Tuesday 19 January 2010

Haiti, Leona and self-absorption. Just another day on LLFF.

A couple of weeks ago, when Islamists were protesting in the town of Wootton Bassett, Newsarse, the brilliant satirical UK news website, posted a headline saying that all over the country, left-wing Guardian readers' heads were exploding because they couldn't find the correct stance on the matter - the conflict between a true commitment to freedom of speech, a desire not to write off all Muslims as violent wannabe bombers and a simultaneous and firm dislike of terrorism put us into a state of mental overdrive, whereupon we blew up. I'm going through a similar situation with cruise liners in Haiti. What's happened over there is utterly devastating, the piles of corpses stacking up outside the morgues is heartbreaking and the thought of such a turbulent country being kicked so conclusively in the nuts when it's already so weak is just mind-shattering. And now we read that hundreds of tourists are being shipped in to a port sixty miles away, where they are free to sunbathe, jetski and relax. The Guardian article points out that the boats and their passengers bring valuable money to the port in this time of urgent need, and one of the commentators rightly says that if there was a huge disaster in London, we wouldn't want tourists to stop going to Brighton. But there is something undeniably gross about holidaying so close to human agony. I know, I know, it's a pointless question of geography - would we give someone a hard time about going ahead with a planned holiday in Marbella while the earthquake is being cleaned up in Haiti? Probably not. So what does it matter if they happen to have booked near the site of a recent natural disaster? But, like sitting down next to a homeless person and tucking in to a Big Mac, it seems more than a little insensitive. The cruise ships justify it by giving 100% of their profits to the rescue efforts. How about giving the profits anyway but diverting the cruise somewhere else? I dunno. I'm only a born again liberal. I don't have the answers. I just feel a bit sick. I gave £100 to the relief effort this morning and my company, in a rare it's-good-to-work-for-a-City-bank moment, will double all its employees' donations. I'm not sure if any of it will get to where it's needed, but I can do nothing else. Please visit Unicef and donate, if you haven't already. I wouldn't normally mention the amount but I thought it might add gravitas. Yuck yuck yuck yuck yuck we're so lucky.

In other news, it appears that Leona Lewis forgot to remind her skivvies to iron her dress before the Golden Globes. Oops. Sure, there's the crushed silk look, I know about that, but what she's wearing isn't it. She looks like she did my usual trick of pulling the garment out of the washing machine, brushing it down firmly while it was still damp and hoping for the best. Instead, the thigh-height creases just draw attention to... the wrong places. Obviously if the girl had even a spectre of a personality I might be more forgiving, but as it is, I feel like I'm poking fun at a waxwork, which is not only fine but to be encouraged.

And finally, I am thrilled to confirm that the anti-biotic stint is working its way to a close. I'm off out tonight with Simon and I'm so excited about my first glass of cold white wine that I could weep. Given that we're seeing The Road first, I'll probably already be inconsolable, either with disappointment that it's not a patch on the book, or with genuine grief, the tears might be less hilarious hyperbole and more actually embarrassing. You'll read it here first.

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