Why does success seem to be a dirty word??

I was watching “The Simon Cowell Factor” last night, and apart from the extremely annoying voiceover (honestly, I wanted to rip her out of the tv and strangle her with her own hair!!), it got me to thinking.

The programme was very overly critical of Simon Cowell, portraying him as a fairly unpopular, uncaring, ruthless businessman who is only interested in money. The thing the people in the programme seemed to not understand was that Simon Cowell could stop work yesterday and still have enough money to live the rest of his life out in relative luxury. He doesn’t have to work. He doesn’t need the money. He chooses to work because he loves his job. Yes, he’s egocentric, vain and self centred and he is probably the first person to admit that, but the thing that hit me was how the British media critics slated him in the show.

We British, as a whole, seem to feel very bitter towards any person who is successful. Whether it’s down to jealousy or not, I don’t know, seeing as equally successful people  are also equally bitchy.

It made me wonder whether they would rather he was broke, unemployed and living off the state? It seems stupid to me that we are perfectly happy to use celebrity when we have the opportunity, For example- news critics get plenty of material from Simon’s reality tv shows, and yet then decide to slate both him and his shows. This makes me feel like we are a culture who is two faced and bitter and bitchy. Maybe we should grow up and accept that Simon Cowell, along with many other successful people, are better off than us. They worked hard for it, and deserve our respect.

It is about time that we, as a nation, stopped looking down on people who are successful, just because they have done what we have not and we are bitter about it.

The Weather

I was reading some rules about writing the other day, and one of them was that you should never begin a story with the weather. It got me thinking how stupid that rule is. I mean, let’s face it. The weather is central to our lives. It defines what we wear, what we do, where we go.

The weather is everything. Last week, there was bright sunshine, that led people to sunbathe outside in skimpy clothes, and to use electric fans in the house to cool down. The weather broke on Sunday, and when I looked around, it was amazing to see the difference between the scenery on a dark, dank, cloudy day, as opposed to on a bright, hot sunny day.

As a writer, you need to use any tools and methods at your disposal to create atmosphere and to set the scene. Obviously, I’m not saying ‘become a cliche’, but realistically, to say not to begin a story with the weather, when, (if you can find a different and inventive way to do so), it is such an invaluable tool, seems to me, to be pure idiocy.

Yes, you want to be individual, and original, but not to the detriment of your writing. At the end of the day, when you create characters, you make a commitment to them to do them justice. They have trusted you to tell your story, so, if using the weather at the beginning is something fitting for your story, hang convention! Do what is best for your story and your characters, and ignore your critics!!

The Elephant In The Room

Have you ever noticed how, the less you talk about something, the bigger it gets. And the bigger it gets, the less you want to talk about it, and then the process starts again until this thing is so huge that it is like an elephant. And then it’s like, “there’s this elephant, no one else seems to see it. Maybe I imagined it” and so you ignore it. And this elephant is mad and keeps trying to get your attention, but you refuse to let it, And then, you get to the point where you explode just because you refuse to notice it. Basically, the elephant you’ve been trying to ignore, squashes you. Tramples you. Crushes you.

I’ll leave you with that thought.

Bad Reputation

Have you ever noticed how young people have such a bad reputation, even though they don't really deserve it. Sure, there are some youths who are clearly trouble, but there is also a large percentage who aren't. In fact, in some circumstances, I have found young people to be far more understanding that older people. For example, a young person in a wheelchair is quite often shunned, or looked upon as a malingerer by an older person, without their having any proof. The older person will not bother to help this person though they have no proof that the person is malingering. They demand respect, regardless of whether they have earned it. As I have said, there are youths who do exactly the same thing as this, so it is not an exclusive thing. What I am saying is that everything is relative, and that people should be judged on far more than just age. To me, age is nothing but a number. The number of years we have been alive. We do not gain wisdom by age, we simply gain more opportunity to gain wisdom, something that many young people seem to see, but not many older people do.

Perhaps it is time to start valuing people for what they bring to the table than for the number of years they have been alive.

“Oh, I can’t possibly like that! It’s way too mainstream”

I am so sick of people going on about how they hate stuff that;’s popular, simply because it is popular. The fact is, if bands like Girls Aloud and The Saturdays were not so popular, a lot of the people that currently say they hate them, would say they are great. This just makes all of these people seem pathetic. I’m sick of people saying they hate things and then secretly liking them. If you like something, then you like it. Who cares what other people think? In saying that you hate it and then listening to it when no one else is watching, you become pathetic losers who are more concerned with public image than in being a genuine person. And then, you have the cheek to go on about the popular bands being FAKE!! Have you taken a look in the mirror?! Fact is, things that are popular, are in the charts because PEOPLE LIKE THEM and are buying them!! And anyone that tries to say that people are manipulated into liking them are being disrespectful to the general public in thinking that they are so much better because they’ve ‘seen through it’. I like chart music. I like non-chart music. If I like a song, I like it. It doesn’t matter to me who sang it, wrote it, or whether it’s popular. And anyone that makes a decision based on whether something is mainstream is just as lame and shallow as the bands they believe actually are lame and shallow!

To Vote or Not to Vote?

As election day looms and we are bombarded with propaganda and lobbying from all of the different political parties, who are, let’s face it, all as corrupt as each other. Any government that gets into office will basically decide to do what is best for them. All of the parties criticising Labour for their expenses scandal seem to forget that if they were in their shoes, they would probably do exactly the same thing. The simple fact is that the government DOES NOT CARE about the general public. They only want to get into office to serve their own agenda.

Plenty of people I have spoken to have said that they will not bother to vote. The problem with this is that we risk some left wing parties like the BNP getting in by default then. The fact of the matter is that we do HAVE to vote. Though I believe that all of the political parties are corrupt and only out for what they can get, I also believe that we have a duty to vote for the lesser evil of them all. The fact is, the vote that all of those women in the suffragettes lost their lives for has become nothing more than a farce. We cannot hope to vote for someone who will fight our corner, all we can do is vote for someone whose wants and needs are going to harm us, as a public, the least.

To all the people saying that they will not vote this week, I say “It’s your choice, but do you really want someone like the BNP getting into power, because that is what will happen if we as a people stand by and do nothing”. We have a duty to this country, to do our best to make sure that we do not fall under any left wing power, whose aim is not for the better of our country, but to push their own personal agenda.

So, people, I know it feels like a farce and a waste of time, but VOTE! Vote for the party you consider to be the lesser of all the evils presented to us in the political parties standing.

Just a short one

It's been a while since I last blogged. Things here have been pretty up in the air. My Nan passed away after three weeks in hospital. We had to fight to get her home. Thing is, I think all of us pretty much think that if she'd had adequate care in hospital, then she may still have been here. Hospitals say that they are overstretched and haven't enough money. They always blame it on this, but let's face it. There are plenty of extremely busy organisations with far less money and staff who do a far better job of caring for people, and do you know why this is?? It is because PEOPLE DON'T CARE! Nurses sit around all day not doing very much. They take sometimes up to 30 minutes to come to a patient's aid. They clearly aren't interested and don't care about the patients. During my Nan's stay at the hospital, I saw elderly ladies laying on beds that were soaking wet. I saw ladies who'd had severe strokes covered in food because no one could be bothered to feed them. One lady was due to be sent home the following day, but had a fall and was made to stay in, and the worst thing was that no one knew how it had happened. Her daughter only found out when she took her mother's nightie home to wash and saw that it was covered in blood! I think the worst thing, though was a lady who came in with a broken shoulder, and in two days, she couldn't even recognise her own daughter. How can a hospital that professes to care about people, treat some of the most vulnerable people in this way and then say that it is due to understaffing. I can tell you now, although there are understaffing issues in hospitals, this is not the primary or sole cause of the poor treatment that we receive from our NHS. It is about time that people took a step back in time to when being a nurse involved far more personal care for patients and far less form filling and pen pushing!