Stickermania: Episode# 1

'Cos being subversive (but safely these days) is one of My Favourite Things.

Sack Theresa May!

Unfuckingbelievable.

A minister for equality who doesn't believe in equality ...

Please click here to register your utter disgust.

I Feel Like Adrian Mole

Yes, I was a devotee of Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie, Roald Dahl and Are You Being Served?, Bless This House, The Good Life, On The Buses, Love Thy Neighbour (forgive me, my peeps, I was too young to know better), etcetera -------- but it was Sue Townsend's comic creation that turned me on to the Thatcher-hate.

There is a poem he writes, asking her if she cries into her "Marks & Spencer pillow", that I have not only never forgotten, but I think of nearly every time I pop into M&S for my superfood salad or fairtrade columbian ground-for-cafetiere coffee.

I feel sad. For the country, and also for the activist/hustler/politician/radical/agitator that I never became, but feel was my calling.

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ps. Mr P has been saying for ages that he hopes the Tories inherit this current politicosocioecenomic shitstorm because whoever gets in is ultimately ferkakt, and that way we are ensured a Prime Minister Milliband sometime soon ... either one will do! And it's not just because they're both cute and English and Jewish and slightly geeky and ... somewhat familiar. But it helps.

See?! The personal: she is very political after all!!!

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Also: I used to be a MASSIVE comma girl. I was like, ",,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,," all over the place. But then I met a cool person once who turned me off 'em. 'Nother post. 'Nother time.

I'm having a multiple cleggasm!

Yes, I've made the joke twice (it's my facebook status update) but (a) the majority of my friends are Aussies and won't get it and (b) HOORAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so fucking happy - and I can't even vote! (I can in local elections as a commonwealthee, but not nationally until I apply for citizenship, which I most certainly will because (a) I can do dual and (b) I LOVE BEING A CITIZEN! It is one of my favourite roles ever! Excepting Betty Parris in my high school production of The Crucible and Monica Lewinsky with my bf during the Clinton scandal ... but I digress ...)

I know the Obama analogies will rankle with many, and perhaps rightly so, but my heart felt so much lighter at every mention of "a third way" - plus the Cable guy? He can fiddle with my antennae anytime, ifyoucatchmydrift. I love a man who talks dir[ec]t[l]y.

But seriously? A politician trying to put justice, equality, and humanity on the agenda? What the ...? A one-two-punch rejection of Bullyboy Brown and Cringeworthy Cameron? ("I agree with Nick!" "No! I agree with Nick!"). Brilliantly executed - who was the alpha male in that debate? I could only love Clegg more if he had a vagina. That's high praise from the rabid Dr. P, btw! Also: MORE WOMEN IN POSITIONS OF POWER PLEASE. It is so fucking monotonous. I'd like to see a pantsuit or two, if it's not too much trouble. Postfuckingfeminism, my grobeh tuchiss.

Also thanks to TV for making it all possible! (Dr P 4 TV 4eva) Brown did a Nixon (BIG surprise there) and the Toryboy was outclassed by the contender with real class.

Vote Lib Dem, please. Do it for those of us who can't.

ETA: I am so embarassed I wrote this. I feel like it's all my fault!!!!!!

Anarchy In The UK

On Sunday I went along to a radical ramble in SE1.

Five Things I Loved About It:
1. Feeling of doing something mildly subversive. I'm such a middle class pretender!
2. Hearing stories of the past that aren't the Grand Master Narrative kinda "Histories" taught at school (big wars, great men, small peenii).
3. Seeing bits of London I otherwise never see. It's a good day when I leave N19.
4. Recalling for the zillionth time the beats that this city PULSATES. I am an expat in lurrve!
5. I saw Mary Wollstonecraft's house!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Five Things I Loathed About It:
1. I go to these lefty things to feel kinship. I therefore don't fully get how these supposed right-on humanists can justify not mustering even the slightest bit of warmth towards, er, me. But you know what I mean: that holier-than-thou, judgey mcjudgerson type. I kind of think that most radicals regardless of whatever spectrum they sit at share a personality trait, ie, not having much of one. That's why that feminist=humourless trope fucks me off. Maybe Dworkin wasn't much of a smiler but put me in a room with Jo Brand, Germaine Greer, Janeane Garofolo, Gloria Steinem, Tina Fey, Dawn French, Letty Cottin Pogrebin and Margaret Cho and I betcha there'd be laughs a'plenty.
2.The commemorative stone for Percy Shelley. Now obscured by the directives of a Death to Aesthetics! estate. (See pics for travesty)
3.The unshakeable sense that I was a hypocritical middle class JAP because I'm neither a vegan nor a squatter.
4.The fact that these alternative stories which are rich and dynamic have, like their protagonists, been marginalised to the degree that they are rarely shared outside the few that actively seek them out.
5. The utter arrogance/ historical blindness of the guide who felt the need to highlight Wollstonecraft's "contradictions" in that she advocated for women's rights but not for those working women. Way to project your contemporary agenda onto a brave, progressive thinking historical heroine, dude! While you're at it, wanna slam for Martin Luther King jr for not protesting for gay rights or Gandhi for not having a Twitter account?

Hmmmmm. WWGT? (What Would Gandhi Tweet?)

Fuck Off Already, Afterdinnerjazz!

Your people have spoken.

I love the image on this page but can't copy it. If it's your first look at Jezebel, enjoy. This is the site that turned me on to the Web.

Duffy Shows No Mercy

... and we are all the better for it!

The following is the first poem from new poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, first woman in the position since its inception in 1599! And it's timely, passionate, ballsy (I hate that word but my version, cunty, has so far failed to catch on). It's called, simply, Politics:

How it makes of your face a stone

that aches to weep, of your heart a fist,

clenched or thumping, sweating blood, of your tongue

an iron latch with no door. How it makes of your right hand

a gauntlet, a glove-puppet of the left, of your laugh

a dry leaf blowing in the wind, of your desert island discs

hiss hiss hiss, makes of the words on your lips dice

that can throw no six. How it takes the breath

away, the piss, makes of your kiss a dropped pound coin,

makes of your promises latin, gibberish, feedback, static,

of your hair a wig, of your gait a plankwalk. How it says this –

politics – to your education education education; shouts this –

Politics! – to your health and wealth; how it roars, to your

conscience moral compass truth, POLITICS POLITICS POLITICS.

BNPiss Off!

I have not really been sure how to respond to the news that the British National Party - a fascist, racist, anti-semitic has just won two seats in the European Parliament. My first reaction is RACISTS RAUS! (No offence to any German speakers for using your language but it's potent for me). My second is polemical, fearful: Is Europe being won back by the fascists? The deepest fear of a lot of Jews is that another Holocaust could happen (often used to justify the bloodiest, most unjust right-wing Zionism, but that's another story). Fact is, my grandfather was in Auschwitz and that wasn't so long ago, historically speaking. But my training as an historian instantly combats those initial emotional responses: no, it's not the 1930s all over again, recession or no recession.

But this is still shitty news. Surely, though, there are more of us than there are of them? More thinking, feeling, truly civilised humans than that human detrius of morons, saddos, loons and locos. Nick Griffin (isn't he the father from Family Guy?) just got some feedback from a less than adoring public but it's not enough. What the hell can we do to undermine their support? (Non-violent measures preferred, but all will be taken under advisement ...)

A Very P-ed Off Dr P.

PS. David Cameron, some advice: Maybe stop fraternising with the Polish meshugenneh voytek kholera yasneh brothers, otherwise it won't just be fringe Left-loonies calling you a fascist colloborator. Cheers, mate. x

Dr Plog Casts Her Vote

I come from a Land Down Under. Where women glow and everyone votes. We have to - it's bloody compulsory, mate! Which some see as undemocratic "I should have the right not to vote" - you do, you lazy buggers. It's called a Donkey Vote (luckily the Anti-Donkey Defamation Organisation has not yet banned use of this term) and it means you can cover your ballot form with pictures of penises if you so desire. But this law guarantees that all citizens fulfil their basic civic duty, one that women and minority groups have fought for (we owe it to our forebears if nothing else), and it does ensure that all people (the marginalised, the elderly, new immigrants, those physically unable to participate) are included. Compulsory voting forces even the most apathetic to take the mildest interest and that's good enough for me. And I feel that "non-voters" have no right to complain about the government and the general state of affairs. Should have exercised your right, buddy - not only a right but a DUTY to your fellow citizens, a kind of social tax better spent than the monetary kind. I also feel that "pro-lifers" should be properly renamed as "anti-choicers" and murderous terrorist scum get out of their thick heads that foetuses should have more rights than women, but that's a post for another time ... when I have less vengeful steam coming out of my ears, maybe ...

Back to voting, then. It's my first vote on British soil, The X Factor and Grease Is The Word, notwithstanding, and THAT feels bloody exciting, although, irritatingly I can't get : "I feel British!/Oh so British!/ I feel British/And Skittish/And Slight!" out of my head -- North Side Story, maybe?

So I am excited to vote today and urge all other Brits and expats here to do the same. And may the best team (mine of course) win!

Hazel, Hazel, Hazel!

Dear Hazel Blears,

While I definitely err on the side of the latter in the work/life balance debacle, can I just say that, short of having your loved ones gunned down in cold blood, no "family reasons" are compelling enough to justify ones resignation the day before an election? Especially one as crucial as the European Parliament where the BNP are likely to gain a foothold. (Nazi skinheads FTW?!)

Also, Hazel? Your excuse may have been more believable were you not about to get into trouble for that wee expenses snafu. I know it sucks that there is extra pressure on women in politics, given there are so few of you, but, damn, girl! This is not the kind of representation we were hoping for ...

Please unresign. You can always reresign at a later date, maybe one that won't have such a destabilising effect on the party - and more importantly, the constituents - you promised to faithfully serve.

Kthnxbai,

Dr. Plog xo

Friday Night With ... Mr Sheen

I really like Martin Sheen (born Ramón Gerardo Antonio Estévez, but more on that later). Tonight he ROCKED (yes, I am almost middle-aged and oh-so-fricking SAD) on Jonathan Ross. (I like the J.Ro even if I am slightly suspect of his politics/ feminism ... although his wife seems pretty cool.) Anyway, back to Charlie & Emilio's Dad ... I love people who integrate their identities with their politics, ie, those whose philosophies are indivisible from their most authentic selves, their most fundamental principles. I don't just mean hard-core ideologues: not necessarily tent-dwelling, gender non-specific, vegan, freegan, anti-globalisation, pro-choicey, pacifistic, post-colonial, deconstructionist hermits. Just people whose politics (translation: caring about the world, community, society, how people think/ act/ are, what ideals are promoted over which ones that should be) are part of them, rather than a separate entity: a self-conscious, artificial "accessory" adopted for social reasons or in order to maintain "polite fictions". I know that I can be annoying with my Feminist, Anti-Racist, Anti-Heterosexist rhetoric. But you know what? In the scheme of things, I'd prefer to be mildly (even majorly) annoying if it means I were even marginally proactive, useful.

Just like Martin Sheen.

Wanda Sykes For Next President?

I wouldn't want my kids getting into Dick Cheney's car either.

Zen And The Art Of Sanitary Napkins

I could have been a zillionaire trust fund baby had my mum patented her invention -- pads with adhesive. A sixties menstruater, she hated the belts that were then the sole means so she removed the pads and used double-sided adhesive tape (what we in Australia call "sticky tape", not sure how it translates but yaknowehatimean) to stick the pads to her underwear. Shame my otherwise perfect brilliant amazing Mum has not a shred of enterprising commercial spirit (which I unfortunately inherited)! Ah, well. I hear love is better than money anyway ...

Also - did you know that pads and tampons in many countries still incur a luxury tax? A LUXURY TAX! Do the Dead White Men of the political stage REALLY think that getting your gawdamn period is a luxury? Or are they too scared of the word period to face redressing this social and fiscal injustice of most bloody proportions? Many years ago I found myself getting rather tipsy with our former Prime Minister, Bob "Beer-record-breaker" Hawke. "Bob?" I drunkenly rasped in the Great Man's face. "Yes, Dr. P?" he replied. "'How many years were you PM for?" I asked. "Nine" he replied. "Nine?!" I yelled, "And in nine years you couldn't find the time to take the luxury tax off tampons? Do you really think it's a LUXURY to get your period?!". He looked at me with the eyes he must have used to seduce Blanche/destroy Hazel and said "You know what Plog? You're right. Until now I always thought I'd done a good job but you're absolutely right".

See? The pad IS mightier than the sword.

Thank You Harriet Harman!

Is it just me or is it absofuckinglutely disgusting that we still live in a world where there is no equal pay?! I mean, how has nothing been done about this? It's mind-boggling.

So I guess we should be grateful (ah, yes: grateful! We women and our lowered expectations - "thank you, kind sir, for the morsels from your plate") that on Monday, Harriet Harman, the deputy Labour leader here in the UK, committed the party to supporting an equality bill that tackles this injustice.

Forget discussions about the eligibility of Dave "the Raver" Cameron, Gordon "Smiley" Brown or (gawd help us) Boris "Slick" Johnson for next term PM -- HH all the way! Also I absolutely love her name! There's something so Ramona Quimby about it.