Tits Oot

Breasts, and womens’ breasts in particular, are once again the subject of vigerous, if not mass, debate.  Let’s be frank, there is a section of society where womens’ breasts are frequently a matter of debate, that section of society being males.  The question that has arisen recently though is not so much concerning breasts, but what is attached to them.  In short, breastfeeding.

If the question is ‘when is breastfeeding appropriate?’ then the answer is ‘whenever there is a hungry infant and a nursing mother’.

Simply put, and there’s no denying it, infants are poor at preparing their own food.  Give a newborn a can opener and a tin of tuna and they will be completely unable to open the can.  Utterly useless.  And they are no better with pouches or jars, or bottles, whether screw top or cork.

Breastfeeding is an excellent idea, not least because the mother deals with the removal of any packaging before commencing feeding, even on the bus.

However, some are not in agreement.

There is, for instance, discussion about breastfeeding in the workplace.  An interesting conversation to be sure, but surely the conversation should be about infants in the workplace?

There may be workplaces where it is not a huge distraction introducing the baby into the environment, for instance a crèche.  I can think of few others.  Just as playing death metal at ear shattering volume is not conducive to a productive day so an infant, even a well behaved one, is a disruption.  This is based on my experience of children on public transport, where one can be sat in a train carriage, oblivious to a whelp of mass distraction, until it goes off.  This is normally a noise far out of proportion with the size of the being generating it, more akin to some sort of city wide early warning system than a simple signal of hunger, or pooping.

While infants are possibly not suitable for the workplace, for instance on an oil rig or aircraft flight deck, breastfeeding of an infant in the workplace should not be an issue, and anyone thinking it offensive is invited to look at their fucking work and not the chest of their colleague.  Breasts are, of course, appropriate in the workplace, especially if that workplace has a name concluding with ‘Club’ or ‘A Go Go’.

There was also recently discussion about whether breastfeeding is appropriate in restaurants.

Once again, the question might more simply be are infants acceptable in restaurants?  The answer is ‘not near me’ but I concede that there are many, many restaurants that I do not patronise on a regular basis, in fact that’s the vast majority of them, so let’s take a more general view.

What, really, can be the objection?  Is the patron concerned that a punter is getting a free meal?  I hardly think that an infant having a feed is quite the same as some chancer rocking up, ordering a glass of tap water, then proceeding to unpack several cool bags and decant various thermoses while uncorking a few bottles they have brought, of home brew to neatly complete the example.  Will it offend other diners?  Again, what are those other diners doing looking at the chest of somebody at a different table?  I may not be an expert on etiquette, but even I know that staring at the breasts of a woman at another table has three likely outcomes, the first is your girlfriend storming out of the restaurant after catching you ogling, possibly covering you in today’s special as she goes.  The second is the lady’s dining partner thumping you, probably while your girlfriend holds you down, the third is a restraining order coupled with a lifetime ban from the entire chain, and that’s a long time to go without KFC.

Anyone who has seen breastfeeding will know that you don’t actually see breast, just the back of a baby’s head.  So what’s the objection?

The sooner children learn how to behave in a restaurant the better.  Of course, an infant can’t send a boob back, but they can learn at an early age that dining with family is one of the great pleasures in life.

Do you mind?

I woke up during a meeting the other day to discover that I had apparently been possessed. At least, that’s the most rational explanation for my subsequent behaviour.

The subject under discussion (TRANSLATION: the excuse for the meeting and hence ordering of biscuits at office expense) was a code of conduct to be implemented when we move from our current proper grown-up offices into open plan (TRANSLATION: through what medium do we tell Sweaty Dave, currently confined to his own lead-lined office, that he stinks? Face to face? Post-it note? Interpretive dance?).

There’s no doubt that some sort of regulation will be needed in open plan, the same sort of rules that confine me to merely eating all the chocolate biscuits at meetings rather than my preferred behaviour of taking them, licking off the chocolate and then replacing them.

There are two types of open plan citizen; those with annoying personal habits and those who are going to be medically retired at 40 because they have been driven insane by somebody’s annoying personal habits. Annoying personal habits can be: humming, singing, muttering, stinking like a landfill site in summer, coughing, sniffing, sniffing, sniffing, repetitive sniffing or making a curious tooting noise because of a semi-blocked sinus - C minor on the inhale, major F on the exhale. Unchecked, these can lead to a build up of tension in neighbours until the annoyed party starts to consider ‘breathing’ as one of their colleague’s nasty little habits and plots to remedy this.

A code of conduct may be a good way to start but I’m concerned that just about every anti-social quirk I have will be banned, a problem as collectively these form my personality. I know for sure that there will probably be a ban on swearing. I do enjoy a good swear, or a bad one, I’m not fussy. It’s a way of releasing tension and so it’s either swear or start drinking even earlier in the day and currently that would mean getting up before the sun. If swearing means you’re tense then Gordon Ramsey must be the tensest man in Britain but it’s not actually him who’s provided me with my sweary phrase of the moment. Rather, it’s another chef, Jamie Oliver. Normally clean of mouth and limb, seeing him swearing on the telly was like seeing an oil painting by Michelangelo - not what he’s famous for, but still a work of art. The phrase in question is: ‘fuck me ragged. Right up the arse.’ And I use it far more than is healthy.

So my great idea to promote open-plan harmony? ‘Why not have a one month amnesty where, for four weeks after we move into the new office, you can tell people that something they are doing is annoying you and they can’t take offence?’ Even as the last syllable of ‘offence’ was out of my mouth I know that I’d lit the blue touch paper of a truly shit idea. You could see half of the faces round the table light up as people thought ‘at last, I can have a go about Phil’s garlic and dung sandwiches’ while the other half, the irritating people with the self-awareness of a sea-sponge, thought ‘sounds reasonable. Hummmn, am I humming out loud again? Oh well.’

It’s a monumentally shit idea and if it doesn’t totally destroy office harmony, I’ll be bloody surprised. We’re a quirky bunch, which means we’re not wealthy enough to be considered eccentric and are not weirdly bearded enough to be considered insane. We need lies to get along, we can’t be honest - honesty is like hemlock to office workers! If we have to be honest to others provoking anger and tears then we are going to have to start being honest to ourselves and that’s when they start making up Jack Daniels and Prozac in gift sets.