No More Funds For Fatties

For all of you who reside in the US and are just in love with all of these taxpayer subsidized programs that President Barry is enacting, you'd better slow down and check yourselves just to double check to think about whether they're really a good idea or not. After all, when people start to just be handed things without any effort on their part, they become a people that I don't think having an entire country full of would be of any great benefit. I don't even think it would be of any small benefit. The only benefit I see coming out of President Barry's social programs is that the programs will give us plenty of examples of what not to do in the future should the notion ever come up again that some people should be handed everything in their lives. It doesn't end well. Just take a gander over at the UK there to see what I'm talking about.

For instance, let's look at a one 25-year old Laura Ripley who lives somewhere in the UK. According to the Daily Mail, Ms. Ripley is unemployed and overweight. The unemployed moniker is probably a stretch though, as she has never worked in her quarter of a century on this planet. And the overweight moniker could be worse, as she used to weigh 38 stone (one stone = 14 pounds. I don't know why they go with "stone". Probably because they use "pound" for their currency and would be getting the two different pounds mixed up all of the time.) and now she weighs a mere 22 stone. I'll do the math for you so that you can be shocked that she used to weigh a whopping 532 pounds and now is down to a comparatively speaking svelte 308 pounds. Still a large gal, yes. See for yourself. Behold!

Definitely tough to knock over. But I digress. Anyway, she is, of course, on the British version of welfare because she's (wait for it) too fat to work. Well, she was too fat to work...until the British government paid for gastric band surgery and she lost 224 pounds! Fabulous! Now she can work, right? Not so fast. See, part of the money that she was receiving from the government was disability money because she's what? Too fat to work, that is correct. But when you drop off 224 pounds and you end up weighing only 308, you're still linebacker material, no getting around that fact, but you're not the entire defensive line anymore, so I'd call that progress! And so does the British government. And it's just the kind of progress that they were hoping for when they were the ones that footed the bill for her gastric bypass surgery! (That's quite a system you've got going over there, Britain. Quite a system indeed.) Here's why they offered it to her. Behold!

Because of all of the weight losing, Ms. Ripley no longer gets the money that she used to receive for being what? Too fat to work, that's right! And she is now...what? Bitching about it, correct! Because when fat, one receives £600 a month in benefits, but when one gets rid of some fat then they lose about £340 a month. (Now here's where the British pound comes in. Again, different from the US pound and when converted we learn she was receiving $984.78 a month in benefits and is no longer eligible for the $558.02 of "too fat to work money". (I'm paraphrasing there, of course. I don't think that's really what they call it. It'd be a good name for it if they needed one, though.)

Now that loss of free and effortless income really is tough for some people. I think that the degree of entitlement is directly proportional to the degree of irrationality of the complaint of the hardship. Both of those factors are in direct proportion to how much other people cannot stand this sort of person. According to Ms. Ripley, "'Without my disability allowance I'm left with just £210 ($344.67) incapacity benefit which I get because of my depression, and £100 ($164.13) income support I receive every two weeks and out of that I have to give them back £70 ($114.89) towards the cost of the £500-a-month ($820.65) flat I'm living in." Seriously, does she say this with a straight face?

Listen up, buttercup. You're paying 14% of what your rent actually is, yet living in 100% of the flat. And even though you're paying that 14%, technically you're not even doing that because you're not working and that money is being given to you by your government! You're 25 years old there, honeybabe, and you've never worked a day in your life? And you're complaining about this arrangement? Is this ALL you're complaining about?

Sadly, no. See, now that she doesn't get as much free fat money, "This means she cannot afford to eat healthily - causing her to pile the weight back on." Wait. What? Can't afford it? What does she do? Glad you asked! "'I can't afford to buy Weight Watchers crisps and cereal bars any more so I eat Tesco's chocolate bars and packets of Space Invaders crisps, sometimes four of each a day', says Laura, who spends seven hours a day watching TV." Oh. My. God.

No! No! Hold that thought! There's more! See, before when she was getting the Funds for Fatties, that "...was spent on gym workouts, healthy food and having her hair highlighted." Because having highlighted hair really slims a person down, is that it? I don't think it is! See, this is what happens when people spend other people's money. They don't CARE what they spend it on because it's not theirs and they didn't have to EARN it. And they can always make justifications for why they do what they do with money that they don't have to earn. Sort of like how she explains her food choices by saying "'People ask why I don't snack on an apple - they're cheap, but emotionally I don't always feel like an apple." Um, what now?

That's why she eats crap. It's not that she can't pay for it, it's that she doesn't want to. Essentially, she's throwing a tantrum because her Funds for Fatties were discontinued. Oh, sure, she could go and get a job, but she's holding off on that because she'd like to get a tummy tuck-like operation "which would normally cost £12,000, to remove the saggy skin left behind after the dramatic weight loss, but only if she sheds a further five stone." Well, clearly, that isn't going to happen if she's all out of free money! Five stone..what is that? Seventy pounds? She just gained fourteen pounds over the past three weeks! I don't think that five stone is going to just melt off of her! But that's why she's not looking for a job to supplement her income.

Hold on. What?

Right. She's not looking for a job. Even though she's been deemed "fit to work" (and really, you'd have to be Manuel Uribe, the World's Fattest Man, at the very least in order to actually be too fat to work) and she needs the money, she's not looking because "'I'm not even applying for work at the moment because I'm only going to have to have lots of time off when I have more surgery." But you're not having any surgery until you lose another seventy pounds there, Einstein! Even if you lost a miraculous 5 pounds a week, that's fourteen weeks you're going to have until they can get you all tucked in again. MINIMUM fourteen weeks, but that's totally unrealistic, so it would be at least double that, I'm guessing. Still, that's 28 weeks. Can a person drop 70 pounds in about 7 months? Maybe, but not eating chocolate bars and chips all the live long day they can't.

But here's the best part. Here is where I completely twisted off. It's not like she's happy with this situation. No, it saddens her, as evidenced by this statement: 'It's heartbreaking that after all my hard work losing this weight someone's come along and ruined it."

Sooooooooo....by someone do you mean you?! You're the only one doing the eatin' over there! You're the only one watching seven hours of TV a day. (My God, seven hours? I'd shoot myself first.) You're the one not exercising and eating crap. If that's what you mean, then, yes, it is a shame that someone decided to choose to sabotage all of the work that had been done up until this point. See, if you had paid for that gastric bypass yourself, you would have felt like you made some sort of an investment in the whole deal. After all, if you're spending that kind of money on something, you wouldn't want it to be for nothing or to go to waste because you ballooned up like it was Super Bowl time and someone ordered up the Goodyear Blimp. But hey! You didn't spend the money, so what do you care if you end up as big as a house again? Not a bit. Nope. Don't care a bit.

Her parting plea for more free money really summed up how this woman looks at the world and what she feels that it is obligated to give to her. "I sometimes feel guilty about all the taxpayers' money that's been spent on me but I only want an extra £100 a month, that's all." I don't think that's guilt you're feeling. I think those are hunger pains. Oh, wait a minute. No they're not! Never mind, scratch that. But it still isn't guilt that you're feeling there, cupcake. (Mmmmm...cupcakes.)

That "extra £100 a month" that you want is (and pay attention here) SOMEONE ELSE'S MONEY! Someone else had to get up and go to work all day, every day whilst you sat at home in your flat which is heavily subsidized (sort of like you are!) and watched TV! Tell you what...you go out and find someone who works a full time job and then explain to them that you don't want to work but you do want them to give you £100 a month from their paycheck and see how well that goes over.

Talk about a 'Fail Whale'.

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A Little Diversity, A Lot of Coordination

Somehow, in the last post, whilst doing all the mentioning of Susan Boyle and how she came in second place in "Britain's Got Talent", I neglected to mention who she came in second place to. She finished runner-up to a group called Diversity. They do some dancing. And when I say "some dancing" it's about the same as if I had said the ocean is a little damp. These guys are pretty amazing. Granted, I can barely walk and chew gum at the same time, so I'm easily impressed at just the slightest hint of coordination. And these guys have plenty of it.

The video of their performance during the Finals of "Britain's Got Talent" is below. I know it says that it's like 5 minutes long, but really, the "little dance number" that they do is less than 2 minutes, just so you know. (Maybe you're pressed for time. I don't know! Just trying to be helpful. And also trying to give you at least some reason to take the time to watch it. If I'm going to be watching a YouTube video, I've come to the conclusion that I can easily commit to one minute. Two? Perhaps. Anything longer than two minutes and I'm going to need some convincing. There's a lot of crap out there and I don't need to waste my time watching it.)

Behold! Diversity!

What'd I tell ya? Not bad, eh? Holy smokes!

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Ramboyle? Hardly.

All rightee, time to weigh in on the short lived phenomenon that has been poorly nicknamed "The Hairy Angel" and, most recently but equally as stupid, "SuBo". Yes, I am talking (but only briefly, as that's all I can stand) about Susan Boyle.


If you have not been living under a rock (but it would have to be a rock without Wi-Fi because these days, anything is possible and I'm trying to create the illusion of isolation here) for the past couple of weeks, you know that Susan Boyle, aka SuBo, is the woman who went on "Britain's Got Talent" and for some reason, surprised the entire viewing audience and another 55,000,000 people who watched her performance on YouTube by singing a song from Les Miserables "I Dreamed A Dream". And it was beautiful. Sorry to be sappy, but she sounded incredible. And she was immediately branded the favorite to win "Britain's Got Talent." But then came the hubbub. First the hub. Then the bub.

Now, initially, the assessment of the amazement of the crowd at her singing ability was attributed to what Susan Boyle looked like. Apparently, there is a certain way that singers are supposed to look. I by that, I can only surmise that they are supposed to be young, perky and attractive. Susan Boyle is none of those. She's not particularly young (she's 47, which isn't over the hill or anything and I certainly wouldn't be reserving her a walker at the next shuffleboard tournament), she didn't appear to be perky (though her personality had plenty o'perk in it), and as far as attractive, well, I have seen worse. So while she wasn't drop dead gorgeous, it wasn't like anyone was running for eye bleach after seeing her.

And so I guess that everyone was so wow-ed and amazed by her because she looked the way that she did AND she could sing the way that she did. See, I didn't take it that way. When I first saw the clip, I didn't know if she was going to be good or if she was going to be horrible. I assumed that she was going to be horrible because here in the United States, it has become a favorite pastime of these talent based reality shows to highlight those contestants who are a) mildly mentally retarded, b) mentally ill and/or c) horrible performers and then mock them incessantly. (Most of the time it would seem that the contestant does not quite understand that they are actually being mocked incessantly, making it all the more pathetic.) I didn't assume that she was going to be horrible because she looked the way that she did. I assumed that she was going to be horrible because it was one of those things that I kept hearing that I had to watch on YouTube.

Once she became an "overnight sensation", that's when the tabloids did their thing. "Their thing" being constantly barrage the woman 24/7. Everywhere she went, someone was there. And they were watching her. And they usually had a camera. And they weren't always very complimentary toward her. Yes, shocking that tabloids didn't publish flattering commentary about her. I know! And if you've ever thought that you'd like to be famous, let me tell you this: You wouldn't like it. I"m sure that it's very novel for the first part of it. Whether that part be a day, a week, a month, or just an hour, I'm sure that at first, it's very, very cool. When you enter Phase Two, however, the novelty has worn off. It gets tiring having people watch you when you drive, when you walk, when you shop, when you eat, when you breathe, when you blink and whenever you do anything else. That's why whenever I hear of some celebrity (usually Sean Penn) beating the crap out of some paparazzi, my first thoughts are, "Yay! Did he kill him? I hope he killed him! Did he at least break his G-D camera?" And while I'm not saying that the paparazzi are despicable people, their profession most certainly is about as despicable as you can get.

When you go from a completely anonymous life to one where you have no anonymity at all, anywhere, your life becomes hell. And Susan Boyle felt that hell. Her hell became a reality when she came in second on "Britain's Got Talent" instead of winning as she was predicted world wide to do. (Sportsbook William Hill was giving her 11 to 10 odds to win. Yes. Sportsbooks were taking bets on who would be the winner of a reality show. William Hill must have cleaned up.) And I think that's when she wondered if all of the hell that she had gone through in the past couple of weeks had been worth it. And I think that's when she determined that, since she had lost, it wasn't worth it at all.


The poor woman cracked. According to The Telegraph "The 48 year-old had an "emotional breakdown" following Saturday's final in which she was runner-up, and went to the London clinic to get help." Now, whether or not "help" actually means "help" as in "psychiatric help", I don't know. I'm guessing that "help" meant time to herself where she could regain some sense of normalcy and not have everyone watching her every move every second of every live long day. The Telegraph " also reported that after the show was over, Susan Boyle, "...ran down a corridor shouting "I hate this show"." I don't blame her one bit.

But rather than the media (and I use that term loosely, as I am mainly referring to the tabloids and the paparazzi) acknowledge that they are a ruthless bunch of heathens who came close to ruining this woman's life with their 'round the clock invasion of her privacy, they are instead making sure that the stories that they run include a detail that was largely left out of all prior reports about her. That detail being something similar to: "The 48-year-old, who suffers from learning disabilities as a result of being starved of oxygen at birth...blah, blah, blah." So.....what? Are they saying that learning disabilities cause people to sing pitch perfect opera songs? No. Are they saying that learning disabilities cause people to break down from an unexpected and immediate load of stress to deal with? Nooooo. Oh. Wait! I've got it. Are they implying that "learning disability" is akin to "retarded"? Seems to be that way. Have you people no shame?

You're not going to hear about "the retarded woman who can really belt out a tune" now, are you? First of all, she's NOT retarded. Second of all, I hardly see what a learning disability has to do with one's ability to cope with stress. OH, that's right. It doesn't have anything to do with it. But just wait. Look around. Read the papers. Read the reports. See how many of them NOW mention this "learning disability". And of all the ones that do, go back and read previous reports that they put out and see how many times it was mentioned in those stories. You'll see what I mean.

I'm surprised someone hasn't cracked like this before. Seriously. I'm as surprised that someone hasn't cracked before now as I am surprised that Sean Penn hasn't killed a photographer with his bare hands before now. And while she may have wanted to be left alone, she almost certainly didn't want to be left alone because she lost.

In the end, I"m sure that she'll be fine. I certainly hope she ends up making some money off of this gig because there were plenty of other folks who made a ton of money off of her. She IS her! She should see some profit in the future. I would think. After all, on shows like these, take American Idol for example, it doesn't seem to matter if you come in first or not. As long as you can get yourself out there and make a name for yourself, even if you don't win the whole thing, you're going to do just fine as far as your career goes. And contrary to what the media wanted us to believe in the first place, it doesn't matter if you are not attractive if you want to have a chance at making it in some sort of performance art capability. I think I asked earlier, since when did we start requiring singers to be attractive? Have you SEEN some of the famous singers out there? This woman is an opera singer (Susan Boyle sang an opera song). Look at her! Behold!


Egads! What the hell is that?! Now, if she were the only one, I wouldn't have much of a point, but she's not. Hoo-boy, she sure is not. Keith Richards, ladies and gentlemen! Behold!

If there were ever a nuclear war and everything on the planet was attacked and destroyed, two things would survive. Bugs and Keith Richards. The man should have been dead in the 60s. At the latest! But he's certainly not an attractive fellow and seems to be doing just fine in the music business with his little band
The Rolling Stones.

Here's Tiny Tim

So, you're seeing my point about not needing to be attractive, yes? No? I'll keep going. Rick James!!
Shane McGowan of The Pogues!

Lemmy Kilminster of Motorhead!

Dee Snider of Twisted Sister!

Eddie van Halen of Van Halen!
There you have it. Proof that you don't have to be attractive to be able to sing. Proof that you shouldn't be amazed if you see a less than attractive person singing. Proof that win or lose, attractive or not, I think Susan Boyle is going to do just fine. Hopefully she'll be able to get a little peace and quiet back in her life for a while so that she'll be physically capable of pursuing a recording career which she seems more than aptly suited for. But even with all of this, do I think that people are going to change their judgmental ways? Hell. No. You know why? The guy who won in 2007 was a cell phone salesman who could sing at the very least as good as Susan Boyle does. A photo of Paul Potts is below. You tell me if you think people are going to change.

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Stop Saying That

OK, media folks. It's time to pipe down. It's not like there isn't anything out there to write about. But for some reason, if something is mildly interesting or intriguing once, the media interprets that to mean that the public wants 24 hour a day, 7 days a week, wall to wall, blanket coverage of the topic.

Quite frankly, we don't. It's not so much that we don't want to know about whatever it is. We do. Well, we did. We don't now. Some things become so overhyped and sensationalized that you can't read or listen to anything at all without hearing about it. That's when you get to the stage that I'm at. That would be the "STFU" stage, also known as the "If I have to listen to one more person talk about (blank) one more time, I might just have to punch that person in the face." And that very thought, quite literally, goes through my mind these days whenever I hear any of the following:

~ Twitter

~ Facebook

~ Somali Pirates

~ Torture (This can sometimes include waterboarding, but I just heard that Keith Olbermann offered Sean Hannity $1,000 for every second that he can stand being waterboarded. Now THAT I want to hear about because if there's anyone that deserves to be waterboarded, if for nothing other than just being annoying, it's Sean Hannity.)

~ Susan Boyle

Seriously, pipe down. I'm also quite over a few catch phrases which have worn out their welcome (if we ever welcomed them at all). Those would include:

~ "These troubled economic times."

~ Any comparison to the Great Depression

~ Homes that are "under water". (Since when wereneighborhoods turning into the lost city of Atlantis? Under water? I believe the term is "upside down". Morons.)

~ "It's the economy."

~ "From Wall Street to Main Street." (AAuuggghhh!!! I HATE that saying. And people are STILL saying it. Can you folks not think of anything else? They ARE paying you for that job, correct?

Actually, I'm SO over these catch phrases that I cringe and become nauseous when I hear a newscaster try out a new cliche that they are just hoping will catch on so that they can say it twenty seven times in each story. The one I recently heard uttered on NBC Nightly News? Econocide. Translation: Suicide because of the economy. I believe the reporter (translation: Hot chick with a low cut top and a smokin' hot rack) used it in the following manner: "Some therapists are calling it 'econocide'." No they aren't. They're not. Trust me. They didn't say that. Show me. Show me ONE therapist who calls killing yourself (because you're too big of a puss to tough out a recession) 'econocide'. I cannot imagine they could show me one, let alone one who would admit to it.

Back to the topics that need to be dropped from all news coverage immediately, the coverage of Twitter is out of control. I'm expecting it to start popping up on food labels any day now. ("Doritos! Now with Twitter!" "Frosted Flakes! They're not as GGGRRRRRREEEAT as Twitter!") The amusing part is that the majority of the articles about Twitter center on how people don't know what it is and don't know what to do with it. My question is: If that many people DON'T get it, is it really THAT popular? But what is amazing is how so many people are so narcissistic that they send Tweets about the mundane aspects of their existence with the authentic (mis)assumption that people they don't even know on the other side of the world are just thrilled that they just woke up from a nap and are going to have a Pop-Tart. When Oprah joined Twitter (and send out her first tweet in large, shout-y CAPS), that is the precise moment whenTwitter jumped the shark.

Facebook. Facebook is just a fancy Twitter. (Or maybe it's that Twitter is a plain Facebook. It's one of those.) Facebook has it's own jargon which I find just too damn cutesy to actually use. Oh, I'll use it mockingly when I'm not on Facebook (it helps to have a friend with as much disdain for some of this crap as you have. Then you can mock it together.), but I am unlikely to type on Facebook "Keep in FB touch!" Facebook is highly overrated and highly overpromoted. Facebook claims to have 200,000,000 'users'. And it well might have that many. But how many 'users' actually 'use' Facebook daily? I'm guessing it's no where near the 200,000,000 who have registered with Facebook. After all, only 650,000 voted for or against the new 'Terms of Service'. That's right around 3.25 percent of Facebookers (Facebookians? Facists?) cared enough to vote. Facebook's actual popularity is far below what everyone seems to make it out to be, so pipe down.

The Somali pirate story. It's 2009, right? Argh. And we're talking about pirates on the high seas? (What IS a high sea anyway? Is there a low sea?) Argh! How did this happen? Oh, right. The pirates are from Somali where their quality of life is comparable to that of 250 years ago when pirates were in their glory days. Argh! Actually, you didn't hear much about all of the pirating going on until the US became involve through taking a captain of a shipping vessel hostage. THEN it became a story. And it was pretty cool that the snipers were able to totally take out all three pirates holding the hostage with just three bullets. One for each. Of course then we had to hear from all of the people who thought that the US used unnecessary force and that we should have done something differently. The only comfort I have when I hear statements like that is that perhaps, if those sniper guys need some targets to practice on, they'll have plenty! So yo-ho-ho! Enough with the pirates, matey.

Does the US torture? Nope. Does the US do things to enemy combatants that are not the most pleasant? Yep. But that's not good enough for all of the softheads out there that keep wanting to make 'torture' an issue. Now, in what may be the most glaring instance of irony in the past 100 years, in order to help appease these softheads, the CIA is going to be 'more transparent'. :::blink::: :::blink::: Huh. OK. What could possibly go wrong? We might not torture, but we are certainly not going to not impose uncomfortable measures or circumstances for people that have information that we need. That's how it works. There are a lot of unpleasant things about war and the public is really better off not knowing about them in most instances. It's not because they're hiding anything, it's just because military life and the workings of the military is SO different from civilian life and it's workings that it's very difficult for people to completely wrap their head around the reasons why certain things are done. And it's the softheaded civilians who, because they don't understand the ways of the military, deem that it's torturous and that we're evil. It's not and neither are we. But just know this: The tactics and practices that are currently used in order to coerce information out of prisoners will continue to be used in the future...regardless as to what we're told. Just enjoy your safety and get on with things, will ya?

Susan Boyle. If I have to hear "I dreamed a dream from something gone something...." one more time, I'm going to go all van Gogh on myself and cut off my ears. What I'm totally and completely over is the Monday morning analysis of this woman and people's reaction to her ability to sing like a bushy eyebrowed angel. Nearly all of the conclusions from dissecting this event point toward the public being a superficial, narcissistic bully. Why else would people assume that, just because Susan Boyle wasn't an uberstunning, Victoria's Secret model, that she couldn't sing? I'll tell you why. It's because she was being showcased on 'Britain's Got Talent', that's why. When the tryouts for shows such as that one, American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, etc., are aired, what do we see 9 times out of 10? We see the whack jobs who think that they can sing. We see the disheveled, the mentally ill, the questionably functional, all inexplicably overconfident that they are going to be the next American Idol. Yet they're dressed as a chicken and holding a trumpet which then intend to play (thus rendering it incredibly difficult to sing, I would imagine). It's not that we are innately against the plain looking. It's that we've been conditioned to expect disaster during the tryout phases of these shows where the only requirement to try out is that you walk upright 75% of the time.

The Twitter and Facebook stories will be around for a while longer until either Twitter gets sold or Facebook goes public with stock. The pirates and the torture stories will die down soon enough, although the torture topic will come up when a bunch of pictures of said torture are released next month. (That will also do wonders for the moral of the country during these tough economic times!) But just when I though the Susan Boyle phenomenon was waning a bit, what happens? She goes off and gets a bloody makeover! Now I'm going to have to hear about what kind of clothes she was wearing for the next week and a half. Oh, right. Behold! Susan Boyle all made over! Yeah, that's nice and all. It's a definite improvement from before, but it isn't going to make her sing better or worse. It is going to make me get tired of the story rather quickly. Oh, look! I'm over it. Yep. Right then. Done.

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Non-Jobs Nonsense

In the midst of our new era of "change" in the US, unemployment rates are going up all across the country. Not exactly the kind of "change" that most people had in mind, but it's change none the less. Tomato, tom-ah-to, what are you gonna do? (See, that's why I like details. I like to know what I'm getting and I like to be clear about what I'm asking for. If you just ask for "change" you're opening yourself up to good "change" and to crappy "change". Guess which one we're working our way through right now?) But if we start doing things like they've done over there in Britain, I figure that we could have this whole unemployment thing resolved within weeks at the most! What could possibly go wrong if we started hiring people for jobs such as roller disco coaches, ceremonial sword bearers and the much in demand trampoline coaches. Wait. Those are jobs?

Correct. Not only are they jobs, they're jobs that folks get paid for! The Mail Online reports about an audit of local government positions which was done by the Sunday Times. The information about the various jobs was "obtained under freedom of information legislation" and the Sunday Times claims that it reveals several instances of jobs which "appear to be of questionable value." I like that phrasing. It's journalism's way of using a more polite way to say, "WTF is this?!"

I can believe that there are some positions which exist throughout any governmental system that are of questionable need, let alone value. But I think that I've always thought of it not so much as the job itself being of questionable value, rather than the person attempting to perform the job who is of definitive non-value. (I know that they didn't hire those 37 people at the DMV to just stand around and watch two other people do all of the work, yet that's always the scenario at every DMV across the country. It's like they're all practicing for when they get promoted to "Watching Paint Dry Supervisor" positions or something.) That is not the case in Britain. In Britain, it is most definitely the job.

Some of the local government positions that caught the attentive eyes of those at the Sunday Times were the likes of:

• Trampoline coaches ("Jump!" There. I qualify.)



• Skate park attendants ("Roll!" Qualified again! Man, I am good!)


• Flower arrangers (For the government?)


• A “befriending co-ordinator” (What? Like Facebook friending?)



• A £15-an-hour yoga instructor. ("Sit! Hum!" Yep, qualified.)
  

In Newcastle upon Tyne (for those of you in the US, I couldn't tell you if that's a city-state thing or some sort of a, um, provincial-region thing....orrr....I dunno what it means. But they're bad there! That's all I know! Very, very bad!) they have employed a "breastfeeding peer support co-ordinator” whose purpose in life is to "give mothers advice on how to feed." Huh. You'd think they'd want to offer that sort of advice to the individual who is doing the eating. I know it doesn't sound all that complicated, but they're babies. They're new. They don't know. But if you're just the feedbag, how hard is that to sit there with a breast all lopping out and looking delicious (to the baby! Looking delicious to the baby! Geez.). Doesn't sound hard enough that there needs to be a job to help that sort of thing along.

Also employed (and at the rate of £23,470 per year) is a “composting supervisor” whose job it is "...to run a facility that turns garden waste into compost." Um, doesn't garden waste turn itself into compost?

But that doesn't even come close to comparing to the "part-time sword bearer and mace bearer." Their jobs are "...to clear the way for David Wood, the mayor, on ceremonial occasions." Wow. Your own personal mace bearer. I have got to get me one of those! How cool would that be? Pretty cool! (By the way, the mayor also gets not one, not two, not three, but four, "four chauffeur-butlers, collectively paid more than £60,000 a year." A butler would be pretty cool too. I'd definitely name mine Jeeves. Absolutely. What? They already have names when they come to slave work for you?! I did not get that memo. Or, at least, that's what I'm telling my new butler, Stan Jeeves.

"Tewkesbury council in Gloucestershire (See my explanation for Newcastle upon Tyne for what that means.) deemed it necessary to appoint a “falls prevention fitness adviser”, primarily to help elderly people." Fitness adviser? To help elderly people to not fall down? Here's a tip: Knock off the fitness! They're elderly! It says so right there! Unless they're Jack LaLane, no fitness! They're frail and weak.

Angus in Scotland has an undefined "bouncy castle attendant” for the low, low yearly salary of £13,000. (Those blow-up things for children's parties or drunken adult barbecues?) Falkirk has a part-time “toothbrush assistant” whose job entails "teaching nursery children how to clean their teeth." (OK, wait. That one might be legit. I think I had two of those when I was growing up. One of them I called 'Mom' and the other one I called 'Dad'. They worked for free. Thank God.) There is also a “cheerleading development officer”.

If I lived in Glasgow, it wouldn't be for long. Especially after I found out about the taxpayer funded “street mediator” "to deal with children hanging around on street corners" at the cost of £17,000-a-year. Even if I stuck around with that, I'd definitely be packing my bags or looking for ways to be deported after learning of the career opportunities available for one as a “chewing gum removal labourer."

You'll find that those of Windsor & Maidenhead in Berkshire "cannot do without the services of a “roller disco coach” every Saturday night." "Tendring council in north Essex has recruited a part-time worker to compare tea dances at a leisure centre." (Really? So, like 'Dancing With the Stars'? Only without 'Stars'? Do they have to shout like that Bruno guy? That'd be fun to watch. I could see the entertainment value in that one. Other than that, I couldn't find a shred of usefulness if I tried.) And in Redditch council in Worcestershire you will find that they have "...put a Punch and Judy performer on the payroll as part of a programme of summer activities." (Punch and Judy, according to Wikipedia, which I'll grant can be written to say anything that anyone bloody wants it to say, describes Punch as "The stereotypical view of Punch casts him as a deformed, child-murdering, wife-beating psychopath who commits appalling acts of violence and cruelty upon all those around him and escapes with impunity; this is greatly enjoyed by small children.")

While I was rather appalled at this sort of thing seeming to be widespread across Britain, I'm not from there and I don't live there. However, I would have hoped that there would be some sort of comparable outrage to that which I would definitely have if I did live there. As it is now, I'm not so much filled with rage as much as I am fear that these non-jobs will start appearing more frequently in the US as a result of "change". But when I read the article on the Times Online, I was surprised at the comments. First of all, there were only 10 comments. And of the measly 10, 7 of them were in favor of the 'non-jobs' and staunchly defended them. The other three comments were not necessarily against this sort of thing, though. (One person simply wrote "I know a chap who was a toilet inspector." I had no idea whether or not to classify that as 'for' or 'against' asinine jobs that waste taxpayer money.) Click on over to a story about Susan Boyle and find 48 comments.

::: sigh :::

A spokesman for the Local Government Association justified these positions by stating: 'From lollipop ladies to street cleaners and librarians, town halls employ people that provide more than 800 vital services that many local residents rely on to get through the day." Yeah, how we'd all make it through the day without our "lollipop ladies" is beyond me. Seriously, does anyone really wonder about the fiscal mess that all levels of government seem to be struggling with? Is anyone at all perplexed as to how things came to be as they are? It seems pretty obvious, yet it continues. Odd. Well, good luck with this one, Britain. You're going to need it.

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