Is monogamy an impossible dream?

Monogamy - a hot topic of late.  I am in a long-term relationship.  And everytime I see this topic in the paper I instantly become a tiny bit paranoid wondering what my boyfriend thinks and feels, but always turning the page before I think any further.

Fidelity - you'll either live by it or you won't.  Apparently, a third of relationships are affected by infidelity.  Genes - feel free to cheat, just blame your animal ancestors.  Apparently we are biologically programmed to be with more than one person.  Technology - facebook, chat rooms, texting (or sexting as otherwise known) now make it easier for us to cheat.  Pressure - when the honeymood period dwindles - which it often does - people feel they have failed and don't know what to do.

What a depressing outlook!

I love my boyfriend, and he loves me.  If you care about someone that much, you will not hurt them. 

So one third of relationships are affected by infidelity?  That means two thirds are of relationships are not.  Biologically programmed?  Monogamy is also natural.  Evolution explains feelings of jealousy and upset.  So there are more routes for communication.  If you're that keen to cheat you'll do more than just use facebook.  And who has the time for all this anyway?!  And pressure is part of any relationship.

More people stay faithful than don't.  And I am choosing one amazing man and a stable life!

If you don’t like your life, you can change it!

I felt this grey, monstrous London of ours, with its myriad of people, its sordid sinners, and its splendid sins... must have something in store for me. I fancied a thousand things.

-Oscar Wilde-

You’re in your 20’s. You successfully and proudly graduate from university. You have dreams. The world is your oyster. You can do whatever you want to do. You are going to be somebody!

Following my two years of on and off around-the-world travelling, I made the decision that it was time to settle and focus on my career.  And there was only one place for this – ‘The Big Smoke’. This was where real life was to begin for this little person! And there were three things I was to pursue, and keep:

1. Boyfriend

2. Nice Flat

3. Good job

To be fair to myself, I have got number 1 and 2 (Number 1 is amazing and a keeper by the way). And this is not to belittle this fact, or the other things I am very lucky to have.

I am of the “I want it all, and I want it all now” generation. This mixed with my personal pursuit of high achievement, means I am frustrated about not having gained all three wants by the age of 24. And I know I am not alone, as many of my friends and acquaintances find themselves in the same situation. But we are so young! Why so much pressure?

What I am lacking is number 3 - a good job.

Is it the recession? Is it the media? Is it the comparison to other people? Or is it me? Okay, maybe it’s a bit of everything. But anyone who decided to pursue their career (unsuccessfully) within the last two years may well blame the recession. I blame the recession.

Okay, so my job is not THAT bad. I earn well. I am doing what I wanted to do. But it is not all I thought it would be, without going into any detail (please meet me at the pub for more information!). I have turned into the people I used to laugh at – I am the people who moan onerously about their job.

And I ask myself, what happened to that old little saying I used to tell everyone: If you don’t like your life, you can change it?

I am not alone in searching for a new job. And I am a good candidate. When will this recession be done with so I can maybe - just maybe - start living that London job dream?

If you don’t like your life, you can try to change it. And don’t give up!

DrUnK pEoPLe and road signs

No, this isn’t about the time you woke up after a heavy night out, only to find a hefty, filthy, orange traffic cone and/or road sign(s) in your student kitchen (good times had by all).

Nor is it about, if you can picture this, road signs sharing a tipple or 10 at their local public house, waking up the next day with a couple of random humans in their hood. Although I know lots of people wake up in random hoods every weekend.

You know the triangular road signs with the thick, warning-coloured red outline that caution you about deer or horses crossing the road? Now there are road signs to warn Romanian drivers of drunk people crossing the road. Genius!


Oh my God, Mr. Prime Minister, please can you invest in these road signs for the UK? Not because we are known as Binge-Britain. And I am certainly not one of those annoyingly boring, fussy, complaining local residents who don’t know how to have a bit of fun. It would be a total waste of money. But one could actually be useful outside Infernos (aka my previous hobby) on Clapham High Street on a Saturday night? Give me a bell on the old dog and bone Gords (07333 123456) and we’ll have a chit chat at me local Spoons. It would also provide a bit of minor comical value to the old daily commute. God knows I could have done with one of those signs for my own personal road crossing safety a few times!


PS - Mum and Dad, I have never drunk alcohol in my life.

“Jon Venables did wicked things but he is not evil” - Terry Eagle, The Evening Standard

I beg to differ.

Jon Venables, along with his then-friend, Robert Thompson, savagely tortured, terrified and killed James Bulger. James Bulger was an innocent, trusting, unknowing toddler. This happened.



Statement One: “Was Jon Venables born evil? If he was, he was not responsible for killing James Bulger.”


What is evilness? Evilness, according to this report, is something that one is born with and cannot help. As if comparing innate evilness to a helpless African child who is sworn to a short life having been born with the killer HIV disease – something that is out of that individual’s control. I could go into the nature/nurture debate here, but I only want to say one thing: when I was 10 years old, I knew the difference between right and wrong.


Fair enough, kids get into trouble, make mistakes, do things they shouldn’t – and I am learning that adults are the worst perpetrators. But at what point does one decide not only to abduct a child, of whom is a complete stranger, and then further utterly destroy their life, body and family?


Whether Venables was born evil or not, he did something psychotic, disgusting and innately wrong. And he knew it. I can make this statement, because I was once a 10 year old child. All I was concerned about at the age of 10 was riding my bike, what was on the school dinner menu that day and getting home to watch Nickelodeon or CBBC.




Statement two: “We have no evidence that [Venables] would have embarked on a career of carnage.”


A boy of 10 takes the life of a young child. Perhaps I am too judgemental. Perhaps I have a disabling inability to jump into the mindset of a murderer. And I am definitely not a psychologist. But if you are capable of thinking-up and carrying out unimaginable, unthinkable, repulsive and outright gut-wrenching things to do to a fellow human being or, for that matter, any living thing on this planet, at any age – I think it is a sign of trouble ahead.


I am intelligently superior to a 10 year old child (though, perhaps vertically challenged!). I have more knowledge of the world – of both the good and the bad. I have done things that I am not proud of in my relatively short life. But never, ever could I dream up anything even vaguely comparable to what those boys did to James that day. It is just not in me, and it is not in 99.9% of human beings.


And to think it was taken even further – to actually take the life of someone so vulnerable in such a sick way.


True, we have no evidence that Venables would have done this to other children if he were not incarcerated for eight years. But we are now 17 years on since the death of James, and Venables has been cited as struggling with drug addiction and with maintaining his anonymity. He finds himself back in custody for a second time having breached the terms of his sentence, possibly on paedophilic grounds as stated in various newspapers over the last few days. Why am I not surprised this man did not relish his opportunity to start a good and remorseful life?


Statement three: “What children do have is a lot of spare time with not much to do. And the devil, as they say, makes work for idle hands.”


Essentially, Venables and Thompson may be excused - because they were bored. When adults kill, it is often for love, sex or money. But these two were children who, on that day, simply had nothing better to do?


I am struggling to accept this as a possible explanation.


Conclusion


There is black and there is white, and there is good and there is bad. Bad is evil and it is wrong. Evil is hurting someone, physically or emotionally. Evil is taking the life of a baby boy. Evil is taking the life of anyone. Venables (and Thompson) did all of these things. Venables is evil.