The hair, the dress, the photos: Japan’s solo weddings offer the complete package - almost.
WOT. “You are single and you don’t know if you would be able to get married and have a wedding ceremony in the near future,” suggests the Cerca Travel website, which offers this experience, “but you would like to have some pictures of yourself in a wedding ( Read more... )

Anyway, here in the UK there has been a case where a young woman who was being persistently cat-called and harassed (and having her path blocked) by men working on a building site on her way to work, went to the police. A story that went viral.
And yesterday I saw a link to some story by one of the men involved (presumably not this one, who sounds ( Read more... )

And instead of ringing them out and in, I will face the music and dance, even if I am pretty sure that 'there may be trouble ahead' is something that one can pretty well always say and be correct:

Click to view

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The usual statistics, roundup, etc:

Up to 7,901 Journal Entries; 57,253 comments received, 7,247 posted.

Numbers of comments seemed down this year ( Read more... )

Over on FaceBook, somebody shared a post by somebody I've never heard of, but who appears to be a Big Name in certain circles, complaining about people wishing them Happy Birthday when FB flags their birthday up and asking them not to do it (and if they do wish to make some marker, some alternative actions that the person would prefer).

A number of ( Read more... )

Apparently someone has been expressing concerns that if they go to Wiscon, the PC police may pounce on them if they do something wrong.

Well, okay, actually most people at Wiscon have other things to do and concerns of their own on their mind...

And it then struck me that this is simply a subset of a much wider social anxiety phenomenon which it ( Read more... )

Was at a wedding at the week, which was held in a 'Community Church'. The ambience was a bit happy-clappy, what with the Christian rock band leading the hymns*, though it didn't go anywhere near the holy-rolleriness of a marriage blessing partner and I once went to of one of his former work mates (this involved people speaking in tongues and ( Read more... )

On the Victoria line, early afternoon, a fairly crowded carriage.

Elderly man comes down the carriage

Very aggressively making benediction gestures (at least, he was doing them fairly fast and not at all in the usual spirit, but I think I recognised them - 'making the sign of the cross' - from my High Anglican primary school).

Over people and more ( Read more... )

Wow, The Guardian Weekend magazine seems to be having a special on 'Men are terribly poor stuff' today.

Okay, Tim Dowling is a regular and always a leading contender in the MATPS stakes (either his wife is a total fictional character, or should have given him the boot ages ago).

But savour the total ugh that is Christopher Hitchens interviewed by ( Read more... )

Why would any sensible woman join the Masons, a secret society ruled by men who dress up in strange clothes and practise arcane rituals?. It seems bizarre to me, but if the women who do it find it meaningful for them, why not? People's needs are different, for some people it's the silence of Quaker meeting, for others it;s High Mass, for others it' ( Read more... )

Don't normally have much time for David Aaronovitch in The Guardian, but I did rather like this, at the foot of his column today:
Poppy-wearing is fine by me. People now make what they want out of such institutions, choosing for themselves whether they are commemorating our glorious dead, or mourning the futility of war. It is a bit like wearing a ( Read more... )