Faffing Friday #6
Fat shaming, fertility, nipples at Cannes { not dawn!! } & much more
This is just me to you sharing what I’ve been faffing around doing/reading/buying on the internet this week.
This is an affiliate free zone.
I thought you might like to know that.
I will only ever mention products I’ve bought or would like to buy myself and think you might like, too.
Oxford Dictionary meaning of ‘to faff about’:
“to spend time doing things in a way that is not well organised and that does not achieve much.”
I disagree 😉
NEWS 🗞️ People are living longer than ever before so now we no longer have a baby boom but a baby bust.
“Fertility is declining globally, with rates in more than half of all countries and territories in 2021 below replacement level.”
The article says that one of the reasons is that “children have moved from being a valuable productive asset to a costly consumption good.” What do you think?
NEWS 🗞️ an interesting global report on spending and saving habits as we age.
Baby-boomers are loaded. Why are they so stingy?
“Economists have a simple model of how people spend as they age. In youth, people’s outgoings exceed their incomes, as they borrow to invest in education or to buy their first house. In middle age, people accumulate money for retirement. And in old age, they spend more than they earn, funding their lifestyles by selling capital (such as houses) and eating into savings.”
I don’t want to die rich but then again I’d have to win the Lottery to achieve that!
STREAMING 🍿 Buying London - those of you who are regular readers will know I’ve just got back from vacay and so I have a lot in my Plex account to catch up on.
We also seem to have caught Covid on the plane back so TV has been our mainstay all over the weekend.
I mean if you like properties like me then you’ll have to watch it too. Those are amazing as you would expect for London but the rest of it .. well.. it’s the poor man’s Selling Sunset. Nearly as bad as what they did with Housewives of Cheshire.
Do they deliberately make the British versions of popular US TV franchises look so bad? 🤷🏼♀️
GIFTING 💝 it was my 61st birthday while we were away in Italy.
This was my pressie from Mr BBED. The SMILE necklace.
I chose it .. like you do.
I mean 99.9% of my gifts are transacted this way. I send him a link, he buys, I act surprised.
I’d had it bookmarked for months because I was drawn to the story behind the collection.
“Each handcrafted piece features Birth Stones set within the smile, inspired by the Japanese art form Kintsugi of repairing broken objects. It’s a metaphor for resilience of life.
The playful smile on each of the pendants remind us that nothing is beyond repair. Nothing has to stay broken. We can pick ourselves up, glue ourselves together with the golden threads of self-love and grow stronger than before.”
I love that, don’t you? 💚
BODY SHAMING 😳 with the latest four episodes of Bridgerton currently stteaming, Irish actress, Nicola Coughlan is the talk of the internet. Not because she’s gorgeous, talented and clever but because she’s fat. Yes really. And according to a piece in Spectator magazine that literally picked her to pieces would never win the heart of a handsome man about town.
“Coughlan is an actress of great value, and might be adored, but she is simply not plausible as the friend who would catch the handsome rich aristocrat Colin Bridgerton’s eye in that way. She’s not shapely — which can work as sexy even in Hollywood; she’s fat.”
Society still telling us that only slim people are beautiful and winning at life.
As someone who has been what I call on ‘the chunky side’ most of my adult life I find this deeply offensive.
WTAF was the man thinking of who wrote it and why is this still ok?
Nicola in my eyes is one of the show’s beauties and can stand shoulder to shoulder with the others.
I hope she knows she’s enough.
Why do we rip women apart like this?
Nicola also wrote an article herself featured in Harpers Bazaar magazine.
What was really, really sad in the article was that she has says she has developed a fool-proof way to avoid scrutiny as a woman in the industry she works in aka as entertainment/TV/Hollywood.
All you have to do is follow these simple rules:
Be permanently 22 years old.
Be a sample size.
You must have a sparkling personality! But not too much.
We’re really not moving on are we?
This also lead me to this .. Bella Hadid’s boobs via Grazia.
Her nipples were causing a stir in Cannes.
We see men’s nipples all the time but women’s are sexualised.
I know, I know it’s complicated because it’s deeply embedded in all cultures but honestly it’s exhausting.
Too fat, too thin, too young, too old, too confident, not confident enough.
When will it STOP?
TRAVEL 🛫 Here’s a picture I took of the famous Italian takeaway lemon sorbet at Ravello on the Amalfi Coast.
I’m going to make a start on drafting my first Travel Inspiration post for here. I have so many photos to sift through and we packed in such a lot so it might be a few weeks yet.
Ciao for now,
Hitting the Like 💗 button at the foot of this post is the most massive help in getting the word out on Substack about Best Before End Date, through its Explore and Search functions. Thank you!
Nicola is a goddess.
Happy birthday, Sharon! My daughter and I are headed to Greece and Italy next week. Thank you for sharing some of your faves. ❤️Hope you and the Mr. have knocked Covid.