Indefensible

The picture of Rihanna's beaten and bruised face emerged instantly condemning the uber-talented Chris Brown to the annals of history as a woman beating scumbag.

In that moment, all that he achieved has been consigned to past glories, as public sympathy completely swung to Rihanna's corner.

Prior to that ugly rumours that she had given him herpes swirled, with some commenters saying she must have driven him to do it (mainly the female fans of Brown).

I do feel very sorry for Rihanna, who turned 21 yesterday. It is a birthday that will remain indelibly marked on her memory, for all the wrong reasons.

But I also feel sorry for Chris too. What kind of rage has he been hiding all these years that he finally unleashed on the feisty young singer from Barbados?

Despite his bubblegum cute image, which was even used to sell gum, it seems that all the time, he was hiding a very tortured soul.

This kind of beating is not something someone wakes up and decides to do one day. It makes me wonder who else is presenting themself as something that they are not to encourage me to buy into them?

I will not join the calls for him to be burnt at the stake. I believe that he is young, and he can change.

With the right people around him, and suitable private and public acts of contrition, he should be given the chance to move on and continue his career. Everyone makes mistakes, and they should be allowed to atone for them.

I cannot believe that he can look at that photo of Rihanna and her Brat doll-like beautiful face covered in the results of his violence and feel nothing less than sorrow for his actions.

Despite the ugliness of this situation, and the very public humiliation of it for all the parties concerned, this coming out is probably the best thing that could have happened for them both.

Imagine if it hadn't, it could have been going on for months, or years. Just like it did for music legends James Brown's spouses, or jazz virtuoso Miles Davis who beat his famous Oscar nominated actress wife Cicely Tyson, or the spouses of Bobby Brown. And let's not forget OJ.

In the past, this kind of behaviour went pretty much undiscussed or dissected in such a public fashion by the mainstream media. And even if it did, it had little effect on people's careers.

But things have changed, and rightly so. But I hope that it does not become a witchhunt, with Chris made an example of.

R Kelly has a penchant for kinky sex with underage women - I don't notice his career stalling.

Maybe Chris just should have peed on her.

fyi
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I'm in Dell... (COMPUTER HELL)

The rage I feel at this moment is so keen, I can almost feel myself turning green like The Hulk.

I ordered a computer from Dell (or Computer Hades as it shall forever be known) for my daughter's birthday over two weeks ago.

First, they tried to deliver it two days after I ordered it online without telling me. Then I took a day off work after getting a message saying they were coming - and they never turned up. Her birthday came and went, it still it never come. Then when I finally got it redelivered, she opened the box to find that the screen is not working.

£300 has gone out of my bank account, and boy, have you ever tried to talk to DELL?!? They are more slippery than them email fraudsters. They keep you on hold, pass you from pillar to post, and you get to speak to people in Delhi who are polite but pretty fucking useless!

I have spent an hour and a quarter alone on hold to them today. They won't make an arrangement to collect the damn thing, insisting that I go through some technical support procedures first.

Which part of 'dis ting don't rassclaat work?' do you not understand?!? Right now I'm so vex, I don't even want a replacement.

Dell I'm letting you know - cos I did some research - which is what I should have done beforehand, and there are a whole heap of dissatisfied Dell customers out there - and quite frankly I have joined them.

I don't want anything to do with your eediot company. I thought teefing Apple were bad - but Dell are taking the piss. I want my money back - I do not deal with foolishness like this, and if a company cannot treat its customers right, they don't deserve to have my custom.

Bitch betta have my money.

The Butterfly and the Golliwog

Down here in England it seems that we still have some way to go before we can exorcise the ghost of colonialism. There has been an almighty row over an 'unguarded' or as we who like to speak plainly call it, a racist commment made by the daughter of the former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
After filming a television show, she was speaking to the show's presenter in the 'green room' backstage, and described a French tennis player as 'that froggy golliwog player'.
The people she was talking to called her on it, and told BBC management who demanded an apology which she didn't give, so they then removed her from her role as a roving reporter on the show.
Since then the media have decided that the BBC are being hypocrites because they didn't sack chat show host Jonathan Ross for his 'disgusting and lewd prank calls' to an elderly actor.
The papers have rushed to her aid and are all trying to defend what she said because it wasn't said on air.
First of all, she clearly thought it was okay to say it in the company of other white folk and not a brother or sister who would have smacked her bony ass. Does that mean that what she said is defensible? Clearly it wasn't, even to the white people present.
Secondly, there is all this debate that the Golliwog - which was blatantly modelled on primitive white ideas about black people is not offensive - and that its is just a doll. So why don't they still show The Black And White Minstrel Show which is where the idea came from? And if it wasn't offensive, why was it take off the Robinsons jam jar?
Thirdly, how can you call yourself a newspaper that represents Britain when you only let white people talk about this issue? For god's sake I AM A BLACK JOURNALIST and I walk past you every day! Only The Times, and the liberal papers gave a balanced view with the right-wing press opting for one-sided inflammatory rhetoric.
Fourthly, as for the issue of whether these toys should be banned or not, I think most right-thinking people would agree that a doll which encourages black people to be stereotyped as big-lipped, big-eyed, black as coal effigies has no place in a toy shop.
Really disappointing week for some sections of the British media. Poor show.

Body bullying

A journalist coined the phrase 'body-bullying' in response to a slew of articles decrying singer Jessica Simpson's recent 'weight gain', i.e. She stopped starving her skinny ass, and began to eat normally.

This type of story is quite typical of the stuff we pump out at my place. Celebs are either TERRIFYINGLY THIN, or PILING ON THE POUNDS.

Now when you know that you are not exactly the skinniest girl in the office, how the fuck are you meant to feel judging women/celebbots on how they look? Of course it makes you feel like a big fat hypocrite. Literally, not to mention, my feminist side totally disagrees with taking down women in this manner.

So when one of the sub-editors changed a headline on the Jessica Simpson story to 'Jumbo Jessica', it was like a red rag to a bull, and I had to say my piece.

First of all, he was the only person who had decided that she looked jumbo, so he had usurped the writer of the piece to add his own opinion as some sort of fact, that Jessica, now looking like a curvy size 10-12 UK (6-8 US I think but am too lazy to look), looked JUMBO.

Bearing in mind, he is no freaking oil painting himself, I couldn't let it pass. Now this guy has a reputation for bawling out writers (not me) on their prose, so when I called him on it, it suddenly went very quiet.

I felt like I was in a Sergio Leone film...I swear I saw some tumble weed cross the office floor.

I was all in black, and he was in a white shirt. But there was no doubt about who was the bad guy here. I asked him to take it out of the story because it wasn't fair, and she wasn't jumbo.

He said, 'I know, but it's funny'. Now, I'm no Jessica Simpson 'Stan' but fair is fair.

He didn't argue the toss, another editor piped up to back me, and it got changed.

I also asked him to take out the line where he had wrote in 'she was left looking like a woman who had eaten all the pies'.

For a sub-editor where I work to write this INTO copy, is just tragic. This is the crap they're supposed to taking out!

The woman has gained a few pounds, but she hardly looks like a heffer. It can't help but make you think, well if they think she is jumbo, I, with my big black woman's booty, and thighs must look GINORMOUS.

Not that I really care what someone like him thinks of me, but I am so sick of this society that cannot accept and appreciate women of all sizes. And thinks that a woman can only be attractive if she has no curves, no ass, fake boobs, and inflated injected lips.

I am definitely in the wrong job.

MADE IT BACK

So I let the corporate world of journalism get the better of me. I got lost in showbiz, early starts, and long days, and working for a promotion that never came.

During all of that I lost my joy de vivre, days turned into weeks, then months, and I stopped turning up at the page. Which was a mistake.

Coming here was my outlet to virtually vent, say what I felt, and just put it out there. Pity my poor friends who have instead become the sounding board for my rants.

Anyway In the words of one of our best homegrown soul singers, Beverly Knight, I made it rass back (well she never put it quite like that). I'm back, ready to put it all back out there.

CATCH UP:

Marital status: Single (I resisted the urge to write STILL)
Dependants: 1 beautiful girlchild turning 15 next month (talking bout piercing this, tattoo that, and shaving hair like Rihanna *kisses teet*)
Job: Showbiz hack (it's a bloody trade but someone has gotta take those bitches down)
Age: FUCK OFF (officially approaching the age where I don't tell)
Weight: Still officially obese, but unofficially fly as hell
Height: Shorter than my daughter
Location: Best city in the world LONDON BABY!

N.B. Pictures are of singer Beverley Knight in her new role modelling Marks & Spencer hosiery. She look good eh!

A NEW DAWN

No words will ever be as powerful as this image.

Respect!

Grey Hairs

I attribute the appearance of grey hairs to the strains of raising a teenager. The more stress she gives me, the more that appear. Last week I almost wept as I saw a least a handful of the suckers snaking through my two tone locks. Clearly I have been leaving it too long between re-touches.

Zesty wants to know what happened with the Crazy Boss? Well, I decided to take two weeks off and re-group. Obviously I had showed my ass and couldn't back-track on the all too evident hatred I had for the man. So I took a vacation from the 'tation to think through the options.

Decided to pop over to Barcelona (thanks to cycle accident cash that came through), and enjoyed my first real solo holiday. Just me, myself and I. The Brat went to Paris with her father.

And it was great, I definitely got a new attitude, enjoyed lounging on beach, walking the Ramblas, and in general being a Jamaican/English gyal in Barcelona.

Getting 'dipped'(pickpocketed) on the first day didn't dampen my enthusiasm for wandering around solo. I ain't new to this homies. My cash was safely stowed away, purse back in the suitcase, and all they got was a few coins in my sunglasses case.

Didn't get bothered too much by the locals. Although of course my very cheap accomodation was in Drassanes, an area that was cool by day but dodgy at night. If I still did drugs I would have been a-ok.

Instead I just enjoyed a nightly beer, and a couple of killer Capirinhas that put my ass out for the count.

So now I'm back, and ready to wreck shop.

Ola Barcelona.