Two Born Every Episode

So at the recommendation of my friends who study Biomedicine and enjoy a good cry, I decided to check out the Channel 4 fly-on-the-wall documentary 'One Born Every Minute,' which is part horror film, part soap opera and part sitcom. In fact, I can't quite believe it's not a sitcom, sort of like 'The Thick of It' but with a maternity ward.

I think part of the reason why this programme has won BAFTAs is because it covers the full spectrum of human emotion. While watching it I alternate between covering my eyes, wincing, saying "Stop being a dick Steve" to a husband who keeps blowing up the rubber gloves and throwing them around the room, crying and getting annoyed at the woman who decides at the last minute that she doesn't want a baby after all and needs to go home and water the plants.

Then there's the receptionist who at one point says on the phone: "Gotta go, darling, we've got an ambulance in here. No, not an actual ambulance, that wouldn't fit through the door." Just now (I'm on episode three, not sure how much more I can take) I thought that the midwife was genuinely about to rip off a baby's head. Most of it, however, seems to be focused on the weird things people say under stress. The greatest moment of the show (and possibly of all television) so far was a woman complaining that childbirth was hurting a bit and the midwife responding with: "It's meant to hurt, you're at the ring of fire." The Ring of Fire???? This isn't that bit in 'Finding Nemo' where Nemo has to swim through the volcano in the fish tank.

Even better, in the next episode, based on the preview, there's a couple having a debate about whether it would be amoral to name a child 'God.'

People are so weird.

Things I Do Not Want To See On My News Feed

I fully understand that the son of family friends was trying to raise awareness of animal cruelty. I completely agree that it is wrong to be cruel to animals. This does not mean I am prepared, early on a Thursday morning while feeling a bit under the weather, to see a picture of an Alsatian with it's face blown off by a firework. It was horrific. When I scroll through Facebook I expect photos, people commenting on their lives, amusing Kent uni memes, but NOT THIS.

It was right underneath a photo that my crazy, frequently drunk Canadian friend from Sydney posted of her crotch (in shorts, steady on). I thought 'jeez, the stuff people put on Facebook' and then I saw the dog. Canadian friend, you can post as many gratuitous crotch shots as you like if it spares me from the sight of dead animals with blown up faces.

If I ever see anything resembling a dead human with a blown up face I will be deleting my facebook and renouncing the internet. I will become Amish and never look at or think about technology ever again. I mean it.