X Factor, Politics and Dieting

What no footie I hear you scream! Is that relief or sadness?? Well what can I do, we are on an international break and the only premiership news of note is that Gillette and Hicks are going to the high court to stop Liverpool being sold to NESV! So you can check out the latest on that at LiverpoolFC website. 

I have a question - what do the X factor, politics and Dieting have in common?  How many of you have been following my favourite car wreck TV programme the x factor? It has not been out of the news this week; in fact it has been on the front page of most tabloids all last week and today! Why oh why I am screaming? Well the main reason is because Ms Cheryl Tweedy Cole decided to choose not one but two substandard wannabe pop stars over the mightily talented Gamu Nghengu. Check out any of the gossip / newspaper websites for full details.

The relevance point here is spin. Cheryl Cole in her desire to stay in the role of the national darling has tried very hard to defend her blatant favouritism, with statements such as ‘I stand by my decision’; ‘my hands are tied’ meanwhile the juggernaut that is the British Media went on and on like Ariston?  The fanatical desire for the news by the British public knows no ending….the more I think about it the more I am becoming convinced that they invented the whole twist /wild card malarkey to save a bit of face for the show.  Either way there is a lot of deluding and delusion going on here…secondary question- how come Danni was not queried about her choices, they were a bit suspect too weren't  they?

Sir Phillip Green 

In politics today the revered Sir Philip Green ( pictured) has said in his report on how the Government spends money that we are wasteful and that no one in Whitehall knows how much travel costs. I am sure that he thought he was being nice when he said that the civil servants were not to blame but that we did no use our economies of scale in our buying solutions. He went on to say that we did not have a particular agency that we used to book hotels, cars, train tickets etc.   I vehemently state that is not strictly true, at least in my department we do have an agency that we use for booking such resources. As for knowing the costs, as I said to my beloved hubby, even Bloody British rail do not know the cost of their tickets so how the hell does he expect some civil servant to know?  

I do believe that Sir Green was called in to give some backing to his maties Georgie Osborne and David Cameron, to ensure that people know they are not making public spending issues up and add a little credence to the cuts being demanded in so doing attempting to disguise   the fact that Messrs Cameron and Osborne are taking a typically Tory one dimensional approach to dealing with the issue of public spending.

Spin is a deflecting tool; in relation to dieting... it’s the little untruths we tell ourselves in trying to console ourselves when we have put on weight. It’s the non-acknowledgement of the extra slice of bread we had at breakfast, the cake we had on colleague John Smith’s birthday that we did not record. It all adds up and somehow we convince ourselves that if we do not acknowledge it then we never ate it and then we can be genuinely surprised when we have put on weight, as we have deluded ourselves into believing we have followed our diet plan to the letter.  I think it’s a natural response and its hard work to over come this.

As for me I have put on a pound this week, and funnily enough it was this type of delusion was on the top of the conversation in class  with a reminder that we have to count our syns and weigh our healthy extras. My struggles this week were the extra slice of bread here and there, the desire for sweet things, going hungry whilst out on my errands! I must not forget the wine! It’s keeping these things under control they are a real issue as they serve to undermine all the good effort one has already put in.