‘I sure want y’all to read and write proper’

Dolly PartonCelebs lend their name face and name to many things. Heather Mills is desperate to get people to take landmines seriously (or should that be ‘her’ seriously), for example. Meanwhile, stars such as Will Young and Helena Bonham Carter are starring in this year’s Oxfam Unwrapped campaign.

However, I can’t have been the only person to have been mildly baffled that Dolly Parton was heading a literacy program in the UK, of all places.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a bit of Dolly. Who couldn’t love a woman who ‘tumbles out of bed and stumbles to the kitchen to pour herself a cup of ambition’?

But why on earth do we need Miss Parton to front (ahem!) a campaign that encourages kids to read and write better. I mean, how many kids know who Dolly is?

I know that half the role models out there are only semi-literate themselves, but the people behind this must have been able to find someone a little more suitable, surely.

‘Remove as friend’ – the ultimate social snub?

I discovered today that I have been the recipient of the ultimate social networking snub – someone who was previously my Facebook ‘friend’ has removed me from his roster.

I found this out by total accident, when I saw this person’s name in a list of someone else’s friends and it told me I could ‘Add to friends’.

Clearly, this person isn’t one of my bestest pals ever – in fact, I simply used to work with this person and, as with most work colleagues, added him automatically.

Now, he’s obviously decided, given that we no longer work together, to remove me from his list.

I’m not quite sure how to take this – obviously, I could feel distressed and look into my soul to try to work out what I could have done to offend him.

Then again, given that I always thought he was a bit weird, I think I’m more likely to take the view that it’s no big deal.

From a wider perspective, though, this could well be the new way to ‘dump’ a friend. Forget all the hard work of not taking their calls, or ignoring their emails. Simple remove them on Facebook. That way, you don’t have to put up with their inane (and yes, I include my own witterings) updates and what they’ve added or taken away.

Of course, you could of course, simply block their updates and keep them in your list of friends. That’s possibly a far moer underhand, but less contentious move.

Just be (a) patient

Waiting roomI was reminded of the irony of the way words have double meanings the other day, when a work colleague regaled me with a typical hospital horror.

She went for a simple endoscopy, but having changed into one of those horrible polyester gowns, then had to wait for 3 hours before the procedure went ahead – with nothing to do, but stare at a wall and avoid slightly potty old men wandering around in similarly disgusting gowns.

Anyway, my point is that she ended up being a ‘patient’ in more ways than one. Sure, the word’s derivation means ‘to undergo’ or ‘endure’ something, but that’s meant to be actual complaint, not the waiting time on top.

OK, so the NHS is underfunded and understaffed, but almost everyone I know who has been for some hospital appointment, whether it’s a scan or something more serious such as chemotherapy, ends up having to endure a wait that would test the ‘patience’ of a saint.