I need more money

I think we’ve all thought that at one time or another, haven’t we?

Laura Ripley is thinking it right now:

A 25-year-old unemployed woman who was given an £8,000 operation to help her lose 16 stone is complaining because, as well as her weight loss, her benefits have been reduced.
Laura Ripley, who has never worked, was given the operation on the NHS to help her slim down from 38 to 22 stone.

But the 25-year-old, who receives £600 a month in benefits, is unhappy because as a result of losing weight she can no longer claim disability allowance amounting to an extra £340 a month.
This, she says, means she cannot afford to eat healthily – causing her to pile the weight back on.

It’s not the first time that we’ve heard how difficult it is to eat healthily. Who could forget Coventry lard-arse Leanne Salt and her admission that she fed her 8-month old triplets on McDonalds because she was “too busy” to feed them decent food?

But we dealt with Leanne’s case back in April. Let’s return to Laura’s plight:

Without my disability allowance I’m left with just £210 incapacity benefit which I get because of my depression, and £100 income support I receive every two weeks and out of that I have to give them back £70 towards the cost of the £500-a-month flat I’m living in.

Heartbreaking, isn’t it? Depressingly, I find myself having to pay the total cost of my house myself, and in a bewildering step, the Government seem to take money from me each month, rather than giving it to me. Surely some mistake. And yet I still manage to eat an apple a day. So why can’t Laura?

‘I eat Tesco’s chocolate bars and packets of Space Invaders crisps, sometimes four of each a day’, says Laura, who spends seven hours a day watching TV.
People ask why I don’t snack on an apple – they’re cheap, but emotionally I don’t always feel like an apple.

Ah. Emotionally, I think if you shoved a whole apple in your fat mouth, you might find that you couldn’t eat as many of those Tesco’s chocolate bars and packets of Space Invaders crisps. And, as an added benefit, you wouldn’t be able to make utterly stupid statements like “emotionally not always feeling like an apple” and that would probably piss a lot fewer people off.

You might actually get some sympathy. But then again…

Since the extra allowance stopped Laura has put on a stone in just three weeks and claims she is being treated unfairly.
‘It’s heartbreaking that after all my hard work losing this weight someone’s come along and ruined it..I only want an extra £100 a month, that’s all’

Just an extra £100 a month? Why didn’t you say so earlier?
Here’s a quick thought – why don’t you go and get a job instead of sitting on your arse all day and stuffing your face with junk food, you lazy, sponging, fat cow.

Sorry, emotionally I just had to say that.

What’s the problem?

Oh, this one makes me proud to be English.

From here, via here.

A 29-STONE mum who feeds her eight-month old triplets with McDonald’s has insisted she is bringing the tots up in the “best way she can”.
Leanne Salt, 24, said she is “too busy” to properly feed daughters Deanna and Daisy and son Finlee.
So she lets them eat her takeaways and gives them Wotsits snacks and microwave meals.

(for my non UK visitors, 29 stone = 406 pounds or 184 kilos) 

I have to admit that once, in a fit of desperation, Alex was given 6 Chicken McNuggets from the Kenilworth drive-thru. It was as a result of poor paternal planning and I felt awful for ages afterwards, although with hindsight, that was probably because of the Quarterpounder with cheese that I had at the same time. And the cardboard fries.
Alex seemed to enjoy his reformed lumps of fried, mechanically-recovered chicken though, even if he didn’t really seem to know what to do with them. Well, he was only 6 weeks old at the time.

Of course, there’s no problem with the odd McDonald’s every now and again, even if they do their best to put parents off buying their inaccurately-named Happy Meals. But we certainly don’t go down the road of doing it every day. That would get in the way of his KFC addiction.

Leanne steers away from healthy foods in case it makes her tots anorexic. She said: “I don’t want them to think they have to watch what they eat. I’ll tell them big is beautiful.”

Yes readers, “big is beautiful” – I’ll let you decide on that one:

Picture from Closer magazine

When I see that sort of picture, aside from the immediately overwhelming thought that “big is beautiful” (obviously), I also find myself marvelling at the amazing strength of denim. Presumably, those are just over-the-counter jeans from the fat section of Matalan, and yet look what they’re holding within them.
Quite remarkable and a great advert for Vietnamese sweatshop workmanship.
Oh – and I wonder where the bikini-clad Carrie Fisher is, as well.

Swine flu can’t get to Coventry quickly enough.