Nobody likes being lied to do they ? It's sly and sneaky and the liar must be a horrible person right ?
Err no , not always .
Don't get me wrong , truth is a good thing and on the whole I don't like to lie , it isn't nice but occasionally there are times when it is better to bend the truth a little bit
Scenario one:
Wife: "Does this dress look okay on me , do I look fat honey ?"
Should the loving Husband answer
A: "Well Darling it does look a bit tight around the bum , perhaps you shouldn't have eaten that slice of cake yesterday or next time buy a larger size ."
Or B: " You look gorgeous as usual Darling , now lets go , our taxi is here"
Scenario two
A small child has just finished 7th in a school sports day race out of 9 kids.
Child : "Mummy , did you see me , was I okay ? "
Does Mummy say
A: " Lets be honest , you were poor ,weren't you , it's a good job that your Dad isn't here , he would be so ashamed of that performance"
Or B: " Darling , well done , did you enjoy yourself? "
Scenario three
Your best friend has a new man who you're not that keen on
Friend: " He's gorgeous isn't he , I really think he might be the one , we're talking about going to Ibiza together in August"
Do you say :
A: " Are you serious , he's a total sleaze , the minute you get to Ibiza he will be off shagging anything he can, get rid babes."
Or B: " Aww that's nice Honey , take it easy though , you've only just met him "
If you answered A to these scenarios then I think you might have a death wish , you would end up with -
1: A wife who refuses to go anywhere with you , is in floods of tears and thinks you are a total pig who is never ever getting near her in bed again
2: A child in tears who loses a bit of confidence and probably won't go on to achieve much in the way of sport ever again for fear of being humiliated.
3: No friends
So it IS a good thing to lie sometimes , or maybe we should just call it tact and knowing the difference between the two is the main point !! xxx
" I have a rubbish phone , it just about does Twitter , and that's fine.
Sometimes , darn it sucks.
A pic , a blog or that feeling you're not supporting a person , a petition, a good cause.
Is my lack of technology making me less of a human , am I becoming less ?
I like my silly phone , it has good people inside it. It only cost £12 , good deal , just hope I don't come across as not caring "
Anyone who knows the person who sent me this message would be in absolutely no doubt. He cares , he cares big time, in fact maybe sometimes he cares too much if that's possible.
But how can he show it without adequate access to the internet , should he spend money he hasn't got on a new phone , laptop or tablet , just so he can support those he cares about ?
In today's society it's all about an online presence . Every shop , tv advert or programme has a link to somewhere online so it is easy to see how people without this access can feel left out.
But I really don't feel that caring people should be made to feel less of a person , just because they can't re-tweet , read a blog or comment on something.
While technology is a good thing it can be negative as well and we must all be careful that it doesn't turn us into automated versions of ourselves 'favouriting' and 'liking' everything in sight , signing things we actually have no feelings for and going through the motions.
It is much better to think and care in the real world than pretend to care online xxx
This blog post will be a bit more serious than some others, not my usual joking style but it is a post that I believe needs to be written and read.
As usual I will not name any names in respect of privacy but this situation is happening to too many people right up and down the country and something needs to be done.
We all know that marriages break up everyday for a million different reasons , sometimes there is blame and sometimes it's just life getting in the way . 2 adults make the decision to go their separate ways and try to get on with their lives. So far ,so amicable , yes ?
Well no .It is not always just between 2 people , there are often children involved , young children who have no idea why Daddy isn't there to read a bedtime story or play horsey in the garden , older children , battling with their own teenage hormones , having to split their time between 2 homes , taking sides.
I have a good friend , his marriage broke down through no fault of his own and sadly ,but not unusually , his young Daughter stayed with her Mother.
Being a fair man and wanting the best for his Daughter he has no problem with paying to support her , although having 25% of his annual income and 25% of his disability tax credit means he has only £9500 a year to live on.In contrast his ex wife (the instigator of the separation) earns over £45k a year but still she has entitlement to child maintenance payments and would still do even if her income doubled overnight.
His main problem is connected to access.
For a long while his ex refused to let him see his Daughter , even though he has never done anything wrong , has never , ever been anything other than a loving Daddy , who before the marriage split was the major care giver in his little girls life , she was definately a Daddies girl.
The first step in gaining access is via mediation which my friend complied with but unfortunately his ex wife got agitated by this and refused to do more than one session.
So the next step was preparing a court application but before he could do this she decided that she would 'allow' access via the contact centre.
Again though this process is weighted in favour of the Mother (or resident parent) as the parent wanting access has to pay £53 per hour to the contact centre , which hardly seems fair in no fault cases. I can understand this if the Father has been aggressive or has to be supervised strictly with his children but in my friends case this is not so.
He is supposed to have access at the contact centre every 2 weeks and for a little while this was going well , he was reconnecting very well with his daughter who was enjoying having her Daddy back in her life.
But then his ex wife decided to make things a bit more difficult again . She claimed that it would not be at all possible for her to make the agreed contact meetings so he will not get to see his daughter for 6 weeks.
Okay if she has to work that is fair enough , but there are Grandparents who collect her from nursery and provide care to her but apparently are not capable of delivering her to a pre-arranged meeting with her Daddy.
Given that she is being seen to be complying over all with the arrangements there is nothing my friend can do to get help to see his daughter.This hardly seems fair , she is controlling the entire situation and the Father is left helpless.
One workable solution would be that in cases where access arrangements are not being met satisfactorily then support payments should be held until such time as they are.They could be held onto by the CSA in a fund and when it is proved that the 'Resident Parent' is fully compliant with the access , only then will full payment be made.
This will ensure that parents are not able to use their children as weapons against their former partners or they will lose out monetarily. The supporting parent would still be making the payments as usual , there is no question of that not happening.
If you have a moment please could you sign this petition to help Non resident parents to get to see their children whether they are Mothers or Fathers. Thankyou very much xxx
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/49800
I have been asked quite a bit "why are you doing a survey about porn?" and there really is a simple answer .
No I'm not entering the adult industry myself , no I'm not some kind of perv who wants to find out everyones porn secrets .
It is all in relation to an earlier blog post that I wrote 'Don't Judge A Book' where I said that I had formed an early opinion of a man who , as well as other things, works as a porn performer which turned out (for me) to be a wrong opinion.
I had a few responses to this blog , but what surprised me was the reaction from several men. The general feeling was that I should not be turning a porn actor into a 'hero figure', that the porn industry was morally wrong and degrading to women and that by writing in support of a porn performer I was somehow doing something wrong.
The reaction from women was somewhat different , call them shallow but 'lovely bum' was the most used phrase and not one had a problem with the post.
So obviously I had to find out if these responses were typical over a wider selection of people and so the survey was created.
I don't want this blog post to be a list of percentages and statistics but if I lapse into that you will shut me up won't you ?!
It is in no way scientific and I literally only had 50 responses but I was pleased that both genders and a wide range of ages took part.There were slightly more women than men respondents 27/23 and the largest age group taking part were the 35-44 year olds but 18 -24 year olds and 65-74 year olds all played their part too.
First of all when looking at results they seemed to confirm my initial thoughts that men were becoming more conservative with regards to porn , but as more people responded I found that this wasn't actually the case , it is still predominantly men watching porn.
The response from women who said they didn't watch was mainly that it did nothing for them , maybe as most porn is still marketed by men for men and probably will continue to be so. Nobody was opposed to it for religious reasons and neither was degradation of men a problem for anyone.
One one person , who was a man , was morally opposed to it and felt that it was degrading to women although one woman did feel it was degrading but reasoned that nobody is forcing the actors or actresses to do it although better regulations and health benefits would improve the image of the industry.
Practicalities came into play as well , with children in the house , the watching of porn is a bit more risky even if it had been watched before they came along.
Porn still seems to be a solitary hobby with the huge majority watching by themselves , only 4 people watched with their partner as foreplay to their sex lives and nobody watched with friends despite what American 'Frat' movies will have you believe.
Frequency differed as well with only 3 people (all male , wide age range) watching daily , while the females mainly watched monthly , which may have something to do with their menstrual cycle, or when the mood took them which was the biggest response.
Most people started to watch porn from aged 18-24 although 3 people said it was earlier than this with one man , who works in an isolated male dominated environment, saying he watched from 15 as 'it has always just been a part of life'.
The internet is the main source of todays porn and unsurprisingly the majority of people access it totally for free.
Combining internet access with young viewing ages as well as free availability is a problem , and definitely , parents need to exercise caution with what their children are able to watch online, this is a problem that I can only see getting worse and it is a worry.
Porn was said by a few people to be 'unrealistic' , 'hilarious' and 'greasy' so maybe it is an idea for porn producers to make porn for young people that shows them what sex is really like.
If they are going to watch it anyway they might as well see that sex is not all perfect bodies , huge genitals , plastic breasts and multiple orgasms in hundreds of different positions. It can be awkward , messy and routine with people of all shapes and sizes doing it on a daily basis , although would this sell ? Who knows.
Overwhelmingly the general opinion was that people can choose to watch if they want to , they are not being forced to watch and it isn't doing any harm and most people had no real strong feelings about the industry as a whole.
So there we have it , while some men are opposed to certain aspects of porn , they are still the majority watchers and apart from the internet as the main source , things are pretty much the same as they have always been and probably will continue to be. xxx
"Soft toys on the bed - You've pulled a sexy stud / he's heading home with a saucy seductress, you open the bedroom door and realise you'll be sharing a night of passion with a bunch of care bears. Let's face it, it's hard to perform when you've got an audience and you keep getting prodded by furry paws"
Cosmopolitan , top 10 sex peeves
I read a tweet a few weeks ago which backed up this , apparently soft toys and books in the bedroom are total turn offs.
I can understand the soft toys a bit , I mean getting ready for passion with several pairs of fixed glassy eyes staring at you can't be a great thing. If you have to move Fluffy , Mr Bear , Bunnykins , Yogi , Dave and Bobo from the bed before you can actually get in then I think you might have a problem but then the same applies to cushions.
Personally I have 2 fluffy cows on the bed , but one of them belongs to my cat , actually wait a minute , that doesn't sound any better does it !!!
The books I really don't get , why should some books on a shelf be a problem and yes here I am totally guilty , although most of mine are hidden behind cupboard doors.
Surely books are a sign of intelligence not a turn off . Although maybe the subject matter is the real problem
If a man is confronted by a shelf full of '50 Shades' type books he might get a bit of performance anxiety, or Mills & Boon books may have him running for the hills faster than you can say 'Marry me and be mine forever'.But a selection of books by different authors on different subjects cannot be bad.
More of a turn off would be a 50 inch tv on the bedroom wall with the play station , still warm , only just switched off nearby or the remote control within reaching distance , just ready to resume watching 'Road Wars' or 'Dog The Bounty Hunter', the naked calendar on the wall by the bed , who wants to look at perfect specimens of humans while wobbly bits are wobbling ?
So if you are planning on a night of fun , have a quick look around your bedroom before and maybe hide the bear in the cupboard along with Mr Grey !! xxx
