Is It Just Me: Questioning When an Opinion Piece goes from Thought Provoking to Cyber Bullying?

Now, if you're a blogger you will probably know what I'm talking about, if not, briefly, a major parenting website that isn't Mumsnet or Netmums and has "dish" in the title, decided to write an article about a blogger's way of making artistic lunches for her young son.

Its called Bento, a SE Asian word for lunch box. But their lunchbox, and this bloggers lunchbox, has little containers of artfully crafted food (I mean seriously arty, amazingly so), to tempt whoever it is made for. Not like I usually do, whereby I sleepily chuck a bag of crisps, a cake bar, and a roll in Littlest's Spiderman lunch box.

The thing is, I'm all for opinions and debate. I like a good rant where its due too. But the lady in question had not deserved the rant. The post didn't read like it was sparking debate. It didn't read like an opinion piece.

It read, to not just me, but to a lot of other people, and more importantly to the Blogger being written about, like a bullying diatribe of abuse.

The issue was, that it wasn't bemoaning Bento as a concept, or photographing of kids lunch boxes. If it had of been, I don't think it would have caused utter disbelief. It singled out the blogger herself, by name. It questioned her ability as a parent. It suggested she was not nurturing her son but making him, amongst other things, a Bullying target, a Mummies Boy, and wished the boys future spouse "luck".

The misogynistic tone and subtext made me think it was written by a sneering bloke they'd borrowed from Loaded. It told the blogger to go "get a job".

Problem is, it was written by a woman, a Mother herself. 

She didn't research properly, as then she'd have known that the Blogger has, indeed, got a job, actually.

What right does someone, another Mum, have to slander someone in the name of witty journalism? It wasn't a thought provoking article, it was a sensationalist attack. The site which hosted it has removed it after a barrage of comments, and has now complained to her supporters on Twitter that their poor site and journalist has been "bullied." 

So, readers, when does an Opinion piece go from thought provoking and become cyber bullying? 

Personally, I would sue the site and its second rate hack too. But that's me.

Comments welcome guys :) Have a good weekend.

The Real Housewives Of Social Media

Yes, I know, I'm actually admitting my guilty secret here: I am addicted to watching Real Housewives on ITV2. It's not the best show to hold up to prove I'm not an airhead, but at least I haven't gone the whole hog and started watching Jeremy Kyle. I do watch Knots Landing though- it reminds me of when I was a kid and Nicollette Sheridan had her original face. 

The more I watch it though, the more I feel I could make a fortune pitching a version of the show based around blogging and social media.

Why? Well here we are:

Is It Just Me Questioning Why Women Get Such a Kicking?

Right I'm going to start off by giving a red triangle rant warning. I am peed off royally. You have been warned.

Last night, Elder and I shared a curry and then, as we're too darn lazy to go through the record collection anymore, put on Youtube and had a tune off. We're both members, via Facebook, of a number of music groups whereby you post a link to what you happen to be playing and others can comment on memories. 

It's not often other comments on anything outside music are discussed, but one London member happened to voice how upsetting it is that a 12 year old girl- a mere child- had been gang raped in Walthamstow.

Many of us members are parents. When I first heard about it on the news over breakfast, my heart bled for a child violated in that way. How will her life be after such an appalling act? I have seen the effect gang rape can have on a previously confident person who was an adult.

The second thing I wondered was why a 12 year old was out, alone, after midnight. However, I questioned the morals of her parents on this, nothing more.

The Post in Which I get Taught My First School Lesson Since 1998

OK, never let it be said that I don't know when to say sorry if I've upset someone when I'm peed off.

It seems my last post was read by the Brat's school, and in the heat of everything that has been going on for a while now between Mini and another kid in her class, it kind of got a little OTT.

The thing is, my children are my life. I love the very bones of them, despite the lack of sleep due to Littlest's illnesses, Mini being a bit of a diva from time to time and the other little things they do- like having a tantrum in the middle of a shop. 

Epic. PR. Fail. Bless

I just happened to fire up the Kobo Vox Reader I am testing out for Family Panel this afternoon, you know, not cos I spend my every waking moment online but, cough, for research purposes, when I found a pretty surprising email.

Its So Funny How We Don't Talk Anymore

*This post came about after a conversation at Twitter with my fellow blogging babes @Cosmicgirlie, @BarenakedMummy and @CrystalJigsaw.


Twitter. 


I used to love Twitter. 

#Twat Relief- Ditch The Price Woman, For Charidee!

No I haven't gone mad (again, cough cough).

The brilliantly brilliant Mocha Beanie Mummy, Typecast and Mums Rock have decided to slightly alter Comic Reliefs "Twit Relief" campaign (whereby you pay a celeb to follow you. But they are mostly C listers, cos if Robbie was on there I'd so be buying him...) and instead are asking us to nominate who should be unfollowed instead.

You can read Jay's post here which explains in a bit more detail.

So, now you wondering who I think should be unfollowed?

Step up to the chopping block, Ms Katie Price-Andre-Reid(inator)-Price of Jordan (not the country).

Where do I start with the Patron Saint of ridiculous Bosomage? 

Well, for starters she can't spell for toffee. Honestly, she is really poor. 

She surprisingly never appears to drunk tweet, which to me is a pre-requisite of following a celeb such as Katie as she seems to spend most of her life either having her already huge boobs/lips/ego inflated on camera, getting married or falling out of clubs trolleyed. So whereas guys will love the nip-slips (and worse), us girls want drunken tweets. 

She also brings up newspaper type scandals/arguments with her ex and soon to be ex-hubbies up all the time. Yawn. The problem with that is that soon, her kids will be able to read and access the net, and not only will they end up with a plethora of unsavoury imagery, but all the dirty laundry of rants at their Dad. That and other kids will be able to regale them with those as well, which of course they will, as that's what kids do.

I just really hope that, in the name of charity, if everyone simultaneously ditched her from Facebook, Twitter and her ITV2 programmes, then finally she will disappear forever. And I for one think the world will be a better place.

Face it, if she is allowed to continue with people watching her every move, (I add Katona to this list), whats next? 

We've had the dubious pleasure (yeuch) of watching her give birth, get naughty (In such a faux way as to be laughable) with Pete filming an ad for the series, the upset and heartbreak (Kerching) of their marriage break up, and then her "love" (kerching kerching) for cross-dressing, cage-fighting ex-Gladiator's contestant Alex, there's not much left. 

Which means it'll get worse- What Katie Did Next, the Bowel Movement Series can only be mere months away. Horrors.

I beg you, for a good cause, relieve yourself of Katie Price.

You know it makes cents. Or pounds. Or Euros.

You can give generously to Twat Relief at http://www.justgiving.com/twatrelief

(PS. I was going to have Cheryl Cole. But she has no Twitter. Grrr)

*******
EDIT:

Elder has also asked that I add BONO of U2 to the list for Twat Relief related charity ditching. Being that Elder is Irish, and has every album that U2 ever made, this is quite a shock.

He has summed this up with this:

Whats the difference between God and Bono?   -                             - God doesn't think he's Bono.

I think thats pretty good! DITCH!

#Mummy Fails: The Stuff I Lie to my Kids About.

Being a lover of all things Twitter, and a nosy cow to boot looking at others tweets, I have seen quite a few trending topic tweets that have #MummyFail at some point in the 140 character limit.

So, Mummy Fails, what are they for you Twitter virgins?

Put simply, they are the moments when we do something or say something, maybe even forget something, which makes us feel like a little bit of a failure as a Mummy, or are guilty over. So we tweet it and others laugh, or admit to similar wrong doing, and we breathe a gigantic sigh of relief that we aren't the only ones to have made this mistake as a Mummy. Phew!

Its got me thinking about my own times of Mummy Failure, or the things I willfully lie to my kids about. Not in a nasty Kat Slater Eastenders "I'm your Muvvvaaaaa!!!' moment, hell no! 

Nope, here are the Mummy Fails I regularly, or not so regularly, have achieved. Enjoy!

• Ice Cream Trucks. Mini has no idea that these are there to sell ice cream to children. She actually thinks, because I told her, that they are musical cars, and the people driving them just like to play music because they like the hot weather.
• Salad leafs. These are not salad in my house, to Mini they are Fairy Leaves. She now thinks that if she wants to be a Fairy, and have wings, that she has to eat lots of Fairy Leafs or sadly her wings wont grow. Shocking!
• The Park goes to sleep. She always wants to go to the park when I have a half hundred weight of shopping in the buggy, my arms are killing me from trying to stop it tipping, and I am sweating and in need of a cup of tea. So, I tell her that the park is asleep, as its very tired and needs a rest from all the children trampling round it. She believes me so much that she says "Goodnight park, sleep tight" to it.
• If she gets in a huff about walking, I distract her by getting her to say hello to passing dogs, cars, diggers or trees, as it's polite.
• When she fell over while carrying her potty (that had a little bit of wee in it), I checked she was OK, and then laughed my ass off as she was saying she was covered in wee wees, and her fringe was damp. I did, however, laugh whilst I stuck her in the bath, I'm not that mean! 
• Ronald McDonald does deliveries to our house, including Pork Chops and mash. He's also a Potato loving Irishman who loves Pork. That's what I told her this evening anyway.
• That Alex and Kerry from Beebies go out for lunch, sometimes for 3 hours, the workshy pair. Then I get to turn it off as soon as the Lunch song comes on. If I really am sick of it, I tell her they've gone on holiday, then I get away with a whole days abstinence. That one was so good, it got in the Daily Mirror last week!

I love Mummy Fails! Life's little way of making parenting easier!

Forget Our Election, It's The Aussies I'm Interested In...

Yes, I know I made this an Election babble free zone, as I find it inherently boring and grown up (so OK, yes I'm 28, but it's my blog and I will pretend to be a teenager if I want to), and because I wouldn't have a clue who to vote for anyway, but I had to blog this one!

Firstly it's not boring Brown, Calamity Clegg or Catatonia Inducing Cameron who has sparked my interest, hell no.

Its someone from across the pond in Australia which had me laughing out loud this morning when I logged into my Yahoo news feed (see, can be grown up sometimes. No, I'm lying I actually pay more attention to the Entertainment gossip).

It seems that us regular random folk aren't the only ones who find Twitter and the ability it allows to follow people you've never met such a great tool.

A certain Prime Minister thought it would be very "Hip" to have a Twitter account. Lets face it, Kevin Rudd is not the first Golden Oldie to think that a Twitter account is the key to electoral success. All the main parties over here, and some of the lesser ones too, all have Twitters, and post what I suppose they think is a witty little message to show they are human and not some scary political person. Not that I find them remotely scary in the slightest, more inherent liars actually. But I digress.

So, Mr Rudd, Prime Minister of Oz, friend to Rolf Harris (or I'd imagine he'd have met him) has his little feed, and its all going quite hunky dory. 

He had been followed by other Twitter users, and so had, as is the usual etiquette (or should that be Twiterquette) followed them back.

As Littlest would say (and has been saying repeatedly since Mini taught him to) Oh- Ohhhhhh!

It would seem that poor old Kevin didn't quite get the idea that its generally a good idea to check out the tweets, at the very least, of some of these followers.

And it turns out that the media, who probably rubbed their hands with glee, found that he was inadvertently following quite a few ahem, naughty sites!

Including some exhibitionist webcam girlies, a porn blogger (maybe that's who the people who visit my blog looking for some very strange things which I definitely do not blog about are looking for!), a Gay Holiday resort in Phuket, and even a lady whose Tweet Picture was of her boobies and her hands in handcuffs. 

Oo-er indeed!

Poor guy! I felt so sorry for him as I wept tears of laughter onto my Vegemite on toast (and I'm not making that up, I was actually eating Vegemite!).

So, if your Elderly relatives decide to join the Interwebwork (as I heard an old lady refer to it as in my library the other week), warn them that Twitter may not be a good idea!

Whoever you vote for (and God Knows how you decided who to vote for), have a great week!