Ask Militant Ginger

It's that time again! Another delve into the keyword questions that drove people to Militant Ginger.

Is Princess Diana more annoying dead than alive?

I don’t know – that’s a tough one to call. I would have to make a judgment call and say yes; because while the poor woman was still alive, at least the incessant media coverage about her was mitigated by the fact that ‘shedidaloddagudworkfurcharidy, mate.’

These days, she’s still rarely off the telly in one form or another (mostly conspiracy shows about her ‘murder’) but no longer contributes to children with AIDs or digging up landmines or anything jolly like that.

So incessant media attention MINUS charitable contributions EQUALS more annoying than ever.

What’s the Bluetooth Headset Captain Jack wears in Torchwood?

Sorry to disappoint you, guys – but Captain Jack’s stylish Bluetooth headset from the mediocre mess that was BBC’s Torchwood was actually a one-of-a-kind prop made from toilet rolls and washing up bottles in the BBC props department.

Ianto, Owen and the others, however, did use a real brand – the Jabra BT250v . You can get your own here.



Why do Christians hate gay people?

Christians technically don’t hate gay people.

Certain people claiming to be Christians (i.e. certain Evangelical groups) hate gay people, but they have as much to do with Christianity as Mormonism does. [Congrats, Militant Ginger. You managed to insult two religious demographics in a single sentence – Editorial Bear]

The truth be told, the official line is that no Christian ‘hates’ gay people. They just believe, rightly or wrongly [Erm, wrongly – Editorial Bear] that homosexuality is unnatural (despite it being practiced by a recorded 1,800 species of animals) and a sin against God.

They don’t hate the sinner, they hate the sin. This distinction does seem to confuse some Christians, hence the problems – but ‘hate’ is not the official line.

Anyway. While God was pretty clear on the matter (read Leviticus) his son, Jesus, was kind of ambivalent – a little like President Obama.

It’s possible to make a pretty convincing case against homosexuality using New Testament scripture (CK whipped me in this debate, so I have to give credit where it’s due) although I believe that Jesus was more about the ‘love your neighbor’ part of his belief system, rather than whether or not being gay was cool.

ибупрофен vs нурофен

I don’t even know what this means – nor do I know why it brought somebody to my blog! But I hope it has something to do with sexy Russian ladies in uniform.

I am so objectifying this lady right now.

Did Stephanie Meyer plagiarize Charlaine Harris?

Charlaine Harris, who wrote the Sookie Stackhouse series of vampire books, is often credited as the inspiration for Twilight. People have even accused Meyer of plagiarizing Harris directly – one commentor on this blog wrote “All you have to do is read Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse series and L.J. Smith's Vampire Diaries and there's the whole storyline in all 4 of the Twilight books. Someone needs to sue this woman because she's just getting credit for what others have done and watering it down into her disgusting version. It's NOT FAIR!”

Personally, I think it’s difficult to accuse Stephanie Meyer of plagiarism, because the whole vampire genre is SO trite and derivative that there hasn’t been an original work of vampire-inspired fiction for decades. In fact, Meyer managed to inject a rare bit of originality into the genre by mixing it with the romantic tribulations of a narcissistic, self-obsessed teenager AND in making the whole series of books a clumsy metaphor for abstinence.

So, good for her.




Why can’t antibiotics cure the common cold?

One of the most annoying things about living in America is how people will rush to the doctors for a prescription of antibiotics as soon as they have the sniffles.

These people are retarded. They’re the idiots breeding antibiotic-resistant bacteria and driving up the cost of medical insurance. They’re too ignorant to research one of the most basic facts of modern medicine: Colds and flu are caused by viruses.

Antibiotics only treat bacteria. Taking antibiotics to cure your cold is utterly useless.

In fact, it’s more likely to make you sick than better, as each time you take antibiotics you perform a neat little holocaust of all the ‘good’ bacteria in your gut and screw up your digestion.

We can’t only hold the deeply stupid people who wolf down the pills responsible, though. Seriously lazy doctors have got into the habit of filling in these idiot’s prescriptions because it takes ten minutes to convince them that antibiotics are a waste of time, and just thirty seconds to give them the prescription they stupidly crave.

Educating the masses and convincing doctors not to pander to hypochondriacs is vitally important - unless we fancy all falling victim to an antibiotic-resistant super-bacteria five years in the future (hey, that's an idea for a book!)

The law, morality and Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

That’s not even a question. That sounds like the title of an undergraduate literature dissertation.

Twilight kind of went like this

Why do pirates wear eye patches?

Most people think pirates wore eye-patches to cover the hole in their skull where an eyeball used to be (remember, kids – cutlass fights are all well and good – right up until somebody loses an eye!)

But actually, patches were an essential accessory for bi-optic buccaneers as well.

On the sun-drenched seas of the Caribbean, an eye-patch was used during ship-to-ship combat. When a pirate descended into the bowels of a ship to loot the booty, he’d step from the sunshine on deck to the murky darkness of the unlit hold. As you’ll know if you’d ever had somebody shine a flashlight into your eyes, that renders you instantly blind – as it takes valuable minutes to build up ‘night vision’ after being in a well-lit environment.

Pirates would wear an eye-patch to force one eye to adjust to low-light conditions, so when they thundered downstairs into the lower decks of a raided galleon, they could lift their ‘patch’ and immediately see clearly in the darkness, without having to wait for their eyesight to adjust (which might lead to an adversary running them through in the mean time.)

It’s a good trick to remember. If you’re ever sneaking about outside, always keep one eye closed, so if the lights come on, or somebody shines a flashlight in your face, your ‘night vision’ won’t immediately vanish, leaving you temporarily blinded as soon as darkness falls again.

Which is better Nurofen or ibuprofen?

They’re both the same thing! Nurofen is an expensive brand-name pill that contains 200mg of ibuprofen – exactly the same dosage as the cheap, generic brand (but three times more expensive.)

Aside from an easy-to-swallow coating, they are exactly the same product – so use your noggin and plump for the generic pill when you get the chance. Anybody who tells you that brand-name pills have a ‘superior blend’ or similar rubbish are just buying into the hype.

Same drug, same thing – the only difference is whether you keep the difference in price, or you ‘donate’ it to a pharmaceutical giant (and believe me, baby, their profit margins make the oil industry look positively pauperish by comparison.)

Smith Cho drinks tequila in Knight Rider?

The delectable Smith Cho was one of the stars of Knight Rider’s aborted relaunch. In fact, as far as I was concerned, she was the star. Cute and funny and a mouthwatering sight in a bikini, she should have kept that show on the air even if Val Kilmer’s smooth-talking Ford Mustang didn’t.

There were other memorable parts of this episode - I just don't remember them

Anyway. In the third episode, Knight of the Iguana, our intrepid crew try to track down a stolen missile and to that end, Smith’s character – Zoe – poses as the hero’s wife and pours a bottle of tequila down him. It’s left ambiguous whether or not they got up to some tequila-fueled mischief later that evening - but I’d be thoroughly disappointed in the new ‘Michael Knight’ if he hadn’t! Girls like Smith Cho don’t come along very often.



Sweet, safe, grown-up pit bulls for sale?

If you’d read this post, you’d probably have realized that I’m not entirely convinced that pit bulls are ever entirely ‘safe.’ All dogs have the capacity to be dangerous - my wife was mauled by a tiny terrier when she was little - but I do believe that pit bulls are inherently more dangerous than most.

They're still beautiful animals, though.

Pit Bull - Bad dog, or just bad publicity?

In ‘Burn Notice’, what was the waist leather bag Fiona wears?



Fiona Glenanne, the former IRA assassin and femme fatale of USA’s Burn Notice, wears a Leather Hip Bag during some of her more dangerous missions and you can get one of your very own here.

Lady Died

"Princess Diana and her lover Dodi al-Fayed were unlawfully killed by the grossly negligent driving of their chauffeur and paparazzi photographers pursuing them into a Paris road tunnel 10 years ago, an inquest ruled."

Read the article here.

Ten million quid, that just cost the British taxpayer.

What are they going to investigate next? Who was responsible for conspiring to blow up Parliament on the 5th November? What caused the sinking of the Titanic?

Two earlier inquests had already reached the same verdict. This was entirely unneccessary, needlessly expensive and taught us nothing.

Whether you think she was the fabled 'Princess of Hearts', or just a coke-snorting, bed-hopping philanderer, perhaps we could all do Diana Spencer a favour now and let her rest in peace.

Princess Diana and other good ways to Waste Taxpayer's Money

Next week, a hearing begins to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of Princess Diana.

As if the countless documentries, investigations, reports and articles hadn't already picked over every single aspect of the unfortunate accident with a fine flea-comb!

Just last December, a lengthy British police investigation ruled that the crash which killed Diana was an accident and decided that she was not the victim of an elaborate murder plot.

A two-year French investigation has already reached the same conclusion.

Which begs the question: Why are we having ANOTHER bloody hearing?

The woman's been dead for over a decade now. Certainly, there are unanswered questions regarding how Dodi and Diana died - but is it really in the public interest for thousands of pounds to be channeled into ANOTHER tedious, repetitive and ultimately pointless hearing?

Almost 3,500 people die every year on the roads of Great Britain. Unfortunately, because none of those poor people were 'the Queen of Hearts,' their deaths are usually buttoned up and filed away with the minimum of fuss and effort. Case closed - as Diana's should be.

Britain needs to move on. To paraphrase one of the lines from the Oscar winning Helen Mirren film The Queen: "Princess Diana manages to be even more annoying dead than she was alive."

Lady Diana

I never knew Princess Diana. I know very little about her. All I do know is that ten years ago, I got up extra early to watch this weird Canadian TV show (starring an inexplicably attractive actress) and Channel 4 had cancelled it to provide what turned out to be an entire WEEK of coverage of the Princess' death.

And from that I learned something tragic. Diana's death was the best thing that ever happened to her career.

Even a decade later - about thirty percent as long as she was actually alive - Diana continues to dominate the headlines as people continue to commemorate her passing.

Rumours are still flying about her death. Documentaries are still being made about her life. Despite being dead a third as long as she was alive, people won't shut up about her.

And it seems crazy to me. What on earth is this obsession with Princess Diana?

Now I'm sure she was a lovely person. She did wonderful work for important charities like the Landmine Survivor's Network. She hugged more people with AIDS than any recorded celebrity. She helped win the International Campaign to Ban Landmines it's 1997 Nobel Peace Prize.

But she was also a person. And she only did as much charitable work as any person could do in the course of, say, a lifetime.

There are people out there asking for Diana to be canonized! Question Mark?

These people deserve to be roughly slapped! For a start, to be declared a Saint I believe you need to be Catholic. Secondly, you need to do more than pat a few hands and raise a a few quid for charity.

Elton John might have rewritten "Candle in the Wind" for Diana, but her work was far overshadowed by a legitimate potential Saint whose death Diana overshadowed - and as far as recognition for the works of Mother Teresa went, Elton John might as well have sung: "Sandals in the Bin."

Lady Diana wasn't a saint. She wasn't anything apart from a tragic, lonely woman who was exploited by royalty, the media and the varied men in her lives. I don't want to say anything against her personally - I am painfully aware that she was the mother of Princes William and Harry, who are both apparently wonderful sorts - but this fevered reverence of the woman is ridiculous.

Do you think her many lovers, like Major Hewitt or Will Carling, considered her a Saint as they wrung their sleazy kiss and tell through the media meat grinder?

Do you think dodgy gurus like Susan Orbach and Stephen Twigg wormed their way into her affections for anything other then personal gain?

Slimy types like her butler, Paul Burrell, continue to promote the 'cult of Diana' in order to milk the 'Lady Di' cash cow as much as possible.

And what has sprung up in Diana's absence is a cult. A lot of delusional people who take the blank slate of Diana's tragic life and scrawl whatever values they want on it. Diana seemed to exist in a kind of vacuum, surrounded as she was by so many people who cared more for what she could GIVE them than for the woman herself.

Diana died tragically early without ever establishing who SHE was and what SHE believed. Instead we have row upon row of dubious 'acquaintances' who have made careers in telling us what they thought the Princess was really all about.

And there are hundred and thousands of people in the UK who look to the beautiful Princess as the vessel for their own values, hopes and dreams.

The thousands of bunches of flowers. The millions of cards. The gallons of tears shed for her when she passed.

None of that was for Diana herself.

Only her sons and family could really feel the loss. Those thousands of people instead wept for the loss of whatever dreams and values they'd used to fill in Diana's blanks.

Ten years later, people are still weeping and wailing for Princess Diana - but it's more and more obvious that nobody actually knew or cared about the REAL Lady Di. They're more interested in lamenting the Queen of Hearts, the blond mannequin who represented everything they're weeping about. Mourning Diana is an entirely selfish pursuit.

Princess Diana is dead. She left behind some pretty solid charity work and two fine young sons. Stop the insidious, fake 'mourning' and 'tributes' for this poor woman and let her rest in piece. Her influence in your life - and mine - was confined to column inches in the tabloids. If you believe it's anything more substantial than that, you're lying to yourself.