Comment Archive:

Friday 15th July 2005

Ultraviolet

big juicy baps picture Glorious weather we’re having isn’t it? Look outside during daylight hours and what do you see? Hordes of young people (and, alas, some not so young) baring breast, butt and belly to the life giving rays of the sun. You can’t walk down the street in my home town without falling over some sweaty boobed popinjay flaunting an overly nourished bod to the four elements – glistening cleavage a-go-go and legs waxed right up to the UN no fly zone. And that’s just the men. The instant there’s any sun, out come the baps in full frontal force and every guy is suffering whiplash from craning his neck so much to see the show. I swear to God more brickies and cab drivers suffer fatalities at work through lack of concentration at this time of year than at any other.

You’ve just got to love the summer, haven’t you? It’s effing marvellous. Everybody’s on a quest to get their bits bronzed because for some weird reason we’re still programmed to see a suntan as a sign of good health, a residue of the sixties and seventies glamour ethos where brown skin and white teeth were a sure guarantee of desirability.

sunglasses picture But underlying this traditional penchant for sun worship are a host of modern anxieties that would turn even the most dedicated Ibiza-naut pale. Premature aging. Skin cancer. Blindness... Yes blindness. That’s a new addition to the list, isn’t it? And one that you’d have to be blind to have missed given how much it’s presently being pushed on our television screens nationwide. All in the noble service of advertising of course...

sunglasses picture Cue some fantastically tanned brunette couple – usually French looking – beaming inanely huge white smiles from aboard some vast movie-set yacht, buckets of water thrown theatrically from off camera (TISWAS stylee), their cheekbones crowned and anointed with the latest designer sunglasses, their smooth modulated voices earnest as they tell us in cod-marketing/science speak about the dangers of ultraviolet light and how damaging it can be to our eyesight. Geez these guys really care. Everybody knows how harmful UV rays can be to the skin, they croon, but less well known is that UV light can also cause severe eye problems (flash cheesy grin). A lifetime of exposure to sunlight can cause conjunctival, corneal, lens, and retinal damage. Infants and young children, with their more translucent cornea and lens, are particularly susceptible to ultraviolet damage... shock, horror. Look how white my teeth are as I smile at you. Look at my perfectly tanned baps. Does my bum look big in this yacht?

Oh yes. Horror. Impending blindness. Never fear citizen of the summer, a solution – a cure – is at hand! Simply purchase a pair of our specially designed UV block bionic sunglasses and your pork pies will be safe from the dazzling apocalyptic rays of the sun. Easy. One down payment, a quick cheque, your credit card number and you can sunbathe without a care in the world forever once more. Marvellous.

ozone picture Except that is completely side stepping the whole bloody issue. The issue is that ultraviolet rays are becoming more and more of a health problem. More and more UV light is penetrating the earth’s stratosphere due to the continued depletion of the ozone layer. Yes. That old chestnut. It’s still extant. Hands up how many of you thought that particular problem had simply gone away over night? The real cure, the real solution to the problem of rising levels of damaging ultraviolet radiation is to cut down on the emission of pollutants into the atmosphere in the first place - not abuse a potential global catastrophe to sell more product. Think of it this way: did Noah set up a Wellington boot stall when the floods began?

And thus we come to the G8 summit and yet again America’s failure to grasp the sense of ecological emergency that most sane people all over the planet are already wrestling with. It’s a subject I’ve touched upon before on this site in my piece on the Kyoto Protocol but, like I always say, a good point can’t be made too many times. Global warming and weather pattern corruption are REAL problems. They’re no longer just scientific theory and laboratory condition bunkum. We’ve done damage to the environment and now the environment is paying us back. George W Bush’s reluctance to seize the reigns and run with this issue will mark him out in history as one of the most asinine, short sighted, obtuse, selfish men the world has ever foolishly handed power to.

idiot bush picture George, dear, yes of course China and India et al must also step in line with the Kyoto Protocols on pollution reduction – no one is gainsaying that. The point is that China and India are nothing to do with you. Their decisions (or lack of) are subjects for their own consciences to deal with not yours. External political pressure must be brought to bear of course but their recalcitrance is not a reason for you to exercise the same. I mean does America usually make decisions based upon what other countries are doing or not doing? I thought you were supposed to be a "world leader"? America must make the decision to reduce its toxic emissions simply because it is the RIGHT thing to do. Right for America and right for everybody on the planet. Right is might, right?

us drought picture And George if you’re labouring under the mistaken belief that adverse weather is only affecting those poor souls in Africa or Asia and therefore isn’t an American problem just bear in mind that more and more American states are suffering extreme weather conditions as the years go by – sub zero temperatures on the east coast, killer droughts and heat waves blasting the interior... hey, isn’t that your home town that’s burning?

Better get yourself some decent sunglasses, George.

Agree? Disagree? Got a different beef? Why not have your say? Email: