Opinion Archives - Page 6 of 8

How to say "love"

Posted on October 8, 2012 by Farrah Kelly

The quickest route to work from my new house happens to go through the most famous street in York. As gorgeous as Shambles is, it has now become the street I hate the most. All the quaint cobbles, curling buildings and flashes of York’s 800 year history no longer remedy the fact that The Shambles is rammed with tourists.

The only time this street’s been empty

Tourists were sent from hell to remind us just how angry we can be made by other people. They find the most awkward places to stand to ensure they’re firmly in your way, they stop suddenly causing you to slam full pelt into the back of their head, and they sulk if you dare walk in front of their camera. In a word, they’re arseholes.

Now. I may be being slightly hypocritical. When I’m tourist-ing, I seem to forget all usual human social conventions. So I can sympathise with the millions of people milling around on The Shambles, innocently pissing off the locals. I’m one of them when I’m in their hometown, after all.

Despite this- the hoard on The Shambles still house a special number one slot on the “People I Hate Most” list. Maybe it’s because I’m in a rush to get to my shift. Maybe it’s because some of them are just so categorically stupid. Probably it’s because I have anger issues. Whatever. The point is, this wonderful, beautiful little corner of York has been ruined for me.

One of the ways I deal with these demons sporting backpacks when I’m rushing amongst them, is to use my inherent Northern charm. Once, this meant telling a guy insistent on not letting me pass to move out of the way, pretty please; but with my Mancunian accent, this polite instruction may have come across a touch more colourfully. Usually though, I’m in much less of a surging rage, and will instead twist through the crowds with a quick “sorry, love”.

“Love” is a funny term. It has complex rules governing its usage- something I assumed everyone knew naturally. Apparently not. Perhaps it’s something inbuilt into Northerners, like always having a carrier bag on you in case you have to pop to ALDI. So I thought I’d clarify for the rest of you:

You can call the bus driver love, but you can’t call your boss love. You can call someone older than you love, but only if they seem the type to use the term themselves. You can’t call someone just a little younger than you love, but you can if they’re quite a bit younger. There’s no point calling posh people love. Don’t call someone in a lower position than you love if you don’t want to come off as patronising. If you call your mam love, brace yourself for a slap.

When a tourist in work called me love the other day, I was really offended. I was in an inferior role- his waitress- and he was quite clearly younger than me. I couldn’t help but feel like he was patronising me on purpose. It undermined how polite I’d been, and definitely reinforced that he saw me as someone serving him, not just someone doing a job.

Obviously, my offence was a lot more to do with the guy’s tone when he spoke to me, and the general sneering expression, but the fact that he used the word love to patronise surprised me. To me, it’s a term of endearment. It’s there to show that you care about the person (to some extent, I’m not sure the guy in McDonalds is genuinely fussed whether I enjoy my Happy Meal or not), and to make something more personable. The guy that accidentally bumps into you and curtly apologises might not mean it; and the guy that bumps into you and says “ah, sorry love” might not either, but I’d be more inclined to believe him.

Love is a pretty important term to me. It’s a quick way of showing affection, and it’s a handy extra for making something more polite. When you’re barging through a swarm of people armed with maps and SLRs, it’s my go-to tool for showing that us Northerners are friendly, but could you get out of my bloody way please. If this snooty guy is abusing the term- my term- then I need to make people more aware of how it’s supposed to be used. Consider this blog Lesson One.

Boobs that are news, and boobs that aren’t

Posted on September 19, 2012 by Farrah Kelly

There’s been a little bit of a frenzy regarding boobs lately. Though I must admit I’m no expert, even in my role as boob-layperson I’ve been noticing a lot more attention on them in the last few weeks.

First of all, there’s Royal boobs. Everyone’s in a tizz about Kate Middleton’s pair being on show. Personally, I’m a lot less interested in seeing them than the French and Italians (and Swedish and Irish, apparently) are.What has caught my attention is how the fuss that’s surrounding Kate’s chest doesn’t even remotely compare to the fuss that kicked off not long ago about Prince Harry’s-ahem- crown jewels being made a public pastime.

Really, what happened to Harry is worse, on paper at least. He genuinely was in private- a hotel room- and the picture really is of his privates. Yet Kate, in reach of a public road, had only her breasts on show. Yet it’s her, not his, highness that is suing all relevant newspapers. And it’s her, not him, that we’re all feeling outraged for.

Perhaps it’s because everyone’s kind of come to expect it from Harry- the Royal family’s answer to banter. Perhaps it because Kate was more hurt by the -cough- revelation. I sympathise with the pair of them equally- if not with Harry a little more. Imagine having to explain to your gran why your balls are on the front page of The Sun. That said, I’d be mortified if midway through a bikini change someone snapped a picture and whacked it onto Facebook- nevermind onto the front pages of French mags. No one wins, really.

Whatever the actions of either party are irrelevant. My point is, everyone is more upset for Kate than they were for Harry. Apparently, boobs are worse than balls.

Which leads me nicely onto this campaign.

No More Page Three is growing in popularity. With over 23,000 signatures on the petition and a crapload of Facebook/Twitter attention, it could very well be the beginning of the end of bare chests emblazoning the front pages. Sit up, The Star, take note Daily Sport. This time, we mean business.

In fact, people are getting quite angry about boobs all of a sudden. A tiny part of the feminist inside of me is a little defensive- hey guys, women’s bodies aren’t offensive, let’s not get upset over them being proudly displayed- but the rest of the feminist inside is pretty excited.

Page Three’s are normalising the objectification of women, and for a profit. While Ria, 21 from Essex, might have a lovely figure and a dazzling smile, I’m willing to bet she’s also got an interesting opinion or two. She might even helpfully contribute to society in some way. But that’s irrelevant, because she’s attractive enough to make men hand over thirty pence.

It’s a little pathetic really. All this outrage about publishing pictures of Kate Middleton topless, and a general acceptance of others having their tits splashed over the daily rags. I’m aware that there’s a lot more to it that this- consent and privacy and the money being made out of it for starters- but we are all getting a little excited over nothing.

Think about it. If almost every woman has your standard two breasts, and the population of the world is split roughly into 50% for each gender (give or take the exceptions), then we’re basically on more boobs than there are men in the world. We should all be used to them by now. It’s not news that they exist, and if it is, then it’s old news. And it certainly doesn’t deserve a reservation on the third page of newspapers round the world, globally.

I think if we can all agree that 1) boobs aren’t there as entertainment, 2) that they don’t warrant daily publishing internationally on NEWSpapers, 3) that there’d still be plenty of things to talk about if we weren’t talking about tits, then we’d all be a lot calmer. The Sun could find other, less offensive things to publish on p3. and Kate Middleton could get on with smiling and waving and having fabulous dress sense.

And for the people whose existences are going to be at a loss without a daily tit-fix, there’s such a thing as porn. It’s a little higher up the shelves at the newsagents, but I’m sure you can manage the reach.

You can sign the petition by clicking here.

How being surrounded by books has made me die a little inside

Posted on August 29, 2012 by Farrah Kelly

Working in a book shop is, in many ways, an ideal job for me. I get to spend time rummaging through boxes of travel guides and novels, I get to scale ceiling-height shelves looking for signed anthologies, I get to have that gorgeous smell of books surrounding me. Basically, I can spend my entire working day nerding out without anyone judging me.

But there is one thing. Working with 20,000 books is playing havoc with how I view the world.

In one way, my faith in hardcopy reading (and therefore humanity) is deepened. I’m stirred into a fuzzy feeling when I see the sheer volume of books that are ordered everyday. Someone, somewhere, is really looking forward to getting that first edition children’s book. A book that was printed in Milan, lent in libraries in Sao Paulo, and packed up in a barn in south of France, is now winging its way to Susan in Dorset. Removing bookmarks from well-thumbed novels, reading annotations from people’s close studies. The romantic in me is having an absolute field day.

On the other hand, I’ve realised how crazy people are. Utterly, utterly batshit. People will read anything.

But before I tirade about this, a disclaimer; I hate that snobbery that inhabits people’s opinions of literature. You know, how anytime a novel gets a film adaptation, everyone’s knickers automatically twist and we all splutter about it not doing the book justice. Or whenever something that The Independent didn’t review gets popular, and everyone guards their precious Waterstones loyalty cards like Twihards are going to soil all the “real” literature in the world. Let’s just man up about books- people like to read, and are entertained by different things. Get over it. You have more important things to troll than a Fifty Shades of Grey Facebook page.

So I’m really really not being snobby about this. This is unadulterated astonishment.

Yesterday I catalogued a book by a German woman from the seventies, talking about her drawings of cats. Seriously. That’s it. Not only does the book exist- and just think what that entails; someone thought the idea of the book sounded neat, someone WROTE that book, and someone else went out and PAID MONEY for it- but the thing is selling for about £20.

It’s even stranger when you have to examine these books closer. Think no one would be interested in 700 recipes that solely rely on the use of a microwave? Think again, there’s four editions of that bad boy. Couldn’t possibly foresee a situation in which someone would want to update a guide to behavioural habits of German Shepards? Wrong. Volume four, now available in shops near you.

The one that really hurt my feelings, though, was the catchily titled “Mathematics in Fun and Earnest“ . I swear to God. Google it right now. If anything was going to put a dampener on my definition of fun (and earnest…), it’s this book.

Now I know that seeing as anyone is allowed to write books, about anything they want, there is a LOT of crap out there. There’s not much I can (or would) do about it. But this really was taking the biscuit. I can’t think of anything worse than having to read that book. As Emma Bennett once eloquently put it, “I’d rather sick up a chip”. I calmly put the book back onto its pile, and tried to hold back the rush of sheer disgust.

My main rule for travelling has been to always overestimate how many books you’ll need. The extra weight in my suitcase will be worth it- I don’t want to end up reading taxi leaflets again like on my last day in Turkey, with seven hours to spare at the airport. But just knowing this Mathematics in Fun and Earnest exists has cemented for me what was already core advice. In no circumstances do I want to be left with a choice of MIF&E or staring blankly at an airport wall for seven hours. I honestly don’t know which I’d choose.

“For the traveller”

Twenty things from twenty years

Posted on August 20, 2012 by Farrah Kelly

As a homage to the loss of my teenage years, and equally as a convenient round-up of all the life lessons and wisdom I’ve worked hard to earn over the last two decades, I’m listing twenty things I’ve learnt over the last twenty years. I assume I’ve learnt more than twenty things in total (totally still remember every word of my essay on the law of theft from two and a half years ago), but I’m procrastinating enough right now as it is. Twenty will have to suffice. Enjoy!

Mum is always right, and also knows everything. Not only about whether it’s going to rain, whether you look ridiculous in that outfit, but about the big stuff too. The university choice, relationship advice, what’s going to happen on Corrie. It kind of sucks when it’s not what you want to hear, because it’s definitely going to happen.
Charity shop books. They’re basically life’s way of allowing me to fund my reading habit despite the recurring problem of not actually having any money.

Charity shop haul

Everywhere south of Manchester is “Down South” and masses as one big place that’s next door to London. The Midlands are just southerners attempt to join us, and I for one am not fooled.
On a completely unrelated note, I have no sense of direction. Learnt the hard way, many, many times.
Always ask for your spicy food to actually be spicy. For some reason, people in restaurants always assume that despite ordering a hot madras, I’m not going to be able to handle heat. It’s cool, I’m kind of a snob about it anyway guys. Don’t skimp on the chilli powder.
Don’t publish embarrassing things online, because the internet is forever.
Moving house is kind of fun. It’s definitely useful that I think this, considering I’ve moved in and out of ten, with another on the way. It’s less fun if you have to do it on your own, resulting in hysterical phone calls to your mum.
Hangover cure= banana milk, trashy TV and lying down.
Nothing will ever entertain me in the same way as scrolling through my little sister’s Tweets. Personal highlights include “Disappointing bowl of cocopops.” and “I can’t find Wally”.

People that enjoy studying syntax should be treated with suspicion and ultimately ostracised from society, for our own protection.
Don’t play drinking games with Sam Dumigan.Or rugby teams. Or jagerbombs.
There’s a difference in being unprepared and disorganised. I’m usually both, but the difference exists.
Verve, nine o clock, Friday night.
I suck royally at games of any kind. Don’t know what happens if you win at Pacman. I drove carefully on Grand Theft Auto. I never completed Pokemon because I couldn’t figure out how so just imagined Pikachu was my pet and all the other battler-people were my friends.

Boys: don’t expect them to remember who you are.

If you’re friends with guys, don’t expect them to turn up on time/at all/remember your birthday/remember to invite you to stuff. They will sheepishly love you forever though, so that makes up for it.
Take pictures of everything, because you never know when you might need a stock photo for The Yorker.
If someone makes you a crap brew, tell them before it becomes part of their routine to turn up at your bedside every morning with a cuppa.
How to weave around busy city centres with suitcases, while on the phone, drinking a coffee, running late for a train.
Putting something down usually means I’ll never see it again. Especially if it’s my glasses, phone, keys, essays, treasured jewellery, train tickets, umbrellas. This is because a) I have a terrible short term memory and b) my things are conspiring against me.
Key to happiness is sitting around reading a book listening to Noah. Or it’s reunions with friends. Or it’s car journeys with mum. Or getting top marks in something you’ve worked hard for. Or it’s getting drunk on beaches. Or it’s those little family arguments about who has the most cushions. Or it’s conquering a to-do list. Mostly it’s Geordie Shore.

These guys.