I do admit to stealing this from Sarah’s blog but who can blame me? It’s so sweet! Kinda. To me, this feels ever so slightly like an Aesop’s fable where at the end we learn that the moral of the story is that size isn’t everything.
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent” –Eleanor Roosevelt.
“I don’t shave [anywhere] and while my friends are fine with this, one of them does keep making jokes about my hair. She claims it’s all in good fun but it’s been going on for a while now and she won’t stop even though I’ve asked her to quite a few times. What should I do?”
Rubyyy says: Hey Babes! Thanks for your question; sorry to hear your friend is being insensitive; few things sting more
As a drag queen, I’ve run into this, with queens “reading” (teasing with wit) each other and feeling the difference between a read, when we all laugh, including the one being read and a jab, when the intention is to reduce a queen; it’s no fun and it’s not cute!
It’s great you’ve voiced to your friend that you want her to stop, that’s important but I’m going to ask you to ask her again one more time…
This time (not sure how it was before!) I want you to sit her down, just you two, no one else, no alcohol, in a quiet environment so you can express yourself. And when you tell her you want her to stop, you need to emphasize it no longer feels like friends just teasing; that your feelings are being hurt and (if this is true) it is impacting your friendship and that this is the last time you want to have to discuss this as you’ve done your best in the past to communicate this.
Also! Have a conversation with your friend about your hair and your choices, perhaps she is uncomfortable with it and she has questions about it and you 🙂
You love this person as a friend because they have accepted you but when it feels like you aren’t being heard or treated with care, that doesn’t feel like friendship to me.
Approach your friend with love, know in your heart what you need in friendship, lose the blame, express how you feel and make plans to move on as friend’s…
Hope this helps! Sending lots of hairy love! xxx
As I was walking to break the other day, a colleague pointed out a 73 year old man who still worked in my workplace. She seemed a bit annoyed but I couldn’t understand it, if someone can do the work then why on earth shouldn’t they?! It’s only when my colleague explained themselves that I understood. Thousands of young people can’t get jobs because of a lack of them. Is it fair then that people who should now be retiring take the jobs young people need to start their lives with?
With our terrible economy at the moment and only a pension to live on, could said elderly person then need the money to live on? You could argue that while an older person has a pension to bide by, young people have the dole. However the dole is there for the young people who cannot get a job, a pension is there so that the people who have worked all their lives can now retire and no longer have to work.
I will agree that ‘back in the day’, people looked at work in a very different way. Although I am stereotyping, I believe that a lot of young people do not understand the true meaning of working a full day, either getting bored or skiving, whereas 50+ years ago, workers were breaking their backs trying to bring money home. It could be debated that older colleagues have a chance to work on because so many young people are choosing to go on benefits etc. but it isn’t always a choice. A lot of young people have to abide by these benefits due to a lack of jobs for them to take.
So what age should it all stop? If you are to stop someone working at a certain age, what age should that be? The older a person gets, in the majority, more and more things will start to become wrong with them or fragile so that they may not be able to work to their greatest degree. This is not helpful for an employer who may want to take on someone who is not going to be as costly to them. By this I mean (not showing the human side) elderly people are more likely to have sick days and be slower than someone who is a lot younger and who has not used their body as much. However this may also be untrue, most of the older people I have met know the true value of a good day’s work and so will not skive off work due to a hangover or a lie-in. Young people may also abuse their bodies somewhat more than an older person would have done, with fast food, drugs and alcohol and so may not be as fit as their older counterpart.
There are both pros and cons of hiring an older or younger worker but this still does not address if it is fair to keep jobs from younger people so that older people can work on so I am going to use myself as an example. I have graduated with a well-earned degree in English with Creative Writing, earning myself a very happy 2:1. I now work in a local supermarket which is a satisfying and rewarding job but maybe not something that I went to university for. This proves that there aren’t all the jobs out there for young people. However I have also had money problems and been bored and just wanted something to do, which may be what some of the older generation are experiencing. Therefore I do not believe it is fair to categorise each party in this way but I do know that there aren’t a lot of jobs in the way for young people, however I would not want an older person to starve not enough income.
About the writer: Becky has just finished a degree in English and Creative Writing and is very happy with her 2:1. She is friendly, bubbly and just so happens to be the co-creator of Yellow Bunting. She hopes you enjoy it and that you get involved!
If you haven’t heard of Plan 9 From Outer Space, I don’t blame you. Filmed in 1956 and released [albeit on a very limited scale] three years later, it has been reviled as the worst film ever made, frequently makes onto the “most hated film” lists and its director, Edward D. Wood Jr. has been named as the worst director ever. The acting is sloppy, the script is visible in certain shots and the continuity is shocking.
I’ll admit the odds aren’t in its favour.
But then you watch the film and realise that it’s not all that bad. [Wow, what a backhanded compliment.] What I mean to say is: I like it.
[Warning: film contains gratuitous use of stock footage.]
I have certainly seen my share of god-awful films but this isn’t one of them. I’m not saying that it’s the best film ever made but it’s definitely not the worst and these are some reasons why:
-It’s got some legitimately scary moments [if only they were done well…] picture the scene; you’re in a graveyard and it’s nearing midnight. You’ve heard of some strange activity happening in the vicinity and wanted to check it out for yourself, but now you’re regretting this decision. You hear a faint groaning noise; you turn around and see that the dirt by one of the graves is moving, pulsing almost! Suddenly a hand breaks through and the great, hulking, re-animated body of the late Inspector Daniel Clay crawls out. Screaming you turn to run but while you’ve been distracted, someone’s been creeping up behind you: the old man’s dead wife! Her arms, covered in blood and scratches are stretched out in front of her and shaking violently, she lunges towards you with her nails like claws and a mad look in her eye.
See, now isn’t that mildly terrifying?
-Queen of the Damned is one of the worst films ever made.
-Thinking about it if the whole thing was done well [better cast/script/props/effects & bigger budget] it has the potential to be a decent horror film. Aliens attacking, creepy zombies running around and a military cover up? This film is the result of a hot night of passion between the X Files and Night of the Living Dead.
-Silent Hill. Ugh. Let’s just not go there.
-There’s a coherent storyline throughout. Man’s wife dies. Man dies. Man and wife are brought back to life by aliens. Clueless humans. Military stuff. Small one to one battle with aliens. END. On paper it’s still better than most movies being produced at the moment.
-Sharktopus is the worst film ever made.
-It’s quite funny. I’ll take a leap of faith and assume that it wasn’t the intended point of the film, but that doesn’t stop the humour from shining through. A policeman scratching his head with a gun, incompetent aliens, teeny tiny graves that only look big enough for children and the best overacting you’ll ever see, I really hope I’m building a good enough case for you to watch this film.
-Two words: BUNNY BRECKINRIDGE.
-Actually I take it back, Twilight is the worst film ever made.
-It’s been said many times by lots of different people, but I’ll say it again, the worst sin a film can commit is being dull. Plan 9 From Outer Space, though as we know lacks a lot of things, it is by no means dull. [A camp romp involving aliens and dead people is how I like to think of it.]
-It’s inspired a fabulous musical, which has gotten better reviews than the original film. I like to think of it as a love letter to Edward D. Wood Jnr.
So to sum up, it’s unfair to call Plan 9 From Outer Space the worst film ever made. In all honestly it’s the best of all Ed Wood’s movies.
Next time: more about the actual worst films ever made.
About the Writer: Daisy is an irregular photographer, wannabe writer and full time female. In between tea and toast breaks she spends far too much time on the internet blogging, tumbling and tweeting. She is unapologetic in her love of the Spice Girls.
Is it acceptable to use violence against the person you’re supposed to love? Is it acceptable to blame that person for YOUR actions? Is it acceptable to even blame being drunk?
The answer to these questions is quite simply no. Under no circumstance should you ever use violence against your partner.
The reason I have chosen to discuss this topic for this issue is because of something that happened during a formal event on Saturday. I’m not going to delve into too much detail because I would like to respect the privacy of those involved, but basically a drunken argument between a friend and her girlfriend got way out of hand involving her girlfriend being punched and pushed to the floor in front of all of her friends.
A more important issue I want to raise through writing this article is that because they were both girls, nobody jumped into to stop it except my friend and me. In any other situation I would always leave a couple’s argument to them because it’s nobody else’s business but in this case a private problem was made into everyone else’s problem when she decided to become violent.
On the one hand I can see why people didn’t run to help, because they are two girls it could have appeared to be a drunken scrap between friends, and obviously if it was a man hitting a woman the physical strength ratio would be different.
However, that’s not the point. Domestic or physical violence within a couple does not just exist where it’s just a man who harms a woman. There are so many cases of domestic violence that exist between two men, two women or even a woman being violent towards a man. Those of you who watch Coronation Street (poor you) will be very aware of this through the storyline between Kirsty and Tyrone. For those of you who don’t watch Corrie (well done) this storyline is based on how Kirsty physical abuses Tyrone and he does nothing about it, protecting her secret.
Showing this on primetime television, I think has been an incredible step forward in making people aware of domestic violence. It’s making people see the variations and it’s making male victims feel less ashamed and alone in their pain.
According to the National Centre for Domestic Violence website:
http://www.ncdv.org.uk/maleDVweek.html
These statistics are quite shocking because when I hear the phrase domestic abuse, I automatically picture a poor defenceless woman being abused by a man. I never think about it any other way, until Saturday that is.
The worst part of it was that after I pulled my friend away from her girlfriend and asked what the hell she was playing at, she said…
“I just want to talk to her.”
This remark made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever because, correct me if I’m wrong, if you want to talk to someone then talk to them!
I was so infuriated with her behaviour I started thinking about how many victims of physical violence by a partner are outside the stereotype of men hurting women, or how many of these victims get blamed for the other person’s actions. How dare they blame them?
People were more than likely just assuming it was a typical drunken cat fight and it wasn’t a big deal. But the truth about domestic physical violence is that it’s not about physical strength in the slightest…
Think about it, male victims would probably be able to overpower a female attack because (unfortunately) they are genetically stronger. So, why don’t people fight back?
One word…FEAR.
Take spiders for example; how many of us are afraid of spiders and run away at the mere sight of them? When you think about it though, spiders are a fraction of our size and we are a million times stronger. Doesn’t stop us from cowering away though does it?
It’s the same for abuse victims. Your fear overcomes your power.
Another thing that came out of what happened was my friend’s mother saying how she couldn’t comprehend the anger and upset when “she warned her she was going to hit her anyway.”
That makes is acceptable does it? No it absolutely does not. If my partner, who has never used violence against me, threatened to hit me whilst drunk, I wouldn’t think she was being serious. The threat of it is bad enough but to actually go through with it is a whole other ball game.
Physical abuse within a relationship doesn’t just happen from a man to woman. This is the point I want to raise from this article; it can happen to anybody and it’s really important to be aware of that. Men should never feel ashamed of being a victim, and it should never be assumed to be a catfight between two women, or a “lad scrap” between two men.
Some people are afraid to fight back, no matter who it is. Remember that.
About the writer: Melody has just finished a degree in Journalism, Film and Media with a 2:1. She aspires to work with vulnerable women and children subject to domestic, and or other forms of abuse. She is an animal lover and has a small obsession with Fearne Cotton. She is a constant joker and can be found on Twitter.
The plan is to give you another kind of review this time around. I have just finished reading Rowling’s new(ish) novel. I know it came out sometime ago, but I was loathed to spend money on purchasing it myself because of the reviews the book received. So I borrowed a copy from work (I work in a library).
The book is… odd. The story is slow. Point to point it jumps around, hard to follow in places because the switch in perceptions are just not explained. In places they are so random that it becomes hard to follow the story.
Plus there are an awful lot of threads to follow.
I’ll try and explain in the simplest way possible.
We start with the death of Barry Fairbrother- head of the Pagford Parish council and very much in favour of the council estate that boarders the otherwise sleepy little town. On the day of his death Barry is working on a “Pro-Fields” article for the local paper, when he dies of an aneurism in his brain. I suppose the point of the book is see how his death effects those who knew him. Plus the squabble over the newly empty seat on the parish council.
The next big thing that happens is that we have to go through the gossip grapevine of Pagford. It takes an awful long time for all the main characters in the book to be introduced this way, and much before the story even gets interesting, I was sorely tempted to give up.
We have to keep up with at least eighteen “central” characters in this imaginary village of Pagford. Eighteen. That is a LOT of characters to keep up with, especially because Ms Rowling- usually flawless in her writing- keeps jumping between characters without little transaction between them.
It takes almost until the end of the book for the threads and links between these characters to even begin to link up. I won’t give away the ending but even at the end, there are threads that it would have been so simple to tie up.
I think the key point of this book is that the story starts with death and ends in unhappiness. The unhappiness however isn’t constructed very well- its short it’s hasty. Like Rowling realised that she was running out of time to finish it in her usual style. It is sloppy.
There is one piece at the end, where a the partner of the person who wins the free seat, tells him that she is so unhappy in Pagford that she didn’t even vote. I mean this part carries impact for the new chair of the parish council, but it is not something that has implications in the rest of the book. If this had been the partner of the person who hadn’t won, then maybe I would have been a bit more into this plot move. As it stands, could see it coming a mile off.
Another issue is that it takes a good two thirds of the book to get to the election, which really drags. There are a few good passages that really work, but overall, its far to log for what it is.
The problem is that in a way we have set so much store on Harry Potter that I think too much was expected from this novel, even though hardly anyone knew that she was writing it before it the announced publication date.
There are good points to this book. Yes once the book gets going, we’ve got that wonderful Rowling style, completely absorbing prose that draws you into the book. So much so that you need to read to the end just to be able to say that you’ve read it and so you know what the outcome is of the original problem of the death of Barry Fairbrother. Unfortunately it doesn’t have that spark that Harry Potter had.
The Casual Vacancy suffers from over complication, too man “main” protagonists, sloppy jumps from one character to another, and to cap it all off that slightly sloppy ending.
And it genuinely pains me to say that, because I am a child of the Harry Potter generation. I remember waiting painfully for time to pass to get the next book. I had the biggest Harry Potter obsession (if you know me, you won’t be surprised!) but I was wary of The Casual Vacancy because I had read the reviews, I was aware that it maybe wasn’t up to par with Potter.
Which is why I held off buying my own copy, because I wanted to borrow a copy to read before I commited it to my bookshelf. You can see by my last review The Silver Lining’s Playbook by Matthew Quick (link?) I regretted having brought the book when I had finished it, because it is not something I was ever likely to read again.
If you ask me that same question about the Casual Vacancy, well… At the moment I would read it again, but that is because I have just finished it and want to keep the details fresh. I would certainly be loathed to spend money on a copy for myself. The thing that is pulling me to the book is that it is written by J. K Rowling. See, to have that set of her work would be the thing for me. I don’t know.
I know I certainly didn’t enjoy The Casual Vacancy as much as I hoped I might, and I do wish I had enjoyed it more.
Rating: 3 out of 5- Purely because it is well written in places.
About the writer: Stef is a 21 year old graduate who has a lifelong obsession with books and reading who also loves music and live theatre. You’re most likely to find her in a book shop or out in London standing at a theatre stage door. She can be found on twitter and running The World of Blyton.
Genre is a useful tool for classifying films and a good way to attract certain audiences to certain films. Sub-genres and Hybrid-genres are a way for directors and writers to come up with new ideas and unique pieces of work. Sometimes then they accidently kick off a (usually short lived) trend:
Cowboy-Ninja Films
What’s cool? Cowboys are cool. What else is cool? Ninja. Therefore cool squared is personified by films like Bunraku (Guy Moshe, 2010) and The Warrior’s Way (Sngmoo Lee, 2010). Both genres share similar themes such as honour, revenge, redemption etc and in both these cases at least, makes for some striking visuals with The Warrior’s Way evoking a steampunk-esque aesthetic while Bunraku favouring a comic book/puppet theatre inspired look.
Terminal Illness Rom Coms
The perfect valentine’s date movie. Or not. 2010 and 2011 saw the release of Love and Other Drugs (Edward Zwick, 2010) and A Little Bit of Heaven (Nicole Kassel, 2011). One starred Anne Hathaway and the other Kate Hudson and each played a woman who was dying from an awful terminal illness but found love. So that was nice.
For painfully obvious reason neither film was terribly well received though A Little Bit of Heaven got it far worse. Possibly because of the absence of Anne Hathaway.
Victorian Department Store Melodramas
Oh how the big wigs at ITV must have been kicking themselves when BBC broadcast The Paradise last year. Their own series Mr Selfridge looked like a rip off in comparison. Despite the fact that The Paradise is derived from a novel from Emile Zola’s Rougon-Macquart (albeit with all of Zola’s ideas on Hereditary personality deficiencies within a screwed up French family, the very thing the series was written to demonstrate, removed) novels and Mr Selfridge is based on the establishment of (guess where?) Selfridges department store on Oxford Street the two share a staggering number of characters and plot devices. Eccentric, brilliant owner whose ideas are scoffed at but eventually proved right? CHECK. Young naïve sales girl with hidden talents for retail? CHECK. Men throwing themselves at her from all directions? CHECK. Rich bitch in fabulous hats skulking around and manipulating everyone? CHECK. Swooshing skirts. CHECK.
NOTE: I am aware that being set in 1906, Mr Selfridge should properly be termed an Edwardian Department Store Melodrama, but that aside, all the other glaring similarities between the two still stand.
Films based on board games
Battleship I’m looking at you. But it may surprise you to learn that another classic family favourite, Cluedo, was turned into a film in the 1980s. Clue (Johnathan Lynn, 1985) stars Tim Curry as butler who brings together a group of eccentric and chromatically themed characters in a case of blackmail and murder. It is wonderfully tacky and gloriously cheesy and comes complete with three different endings, only one of which makes sense but don’t think too hard about that. It was poorly received but has become a cult classic.
Horrifyingly it is being remade by Gore Verbinski.
About the Writer: Sarah is a filmmaker and writer with an obsession for luscious visuals and a distain for tomatoes (they are a sneaky and untrustworthy foodstuff). If she’s not blogging, she’ll be watching films or running around with her video camera.
Hello and Welcome to another issue of Yellow Bunting!
Boy this year is going fast and to keep you entertained, we have a load more articles for you to satisfy yourselves with! There is looking at if the elderly should still be in the workplace with Becky, niche subgenres from Sarah, another interesting book review from Stef and our resident Agony Aunt Rubyyy answers another burning question!
So we hope you enjoy and remember that if you would like to submit a question to our Aunty Rubyyy or get in touch all you have to do is email us! ask.yellowbunting@yahoo.co.uk & yellow.bunting@yahoo.co.uk
Becky J
yellow bunting 