The other day I was over at a book blog, Loving Books, and the blog author was having a conversation about literary pet peeves. Her biggest gripe, as it turns out, is footnotes in fiction. I have to admit that while reading the comments, it soon became evident that I’m a much more peevish reader then she or her blog visitors. There are buckets of things that can drive me bat-shit-crazy when I’m reading a book. I mentioned a few of them in the comments of her post.

They include: characters that withhold information for no other reason than if they told the truth, the book would be over, characters turn out to be secretly royal/magical/otherwise special (usually in fantasy novels), in mysteries I don’t like killers making big speeches at the end that turn out to be their downfall (this happens quite often in movies as well), and contrived conflict based on misunderstandings (romance novels seem to be the biggest perpetrators of this particular offence, but by no means the only ones). And these were just off the top of my head. Since I wrote the comment on Loving Books’ blog post, I’ve thought of even more.

Earlier this year, I permanently scratched an author asked my reading list for all time because she had a female lead fall in love with someone who, in previous books in the series, had tortured her repeatedly. In my opinion, this is just as bad as having a woman fall in love with her rapist, because rape isn’t about sex, it is about power and torture. That one was bad enough that I almost broke my self-imposed rule about not reviewing books I don’t like.

Characters who do obviously stupid things drive me up the tree as well. This isn’t limited to books. In fact, I even mentioned this in my book Ordinary Angels when my protagonist Zoe calls the police immediately after gathering some information on a murder. She knows if she doesn’t report it, she’ll just be asking to get konked on the head, ala any Agatha Christie novel. I think I also mentioned something in there about going into the basement with a dodgy flashlight. Every time I see that in a film, I start rooting for the monster.

I couldn’t help but wonder if the people over at Loving Books were being polite (something I should definitely learn how to do), or if I am particularly demanding reader. Perhaps it’s because I love books so much. Maybe it’s that I read a lot, as my amazon bill clearly shows. On the other hand, it is entirely possible I’m just a demanding wench.

What drives you crazy in books? Is there anything that will cause you to not read an author again? Are you a demanding reader? Or are you just there for a casual ride, and willing to forgive much?

The dumbest stuff I see on the Internet and TV is obviously created by people with too much time on their hands and no real problems (or in the case of TV, people who think you have too much time on your hands). For example, who wants to watch shows about “The Boy With A Tumor For A Face” (real show, btw) or people whose houses are dirtier than one would have thought possible. (Okay, I do crack up just seeing the adverts for those “you people are filthy” shows, and it makes me feel good that someone’s house is dirtier than mine, but I can’t see watching an entire episode, much less viewing for 1/2 an hour multiple times a week!)

And it’s not like I’m saying my time is oh-so-much-more valuable than anyone else’s. In fact, I’m a champion at frittering, procrastinating and faffing about. It’s just that I get annoyed at the overwhelming volume of utter crap that gets shoved in our faces and called entertainment.

I think the absolute pinnacle of “Things I Do Not Have Space In My Life To Worry About” though was this story below. No, it’s not entertainment, but, um, “science” (ish), but still I think it falls into the right category to go with this mini-rant.

Wild animals should not be filmed for television shows because it breaches their privacy rights, according to a leading academic.

Brett Mills, of the University of East Anglia, claims documentary producers are ignoring the fact that animals try to hide from humans, which implies they do not consent to being filmed.”It might at first seem odd to claim that animals might have a right to privacy,” Dr Mills wrote in the journal Continuum.

“We can never really know if animals are giving consent, but they often do engage in forms of behaviour which suggest they’d rather not encounter humans, and we might want to think about equating this with a desire for privacy,” he added.

Read the full article on SkyNews

There’re lots of people and even creatures who need to have their rights worried about. I shudder at the growing list of extinctions in the animal kingdom, and the way human beings treat each other makes my heart clutch up sometimes.

But, honest to fuck I cannot possibly give a flying frijole about animals having their pictures taken, and whether that violate their tiny sensibilities. Let’s stop killing them, mutilating them, torturing and burning down their homes. THEN we can worry about if they’re feeling bothered by a flashbulb.

Priorities, science-lords. Priorities.

I was clicking through some news links a friend on Twitter sent me a couple of days back, and I came upon a headline that read: “I thought I died’: Vic of savage gay-bias attack speaks out.”

That link led me to the article (one the same NY Daily News) which was more sensibly titled: ‘I thought I died’: Gay man Jack Price, beaten in Queens, talks about attack.

There’s not a huge difference between the two, but the word that caught my eye was bias. Bias? Really?

Down a few lines under pictures of Mr. Price with tubes coming out of him, his face battered and beaten, I read this: “Daniel Rodriguez, 21, and pal Daniel Aleman, 26, the two goons cops say were captured on surveillance video repeatedly punching, kicking and stomping on Price, have been charged with felony assault as a hate crime.”

Hate crime. I have found that a few of those I know are reluctant with the term, perhaps because they don’t approve of the person with whom Mr. Price has chosen to spend his life?

This crime might have been motivated by a lot of things, but it wasn’t bias. Bias is a tendency, a distortion, a curve or a bulge or an obliquely diagonal manner. It’s a way of cutting fabric to get a nice, flattering drape.

It wasn’t a tendency that caused these thugs to commit what we in Britain call “Grievous Bodily Harm”. It might seem like a small thing, but it matters. Words mean things, and hate has consequences.

I think we all run into little leaks of hate: in politics for example or even in little moments of spite in which people sometimes indulge. Some people stew in it and spew it to hurt people they feel superior to (or sometimes inferior to — depending on their particular neurosis). Some people let it move them to horrific violence.

But let’s call it what it is: hate, pure and simple, and not allow ourselves to feel better by pretending it was just a difference of opinion, even if it was savage.

Someday we will overcome, to quote a great civil rights hero. We can overcome hate, but not until we face it.

You know, I was raised by a particularly intelligent woman.  And I’m not just saying that because she sometimes reads this blog either.  She already knows it, and false modesty isn’t a sin in which she partakes.  This, by the way, is the disclaimer part of the post.  I do it often.  You’d think that being bitter for so long I’d have ceased to care who I offend, but it just hasnt’ worked out that way.  So, Mom, this one isn’t your fault.  Or, well, really it is, but let’s both blame someone else and then talk about them behind their back.

I grew up believing that romance novels are trashy.  Yes, I can hear you all saying, “But they ARE” all the way over here, but think about it.  Really?  What’s trashy about them?  Are they badly written?  Some, yes, but not all by any stretch.  Jane Eyre isn’t anything but a very old romance novel, and no one calls it trashy.  Well, you say, but it’s a classic!  A classic is just something that’s survived.  Like me.  Not all classics (unlike me) are really any good.  Try reading Moby Dick and then tell me with a straight face that you enjoyed it.

So if it isn’t the quality of writing that makes it trashy, what is it?  The cover art?  Yes, some is laughably bad.  I love the spoofs on the Longmire website, one of which I’ve shamelessly stolen here.  So we do often judge books by their covers, which is another reason I’m pretty happy that I now own a Sony Book Reader, because I can read whatever the france I want and nobody gets to judge me for it.

But sci-fi and fantasy are also riddled with bad cover art, but no one says “Trashy” before the phrase “Sci Fi” or rolls their eyes they way you’ll get if you tell someone you have just finished a good romance novel.

So, I decided to test my prejudices and I’ve started downloading romance books.  I blame Charlaine Harris, actually.  I fell in love with the TV series True Blood on HBO (watched on the web because it hasn’t come out in the UK yet, dammit), and have since read all her Sookie Stackhouse novels.  Actually… I read all 8 of them in about 2 weeks.  Seriously.  And I don’t even LIKE vampire stories.  Talk about trashy.  I get images of Béla Lugosi and get the giggles.  Sorry, Anne Rice, but even if you take the comical aspect away, how on earth is cannibalism sexy?  Tell me that?  Anyway, that’s another rant altogether.

Anyway, I could go on and on about what makes romance trashy, and by now you’re probably worried that I will.  Either that or you’re shouting “Too Late!” at your monitor.  I’ll skip it all and get to the point.

Write this one down, Ethel.  It’s the s-e-x.  If men talk about sex it’s bawdy and perhaps coarse, but boys will be boys.  If women talk about sex… and I’m talking about grown women here… it’s trashy?  It’s trashy to write about it, read about it, and for gods sake, don’t think about it either!  That leads down a path of decay!  Or maybe it’s just that most romance books deal with love and relationships.  By god that IS trashy!

Because I’ve been reading a few romance books lately…. probably… 40 books in the last 4 months. (I’ve got a lot of catching up to do… Jane Eyre was the last one I’d read!)  Some historical, some modern, some futuristic and a couple paranormal (that’s what they call vampires and ghosts these days.)  And I will tell you… some were really crap.  No doubt about that.  But there were a few that made me laugh out loud, got me misty eyed, and even made my pulse go a wee bit faster.  But guess what…. none of them were trashy.  Imagine that.

20 years later and hopping on a plane for a quick visit to ailing parents (it used to be a desperate need to be on a beach, or shopping that would make me drop everything and go, but no more) turned into a month long ordeal involving swollen ankles, thrombophlebitis (which includes steroids, pain killers and a heating pad), an aching back, and really most of the time wanting to be back home, not that said parents aren’t good company, but more that I’ve become a creature of habit and I like my habits.  In other words, I’m getting old.

Not that I’m complaining about getting old.

Okay wait yes I’m complaining about getting old.

I was prepared for the wrinkles and the grey hair, but I suppose I always thought that life would be fabulous.  Or if life wasn’t fabulous, I certainly thought I would be.  Maybe once the cloud of jetlag lifts, I’ll be able to figure out what the hell happened.

MASCOUTAH, Ill. – Two hugs equals two days of detention for 13-year-old Megan Coulter.

The eighth-grader was punished for violating a school policy banning public displays of affection when she hugged two friends Friday.

“I feel it is crazy,” said Megan, who was to serve her second detention Tuesday after classes at Mascoutah Middle School.

“I was just giving them a hug goodbye for the weekend,” she said.

Am I the only one who thinks this makes the teachers fit the perfect stereotype of the crabby spinster hall monitor that you see on Saturday morning cartoons?  Their school manual clearly states that affection is against the rules…

“Displays of affection should not occur on the school campus at any time. It is in poor taste, reflects poor judgment, and brings discredit to the school and to the persons involved.”

Yes, I agree.  It’s the “huggers” that are discrediting your school, bureaucracy, and the entire education system. I wonder if this group also prohibits dancing on the grounds that when yer movin that fast, them demons get rite in ya.

(This post first appeared on my Bitter Women Humor Blog.)

DISCLAIMER: I’m sure there are a hecka-lotta intelligent mommybloggers out there. I have met a few, including AnEnglishMum , among others. If you are one and know some others, you could form a “I’m a Mommyblogger But Don’t Have My Head Up My Ass” club. If such a club already exists, please let me know, and I’ll give them a link.

So… click below if you want to read on from here….

I’m going to have to start keeping a record of all the places I comment. I tend to just surf around, looking for sites about humor, about women’s issues, or internet/technology. For some reason I don’t quite understand, there are quite a few Mommybloggers who have themselves registered as either humor blogs or feminist blogs . I think some of these people are delusional about what’s funny to others, but whatever, that’s another rant. So anyway, this is to explain how I ended up in the scary vortex of the Mommyblogger world the other day.

I tell ya why I say “scary”…. I have a kid. A lot of intelligent, funny women, have kids. I’m sure many, if not all, of my bloggy friends have, or want to have, kids. But I do not, under any circumstances, understand why someone would devote an entire blog to talking about one or two people, whether that person be Britney Spears or your own spawn. It’s slightly obsessive. Not all such scary, obsessed-with-their-own-brood women are bloggers. I knew several of them when my son was small, and they wanted to talk about recipies for home-made baby food. It was a crowd amongst which I was embarrassed to talk about, oh, current events, politics, technology, work, etc, because they would look down their long, organic noses at me as though a moment spent not thinking or talking about your kids was a moment spent being a bad mother.

Oh right, so back to why I said: “I’m going to have to start keeping a record of all the places I comment.” So I found this blog, and believe me I’m kicking myself for not saving the link, but the author was talking about, get this, the virtues of reusable maxi-pads . And not only that, they were criticizing those who found it, well, nasty . For those of you who are truly interested, you can also get reusable tampons, called “The Keeper”, or “Moon Cup” and here are some instructions {?!} for how to use them. Personally, it makes me want to vomit, but whatever.

My real rant is not just about the product, about which Googobits.com said: “Commercial menstrual products are bad for the environment, bad for your wallet, and possibly dangerous for your health.” They’re right, but scroll down 8984902 inches into their column and you’ll also read that they say: “Some women keep a bucket of water handy for soaking the pads before they go into the wash (and, as I mentioned above, then use this to water their plants after the pads go into the wash). Some women just rinse their pads in the sink as they are done with them. They are compatible with washing machines and dryers, although using bleach and scented laundry products are not recommended.” Not recommended? Honey, I wouldn’t just use bleach, I’d use some fricking industrial-strength de-nastifier.

No, my real rant is about the organic, home-schooling, nipple-nazi breastfeeding, cloth-diaper advocating, republican she-horde that says that if I find the idea of being up to my elbows in a bucket of my own monthly flow (plus a gallon of water), that I’m somehow defective as a woman. The biggest reason I wish I’d saved this blog location where I saw this was the comments she received. Dozens upon dozens of them. All agreeing and trading their maxi-nasty secrets and not ONE person (besides, well, me) said “Holy Fucking Christ, that’s disgusting”. Although perhaps I was more diplomatic. That’s what I was saying in my head. I can’t remember what I actually typed.

This, my dear bitter readers, is why I hate Mommybloggers (with a few noteable exceptions.) If you know of a good one that’s funny and insightful, send it to me, but 99% of them make me wish there was such a thing as an anti-link.

(This post was originally written for my bitterwomen blog. Oddly, after posting it, I started getting requests for paid advertising from people who sold this weird stuff. I guess they googled the term, but didn’t actually READ my post. Lazy bastards.)

• j/k (a lazy assed way of saying “I’m just kidding.”)
• Don’t take this the wrong way but….
• I mean that in the nicest way.

Fuck that. Just kidding? No you weren’t. “I’d love to fuck your sister. j/k” See. Deep down you don’t believe it either. Just kidding my ass.

Don’t take this the wrong way? Translation: “I mean it in the ‘wrong’ way, but I don’t want you to punch me in the face for it.”

Ditto for ‘I mean that in the nicest way’.

My dear readers,  if you’re going to say something, at least own up to the fact that you mean it. You might get punched in the face for it, but if that’s a problem for you, maybe you should take more care what you say.

“Chewing gum stays in your digestive system for seven years.”  Chewing gum stays in your digestive system for an average of about 20 hours…. like everything else you eat.

“If you don’t wait an hour after eating to get in the swimming pool, you will get a cramp and die.”  I’ve never understood why parents insist on predicting horrific death to children, especially because children aren’t afraid of death anyway.  This is BS, by the way.  Find me ONE person who has died from food-related cramp.  There are none.

This is one I ran into after moving to Scotland.  “Eating cheese after dinnertime gives you nightmares.”  No, but eating cheese does give you high cholesterol.  Don’t think it depends on the time of day.  Why, oh why do we tell kids cheese is good for them?  Don’t give me that calcium BS.. there’s more calcium in broccoli than in milk.

“Don’t cross your eyes or they’ll stay that way.”  A true disservice to cross-eyed kids everywhere.  Not to mention the fact that most kids I know found this an incentive to try to do just that.

“Masturbation will make you go blind.”  Yeah, we’d much rather you go out and have sex at 12 years old, because that, after all, won’t make you blind.  And let’s be sure our kids think sexual feelings are bad.  That sets them up for a healthy adulthood, huh.

“Because I love you, that’s why.”  Translation: “Because it’s easier for me and I don’t want to have to explain myself.”

“Nobody asked you. “  Now this one was usually true, but it’s rude anyway.  What’s wrong with treating children like… oh.. I dunno… people?

“Who do you think you are?”  This is a really weird thing to say to a kid.  Kids don’t sit around and think about who they are.  That’s the job of angsty teens.

“Don’t EVER let me catch you doing that again!” — Yeah, it’s fine, as long as I don’t “catch” you.  Sneaky lessons 101.

“What will the neighbours think?”  Interestingly, studies have shown that your neighbours, like the rest of the world, don’t give a shit what you do.  They have their own problems.

“Sit like a lady!”  Telling girls to be ‘ladylike’ is the root of ALL evil.  Being ladylike usually involves looking pretty and shutting the hell up.

“Do you want a time-out (spanking, etc)?”  Now that’s just cruel.  There’s no correct answer to it.  Shall we all just quit asking questions we don’t want answers to?  Kids don’t understand rhetorical questions.

“If God had intended you to wear pierced earrings, He would have made you with holes in your ears.”  Babies also aren’t born with clothes on or speaking “proper” English, but we insist kids do those things.  Don’t try to con your kids.  They really are smarter than that.  If they aren’t, then you have bigger problems then pierced ears.

“Don’t put that in your mouth, you don’t know where it’s been.”  They also don’t know where their Brussel sprouts have been.

“Stop your crying before I give you something to cry about.”  What the hell?  Translation: You’re upset/confused/tired/overwhelmed, and therefore I’m going to hit you.  Yeah, let’s teach children good coping skills here.  I really want to take a frying pan to parents who say things like that.

“I would have never talked to MY mother like that!”  I’ll bet if you asked her mother, you’d get a surprising answer.

“Wear clean underwear in case you get in a car wreck and have to go to the hospital.”  Why not just “Wear clean underwear because shit-stains are disgusting.”  Oh yeah, because we have to threaten kids with bodily harm on a regular basis.

“You’ll thank me later.”  This statement is usually a pretty good BS indicator.

“You won’t always be annoyed with your brother.”  Big lie.  In fact, sometimes your brother grows up to be a jackass and a sociopath, and “annoyed” doesn’t begin to cover it.

Therefore, there will be no bitter rants today.

Okay except one.  I’d love for the current MP’s to take this damned test.  If they don’t score the requisite 75% pass rate, they should have their asses kicked out.  A lot of it isn’t that hard, but some is quite obnoxious.

If you’re British (and without googling, please) tell me if you know the following:

1.  A Quarter of the population of UK are children and young people up to the age of 19 (T/F)

2.  When did Britain become part of European Economic Community? (Mulitple Choice: 1979, 1949, 1973, 1987)

3.  What is the ethnic minority population in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland?

4.  What percentage of the British population is Christian?

5.  What percentage of the Christian population of Britain is Roman Catholic? (There are also questions on other religions and sects that are smiliar.)

These aren’t the most obnoxious ones… just the ones off the top of my head.

I really don’t mind taking the test.  I think it’s a good idea and promotes Britishosity and all that jazz….

But I think they should only ask questions that, umm, British people would be able to answer easily.  If they can’t… either the British education system isn’t what it should be, or the test isn’t really what it purports to be.

/end rant
/begin study