Women Wasting Water

The Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph, two newspapers that have long been seen to cater to the ignorant, misogynist, homophobic and “I’m-not-racist-but” population of the UK, have both published a story blaming women for a huge amount of water wastage on our little island.

“WOMEN WASTE 50 BILLION LITRES OF WATER SHAVING THEIR LEGS IN THE SHOWER” boom the headlines.

This has, unsurprisingly, sparked a bit of outrage from people with two brain cells to rub together. What, women of the Twittersphere have asked, do they want women to do? NOT shave their legs? Fantastic, I’ll gladly stop running mini knives across my skin – but then I run the risk of being called “prickly” as model Irina Shayk was in this idiotic article, for having the nerve to set foot outside her door unshaven. She is, after all, supposed to be a flawless coat-hanger.

If put in a less callous, stupid, Telegraph/Mail-esque way, they have a point.  Anyone shaving their legs should probably switch off the water and turn it back on for rinsing – my parents even insisted we do so while shampooing (they are quite militant when it comes to water usage.) Thames Water spokesman Simon Evans even made the point that the plea was not for women to stop shaving, but to do so in a “water-conscious” way.

But blaming women is ridiculous one-sided agenda pushing, probably from the same back catalogue of femi-sabotage that chose Sarah Palin as a representative of anyone with a vagina.

Question: has anyone calculated the number of litres of water wasted while men are pursuing their ‘activities’ in the shower? I think you know the activities to which I am referring. I searched for those figures – and bear in mind I have no idea how to delete my now bizarre Google history – and they are unavailable.  Somebody make THOSE calculations, if you please.

It seems unfair to report the figures of water-wastage in such gender-specific terms, given that a) not only women shave their legs; many male athletes and body-builders do as well, so as to be faster, more comfortable in physical therapy or to show off their muscle definition; and b) women are unequivocally expected to shave. It’s socially embarrassing not to. My chances of getting a promotion while visibly sporting leg frizz are exactly zilch, unless the executive title I’m coveting includes the word ‘Yeti’.

A man’s water-wasting activities don’t follow him around in a visible way throughout the day – I have to either shave or cover up, yet no one in their right mind would shame, embarrass, laugh at or snap photos of a man who clearly hasn’t had a wank that morning. That would be impolite.

However, as someone who turns the water off while brushing her teeth, shampooing her hair and jumps straight under the cold water and waits for it to warm up through gritted teeth, I see no harm in pointing out that everyone should do the same – whatever your shower activity.

But asking women to take the fall for the colossal water wastage on this island? Really?

Fine. We’ll take the blame – after all, it’s not as if men have ruled the world since the dawn of time, inventing factories, cars, air travel, unlimited running water and all manner of technology – indeed, invented pollution. It’s not as if global warming and energy wastage has been politically shelved time after time by the patriarchal political powers of the planet, ignoring and suppressing project after campaign after movement towards a greener existence.

It’s clearly your fault, ladies. Bow your heads in shame, you silky-smooth bitches.

On London (stupid London)

Shopping, tourists and weather. 3 things about London that can be fantastic or make you want to growl, like a dog, at other human beings. I personally growl under my breath whenever someone coughs in a contagious-sounding way, but no one ever hears. I am cautious when I growl, as I'm sure you are.

On English tourists in London: "Douches. They're not from London. I guarantee at the end of the day, those people will get on a COACH."

Yes this sounds snobby - and admittedly it came from a man who calls the bus the 'peasant wagon', but there's a pecking order with modes of transport within London. There just is. Tube trumps train, which both trump bus. Boris bikes and feet float somewhere to the side. Skating, skateboarding and pogo-sticking are more pass-times in which traveling from A to B is a practical bonus, and are just quirky enough to be cool. Below them are scooters - they are skateboards with handles, so less daring, but easier to arrive at work with all your skin still on your body. Nothing worse than a pool of blood collecting under a workmate's desk - it seems rude to point out, yet impossible to ignore.

And before you decide it's as simple as 'the more expensive the better', it's not at all the case. If after a day in London you were planning to cycle all the way back to Hertfordshire we'd say "Wow! Cycling all that way! That's impressive! People do that sort of thing for CHARITY!"

But coaches are the lowest of the low. People avert their eyes when they see people boarding one. A coach is like an unshaven fat load wearing a tube top. I don't know why. It's just a decision we've all made, collectively and silently, and we stick to it no matter what.

So please, come to our fair city. Take in the sights and sounds. But don't be loud and douchey, don't stop in the middle of a crowded bridge to adjust your balls - oh your suburban, insignificant balls, don't hold up a ticket queue by asking questions about the event you're seeing in less than 20 minutes - in short, don't act like you're getting on a coach.

On weather in London: "It's hot, then it's cold, then it's hot, then it's cold...and my balls can't take it" - Lewis Black

This is officially the shittest attempt at August I've ever experienced. It's been cold, rainy, and the only heat we've had was so unbearably humid it's led to me lying naked on my bed in a rage, wanting the rain back.

If winter is as inept at being winter as summer has been at being summer, I'll be having a Christmas barbeque - probably so unbearably humid it'll lead to me lying naked on my bed in a rage, wanting the rain back.

On shopping in London: "I don't want to be here anymore. I just growled at a child and people heard."

Mexico - Home Spicy Home

I lived in Mexico for two years. Two long, mouth-burning years. I had a job, an apartment, two relationships (not simultaneous), a gaggle of friends, and two languages clattering around my brain.

Now, after a year and a half of London life - the tube, rush hour, fast-paced culture and actually eating vegetables, I get to return to Mexico and see my friends, attend a Mexican wedding, have amazing coffee that was grown and farmed two metres away from me and see what those crazy cartels have been up to (we're not Facebook friends so it's hard to keep in touch).

Traveling - the worst part of travel
This is unnatural. I'm eating a sandwich in the sky.

Whenever I'm on a plane, I get the distinct feeling that Nature is looking the other way, and if she were to notice what we're doing, there would be a terrible shift in science. Humans aren't supposed to fly - if Nature notices, the spell will be broken and the thousand tons of steel, flesh and luggage would plummet, quite rightly, to the ground.

Advances in technology have made life so much safer - yet while cuts, scrapes and colds are no longer lethal, technology has created new and more exciting ways for us to die. In the days of Shakespeare and Columbus no one died falling from cloud level. But today, I might.
St Peter will say to me "How did you die, my child?"
"I got into a giant thousand ton steel bird and went up into the sky."
"Well, that was silly wasn't it? How did you THINK you would get away with it?"

Yes, I am a slightly nervous flier. Good sandwich though.

The First Cat-Call
Ah, home again. Not being able to finish a thought as you walk down the road because men in their cars feel it is imperative that you know they find you attractive.

The quintessential wolf-whistle and cry of "Mamacita!" keeps me informed, with no regard for the fact that I am trying to construct the perfect segue in my head - I'm trying to link a bit about bicep-flexing to a bit about Boris Johnson, dammit, stop whistling!

Never write comedy while walking along a Mexican high street.

Never walk past a car that has purposefully stopped in front of you either. When I lived in Mexico and was walking down my residential street - palm trees, birds chirping, lizards scuttling about - a car screeched to a stop in front of me. Thinking it was someone wanting directions, I glanced in as I reached it, and through the open window was greeted by a complete wanker. He was literally masturbating. Like a chimp at the zoo, in a baseball cap. I ran - as much to give him the privacy he should have wanted for himself as to distance myself from the emaciated nutter.

My boyfriend thought it was hilarious.

The Cartels
Fucked the place.

Bilingual Night Out
It's a magical thing, switching between languages, sometimes mid-sentence.
Three girlfriends and I, in a bar, doing muppets (tequila slammer, poured down your throat and then having your head shaken rapidly from side to side, usually blindfolded. Viva Mexico!)

With the pleasant dizzy drunkenness that comes wih this bizarre method of consumption, we catch up and chat and giggle, switching languages to our hearts' content. It is wonderful.

But that's all I can tell you. The weird thing about bilingual nights out is that you have a great time, but afterwards you have no stories. You can't go tell all your friends about the hilarious joke you heard about a chicken policeman because it will make no sense. You can't repeat the 'way she said it' because you're not sure which language was being used at the time and you might screw it up. Which would create that awkward 'guess you had to be there' silence, so you have to quickly add some lies to the story, but you're in such a flap that the thing you pick is some childish slapstick that is VERY much 'you had to be there', and they say "Oh my god, she fell on her face? Is she ok?" and you, not wanting to admit you screwed up, say "No, she lost four teeth and she's still getting spontaneous spurt-bleeds from her eyelid. It's gross.", and they say "How awful! I should go and visit her!" and you say "No you can't, she's also got swine flu and it's really contagious and life-threatening."

Now you have a dying friend, all because of this incessant language-switching.

Being bilingual sucks.

The Ex Boyfriend
Meeting up with an ex is always bad news. Is there anything worse than the awkward small talk reserved specifically for the people who've seen you naked? The who's-life-is-worse-off-without-the-other competitions? The not-so-subtle, sligtly desperate boasting about how lovely, funny and satisfying our new relationships are?

Luckily, there was none of that. There was, however, a lot of demanding to know why my current boyfriend didn't want to meet him.

Gentlemen readers, especially the terribly English ones, could you answer that one? Why don't you want to meet your girlfriend's ex? Your girlfriend's American, baseball-cap-wearing, dude-saying, Blink 1-8-2-loving, rollerblading, Angels and Demons-reading, thinking-pizza-was-invented-in-Chicago...ing, ex?

Back to London
This coffee sucks.

But at least I can say 'trousers' and 'bollocks' again.

The Chapman Brothers at The White Cube

"Chapman brothers" I typed. "Search".

Up popped "WELCUM TO OUR WEBSHITE"

I like these guys already.

The White Cube gallery (Hoxton Square and Mason's Yard) are currently exhibiting the work of this sibling collaboration, regularly referred to as the enfants terribles of Britart. Unsurprising really, given their systematic defacement of the works of Francisco Goya in 2003, and in 2008 "prettifying" Adolf Hitler's yawn-inducing landscapes with hippie stars, smilies and rainbows.

Researching their work, my vision was assaulted with images that both pleased and repulsed me. Thinking to myself "Oh look, that child is Pinocchio...oh wait, no...that's a penis nose", I made another espresso. I'm not going to be the idiot at the gallery thinking things are noses when they are in fact, penises. Oh no.

I resolve to count the penises when I arrive.

One thing was clear: these two had balls. Giant, don't-give-a-fuck balls, and they weren't afraid to use them. On their art, on other peoples' art, on journalists who ticked them off - these two will pelt anyone. (Except me. They're too busy to do an interview.)

So have the enfants terribles done it again? In a word, hell yes. I needed an extra word.

I arrive at White Cube, Hoxton Square to the announcement "White Cube is pleased to present a new exhibition by Jake or Dinos Chapman". For the past year, Jake and Dinos have 'collaborated' by creating art solo, only to be viewed by the other in the staging of the show. In a collaboration where, as Jake puts it, they are interested only in their "divergences", starkness and jarring is expected. One may argue the jarring is itself, their art.

The exhibition has my stomach lurching in minutes. Having tallied several penises in the first two, I am quite shocked to see a group of schoolchildren gathered in front of a painting. One of them can’t be older than four. I realize with a start that not only are they shudderingly lifelike mannequins, but in place of noses they have beaks, snouts or trunks, and sneers revealing animalistic teeth. The logo on their uniforms reads "They teach us nothing". This will be the title of Dinos's next publication to accompany the exhibition.

Upstairs, there is a small, dimly lit room decorated with religious statues and paintings, each one with a homely lamp at its side. At second glance, the faces of the Virgin Mary, the baby and adult Jesus are terrifying, with sharp, demonic tongues, bloodied tentacles protruding from the mouths, sores and wide, horrific eyes that follow you around the room. The paintings, which at first seem to be simply religious figures with skin conditions, have modern internet acronyms like "R.O.F.L" and "L.M.F.A.O" etched subtly into parts of the painting. I think of Dinos's words that I read only moments before, "Jake and I only make things that amuse us", and I picture the boys 'rofling' at their own irreverence.

It’s all I can do to race across town to Mason's Yard to see the rest of the exhibition, which turns out be the highlight of my weekend. After wandering among the painted cardboard sculptures, mainly enjoying the titles which ranged from the simple: "Weeping" and "Cell", to the humorous: "The stubber of toes" and "Somewhere between tennis elbow and wanker's cramp", I venture downstairs to be welcomed by a skinless Nazi.

Soldiers in Nazi uniforms with jet black skinless faces stand all over the room, with bright blue crazy eyes and the swastika on their armbands replaced by smiley faces. I would never have imagined a room full of Nazi soldiers could amuse me, but this crosses that ever-thinning line between shocking and hilarious. Two of the soldiers have their trousers pulled down to their knees and are joylessly bumming. (I know, the verb 'to bum' is wholly unpleasant, but I finally found a use for it. Go and see for yourself - those Nazi soldiers are not lovemaking or engaging in intercourse; they are unequivocally bumming.)

Another is looking, flabbergasted, at his arm, splattered with white paint. I hear a splash, and see a pigeon just sent a jet of crap straight onto him. It's wonderfully poignant and undeniably funny. Hitler is undoubtedly spinning in his grave, and I only wish that were part of the exhibition too.

In an adjacent room, a colourfully dressed mannequin with a KKK hood stands 'looking' at a painting of a war scene and crucifix torture, sporting a boner that would scare Jenna Jameson. As the Chapman brothers once proclaimed in mud, "We are artists", and when a boner that size makes such a political and moral statement, it cannot be challenged or denied. They are, indeed, artists.

This exhibition is visceral, shocking, horribly offensive and delightfully witty. Go, go, and go again. Take my Oyster card. My viewing of the exhibition complete, I leave White Cube smirking and noting the familiar art gallery sounds; the shuffling, the whispering, the rhythmic splatter of a pigeon shitting on a Nazi.

And in case anyone's interested - 19 penises.