Sorry Guy. Despite your urgings to discuss matters of international malignancy, I have decided to direct my comments today towards the sexual hypocrisy of the Big Brother voting audience. Perhaps hypocrisy is not quite the word. What's at issue rather is a blatant double standard. You see, over the weekend, a winsome young thing called Jo was ejected from the Big Brother household with an historic 86% of the vote, and I can only ask, "For what?". People seem to be of the opinion that she is some kind of vacuous whore who tried to use her feminine wiles to win the day, but that her 'cunning' ploy fatally misjudged the tolerance of the audience. The audience seem to think that they knew better than to be beguiled by the likes of her. Their mommas didn't raise no fools. Take that, bitch. But I have been watching Big Brother and I am at a loss to find any reasoning behind such an understanding. Jo was friendly and affectionate, to be sure, but she was no cock-tease. She conducted herself with nervous grace and forbearance under what I saw as constant and unrelenting pressure from the dolts of the house, who seemed to corner her at every opportunity in order to drone interminably at her about her worthy attributes. It was excruciating, and I wonder that she didn't punch them, or at least mutter, "Spare me". So now, you fickle, fucked-up audience, I would like to rewind to last year's Big Brother in order to make a point about your crapness. You may recall that there was a contestant called Marty who began a relationship during the show with another housemate called Jess, and that, though we all knew he had a girlfriend on the outside, the relationship proceeded without much consternation until the final round and beyond. So why then was Jo so tarred? Why was there such public concern for the feelings of her boyfriend, which led anguished voters to remove her from the 'danger' of temptation? Jo doesn't seem to possess a particularly sexual understanding of herself, yet she is all too vulnerable to the sexuality people project onto her. She assented to nothing, other than to being present while dullards made pronouncements about her, ie. she did nothing wrong. You lumps. That's shitty, people. Really. Can it still be so easy to besmirch a woman's reputation with vile assumptions about 'duplicity' and 'game-playing'. Really, that's so lame. If one more person says that 'she had it coming', I swear that they will get so seriously bitch-slapped, or at least, they'll be feeling the after effects of an hysterical tongue-lashing for days. People are all too eager to make declarations about what's 'obvious' about people's behaviour, and, when it comes to women, there seems to be no reprieve before judgment to quibble about the facts. Apparently, assumptions are all powerful and all must heed them. There is no escape. So even when Jo, rightfully, doesn't get what all the fuss is about, and, in her attempts to understand the vehemence of people's opinions about her, tries to make the point that she did nothing wrong, people scoff and immediately launch into accusing her of being knowingly coy. You see, she must know why they think what they think of her, because they surely do. Shitty shitty shitty.

Just a small thing. I think you're right, Guy, about how soon the shutters come down after major and inconclusive debacles. It seems that, because some end point has been reached, or because some decision has been taken, the need for understanding is too easily deemed superfluous. Like, that is so over. At the moment I am glad that questions are actually being asked about the indignities to sense that preceded the war, but I doubt that these questions will procure lasting change or even slightly perturb those who most need to experience that sensation. It's just too easy to be a jerk. And anyway, that is like, so over.