A short note from Jackobury Nation: Fighting patriarchy on all fronts

It's the end of a rather full couple weeks travel, conferencing and research in various bits of this fair isle and I'm not up for much serious thought on a hot and far-too-humid evening in London.

Which, as The Wife has noted, leaves me in a perfect state of mind to match the silly state of the media mind (i.e., wall-to-wall, 24-hour obsession with all things Jackobury) that has blossomed all around me.

And I suppose that while my brain seems to have temporarily shut down (encouraged, perhaps, by drinking too much red wine in the sun at a retirement party for my boss this afternoon) I'm still left ahead of Daily Mail columnist Liz Jones, who seems to suffer from this condition on a more permanent basis.

That's just a surmise based on the evidence of her commentary in today's Waily Snail entitled 'What's really oppressing women isn't the burka, it's their breasts'.

It's really quite...appalling.

But educational: I wasn't aware that Victoria Beckham was 'oppressed'. I'm appalled that some worthy charity has not intervened and helped the poor woman.

And then there's this useful tit-bit that our Liz offers:

Believe it or not, I once had very big breasts.

I did not know that. But without a reason to think otherwise, reader, I believe her. And I urge you to do likewise.

And the learning (and tragedy) doesn't stop there:

I’d been anorexic for years and when force-feeding and threats of hospitalisation hadn’t worked, in my early 20s my endocrinologist started feeding me drugs and hormones to make me eat and to make me fat. My breasts grew rapidly. Clothes no longer hung properly.

Fascinating.

Also:

My drug-induced breasts were nothing like the ones you see these days on the covers of men’s magazines: natural big breasts hang, honeydew melon-shaped, towards your waist.

Thanks Liz. Truly, this is information we can use.

It's especially gratifying -- I think we will all agree -- to see the Fail standing up for feminism and against the the objectification of celebrity women via their breasts.

Also via the Vomity Pail (which is distributed free by my hotel), I encountered 'Miss Ellie', who has been voted 'ugliest dog' at some kind of fair in California that concerns itself with such things.

The pure-bred, pint-sized pageant participant -- who has as far as I know not yet expressed any opinion about mammarial oppression -- has a strangely endearing charm, I must say. And she also called forth an immediate (though cross-species) association:

I always was more of a cat person.

Looking forward to being home.