As FDB points out, nope it’s not.

“What are you, a dangerous instrument of war or some sort of pale flaccid invertebrate? Dismissed.”

Perhaps the best way to defeat Howard is by, errr, doing whatever it is silkworms do (ask a kid with a shoe box full of them what it is they do).

I’m off to stock up on supplies and await the end of Howard. Either that or I’m going to write my next post in which I rate the superhunks (as per that lawyer in the episode of The Simpsons in which Marge is caught shoplifting).

What are you, a dangerous instrument of war or some sort of pale flaccid invertebrate? Dismissed.

That’s a contradiction in terms.

Even if it were, Silkworm [incidentally it’s not], it’s funny and neatly expresses the intended meaning. Meanwhile you continue to be irrellevant and carping on a thread which you claim to have found beneath you.

If it was pointless and trivial before, it’s well fucked now.

This post is proudly trivial…

That’s a contradiction in terms.

I suspect you’re deliberately trying to bait me or you have a sexist and stereotypical notion of what it is to be a feminist and you also have a traditional idea of what can be considered political.

This post is proudly trivial (although I am happy to point to efforts by young feminists to self-publish), Tigtog’s is not.

You build a culture of dependency by working up reader’s anxieties and reducing self-esteem and then make them feel better about themselves by slagging someone else off.
I mean even the joy of slagging - there’s a brief thrill of “Ha! Sucks! Keira Knightly!” Before returing to the sad reality that she’s Keira Knightley and you’re reading about her in a supermarket queue.

I’m going to own up to reading these rags from time to time and I’ve seen them celebrate a star for being thin, and then give her a hard time because she’s too thin, and then have a go at her because she’s gaining too much weight. It does one’s head in.

They run these “isn’t she radiant now she’s back up to a size ten”, “shows off her healthy new curves” stories, or “wins her battle with the bulge” stories, so they can always say they’re really just concerned for the women’s health. But with the goalpost-shifting and other inconsistencies this naturally doesn’t help the confused-body-image teen one jot.

Sounds confusing.

Women can’t win in those rags.

Not quite true. Provided you’re moving from one of the extremes towards the ever-shifting and possibly mythical ideal centre, you get mad props.

“I think they were illustrating the concept of “endless drivel.â€?

That’s funny.

Wow, what a great picture on that site. She rocks. The original mad cat madam.

“Countess of Groan
…half asleep and half aware: with the awareness of anger, the detachment of trance. A furlong of white cats trails after her. A bullfinch has a nest in her red hair. She is the Countess Gertrude of huge clay”.

“A furlong of white cats trails after her.”

Hmmm, I’ve got one white and tortie cat. I don’t know if that could be related in such a poetic way.

That was so important, you had to say it twice .

I think they were illustrating the concept of “endless drivel.”

Now back to cats; I see nothing wrong with the stately progression towards multicatitude, as exemplified by my favourite heroine.

Can I please ask wtf is it with the “what a fatty!/what a skeleton!� thing with mags like NW?

Anthony, it is to keep women abject about their own “inadequacies” so they will keep buying the magazine — with its endless promises of self-improvement plus pics of fat Kirstie Alley and skinny Keira Knightley to make yourself feel better with, as per Darlene’s supermarket scenario.

Buying the magazine is, in turn, only a means to the end of buying the sponsors’ products, which include everything from magical ’slimming teas’ to Size 32 kaftans from the Great Big Girl Shop. As Darlene says, women can’t win. We are not supposed to win. It’s the same kind of Catch-22 as the Zoo magazine competition to win a new pair of plastic breasts by having nice real ones, except in reverse.

Also as per Darlene’s supermarket scenario, there’s an additional element of the ‘elicit intoxicating self-righteousness from consumer’ thing that the commercial TV “current affairs” shows do so well.

Don’t read it much because I find it a bit dull.