Talking of Chocolate Factories...

[steepholm]

It's always hard to know whether a post fails to get views because of its intrinsic dullness or because of some algorithmic glitch. I recently wrote what I thought a nice little snarky Medium piece satirising the widely debunked yet somehow still widely cited ROGD theory that being trans is caused by "social contagion", and it's sunk without trace - perhaps because of the word "bollocks" in the title? Anyway, here it is, if you'd like to see it. (The signal-boosting power of Dreamwidth/Livejournal is awesome indeed!)

In other news, Hiroko's mission to See All the Things before she returns to Japan next month took us back to the M5 yesterday. Last week it was Devon and Agatha Christie; this time we travelled north to Birmingham, and more specifically Bournville, where we took a tour of the chocolate factory, now transformed to Cadbury World. It was an interesting experience: part theme park (albeit muted and punctuated with quizzes about cacao and the chocolate making process), part factory tour (there were plenty of people in hairnets demonstrating things), part historical exhibition (in which a hologrammatic conquistador, and then an equally insubstantial Mr Cadbury, took us through the history of chocolate and of the firm itself). Inevitably, we were also photographed surfing on a chocolate bar. A large shop with chocolate at melt-down prices, where I bought a bar of Dairy Milk larger than my keyboard for a fiver, rounded off the day. Overall verdict: weird but good, and at least nobody got juiced.

Comments

[cmcmck]

I'm reading Shon Faye's: 'The Transgender Issue' atm, and she covers the horrific media stuff going on pretty well, although I remember, obviously, a more horrific time when turning up on your doorstep and pushing you towards suicide was the more usual approach. They changed tack, I think, after the death of Lucy Meadows.

[steepholm]

Indeed - Lucy Meadows was a turning point, but perhaps only a tack rather than a change of course. The murder of Brianna Ghey and its subsequent reporting, along with the hand-delivered death threat to India Willoughby, just to take a couple of examples from the last fortnight or so, leave me unconvinced that we've made any real progress, sadly.

[heleninwales]

I read and enjoyed your snarky article. Did you link from FB? I don't have a Medium account though and don't understand quite how it works, so perhaps I didn't register on the algorithm?

[steepholm]

I did link it on FB, but only you and a couple of other people reacted, which (without false modesty) is considerably fewer than I'd normally expecct - though very much appreciated!

[calimac]

Good snark. The same thing used to be said of homosexuality - that not only was it caused by social contagion, but that gays were out to recruit people.

The transformation of Cadbury into a theme park reminds me of Universal Studios. In the 1960s, when I took it, the Universal Studios tour was a studio tour. Passengers sat in a motor trolley and were driven around the back lot where all the outdoor sets were. Then you sat in a little outdoor arena and watched stunt people demonstrate fistfights and pratfalls. And whatever B-list actor happened to be around that day would give a little talk and answer questions. But now, it's a theme park.

[steepholm]

CW is definitely at that awkward stage between factory tour and theme park right now. But I have to admit that I find it all the more charming for its lack of thematic unity.