Celebrity Nonsense, Free Speech

                                                 People

The Doctor, Luke Fildes (1843-1927) 
Photo Credit: Tate [CC-BY-NC-ND]

Adam Kay, a doctor and the bestselling author of This Is Going to Hurt, questions why celebrities seem obsessed with telling the rest of us how to be healthy.

Cate Blanchett and Sandra Bullock endorse “epidermal growth factor facials.” The growth factor appears by means of the foreskins of newborn babies.

Victoria Beckham’s breakfast is apparently a side salad and some apple cider vinegar.

Simon Cowell seems to put his faith in 1V Infusions – “a casserole of vitamins and amino acids designed to annihilate toxins.”

Kim Kardashian supports appetite suppressant lollipops whilst Gwyneth Paltrow claimed that inserting jade eggs into a vagina, balanced hormones and prevented prolapse. 

(The Sunday Times, 2019)

Why does anyone believe this rubbish? Sadly, portraying wellness hogwash as scientific fact must work.

Oh and don’t forget the bottle of Psychic Vampire Repellent on our Gwyneth’s website, Goop, which sells for £26.

Education

Education, Edward Alfred Briscoe Drury (1856-1944)

Photo Credit: William Morris Gallery [CC BY-NC]

Justin Murphy, a political science lecturer at Southampton University, has been suspended and faces a hearing into “gross misconduct” after voicing his objection to abortion. The university decided this was “incompatible” with its values.

(The Sunday Times, 03.02.2019)   

What has gone wrong at some of our universities? 


*124 of 133 universities paid their heads more than the £150,000 the Prime Minister earns.

Peter Horrocks, the boss of the Open University who was forced to resign last year after a no-confidence vote by academic staff, earned £718,000. The head of the London Business School earned £596,000. 

(February, 2019 Figures from the Office for Students)

Meanwhile:

*Universities to slash more jobs as financial crisis worsens.

The Office for Students published figures which showed that UK universities had shed 8,000 jobs, or 2.5 per cent of the entire academic workforce, in the past year. Cardiff University will be cutting 350 full time posts over the next five years after it posted a £22.8 million deficit for the last financial year.

(The i, 2019)

On the Today programme 16.2.2019 a Labour party spokesman called for a maximum salary, for university bosses, of 20 times of that of the lowest employees in that organisation. Shouldn’t that apply to the public sector workforce as a whole including the B.B.C. Moreover, why can’t it be applied to the private sector too?