[he says she says] the road to marital breakup

Ross and Robyn Brundrett are a married couple [could you guess that from the names?] and they wrote a column in the Sunday Herald some time ago, called "He says, She says".

The concept was good - take an issue and give the husband's and wife's perspective on it but the problem was that things got a little too willing. Below are their reactions to the time he had nasal surgery [sorry - I've searched but can't find it on the net].

First, his side of the issue:

"Oh, you poor thing". That's what my No. I daughter said. And workmates. Even strangers in the lift. Just about everyone. Except my wife. When I get sick, she has all the bedside charm of Maggie Thatcher. Someone remarked that it must have been painful. "No, no," she insisted, "childbirth is painful".

It's not as if she is a cruel or hard person, quite the opposite. She is the first to offer an ailing friend or relative some comfort. If one of our kids is sick she is Florence Nightingale, Put when I go down in a screaming heap, well I go down alone.

If she goes down though, it's a different matter:

I'm not saying we [men] are more caring, I'm just saying we are smart enough to realise that the quicker they are up and running the better for everybody. So we care for them as best we can - anything to get them off our couches as quickly as possible.

She says that when men are sick, women suffer the most. Men are wimps when it comes to any form of sickness:

He had a 24-hour bug the other day. Well it is a 24-hour bug in men, In women we have to get over it in 24 minutes. True! We don't have the luxury of lazing in bed for an entire day, pathetically whimpering for a drink, begging for something to eat, pleading for a form guide to read. For us, staying in bed when we are sick is not worth the effort.

So excuse me if I am not too patient when he is the patient. I am sympathetic, to a point, but I quickly tire of the moaning and groaning and that is just to get him out of bed. The sympathy in his fellow men, it was nothing short of amazing ... and when they heard that he had undergone this lifesaving surgery on his own - well the blokes were shocked.

The women understood that I did not know he was going to have such a deep incision, that the children had to be picked up, dinner prepared, ironing done, floor cleaned, house painted, so I could not be with him in his hour of need.

I have one lady who comes to me and she is balancing a working career, an academic career, a dissertation for a doctorate, two children, one supportive husband and a young sister in her 20s who demands constant attention. In our hour together, the phone must ring at least eight times, wanting some issue solved.

I have enormous admiration for mothers and their toughness whilst maintaining their femininity and have had some good role models. So sorry - I shall not jump on the male bandwagon. I think the guy above must have given her some cause for the vehemence of her words and probably, as she said in another part of the article, milked the debilitation for what it was worth.

However, her reaction is unbelievable. How does she hope to hold onto her marriage with an "I'm the only martyr round here" attitude and that level of intolerance?

What we have here is the fundamental danger between husbands and wives. The wife married him because she felt he would be strong for her, would love and support her and so on. And so he should do - I have little time for weak men.

On the other hand, every human being needs softness in return, even a husband, especially as he married her partly for this aspect of their relationship.

As for him, perhaps he should pull his weight a bit more and not give her the ammunition to be able to say "ironing done, floor cleaned, house painted".

It's hard to know what to do. They're both so entrenched that it's the children who will suffer and each parent would blame the other. When will men and women accept that they are different species and have entirely incompatible aspects to their viewpoints, their mental sets?

And it only takes one side to start the rot.

The vultures will swoop and claim that this supports the modern notion of perpetual and damaging promiscuity in lieu of marriage but that's rubbish. Father, mother and children have been and always will be the only sustainable variant but the two sexes really must step back and take stock of all aspects of how they get on and where they're trying to go.

A first step might be to live within their means, remove the financial yoke of credit debt and to hell with their detractors for doing that. A man and a woman with mutual affection and a common goal for "us" can work near miracles together if they'll be tolerant of each other and the load is split pretty well 50/50.

[paris] will it ever be the same again

On the grounds that I have France on my mind and given that I'm currently working on my French novel, this is not so much a post but more an excuse to use some photos.

So to the issue itself yesterday:

Les fumeurs plutôt disciplinés dès hier - c'est aujourd'hui que commencent les contrôles mais, dès hier, de nombreux cafés et restaurants respectaient l'interdiction.

That clear? Well let me put it slightly differently:

The extension of France's smoking ban to bars, discotheques, restaurants, hotels, casinos and cafes on January 1 marks a momentous cultural shift in a country where thinkers like Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir once held court while clutching cigarettes in Left Bank cafes.

For smokers, this is the most distressing part of a phased smoking ban that began last February in workplaces, schools, airports, hospitals and other "closed and covered" public places like train stations.

But many bartenders and restaurant staffers are looking forward to breathing easier and to clothes that don't stink of seeped-in odours from the clouds of smoke where they work.

Just about anywhere indoors will be off-limits for smoking, except homes, hotel rooms, and sealed smoking chambers at establishments that decide to provide them.

We're getting into a very grey area here. In the light of the Devil's Kitchen piece on pornography below, there are issues here of freedom v respect for others - the classic liberal dilemma.

Upfront, I'm no fan of smoking. Not only did my father die from it but he gave respiratory problems to both my mother and myself and if there's too much smoke, I'm out of there. It's not a moral question at all - I'd love to be sitting in there with DK and lots of other bloggers having a drink and a chatter and yes - maybe even the occasional fag.

It's just that the health won't allow too much of it. Plus one more thing - this craze for over-regulating every last aspect of human behaviour is pure 1984, pure PC and it opens the floodgates to massive state oppression, which is basically what all libertarians and other right thinking people are trying to oppose.

In the end, surely there is a difference between pornography, which most certainly has a slow seeping impact on attitudes to women, especially if the material has been freely available to children from an early age, along with the vicious dice and slice mumbo jumbo games on the one hand - and having a ciggy with a beer at a pub?

As for Paris itself - I think it would be a tragic loss to regulate people out of this form of relaxation, especially when dining al fresco.

[back] in a manner of speaking

First tentative steps getting back into blogging but it will be hit tomorrow through to Saturday with a ridiculous schedule for a holiday period and then comes Christmas on January 7th, which is the one we observe over here. Then Old New Year on the 13th, then work proper until the next round of madness mid-February.

Health? Still not great but that's not a topic I'll open up on, largely 'cause I'm in denial just now. You know the sort of thing - you try to ask: "Well hi, how are you?" and they answer:

"Better thanks. Glad you asked because the rhumbitis is playing up something awful and the pain right down my left diode is acting up when the full moon is in conjunction with Venus. So pleased you're interested in al my medical problems. Tell you what, would you like to look through the medical files if you've nothing better to do?"

Thanks to Colin Campbell, Matt [no blog] and the Devil's Kitchen for the guest posts - very welcome, I assure you.

Thanks also to Dave J, Beaman, Welshcakes, Liz, Dick Madeley, Dave Cole, Jane Jill, Oestrebunny, JMB, Grendel, Matt Sinclair, Moggy, Sean Jeating, of Omnium, Ubermouth, Swearing Mother, Mopsa, Verlin Martin, Tiberius Gracchus, Sally in Norfolk, Englisc Fyrd and Cityunslicker for the best wishes here.

Thanks also to the captain of the ship Ian Grey, Ellee Seymour, Sackerson, Mutley, Andrew Allison, Steve Green, Bag and Bob G.

Thanks also to those, pre-Christmas, who dropped by and left best wishes and to those inadvertently omitted above or who are elsewhere and sent seasonal wishes in spirit. To all of you, I say compliments of the season and hope the break is/was good.

So, what have we come back to in the New Year? This was the front page, the lead articles, at the Melbourne Age today:

Shot man clings to life

MIKI PERKINS 4:44pm | Cop fires three shots after failing to subdue "menacing man" with pepper spray.

Boyfriend 'runs over' his girlfriend

YUKO NARUSHIMA 3:05pm | Victim's family breaks down as accused hit-run driver faces court.

Girl's drowning a tragic warning

JANE HOLROYD 3:40pm | Death of girl, 11, at crowded beach stark water safety reminder, authorities say.

Woman finds father hacked to death

JORDAN BAKER 4:12pm | Woman discovers body of father after his murder, possibly with tomahawk.

Man remanded over daughter's murder

GEORGINA ROBINSON 9:55am | Unemployed funeral director charged with murder, rape of daughter, 10.

Really nice stuff for holiday reading with the kids home, don't you think? They say that's what people are interested in. Really? I'd rather read of Sarko's latest dalliance or of how well sales of my book are going. Incidentally, I wonder who Sarko's bonking these few days. Is she satisfied?

How was Christmas/New Year? Unexpected hours of kisses, cuddles and intellectual conversation [in patches] always work wonders for the Higham - better than any medicines.

Hope you're having a lovely time with no axe murders in your neighbourhood just now. Unless you're planning a few yourself, that is.

An Obscure Vacation Spot

So, looking for a good place to get away? Yet you don't want to go where everyone else goes. Well, how does camping sound to you? No, I don't mean camping out in the woods. How about camping on the beach?



You are looking at Perdido Key, which is located south of Florida.  I went there for Spring Break freshman year of college.  That's an über-zoomed in view, as the key is much longer (with buildings).  It's run by the National Park Service, interestingly enough.  We only stayed a day because it was too windy to keep our tent up (we really didn't know what we were doing).  Having said that, this place is paradise.  Nobody, and I mean, nobody was in our view (with the exception of an old couple whom we passed on the road in).  Look at these photos and decide for yourselves.











If I remember correctly, the cost for a pass is only $6.  Therefore, it's extremely reasonable!  Also, Perdido Key is literally right across the straight from Panama City, so you can drive there to get anything you might need or want.  In short, it's the ideal (in my opinion) and undiscovered vacation spot.  So, think about it next time (instead of Cancun, Cabo San Lucas, Fort Lauderdale, etc.).  

A Canadian Perspective

I found this via Watching America. Read the aformentioned article. It provides a unique perspective of Canadians, who don't want to be integrated into an NAU.

All your children are belong to us

I note that James is on a brief hiatus and as such I thought that I'd leap in with one of my rare posts—only my second, in fact—in order to fill the gap.

I would like to say a few words about ManHunt 2, a computer game that is causing some controversy, as it essentially involves the gamer playing the part of a character who hunts down assorted people and kills them in inventive ways.

After deliberation, it had been given a release in this country but now that is going to be fought in court.

British censors have won the right to fight the UK release of video game Manhunt 2 in the High Court.

A judge accepted the British Board of Film Classification's argument that the game had been approved for release on a misinterpretation of the law.

The game was banned in June but the Video Appeals Committee said the game could be classified and released.

The BBFC said that the VAC had been guilty of "a very serious misdirection of law" on the question of harm.

The judge said: "I have taken into account the high public interest in the possibility of harm to children."

Mr Justice Wyn Williams ruled the Board had an arguable case that should go to a full hearing.

Both sides agreed that the game was not suitable for children, but the BBFC argued that if given a certificate for release, it could still end up in the hands of minors.

The first point is, if these media releases—be it video games or films—are going to "end up in the hands of minors" anyway, then what point is there is giving them a classification in the first place?

And how will they end up in the hands of minors? Either through shops selling them to minors—in which case the shops are breaking the law and they should be prosecuted at every opportunity—or the parents are going to buy the game for their children.

In this second scenario, the parents have made a deliberate decision to flout the law and the warnings that come with the classification. Whatever the reason, we have to accept that parents have ultimate legal rights over their children; their wishes should trump both the classification board and the government. To deny that is to accept that the parents do not own their children and are not responsible for them: the state is, and the state should have preference over the parents as to what is suitable for the children. And that is an utterly unacceptable scenario—unless, of course, you are someone like Polly Toynbee, for whom such a situation would be the first step on the road to socialist Utopia.

The final thing to consider is whether or not violent computer games are responsible for violent behaviour. And the answer is that it is unlikely and, assuming that it follows the same projection as porn, we can actually say how unlikely it is. Or, rather, Strange Stuff can.

The available data is quite explicit. The availability of porn does not lead to sexual violence, it actually decreases the incidence of it.

The incidence of rape in the United States has declined 85% in the past 25 years while access to pornography has become freely available to teenagers and adults.

Not good enough? How about in the land of tentacle sex?

Within Japan itself, the dramatic increase in available pornography and sexually explicit materials is apparent to even a casual observer. This is concomitant with a general liberalization of restrictions on other sexual outlets as well. Also readily apparent from the information presented is that, over this period of change, sex crimes in every category, from rape to public indecency, sexual offenses from both ends of the criminal spectrum, significantly decreased in incidence.

Most significantly, despite the wide increase in availability of pornography to children, not only was there a decrease in sex crimes with juveniles as victims but the number of juvenile offenders also decreased significantly.

In short, in the case of porn, easy availability leads to a decrease in sexual attacks because, fundamentally, porn acts as a substitute for the act itself. As far as we can tell, violent computer games act in much the same way: they allow people to play out a fantasy and they are less likely to ape the acts that they see portrayed.

Therefore, whilst various campaigners may hail this court challenge to Manhunt 2 as a triumph for decency and common sense it is, in fact, anything but. But these special interest groups don't like to get in the way of a good moralising, because that is why they exist.

However, make no mistake: if this game's release is banned, the subtext here is that the state knows better than you how you should raise your children. And from there, it's only a short step to the state podding hutches of Polly Toynbee's dreams.

Cross-posted at Devil's Kitchen.