The Sunday Times

As I perused the Sunday Times today (namely the magazine supplements) a couple of things caught my eye.

1. Style: Update (by Shane Watson) “Never Befriend the Help”

“We already know about frenemies (friends who are, on closer inspection, enemies). The fremployee is an employee who you mistake, at your peril for a friend (or a daughter, or an Eliza Doolittle figure) – another toxic relationship guaranteed to end in tears.”
One of the benefits of living in college is that we have cleaners. The woman who cleans my accommodation is a lovely person who I often chat to. I may not pay her directly, but her fees are no doubt included in my rent, therefore this article is vaguely relevant to my relationship with her. I found this article appalling. As if women didn’t have enough reasons to turn against each other, now we have to be wary that those who happen to work for or around us are out to get us?
I wouldn’t call this woman one of my best friends per se, but we have sat down to a cup of tea to talk about boyfriends and what we did over the weekend. We know quite a bit about each other, and she happens to clean my accommodation. What of it? This article degrades our society a couple of decades I feel.

1. The Sunday Times Magazine: To be or not to be (by Robert Rowland Smith) “Is tweeting bad for the soul?”

“TS Eliot expressly used the word ‘twittering’ a century ago to describe the results of such immersion in the babble of modern life.”
Twitter can be used as a very self-absorbed way of transferring what’s on your mind to the internet with all to see without the filter of thinking it through properly. It is a screen through which you can say whatever you like, and in some cases (like mine) you can do so anonymously without any consequence.
That said, some people who engage in Twitter are genuinely hilarious and I enjoy following them just to see what they’re going to say. I try and keep the Twitter updates as entertaining and relevant as possible. No one cares if you’re at Tesco buying milk (unless it’s chocolate milk and you’re also buying condoms in which case you are the envy of everyone in the line – that’s tweetable, and perhaps blog-worthy as you’ll see eventually).

1. The Sunday Times Magazine: Cover Story (by Eleanor Mills) They Can’t Stop Putting it About

“Golf, like all professional sport, is an immensely competitive world: every shot, every drive, every putt is ranked.”
Every piece of work I submit is scrutinised. It’s a bit like training. Then exams are like the Masters or the Olympics of academia … the only thing that actually counts (unless you’re a PhD student or researcher).
“If you are a professional athlete, you can’t drink much or take drugs; you watch your weight, sleep well and eat carefully. So what’s left if you’re a young man who wants a kick? Sex. And lots of it.”
Yes, in between revising sex is a very entertaining outlet for stress and frustration. More so than running or drinking. Not a great excuse for cheating on your wife, but a good distraction from pending exams.

And by "young man" I'm sure they mean "young person."
“Churchill said of champagne: ‘In victory you deserve it, in defeat you need it.’”
I just like this quote and wanted to make sure I remembered it for later.
All in all, this article reminded me a bit of the hype around yours truly. What’s going on is not a secret from within the golf circle or from within my college walls. Reveal it to the rest of the world though … not what they’re expecting really. This article did make a good point that Tiger Woods “never expressed any regret for the pain he’d caused his mistresses. It was as if they were toys to be used and discarded, as if the fact they might have feelings too never crossed his mind.” Very interesting … there are people I carelessly write about all over the internet for anyone to read about without a second thought really. A bit less extreme than what Mr. Woods did I feel, but still. One must wonder … how would these boys feel to know that I’m – ha just kidding, I really couldn’t care less what they would think.

1. Style: The Trouble With Women (by Stephen, 27, Banker) “They’re All Moan, No Action

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/relationships/article7089598.ece

“Women prefer to moan to everyone around them instead of taking any action or responsibility for themselves.”
Whoa whoa whoa there Mr. Stephen the Banker … I think you might be onto something here. In the most anti-feminist move this century I’m going to go ahead and say that this banker isn’t completely wrong. I had a serious debate with a friend over this article earlier. I use the term “friend” very liberally considering she may hate me after I took Stephen’s side.
To her credit, Briony argued that any generalisations about “the trouble with men and/or women” are degrading to everybody. But to my credit, when Stephen says, “At work I am surrounded by women and their samey conversations: why so-and-so hasn’t called, how fat they feel, what heinous crime their boyfriend has committed …” I can’t help but think, “Testify!” Sorry B. Stephen goes on to say, “I ask: ‘Did you call him?’ ‘No.’ ‘Did you start that diet last summer?’ ‘No.’ ‘Did you mention that the dishwasher needed emptying?’ ‘No.’” The man can’t know what you want unless you tell him. Men are a lot of things, but one thing they most definitely are not is psychic. It’s just science.
These kind of sweeping generalisations about women are, usually, a bit sexist yes. The generalisations women make about men are sexist as well. For example, saying men aren’t psychic. There could be the odd wizard out there who can see into the future, who knows? Saying that all men cheat is another one of those stereotypes which I consider to have a sliver of truth. And by a sliver I mean that most men cheat.