Terry Prone: Freedom Diary — feline woes and ‘deformed’ supermodels
Supermodel Linda Evangelista has emerged from half a decade of silent invisibility to say she tried out a non-invasive procedure called Coolsculpt. Picture: PA
Having provided readers with a diary of lockdown, it struck me the other day, walking along St Stephen’s Green, masked and smiling at perfect strangers, that I might offer a Freedom Diary looking at the differences the lifting of restrictions can make. So here goes.
Dino the cat has grown a white whisker on the left side to match the one on the right side. He’s also grown lumpy bits on his head and a vile attitude that expresses itself in random biting. Although one visitor who got bitten by him suggested a good foot in the arse would be a corrective, I have reservations. Might work with a dog. With a cat, never.
So Dino gets taken to the vet and I congratulate myself that this will be free because haven’t I paid health insurance for him over the past two years? The blood tests show he has nothing to justify either the biting or the random indoor peeing he has added to his repertoire, but the vet thinks he has a food allergy. She sends him home with a bladder relaxant tablet which makes me fearful he will pee indoors with more comfort and enthusiasm, and another pill for the head bumps.
Secreting pills in jellied cat food by hand is so nauseating that I take to using the surgical gloves I bought after a friend came to my house and cooked a superb Pakistani dinner for me, wearing such gloves throughout. It makes perfect sense. Particularly for baking, where you can peel off the gloves and toss them when they get covered in batter instead of trying to scrape wet cement off your fingers with the back of a knife. (If you try to scrape gunk off your fingers with the front of a knife, mealtime may be postponed in your house while you visit A&E.)
The results of the Canadian election come through, and Justin Trudeau waxes enthusiastic about the mandate the voters have given him. Which – as predicted in this page last week – is pretty much the mandate he had before he needlessly called an election. A lesson to politicians in government all over the world, is our Justin: Live out your term. Serve your sentence. Never, ever call a snap election.
I finish by ’ journalists Jonathan Calvert and George Arbuthnot, published by Mudlark. It is about the disproportionate, indeed horrific, number of deaths in the United Kingdom during the pandemic when the UK was led by “a superficial prime minister who has got no grasp of public health.” That description came from Professor John Ashton, a former NHS regional director of public health.
The authors point out that on March 7 of the first pandemic year, “The Irish prime minister announced the closure of all schools, and a ban on outdoor gatherings of more than 500 people and indoor gatherings of 100 people. At the time, Ireland had 70 confirmed cases and one confirmed death. Italy imposed a full nationwide lockdown that day, with all shops closed except supermarkets, food stores and chemists.”
On that same day, Johnson, who took no such preventative action, blathered on TV about “looking at the science.” The UK prime minister, despite contracting Covid-19 himself and subsequently claiming conversion, despite his gushing gratitude to the pressured NHS, continued to favour the economy over public health in the months following his illness.
“By the end of the year, more than 90,000 people had perished in Britain with the virus given as a cause of death on their death certificate, and the country suffered one of the largest falls in economic output ever,” say the writers. “The toll was felt most harshly by the poor, the disadvantaged and the disabled. One in three low-paid workers was furloughed or lost their jobs compared with one in 10 of the higher-paid. People with learning disabilities were four times more likely to die than those without them. Black people were three times more likely to die than white people.”
The contrast is stark. Ireland was, in the main, well-served by its government, although we wouldn’t want to say so out loud in case they got notions. The UK was not well-served by its government.
Babies more than six months old used to greet strangers with an expression that said “who are you?” Now, because they’ve been exposed to so few humans during lockdown, the expression is more “what are you?”
Lunch with a communications advisor friend. We share astonishment at how we’ve adapted to conducting the most intimate one-to-one consultations over Zoom. We share our delight at mostly getting to work with clever clean people, because, as he puts it, “When you’re polishing a turd, you know you’re never going to end up with anything other than polished turd.”
The car fails its NCT and the test guys helpfully point out that the front offside tyre has a screw in it. How the hell can a screw get into a tyre? A nail yes. But a screw? On the same day, I learn that that pet insurance covers visiting the vet, but the painkilling liquid, the blood tests and the pills I’m scrunching into jellied cat food collectively cost more than a hundred euro. Dino stays touchy and surly despite the money being spent on him.
Supermodel Linda Evangelista has emerged from half a decade of silent invisibility to say she tried out a non-invasive procedure called Coolsculpt. If exercise plus diet are not removing your spare tyre, Coolsculpt is a newish technology which involves them fitting an oblong paddle to the spot. The paddle sucks a fatty bit of you into itself and then, over 45 minutes, freezes it into a solid brick, which, over the following few weeks breaks up and makes its way out of your system. Apparently CoolScupt can also be used on faces and that’s where Evangelista’s problems began. After her procedure, she developed paradoxical adipose hyperplasia, which, instead of shrinking fat cells, increases them.
Evangelista describes herself as “deformed’ and says the change has “not only destroyed my livelihood, it has sent me into a cycle of deep depression, profound sadness and the lowest depths of self-loathing.”
The hostile, even contemptuous reaction to her misfortune on mainstream and social media proves right those studies which show that, even when ostensibly sympathetic when someone hits bad health or has an accident, we nonetheless tend to blame the unfortunate individual and decide their suffering must in some way have been merited.
This instinctive form of self-preservation allows condemnation of the already condemned. And, in this case, doesn’t feel wicked because we know the rich and famous have no feelings.
It’s fair to assume Evangelista’s profound sadness deepened over the weekend.
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