Britain, Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

The coalition government has finally unveiled their monstrous “spending review”, cutting public spending by £83 billion. The cuts will effect welfare, higher education, social housing, policing and local government – pretty much every walk of life and, I promise you, every one of us living on this island.

The critics (and Labour of course) have warned of the consequences cuts of this scale will have on society. And they are not wrong.

In the early 90s, the global recession hit especially hard on Finland. Around 20% of our foreign trade had been with Soviet Union and its collapse added just that little something to the economic disaster that was created during the yuppie years of the 80s.

The unemployment rose from pre-recession 3,5% to 18.9%. A couple of banks collapsed. The coalition government in power tried to solve the situation with excessive cuts on public spending. Sounds familiar?

But that's just numbers. The recession left us a generation who graduated to unemployment and after a few years became unemployable. They are still on the dole. It left us another generation who grew up in poverty during the recession, with constant uncertainty about mom's and dad’s job, money and even family unity (anyone who is claiming that chances in the economic situation don’t effect relationships is either really rich or stupid). We called them children of the recession, kind of like children of  the revolution, but not cool.

The Finnish welfare state was effectively being dissolved and the burden of that can still be seen: more mental problems and alcoholism go untreated. There is more poverty, which always brings along its dear friend crime. The economy recovered but unemployment is still high, hovering around 7 - 8 % with youth unemployment currently a staggering 22,5%.  

Everyone knows that the UK economy is not doing so well and that some cuts needed to be done. But the cuts made by the coalition government are done for ideological, not economical reasons. Every country in the world has got debt. Hell, most of us has got debt. But if you would decide stop buying food for the next five years and instead triple your mortgage payments, you would be considered mad.

People get the government they deserve, they say. But are they ready for the aftermath? 

The boys club stick together. RIP Public Services.

The Art of the Shoe

This is why I love London. Something so wonderful but at the same time so very dangerous has appeared on Oxford Street. Selfridges has opened its Shoe Galleries.

Shoe Galleries have been designed by an architect Jamie Fobert and the area is supposedly bigger than Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall. It is the biggest shoe department in the world, stocking 55 000 shoes at any one time and 4000 shoes on display from over 150 brands. It will obviously offer you big brands like Jimmy Choo, Louboutin and Dior but the high street labels like Topshop, All Saints and Office are there too.

You think this is heaven? Imagine the sales. 

World According To Google

So Google has decided to read our minds. Or direct our minds. Take your pick. Anyhow the new Google Instant tries to guess what you are searching for while you type.

To make sure not to offend anyone or to give kids naughty ideas, Google has however put together a blacklist of words it does not react on. Or it will, but you will have to press enter to see your results.

And how interesting is the blacklist! These are some examples of the words/things/thoughts Google wants us to avoid (the list is changing, they have now unblocked for example the word lesbian, well done google nerds!):

Penis

Paris Hilton

Pimppi (Vittu however is allowed)

Vagina

Adult

Bastardo

Cocaine

Pamela Anderson

Shemale

Transexual

Pissing

Nude

Xx (unlucky for the band, eh?)

Go on, give it a try yourself! The full list can be found from here: http://www.2600.com/googleblacklist/

Kissing My Vitamins Goodbye

I have recently made a fundamentally life changing decision to give up vitamin pills. I know it doesn’t sound quite as impressive as giving up drugs, alcohol or cigarettes, but believe you me, it is a big deal for me. I have been taking my daily multivitamins for as long as I can remember. I’m one of the “vitamin fanatics”, people taking supplements once a day or more (and I’m not alone, apparently 32% of us in the UK fall into this category).

My belief in omnipotence of vitamin supplements was passed down from my mother, who still keeps sending me little pill bottles for Christmas. On top of that I really liked believing in the magic pills that would make me forever young (vitamin E), happy (St John’s Wort), lose weight (Green Tea pills) and, of course, give me a super strong immune system (not rare for me to have four colds each winter).  

However after a lot of debate with my very smart and cute boyfriend and reading some research (and this great article from The Independent), I have come to a conclusion that I can, shock horror, actually get all the vitamins I need from my diet.

More and more studies are also showing that there’s no evidence of any benefit from multivitamin intake. And quite worryingly, overdosing on some vitamins can actually do you, especially your liver, more harm than good. God forbid, my liver does not need any excess strain on it.

So if you see me shaking in the corner, not to worry. It’s just new, less toxic me, getting over my vitamin withdrawals.