My Image Revamp Advice for the Nasty Party: Don't Mention Anything You've Actually Done

Dear Tory Party,

I read in the Guardian yesterday that you have hired some fancy new "election strategist" who has been fielding advice from fellow Tories on how to avoid the 'Nasty Party' image at the upcoming election. I'll be honest with you, I don't think 'not attacking Ed Miliband' is really going to cover it. People don't think you're nasty because of your campaign tactics, people think you're nasty because of your abhorrent policies. People have killed themselves and starved to death as a direct result of YOUR policies. But hey, maybe us feckless plebs will forget all that if you just don't mention it.

Oh and while we're on the subject of things to avoid, maybe don't mention how you provide slave labour to companies like Tesco and Primark that could easily afford to pay workers, thus taking paid jobs away when paid jobs are already pretty fucking hard to come by, as evidenced by the number of people needing job seekers fucking allowance.

The Desolate North - Fuck that place!

Or that time you trebled tuition fees, claiming that only a few institutions would charge the maximum anyway... oh and now they pretty much all are. But that's ok because you only want the rich to be educated anyway, heaven forfend the fucking proles will learn a thing or two and realise Satan himself couldn't damn them worse than you have.

Oh and definitely don't mention that time you sold off "half the country" for fracking to the highest bidder for what experts suggest will be a pitiful amount of gas anyway because fuck "the desolate North," am I right guys?!

If you really think you're going to need to actually mention some things then maybe you could just jump up and down screaming, "Hey you guys! Remember the Olympics? Good times, huh? Goods times brought to you by The Tories, no less!"

This maybe hasn't been the sort of helpful advice you were looking for but don't worry your fugly little heads about that because I have more chance of winning the next X-Factor with my arm-pit farting routine than you do of winning the next election. But by all means, don't let that stop you from using your inflated campaign budget to shine up Cameron's bloated gammon-face and smear it all over billboards again.

Sincerest regards,

Pleb

Women Against Feminism and Women Against Women Against Feminism – Why Everybody Loses A Bajillion IQ Points

If you're reading this you probably know all about #WomenAgainstFeminism. At any time if you head over to Twitter and search the hashtag you are likely to be bombared with a wrecking ball of fuckwittery from either side. Don't get me wrong, there are certainly a few people from both sides trying to engage in proper dialogue, but these folks are completely lost in the din of idiots screaming insults at each other. I can't be bothered to click the hashtag and see the latest because my eyes may start bleeding but to save you the trouble of reading it yourself it can essentially be summed up thusly:

#WomenAgainstFeminism Because [insert some bizarre and unlikely reason which completely misrepresents feminism] and also because feminists are bitches/sluts/satan-worshippers who eat the remnants of aborted babies!

#WomenForFeminism Why the fuck are you so God damn stupid, my fucking brain hurts just thinking about you.

#WomenAgainstFeminism See, I knew feminists were bitches. STOP OPPRESSING ME, YOU STINKING NO-ARMPIT SHAVING BITCHES!!!

#WomenForFeminism WHAT? YOU STARTED IT! You insulted my beliefs based on misinformation, you dumb mother-fucker!

And so on and so forth until everybody loses a bajillion IQ points.

As you can see, some really well versed and reasoned arguments on both sides there... Excuse me for being flippant (or don't, I don't care) but my frustration lies in experience, because I took to Twitter myself to try and dispel some of the BS grenades being thrown around about feminism. I'd perused the Tumblr account (I know, eurgh, don't even-) and found that many over at Women Against Feminism think that feminisms is about hating men, not shaving your pits and generally running around screaming "BUT THE PATRIARCHY!" I wanted to show people otherwise. I was attempting to be friendly and helpful, here's an example of one tweet that seemed to really get folks talking ('See, feminists don't hate men') --->

"Oh how nice, did people respond well, Pleb?" No, internet. No they did not. The responses I received to this attempt at friendly dialogue were so out of this fucking world that I had to stop replying to them through fear that my brain would actually implode if it had to process that amount of crazy. I was accused personally of calling all men rapists (I had never once done this before... but I do now, just for lolz), my boyfriend was accused of being an 'internalised misandrist' (because sure, why the fuck not?) and of course, as must always happen in any debate, I was compared to Hitler (I shit you not... evidence below and here). 

It was shortly after that I realised hardly anyone wanted to have a sensible chat about anything and the ones that did were being completely drowned out by the crazies. People just wanted to scream at other people. So I decided to leave it alone, carry on with my awesome life and let the rest of Twitter fight it out between themselves. (Well, almost...)

But now I'm done, honest. Because if you want to be a dick to people on Twitter that's cool, I personally love being a dick on Twitter, or on Facebook, or in the supermarket for that matter (‘Steal the last Pizza Express Individual American, will you? NOT ON MY WATCH, ASSHOLE!’). And yeessss, I know not EVERYONE has been a dick and if that's you, thank you, you did good, kid and I mean that. But to the rest of you who called people names and told them to “STFU” well, you just wanted to be dicks, so please stop pretending this is even remotely about Feminism. Because it's not, it's about dickishness. And you’re not helping either side of the argument. 

Personally, I'm proud to call myself a feminist. I'm proud of all the passionate men and women out there busting their hump volunteering at Rape Crisis Centres; or working with Police Forces to try and end domestic violence; or campaigning hard to stamp out female genital mutilation; or providing health care to pregnant women in need or HIV infected rape survivors. I'm proud of all the strong feminists out there who are trying to make real and lasting changes to make the world a better place for all of us. If you feel you don’t need them, meh, that’s cool. Seriously. But please don’t call a bunch of strangers on the internet 'idiots' and 'bitches' because they do. 

Story Time: 'We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves' by Karen Joy Fowler

A proper book for proper people

Some things: 1. This book rocks, 2. This book was just longlisted for the Booker Prize 2014, which means it is a "proper book" for "proper people" which means I am a proper book reading person now!

And we're off: So there's this chick right, and she's kinda whiny and very jealous of pretty much everything and everyone around her. If she was my sister I'd give her a slap round the face and tell her to sort her fucking life out, but she's not and her sister can't do that but I can't tell you why because there's this twist, see, they say so in all the marketing. I kinda wanna ruin it because fuck marketing, right? But I'll control myself.

So yeah, it's about this girl and her life and relationship with her family because her sister's not there any more and her brother's not there any more and that's the big question isn't it - Where the fuck are they? And you learn all about her life and how much it sucks to be a whiny little bitch but then you kinda realise she's got pretty good reasons to be such a whiny little bitch so you stick with it because she is probably the most interesting whiny little bitch you've ever read about.

Then there's this massive bellend that rocks up called Harlow, she's like a proper spoilt brat that makes this whiny chick look like an actual decent human being by contrast. So that was clever writing, I liked that. It made me want to get a friend who can't say a sentence without at least four expletives in it because then that would make me look pretty fucking refined by contrast.

Anyway, back to the story, which I can't tell you more about, because TWISTS AND STUFF so I'll talk about the writing instead. This chick writes in stream of conciousness style and you're kinda like, 'What the fuck, it was Christmas a minute ago, why is it fucking October again now? Wait, go back to that other bit! Oh, you're gonna circle back to that bit AFTER you've got me interested in something else now, are you? You tricksy fucking minx, you.' It's super clever because my ADHD barely kicked in at all when I was reading this which means it must be really good.

Verdict: Must read.

Please Mansplain Sex And When It’s Actually Okay For Ladies To Have It

Dear The Sun,

I just read your insightful piece about ‘Magaluf Girl’ and what a terrible excuse for a person she is, deserving of the utmost scorn usually reserved for baby killers and people who don't hold the lift when they totally saw me coming and I'd totally said 'Hey, hold the lift'.

Well done for sending your top journos to stalk teenage drinkers in Magaluf by the way, it really is important that people know where, how and how often these scum-bags are getting their rocks off. I mean sure, there’s people dying in wars or committing crimes and the general everypleb is being totally screwed in the arsehole by bankers, but hey, this stuff is just waaaaaay more important than all that so-called "proper news", right? Heaven forfend people didn't have a reason for taking to Twitter to annihilate the reputation of a young girl who licked a few tips. Oh, yeah, I did the maths. 24 guys in 2 minutes averages about 5 seconds per guy, and when you factor in time to get between them all then I assume she just licked some tips and it seemed like it was all consensual tip-licking to me and is that so big a deal? I don’t mean to down play this horrendous situation which will surely land us all IN THE FIERY DEPTHS OF HELL, I just think maybe my poor little lady-brain didn't understand why this was ‘news’. Is consensual sex and sex acts in a place where people go to do sex and sex acts really all that important? 

Is this okay?

Also my teeny tiny lady-brain was a teeny tiny bit confused about Page 3, which I don't want to attack of course, gosh no, because it is a "British Institution" (just like screwing the poor and invading countries). It just seems to conflict with the general idea that sex is wrong and immoral and disgusting and ladies shouldn't want any part of it. See, with you being a family newspaper and all, I kinda grew up feeling like a big part of what you were about was telling women we must be sexy and nekked and not bother ourselves with thoughts and opinions and such nonesense. Like we should be all ‘Oooooh, look at my lovely fleshy fun-bags, don’t you want to do a sex on me?’ But now I'm so confused, doesn't being all sexy and half-nekked usually lead to some sexing? And now you're saying that actual sexxing is not okay. Only letting men drool over my lovely t-shirt melons is okay. Because these seem like conflicting ideas to me. Not just conflicting but kind of massively hypocritical and cunty and I get a bit stabby when I think about it. 

So yeah, if you could please go ahead and ladysplain to my teeny tiny lady-brain when I'm actually allowed to have sex, and how often and with how many people and in which positions, I’d be super grateful! Or maybe just take the bare boobs out of your family newspaper altogether if you want to be so fucking uppity and judgemental about women having sex, you hypocritical piss-weasels. 

Sincerest Regards,

Pleb

Story Time: 'The Bees' by Laline Paull

Like wasps only less twatish

What you need to know: In a world where all stories seem to be rehashed versions of a story you heard last week (starring Rachel McAdams), this is actually pretty original!

The rest: So there's this bee right, only she's a special bee and she's supposed to be a cleaner bee. So some high up bee, they're called Sages, get's interested in her and puts her to work in the nursery, where she shouldn't be because she's a cleaner and they're unclean, but fuck it, because Sage's do what they want, right?

You actually get to learn shit loads about bees and if you didn't know before you'll know afterwards, bees can be fucking dicks! That's one of the most interesting things, just how dickish the bees are and how every bee knows but they all just put up with it because that's how it works. Accept, Obey, Serve - that's like they're mantra or something. 

Anyway, so back to Flora, that's her name, that cleaner bee I was on about. Turns out there's a lot she can do that she shouldn't be able to and it get's her some pretty sweet privileges but it also get's her in to some pretty hot water too and so you get super interested in whether she's gonna be okay or whether the dick bees are gonna fuck her up. It's super interesting. 

Oh, also, there's these male bees who are like the comedic relief because they're like some sort of clownish Shakespeare characters only more rapey and they run around talking about their "swords", but sword meaning their junk obviously and that's fucking hilarious.

So yeah, basically, this is some pretty good shit.

Verdict: Must read.

Story Time: 'Some Kind Of Fairy Tale' by Graham Joyce

Probably better than the Bible

Executive Summary: This book 100% DOES NOT SUCK!

Full report: Some kind of fairy tale? More like some kind of what the actual fuck, AMIRITE?!

There's this family on Christmas right, and this fucking girl turns up and it's only just their daughter that disappeared twenty years ago! Only she looks the same age and she reckons she's been away with the fairies but this is fucking real life isn't it, so where has she really been? And they do tests and take her to a psychiatrist and stuff to try and figure out where she's been and you're kinda hoping this isn't real life and she has been away with the fairies because if she hasn't, well, she's probably been in a dirty sex dungeon or something and no-one wants that, do they? 

The book is not so much a fairytale as it is a tale about what happens AFTER a fairytale. It's asking things like, how do we closed minded fucktards deal with something so monumental? How can this poor chick get on alright in our shitty grey reality now with no-one believing where she's been, or even believing she believes she's been where she says she's been, if in deed she has even been where she says she's been? It's a proper mind-fuck.

To be honest, this is easily the best book I have read in ages! If you like fantasy, but feel like you're a bit too grown up for it now that it's all about teenage vampires and werewolves then this is the book for you. Seriously wonderful shit, can't stress enough how fucking magical and clever and beautiful it is! 

Verdict: Read it. READ IT! READ IT!!!