How come you are better than the kissing Sainsbury's lesbians?

Dear frightened mother and Sainsbury's customer. 

I hope you have got over your obvious initial shock at coming into close contact with actual homosexuals at the weekend. On Coming Out Day too. In Brighton - Britain's gay capital. I wonder why you expressed your disgust at the light peck administered by Annabelle Paige to her girlfriend and why you feared for your children's safety and felt the need to inform the security guard. 

I am sure the security guard must have been confused at first too - especially as she would normally only deal with customers who are actually destroying or stealing property or threatening other customers. 

What did you worry the women would do to your children? Do you worry that all gay people are in fact child molesters? If so, have you informed the relevant authorities? Perhaps you don't believe this, but they are just like anybody else. They have the same hopes, fears, hobbies, issues etc. With one sad exception: They feel the need to, nervously, come out and "confess" to their friends and family that actually, they love people of their own gender. Why are they so worried about disapproval and rejection? Because of people like you. So thank you very much, good job, well done and keep up the good work. 

How come the BBC was right to show a rape scene in Eastenders?

Perhaps you have read about the controversy surrounding the rape scene in the BBC soap "Eastenders"? Essentially, a happily married woman is raped by her seemingly normal brother in law (or nephew - as this is Eastenders, there is some murky family secret there).  The rape takes place after she comforts him, while they are alone in her flat. In order to be able to comment fairly on this storyline, I did actually watch it. The rape is not even shown, it is implied: The victim protests and is pushed down onto a table, looking distraught. The next time we see them, he is stroking her hair and he promises he won't tell anyone. The victim says nothing, but later showers and disinfects her clothes.

278 people complained to the BBC while more than 100 complained to Ofcom (an independent regulator of the UK communication industry). This is a tiny minority compared to the huge amount of people who watched the episode - 7.3 million people. However, the bosses of Eastenders were still forced to explain that this soap"has a rich history of tackling difficult issues." Frankly, they are far more diplomatic than I would be. The reason the viewers complained was, that they felt the storyline was too traumatic, and they wanted the BBC to specifically warn that the episode may be disturbing, just before it was broadcast. One viewer tweeted that the soap is always so depressing. To state the obvious though: nobody is forcing these people to watch it, are they?! One viewer tweeted that "it is a difficult subject to tackle with an 11 year old" while another complained that "I was watching with my 15 year old daughter who got very upset!! Disturbing!!!" 

Yes, it is disturbing, but because it is deeply contradictory and irresponsible to choose to watch a soap with your teenage daughter, which portrays constantly bickering and unhappy families who threaten and beat each other up, only to discover that your child is unable to cope with implied rape. If you choose to watch the soap with your child, you should be willing and able to discuss any issues the programme brings up, including that of sexual violence. If your child is old enough to understand that the implied rape scenes depict a rape, then she is old enough to be taught that rape does not just happen on an unlit path at night. She is old enough to learn that if her boyfriend forces himself on her, that is also rape. 

I suspect many parents who watch soaps with their children do not actively choose for their children to watch it. Rather, they just watch the soaps even though their children are still up. Whatever the reason for the children watching, it is blatantly NOT the responsibility of the programme makers to ensure that their adult television programme will not distress any children whatsoever, just because it is screened before the 9pm watershed. For readers outside the UK, the 9pm watershed is a rule that programmes screened before 9 in the evening, should be suitable for children (that is, no swearing, sexual content, violence). However, as parents, we must take responsibility too. It is totally unreasonable to expect the people with no children, older children or with adult children, to watch child friendly television until 9pm, simply because some parents of young children let them watch whatever they themselves happen to be watching. Obviously, we all make mistakes sometimes, but that does not mean we should blame somebody else.

I should hold my hand up here and admit that our 2 young girls (then aged 4 and 6) once watched the end of the children's television channel CBeebies until the programmes changed to a food programme with experimental cook and liquid nitrogen lover Heston Blumenthal. Consequently, they discovered a real interest in his programmes, so we started finding them online and watching them together, all four of us. One episode turned out to contain a scene in which some very excitable women were drinking liquid chocolate from golden penises. My husband and I felt negligent that they had watched it, but it had gone over their heads.

Crucially, although these programmes had sometimes aired before the 9pm watershed, we would never dream of blaming anybody but ourselves, because as their parents, it is obviously our responsibility to vet what they watch. Similarly, I wonder why the parents of the distressed young Eastenders viewers do not just take responsibility and also seize the opportunity to discuss rape with their children. An opportunity like that does not often present itself, but it is crucial that children feel able to talk to their parents about anything at all, and that the children, as burgeoning adults, understand their rights. Increasingly, children are growing up in a sexualised media environment and some young girls are under pressure from their boyfriends to carry out sexual acts before they are ready, partly fuelled by the easy access to hard core porn. Add to this the fact that many people are confused about what constitutes rape and our children clearly need to be taught better personal boundaries. I am including you, George Galloway in the rape confusion, as you claim that having sex with someone who is asleep is bad sexual etiquette rather than rape! Galloway is not alone, though: a survey for Amnesty International found that 37% of respondents believed that it was the victim's own fault, if they did not say "no" clearly enough. Furthermore, 21% of young men would try to have sex with someone who did not want to have sex with them. Furthermore, some young people have no idea that they are always entitled to say no, whether they have had sex with someone before, or whether they are mid-act and want to stop. 

Would any parent not want to help their child understand what is and what is not rape? As Vicky Prior points out in Metro on 7th October, the rapist in the Eastenders story line is the opposite of how rapists are normally portrayed in the media (old, ugly flashers who leap on strangers) and the victim is happy, bubbly and confident, also, she thinks, the opposite of a normally portrayed victim. And, as Ms Prior says, that is why this storyline is important: It shows that rape can happen to anybody, at any time.

If your child was ever raped, you would want them to realise that it was not their fault; and that rape by a friend or relative is still rape, wouldn't you? That is the point of the Eastenders plot. One person, complaining about Eastenders, said that the soap was not the place to tackle this issue: However, with more than 10% of the UK's population watching it, and with young people saying that sex education in schools is too little, too late and too biological, I would argue that Eastenders is an excellent place to tackle this issue, and we should all be grateful rather than complaining about it. The soap even dishes out helpline numbers for people who have been raped, what more do people want?

How come we don't know when to give up and when to keep going?

What price are we willing to pay for life? Would we do whatever it takes to prolong it? Should we be allowed to determine when to stop treatment, when we or a relative become seriously ill? 

In the UK, treatment is paid for by the NHS (National Health Service), which means the doctors decide whether to carry on or not. In the US, it is mainly insurance companies who pay (unless you are poor and fulfil certain criteria, in which case the government run & funded Medicaid pay for the treatment). Consequently, the American hospitals are happy to continue treating people, as it is not them, but the insurance companies who pay. This is presumably why the US is the country which spends the most money on end-of-life care. As Louis Theroux points out in LA Stories, that also means the patients have to decide when to stop (within reason. Sometimes the doctors will stop treatment even though the patients want to carry on. However, I do not know whether that only happens to poorer patients). Crucially, though, a doctor is, usually, able to assess a patient's chances of recovery far better than the patient himself, whose judgement is often clouded by hope and ignorance. 

Sometimes, it is the relatives who are unable to let go, as is the case for Francisco, who appears in LA Stories. After his stroke 3 years ago, he has been a vegetable in a hospice bed, unable to do anything other than grimace. He is mainly unconscious, though his sister insists he is improving. Francisco's doctor says, grimly, that these facilities did not exist 20-30 years ago. He also points out that by choosing to spend money on these vegetative patients, rather than letting them die, we are taking money from patients who could benefit more. 

However much we may feel that Francisco's sister is torturing him by keeping him alive, can we blame her? How can anyone ever really decide when to give up on our, or our relative's life? Take the case of 22 year old Langston, who appeared in LA Stories, after a drug overdose had led to a traumatic brain injury. On the 4th day of him lying in a coma, the doctor told his family, that in the best case scenario, Langston would be in a persistent vegetative state, wearing a nappy, being fed through tubes, unable to talk or recognise anyone. In other words, at some point, the life support should be switched off (though she never said this directly). This was after a specialist had checked his brain scan.

After 37 days in a coma, Langston woke up and started talking, being fed from a spoon and recognising people. Later on, he started walking again. His doctor quipped that "he didn't read the textbook". Interesting that she doesn't consider the textbook to be wrong. His medical care cost millions of dollars, most of which was paid for by his insurance. Had his family trusted the doctors rather than their instincts, his life support may well have been switched off before he could wake up. 

More worryingly: Had he not had insurance, would his family have been able to afford to keep him alive? Poor patients do get financial help, but what if you are considered able to afford it, by selling everything you own and spending the rest of your life in debt? How long would you choose to keep your relative on a life support machine then?

Sometimes, people avoid treatment for emotional rather than financial reasons. My father Ove was diagnosed with mouth cancer in 1997. After surgery, he had radiotherapy, which involved him wearing a plastic mask, specially constructed to fit his head as tightly as possible. He hated the treatment, but went through with it mainly because he felt that I was too young to lose him (I was 20). He always said that if the cancer returned, he would not seek treatment again. When the cancer did return 4 years later, he made sure I knew nothing about it. Partly because he wanted me to enjoy life and partly, I suspect, because he knew I would try to force him into treatment. The fact that he did not seek medical help has always felt like a rejection of life, of my mother and of me. Though he was looking at alternative treatments, I have no idea whether he had any. Their funds were limited, but surely he could have had something? However, he also seemed to really believe that he would not die as early as he did - he was even planning on opening a photographic studio. 

He was a very proud man who felt that he would rather die a dignified death, than let himself be weakened by medicine or chopped up in an effort to remove a cancerous growth. A year later the cancer appeared to slowly spread to his tongue for the last 6 weeks of his life. Presumably, he could have had his tongue cut off, but he did not. He would definitely not have wanted a life of frenzied note scribbling and making incomprehensible noises rather than the animated conversations he was used to. He spent Easter with my mother, myself and my husband and died at home a few weeks later. Throughout, he had continued living life as he always did. 

My father had always been determined to remain dignified and in control should he ever become ill, but this resolve was probably strengthened by witnessing his father's 2-year battle with cancer in the late 80s. My grand father Johannes was a hard-working farmer with 6 grown-up children, the oldest of whom is wealthy and controlling. Consequently, he was subjected to several different treatments over the course of his 2 year decline, as his children panicked about his impending death. Apart from the conventional cancer treatments, he also tried bitter almonds, which he hated, and lying in some sort of magnetic drum, which probably did nothing at all. The low point came when this elderly Dane who spoke no English, was flown to London to be treated at the Cromwell Hospital. As the most competent English speaker out of the children, my father was commandeered into accompanying him. As he could not stay in London for as long as my grandfather did, he was distressed at having to leave his vulnerable father in a hospital bed, armed only with a series of basic, written signs. At some point after returning to Denmark, my grandfather became bed-ridden and felt impotent as all he wanted to do was work again. "Don't you just want to rip out those big trees?" he asked his incomprehending sons one day, as he looked out at the grounds. They did not share his love of physical labour. Later on, when he finally died at the age of 76, after being weakened and depressed for a couple of years, it should have come as a relief. Instead, his eldest son rushed out to the nurse and asked her to revive him. She politely suggested that this would surely be unfair, and that he should rest in peace now. My uncle, defeated, left it at that.

Speaking of a 29 year old cancer patient, Louis Theroux poignantly says that "His end was probably hastened by his treatment, but he had also died fighting."  Some patients will want to die fighting, despite this affecting their quality of life, whilst others, like my father, choose to maintain their current lifestyle for as long as possible, refusing to sacrifice anything for the sake of possibly living longer and/or being cured. Others, like Lynda Bellingham, choose to stop the treatment when it feels as though it is making their life a misery, staying in hospital when really, they will die anyway and so would rather be at home with their family. However, if the patient rejects treatment, there will often be a question mark in theirs and their loved ones' minds:  Would they have been cured with treatment? Perhaps you can never know what the best option would have been, unless you are cured, of course. People are always happiest when they have control over their life and death, but this control may endanger our life or well-being. When and why do we give up? These are very personal questions - the answers to which, we hope, will not be determined by finances or outside pressure...

How come Blackpool rocks.........sort of?

This week, we were lucky enough to enjoy a family/work trip to, erm, Blackpool. The accommodation was definitely not as posh as we had assumed, however the owner was exceedingly nice, albeit in a slightly aggressive way. The next morning, we went down to the breakfast room where the stencilled wall encouraged us to "Wake up and smell the coffee". Presumably this was an attempt to distract us from the actual smell (mould). The breakfast was actually quite nice though and had some excellent gluten- free options : ) 

Exploring the sea front felt like some sort of fitness test - this place is even windier than Brighton! Luckily, our hair stayed put - just. Venturing into one of the many gambling dens in the town, we were quickly passed by an adult shouting "I need to go toilet", which sort of set the tone really. We soon realised that the whole establishment smelt disconcertingly of sweat and chips (the kind you eat, obviously). 

In Blackpool Tower, we tried out the coffee shop on the 5th floor, which proudly invites customers to "visit us for free". This tells you all you need to know about the level of exploitation elsewhere in the building, which is stacked full of expensive attractions advertised at last year's prices. Seemingly, the gnome heads who work there are incapable of pressing a few buttons to change the scrolling digital display. However, we still bought a family ticket to the circus, as we had heard great things about it and it seemed far better value for money than me clinging to the door frame at the top of the tower, wailing in terror while my family frolick on the glass floor. Even with the potential of watching some 4d film at the top, the circus was still the better choice. This is bearing in mind that I don't even like circuses. However, it was amazing and totally worth the extortionate entrance fee, even if they did take liberties with their Hollywood theme (I am fairly sure the Stormtroopers were never this comely, and they definitely never wore thongs).  Staying with the Star Wars theme, the Skywalkers had us enthralled and terrified as they bravely jumped, skipped with ropes, walked blind-folded and occasionally stumbled (accidentally?) in and, worse, on big spinning wheels on either end of a spinning pylon. Our eldest daughter and I were on the edge of our seats but loved it. 

No seaside town visit is complete without candy floss, so we purchased ours from an dodgy-looking local shop. Rather than being a charmingly old-fashioned-looking small business, this shop's steps were emblazoned with slightly threatening stickers saying things like "We sell fags" and "We sell BB guns". Nothing to be proud of, surely? But definitely in keeping with the local market, which boasted a stall featuring a large toy gun section as well as a stall devoted entirely to smoking accessories. 

We also drove to the nearby town of Fleetwood, as my husband had to work there that afternoon. The town welcomes its visitors by promising that "we always welcome breast feeding". A, ahem, rather leche slogan, if you will excuse the milky pun. Its tourist office had relocated, presumably because there seems to be nothing to do there, other than enjoy the sea view. After flailing around on a windy field with some students for a while, he was free to go and we returned to Blackpool for a lovely evening meal before enjoying a good audio book in the car on the drive home. We should do that more often : ) 

How come I am so silly?

Perhaps you, like I, imagine yourself to be a perfectly competent adult. Until, that is,  you remember all the silly things you have said and done. To make you feel better, feel free to peruse my personal list of incompetence and pure bad luck:

• Announcing to a room full of people that George Michael was NOT gay.....the day before he was caught exposing himself to a MALE policeman in a public toilet.

• Complaining to friends about the audacity of the airline company, which charged passengers for each of their legs - only to realise that the "legs" they were charging for, were in fact different legs of the journey...

 

• Using the train toilet and watching in horror as the door slid open, revealing a load of fellow travellers staring in at me. That will teach me to assume the electronic door was locked - clearly technology and I don't mix.

 

• Using a heart monitor to listen to our unborn baby's heartbeat and happily sharing this miracle with the grannies. We later learnt that we had been listening to my artery.

 

• Repeatedly hitting the parking bollards in our local supermarket, and, once, managing to hit a parked scooter in the same car park - well, it was in a turning space and luckily there was no damage. I notice the scooter is now parked elsewhere!

Nobody is perfect.  If you'd like to share your own imperfections then please feel free to add your comments.

How come you can never be too thin?

As she strode through the crowded swimming pool changing room, all I could think was how glamorous and slim she looked. Yet despite her being so skinny, she seemingly still managed to have presentable breasts - I found myself hoping that she was the nanny rather than the mother - because this woman made me re-think what a yummy mummy is; meaning I instantly felt about as attractive and cool as a.....well, a not very sexy thing. She also sported an unfeasionably tall pair of white stilettos, which made her look faintly ridiculous. I realised I was quite pleased about this - probably because her looking ridiculous made me feel a bit better. At least I knew how to dress for the occasion (children's swimming lessons). Saying that, when I was at school, my class teacher fell in love with, and married one of the swimming instructors at the pool she took us to, so perhaps this glam mum was hoping to do the same. Still, my husband scored brownie points by confessing that he had been hoping that sparkly, white stiletto woman would get the heel caught in the floor grate. I couldn't help but notice the white ring she was sporting though - why do ordinary (slightly bigger and a lot less glamorous) women never sport such diamond-tastic jewellery? Do lesser goddesses not inspire such bank busting devotion? Saying that, it could just be fake, like her tan. Ah, I feel better now : ) 

But it is sad that we women always compare ourselves to others. I did a bit of research online and found one of those "thin-spiration" websites that you may have heard of. It is a website filled with photos of slim women, meant to inspire you to carry on with your diet. The owner of the site encourages other women to send photos of themselves to her, which she will publish, as long as they are not anorexic. She also emphasises that being healthy is very important. However, despite being a perfectly good size and shape, I still came away from this site feeling kind of rubbish about myself. 

Why? Because all the women looked super slim - think totally flat stomachs and thighs the size of catwalk models (on a fat day - i.e. only impossibly skinny as opposed to dangerously anorexic). I suppose that is a kind of "thin spiration", but not one I need, as I could never look like that without surgery. Much like the Carmen Electra photo I once put up, in order to motivate myself to stop snacking and stick to my exercise plan. Now, if you have never seen this woman, she basically looks like a sexed-up version of a Barbie doll. Therefore, no matter how hard I exercise and regardless of how much food I deny myself, I would only have a body like hers if I sawed about 4 inches off my hips, sucked some fat out of my thighs and put it in my breasts.

Ps: Did you know that 80s Supermodel Cindy Crawford would be classed as a plus-size model, if she was starting out today? Meaning the (UK) size 10 model would be considered slightly fat in the modelling world now. According to Cindy, several of her fellow supermodels were the same size as she was. In other words, our models are getting skinnier and skinnier, as are many celebrities. As these make up many of the role models that girls look to for inspiration, this is a worrying trend. It is like a vicious cycle in which, as consumers get thinner and thinner, models, who need to be even slimmer than mere mortals, have to lose even more weight. And so on....Just to remind you, here is Cindy in her glory days - what a fatty...

Fashiontrendsdaily.com 

How come I do this to myself?

I have been on very few proper diets in my life. Mainly because I have managed just fine without them, but also because I have sometimes made some simple changes, such as cutting carbs without following specific recipes. For the past 18 months, however, I have not been exercising much, and as I have also been unable to gather up enough willpower to merely skip the carb part of normal meals, I really wanted to start shaping up a bit more again. So, when I spotted a simple-looking 4-week eating plan in a magazine, I went for it. Which is possibly why, one morning, I find myself walking slowly down the stairs, feeling rather pathetic. I need to eat breakfast because I feel ridiculously faint (and, truth be told, faintly ridiculous). Weakly, I manage to make my (admittedly delicious) breakfast smoothie. I am convinced that I have just not eaten enough the day before, as we were possibly not meant to eat our raw courgette with raw garlic pesto on its own, but rather with a side dish. A few hours later that morning, the raw garlic dinner makes a swift, unannounced exit. Suffice it to say I am grateful to be at home when it happens. Is this the reason I felt so weak? Possibly, since I have been okay since.

The next day, I am eating an unauthorised breakfast in a cafe with our youngest daughter. Feeling rebellious, I pour some skimmed milk into my tea. As I tuck into the familiar berry Bircher muesli/yoghurt, it suddenly tastes overly sweet and I feel even more guilty eating that, than I do about the milk in my tea. Clearly, I should have gone for the boring-looking fruit pot instead, but I thought this was vaguely okay, and more filling. The Bircher muesli really does taste far too sweet - have I become sensitised? Surely I don't eat that much sugar normally. Perhaps I am more unhealthy than I realised? Damn you eating plan woman - for hating sugar and making me fear it too. 

Imagine how guilty I feel later that day when I sneak a few licks of coffee cupcake dough. Oh, so evil but oh so good.....

I do love the immediate changes in my body as I seem to miraculously de-bloat after a day but also feel un -realistically slimmer than I can be at this stage. Surely that is psychological? The reason I feel ridiculous, is because this eating plan has managed to make me feel even more paranoid and guilty about what I am eating, than I usually do. And that is saying something. I mean really, why do I feel like a random eating plan, made up by a woman I have never met, should rule my life? I suppose because I can be very determined when I aim for something - in this case, a slimmer version of my current self. The fact that I feel happier in myself when I am slimmer and more toned is rather depressing. Honestly, I would have thought that I would have managed to shake my body shape obsession by now, aged 37. That I could find enough redeeming qualities in myself to enable me to feel happy with who I am - whatever size I may be. I don't think I am alone in feeling like my body is all-important though. The headline introducing the 4 week plan says it all really: "Get back to your fighting weight" - who are we fighting? Ourselves, surely. 

How come Eurovision is so amusing?

I mean that affectionately, by the way, rather than in a sneering way. Luckily, this year's crop of hopefuls was as weird and wonderful as ever: The Ukrainian entry featured a guy in a hamster wheel, manically running around while his female colleague belted out the song - perhaps we could connect his wheel to the mains and sell off the electricity generated. Or, box him up and pass him off as a desk toy for giants.

Belarus, meanwhile, opted for a cheesy man with hedgehog hair and a painted-on moustache, who, along with his equally un-cool backing singers sang about being someone's "cheesecake". Yes really.    

Iceland was very catchy and full of energetic, colourfully dressed men, while Norway had opted for a lovely, but very serious bloke who makes window frames and doors? This was his first experience of singing professionally, and though he had a great voice, his attempt at looking sincere involved squinting. "He looks tired", our 6 year old observed. 

Poland's entry made me regret the fact that the children were still up: The group was dressed in traditional folk costumes, but soon, one of the milkmaids took off her second top, thereby exposing her churn(s). She then proceeded to slowly pump a stick up and down into the bucket, while looking lustily into the camera. Her colleague was doing something similar. So, I guess this is what porny Eurovision looks like. This was obviously an insulting attempt to distract from the fact that the singer sounded like a tortured cat. Luckily, it did not work. While I would say that it is the singing rather than the spectacle of Eurovision that should count at voting time, I do understand that acts want to create a good show. But this is no place to parade bazumbas - of any nationality.

Austria's Conchita Wurst created her own controversy, as she turned out to be not a giant sausage, but rather a bearded man in a dress. In Belarus (the country who voted for the cheesecake song) many disgruntled citizens signed a petition asking for Conchita's performance to be edited out, saying that Eurovision would become a hotbed of sodomy. In Austria itself, a Facebook page, asking for Conchita to be removed, had 38000 likes. Although I did not particularly like the song, Conchita had a fantastic voice and the fact that she won the Eurovision last night is testament to the heart-warming truth that most people, at least most Eurovision viewers, are fairly sane people. 

Speaking of controversies, the Russian twins had a fairly unremarkable song, but stood out because the audience kept booing them, whenever they got high points. As our British commentator Graham Norton pointed out, the poor girls are only 17 and can really not be blamed for any of Russia's political actions. As a Dane, I was embarrassed and could only hope that most of the booing audience were not Danish. 

Being Danish did give me an insight into why the Danish hosts decided to surprise Graham Norton in the box, and why the host jokingly remarked that Norton had made fun of his weird Chinese jokes. You see, the Danes take Eurovision very seriously and really enjoy the spectacle each year. Certainly while I lived in Denmark, the Danish commentator was always respectful of the acts. It came as a big shock to the Danes, therefore, when they hosted the Eurovision in 2001 and British commentator Terry Wogan did his usual routine of making fun of the acts and the hosts. While I do agree that Terry and Graham's comments are funny, I also wonder why the Brits, Terry especially, seem so scathing. Nobody is forcing the Brits to take part, watch it or fly abroad to comment on it. If you can't stand the cheese, get out of the kitsch(en). 

How come the North Korean prison camps still exist?

You have probably heard about the North Korean dictatorship regime with its ridiculously strict rules and punishments. Perhaps you already know about the prison camps - a modern day version of the Nazi concentration camps, where citizens are detained for any number of imagined crimes: Imagine rolling a cigarette using newspaper, which happens to bear the dictator's photograph. Or listening to South Korean radio stations. Maybe you own a Bible or you may have just been talking in a public place about your dislike of the regime. Many of the prisoners in these camps have no idea what they have done wrong. In a way, it doesn't matter, because they are unlikely to ever be let out anyway. Even worse, the North Korean regime operates a system of "guilt by association", meaning that if you commit a "crime", your parents and children will be sent to the prison camps too. Can you imagine being sent to a concentration camp - for life - because your grand-dad was considered to be disloyal to the leader or made a mistake at work?

As Amnesty points out, these camps are difficult to imagine because they are so extreme and so we don't like to think about them, because they are so horrific. However, here is a brief outline: Life in the camps is unbearable - torture, forced labour from dawn until night, child abuse, murder, women being forced to kill their babies etc. These inhumane camps have existed for 50 years and hold some 100.000 people, yet the North Korean authorities deny that they exist. Amnesty International has satellite photos proving that they do exist, and encouragingly, Amnesty believes that one prison camp was closed down because of the international attention a previous Amnesty report generated. However, their satellite images suggest that some of the camps are getting bigger.

Outside the prison camps, the regime survives partly by brainwashing it's citizens, partly by banning all outside influences and non-approved media (though slowly the North Koreans are getting glimpses of the internet and other media, such as South Korea dropping leaflets there), partly by encouraging people to report on each other and partly by eliminating people by sending them go the prison camps. Not to mention the starvation levels: Defectors even talk of children rooting through cow dung to find un digested seeds. Also, people cannot move freely out of the country - they have to escape through a mined and heavily guarded area. However, defectors estimate that most citizens now realise that the propaganda about how happy and healthy everybody is, is propaganda.

If you don't want to stand by, what can you do? By donating to Amnesty International, you help their campaign to lobby for pressure to be put on governments, collecting and verifying testimonies, placing newspaper ads and commissioning satellite photographs. Amnesty's evidence was used at the UN Geneva Summit in 2013. Go to https://www.amnesty.org.uk/giving/north-korea-issue. 

You can also join http://northkoreacampaignuk.org/how-you-can-help-3/ and http://www.northkoreanow.org

Thanks for reading this 

How come this is a recipe for blissful indulgence?

Having washed the newly-acquired deodorant marks off my old wedding (guest) dress before being zipped into the thing by my endlessly patient husband, I am ready for a glamorous outing (my friend's 40th birthday). My pleasure at still being able to fit into this ancient dress is somewhat tempered when he, half-anxiously and half admonishingly asks: "Are you in pain?". "No", I breathe, in a slightly strained way- "it is only tight around the top anyway, so it can expand when I eat!". 

Sitting at the station platform, I keep trying to ignore my cleavage. I don't make a habit of showing any part of it to anyone other than my husband and children. Therefore, as I am not really used to seeing my breasts in public, the sight of them, proudly displayed like two apples on a shelf is somewhat distracting and disconcerting. I never did show my boobs, but since having children I am even more reluctant to do so - especially since my eldest daughter once pointed out that they are smaller now, than when they had milk in them. Thanks for that. Still, they look alright when they are all trussed up and pushed out, but even so - thank goodness for my hair, which forms a very useful sort of curtain. Perhaps I should market a fake version, for shy women with short short hair and no sense when it comes to choosing dresses.

Getting off the train and actually walking towards the station exit proves somewhat awkward, as I am not even used to wearing semi teeny tiny heels anymore - not since I re-damaged my knee. Sigh - with these boots and this dress, I do feel glamorous, but I don't feel like me.

Luckily it turns out that I have got the dress code just right for this posh tearoom and by the time I get there I am used to the dress, the boots and the weird little handbag. Sort of. This is good - I no longer feel like a toddler trying on their first proper shoes.

Unfortunately, I feel slightly less sophisticated when I realise how excited I am about the fact that the expensive afternoon tea includes endless refills. Yes! I can eat as much as I want! Still, I stay relatively cool and calm. Until I order the Afternoon tea (finger sandwiches, scones, cakes) and suddenly realise that I am also holding a very comprehensive list of (drinking) teas in my hand. The waitress is waiting patiently while I panic - how the heck am I supposed to know what to order?!I have noticed that the menu states that this tea salon employs tea-ristas (tea experts, I assume), so when the waitress offers her help, I accept gratefully. To be honest, even if a random stranger offered their help at this point, I would accept. She appeals to my inner snob by revealing that, as I asked for a light tea, perhaps I would like the yellow tea, as this is only served in 2 shops in London (presumably this is one of them). Reader, of course I choose that one. It was...well, not amazing, but quite nice. Some sort of apricot blend. Or maybe it was peach - you see - I really don't know much about teas.

Feeling rather full a few hours later, I accompany my friend to the cake trolley (nobody else wanted to, so I foolishly offered to sacrifice myself). The trolley incidentally, is also included in our meal, though whether the re-fills here are endless, I couldn't say. Even if I wasn't stuffed at this point, the fact that we have to walk to the trolley and point to the cake we want is off-putting. After consuming a massive slice of some sort of raspberry sponge-finger monster of a Victoria sponge, I am stuffed. No, actually, make that slightly ill. Add a spoonful of embarrassment at how greedy we have all been. How did we eat so much? More annoyingly, it wasn't actually that much, but the tiny finger sandwiches and the munchkin cakes and scones make everybody look like giant greedy heffalumps as we grab the confections and wolf them down. Plus, eating 12 tiny finger sandwiches makes me feel almost as guilty as if I had consumed 12 gigantic rolls, because my psyche does the maths without taking the size into account.

Still, as I relax in the tiny train seat on the way back home, reading my book and eating some spicy crisps (a far cry from the sophistication of the tearoom), I feel happy and relaxed. What a lovely day : )

How come women are sluts?

Obviously, I don't mean that - however, the point I am making is entirely serious: Even in the 21st century, women's (and men's) complex sexualities are represented in stereotypically limiting and insulting ways. For instance, some men in Arabic countries believe that the women they see in Western porn really are spontaneously having sex with lots of different men - and that these women have a strong sex drive, because they are un-circumcised. The idea that un-circumcised women are promiscuous, is also used as one of the reasons for carrying out female circumcision. Even in our more liberal society, we are all also guilty of and subject to prejudices. 

Women are still seen by some as either predatory sluts or innocent and corruptible girls - hence why the debate about the 26 year old teacher Kelly Burgess, who had a relationship with her 16/17 year old male student, saw the media reporting that she had caught a sexually transmitted disease from the boy, and her lawyer describing her as young and immature. Have you ever heard a male teacher being described like that after having a relationship with a student?  

Conversely, why are ageing men with young partners described as "sugar daddies" while ageing women with young partners are described as "cougars"? How come we decided that men - who allegedly are the ones with the strong, unstoppable sex drive - age and turn into innocent, affable creatures, while women - who allegedly start out that way - turn into sexual predators? The latter being typified by the stereotype of the rampaging female divorcee, whose married friends suddenly shun her - in case she starts going after their husbands? How come male divorcees are never portrayed or viewed in this way? And have you ever wondered why there is no male equivalent to "slut"?  Gender sexual stereotypes are insulting and demeaning. Not only that - they are limiting people's rights to express themselves in whatever way they damn well want to. Think of the public outcry when Miley Cyrus started wearing revealing clothes and the outraged hyperventilating when she shot a (sometimes) naked video for one of her songs. So what? Is female sexuality really so frightening that we have to condemn and ridicule those women who are publicly confident in their sexual identity? In private, according to a Cosmopolitan magazine survey, men like it when their girlfriends want to have sex. Duh.

While the frankly polarised way the media report on men's and women's sexuality is demeaning to us all, it also perpetuates and demonstrates these stereotypes. Sadly, apart from these ideas being annoying, they are also dangerous.. Take for instance the worrying 2012 Pentagon statistic that while the debate about sexual assaults in the army focus on the female victims, there are more male assault victims (53% of victims were men - mostly assaulted by other men). So, not only do the statistics get ignored when they don't fit our stereotypes, but the assaults also mainly go unreported when the victims are male, because they feel ashamed, embarrassed and scared. This is partly for legal reasons: Most of the interviewed male victims said they had been scared of dismissal, if they had reported any sexual contact with fellow males - even unwanted contact - because openly gay military personnel were banned up until 2011. However, male domestic abuse victims also tend to avoid reporting it due to feeling ashamed and emasculated. This is not to say that women never feel ashamed in those circumstances, but they generally, certainly in the West, still feel like women. 

We are all, to greater and lesser extents, defined by these stereotypes and expectations whether they come from our families, members of our culture or the media generally, so perhaps we could all try to stop seeing stereotypes and start seeing people instead.