The feeling of guilt we experience in these situations is because we are conditioned as a society to view doing anything to prioritise our own well-being as selfish.This means that, even when we are physically in need of prioritising ourselves and our healing because we are genuinely ill, we still respond in a way that suggests we are doing something wrong.Not only is it not selfish to call in sick, it is Selfirst - the practice of meeting your own needs as a priority, in ways that do not do harm to others, and sometimes can benefit them. It is actually taking care of the needs of others as well.
Jake Thackray - I Stayed off Work Today
I get all that, and it's good to hear that I'm not the only one who has these feelings. But I'm not sure it's enough to stop me feeling them. Maybe after a few more years in this more supportive work environment, some of the mental scars from The Bad Place will start to fade. Until then, I just need to remember Chip Taylor's rather extreme solution...
(Other, more recent, covers were considered and rejected, for obvious reasons.)
Inspired by John Medd's recent post about Playboy (which is "burlesque", in case you're casting aspersions John's way), I figured I would reach up to the top shelf for this week's Product Placement.
I would like to start by saying that I have never in my life bought a copy of Razzle, so my knowledge of said publication comes only from school-boy sniggering. We did once find a battered copy of something that might have been Razzle, stuffed inside a tree trunk in the local woods, but it was missing its cover so I can't be 100% sure. In this era of wall-to-wall internet porn, I even find myself nostalgic for scraps of yellowed, rain-damaged nudie books; they were like Blackbeard's treasure to 80's school kids.
When I worked in radio advertising, there was a small newsagent's kiosk outside the building where staff would go to buy snacks. The guy who ran it was called Keith, and his top shelf magazines came in tasteful wrappers. One day, some of my colleagues got into one of those "Do you remember Spangles?" conversations that disrupt productivity in workplaces all across the country. The office wag began waxing lyrical about Razzles. "I used to love a good Razzle myself," making out that it was a chocolate bar from his youth. He then convinced the office junior to go ask Keith if he still sold Razzles. The office junior duly obliged, only to come back a few moments later with a confused look on their face... "Keith says you're winding me up?"
You may have laughed at that story. I laughed at the time. Would you think differently if I told you the office junior in question was a young woman? I've felt guilty about playing along with that joke over the years, wondering if I crossed the line into toxic masculinity for a moment. This was 20 years ago, and the young woman in question remained blissfully ignorant... although I guess she might have found out later. I still feel bad about it.
Well, that brought the mood down, didn't it? Let's cheer ourselves up with some songs about Razzle... not including any of the following...
Shirley Bassey - Razzle Dazzle
No, none of those have anything to do with the infamous top shelf magazine.
This sounds like it might do...
Summer Salt - Another Piece of the Cake
But since Summer Salt are from Austin, Texas, I think it's unlikely.
Martin has remarked repeatedly about this feature that he loves it when he knows for sure what song is coming at the end just from the blog post title. Some of you may think you've got today's final tune figured, and if so, I'm guessing it's this one...
Ian Dury - Razzle In My Pocket
No bout adoubt it, the b-side to Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll is a very amusing tune. But it wasn't actually the inspiration for today's post... and neither was John Medd!
No, the song that sent me down this particularly sordid rabbit hole comes instead from an artist I only discovered last year (thanks to Khayem). This is from her latest album, one I've been enjoying a lot over the past couple of months, and the lyric in question sums up her style particularly well. It's what I'd call "faded debauchery"... Jarvis would approve, I'm sure.
