Sister Eva’s Problem Page
All your problems solved with our straight talking no nonsense Sister of Mercy!
Dear Sister Eva,
I have been a serving officer in the Parachute Regiment for 8 years and have recently completed my third tour of Afghanistan. In my spare time I enjoy flower arranging and dressing in a very feminine way. However, I have size 12 feet and I find it very difficult to find suitably elegant high heeled shoes. Should I approach the MOD for help? Thanking you,
Brian, Colchester
Dear Brian,
On NO account approach the MOD. If you do, first there will be a three month delay while a procurement plan for the shoes is drawn up. The procurement plan will show that the shoes will cost £300 and be available in two months time. It will then be discovered that there are design faults with the shoes and the project will be put back another 6 months to allow the shoes to be reconfigured. 18 months after the revised deadline it will be discovered that even though the initial design faults with the shoes have been corrected, they are unsuitable for wearing at night and the project will be scrapped at a cost of £1.2 million pounds. A range of footwear for the discerning cross dresser can be purchased on line for about £100 and I suggest that you try there.
Dear Sister Eva,
I am the leader of a medium sized political party and have recently been appointed to High Office as part of a pact with a larger party. My problem is that things haven’t been going well in the polls and I seem to have been neglecting my wife and our love life has waned. I am planning on cooking a special romantic meal for my wife to re-ignite our passion, but obviously it should have no political symbolism. What meal do you suggest?
Nick, Sheffield
Dear Nick,
Barnsley Chop and Crumble would seem appropriate
Dear Sister Eva,
I am flamboyant and camp and until recently I was chief designer for a prestigious French fashion house. However, I was forced to resign because I asserted that Hitler was a jolly good fellow who knew had to deal with the Jews, unfortunately forgetting that he was also a bit tough on Man Love. How can I rehabilitate my reputation and career with a new design? Any tips?
JG, Paris
Dear JG,
I understand the post of junior designer at Primark is available. Can I suggest a large yellow felt star attached to the lapel might catch on? Also I believe that long numbers tattooed on the arm are this year’s must have accessory.
Dear Sister Eva,
I am the chief executive of a large Metropolitan Council and I have been asked to cut spending back 2008 levels. How can I best protect my vast salary?
Derek, Birmingham
Dear Derek,
It is important that you repeatedly point out that the job is important and local authorities need to “compete with the private sector for the very best talent”. Please DO NOT point out that your pay and pension exceed anything in the private sector and that you were unable to hold down a job therein.
Dear Sister Eva,
I am a highly paid premier league footballer. Although I am defender I like to get into the box and score whenever I can. How can I improve?
Ashley, Cobham
Dear Ashley,
I feel shooting practice is important. Pin a target to the work experience boy and try shooting him from different angles and in different light conditions. Also, I recommend dogging.
Dear Sister Eva,
What’s the best way to enforce a No Fly Zone?
iDave, Oxford and London
Dear iDave,
You already have one, it’s called the RAF.
That’s all for now
In love and light!
Sister Eva Longoria
March 7, 2011 at 10:19
-
“Barnsley chop and Crumble” :0)))))) – masterful
- March 7, 2011 at 03:56
-
Perhaps there should be a list of mass death and suffering so that we all
know what is officially politically correct.
In WW2 the dead was vast in
number but not often given special status. And on the political scene even
more mass deaths. And of course the black death ( often a subject of jest)..It
goes on.
Possibly you should let the dead bury the dead.
- March 6, 2011 at 23:42
-
Gor blimey, the landlady is showing a lotta restraint tonight.
- March 6, 2011 at 17:54
-
A very good and very funny article, Sister Eva and the fact that it caused
offence to someone is neither here nor there.
However, the best joke I ever
heard about the Holocaust was told by…a Jew.
Hats off to PT Barnum…I too am
one of the 16%
- March 6, 2011 at 17:58
-
Thank you KW. I didn’t mean to offend, but gently mock the maker of the
remarks, the silly man. As it happens, my great uncle was in Auschwitz, and
there is more…
- March 6, 2011 at 22:23
-
Maybe such articles should appear more often to, as the Book of Common
Prayer puts it, “Lighten our darkness”
-
March 6, 2011 at 23:43
-
That was obvious to everybody except the permanently aggrieved.
- March 6, 2011 at 14:49
-
Gott in himmel, LW goes off to earn a crust & all hell breaks
out.
Free speech under attack & defended. Lust! That nun needs strict
correction from The Abbess (will there be a video?). It’s mad, it’s anarchic,
but it’s a bloody good read.
- March 6, 2011 at 18:03
-
Dear Livewire
I have mentioned your post to the Abbess. Although I do
not quite understand, she seems delighted by it and keeps banging on about
“”the marketing potential”, whatever that means. Anyway, I have been told
she is ordering a new VidCam and some special lighting, and has opened a
PayPal account.
- March 6, 2011 at 11:37
-
Thank you Longrider. By the way, your blog is excellent
- March
6, 2011 at 11:47
-
Thank-you. It’s broken at the moment, so I’m talking to myself rather.
I’ll be off-line in a day or so while we migrate to a new server and fix the
broken installation.
- March 6, 2011 at 10:22
-
Oh dear!
Well Tacitus, if I have offended you, I apologise. The intended
butt of the “intended” joke was in fact of course the maker of the rather
nasty statements. Now humour is a dangerous thing in many ways. It is
dangerous to write because it can go wrong and fall flat. It is also dangerous
because it can be a potent weapon against the target.
Getting the balance
right is difficult.
Please accept my apologies and let us move
on.
Sister E
- March
6, 2011 at 11:31
-
Why apologise? There is no right not to be offended – and your meaning
was crystal clear. As others have pointed out, gallows humour is part of the
human condition. I’ve been known to indulge myself when standing next to the
dismembered corpse of a jumper on the railway line.
- March 6, 2011 at 11:36
-
Your apology is graciously accepted Sister Eva and bearing in mind your
later comments I am sure no offence was intended whatsoever. As always it
good to come across people who can demostrate passion in their beliefs
whislt remanining magnanimous enough to accept criticism.
As you correctly end in your posting it is now time to bring this matter
to an end – in friendship and I would hope that supporters and critics of my
view would join me in ending matters at this point and jointly look forward
to may future highly enjoyable articles by Sister Eva.
-
March 6, 2011 at 11:36
-
At the moment, no one has the “Human Right” to not be offended.
Thankfully.
Give it time though.
- March 7, 2011 at 11:06
-
…if I have offended you, I apologise
That is not an apology,
and in any case, none is called for. Some people will be offended, whatever
you do; well, let them be offended.
- March 6, 2011 at 10:16
-
“However, your ‘joke’ about the fascist comments in Paris was, I feel, in
bad taste.”
Well then, Tacitus, how would you deal with such comments? If you ignore
them, it suggests you don’t care. If you deplore them, why should the racist
maker of those comments take any notice of you? If, however, you make fun of
them, it makes the racist look ridiculous and that he is likely to care about;
no-one likes being laughed at.
-
March 6, 2011 at 10:16
-
Tacitus is being a mite precious, one feels…
- March 6, 2011 at 08:49
-
Anna, thanks for your reply. I have no problem with your editorial right to
print as you see fit. However, I would have hoped you would have demonstrated
a little more sensitivity.
To equate derogatory comments about Gordon Brown with those made by the
author of this piece is fallacious. Once an politician puts themselves up for
office they become ‘fair game’. More importantly, Gordon Brown did not suffer
medical experimentation, mass gassings, systematic cremation and then years of
denial (which continues today) by some who refuse to believe it happened.
Yes, you are right there was genocide during the Crusades (interestingly
those who suffered are often seen as being Arabs, whilst the Jews who lived in
Israel, as it now is, are largely ignored), but the author did not make jokes
about the Crusades – she directly referred to tattoos and yellow stars.
Like you I am appalled by the thousands who will die of hunger, poverty and
deprivation in the world, but again this is not the issue. The fact remains
the author made derogatory comments – it is simple as that.
As editor I would have hoped you would have concurred that her comments
were insensitive whilst feeling duty bound to publish. The fact you chose not
to saddens, but does not altogether suprise me.,
Finally, may I address my point to “Grumpy Old Man” – what is funny about
laughing about an act that killed six million people? If we start to laugh at
it, we begin to forgive those who perpetrated the axct .. and as people who
never suffered the Holocaust, we have not earned that right.
- March 6, 2011 at 09:25
-
“To equate derogatory comments about Gordon Brown with those made by the
author of this piece is fallacious. Once an politician puts themselves up
for office they become ‘fair game’.”
The point was not to comparing GB with the holocaust, it was equating
GB’s mental illness with the mental illness of thousands of others now
living. Many of those will be offended that GB’s mental illness was joked
about whilst they themselves suffer the problems of it. They will be saying
that GB should be treated the same as they are because to make fun of GB is
to make fun of them.
The joke about the yellow star is not to make fun of the holocaust. It
acknowledges the extreme depravity of that event but then places it on
Galliano’s shoulders and then uses it to make fun of Galliano. The joke is
about Galliano and not the holocaust.
People are called little Hitlers not to make fun of the Hitler but to
make the person out to be extreme. It’s not a anti-jewish thing to say it,
even if the person is jewish. It’s to equate that person as being extremely
authoratarian. You could easily say little Gengis Khan, but the whole point
of the phrase is that it everyone has to understand it.
-
March 6, 2011 at 10:15
-
Then let me ask you a simple question – would you be happy to stand
face to face and tell this ‘joke’ to a Holocaust survivor? For the sake of
common decency I would hope not.
At the end of the day – until you have been forced to wear a yellow
star, you have not earned the right to joke about it.
- March
6, 2011 at 12:40
-
Actually, yes I would. Though the only caveat would be the context.
Humour always requires the context to be appropriate.
There are three context I can think of. 1) I know the person and know
them to be still affected by the holocaust and sensitive, 2) I know the
person and they are not sensitive about the past, 3) I don’t know the
person at all.
In case one, I would not say the joke because it wouldn’t be funny..
In case two, I would say it. In case three it be played by ear, but I
would say the joke. If I had personally offended the person then I would
apologise. But I would not apologise if someone else told me that I
could, or might have offended a holocaust survivor, even though a
holocaust survivor never heard me joke.
I have no problem with people taking offence, but only if they take
offence about being personally offended. Being offended on behalf of
someone else leads to the road where nothing could be said because
everyone will be offended on behalf of a single person who doesn’t
exist.
An example. I know someone who tried to commit suicide. At work when
he came back someone had put up a noose from the ceiling. That’s because
we knew the person to be a practical joker as he had played jokes on us
in the past. He took the noose joke in good stead but told us off for
getting it wrong because he attempted to slit his wrist not hang.
Context here meant that the target of the joke wasn’t offended.
- March 7, 2011 at 11:03
-
Tacitus, people will make jokes about whatever they jolly well
choose, and there are no rules to govern a sense of humour that people
like yourself can enforce, so you might as well give up the
struggle.
- March 6, 2011 at 10:15
-
Oh my.
I note that Tacitus “disappears” all the other groups who were subjected
to the concentration camps, albeit in response to Galliano’s anti-Jewish
drunken jibes and Sister Eva’s dark humour. The object of the joke is not
the holocaust. It is – to me – that this deeply unpleasant, ignorant and
self-important man can make the news headlines in a world where it is quite
conceivable that “high fashion” could indeed use the iconography of the
holocaust in this season’s must-have clothing. After all, I saw this morning
a photo of a Galliano outfit modelled on traditional Hassidic dress.
Also, as one of the “mentally ill” I have (a) been known to describe
myself as a nutter or loony and (b) never taken offence at jokes or serious
insults towards wee Gordie’s mental health deficit. Gallows humour is a
survival mechanism.
- March 6, 2011 at 19:48
-
Dear PT
I have only just read your post in detail. To which my
responses are (1) yes, and you get it, and (2) I hope you overcome what
issues you have. I have issues with depression and more myself, and other
matters, although not chronic, I hope.
I wish you well. Your sense of
humour bodes well, too.
My best wishes
Sister E
PS
Gildas the
Monk also sends his compliments. They are not lightly given!
-
March 6, 2011 at 08:09
-
Who says Lefties have no sense of humour?
Just about everyone, I
think.
- March 6, 2011 at 07:39
-
Anna, can I say I was pretty appalled by your latest entry. I enjoy, though
frequently disagree, with many of your entries on here, and since finding this
site I have been impressed by the high level of respect normally shown.
However, your ‘joke’ about the fascist comments in Paris was, I feel, in bad
taste.
In particular, I refer to your recommendations for fashion accoutrements
and that they should include a yellow star and “long numbers tattooed on the
arm are this year’s must have accessory”.
Such ‘humour’ about the Holocaust is in bad taste and disrespectful to both
those who died and the few remaining survivors who came out of the death
camps.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not against humour, but I find little to laugh
about six millions people being forced to wear a ‘badge’ to separate them and
then face systematic murder.
- March 6, 2011 at 08:31
-
Tacitus,
I don’t censor posts on the grounds of not agreeing with them, it is not
my policy. Sister Eva has her own brand of humour – some might say that a
Nun running an advice column was in pretty poor taste. There will no doubt
be some who feel that comments regarding the (hopefully few) transsexuals in
the military who struggle to find shoes of the right size is in pretty poor
taste. If you search around I doubt that you could fail to find a person
someone, somewhere, who was offended by some part of every post on this
site. Referring to Gordon Brown as a nutter is deeply offensive to the one
sixth of our population who struggle with mental health issues.
The
alternative would be to ensure that every post was politically correct,
sympathetic to every group of victims, everywhere in the world. That would
somewhat cancel the entire point of this blog which was to establish a place
where people didn’t have to hold a particular point of view in order to be
welcome, didn’t have to ascribe to an ‘approved’ version of history in order
to speak out. Inevitably that will mean that on occasion you may find
someone stepping on your particular toes.
I find very little to laugh
about in millions of people the world over dying of starvation – but I
respect and uphold the right of others to joke about ‘starving the blighters
out’ when referring to politicians.
The history of the deaths in the
holocaust is a particularly sad one, but then so is the history of the
deaths in the Christian crusades, and the deaths during the rise of the
Caliphate. The thousands of elderly people who will die in the cold winter
months for want of a rise in their winter fuel allowance so that left wing
politicians could buy up votes in their blighted northern constituencies
distresses me beyond belief – but I don’t weigh any of those deaths as being
of some higher moral value that should never be the subject of humour by
anyone, anywhere.
I also uphold, and applaud, your right to be ‘appalled’
– however, it does not trump my right to run my editorial policy as freely
as I can within legal limits of libel and contempt of court. Stick around,
sooner or later you will find yourself laughing at something on here, it
will brighten your day. It will no doubt offend someone else.
-
March 6, 2011 at 10:55
-
” There will no doubt be some who feel that comments regarding the
(hopefully few) transsexuals in the military who struggle to find shoes of
the right size is in pretty poor taste.”
Just out of interest (I’m not looking for an argument, honestly), why
“hopefully few”?
- March 6, 2011 at
11:13
-
“hopefully few” for the same reason there are hopefully few military
who are struggling with any other overwhelming emotional problem and
facing up to possible life changing surgery. I have a close friend who
is transexual, and I know the debilitating mind wrenching she has been
through – I like to think that the military are capable of keeping their
mind totally on the job of defending the country.
-
March 6, 2011 at 11:35
-
A friend of mine has completed the transition, and believe me,
she’d make a bloody good soldier and would scare the shit out of any
enemy who tried to get the better of her!
-
March 7, 2011 at 14:34
-
Anna, the guy is a trainee troll for the limp dims. Its unfortunate
that he discovered your humble abode, but if you ignore him, he may just
foxtrot oscar.
{ 32 comments }