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Thursday, March 31, 2005

fame

today i was told my blog had been put on a blog search engine. in the great scheme of things this is not a big thing but it made me happy.
and of course not that i want to get lots of people coming to my blog under false pretences so i shan't use the words porn sex anal porn sex anal porn sex anal porn sex anal porn sex anal several times over in a feeble attempt to catch those who are looking for a smutty read out - i am above such silly dildo, butt plug, vibrator and love bead type techniques.
nor will i clutter it with needless references to george w bush and his dad george bush, or thatcher (maggie or mark) or noam chomsky, bruce willis, led zeppelin, britney, madonna or outkast.
nope not doing it (porn sex anal porn sex anal) i want people to come here because it is a fun and stimulating read (no not that sort of stimulating....)

poses

for my sins (and there are many of them – not least the sin of onanism – no not conanism, which is the desire to be like arnie, but onanism the spilling of ones seed on the ground (comes from onan the son of judah – see not only is this funny it is informative… what do you mean it’s not funny.) anyway i freely confess that i partake of the pleasures of the fist. some nights i get all sensual, have the lights low, soft music on the stereo and whisper delicate words of encouragement – in those moments i am dr. self-love. other times i like it rough and then i just tug away proud to be a wanker. but this isn’t about my masturbatory talents and techniques. though i will share one more thing with you on this subject we catholics are not supposed to indulge it’s a sin (and i am pretty sure it is a venal one – but jpii has yet to get back to me on that one) but it is also against the sikh religion. there you go it’s that informative but digressive streak again…

anyway as i was saying…
for my many sins i have to read several trade journals to do with marketing (and for that alone i am probably going to hell) and recently i have noticed that the writers of the think pieces are very keen to have pictures of themselves plastered all over the page. we are not talking just a mug shot; we are talking an action shot.
now as a wannabe photographer (and yes paul i can take happy photos i just don’t) i know it is not the easiest thing in the world to get pose and look natural when they do it – the people who can do it are normally the ones that become celebrities and the photographers who can get people to strike “realistic” poses are the ones who go on to get lots of work.
so there i am reading my marketing magazine getting all kinds of fuzzy feelings when i read about brand extensions (ok i get a little beavis and butthead at that), new product development (npd to those in the know), swot analysis unique selling properties, above and below the line… well you get the picture – it’s thrilling, it’s engrossing and in so many ways.
but for some reason these gurus of marketing have decided that they need to be brands in and of themselves. the first way they do this is not by the stunning lucidity of their prose but by having their full length picture appear in the body of their article. with a touch of photoshop the image is cleaned up to be dropped into the layout, a dab of quark makes sure the text flows around the image in a pleasing and delightful way. so what was once a piece about the strength of a brand becomes something more, it becomes a brochure for that marketeer, it becomes their vanity publishing piece.
it wouldn’t be so bad if these people didn’t try so hard to “sex” up their image so they look dynamic, thoughtful, knowledgeable, with it, calm, in control and so many of those qualities we should respect in the form of the modern business person. all of this has to be conveyed with stock poses – a pointing hand, the hands on hips, the holding the glasses by the arm of the frames, the one leg forward pose, the solid pose of arms folded, suited, in shirt sleeves etc. it would work if it wasn’t for the fact they all look so obviously posed and the various characters look so uncomfortable as the picture screams love me trust me.
it wouldn’t matter that much if it was just the trade journals that this happened, but i can’t help noticing it occurring in the opinion pieces of newspapers where the headshots of the various writers have begun to appear like they are dodgy ads in contact magazines (some one really should tell bruce anderson at the independent that his picture makes him look like he has had a large sharp object inserted into his arse).
i blame it all on celebrity we seem to be obsessed with it and those people who are involved in the media, no matter how minor that involvement is seem to want to have their faces splashed all over the place. perhaps they hope that we will see them in the street and thank them for their insightful commentary and how they have made our lives complete.
so expect to see a picture of my ugly mug splashed on here sometime soon – i shall look to have a dynamic pose and have a cheeky grin. so conveying that i am both kind and loveable, but firm and in charge and that you can believe everything i say.
right – that’ll work.

springer

you would have thought that by now the furore over the televising of the jerry springer opera would have been over the done with.
nope.
the bbc’s complaints committee has reported on the complaints and cleared the show 4-1 of breaking the beeb’s code of standards and practices. the committee admitted the show had caused offence but said it had been justified by its "outstanding artistic significance". (here)
the one hold out, angela sarkis, accused the bbc management of a degree of naivety in failing to realise that the show would cause offence.

the report pointed out that the tabloid press exaggerated the use of swear words by saying there were thousands of uses of foul language. in fact the report says there were around 200 “f-words” and 9 “c-words” (i wonder what they could be. interestingly this is quoted in the article after they have quoted the show when satan threatens to have springer “fucked up the ass with barbed wire” i guess that could be a clue to what the f word is….)

the article points out that the bbc received 63,000 complaints about the show, 55,000 of them before it had been shown. so only 8,000 people actually complained about what they saw, the rest were just complaining because they were told to….


angela sarkis accepted that jerry springer the opera was an exceptional piece of work in the theatre disagreed about it being on television. now sarkis is a former chief executive of the church urban fund, so we can probably guess where she is coming from (and let me make it clear i do hold religious beliefs, but appreciate that my faith is not something that everyone shares) and it is more than likely her views on the matter are not going to be unbiased.

there are several points about the whole springer thing that i would like to make (and they will be brief – honest).

1] we seem to want to live in a sanitised world where no one is offended or challenged by ideas that are different to their own. this is not a cry to allow the inciting of hatreds, but if thoughts are to be “policed” so that one merely has to be offended (or dislike) by an idea for it to be banned or attacked then i believe we open ourselves up for the creation of an increasingly intolerant and bland world.

2] as the figures show it was only 63,000 people who complained. that is not many when compared with the total population. no one forced those people to watch the show. yet their complaints have the potential to deny many more people the pleasure of being entertained and challenged.

3] who gets to be a bbc governor and be part of the complaints committee? i am pretty sure it is not ordinary folk like me and thee. so not only is there the chance that shows like springer have to pass the “complaint” test but they are going to be subjected to the cultural filters of people who believe that the work is fine in the theatre but somehow can’t be viewed by many more people in their own homes.
sarkis and the like are snobs to believe that they somehow can view springer in the theatre and understand it and appreciate it but joe sixpack at home is somehow going to be tainted by it.
either that or she is pretending to be liberal by saying it is fine for the bohemians and rich to go see it in the theatre but it must never be shown to the masses.

(by the way anyone from the beeb reading this – i am up for a governors job if there is one going spare.)

4] some people just need to get a life, find a sense of humour and stop worrying so much about some things. sometimes all you need is a bit of a laugh and a cuss word or two and world is a better place.
for those of you still wondering what the f and c words are they are fuck/fucking and cunt, and lovely words they are too.

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

jacko

there is going to be a terrible miscarriage of justice in this trial.
it's not going to be the guilty verdict that should be handed down to jackson (regardless of his claim that there is a conspiracy against "black luminaries"... and if there was ever someone who should not be playing the race card it is mike!)

no the injustice is that all the adults who seem to have seen, thought or realised that there was something going on. or all those parents who sent their children to neverland are going to get away scot free and nothing said about their unsuitability to be responsible for kids.

while jacko is learning to play the part of prison bitch to pretty much everyone inside jail he goes to. the various parents and ex-employees will all be doing the talk show circuit or writing books. frankly each and everyone of them is partly guilty for any recent activities that jackson has undertaken with children.
after all it's not like accusations have not been leveled at him in the past - there was jordan chandler in 1994 and jason francia, both of whom got generous settlements. so for the last 10 years there has been a cloud over jackson's head when it comes to his conduct around children - so frankly any adult who let their kids (or anyone's) near jackson should be brought up on some sort of charges.

still jackson can take some heart as he gets ready to go down (as it were) as over here in dear old blighty we are seeing the release of jonathon king who has just described his time inside as "fantastic". he is planning on devoting his time to helping those who have suffered miscarriages of justice.
i suppose we should be thankful for small mercies as it means we will never have to hear any of his "music" again!

laugh

a few things that have made me laugh over the last couple of days.

bernie ecclestone the man behind formula 1 has just recently had the wheels nicked off of his car. the wheels are supposedly worth several thousands of pounds each….. what is bizarre is that although he has the theft on film he is not planning on reporting it to the police.
even funnier was that he has only just had the car delivered and it is one of the first of its type in the country.
this is not the first time this has happened to ecclestone he had the wheels of another stolen in 2003, and his wife had a £650,000 ring stolen.
obviously the ecclestones are a tad careless but hell they can afford to be.

christian theme park, there is a bid in place for britain to have its first christian theme park (america already has one... no surprises there). the biblical theme park (“where disney meets the bible” – i am hoping that is not their slogan….) gives people to the change to experience the expulsion from the garden of eden, being swallowed by a whale, escaping the lions den and walking on water (mmm perhaps a tad blasphemous there?)
to fund the park andrea webster is hoping that a million christians will donate £144 each, or failing that will pray for the success of the park. the project has been her life’s mission as she believes “it’s a vision from god,” (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1544218,00.html)

while i can see the attraction (geddit) of turning to entertainment in order to get people interested in the bible, i can’t help but think it truly demeans the whole thing. i mean why not just churn out computer games that have some basis in the bible – at least that way you could go for some of the real good stuff – the slaughter of the innocents (you could choose your side – be a roman and see how many you can kill, be a mum and see if you can save your first born son….), the martyrdoms of the disciples (can you martyr them all?) the beheading of john the baptist, sodom and gomorrah …. so many to choose from.

by the way mrs webster is a creationist……

mobiles – i may have mentioned that i hate mobiles and i do. i was excited to read about a device that blocks the signals of mobiles. they come in two forms the personal and the base unit. both are illegal in the uk and the usa. though the personal one is selling like hot cakes in new york (where users face a heavy fine if they are caught).
but while i was saddened by the fact that i will not be able to get one to block all those pesky people who use mobiles in my local cinema i was shocked to read that prisons in the uk are not allowed to have the base units on site.
why would they need them is the first question that sprang to mind. but apparently one of the big problems for prison authorities is the use of mobile phones by inmates to order drugs from the outside world.
although that left me a little gobsmacked there was no explanation of why it was illegal for a base unit to be installed in prisons.
oh well as long as o2, vodaphone and orange are still making money i guess its ok.

tories2

while certain aspects of the conservative party can’t let go of their recent fixation of imploding every time an election comes along, another part of the party has embraced the internet.
oh yes the tory party are turning to blogs to get their message out there. they are hoping that people will bypass the media and put forward their views on how the party should evolve.

the old myth of this being away to overcome media bias (mm maybe they should just talk to murdoch then?) is rolled out. and in support of this is the way right wing bloggers toppled dan rather. while what they did to rather was impressive it sort of ignores all the work that the democratic supporters did and what that lead to… oh yeah that would be four more years.
perhaps the internet only works when it is in the hands of the right? because as much as al franken and his crew are air america tried bush got in and kerry didn’t.

it’s an interesting idea and i will admit that i will visit the website – if only to see who the next group is the tories will attack for being wasters, spongers and generally abusing the system (mm that would be the cbi then).

go to www.conservativehome.com to see what it is like.
i have been there once and already i feel the need to wash.

tories

you have to admire the tories, no really you have to. there is an election looming and for all their guile, cunning and planning the labour party (oops sorry i mean new labour) have gotten themselves into a pickle.
first off there is the internecine fighting between the blairites and the brownites – something that has seen gordon brown sidelined for the start of the campaigning in favour of the works of alan milburn and ali campbel.
secondly they have been caught napping in the lull before the election storm – there was the poster campaign that got them into trouble and then there was the tactic of the tories to pick on perceived “weaknesses” in the government’s strategy and performance.
this was all so good that people were beginning to whisper that the tories had a chance, they might just pull it off and overturn the government’s majority and there they would be making policy after so many years in the wilderness.

oh dear just ad the goal was in sight along comes … howard flight. flight was the tory party’s deputy chairman and was also responsible for getting money from the city into the tory party coffers.
now flight has had to resign his position and howard has taken the swift, if draconian, action of suspending him as an mp and not allowing him to fight his seat of south downs and arundel.
why has this come about? well because flight had been recorded it a meeting suggesting that the tory party planned extra spending cuts when they had gotten into power and these cuts had not been (and by implication of the revelation) would not have been mentioned during the election campaign. (oh the tories lie? well who would have thought that?)

of course what he said has enormous implications to the tory party for several reasons.
1] he was telling the truth which meant that the tory leadership is deliberately lying to the general public (see above for my view on that).
if this was the case then flight has shown a huge error in judgement and has proved he is not really capable of being a trusted member of the party.

2] flight was actually talking about what a hardliner party would do when it was in power, which either indicates that howard is there just to be the pleasant face of conservative policy (now there is a scary thought) or there are plans afoot to ease howard out if the party gets into power and a financially more radical conservative leadership will take over.

3] flight was just showing off to impress his right wing buddies.

any of the above proves he is not a man to be trusted and that howard had no real option but to get rid of him.
now you would have thought that sort of decisive leadership would have gone done well with the tory faithful, but no they are talking about it being brutal (lady o’cathan) or it being the nuclear option (norm “on yer bike” tebbit).
and what of flight? well he like so many before him has fallen on his sword… ooops nope that’s what used to happen, what he has done has called in his lawyers.

and this of course has lead to the potential act of flight standing as an independent against the official tory candidate.

and all of this has overshadowed the recent announcement of the conservative’s plans for increased maternity and childcare packages…..

it’s amazing once they were the kings of the election process and now try as they might somewhere or another they always seem to have someone who will do their best to make sure that they do not get into power. howard flight now joins such notables as john redwood, teresa gorman and iain duncan smith among others as people who make the tory party unelectable.
and long may they continue to come out of the party closet. howard flight let me buy you a drink for making sure the tories do not get in for another term.

Friday, March 25, 2005

travellers

in the run up to this year’s election travellers have emerged as being one of the issues of the campaign.
the tories and michael howard are being called racist because they are “attacking” travellers. so much so that planning minister keith hill said the tories were "tapping into the biggest vein of bigotry - prejudice against gypsies and travellers". and i am sure the asian and black communities will agree that the bigotry and prejudice that they have suffered is nothing compared to that shown against travellers.
howard and co are using the travellers as a way to attack the human rights act as they claim it makes it easy for travellers to exploit loopholes in order to get planning permission.

i like most people am not bothered by travellers and their chosen lifestyle – after all variety and diversity is the spice of modern life. the problem with travellers is that they do not extend this courtesy to others.
over the last few years there have been three illegal travellers’ camps near to where i work. in each case within a day the area they had occupied had become a dumping ground with heaps of refuse scattered all over the place. in each case the site they had occupied had been landscaped by the gypsy equivalent of laurence llewelyn-bowen visiting the site and making it over with a water feature (some old disabled washiing machines) and piles of tyres to break up the monotony of the car park they have inhabited.
it’s this complete disregard for their surroundings that means most of the public have little time or sympathy for travellers.
it is the local council who is left to pick up the bill for cleaning these sites once the travellers have moved on, and the mess they have created means that no one wants to fight for them to remain in the spot.
no one wants travellers near them because they have seen what they do to an area. it is not prejudice, it is not fear it is just a certainty that the area will be turned into a dangerous mess and it will become one very quickly.

however this is not quite the rallying cry the tory party want. they want to make travellers out to be exploiters of the system, people who are getting something for nothing, people who are using the law to get one over the rest of us.
moreover he doesn’t want to solve the problem he just wants to make it worse.

but it’s ok mr howard is about to unveil a new softer version of himself, a more caring concerned michael howard.
too late mike – anne had you pegged from the start there really is something of the night about you….

enemas

there i am reading the latest edition of private eye when one of the stories just jumps up out of the page and grabs me by the short and curlies. so much so i think i have to share it.
it’s one of the stories that appears in the victor lewis smith (who is not as funny as he thinks he is) section of weird stories from around the world. this particular story is of a death in strange circumstances and the question is “is it murder or just an accident?” if this were tv then we would call on the expertise of gill grisham to solve it – but alas it’s real life and while life is messier than tv it still has the ability to through up stories such as this which make you go – nah that can’t be right.

so what is the story pat? i can hear you all screaming (except those of you have read private eye and already know about it… but fear not there is more to this blog that what is in private eye so keep reading.)

the short version is this “investigators say a lake jackson woman caused her husband's death by giving him a sherry enema, leading to alcohol poisoning. the enema caused his blood alcohol level to soar to 0.47 percent — almost six times the legal intoxication limit, a toxicology report showed.”
michael warner was a drunk who wanted to get rat arsed (geddit) as often as possible but because of a medical complaint he couldn’t ingest booze through his mouth without a great deal of pain. the solution? sherry enemas (george best eat your heart out!)
as the investigating detective, robert turner, said “"we're not talking about little bottles here," turner said, "these were at least 1.5 liter bottles."”
he goes on to point out that if you are drinking booze you will generally pass out before you can drink a lethal dose – have it floating around in your bowels you can keep ingesting it while you are passed out. (go here)

his wife tammy jean said “that’s the way he went out and i’m sure that’s the way he wanted to go out because he loved his enemas”. (now i have a certain amount of sympathy with this as when my dad, an alcoholic of many years standing, died in hospital after not coming out of a coma we discovered that all he had in his coat pockets was half a bottle of scotch, which my mum swore was not there when she dressed him for the hospital. knowing my dad the one thing he would have wanted was that last drink or 5).

she continued by saying “he did coffee enemas, he did castile soap, ivory soap,” she said. “he had enema recipes.” (go here)

tammy jean is also accused of burning michael’s will.
so you the court decide was it suicide by enema or murder at the end of a nozzle?

now this story struck a personal nerve with me (not just because of my dad) and here comes the gruesome confession time so i warn those of you of a delicate condition to turn away now.
when i was kid still in short trousers i had a serious bowel problems (yes those people who know me and have worked with me will say i still have…) which culminated in a period where i was just constipated for a very long time, i can’t remember how long it was but it was long enough that i had to go to the hospital for a consultation.
looking back on it now even then i realised it was a serious issue as i stood in the pharmacy with my mum waiting to get the meds that has been prescribed to me by the doctor and the chemist had them over to my mum with the words “if this lot doesn’t work we will use explosives next time…” i am sure that was hospital humour, pretty certain back then it scared me – but not quite shitless, unfortunately.
among the meds that were given to me were several enemas and these were going to be given to me one a day for a week by a visiting district nurse.
for those of you not fully sure what an enema is: it is the injection of liquid into the rectum through the anus for cleansing, for stimulating evacuation of the bowels, or for other therapeutic or diagnostic purposes.
all of which has a nice shiny ring to it…

anyway the moment of truth was fast approaching and i had made some preparations- which mostly amounted to making sure i had loads of comics in the toilet to read (a habit i maintain to this day…) i figured that i would be in there for awhile – if not because of the cure but because that was what was going to be expected of me.

the district nurse arrived and i am instructed to lie on my side trousers down, naked arse facing the nurse. the enema bag is prepared, it has to be body temperature, and the hard plastic nozzle is lubed and then inserted into my anus. once in the full length, a gentle but firm squeezing of the bag sees the emptying of the bag and the filling up of me. now given that i was full of shit (and some would say i still am!) it didn’t take long for this fluid invasion to go from being uncomfortable to painful.
job done and i am full of sloshing laxative filled fluid.
now all i have to do is make my way from the bedroom to the toilet. but i am half naked, having to waddle to keep my bum cheeks tight and i am trying not to spill a drop, it was not as easy as it sounds.
i make it to the sanctuary of the toilet.
i sit on the seat breath a sigh of relief and pick up a comic to read.
one of the first things i do is to relieve the pressure on my bowels and let the water flood out. ah the blessed release of that torrential gush. earth moving pleasure, but as yet not quite bowel moving.
one comic, two comics, 4 comics read. i can feel my legs going numb. nothing has happened. i keep reading.
now dear reader you have probably worked out what is going to happen and know where dear young mr pat went wrong. and i can tell you now that i did make a mistake.
what the nurse had forgotten to tell me was that the enema would work, but what would be a good plan of action would be to keep the fluid in the bowels for as long as possible and not let it flood out like the tears of a bad actor.
why you say – why keep the fluid in?
well i remind you i have not had a shit in a while – there is a lot of it there and it is hard and solid, and thanks to the enema it is going to come out. now if i had kept the water in for a length of time it would have served to soften it up, turn it into a bit of mush. but i hadn’t.
mmm i can feel movement – i can feel stuff wanting to come out. what i can also feel is my arse stretching to let it out.
now many men might pretend they have an idea of what childbirth feels like but i tell you this i have come close to feeling that pain. oh for sure it didn’t go on for as long as child labour does, but i was in the process of stretching muscles that were not designed to work that way.
i can remember the pain – i can remember the red haze that covered my eyes as this titanic turd decided it was time for it to exit my body and set up home in the outside world. nothing was going to stop it, what used to be a conglomeration of daily turds had merged into one large unstoppable cannonball of shit, and all that stood between it and freedom was my woefully small arsehole.
with veins throbbing, and hands scratching at the walls of the toilet i did battle with that turd – it was trying to break free in one almighty shit comet and i was trying to break it into little pebbles of pooh. sweating breathing heavily i fought against this force of nature.
in the end i survived but it was agony.
i was weak with effort, unable to stand but i was light headed.
i had done the largest shit of my life….

needless to say the next enema i was given i made sure i kept the fluid in until there was no choice to expel it and all the mess in my bowels that came with it. over the next few days the ritual became easier.

now i have to say this childhood experience could be described as a tipping point in my life and is more than likely the explanation for much of the things that i like today. the one thing it as left me relishing and that is the feeling of a good satisfying shit – sometimes the simple pleasures are the best ones.

Thursday, March 24, 2005

ephemera

some things in life are meant to be transient – here today and gone tomorrow, it’s just a shame that for the last several years i have forgotten that and have gone into major hoarding mode.

ok i suppose i should confess at this point i am a collector. i collect a lot of things – there are comics (thousands upon thousands of them), there are books (more than i will ever read in my lifetime – and more being added), there are dvds/videos (a backlog that will never be cleared, but nice to know i have something to watch in the dull moments) there are the cds (but then can never have enough music….) add to all of that the toys, the prostitute call cards, photographs and you can see it soon adds up.
and i am not in the same league as some people who collect comics, books, cds, dvds etc – it’s just that i seem to collect them all….

none of this would be so bad if i was organised. i am not. this has meant that my flat is a landscape of heaps, piles, bundles, stacks of stuff.

recently i have taken it upon myself to get to grips with this state of affairs and clean my flat. now we are not talking one of those tv make over shows, we are talking about something that approaches the labours of hercules the only difference is that my efforts will not be written up as an heroic epic poem and what herc did in the aegean stables was child’s play compared with what i am undertaking.

why am i doing it?
1] after several years of letting it accumulate even i am now embarrassed by the mess.
2] i am getting too old to be climbing, clambouring and stepping over precarious piles of stuff in my own flat.
3] i wanted to use the microwave i bought several years ago but had stayed in a box untouched in all that time – but the box was being used as a place to stack books.
4] even i could see it was posing a health risk.
5] i needed a new challenge.
6] gas board needed to get to the gas meter and frankly i did not want to be liable for any injuries they may have sustained in my flat.

is it a scary picture i paint? trust me it is not as bad as it seems it is worse!

so for the last couple of weeks or so i have been sifting, sorting. moving, packing and stacking stuff/ i have been throwing out junk, i have been washing down surfaces, i have been recycling, i have been hovering and i have been making progress.
literally a ton of stuff has been either thrown away or recycled (i was a little shocked to realise that i had newspapers in the flat from 1999 ….. ooops). but it’s not finished – oh no not even close to it – but i have made that all important start. the kitchen is clean (though not spotless) it no longer looks like i could grow potatoes on the work surfaces in there. i can walk the length of the hall without having to stretch over a heap of stuff.

ok it means i am sleeping on the floor in the front room as i have turned the bedroom into a storage/sorting area, but you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.

and as the saying goes where there is muck there is brass – i have found a range of things i had simply forgotten i had ever bought (have also found a lot of things which have left me wondering why i had bought them in the first place…..) i have found lots and lots and lots of loose change, not enough to make me rich, but enough to make me happy (and leave me wondering which books, cds or dvds shall i buy with them) i have found a stash of porn videos i forgot i had, a pair of glasses i thought i had lost, but i still haven’t found the batmobile bubble bath i know i bought and looked pretty darned good.

why am i telling you this – partly it is to embarrass myself to make sure that now that i have started this task i finish and maintain the flat in a state of tidiness.
and secondly it is my feeble excuse as to why i have been absent from the blog in such a long time. but i am back now and raring to go.

one of the really odd things about admitting that you are about to embark on a mammoth clear up is the amount of offers you get from women who say they will come around and help…. geez if only the place wasn’t so much of a mess……..