between the rock and the cold, cold sea

I met a friend on the train home last night, and somehow we ended up talking about body image and associated crap. (Our conclusion: society is screwed up, and people who make "Women's Clothes" obviously believe women come only shaped like skinny big-breasted aliens with drainpipe legs, or very, very round.)

But it got me thinking.

I'm 5'8 or 5'9, depending on who's doing the measuring. I weigh between 93 and 95 kilograms - 14 stone, or thereabouts. And thinking about the shape of my body last night - carrying the amount of muscle I do right now, I suspect if I weighed in at under 90kg, I'd be borderline unhealthy. Under 85kg, and I would be downright unhealthy.

The Body Mass Index test thinks I'm obese. (BMI of 31.74) Which is a test that is clearly, and demonstrably, flawed, and yet it is used as an indicator of obesity on a global scale by the WHO.

All the advertising that is directed at women's bodies encourages dieting and weight loss, as opposed to exercise and muscle gain - a far healthier, for those who can sustain an exercise program, option. I gave up trying to buy clothes that fit and flattered in the women's section of shops years ago, even before I started climbing. I have thighs like tree-trunks, thanks to years of first hockey, then running, and when I could find trousers that fit my thighs? The waist freaking gaped. So I started buying men's trousers instead: too much fabric in the crotch is a small price to pay.

These days I have the same problem with shirts. Women's tops and blouses come equipped with this problem at the upper arm and shoulder, you see: when I flex my arm, the seams protest. Apparently women can have breasts but not shoulders, and in the clothes which are capacious enough about the shoulder? Billowing fabric around the midrift is not my idea of fun. So when I need a shirt, I buy in the men's department, and get one loose enough to still button in front.

It makes me quite angry, this.

You see, I climb for two hours at least twice a week. I run at least a mile, sometimes two, about twice a week. Maybe once a week I'll do weightwork for an hour or so. This keeps me healthy and relatively sane. So I have the muscle of an amateur athlete (six to eight hours of dedicated exercise is enough in one week, seriously: I do have other things to do as well) and the bones of my ancestors, who have generally been big, broad-shouldered people as far back as family memory goes.

(I've got my mother's shoulders. Plus some muscle that's all my own.)

Which means finding clothes is a bugger. And don't even get me started on the disjoint between my flesh and frame and the female bodytype that seems to be so popular in the media, and just how poisonous that is even for people who recognise the absurdity inherent within this construct.

Recent greatly pessimistic reports in the papers - coming on the heels of about two years, that I've been paying attention to, of increasingly pessimistic reports in the papers - move me to wonder if, in two-five years' time, there will be any employment opportunities anywhere for an over-educated, opinionated history geek.

Ack. Probably less than I'd like. Which means that after this year of crazy spendiness (sail training, archaeological dig, WFC, and thank you top-up college grant, which leaves me sufficient cash to actually do interesting stuff this year), I need to:

1. buckle down,
2. find a reasonable part-time job (and summer job next summer, which means no travelling unless I can find both a decent temporary job and reasonably-priced safe temp. accomodation abroad),
3. stop buying more than two books a month (horrors!)
4. and start hoarding fifty-euro notes under my mattress until we see which way the next five years' worth of winds are blowing.

Maybe I'm a pessimist. And maybe I'm not, and I should have noticed sooner a correlation between the steadily-rising price of staple foods and the increasing instability in the housing and mortgage market. I would like not to be an indigent and desperate thirty-year-old, thank you, and in order to avoid that, it looks like I'll need a bigger cushion than the non-existent one I presently have.

My country: it makes me so very bitter, how badly the government pissed away the surplus of the boom years in tax cuts and cronyism, and the creation of new ways to enrich their supporters at the expense of the rest of us. We could have a world-class hospital system, much better funding for education, and an improved social welfare and social safety net for the invisible classes whom prosperity has so often passed by: single parents, young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, recovering drug addicts, those suffering from mental illness, the silent but struggling sections of the middle and the working class who found themselves robbing Peter to pay Paul as low lending rates and high credit card limits tempted them into a downward spiral of dependence on credit.*

Instead, it looks as though we can look forward to a future very similar to the eighties. (When Charles Haughey, then Taoiseach, enjoined the nation to 'tighten its belts' while enjoying the high life - funding by skimming, corruption, and cronyism - himself. Bertie Ahern, our current great leader, by the way, was one of Mr Haughey's protegés of that time.)

#

Note to self: brush up that French and learn that German soon. If nice economic growth goes bye-bye, at least that way you'll have a couple more options than you would've otherwise.


*I am frequently surprised by the level of obliviousness displayed by those who have never been exposed to the problems of the working classes and otherwise underprivileged segments of the population. The son of one of Ireland's ambassadors with whom I shared classes last year, for example, described himself as a libertarian, in favour of a free market economy, and did not really believe in the need for government support for social programs. Whereas a couple of my good friends - and me, myself - wouldn't be able to afford to attend college without the Free Fees Iniative and the local authorities' grants scheme, and I'd lay bets on any one of the three of us to have the edge on him in native intelligence and ability any day of the week.

Yeah, I'm biased in favour of more and better social programs. So is anyone who's ever had to realise that achieving financial security is frequently more about luck, persistance, and who you know than it is about skill, persistance, and native ability, and who believes that people should not be stigmatised for being victims of misfortune.

Am I bitter? Only slightly. People like to believe they deserve their good fortune, and that they themselves are safe. They like to believe that it could never happen to them, and therefore people who don't share their good fortune... well, tough. If they worked harder/played better with others/were born smarter/insert excuse here, well, then, they'd enjoy all the benefits of the good life. But the truth is, that's a lie.

(In fact, you know something? I'm going to come right out here and say that in addition to that, democracy is a lie. It's the greatest, most widely accepted illusion in the history of humanity. But I'm hard pressed to name any democratically elected head of government or head of state who did not come from at the very least an upper-middle-class background. Most influential Irish TDs and senators have wealth and/or family connections in politics. Less than one-eight of them are female. The overwhelming majority of them are straight and moderately if not strongly socially conservative, and to the best of my knowledge, Christian if not Catholic, even if they've lapsed. Most of them are over forty. The idea that one or two of our elected representatives might actually capable of understanding, much less representing, the viewpoints of me and people like me strikes me as improbable. On those days that it doesn't strike me as laughable.)

(And this is leaving aside allegations of gerrymandering and voter registration fraud, which I would be perfectly happy to level if some journalist would actually report on what the consequences of the redrawing of constituency boundaries in Dublin and that voter registration mess-up after the census actually were.)

And, ah. This has become quite the rant, hasn't it? I guess I have several points of interest I would very much like to bring up with the leaders of this nation. If I ever thought I could trust myself to behave rationally in a face-to-face encounter.

So, I was in a bookshop yesterday. As you are, you know. Wandering, looking, sometimes (though not often, if I want to be able to buy lunch next week!) buying.

There will be muttering about prices in the next bit, so if such things annoy you, you are forewarned.

In which prices are compared.

So, buying books.

In Easons, the paperback of Wild Magic by Tamora Pierce is 9.10 euro. In Hodges Figgis and Waterstone's the same book retails at 8.75 euro. On Amazon.com, it retails at $5.99. Assuming shipping @ $3.00 (anyone care to enlighten me as to whether this is an accurate figure?), that's (today, at least) roughly 7.45 euro. Saving: in buying from HF: 0.35 euro; in buying from Amazon.com: between 2.30 and 2.65 euro.

Damn but we're getting hammered on price.

Another experiment. When Demons Walk, Patricia Briggs. Forbidden Planet sells it for 10.99 euro. Retail price at Amazon.com: $6.50. Assuming shipping at $3.25, that works out to 8.10 euro. Saving: 2.89 euro.

A third experiment: Sabriel, Garth Nix. Local bookshop sells it at 10.20 euro. On Amazon.com, an illustrated version (my version has no pictures) retails at $7.99. Assuming shipping at $4.00, that works out to 9.95 euro, approximately. Saving: 0.25 euro.

I suspect that the chains here order through the UK. Thus for currency conversions we're getting hammered twice: once from dollar to sterling, and then again from sterling to euro. Evidence for this thesis comes in the form of Charles Stross' The Family Trade, out of Tor Publishers, found all alone in Hodges Figgis for 6.10 euros. As it retails on Amazon.com for $6.99, and assuming shipping at $3.50, it comes in at 8.70 euros, making it one of the few times it's been cheaper to buy from nearby rather than from abroad.

Throughout, I've assumed the cost of shipping to be approximately equal to half the cover price. I haven't touched on the comparative price of TPBs or HBs: they vary between 14.00 euro and 33.00 euro, bottom-end of one and top-end of the other. The moral of this story, friends? Ordering from Amazon.com is in general but not always less expensive than toddling down to the local HF or Waterstone's. It's for-damn-sure less expensive than buying via Easons.

You have guessed that my retailer of choice is Amazon.com, right? With Hodges Figgis (Dawson St) about ten points back in second?

PS: Also, US editions of Tamora Pierce's books have better covers, in addition to being cheaper. Mine are pink-ish and girly, instead of having pictures of swords, wolves, horses, or other more content-appropriate images (you'd think it was a book about hair, honestly). The covers for The Immortals series all look the same, and they only have the title on the spine. I mean, come on, people. Just because the author's a female who's writing about a female main character, there's no need to completely alienate those of us who see a pink cover and automatically cringe (I have an allergic reaction to pink. Ask anyone). Damn good thing I heard of Pierce by the Internet first, or I'd never have picked up any of her books.