Real telly

We've caved to pressure and desire and installed broadband at home ... we did last almost 9 months without it - and it wasn't the desperate need to check Facebook every 30 minutes. I've just done the dishes - which sorely needed doing and in a fit of determination not to waste the lovely salmon we got from the fishmonger in the city market, I've put potatoes on the boil to make fishcakes - and realised that I've been listening to the telly in the background with possibly the most offensive program I've ever come across.

Coleen's Real Women. Yet another program about challenging body stereotypes that reinforces those same stereotypes with every word. I have no idea what Coleen does for a living (is a footballer's wife a 'profession' yet?) but, whatever it is, it clearly hasn't kept her busy enough.* Apparently, the seriously under-examined world of models and female fashion needs her particular views. It reminds me of another mission program I happened upon in which someone or other was determined to get to the bottom of hair extensions. Yes, hair extensions were set to be the next bleeding-heart issue - except that the women that our doughty celebrity investigator tracked down (to Eastern Europe) really didn't answer the apparent need for tragedy. It's hair. Hair. It grows back. It ended up being rather amusing as our increasingly desperate detective tried to twist every interview into a heart-wrenching story about forced haircuts, impovrished families relying on the little money each trip to the hairdresser earned, days spent lovingly brushing beautiful locks - locks that would ornament the heads of thoughtless wealthy (?) women in the West while the young girl - victim of the impatience of those cursed with slowly-growing hair (or indecision). Even when she travelled to India where she found women who sacrificed their hair for their religious beliefs, she just couldn't find that tear-jerking story of exploitation. Instead, she was met with outright sniggers of disbelief.

At any rate, Coleen's Real Women has pitched 'real women' - that is women larger than a size 4 - at an open call for a model to front a new cosmetics line - or something like that (does it matter?). 2 problems immediately spring to mind: firstly, that anyone smaller or larger than the 'curviest' contestant here (a size 16...) is somehow NOT a real woman; secondly, that this is something the viewer will find a) interesting or b) somehow worthy of attention.

The talking head bits between Coleen and whatever experts she has dragged into this fiasco are unbelievable - oh, cue behind me the 'back-room' discussions between the judges - who have had a 'very very tough time' making a decision; and gosh darn it haven't they wrestled (Jacob should take notes) with their choice - and the moment arrives -bestill my heart, one of Coleen's 'real woman' has made it to the semi-finals! Shock shock. But really? Why on earth does a modelling job need a semi-final? Anyway, from the kitchen, I was snorting into the soap bubbles over such comments as 'her boobs are just so big', 'we'll really have to work around the lack of body shape', 'these are the curviest girls we've ever had in here' (remember the 'curviest' - 'biggest' was never used - real women aren't 'big'; they're 'curvy' - was a stonking size 16). There was also the memorable 'she's been crying but she really has lovely skin'.

But the judges were actually the most forgiveable in some respects - not that I'm condoning any part of this idiocy - but they were doing a job and likely rather wearily included Coleen's 'real woman' just to reassure us that the fashion industry really cares about real women and what they think - or at least, where they might spend their money. All of this seems much more about Coleen - next week London, where Coleen will face the challenge of getting 'one of her girls' into a major modelling agency.

* On the ITV website, Coleen reveals that her childhood ambition was to be a journalist. Why bother with schooling? Leave it long enough and I'm sure ITV will host a 'who wants to be a newsanchor'.

I've just made my fishcakes (lovely they were too) and conducted an entire rant in my head about how the line between wanting and having seems to be very thin these days ... but in all honesty, I just can't be bothered... and Bridget Jones: the Edge of Reason is one ... I can feel another rant coming on. I should go...

Tocsin of reason

I got the title from Olympe de Gouges's Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen, which we looked at in my French Revolution seminar. But I put it there purely to be able to post this under it.

Read.

Charlie Brooker and the summer of fear.