Mutterings for the Minority

Jessica Jane Clement

You heard it hear first ladies and gents – the winner of the 2011 I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here reality tv show is stunning brunette Jessica Jane Clement.

With this year’s show starting later this evening, I thought it best to whip out my crystal balls beforehand and give it to you about who would be crowned queen of the jungle.

But let’s get one thing straight from the off, I’m no reality tv buff – far from it in fact – but I do rather like watching various A to Z list celebrities making (pardon the pun) tits of themselves in the jungle.

Whether that be celebs (?) such as Paul ‘The Butler’ Burrell putting his hands in some hellish holes or Katie ‘Jordan’ Price swallowing fish eyes – it’s rather entertaining watching them squirm and whinge.

Although in fairness, 75% of the time the one’s you think will tough it out don’t and the one’s that you think will be pussies aren’t!  Apart from Gillian McKeith of course whom everyone (I spoke to) wanted to see her suffer as much as possible!!

So what of former ‘Dream Team’ and ‘The Real Hustle’ glamour puss Jessica then?

Well apart from the fact that she is extremely attractive, the media (no doubt assisted by ITV) have hyped her presence in the jungle further by quoting her as saying things such as - “I love bikinis. I wear Brazilian ones, which are small on the bum. They might look skimpy. I’ve even had a wax, so I’m fully prepared!”.

And if comments such as that didn’t stimulate the crotch region of the predominately male Sun/Star readership, then her saying that “I don’t wear bras” and “I don’t think any man can deny enjoying hot girls in bikinis” certainly will!

But that’s just the point isn’t it.  Do the media really think that the majority of people fall for this type of propaganda and that we’re a nation of simpletons? Or is it just darn good PR that will whip up a frenzy (mainly amongst men) and boost the show’s ratings – not to mention the telephone charges when voting for young Jessica?

No doubt the ladies amongst you could make the same sort of observations about ‘The Only Way is Essex’ star Mark Wright – whom is Jessica’s ratings pulling counterpart (according to my wife anyway!).

I’m sure the younger female generation and fans of boyband McFly will be cheering on Dougie Poynter – so it’ll make interesting viewing (for some) I’m sure.

But I’ll let you all ponder that talking point, whilst I go back to drooling over Jessica Jane Clement Celebrity Jungle Winner

 P.s

I do have a soft spot for brunettes and always have done – just ask my wife

At last I can now safely remove the itchy, annoying and highly embarrassing facial hair that I have modelled for the last 30 days in aid of The Prostate Cancer charity – in the guise of ‘Movember‘.

I’ve not intentionally grown a moustache since being a scruffy long haired student back in the early 80′s and I can now remember the reasons why!! Even the novelty of not having to shave properly has worn off and I’m now chuffed to have my chops back feeling as smooth as a baby’s backside – well almost.

Even more importantly, Mrs DDWT has now agreed to get up close and personal with me. It appears as though my ‘mo’ was akin to rubbing up against a wire brush! Charming eh.

But before I gave it the best a man can get Gillette seeing-to, I had to do one last round of photo’s to remind myself of how hideous I looked. So here goes…

Hulk Hogan - Professional Wrestler

Merv Hughes - Australian Cricketer

Kris Kristofferson - Trucker in 'Convoy'

The Edge - guitarist in U2

Ben Volpeliere-Pierrot - Lead singer of Curiosity Killed the Cat

Police Officer - Village People

Well I hope you had as much fun looking at that lot as my family had whilst taking the photographs!

In all seriousness though, it’s been great fun growing a ‘mo’ and most importantly its been for a very worthy cause. As the time of writing I’d raised £95 for The Prostate Cancer charity – so if you’d like to donate, you can still do so by visiting my Movember page.

Today is the start of Movember, a month long charity challenge to raise awareness and funds for The Prostate Cancer Charity.

After deliberating for far too long last year, I missed out on the opportunity of taking part – so I made damn sure this time around that I’d be a ‘Mo Bro’! The ‘Mo’ is slang for moustache, and in November each year they come together for Movember.

The Movember challenge is for men to change their appearance and the face of men’s health at the same time by growing a moustache. Those of a non-hairy disposition or frequent shavers (like me) will I’m sure testify how difficult this challenge would be.

Joking aside however, I have personal reasons for supporting the charity – especially as I lost my Dad to the big C a few years ago. Many men aren’t very aware of prostate cancer or perhaps more importantly the signs of it. Until a few years ago I was one of those men.

The startling statistic that one man dies every hour in the UK from prostate cancer should be a sobering thought for anyone and I’d recommend having a read of the information about the illness on The Prostate Cancer Charity website.

So please consider supporting Movember in any way you can – whether it’s promoting the campaign, making a donation, or simply helping to promote the fundraising pages of people whom are doing the challenge via Facebook or Twitter.

Here are a range of Mo’s kindly provided by Men’s Health magazine – I’d welcome any suggestions as to which one I should grow. The one with the most votes (via the comment form) will win.

Whatever happens, I’ll keep you all posted on how my ‘Mo’ grows over the next month and whether or not it means my wife temporarily giving me a wide berth!

Just for the record, here is my clean shaven start for day one

No it’s not the start of a new trilogy of films from Robert Zemeckis, its that god awful fact that I had to go back to work today after all of the festive fun and feeding.

Still it wasn’t all doom and gloom as the mid-morning snow storm (slight exaggeration) had the ladies in the office all of a ‘tizz about the thought of dashing off home – it was quite a funny sight/background noise actually

I must also give a mention to Swansea Council whose coverage of the school closures (due to the snow storm *ahem*) on twitter was excellent – to the point that I knew DDWT Junior’s school was closed before the school contacted us! It’s also a great example of how major organisations could and should embrace social networking.

In fact (quite surprisingly perhaps?) there was quite a bit of positive energy kicking around the office. Even my old mate Augustus Gloop (aka Victor Lesbos) got in on the act, revealing his “Fit4″ plans for the coming year – soon to be published via posterous.com – so watch this space for further details. I’m glad for him though, as I know it’ll make him feel so much better in himself and perhaps most importantly his family too.

Talking of energy, I used my lunchtime break as an excuse to kick start my 2010 training programme with a 5 mile run along the beach at Swansea Bay. Despite it being rather breezy I was happy with my 42m 13s stint and was a decent start to the year.

Seeing as the stomach bug has literally knocked the stuffing out of me, I was off work today.

I decided to spend some time catching up (in between frequent vists the loo) with some of the books which have been gathering dust on my bedside cabinet.

Today’s digest was “Get into bed with Google” by Jon Smith. A very handy little book (quite literally) from which I picked up quite a few little gems – which I’ll be certain to use, when I’m back to my best!