News of the Restless

Farewell, Mr. Trololo…

Posted on June 4, 2012 by Sabina Becker

His name was Eduard Khil, and his vocalization brought him international fame long after this broadcast was over and done with. And today, there’s some sad news regarding the Russian baritone the Internets have dubbed the Trololo Man:

Little-known Russian crooner Eduard Khil, who gained international fame when a 1976 clip of him performing on Soviet television went viral in 2010, has died, The Associated Press reported on Monday.

He was 77.

He had been hospitalized in St. Petersburg since a stroke in early April that left him with severe brain damage, according to AP. He died Monday.

Khil was a popular singer in the Soviet Union during the 1960s and 70s, but after the fall of the Iron Curtain, he slipped into obscurity.

It wasn’t until two years ago when the video of his performance ignited on YouTube, scoring more than two million views.

“I found out about it from my 13-year-old grandson,” he told RT, a Russian TV news program, in 2010. “He walked into the room, humming the song… So I asked him, ‘Why [are] you singing it?’”

The boy replied: “‘Grandpa, you’re home drinking tea here, [and] in the meantime, everyone’s singing your song on the Internet.’”

The tune he belted out, “I Am Glad, ‘Cause I’m Finally Returning Back Home,” was originally written at the height of the Cold War in 1966 with lyrics about an American cowboy.

Khil and his composer knew the highly restrictive government would never allow him to sing it.

Instead, they decided to ditch the words, and Khil simply sang the melody.

The lack of lyrics is “why it has such a rich orchestral arrangement,” Khil said. “I think that’s been the secret of its success.”

That rich orchestral arrangement also shows the influence of the bossa nova…which was very big in the mid-1960s on this side of the east/west divide. It wasn’t political, and for the most part, neither were the cowboy movies from which the original song no doubt came. But at the height of the Cold War, it was dangerous for a Russian to draw influence from anything American, and vice versa (despite all Yankee Doodle bellowing about “freedom” to the contrary…remember Tailgunner Joe McCarthy, people!)

So Eduard Khil and his composer, Arkady Ostrovsky, took a big chance with this seemingly silly song. There’s always a chance that some Soviet censor with sharp ears might have gathered…but no one did. Luckily for us all.

And Eduard Khil lived long enough to get a kick out of it all himself, thanks to the Internets. He is on report as saying he loved the fact that people were doing parodies and having fun with it. “It unites them,” he said.

No, Eduard, you united us. And without even realizing how much at first.

You will be missed.

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Posted in Artsy-Fartsy Culture Stuff, Isn't It Ironic?, Obits and 'bobs, Teh Russkies, The United States of Amnesia | Comments Off

Music for a Sunday: And a king-sized bottle of Estée Lauder

Posted on June 3, 2012 by Sabina Becker

Funniest blues song ever. Or is it funniest story-telling? Whatever. I just heard this for the first time today, and had to share.

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Posted in Music for a Sunday, Uppity Wimmin | Comments Off

Wankers of the Week: Zombie Apocalypse Now

Posted on June 2, 2012 by Sabina Becker

Crappy weekend, everyone! Well, how about that God. I might just have to start believing in the ol’ motherfucker now, because he did, indeed, give us the beginnings of a zombie apocalypse. Braaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiins! Yes, you know it must be true when hell is full and the damned start to walk the Earth. And here is who’s damned…fucking stupid…this week, in no particular order:

1. Rob Fucking Ford. Last week, he’d cut his workload; this week, word that he cut short his diet prematurely. Why? Because Robbo’s weigh-ins were about the only time that reporters got free access to him and asked him questions! And we all know that nobody questions Frod Nation, right? Rightrightright. PS: And now he’s back on it. Interesting!

2. Dan Fucking Riehl. Nice to see somebody’s still giving Andrew Fucking Breitbart’s corpse mouth-to-mouth. And with a mouth that disgusting, DannyBoy is keeping things true to the original spirit of Bitefart. Attaboy!

3. Newt Fucking Gingrich. His advice to prospective presidential precandidates: “Raise a lot of money.” The same, I presume, also applies to prospective presidential precandidates who spend a lot on Tiffany’s bling for their mistress-turned-wives. Just don’t take it out of your campaign donations, ‘kay?

4. Alvaro Fucking Uribe. I’m sensing a pattern in El Narco’s wanks of late. A nasty, fascist, putschist pattern. You too? Jeez. Let’s just be glad he didn’t decide to get naked and eat Chavecito’s face off.

5. Thomas Fucking Cardinal Collins. Some quickie definitions of His Holy Nibs’ bafflegab for ya: “Deeply held beliefs” = institutionalized homophobia. “Faith community” = highly politicized, large-scale cult. “Principles of consciences” = not giving a fuck whom the “deeply held beliefs” of your “faith community” hurt in the real world. “Freedom to act in a way that is in accord with its principles of consciences” = BULLYING.

6. Mitt Fucking Romney. Well, of COURSE Mittens considers Donald Fucking Trump to be “good people” — he’s got MONEY! Contrast this with how most of us recognize that a son of a bitch is still a son of a bitch, even if he’s a fucking rich son of a bitch. (Or, in Da Fucking Donald’s case, rich on paper, but of questionable value in reality.) PS: Ha, ha. Also, ha ha ha .

7. Donald Fucking Trump. You know, it really takes talent to be so fucking stupid as to make Voof Bleetzah look intelligent.

8. Brad Fucking Trost. Boo fucking hoo, the theo-con wing of the SupposiTories doesn’t get to impose its way upon all the rest of Canada because of evil parliamentary discipline! My heart bleeds.

9. Curtis Fucking Knapp. Jesus H. Christ, what is it with all these fascist Baptist preachers? Last week we had a North Carolina Nazi say gays should all be fenced into a big concentration camp until they “die out”. This week, we get his cousin from Kansas saying the government should exterminate them. Maybe it’s time all the Baptist preachers advocating a Final Solution were rounded up and subjected to it themselves, eh?

10. and 11. Jennifer Fucking Roback Morse. And while we’re on the subject of bad Baptists who deserve a taste of their own medicine, round up this one too, please. And her interlocutor, Richard Fucking Land. He’s been saying a number of disgusting, indefensible things and claiming they came from God. Time that shit were stopped. PS: What the fuck is a “secular theocracy”? An oxymoron, that’s what.

12. Roy Fucking Moore. And while we’re on the subject of Theocrats Gone Wild, look! It’s Judge Ten Commandments, trying to convince us that secularism leads to Sharia. Savor the irony, folks — this is the same assclown who tried to theocratize the courthouse with Christian Sharia.

13. Lila Fucking Rose. Her widdle gotcha film racket came up empty for evidence of sex-selective abortion in the US, but that’s not about to stop this tiresome wankerette from insisting that it DOES SO happen. Even when the statistics flatly contradict her, showing that female births are actually catching up to the males. (Amusingly, this clashes with the whole premise of another sexist group from up here, Save The Males, which insists that dudes are an endangered species. I would love to pit those two against each other in a cage match.)

14. Lori Fucking Christensen. Trust me when I tell you that nobody thinks you’re an asshole just because you’re single. But maybe, just maybe, you might be single because you’re an asshole. See how that works?

15. Pavel Fucking Durov. According to my dad, who worked with a Russian POW on a farm in northern Germany back in the day, durak is Russian for “dumbass”, more or less. I’m guessing that “Durov” will soon be Russian for asshole.

16. James Fucking Franklin. Thanks, coach, for reminding me why I can’t get behind the fucking insane Cult of Football. Between meatheads in charge and people’s grey matter turning into pink slime after too many collisions on the field, it’s just all really fucking bad for the brains.

17. Condoleezza Fucking Rice. Yes, Dubya’s Auntie Condi is back in the news after a four-year hiatus from being stupid in public. Yay! And she came up with a reliable nugget for us, too: apparently, to be good at this whole presidenting thing, you have to make a big show of how U-S-A! U-S-A!! U-S-A!!! you are. Next week, no doubt, we’ll hear all about the importance of “Mission Accomplished” banners and how to stuff the crotch of your flightsuit. Or why Ferragamos are an especially good investment during hurricane season.

18. and 19. Jim Fucking VandeHei and Mike Fucking Allen. If you’re going to criticize other media outlets for being mean and grotty to your boy Mittens, it might help to not be mean and grotty yourselves. Ever think of that? Nooooo, of course not. That’s why Politico is such a shitty political website, basically. It lacks all self-awareness, as well as all understanding of a little-known concept called irony.

20. Julian Fucking Fantino. We all know that cops are not the brightest lights on the tree, or the sharpest tools in the shed — that is to say, they are often dumber than a mud fence. But apparently, to be a top cop, you have to be really fucking stupid. How stupid? Well, in the case of this ex-OPP chief turned SupposiTory MP, stupid enough not to know dead from alive.

21. Jay Fucking Townsend. Listen to Jay. What a little bee he has in his bonnet. Buzz Buzz. My question today … WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT ABOUT HURLING ACID AT FEMALE DEMOCRATIC SENATORS? Dude, you sound like a fucking Talib. Oh, but of course you do…you’re a fucking teabagger. Same sexist shit, different color burqa. How about answering questions in a civil manner, and staying on topic when the topic is gas prices? Oh, but of course. You’re a fucking teabagger. You don’t believe in reining in the corporate sector, or even answering questions to do with it. Because the Koch Brothers are probably paying your salary, and your presumptive employer’s salary as well! PS: And he doubled down on the dumbth. Popcorn, anyone?

22. Jason Fucking Biggs. Who? I don’t know, but I bet he reeks of biggotry — sorry, bigotry!

23. Jonah Fucking Goldberg. Bully-ass conservatives with bad hair and ugly goatees should be denied the vote. And horsewhipped for thinking crapitalism is better than socialism. And for advocating violence against socialists. And for just generally being such big fat stinking weenies. (See how that works when the shoe’s on the other foot, Jonah?)

24. Trent Fucking Franks. I’m sensing a pattern here in the fronts of the War on Women. Namely, one where misogynists and anti-choice incrementalists are trying to tout their racist fascism as some kind of protection for female fetuses. Which, as I mentioned earlier, aren’t actually an endangered species. But hey, at least this one’s dumbfuck legislation attempt was shot down.

25. George Fucking Zimmerman. Killing a kid for eating Skittles while black is a racist hate crime. But lying to a judge about your fundraising, which has raked in a disturbingly large heap of cash from your fellow racists? That’s a most definite wank.

26. Kelly Fucking Mitchell. If the Fucking Catholic Bishops of Ontario are going to hire a lobbyist to push for the Ontario government to look the other way on institutional homophobia in the Catholic school system, the least they could do is pay through the nose for the privilege. The fact that this creep is taking them on pro bono just says so much about his character, none of it good. And surprise! He’s connected to the super-crooked corrupto-greedheads of ORNGE. Meanwhile, Catholic school teachers have come out squarely behind the students and the gay/straight alliances. Ha, ha.

27. Dan Fucking Rather. I’m so old, I remember when Dan used to be a rather good journalist. Now his idea of a “scoop” is to “report” the same damn crapaganda the rest of the anglo whore media are serving up on Venezuela. With an unnamed “high-level” source, yet. Yeah, that’s legit. Dan, time to hang up your mike and retire. 9-11 fucking broke you, man.

28. Madonna Louise Veronica Fucking Ciccone. Yes, that’s right, I just wank-listed Madonna. And it greatly pains me to do this, as I’m a big fan of her honey-badger attitude, if not always her fashions or her music. But really, trying to make a statement on world peace by kicking off your concert tour in apartheid Israel…and brandishing a gun onstage? Total, spectacular self-awareness FAIL. Does Madge not practise yoga anymore?

29. Rick Fucking Scott. Forgive me for saying this, Mr. Governor, but it sounds to me an awful lot like you’re shooting for a repeat of the Florida election fiasco of 2000. You know, the one where all those black people got purged from the rolls as “felons”, and the right-wing-stacked SCOTUS ended up ruling (wrongfully) in favor of George W. Fraud — er, Bush?

And finally, to all those who seriously think the events of this past week are the beginnings of a real, live — er, undead — Zombie Apocalypse. No, they’re not. The fact that Rudy Eugene happened to be Haitian does not make him a zombie, and neither does his deranged moment of face-eating. The man was mentally ill, and possibly on some seriously bad drugs as well. He should have been hospitalized and wasn’t, because the social safety net in the US is so moth-eaten that more people fall through than get caught. That’s the unglamorous truth. As for the rest: Please do some reading on what zombies really are. It may surprise you.

Good night, and get fucked!

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Stupid Sex Tricks: Not-so-good vibrations

Posted on June 2, 2012 by Sabina Becker

Oh, Brazil. You never disappoint me. Land of great music…and stupid sex-toy thieves:

An armed man in Brazil has heisted an 18-carat gold-plated vibrator selling for $4,000 at a luxury sex shop.

Police say he walked into the Erotica Luxo store in Brasilia, tied up a clerk and took the item from its display case. He stole nothing else.

[…]

Store owner Vanessa Baldini tells the G1 news website the robber might get no satisfaction from Wednesday’s theft. She says the Swedish-made vibrator has a stainless steel core, making removing any gold plating extremely difficult.

And she notes the robber didn’t take the vibrator’s charger.

She says: “I really don’t know what he’ll do. I’ll leave it up to his imagination.”

D’oh.

I don’t know what’s funniest about this: a guy stealing half a sex toy, the fact that gold-plated sex toys exist, or that anyone would charge $4000 for something containing what — $4 worth of gold, tops? That you’d go to more trouble than it’s worth to unplate?

And it isn’t phallic shaped, either, so you can’t even use it for a dildo. Double-d’oh.

Everybody sing! “I’m picking up NO vibrations…bop bop, where is the excitation?”

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Posted in Brazil is the Bomb!, Schadenfreude, Stupid Sex Tricks | Comments Off

Festive Left Friday Blogging: Viva Lula!

Posted on June 1, 2012 by Sabina Becker

Chavecito is not the only popular Latin American leftist president fighting the good fight against cancer, and it looks like one of his compadres in that and many other struggles is, like him, battling his way back on more than one front…

The former president of Brazil, Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva (2003-2010) said on Thursday night that he would seek a third term in office in the presidential elections, but only if his political heir, the current president, Dilma Rousseff, decided not to run for re-election.

“The only way I will become a candidate is if President Dilma doesn’t want to run for re-election. I won’t allow a toucan from the opposition to return to the presidency of Brazil,” Lula said in an interview with SBT Television.

[…]

A survey by the Datafolha firm, published in April, revealed that 57% of Brazilians think Lula should run in the next presidential election, in spite of the good governance of Rousseff, whose government has an approval rating of 64%, up from 59% in January.

On March 28, as soon as he was diagnosed with a complete remission of his laryngeal cancer, Lula, 66, announced his return to political life.

“I’m going back into politics, because I believe that Brazil must continue to grow, develop, create employment, and improve the lives of millions and millions of Brazilians who have succeeded in joining the middle class and don’t want to slip back,” Lula said in a recorded message.

Since then, he has put in several public appearances, and participated in the promotion of Workers’ Party (PT) candidates, principally in São Paulo, toward the next municipal elections in October.

Translation mine.

It’s great to hear that Lula is well again, and even better to hear that he’s supporting Dilma as well as junior PT candidates in their electoral campaigns. With his star power behind them, they should do well in October. And should Dilma decide that she’s had enough, he’s got her back…and his country’s, too.

Viva Lula!

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Memo to the media: it’s PSYCHOPATH, not “porn star”!

Posted on June 1, 2012 by Sabina Becker

Luca Rocco Magnotta, né Eric Clinton Newman, auditions (unsuccessfully) for a reality show called Cover Guy, in which gay models compete for an underwear-modelling gig. As you can see, he’s not that impressive a physical specimen; very vacuous, very obviously bleached hair, a pretty boy with little substance and not enough muscle (although he does try to convince the agents that he can gain some in time for the shoot!). But he’s certainly not shy of bragging about his good looks or his deep voice. Narcissistic? And how!

And apparently, his narcissism has literary/cinematic aspects, too:

The video [of Magnotta murdering and dismembering Lin Jun] was posted May 25 to a Canada-based website that deals with death and gore.

It shows the perpetrator repeatedly stabbing then dismembering the victim. It also appears to depict cannibalism and sexual defiling of the body.

In the background is the song “True Faith” by New Order, notable for its presence in the film American Psycho.

Nice.

So it would seem that Magnotta, or whatever alias he’s now using, is also an aspiring Patrick Bateman. Somehow, that just fits. After all, with a little digging, we begin to see just what is really wrong with the picture:

To Luka’s short-lived friends, he reported traumatic incest with his mother, and mental illness. People who met him casually (hitchhking, etc.) noticed he was disturbed.

Born under the name Eric Newman, Luka R-M is alienated from his family. It seems that the one man who knew him slightly, he killed. Interestingly, there is no information about his victim, none. There is more information about the massacred kittens than there is about this man.

Labels are pretty deceptive. But I don’t know any word for Luka except “extremely dangerous and damaged adult, history of severe childhood abuse.

Oh yeah, and that reminds me…of this:

“Luka” is a song about an abused child. It made a LOT of waves when it first came out in 1987. It’s one of the few popular songs I know that talk explicitly about child abuse. (“Where is this Love”, by the Payola$, is another; it also speaks of alcoholic parents.) Interesting and significant that Eric Newman should change his first name to that of all names, eh? If he were really trying to pass himself off as Italian, he’d have picked the other spelling, Luca. His awful childhood is showing through the carefully cultivated appearance of a model (who doesn’t model anything), porn star (who starred in no actual, commercial porn), and prostitute (who, according to Susie Bright, actually froze up when he went to bed with clients).

The most salient, and shocking, details of his life are not what the media have chosen to sensationalize; they’re the ones he himself is alternately trying to hide, and unable to help revealing. He is not a sexy beast, he is a psychopath. And psychos — American, Canadian, or whatever — are not born, but made. They are made by abuse, by neglect, by poverty, by mental illness, and by substance abuse.

But of course, in the public’s never-ending lust for gore…and lust, those facts are doomed to go forever unnoticed, it seems.

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Posted in Canadian Counterpunch, If You REALLY Care, Isn't It Ironic?, Newspeak is Nospeak, Sick Frickin' Bastards | 2 Comments

Darwin Award goes to…

Posted on May 31, 2012 by Sabina Becker

…the snake-handlin’ preacher-man from the hollers of West Virginia, who didn’t realize that lightning does strike twice…and so do timber rattlers:

A “serpent-handling” West Virginia pastor died after his rattlesnake bit him during a church ritual, just as the man had apparently watched a snake kill his father years before.

Pentecostal pastor Mark Wolford, 44, hosted an outdoor service at the Panther Wildlife Management Area in West Virginia Sunday, which he touted on his Facebook page prior to the event.

“I am looking for a great time this Sunday,” Wolford wrote May 22, according to the Washington Post. “It is going to be a homecoming like the old days. Good ‘ole raised in the holler or mountain ridge running, Holy Ghost-filled speaking-in-tongues sign believers.”

Robin Vanover, Wolford’s sister, told the Washington Post that 30 minutes into the outdoor service, Wolford passed around a poisonous timber rattlesnake, which eventually bit him.

“He laid it on the ground,” Vanover said in the interview, “and he sat down next to the snake, and it bit him on the thigh.”

Vanover said Wolford was then transported to a family member’s home in Bluefield about 80 miles away to recover. But as the situation worsened, he was taken to a hospital where he later died.

[…]

Snake-handlers point to scripture as evidence that God calls them to engage in such a practice to show their faith in him. Mark 16: 17-18 reads, “And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”

Wolford told the Washington Post magazine in 2011 that he is carrying on the tradition of his ancestors by engaging in snake handling.

“Anybody can do it that believes it,” Wolford said. “Jesus said, ‘These signs shall follow them which believe.’ This is a sign to show people that God has the power.”

Wolford said watched his own father die at the age of 39 after a rattlesnake bit him during a similar service.

“He lived 101/2 hours,” Wolford told the Washington Post Magazine. “When he got bit, he said he wanted to die in the church. Three hours after he was bitten, his kidneys shut down. After a while, your heart stops. I hated to see him go, but he died for what he believed in.

“I know it’s real; it is the power of God,” Wolford told the Washington Post Magazine last year. “If I didn’t do it, if I’d never gotten back involved, it’d be the same as denying the power and saying it was not real.”

And there you have it, folks…the impeccable reasoning skills of those who follow the Talking Snake Theory of Evolution. This is even sadder than believing that gibbering convulsions are somehow a sign of divine favor, when in fact it’s nothing more than a seizure bolstered by conformity. Did none of these people ever study The Crucible in high school, where the Puritan girls all got hysterical en masse, and started accusing every Goody So-and-So of consorting with the devil? And where people got killed, quite nastily and brutally, on the basis of all that gibberish?

Apparently not.

And apparently they learned nothing from the snake-handlin’ sins of their fathers, either.

Please, Jesus, if you’re really gonna rapture these people on out of here, hurry up and do it. The rest of us are sick of all this insanity, and would really like to get on with the clean-up.

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Posted in Isn't It Ironic?, Karma 1, Dogma 0, Pissing Jesus Off, The United States of Amnesia | Comments Off

Quotable: Aldous Huxley on war

Posted on May 30, 2012 by Sabina Becker

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Posted in Angry Pacifist Speaks Her Mind, Quotable Notables | 1 Comment

Holy shit, literally

Posted on May 29, 2012 by Sabina Becker

Today in Don’t Drink the Water OR the Kool-Aid, this little odd-news item from India:

Thousands of believers flocked to a suburban street in the west of Mumbai in March, when drops of water began to fall from the feet of Jesus on the cross, drinking the prized liquid in the hope that it had holy powers.

Sanal Edamaruku, president of the Indian Rationalist Association, suggested otherwise. He said he inspected the site and found the source of the water to be leaking toilet drainage, making it dangerous to imbibe.

“It’s a case of miracle-mongering,” Edamaruku told AFP from his home in New Delhi. “Any kind of miracle-mongering is ultimately to get money and power.”

Accusing him of spreading “anti-Catholic venom” during televised debates on the crucifix, outraged religious groups in Mumbai have filed police complaints that could see Edamaruku jailed for up to three years under India’s blasphemy law.

“Don’t try to bring dark ages in India,” Edamaruku had warned in a TV discussion.

One complaint was lodged with police by Joseph Dias, general secretary of the Catholic-Christian Secular Forum, who objected to the rationalist’s “very obvious and stridently anti-Christian bias”.

In a statement emailed to AFP, Dias denied the dripping crucifix had been hailed as a miracle — a status that requires an official Church pronouncement — but he also dismissed Edamaruku’s theory.

“A plausible explanation which makes sense is still elusive,” he wrote.

Only as long as you let superstition keep you from checking to find out where that leak is coming from.

Also, YUCK!

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“Sugarbabe” life goes sour: a cheat is not so sweet, after all

Posted on May 28, 2012 by Sabina Becker

Okay, I’m going to try veerrrry hard and restrain my Schadenfreude here while I share some very sad news with you:

Holly Hill believed so strongly that humans are not built to be faithful that she appeared on television and wrote books advocating open relationships.

The Australian author claimed that the only healthy way to have a modern relationship was to allow your partner to have sex with other people, and do the same yourself.

But after insisting that allowing her boyfriend to cheat three nights a week kept them strong, she now admits it destroyed them.

Really? Pity!

Ms Hill became an ‘anti monogamist’ after an ill-fated fling with a married man in 2006. John* never intended to leave his wife, she revealed, but wanted to sleep with somebody else.

After a painful break-up, Ms Hill was determined to use her psychology degree from the University of Southern Queensland to find out why.

She came to the conclusion that men were hardwired to need sex from more than one person, and that humans were not made to have exclusive relationships.

“Need”? Or just want? Sure makes it sound like those poor dear men are just slaves to their hormones, eh? Instead of what I suspect was really the case: that “John” was just your standard rich cad, who wanted to have his cake and eat it too, reasoning that since he could afford more than one slice, he’d be a fool not to buy seconds. Never mind who it ultimately hurt.

Ms Hill shared that view with anyone who would listen, and shocked and angered many commentators as she expounded her theories on CNN and Larry King.

She wrote a novel, Sugarbabe, about her year-long adventures with older men, and another called Toyboy.

A novel? It was nonfiction, or so I heard. But it might as well have been fiction, considering the hogwash it expounded.

But now her dogmatic opinion has completely changed, she told Grazia magazine in an interview.

Ms Hill and her ex-boyfriend, Phil*, drew up a contract to determine how they would operate.

They vetoed anything they felt would make them jealous – in Ms Hill’s case, her partner taking other women on romantic weekends away or buying them gifts.

Yep, that sure sounds like a fine, open, modern, feminist relationship right there. Right off the bat, jealousy entered into the picture and threw everything off kilter, forcing them to close off certain areas as no-go zones. Other women were to be relegated to second-class status. Just like old-fashioned mistresses, who only get to see their men “on the side”, but not for major holidays, and not to travel openly with them. (I’m sorry, there’s that word open again!)

She told CNN in 2010: ‘One of the main things that I have learned is that a woman that negotiates infidelity with her partner is far more powerful than a woman who is sitting home wondering why he’s late from the office Christmas party.

‘It’s better to walk the dog on a leash than let it escape through an unseen hole in the back fence.’

Because all men are dogs, right? And we all know that those poor dogs are just hard-wired to hump every bitch in heat that they can find. (At least, until their humans take them to the vet for that little operation. And yes, I am being totally sarcastic here.)

But rather than eliminating jealousy, Ms Hill became completely paranoid, shedding two stone in weight and obsessively comparing herself to the other women Phil was seeing.

She said: ‘I was staggered by the effect our infidelity was having on me. I’d committed myself to the belief that monogamy was outdated and to have to even consider I was wrong was incredibly tough.’

Her boyfriend, who had previously enjoyed watching her flirt with other men at parties, now said he felt emasculated by the situation – and last summer they split.

‘I was devastated,’ said Ms Hill. ‘When it was just the two of us our relationship was incredible. But we’d ruined it by being “unfaithful” – ironically, the one thing I thought would save our relationship.’

The two are still friends and Phil is now seeing a woman who insists on monogamy – something Phil says has actually restored his confidence.

Ms Hill, too, is dating somebody new, and is feeling optimistic about doing things very differently.

‘Finally,’ she says, ‘I feel like I can see a happy relationship with one man.’

I have to say, all sarcasm and Schadenfreude aside, I’m truly sorry that she got hurt. And Phil, too. And I’m really, truly glad that both are in happier relationships now. But how ironic that they both found out the hard way that monogamy IS better than “negotiated” infidelity, after all!

Regular readers may recall that I panned the whole concept that Holly Hill expounded, not so long ago. Back then she was calling it “naughty feminism”. I pointed out that it was nothing more than patriarchal conformity in disguise — call it Enlightened Sexism, if you will — and that it was neither naughty nor liberating for women. Also that it was elitist: when’s the last time you saw a working-class woman “negotiate” her husband’s man-whoring, and help him pick his mistress, and sit down all nicely and civilly with the Other Woman over coffee to work out the terms of that relationship? There isn’t much to sugar-coat THAT reality when you live near the bottom of the 99%, is there?

In fact, a working-class wife (and her kids) can only suffer when her husband divides his already meagre time and money with another woman. And this situation so terrifies working-class women that many of them are now refusing to marry at all, and are even taking desperate measures to stave off childbearing. And no wonder: what’s the use of tying yourself down to a man who’s not going to stick around and be of help raising those kids that he had no problem siring (in accordance with all that doggy biological hard-wiring, no doubt)?

So it’s little wonder, then, that while faithfulness has declined slightly as a factor in a happy marriage, it’s still overwhelmingly popular. In fact, according to the Pew, it’s the #1 factor, with 93% of the Pew’s survey respondents agreeing that it is crucial. And this in spite of the supposed trend toward “open” marriages. Go figure!

It used to be, when I was a very little kid, that Open Marriage was first floated as a “mature”, “progressive” response to cheating, and that marriage was bourgeois anyway, and that if everybody could lose their hang-ups (fidelity first and foremost among them), then everyone would be liberated, fulfilled, and happy. Well, that experiment was tried, and pronounced an Epic Fail, long ago. Jealousy, it turns out, is just as hard-wired into all of us as is the urge to cheat. Truly non-monogamous, jealousy-free people are actually quite uncommon (although I wouldn’t deny that some do exist; they are just the exceptions that prove the rule). Most of us prefer exclusivity, and not just by default, either. As foolish as it seems, we dare to dream of The One, and we still aim for that, no matter who tells us to be “realistic”! And just look at all the “open” relationships that turn out to be really open only on one side, and then, only until the cheated-on partner has finally had enough. Even college students are finding it an immature, inadequate “solution” to the “problem” of exclusivity. As for that “bourgeois” canard, it turns out that only the bourgiest of bourgeois could afford to boink around all that much, and that it hasn’t made them any happier! (Just look at the faces of the spouses in any high-profile divorce case, if you don’t believe me. Or the agony column of any old rag.)

What a pity, then, that Holly Hill couldn’t have dug up all that old research and learned from it. Or just logged onto the internet and looked around a bit more, instead of doing things the hard way, and hurting herself and her former boyfriend. But now, at least, she knows. And maybe, just maybe, she’ll write a book about it.

Music, maestro…