Read my correspondance. It saves me thinking up anything new.
2003-01-22 at 10:03 a.m.

 

Ahoy-hoy fellow diarists. Nothing happened to me yesterday, so in lieu of a proper diary entry you can have a read of an email I sent to a journalist recently. Yes. I am that sad.

The articles I refer to are about email and body nazism. Even if you don't read the rest of my entry you should read her articles. Because she rocks.

Here's the email I sent her anyway....

I'm launching straight into this email as I'm still not sure on the best etiquette for writing to someone who I read on a weekly basis and feel I know, in some strange way, and have yet never spoken to. So if you could imagine the most appropriate greeting here I'd be grateful!

In reference to your column on the 23/12/2002, isn't email great? No more do we have to take the trouble to pick up a pen and paper, write a letter, check all our misspellings ourselves and walk outside to the post office to get a stamp and post the letter. Email is the greatest invention for the armchair protestor/revolutionary and complete lunatic. And of course people like me, who can now spend a portion of their work day adding to your correspondence significantly. Personally, I love it. Having posted on internet newsgroups I've had my share of interesting post. Luckily I'm not a high-profile journalist and I can ignore some of the more, well, frankly certifiable people that email me, but if I thought they'd know me, well, ewwwww.

Anyway, I'm sure I had a point. It's just where I put it that's a problem. Oh yes. Are you really the only non-white regular newspaper columnist in Europe (can I just say that I'd advise against putting that on your business card, it'll never fit in anyone's wallet)? That's awful. Really awful. It's also awful that I've never realised that. I'm quite shocked.

For your column on the 13th January can I just say thank you, thank you, thank you. As a woman shaped woman myself (and one who has a tendency to like cheese more than lettuce as well) it grates that the current 'perfect' figure for me is one that resembles more a teenage boy than the way my body has naturally developed.

It does seem, however, that this idea of perfection has been developed by the media and the fashion industry, who seem intent on making women fit the clothes rather than the clothes fit the women. As this is a personal hobby horse of mine I have quizzed various male friends on this from time to time. My fiance has been known to go all weak at the knees over Helen Young, the weather presenter and Kate Winslet. And me, naturally. My friends all agree that a woman shaped woman with soft curves and other girly things that they don't have is preferential to the current trend portrayed in the media. I think the phrase 'tits and arse' was at some point used. I'm not sure I like the terminology, but the sentiment still stands. A friend of mine claims that Fern Britton is the sexiest woman on television.

I'm also glad that it's not just me that has noticed that in these days of careful correctness about everything else, fat is the last bastion of the Bernard Manning school of humour. It seems that it's quite ok to use my appearance and body as the deepest insult. I nearly cried because of your story about the woman in John Lewis.

I don't know if you have ever read 'Good Omens' by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. The four horsemen of the Apocalypse have modified themselves for the twentieth century. When we first come across Famine he is the President of a company that makes diet foods. These foods actually take more energy to eat that they give. Famine is incredulous at the 20th century culture that means that women are happy to pay him to starve themselves.

As someone who fights against this body fascism it frightens me that the media can never bring themselves to treat it seriously. Fat people are now almost de-humanised and treated only as caricatures. Greedy, pathetic, and not worthy of respect. There's a woman who works in my local pub. She is a large woman who dresses sexily. When she comes into the pub, everyone feels duty bound to make a comment about her weight and her appearence. Even by those who claim to like a woman's figure. And she does have a figure. These comments are made almost in her hearing (I'm sure sometimes she does hear). I get so angry, and make it clear to people that I find it unacceptable and I get the response from some along the lines of 'what does

she expect?' Well, to go about her life without people like them judging her, I imagine.

It seems the same body fascism is not applicable to men though. Some of the above mentioned men are not icons for WeightWatchers themselves. I've known them to pat their bellies and treat them something like a pregnant woman treats her womb. Honestly. They rub their bellies and say they are coming along nicely. Or stand in a parody of a pregnant woman, leaning back, hands on hips. It's quite odd to see, and if I was a pyschologist there might be a lot I could make out of it.

Anyway I've gone on quite long enough in an email that was meant just to thank you for and express agreement with your column. Let me just say that it'll be the burqa before the tummy tuck for me. Unnecessary surgery just doesn't do anything for me.