Infidelity

I read the BBC's UK Love Map when researching for this blog post. The survey had 46,000 respondents and I was really surprised at some of the statistics that were shown.

1 in 5 married men admitted to cheating compared with 1 in 10 married women

The shocking thing about these statistics is the high percentage of married men who have had an affair. 43% of people in the survey were married which means that approximately 2000 men have admitted to having an affair compared with less than 1000 women.

Of course, women are clearly not innocent but it really bothers me that such a high percentage of married men admitted to cheating on their partners. I can sort of understand cheating in an uncommited relationship, but based on traditional family views, if someone is married they probably have children, a mortgage and so much more to lose.

Why is cheating acceptable, if there are so many people who would get hurt in the process of having a bit of fun?

Binge Drinking

"Teenagers are drinking an average of 44 bottles of wine or 177 pints of beer a year each, a study suggests."

Not a Sunday afternoon goes by, without Facebook being updated with quotes such as...

"I'm never drinking again!"

"Last night got a bit messy"

"OMG found John in a bush at 4am this morning!"

... referring to the night before.

Young people, and even those who are older, seem to do this every weekend. Drinking until the point they can't see anymore. The headlines are full of "Britains Binge Drinking Culture" and shocking statistics following, but nothing ever seems to change?

Alcohol isn't like other drugs, it's so easily accessed, meaning we think we can indulge that little bit more as we're not doing anything wrong.

Briony's Blog on "Kids"

Briony's blog put across alot of thoughts I had upon leaving The Lighthouse the day Kids was shown. When the film was being discussed at the beginning, I felt really apprehensive about watching it, not really knowing what to expect. By the end, I had so many thoughts on the subject I really should've written a blog about it when I got home.

I agree with Briony that for teenagers to watch Kids would be a good idea, as it completely deglamourises the entire lifestyle that was being practised. However, for parents to watch a film like this would potentially scare them as they may then believe that all teenagers do this kind of stuff to the extreme as it is depicted in the film.

At parts I was amused. as some of the things that happened reminded me of things my group of friends used to do when we were 15/16 hanging around in Birmingham City Centre every Saturday afternoon.
Dispite that, I found the end of the film really disturbing, but this is probably to do with the fact that the issues raised were all so taboo and to be raised so explicitly in a film was shocking.

I can understand why the film was banned, but ultimately all Kids was doing was portraying the truth of some of the sick things that do go on in society.

Gordon the moron?

I suppose this proves that even the people we're supposed to look up to the most behave in a manner that is considered to be "bad"! Of course politicians are criticized all the time in the media, sometimes seemingly for no reason. For this though, there is a very clear reason for everyone jumping on the "We hate Gordon Brown" bandwagon right in the middle of the election campaign. Everyone's done it though, accidentally sent a bitchy email to a co-worker and ended up with it going to the person being bitched about. Unfortunately for Gordon, Sky News got it all on tape! Oops!

Drugs - Legal highs?

The first time I became aware of "legal highs" was at Reading Festival in 2008. They were everywhere, all the stalls sold some form of these drugs and there was certainly no shortage of people queueing up to buy packets of the stuff to help them enjoy the festival that little bit more. It seems like if something is given the term "legal" people who would never do drugs decide to give it a try because the implication of that term is that they won't do you any harm. However, this idea has been challenged over the last few weeks. The legal high Methadrone has been in the news recently, after two teenagers died due to it's effects. Surely this means that although these drugs are not officially classified as being illegal or "bad" they still present the same problems?

Got ink?

I found this picture on a website discussing tattoos and other body modifications. It shows a "tattoo tester" kit that a student in America designed. This lead me to think, how many people get tattoos and then regret them? According to a story on http://www.ktar.com/ 50% of people have regrets about tattoos they have and will eventually decide to get them removed.

From these two stories, I think it's clear that tattoos are not something to rush into. I know of so many people who have woken up in the morning and decided "I'm going to get a tattoo today" and gone down to their local tattoo artist and chosen an flash art picture of something stupid like Betty Boop off the wall, a design that hundreds of other people probably have too, and later thought "WHY DID I DO THAT?!?"

It is my firm belief that tattoos are an art form, rather than being something to consider "bad". Although I do recognise that some people will choose to have awful things put on their bodies. Tattoos are a way to rebel, just the same as body piercings and the way we decide to dress. Except, in the case of tattoos, they are permanent and there's no cheap and easy way to change them.

... These are just a couple of my cravings.

"... when I don't smoke I scarcely feel as if I'm living. I don't feel as if I'm living unless I'm killing myself."

Russell Hoban, Turtle Diary, 1975

It's tedious and frankly looks a bit ridiculous, the smoke makes our clothes and our breath stink, we wheeze and cough, but yet we continue to indulge in this habit that will inevitably kill us.

"My name's Sarah, and I'm a social smoker,"

Now it's out in the open I can begin to discuss my varied and somewhat hypocritical view on smoking. Whether it was a case of rebellion that I smoked my first cigarette aged 14, I don't know. My boyfriend at the time smoked, and in my naive teenage head, this meant he was really cool. He had to light it for me, I didn't know how. I took one drag of the "Richmond Superking", my lungs didn't know what was happening and I coughed and spluttered for the next five minutes.

Smoking seems to be one of those things that at the time, we begin to do naively thinking that it won't take hold of us and become an addiction. Unfortunately, it happens and we're stuck in a vicious circle of smoking, trying to give up, failing, smoking, trying to give up and failing... again. I've seen friends who used to smoke occasionally when they'd had one too many to drink, turn into 20 a day smokers. I read somewhere a while ago, that smoking is more addictive than class A drugs, and I can believe that to an extent. Cigarettes are everywhere; they take pride of place in our local newsagents, parents smoke infront of their young children who then think that it's ok to smoke.

The smoking ban in 2007 has made conditions better in pubs and clubs, but there is still the issue of the numerous groups of people huddled over their cigarettes outside. Smoking seems to be one of those things that is never going to go away completely, no matter how much the Government try to promote ill health, and create new laws to decrease the exposure to non-smokers.

Let's get started then!

After yesterdays lecture I thought I'd set up my blog now, so maybe I'll get to go home a bit earlier on week three!

I enjoyed yesterdays lecture, dispite it being such a big room, I thought we would just sit there and be talked at for three hours, but I was pleased that there was some "audience participation" involved. Much more interesting than my other lectures! I'm really looking forward to the upcoming sessions! It's going to be pretty interesting to hear and discuss our opinions on the topic areas.

Not a clue on the week 12 activity, I'll keep my eyes peeled for something 'Bad'!