And Now for a Check in at Parliament: Dawn Butler & "Unparliamentary Language"
In short, unparliamentary language is useful for allowing debates to simply not descend into a shit hurling contest, but since the age of spin and the rise of ‘alternative news’ Johnson and his unscrupulous colleagues have been able to lie and cheat with impunity. Butler’s actions do not threaten the nature of parliament, however they do set a worrying precedent. If those in opposition are increasingly unable to correctly hold the government to account, then what good is a chamber of debate.
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Why We Need To Talk About Menopause
The changes that occur in a woman’s body have never been a cause for celebration in the West, and I have no doubt that has everything to do with the way women have been demonised throughout history.
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I Was Ghosted By My Therapist
Let’s head back to a week prior. It’s Wednesday, 9 am, and as per usual I’m sat cross-legged in my bed in the virtual waiting room, waiting for my therapist to turn up. 5 minutes pass: hmm, she must be running late. 15 minutes: this is strange. 30 minutes: oh god, what if she’s dead? Do I call the police?
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White People Stop Touching My Hair
“Is your hair real”? That question could stop me dead in my tracks.
Like people had a right to ask me such a personal question.
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Lessons from Lockdown: Green Space is Good
Space discriminates. Trawling through the literary representations of London from the likes of Salman Rushdie and Zadie Smith for my undergraduate dissertation last year firmly shaped this idea in my mind.
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Bipolar Sucks, But Does My Parenting Also Have To?
I've got bipolar, type 2 to be specific. I don't add that last part to diminish my experience, by the way. Honesty and clarity drove me to do it because I'd hate to seemingly make myself into a spokesman for bipolar when only truly knowing a part of it. So I come out as Type 2 BiPo from the off so that we all know that I'm just a dude talking about one dude's experience.
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Technology - When Do We Stop?
The popular Netflix film “The Social Dilemma” premiered in 2020 and riddled all of its 38 million viewers with crippling anxiety about the speed at which technology is advancing. You could hear Instagram accounts being deleted across the globe… and then quickly re-downloaded a week later.
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Germany Is Returning The Benin Bronzes: Should The UK follow in Their Footsteps?
In my opinion, keeping Benin Bronzes displaced in museums and private collections across the UK and elsewhere in Europe prolongs the original colonial violence of their looting.
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How MP’s Blatantly Flout or Simply Change the Rules to Suit Their Agenda
Abuse of political power comes as no surprise. “They all lie anyway” must be the most commonly heard phrase during any discussion of parliamentary proceedings. However, there’s a certain hypocrisy which seems specific to the Tory party – the kind that saw Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, spend £18,000 on takeaways and then refuse to extend free school meals.
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Debunking Anti-Lockdowners & Their Use of The Phrase “Vaccine Apartheid”
As a history student who is currently studying apartheid, I was mortified that such comparisons were being made: these protestors had clearly misunderstood what apartheid actually is.
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What's The Science Behind Smelly Feet?
With the weather heating up, I have noticed an old foe resurfacing… my smelly feet. Though this isn’t a huge problem for me (Thank you, Peditech!), I thought it would be interesting to see what actually causes my cheesy issues, and the issues of more than 80% of the UK population (Newbury, 2018).
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My Left Tit: My Mammogram Scare
I’ve had a bit of a shake up recently. It started on Saturday 1st May with a letter plopping through my door to call me in for a second mammogram on the following Thursday; they had found something.
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Parenting and Porn - What I wish I'd known
It’s a different sexual landscape for my children today. They are bombarded online with a multitude of images and practices I could never have imagined. Porn is everywhere. Kids can access it in seconds, yet I didn’t see any online before my 30s.
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Pros and Cons of Unpaid Internships
Securing employment without some form of relevant work experience is harder than ever. It is this that makes unpaid internships particularly problematic. It is usually people already on a low wage or no wage at all who need this experience.
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July 19th - Easing Restrictions Anxiety
Go at your own pace. There's no rush. Just because you can go out doesn't mean you have to. Even if all of your friends are out every night of the week, you don't have to go if you're more comfortable going out once a week. Ease yourself back in to socialisation and outings. Don't pressure yourself to be doing everything instantly (unless you want to, of course!).
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Demystifying Drugs: Let's Face It - They Are Everywhere
The point of this article is to be candid about recreational drug use because, if we’re honest, drugs are everywhere.
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Medical Consent: US Gynaecologist Jailed for Performing Unnecessary Hysterectomies to Fund Lavish Lifestyle
My experience is not alone, and it is from cultures like this, where the voice and needs of the patient are not listened to, where the ‘doctor knows best’ mentality thrives, that allow people like Dr Perwaiz to flourish.
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Renting As a Single Person
There are women out there, living alone or who have children, and who are still struggling, each and every day with making ends meet financially as a big chunk of their salary is being taken up by the cost of rent.
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Are More People Turning Away from Monogamy and to Open Relationships?
So, if monogamy is so widely accepted as ‘normal’, default, and plastered all over the media (who else watched The One?), why are open relationships so attractive to some?
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What is SMART Self-Care and how can you do it?
Self-care is the practice of intentionally doing things that benefit your physical, mental, or spiritual health, and it’s often lauded as the cornerstone of wellbeing and resilience. Little wonder then, that it has become highly commodified and increasingly aspirational: sold as an open-ended quest, the secret to self-care often seems to be just one click and one purchase away. It’s time to get SMART about self-care.
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