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In the interests of avoiding any over-heated arguments, I deleted my last blog post (which was a fairly long one about a new young pop-star being held to task by a cultural commentator in a newspaper for an ill-thought out remark made in an earlier interview, which could be construed as her condoning something despicable). My post said that there are plenty of rash, dumb things I’ve said when I was young that I wouldn’t want to be held to account on, and that I’d cut her some slack assuming she didn’t really think through the likely interpretation of what she was saying…unlike, say, Morrissey, a 50-year-old man who continually makes provocative comments when he has been in the public eye for more than long enough to know better. * Well, it was longer and more specific than that but that’s the jist of it.

The journalist who wrote the piece rebuking the star has since followed up on the comments thread saying that she puts the remark down to youthful bravado and victim-complex, and has no wish to see this woman villified in the long run, but strongly felt that she needed to be reprimanded for what she said. She said she hopes that she will look back on it in the future and regret it. All of which I agree with, though it did make me wonder why the star wasn’t challenged over her comments during the original interview. From a journalistic point of view, if I was interviewing the flavour of the month and they suddenly came out with a contentious socio-political statement heavy on the “WTF?” factor, I would first and foremost take them up on what they said…partly because it is a journalist’s responsibility to challenge controversial or incoherent remarks on the spot, and partly to avoid accusations of mispresenting someone’s views. Just a simple: “When you say ‘……..’ it sounds like you mean ‘…….’. Is that the case?” will do, giving them a chance either to backtrack and think it through properly, or, if they’re truly idiotic, dig themselves deeper and deeper into a hole. If you like, a Get Out of Jail card for essentially alright people who might say vile-sounding things in the heat of the moment, and a red rag for bona-fide stonking idiots.

In other news: heatwaves are a trade off in the manner of SSRI medication. Hideous sweating * and various TMI side effects we won’t venture into, in exchange for a general lifting of mood and optimism at the world. I’m off to a Greek island for a week in early August and I very much hope this isn’t the last summer sun I see before then. I am also off to London Pride on Saturday, of which more tomorrow….

* Memo to Morrissey: Rather than complain about the supposed media conspiracy against you, the best way to prevent people from thinking you're a racist (or anything you don't want to be wrongly perceived as) is to stop repeating to the media the comments that are making people think you're a racist (or anything you don't want to be wrongly perceived as). Strangely enough....

* I have have started using an iontophoresis machine again, which is for the treatment of excessive sweating. Seductive-looking it aint but it is a small price to pay for being unable to touch anyone or anything because your hands are literally soaking

Yesterday I was out enjoying the lunchtime sun with some of my friends from the other side of the office, and having the sort of random, stream-of-consciousness conversations that bored mid-20something employees have in the park on lunch breaks. C., my best friend at work (who has a degree in Russian) observed that you can buy chocolate busts of Lenin in Russia, which somehow jogged my memory that Magda shares her full stage name with a Californian chocolate company. * This in turn led to a discussion of “Which foods would each of us be named after?”
C. said she could see me having a sushi line named after me. Not, apparently, because I smell of fish and have an unusual name, but because I’m “hip, cool * and a bit different”.
I promptly blew any conceiveable veneer of cool by being rendered speechless for about five seconds before gushing like a centre-court fangirl impersonating the winner’s speech.

[Yes, yes, I know I'm supposed to be writing something more meaningful about the last fortnight in here, but my general rule is that as soon as blogging becomes a chore I take a break from it, so I have. This of course only creates more backlog and forces me to prioritise my writing, which I generally do wrongly, but there we are. Until next time, if you want someone really cool, have some La Roux. And read my friend's review of the album while you're about it....]

* In '01, the first Christmas Magda and I knew each other, I went through the convoluted process of getting a gift box of said chocolates shipped from America as a present to her, via a friend's cousin's address in Los Angeles. In the 90s and early-00s days before search engines were intelligent, doing searches on Magda's name brought up nothing but a ton of pages about the bloody chocolates of her namesake, so I think part of it was just putting the knowledge to some use. She was suitably chuffed with them and I think it's still up there among a handful of Dead Cute Things I Have Done In My Life.

* assuming that the coolest people are those who are cool without really trying, then I'm happy to accept it.