Off Topic And Now for Something Completely Different

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TIGERSCAVE said:
I'm waiting for someone to start a 'we're protesting against protesters group' who show up wherever there are protesters and disrupt whatever they're protesting about on that day, which usually depends on whether its raining or not or has the possibility of being televised.
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I'd love to tag along to some of these protests against protesters...Sadly I have work commitments:emoticon-0121-angry
 
Have the right to protest then have the right to protest against said protesters.

If someone is offended by you have the right to be offended by them being offended.
 
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DMD said:
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Punishment is decapitation with noggin tossed into the soup pot, followed by ceremonial playing of the Stones "Goat's Head Soup" album.:emoticon-0105-wink::emoticon-0105-wink:

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Sep 4, 2020 — The first design featured a stuffed goat's head sitting in a bowl of soup but it was deemed unsuitable by the label. However, this image was ..."
 
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Chazz Rheinhold said:
Absolutely outstanding awe inspiring woman.


Your childhood can haunt you’: Fatima Whitbread on trauma, triggers, therapy – and how sport saved her
Emine Saner
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In the latest of the many lives of Fatima Whitbread, the former champion javelin thrower has become a formidable reality TV star – and it suits her. She is surely one good show away from “beloved” status, which might prove to be the I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! spin-off in which she is soon to star, alongside a select group of other former participants in the ITV show.

She was on I’m a Celeb in 2011, when her nasal cavity became home to a cockroach during one of the challenges – “There’s definitely something wriggling about in there!” – and it took an hour for the camp doctor to flush it out. But I liked her best in last year’s Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins, the Channel 4 series in which celebs do Special Forces training; Whitbread cracked three ribs jumping out of a helicopter, but kept it a secret because she didn’t want to leave the show. She was charming, warm, capable and – having filmed it at 60 – ripped.


This morning, she has been out exercising for two hours. She does an hour of cardio or weights every day. Even her jack russell terrier, Bertie, is ageing well; the vet remarked recently on his good health. “They said he’s got a heartbeat like an athlete,” says Whitbread, smiling. That is what you get when you are owned by an Olympic medallist and former world champion who once broke the women’s javelin world record. Bertie sits between us on a large sofa in Whitbread’s spotless, clutter-free home in Essex. The only hint at the greatness of her sporting career is a bronze cast of her hand, strong fingers wrapped around a javelin’s grip, given to her by Madame Tussauds.

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With her dog, Bertie. Photograph: Teri Pengilley/The Guardian
Whitbread, 62, has led an extraordinary life. This decade has been defined so far by physical and psychological challenges. Last year, as well as the SAS show, she climbed Mont Blanc. About a year ago, for the first time, she started having therapy (even when she had a breakdown in her 20s, she powered through without professional help). “I’ve realised I’ve done bloody marvellous without it, but sometimes things trigger and all those childhood years can come back to haunt you,” she says.

As a baby, Whitbread was abandoned in a flat in London and essentially left to die. After hearing her cries, neighbours called the police. Whitbread recovered in hospital from malnutrition, dehydration and her terrible physical condition, then spent her childhood in children’s homes. “I felt this deep sense of loss within me,” she says. When she was five, she was introduced to her biological mother – having had no idea of her history – and moved to a children’s home in Essex, where she had two half-siblings. “That was the first time I started questioning what was going on in my life and what was to become of me.”

It was a life of deprivation, physical and emotional. There wasn’t enough food and they had few clothes. The children played in a cold garage with a concrete floor. Love and affection were scant. She was abandoned again and again. Occasionally, her biological mother would arrive to take her half-siblings home for a visit, but not Whitbread. Once, the woman she calls “the biological mother”, never “my biological mother” – a Turkish Cypriot woman who spoke almost no English – did take her, but changed her mind and sent her back to the home.

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Whitbread with Ferne McCann on Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins in 2022. Photograph: Pete Dadds/Channel 4/PA
Whitbread’s biological father, a Greek Cypriot, also surfaced. She spent a week with him, with the promise that he would be back to collect her again the weekend after, but he didn’t appear. “I sat on the front wall for a whole weekend,” she says. “The second weekend, I did the same thing. I think that cracked me, emotionally. I put these walls up around myself to secure me.”

The only person who showed Whitbread any love was a woman who worked in the home, known as Auntie Rae. It was Rae who stopped Whitbread’s biological mother, who arrived one day with three men, from taking her out of the home. Rae’s suspicions proved horrifyingly true: at a later date, when her biological mother was able to take her to London for a while, 11-year-old Whitbread was raped by a man who was staying at the flat.

Back at the children’s home and traumatised, Whitbread refused to go to school. “I just became withdrawn. Having not spoken to anyone about it, I felt ashamed, dirty.” Eventually, she told Rae what had happened. Whitbread says it was reported, but nothing was done (she was referred to a child psychologist for a couple of weeks). “Unbelievable what went on back then. You were never taken seriously. We had a social worker and I would talk to him about it. Nothing ever happened. Nobody took notice of the kids.”

a ban on the practice will come into force in October. “For a lot of young kids, history starts repeating itself: they start getting in trouble, or offending, and it costs the state a whole lot more. These young kids need that support, because once they get out there they’re easily preyed upon. They’re still kids.”

She worries about the cost of living crisis, inequality and poverty: “The kids are the ones that are getting the damage done.”

Sport saved her, she says. “It gave me a sense of freedom, forgetting all the problems that were going on in the home and the life we were living. It gave me a sense of achievement, that here was something I was good at. I got validation from my PE teachers and my school friends and started to realise life was a bit more positive. I realised that this could be my way out.”

Whitbread became the school netball captain and started going to a local athletics club. The javelin coach, Margaret Whitbread, recognised her talent. When she found out Whitbread lived in a children’s home, she gave her some secondhand boots and a javelin. When Whitbread was grounded for a month, she managed to get a note to Margaret, fearing the coach would think she had left. She wrote that she hoped Margaret would take her back and that she intended to become the best javelin thrower in the world. “It was the start of a dream,” says Whitbread.

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At the Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, Canada, in 1978. Photograph: Tony Duffy/Getty Images
Margaret and her husband eventually fostered Whitbread, who changed her surname, Vedad, by deed poll. At 14, she finally had a family, which included the Whitbreads’ two young sons. “That was amazing, the best thing that happened, to be a part of a family, which I’d always wanted,” she says. “It wasn’t straightforward, because all families have their problems. Both as mum and daughter and athlete and coach, we worked it out somehow – and we conquered the world.”

Whitbread began training hard. “I started taking more responsibility for myself,” she says. “You have a whole lot of people that help you, but I’ve got to get myself out at 5am, down the gym, three times a day training, seven days a week.” She trained in a wooden shed at the bottom of the garden of a family friend. She smiles when she talks about how different facilities are now: “I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I loved every minute of it.”

Just two years later, in 1979, Whitbread was crowned European junior champion – becoming the first British woman to hold the title. At less than 1.65 metres (5ft 5in) tall, she wasn’t built like a champion javelin thrower, but what she lacked in reach she made up for in determination: “I had little room to manoeuvre where making mistakes was concerned, so I had to work exceptionally hard at analysing everybody’s techniques and working out the best for me.”

implicated by the coroner in the 1994 suicide of Cliff Temple, a Sunday Times journalist who had been investigating Norman’s conduct as promotions officer of the British Athletics Federation.) After her traumatic childhood, she was determined that her son’s would be different. “I felt I would be a good mum,” she says. “I believed in myself. It was important for me to be able to prove that I could be a good mum and break the mould of what I’d been through.”

She and Norman had experienced years of infertility, followed by a miscarriage, before their son was born via a third round of IVF. Norman left her for another athlete when Ryan was small, although he and Whitbread managed to remain close. Then, in 2007, he died suddenly, leaving Whitbread to raise Ryan alone. On top of that, it emerged that Norman had taken out loans, partly in Whitbread’s name, which put her tens of thousands of pounds in debt. She had to sell the family home. The fees from reality TV kept her afloat and helped her rebuild her profile.

She seems content, although a long friendship ended recently, which has saddened her: “It’s not until something goes wrong in your life that everything else starts to come back and chase you.” This is why she will stick at the therapy – she has found some kind of acceptance. The older she has got, she says, the more she has realised that “life is about absorbing the good and the bad, learning from both and still moving forward”. She made a choice, she says, not to feel angry or bitter. “That’s only damaging to yourself. It blurs your vision, it doesn’t allow you to progress. When I go back and talk to the five-year-old or the 11-year-old Fatima, I take her by the hand and say: don’t worry, I’ve got you now.”
Click to expand...
Great article, slightly marred by an out of context paragraph added and then I think a chunk missing.
What a story, about two incredible women. How emotional that must have been for both when she was on her first podium. I wonder how many undiscovered Fatima’s are out there? Sadly, not as many Margaret’s who would sacrifice so much for a kid struggling.
 
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Chazz Rheinhold said:
Absolutely outstanding awe inspiring woman.


Your childhood can haunt you’: Fatima Whitbread on trauma, triggers, therapy – and how sport saved her
Emine Saner
You must log in or register to see images

In the latest of the many lives of Fatima Whitbread, the former champion javelin thrower has become a formidable reality TV star – and it suits her. She is surely one good show away from “beloved” status, which might prove to be the I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! spin-off in which she is soon to star, alongside a select group of other former participants in the ITV show.

She was on I’m a Celeb in 2011, when her nasal cavity became home to a cockroach during one of the challenges – “There’s definitely something wriggling about in there!” – and it took an hour for the camp doctor to flush it out. But I liked her best in last year’s Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins, the Channel 4 series in which celebs do Special Forces training; Whitbread cracked three ribs jumping out of a helicopter, but kept it a secret because she didn’t want to leave the show. She was charming, warm, capable and – having filmed it at 60 – ripped.


This morning, she has been out exercising for two hours. She does an hour of cardio or weights every day. Even her jack russell terrier, Bertie, is ageing well; the vet remarked recently on his good health. “They said he’s got a heartbeat like an athlete,” says Whitbread, smiling. That is what you get when you are owned by an Olympic medallist and former world champion who once broke the women’s javelin world record. Bertie sits between us on a large sofa in Whitbread’s spotless, clutter-free home in Essex. The only hint at the greatness of her sporting career is a bronze cast of her hand, strong fingers wrapped around a javelin’s grip, given to her by Madame Tussauds.

You must log in or register to see images

With her dog, Bertie. Photograph: Teri Pengilley/The Guardian
Whitbread, 62, has led an extraordinary life. This decade has been defined so far by physical and psychological challenges. Last year, as well as the SAS show, she climbed Mont Blanc. About a year ago, for the first time, she started having therapy (even when she had a breakdown in her 20s, she powered through without professional help). “I’ve realised I’ve done bloody marvellous without it, but sometimes things trigger and all those childhood years can come back to haunt you,” she says.

As a baby, Whitbread was abandoned in a flat in London and essentially left to die. After hearing her cries, neighbours called the police. Whitbread recovered in hospital from malnutrition, dehydration and her terrible physical condition, then spent her childhood in children’s homes. “I felt this deep sense of loss within me,” she says. When she was five, she was introduced to her biological mother – having had no idea of her history – and moved to a children’s home in Essex, where she had two half-siblings. “That was the first time I started questioning what was going on in my life and what was to become of me.”

It was a life of deprivation, physical and emotional. There wasn’t enough food and they had few clothes. The children played in a cold garage with a concrete floor. Love and affection were scant. She was abandoned again and again. Occasionally, her biological mother would arrive to take her half-siblings home for a visit, but not Whitbread. Once, the woman she calls “the biological mother”, never “my biological mother” – a Turkish Cypriot woman who spoke almost no English – did take her, but changed her mind and sent her back to the home.

You must log in or register to see images

Whitbread with Ferne McCann on Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins in 2022. Photograph: Pete Dadds/Channel 4/PA
Whitbread’s biological father, a Greek Cypriot, also surfaced. She spent a week with him, with the promise that he would be back to collect her again the weekend after, but he didn’t appear. “I sat on the front wall for a whole weekend,” she says. “The second weekend, I did the same thing. I think that cracked me, emotionally. I put these walls up around myself to secure me.”

The only person who showed Whitbread any love was a woman who worked in the home, known as Auntie Rae. It was Rae who stopped Whitbread’s biological mother, who arrived one day with three men, from taking her out of the home. Rae’s suspicions proved horrifyingly true: at a later date, when her biological mother was able to take her to London for a while, 11-year-old Whitbread was raped by a man who was staying at the flat.

Back at the children’s home and traumatised, Whitbread refused to go to school. “I just became withdrawn. Having not spoken to anyone about it, I felt ashamed, dirty.” Eventually, she told Rae what had happened. Whitbread says it was reported, but nothing was done (she was referred to a child psychologist for a couple of weeks). “Unbelievable what went on back then. You were never taken seriously. We had a social worker and I would talk to him about it. Nothing ever happened. Nobody took notice of the kids.”

a ban on the practice will come into force in October. “For a lot of young kids, history starts repeating itself: they start getting in trouble, or offending, and it costs the state a whole lot more. These young kids need that support, because once they get out there they’re easily preyed upon. They’re still kids.”

She worries about the cost of living crisis, inequality and poverty: “The kids are the ones that are getting the damage done.”

Sport saved her, she says. “It gave me a sense of freedom, forgetting all the problems that were going on in the home and the life we were living. It gave me a sense of achievement, that here was something I was good at. I got validation from my PE teachers and my school friends and started to realise life was a bit more positive. I realised that this could be my way out.”

Whitbread became the school netball captain and started going to a local athletics club. The javelin coach, Margaret Whitbread, recognised her talent. When she found out Whitbread lived in a children’s home, she gave her some secondhand boots and a javelin. When Whitbread was grounded for a month, she managed to get a note to Margaret, fearing the coach would think she had left. She wrote that she hoped Margaret would take her back and that she intended to become the best javelin thrower in the world. “It was the start of a dream,” says Whitbread.

You must log in or register to see images

At the Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, Canada, in 1978. Photograph: Tony Duffy/Getty Images
Margaret and her husband eventually fostered Whitbread, who changed her surname, Vedad, by deed poll. At 14, she finally had a family, which included the Whitbreads’ two young sons. “That was amazing, the best thing that happened, to be a part of a family, which I’d always wanted,” she says. “It wasn’t straightforward, because all families have their problems. Both as mum and daughter and athlete and coach, we worked it out somehow – and we conquered the world.”

Whitbread began training hard. “I started taking more responsibility for myself,” she says. “You have a whole lot of people that help you, but I’ve got to get myself out at 5am, down the gym, three times a day training, seven days a week.” She trained in a wooden shed at the bottom of the garden of a family friend. She smiles when she talks about how different facilities are now: “I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I loved every minute of it.”

Just two years later, in 1979, Whitbread was crowned European junior champion – becoming the first British woman to hold the title. At less than 1.65 metres (5ft 5in) tall, she wasn’t built like a champion javelin thrower, but what she lacked in reach she made up for in determination: “I had little room to manoeuvre where making mistakes was concerned, so I had to work exceptionally hard at analysing everybody’s techniques and working out the best for me.”

implicated by the coroner in the 1994 suicide of Cliff Temple, a Sunday Times journalist who had been investigating Norman’s conduct as promotions officer of the British Athletics Federation.) After her traumatic childhood, she was determined that her son’s would be different. “I felt I would be a good mum,” she says. “I believed in myself. It was important for me to be able to prove that I could be a good mum and break the mould of what I’d been through.”

She and Norman had experienced years of infertility, followed by a miscarriage, before their son was born via a third round of IVF. Norman left her for another athlete when Ryan was small, although he and Whitbread managed to remain close. Then, in 2007, he died suddenly, leaving Whitbread to raise Ryan alone. On top of that, it emerged that Norman had taken out loans, partly in Whitbread’s name, which put her tens of thousands of pounds in debt. She had to sell the family home. The fees from reality TV kept her afloat and helped her rebuild her profile.

She seems content, although a long friendship ended recently, which has saddened her: “It’s not until something goes wrong in your life that everything else starts to come back and chase you.” This is why she will stick at the therapy – she has found some kind of acceptance. The older she has got, she says, the more she has realised that “life is about absorbing the good and the bad, learning from both and still moving forward”. She made a choice, she says, not to feel angry or bitter. “That’s only damaging to yourself. It blurs your vision, it doesn’t allow you to progress. When I go back and talk to the five-year-old or the 11-year-old Fatima, I take her by the hand and say: don’t worry, I’ve got you now.”
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I was sufficiently curious to look at her life on Wikipedia…….


Whitbread wrote in her 2012 autobiography that she began a personal relationship with Norman shortly after his divorce in 1986.[7]: 242–244  In 1993, journalist Cliff Temple investigated claims that members of the Chafford Hundred Athletic Club, which was run by Whitbread and included leading athletes personally managed by her fiancé Norman, received preferential treatment from Norman in his role as promotions officer of the British Athletics Federation (BAF). Temple authored an article in The Sunday Times suggesting that there could be a conflict of interests.[42][43] Temple killed himself in January 1994. It emerged during the inquest into Temple's death that Norman had threatened and falsely smeared him.[44][45] Norman spread rumours that Temple had sexually harassed Shireen Bailey, whom Temple coached.[46][44][45] Bailey denied the claims.[46] Norman was dismissed from his job as promotions officer for the BAF following the federation's inquiry into the matter.[47][48] The inquest concluded that although the end of Temple's marriage was a contributing factor to his suicide, that the allegations by Norman were the other factor, and had "tipped the balance".[44]

In 1997, Whitbread married Norman in Copthorne, West Sussex.[49] The couple, who had a son together, divorced in 2006. Norman died of a heart attack in 2007.[50][51]
 
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Kempton said:
Thanks for asking mate, I'm OK. Still out of work, but I'm sure it will come eventually.
A cracked rib doesn't help, I never realised just how painful it could be :emoticon-0120-doh:
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Good luck to you. If you want a ticket for Saturday pm me.
Pain? I tore my calf muscle 'playing' walking football last March, never known pain like it. Then I fell asleep with an ice pack directly on the wound 'to bring the swelling down' and it stuck to my skin. It must have been less painfull getting my leg amputated with a rusty saw. But pain passes. UTT.
 
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Urika Peece. said:
Good luck to you. If you want a ticket for Saturday pm me.
Pain? I tore my calf muscle 'playing' walking football last March, never known pain like it. Then I fell asleep with an ice pack directly on the wound 'to bring the swelling down' and it stuck to my skin. It must have been less painfull getting my leg amputated with a rusty saw. But pain passes. UTT.
Click to expand...
Very generous of you U P, I already have a ticket for Saturday though, but thanks all the same.
 
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