounce of freedom and dignity that we have left by spying on us through all these stupid, pathetic databases and each and every CCTV camera that takes shots of me wherever I am in this country. Which, may I add, it is estimated that in this massively surveilled country, we each get snapped on about 7 cameras a second or minute - something ridiculous like that.
The last thing I want is to seem as though I'm some type of government hater and that I'm shallow and biased so I shall say what I feel to be one of the positives of living in a country where we are all spied on... which is that if you are breaking the law - you are going to be caught and convicted extremely efficiently. For example, if you are on benefits and working at the same time and you happen to be emailing an employment agency every couple of days or maybe hours (depending on how eager you are) then if they check who you are emailing, it will help them find out that you are breaking the law.
I just don't like the idea of being spied on and having my privacy (privacy being one of my fundamental human rights) invaded in what is supposed to be a free and democratic country.
How can I be proud to be British with our current government?

My very own drag queen from planet 13 - Wednesday 13.

As I sit here eating a banana flavoured yoghurt, drinking hot chocolate and contemplating teaching myself to play the banjo, a sudden rush of excitement floods my veins...
The Wednesday 13 gig on March the 22nd!
Yes, Wednesday 13. Who's real name is Joseph Poole - a tiny, female-clothes-wearing, zombie loving, guitar playing sex God, who sings gothic rock music with many of his songs paying homage to classic horror movies such as 'The Last House On The Left'.
This will be the seventh time I have seen and heard him live and I can't hold back these crashing waves of excitement that surge through me at random times in the day.
Where should I start?
The Rescue Rooms at Nottingham Rock City of course! Wow. The tickets sold out like hot cakes and I know why. I went on my own, because of the fact the tickets had sold out before my friends got round to trying to order them!
The gig was for his biggest fans, evident because there was only about two hundred and seventy people there- at a push.
The atmosphere was so relaxed, there was no pushing around, no standing on eachother's toes, no short people shouting at tall people for being tall and blocking their view... it was calm...
This disappeared however, when the inexperienced and young support band 'Serpico' left the stage and Wednesday 13 appeared - there was then a sudden rush to the front... the crowd were going absolutely wild, the atmosphere electric.
I didn't care that I was friendless at the gig, I was happily ever cadaver as Mr 13 would say.
Like the five previous times I've seen Wednesday play, his song choices could not be questioned. The only disheartening element to the whole gig was the fact that due to a shoulder injury in a recent car accident, he wasn't rocking out on his electric guitar.
However - he did play a song on his acoustic guitar, from his now newly released album 'Skeletons' which made up for it!
Mr 13's use of props on stage never ceases to amaze me. As always he had the stage kitted out with ornamental zombie heads and toy machine guns with his famous 'R.A.M.B.O' lyrics carelessly painted all over in brilliant white paint. And of course umbrellas with capitalised swear words on them. Swearing within the metal/gothic rock genre is not uncommon and is most certainly not a sign of lack of intelligence - you could say it simply adds a lot of attitude and connotes both care free and angst ridden perspectives - fine by me!
Mr 13 is definitely one of the most energetic performers I've seen live, he is also very sexual with the way he delivers his songs - in the sense that he knows how to use what he has got to it's full potential in an extremely desirable and charismatic way.
I spent Halloween 2008 at the Astoria in London at a Wednesday 13 gig and although he's an American, the deliverance of his encore showed us British fans that he doesn't come to our country with his eyes and ears shut - he actually reads, watches and absorbs the news.
The reason I came to this conclusion is because he actually had the 'Satanic Sluts Extreme' doing a very explicit dance routine in the background of his final song...
For anyone who doesn't know who the Satanic sluts are, they are gothic, alternative models that have piercings, tattoos, really absurd fettishes and such. Well basically four of the 'Satanic Sluts' have branched out into their own group, 'Satanic Sluts Extreme' and do Burlesque routines with blood, gore, violence and sex intertwined.
Getting to the point, one of the four is actually Andrew Sach's grandaughter Georgina Baillie... and of course at around about this time, there was yet another moral panic centred around the BBC.
Genius move of Wednesday 13 to get in on the action without jumping on the bandwagon with everyone else.

I need to clear the air - I am not a lover of old men! I just fancy them a bit!

I must say that a lot of my little crushes are for men that are over the age of 40 and maybe 50, but it doesn't mean that I should get bullied for this! I shouldn't be called 'grandad lover' and everytime a male pensioner walks by me, I shouldn't have to hear: "He's a bit of alright isn't he?" or "Why don't you ask him out?" whispered into my ear.
Because, for a start - the trend for me and my love of older men is that 98% of them are famous men, so that's okay isn't it?
It's not like I want to strip them off and have my wicked way with them or anything, I just think they are very fanciable men and most of the time their charisma and charm is what gets me hooked.
However, I must say that my first crush on an older man did freak me out. (I'm not counting my life long crush on Rod Stewart, that would never freak me out). I was watching a show for Billy Connelly's 60th birthday, where it involved him and loads of special guests.
And no, I don't and will never fancy Billy Connelly... but then again I never in a million years thought I would fancy the person from this show that I did... even though I was only about twelve, it still scared me tremendously.
I was completely loving his 60th birthday celebrations and then I was distracted when Bob Geldof made quite a loving and flattering speech about Billy. I wasn't distracted because of how beautiful the speech was, I was distracted because even though I had seen Bob Dylan many times and I'd loved The Boom Town Rats for years, he suddenly looked extremely, extremely sexy and desirable.
Enough said.
However throughout my life, I've learned how to live with the fact that I am quite attracted to older men. I sort of embrace the fact that I see something attractive in a lot of older men.
My favourites have got to be: George Clooney, Bruce Willis, Ricky Gervais, Richard Gere, Steve Tyler, Jon Bon Jovi, Axl Rose, Bob Geldof a little bit still, I think David Cameron is a bit sexy, although I disagree with his politics and last but by no means least, the super sexy, charming and charismatic Rod Stewart.
They may be old, but by gosh they are some sexy men!

Metrosexual, homosexual... does it really matter?

I was waiting around outside work the other day, just stood against a wall really excited about being ten minutes away from another gruelling shift. So I simply stood back and watched people pass me by, which was quite fun actually. I was also having a good listen to the conversations of the passers by too.
One conversation between a really, really pretty girl and her not quite as pretty companion really made me snigger, as well as provoking me to write this blog.
The very, very pretty girl said: "Yeah well he is really sexy."
The not as pretty girl replied: "And he was smiling at you all night."
The very, very pretty girl then said: "But he's so smartly dressed and definitely gay!"
Then they both laughed quite a lot.
So here's me laughing and thinking that if all guys that dressed smartly were gay, there just wouldn't be enough heterosexual totty to go around... but I know this isn't true, but it definitely got me thinking.
So I carried on watching people walking by, but disregarded any women walking by and just zoomed in on all men, any age, any size and tried to guess whether by their dress sense they were simply the new and modern 'metrosexual' male that people bang on about or homosexual. Not that I minded which one they were.
I saw middle aged men in really modern suits, with the slim trousers and ties to match, with the long, pointy shoes. Men that weren't quite as sexy as George Clooney, but definitely as well presented. I came to the conclusion they were all heterosexual, just very scared about getting old and masking it with such a modern style.
I saw many men that welcomed the true 'metrosexual' style. They were young professional type men, with pink and ever so silky shirts, tight trousers, shoulder bags, fake tan and immaculate hair. In other words, the true definition of the metrosexual male. The men who are heterosexual but gorgeous, toned, immaculate, dressed in designer gear, had disposable income and used it in a way to pamper themselves... very vain too... why not if you look good eh?
I saw one guy who really was quite an enigma to me. He was tall, he reminded me of a scruffy surfer type but quite sexy at the same time. Anyway, he was tall, with long, curly, black hair and quite big, brown eyes and quite a pretty smile. He looked really masculine, with the exception of the tight, purple shirt and hairless chest. So I was really confused about him, whether he was simply metrosexual or homosexual... until ten hours later, I realised he had the most stunningly pretty girl holding his hand- that I could only assume was his girlfriend.
The point I'm trying to make is that there are so many gorgeous men out there with their own unique and most cases extremely modern styles. And if I decided that every guy out there who looked slightly 'camp' because he had a pristine appearance was homosexual and therefore unavailable, I'd severely restrict myself in life.
A person's sexuality, or even what you assume their sexuality is, shouldn't get in the way of getting to know them whether a relationship will or will not be on the horizon, because friendship is a thousand times better and less complicated anyway!
Also, if a guy has decided to follow the metrosexual trend and start wearing pink and sporting really pointy shoes, then that's them trying to impress all the attractive and modern females out there - not because he's trying to bag a bloke, so by assuming because he may look slightly too good to be true that he's gay is just shooting yourself in the foot because he could be straight and single! Bargain!