You have the right to offend me

On one of the social networking sites where I hang out, they've introduced a "report abuse" feature for comments on posts. Yesterday I saw a post by someone trying to be helpful and to explain this new feature to others, saying they should report it if they see "naughty" comments, and later, when asked about what he had meant by that, he said he had used the word "naughty" to refer to "anything that a person would not like to see in a comment."

I'm seriously hoping he didn't really mean that. Taken literally, I could report his comment on that basis: I really would not like to see people suggesting that people should report others for saying things simply on the grounds that it's something they'd rather not see.

But this got me thinking: what would it be ok to report people for?

It's very easy to say: report comments which are racist, sexist, hateful. It's easy to say that, because this is what western culture currently says is unacceptable. Just as there were times when racism was the social norm, but blaspheming against God could get you burned at the stake. (Which seems to me a blasphemy against God, but that's another story.)

It's also very easy for me to say this because I'm a woman and I'm Jewish, so racism and sexism are serious issues for me personally.

But here's the problem: I want the freedom to express myself, to say what I think without someone forcing me to shut up. And this means I have to give that freedom also to those who would say things that offend me.

Sure, there are things I hear (or read) which offend me and personally I'd rather people didn't say. Like I said, I'm a woman and I'm Jewish, so I get offended by some stuff that objectifies women and I get offended by negative stereotyping of Jews; I'm an Israeli, so I get offended by some of the stuff I hear said about my country; I'm a follower of Jesus, so I get offended by anti-God stuff and by... hang on a minute, this is where it gets kind of interesting...

You see, as a follower of Jesus I get offended not just by vile things people say about Jesus or about his followers - as a follower of Jesus I get offended by unloving attitudes that people show towards one another, and I get particularly angry when these attitudes come from people who claim to be Christians. When I hear people spewing hatred towards a group of people and claiming to do so in the name of God, to me this is blasphemy.

But back to what I was saying before: there are things which offend me and personally I'd rather people didn't say them. But there's a major difference between saying "personally I'd rather you didn't" and saying "thou shalt not". You see, there are things I say that offend other people, and just as I don't want someone to force me to shut up, I don't want to force others to shut up either.

Some of those who read my posts over there may at this point say: so why did you yell so loudly about those boob pictures? and I will say again: there's a major difference between saying "personally I'd rather you didn't" and saying "thou shalt not" - I won't tell you not to, but just as you have the right to post things that offend me, I have the right to point out that they do offend me. And, once you know I'm offended, you might or might not change your behaviour as a result - it's up to you: there is no automatic "someone is offended by X, therefore I mustn't say X" - human discourse is such that as soon as we open our mouths we may offend someone somewhere, and we won't get very far with debate if causing offence would automatically make us shut up. I blog about my faith knowing that what I say is offensive to lots of people - being a Jewish believer in Jesus is something that some would prefer to sweep under the carpet and pretend there's no such thing. And saying that I believe Jesus is the only way to God - that is obviously offensive to people who believe in other ways. But this is what I strongly believe, and it's important to me to talk about it openly.

So, just as I value the freedom to say things that are offensive to others, I will fight for the right of others to say things that are offensive to me.

---

p.s. I do, however, reserve the right to moderate comments on my own posts - my focus here was on what people say on their own or on other people's posts (or what they say offline). Still, I don't often remove comments, it's not a decision I take lightly, and certainly not just on the grounds of the content being offensive to me personally.

Like-minded people? There's no such thing.

I've been exploring a new social networking site and getting to know new people. It's great fun. One day I stumbled upon a thread where, in the context of this SN site still being invitation-only, someone wondered if maybe it would be nicer if it stayed that way, so that he could keep interacting with like-minded people.

Like-minded people? Really? Is there such a thing?

It must be weeks since I saw that comment, but it has stayed on my mind. It has haunted me as I've been getting to know more people, people who are fun and interesting and inspiring and yes, we have some things in common but in other areas we are miles apart, and that's cool - that's part of the joy of human interaction, getting to hear different points of view, getting insights into how other people see things, getting to know someone who is - gasp! - of a different culture, different faith group, different political persuasion, different mentality... getting to know people with different preferences, people whose favourite colour is green when I really like pink, people who love eating stuff that I can't stand, people who are into different hobbies, different genres of literature, different tv programmes... Like-minded? yes, no, maybe... you normally start from something you have in common, yes, but then as you get to know a person you discover other aspects, you discover the differences, and if you're both grown-up about it, you can build friendships with people without having to pretend you agree about everything.

The thing is, there is no chance that I will ever find another human being on this earth who will agree with me about everything. I can find people who are like-minded in one sense or other, for example when I go to church I meet with people who share my faith so we are like-minded in one aspect, but that doesn't mean we can't find stuff that we see differently. People join all sorts of groups where they meet with people who share their political view or their love for a hobby or whatever, and if they keep to that subject they might be able to remain under the illusion that they are in the company of like-minded people, but once you scratch the surface you will find that there is no such thing as two thinking people who are of the same mind about everything. And whilst the like-mindedness may be the starting point, whilst it might be what draws you to start talking to someone, it's actually the differences that make it interesting to carry on. If all the other person ever said was "oh yes, me too" it would get boring.

There is sometimes a comfort in talking to people who you know agree with you about something in particular, when you're weary from debates it's quite nice to be able to retreat into a little huddle with a few friends and sigh together about those out there who "don't get it"... but living life like that all the time would be so vanilla... and anyway, it's impossible unless you switch your brain off and find others who have done the same.

No, we can't

Dear Mr Obama,

I'm an Israeli and, like the majority of Israelis, I have longed for peace for as long as I've lived. The idea that one day we'll be able to just live normal life without people getting killed when they're going to work or doing their shopping or sitting at a café - that is a dream we have been dreaming ever since the State of Israel came into being.

No, that's not true. We've been dreaming that dream for a lot longer. We dreamt that dream whilst being persecuted in a whole load of different countries - we got persecuted in one place so we packed our bags and went elsewhere, hoping that in that place we might be allowed to live in peace. We dreamt that dream when we started to go back to our land, and when Britain promised us a home on that land, and when the world - the League of Nations at the time - gave Britain a mandate to look after our land as a temporary measure and help make this dream happen.

Britain let us down. It took part of our land and gave it to the Arabs, so the territory available for that promised home shrank into a tiny little bit of land. I'm sure you've seen the map plenty of times and you know the size of Jordan as compared to the tiny size of Israel even including the disputed territories which we took back in 1967 and which you want us to now "give back" - as though we'd taken them from their rightful owners! Those disputed territories were never under Palestinian sovereignty - and I can't help wondering how come nobody seemed to contest Jordan's occupation of that area between 1949 and 1967. How come the world did not put pressure on Jordan to give that land to the Palestinians? How come the oil-rich Arab countries did not bother to rehouse these people and left them in refugee camps for almost twenty years?

But for some reason when Israel took it back (and yes, I say "took it back" because it was originally part of our land) the world's perception started to change, and now you are telling us we should go back to the so-called 1967 borders (they weren't borders, they were armistice lines, but that's another story) and I wonder:

Leaving aside for the moment the question of who has more right to that piece of land - because from where I'm looking, and many in my country see it that way, if giving up some of our land would earn us real peace then that's worth it - so leaving aside the question of whose land it really is anyway, here's my question:

What on earth makes you think that we will have peace if we give up those disputed territories and return to the so-called 1967 borders? We didn't have peace in the almost 20 years up to 1967 when the State of Israel existed within the 1949 armistice lines, and these disputed territories were under Jordanian rule. The Arabs kept attacking us during that time. What on earth makes you think that they'll stop attacking us now if we simply go back to how it was then?

There may be some Palestinians who promise they will and actually mean it. I don't know - I can't see inside other people's heads. But what I do know is that there are those who have declared openly that they have no intention of ever stopping as long as we are holding on to one shred of what they regard as "the whole of Palestine" and what we call the Land of Israel. As far as Hamas is concerned, even Tel Aviv is "occupied territory". They have shown absolutely zero inclination towards compromise. Do you really think that if we give them an inch they will not demand the whole mile?

I used to be young and naive and believed that if only we gave the Palestinians a land of their own, all would be well - we could get our dream, we could live side by side in peace and harmony. But looking at history, I can't back up that optimism. Looking at 1948, when the State of Israel was founded on the part of our land which the UN had decided to grant us - the UN had given the Palestinians part of the land, but they said no. They could have had an independent state all this time if they had really wanted to, but instead they chose to believe their Arab brothers who promised to wipe us off the map so that they could have the whole of the land to themselves. Thank God, that plan did not work out and we are alive to tell the tale. But the attempts to wipe us off the map have not ceased, and there is no sign that they're likely to ever stop until the day Jesus comes back and sorts the whole world out.

So in the meantime, we have to do what we can to survive. Because we have nowhere else to go. And without a realistic hope that halving our territory again would bring peace, I don't think we can afford to do that.

I said in the title "no, we can't" and of course it's a play on words, based on your own slogan. But seriously, what I mean is: no, we can't afford to do what you say; and also: no, we can't make peace happen, despite our deep desire and longing for it - not as long as there are people like Hamas around, who are intent on destroying us completely. We long for peace, and we have shown willingness to pay a price for it in terms of giving up land - but there are those who will not settle for just some land, they want it all, and they want us out of there. And we have nowhere else to go.

come back logic, all is forgiven

Again and again I see this stuff in blogs and in replies to blogs: people saying there's no such thing as absolute truth, there's what's true for you and what's true for me... and I find myself imagining this scene:

I'm in the supermarket, standing in the milk aisle, looking at the milk. I can see blue top milk and green top milk, I can see two-pint containers and four-pint containers and one-pint containers of milk.

A man standing next to me says: hey, you want to say it's milk - that's cool. if that's what makes you happy, you go on thinking it's milk. that's your truth. me - I see it as strawberry ice cream. that's my truth.

Another guy comes along and says: that's fine, that's your truth, as long as it makes you happy... to me this is the Eiffel Tower.

I want to know what drugs everybody has been taking.

And I sure hope what I bought in that 4-pint container this afternoon doesn't turn out to be strawberry ice cream, because it won't go that well with my muesli in the morning.

not fair?

So I open today's Times and unsurprisingly there's stuff in there about the World Cup, including even an editorial. The editorial got all philosophical and started musing about who should win the World Cup "if sport was fair, and championships were decided according to need rather than skill" - at which point I got into major quibbling mode.

I guess the question is how one defines fairness.

I can understand someone talking about, say, distribution of food in terms of it being fair to distribute it according to people's needs. Food is the first example that springs to my mind, but more generally this could apply to all sorts of things that are necessary and where there's a limited amount of stuff to go round. But championships? prizes? surely the only fair way of distributing those is according to skill shown through achievement, that's the whole point of prizes! The teams in the World Cup have been putting huge efforts into training and will be giving all they've got in the games, and the whole idea behind this is that the team that plays best will be awarded for playing best. That's their motivation - knowing that there is a reward for doing well. I fail to see anything unfair about that.

Slightly over the top, in my view!

There are Christians in some countries who go to prison for their faith. There are places where people are tortured and in some cases even killed just because they have chosen to become Christians. And in England a nurse has filed a claim for unfair dismissal because she was not allowed to wear a crucifix on a chain at work.

I'm sorry but I fail to feel the slightest bit of solidarity with this woman. As the tribunal chairman pointed out when he refused her claim, wearing a cross is not a requirement of the Christian faith. She was not, as far as I understand from this newspaper article, required to hide her faith - the hospital had even suggested she might pin her crucifix to her uniform! Their reason for asking her to remove it from the chain was because of a health & safety concern that patients might pull on it - ok, I think that's health & safety concerns going over the top, but to suggest that this is a case of religious discrimination is way off the mark. And to say, "This is a very bad day for Christianity" - sorry, but it seems to me that a sense of proportion is rather lacking there.

*sigh* Where does he get this from???

Apparently the current President of the USA thinks the message of the story of the Exodus is that "wherever we live, there is oppression to be fought and freedom to be won." He further said, "In retelling this story from generation to generation, we are reminded of our ongoing responsibility to fight against all forms of suffering and discrimination." [quoted from this newspaper article]

Now, don't get me wrong, I am not for one minute trying to say that there's anything wrong with fighting against suffering and oppression.

What irks me is the feeling that such an amazing and special story is being hijacked, being used to promote a message that simply is not there in the text. Last night we sat and told the story, and I'm sorry but whichever way I look at it, I do not see how it is about the responsibility of human beings to fight against suffering/oppression/whatever. It is not a story of a rebellion, of a human fight for freedom. It is the story of a bunch of people who were severely oppressed and were amazingly, spectacularly, miraculously, rescued by God himself!

I can certainly see more than one point in this story, more than one message. There is the message about God's faithfulness - he remembers his covenant with Abraham, Issac and Jacob and he comes to rescue his people. There is a message about God's almighty power, which could be paraphrased as: don't mess with God! If he's fighting for you, you're in a very safe place, but if he's fighting against you - you don't stand a chance. (This can be a bit uncomfortable for those who like to think of God as merely a cuddly daddy-type who invites you to sit on his lap and gives you presents and says "there, there" a lot.) And of course I see the theme of being saved through the blood of a faultless lamb - a theme which was pointing to what was then the future, to the coming of the Messiah who was to be sacrificed so that all may go free through his blood.

And it is because I see such important themes in this story that I got so cross when I read about Obama's interpretation. It devalues the whole thing. It takes a story of God's awesomeness and turns it into a speech about human values. Yes, these are good values - and I believe God does want to see everyone set free. But that's not what Passover is about - it's not about human beings fighting for freedom, it is about human beings receiving freedom, won by God himself and handed to them on a plate. For the Israelites at the time it was freedom from the Egyptians - won for them by God and all they had to do was accept it, by smearing the blood of the lamb on their doorposts. And the clues about what was then the future arrival of the Messiah - again, they are about God himself winning freedom for humankind (this time for all humankind, not just the Israelites), and all we have to do is accept the blood sacrifice of the faultless Lamb of God, the Messiah, Jesus.

Please, let's not confuse freedom fighters (commendable as they may be) with freedom-receivers.

Oh give thanks to the LORD.

Is it just me?

Like everyone else, I get these emails now and again - words of wisdom on pretty backgrounds, sometimes even a powerpoint presentation with beautiful music... but are these really words of wisdom? is it just me that picks the nits, that wants to edit before passing it on, and often doesn't pass it on?

is it just me that wonders: would these words seem so wise and profound if they didn't come with beautiful pictures? if this is really true, does it need to be packaged like this?

I'm not saying it's all wrong. Far from it - a lot of it is good and true. But I feel it's presented in a way that is meant to distract us from thinking about whether or not it's true. I feel the pictures and the music are there to lull us into a kind of passive listening and absorbing, unquestioning, unthinking. I feel we're being discouraged from thinking critically about what is on the screen in front of us, from weighing up the words and seeing for ourselves whether we agree with them or not.

And I feel even more strongly about the video being circulated now, titled "The Interview With God" - how dare anyone put words into God's mouth in this way? Yes, some of the words are good. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that most of them are true. But dressing it up as though God himself would say this - sorry, that's unbelievably presumptuous! and to suggest that when God is asked at the end of the interview what else he would like his children to know, that all God says is, "Just know that I am here. Always." - sorry, is that really it? God as our loving, gracious father who just smiles and wants us to know he's always here? Is this why he bothered to give us, for example, the Ten Commandments? Is this why there's all that stuff in the Bible about God's wrath, about the need to repent and turn to Jesus so we can escape God's just punishment? I'm sorry, I don't buy into this. It's nice, it's pretty, but it's not the whole picture. It's a sanitised and heavily-edited version of what the real interview would be like.

Okay, I've got it off my chest now.

Could we make murder legal too?

This morning's paper has an article calling for the legalisation of prostitution. "We will never eradicate prostitution," says the quote on the front page, "so let's make it legal."

According to this logic, I expect all crimes to be made legal - after all, we're not going to eradicate any of them, are we?

By the way, as far as I understand the laws in the UK do not criminalise prostitutes, they treat as a crime certain actions on the part of their clients (e.g. kerb crawling) and the people who live off their earnings. Which is as it should be - women who sell their bodies are harming no one but themselves, so I see no point in punishing them for it.

This article also seems to suggest that there's nothing wrong with paying for sex, that it doesn't do anybody any harm.

That would be true if we were animals, and sex for us was merely a physical act that has no emotional consequences.

Equality for women in the workplace - not quite as straightforward as some would like to think

There's been quite a bit in the papers here recently on the subject of women's equality in the workplace, including this interesting article in the Times a few days ago. As far as I understand, it all started when Nicola Brewer, chief executive of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, said that "improved" maternity leave legislation is actually making employers more hesitant about employing women.

Is that really surprising?

I think the campaign for women's equality started with good intentions but has been spoiled by a gradual erosion of common sense. There have been some issues that were certainly worth fighting for, and I'm very glad I live in a time and place where women have the right to vote, the right to own property and manage their own bank accounts, etc. And the principle of equal pay at work sounds good too, but...

When the government intervenes and says to the employer: you have to keep your employee on if she gets pregnant, and you have to give her 39 weeks' paid maternity leave - sorry, but how is that fair and equal? How is the employer supposed to fund these extra wages, when he still has to pay someone else at the same time to do the work that he's paying his female employee not to do? How are small businesses supposed to survive under such conditions?

It's putting employers in an impossible situation. The law says they're not allowed to prefer men to women when they're choosing staff. That sounds good - surely they should just hire whoever is best for the job. But the issue of paid maternity leave changes the arithmetic and we no longer have a level playing field. If an employer knows that when he hires a woman of childbearing age he risks having to pay extra every time she has a baby - well, it's going to make very clear economic sense to hire a man instead; unless he could pay the woman less, but oh no, we want equal pay.

It seems to me we've been trying to do what the Brits call having your cake and eating it. We demand to be treated equally, loudly asserting that of course we are just as capable as men are of doing the job (if not better in some cases). Treat us as you treat your male employees, we demand. But treat us differently when we have babies.

Sorry, but why on earth should they?

I'm not sure I have a solution, except that I'd like the legislation to get a bit more common sense mixed into it. I'd like to see a clear distinction made between sexual discrimination - treating someone differently just because she is a woman - and reasonable discrimination, which in fact is what people do all the time, applying common sense to choices they have to make. When I want to buy something I make choices about which shop to go to, when I need a plumber I make a choice about which one to call. If someone needs to hire staff, they make choices. If their choices are based on criteria that are relevant to the job, there shouldn't be a law telling them they're not allowed to. If the fact that I'm a woman of childbearing age is potentially relevant to my performance at work - which it is, as if I were suddenly to get pregnant and have a baby my performance can suddenly plummet from excellent to non-existent for a while and at that time my boss would be obliged by law to keep paying me (and guess what, even if you're not planning to have a baby, these don't always go according to plan) - now where was I? yes, if the fact that I'm a woman of childbearing age is potentially relevant to my performance at work, then my potential employer should be allowed to take that into consideration. He should be allowed to decide that he prefers a man for the job; or an older woman. He should be allowed to say: I'd like to take you on, but I'll pay you a bit less than I would pay a man, because I'm risking additional costs and inconvenience in case you get pregnant. He should be allowed to say these things without worrying about employment tribunals.

I'd like to see employment tribunals concerning themselves with real discrimination and real ill-treatment of employees by their employers. I'd like to see employers free to make reasonable choices that make sense. Equal pay for equal work - yes, that's an excellent principle, that is fair. But can we women guarantee that we will give our employers equal work? No, we can't. There is a small biological difference that we can't ignore.

And why should employers have to pay us when we take maternity leave? If the government thinks we should get paid, let the government fund such payment out of our taxes. I know there are countries where the government pays women to stay at home and look after their babies - I'd love to see that here. Being a mother is one of the most important jobs that exist, and as these days most households require more than one income to survive, I'd like to see the government recognise that and provide financial support for mothers who stay at home to perform this crucial job.

But demanding that employers cover it? Of course it puts them off hiring women. Employers are normally in the business of making a profit, they do their sums and if they don't do their sums they'll go under.

Or am I missing something?

Sorry it hurts, but it's for your own good, honest...

There was quite a bit in the Times on Friday about the latest figures for teenage abortions in Britain. One item was about a gynaecologist in London who clearly believes he is providing an important public service in providing abortions for young girls. "The girls I worry about," he says, "are the ones who don't come to us, and go on to have the baby. It is not in the interests of any child to have a 16-year-old mother."

Sorry it hurts, baby, but don't you see it makes sense?
You wouldn't want that sort of life
You're much better off if I get them to kill you now

You see, once you're out of my womb
it becomes illegal to kill you.

Just eat less calories - now why didn't I think of that!

Got into a debate elsewhere on the web and the subject of prejudice against "the obese" came up - and what prejudice there is out there! It seems that in a society that won't allow anything that might seem like you're possibly a teensy bit discriminating against people who sleep with those of their own gender (for example), anyone whose bmi is above a certain line is still considered fair game. And why? Because, as a guy called Andy on that thread pleasantly explained to me, the arithmetic is simple - eat less calories and you lose weight; eat more calories and you gain weight. Simple. So there's no reason why people should be overweight, and therefore - following Andy's logic - if I'm overweight it's my choice.

I'll just pause here to clarify some terminology. If you don't know what a BMI is when it's at home - lucky you... You probably don't have a weight problem. Those of us who have struggled with weight issues are more likely to have come across this term: Body Mass Index. I don't remember off the top of my head how it's calculated, but it represents a certain ratio between your weight and your height, and is supposed to measure you against the supposedly healthy standard. If you're on one area of the graph you're considered to weigh a healthy weight; a certain level above that you're considered overweight; go over that level and you're officially obese. Which is where I've been for a while now. And oh, how I hate this word! It just sounds horrible, doesn't it? And when people talk about "the obese" it just sounds yuk, you can feel the disapproval coming at you through that word. Somehow saying I'm fat doesn't feel so bad, don't know why.

But back to that brilliant piece of logic I was presented with, that showed that obviously being way overweight is my choice...

I have made many stupid choices in my life. The thing is that when you're presented with temptation, the price tag is usually hidden. When I chose to start smoking (aged 14ish, eager to become "grown-up") yes, I knew it wasn't healthy, but I had no idea how strong the addiction would be. I had no idea how difficult it would be to stop. About twenty years later I finally managed to kick that habit, but it certainly wasn't simple. Would I have made the same choice at 14 had I known what it was going to be like? Who knows. Anyway, I'm not here to talk about smoking, it was just an example of a bad choice I made.

Was there a particular moment along the way, a decisive point at which I made a choice that would affect my weight? You know, I don't think there was one. There was a gradual sliding that started when I was about 23 and the person I started going out with at the time decided that I needed feeding up. At the time I was thin - not horribly thin, not like current-day models, just nicely slim. I weighed 50 kilos (about 8 stone) which for my height (or should I say my shortness) is a good weight. I had always been slim, and had always been able to eat whatever I liked without putting any weight on. And I had always had a sweet tooth. I remember when I started working (my first job when I was 15) I had this Friday afternoon ritual, coming home from work (in Israel we finished early on a Friday) via the Elite chocolate shop. They sold chocolate by the weight, and I would get 250 grammes of this kind, 250 of that kind, etc (don't remember them all, but my favourite was definitely the chocolate-coated orange peel) and then I'd head home with the chocolates and the similarly heavy Saturday newspaper (yes, in Israel the Saturday paper comes out on Friday, we just don't have a newspaper on the Sabbath) and after lunch I'd lie on my bed, reading the paper and munching through chocolate.

And I didn't gain one kilo as a result.

And no, I was not using up tons of energy through exercise. I wasn't even doing housework! I was sitting on a bus all the way to work, sitting at my desk at work, then sitting on the bus all the way home. A completely sedentary lifestyle, with absolutely zero physical exercise. Eating whatever I felt like, and staying thin.

Until age 23, when suddenly the magic spell was broken and the food I ate started actually making a difference to my size. I was extremely surprised to suddenly find that I had gained 5 kilos. I was totally new to the world of weight-gain, diets were a foreign subject to me, and in the years to come I was to learn a lot about this subject! I was to learn how absolutely climbing-up-the-wall depressed and/or ratty some diets can make you. I was to learn how infuriatingly-easily the weight creeps back up once you stop whatever diet you put so much effort into. I was to learn how hard it becomes to find nice clothes that actually fit you and flatter your figure once you've crossed a certain line. I was to learn how much harder physical exercise becomes once there's more of you to shift when you move. I was to learn how your body resents the extra weight you're putting on it and expresses its resentment through all sorts of creaks of the joints, all sorts of aches and pains that sometimes make you feel like you're your mum's age.

And I was to learn how infuriatingly smug some people can be who have never experienced any of this.

This is just a bit of my own story. Obviously there are people whose situation is even more difficult than mine. Obviously there are those who have medical conditions that affect their weight, or who take medication that affects it. (I was put on steroids once and blew up like a balloon!) There are those like my next-door neighbour who is in a wheelchair and simply can't do any exercise. But I reckon there are plenty of people out there with stories similar to mine, people who suddenly found at some stage that their metabolism changed and the eating habits they'd grown up with were not serving them well now, but suddenly changing your eating habits as an adult is not that easy - partly because generally changing habits isn't easy, partly because there are so many different theories coming at you from different directions that it can be very confusing.

I have tried counting calories, and yes, I did lose weight through that, but could I carry on doing that for life - weighing everything you eat, keeping a daily record of exactly how many calories you have consumed? No, I'm afraid that was only doable for a short time, for a few months of pushing myself really hard. And many other diets are just not healthy as a long-term plan.

My brother recently introduced me to the concept of the low-carb diet, which I do find much easier than others I've tried in the past. I like meat, so eating lots of meat is no hardship for me... The great difficulty is resisting my sweet tooth, and I have ups and downs on that front, which translate pretty directly into ups and downs weight-wise - so yes, it does work: focusing on eating lots of protein + fat, filling up on that so that you won't need the carbs - to my surprise I found it does work. But there is still that bit in a corner of my mind that equates sweets with a treat, which is a problem.

So here I am, I weigh 76.5 kilos, which makes my bmi 32.5, and apparently if it's over 30 you're officially obese. I never chose to become overweight. It happened, and fighting it once it's happened is actually very very difficult. If it was really as simple as people like Andy reckon, we wouldn't have such a huge diet industry. And seriously, Andy, putting aside the fact that I would love to once again just stroll into any shop and buy nice clothes, do you really think I enjoy the discomfort of having to lug so much weight around? Don't you think if it was so simple to lose weight, I'd have done it by now?

How does the supermarket know I'm so special...

It's still a couple of weeks till my birthday but I got a birthday greeting in the post today. From my supermarket. So very touching... sorry if I sound a bit cynical, but really, it's nice of them to offer me a free box of chocolates (though in some ways it's the last thing I need...) but what narks me is the sentimental gibberish they put on the card: "Because you're really special, we'd like to make a fuss, by treating you to something sweet, especially on us." Well, really, I wouldn't have appreciated such twee mock-poetry from a friend, but from my supermarket? In what way exactly am I special to them? Do they particularly value the way I wheel my trolley round their aisles? Do they admire my own special way of choosing carrots?

But this is nothing compared to the pharmacy chain with whom I also hold one of those so-called loyalty cards (do they really think they can buy my loyalty by giving me one penny back on every pound I spend? I'm not that cheap!) - I hardly ever shop there, but I still get these ridiculous leaflets in the post with all sorts of money-off vouchers (usually for stuff that I have no interest in buying) which they claim to send me especially "as a valued customer". I look at those and think: aren't you confusing me with someone else? someone who actually spends more than the odd five pounds once in a blue moon when she's sort of stuck? I know for a fact that there are women out there who spend a small fortune regularly on make-up etc, so their "valued customer" threshold seems a bit low.

Thank God I don't need these corporations to give me a sense of value and of being special.

"Be who you want to be" - oh, really?

I saw this advert in the Times today about training to be a Life Coach.

It says: "Coaching starts from the awareness that you can be, do and have anything you desire!"

Does anyone seriously believe this?!!! I mean, how is this going to work? Can I become six foot tall just by really really wanting to? Can my 89-year-old mother start playing tennis if she really sets her heart on it? Can my wheelchair-bound neighbour start walking by sheer willpower and determination?

Bring back logical thinking! Now!!!

Loyalty? You've got to be joking!

I got a new so-called loyalty card in the post today. You know the cards I mean? The ones that give you points for shopping at a particular supermarket, or for spending your money at some other retailer that's part of the same set-up. They call them loyalty cards - at least here in the UK - because the idea is that the points are their way of thanking you for your loyalty to their retail chain. Well, really... Does anyone take this seriously? Does anyone really have a sense of loyalty to a supermarket chain?! How many loyalty cards has the average Brit got in their purse/wallet? I'm not so bad, I've got two... no, three actually, two supermarket chains and one rather well-known chain of pharmacies which does not need my free advertising. So, does this mean I feel more loyal to these chains? or that I would shop there deliberately in order to earn points? That would just be pathetic - at least, I would feel pathetic if I caught myself doing that, making a choice as to where to do my shopping based on their generosity in point allocation.

And the generosity is, of course, exaggerated. Not that they promise more than they give - it's just the way they phrase things. When you're promised an extra 250 points if you spend such-and-such by a certain date, it sounds good, doesn't it? Two hundred and fifty sounds like a lot, unless you do the maths and remind yourself that actually one point is worth one penny, so we're talking about £2.50, which is not really worth the extra purchase, is it?

One thing I'm pleased about though is that some of the chains have started offering key fobs - little tags that you can hang on your keyring and use if you are shopping and haven't got your loyalty card with you. Not that I want to hang this collection of supermarket advertisements on my keyring, but I do have two separate purses I use - one for my own spending money and one for the housekeeping (yes, I know how this sounds, but it is so much easier keeping to a budget this way) so obviously the loyalty cards live in the housekeeping purse, but I don't necessarily have it with me when I'm filling up with petrol. So what they call key fobs I'm using as spare cards - they will not dangle on my keyring, but they will sit snugly in my other purse and come out when required. It's a small thing maybe, but it's nice to feel that in some way you're beating the system...