Express & Star

Cathy Dobbs: Sowing confusion at Nat - or Natalie - West

Really confused people that don’t know who they are from one day to the next now don’t need to worry – they can get a job at NatWest.

Published

The high street bank is ensuring that people who identify as men and women on different days can do so completely effortlessly with double-sided lanyards. So if John decides he wants to be Jackie on a Monday, he just flips his lanyard over and says hello Jackie.

Imagine if you open a bank account with John on Monday, go into sign papers on Tuesday and suddenly deal with Jackie. Soon all of us will be confused, not just the tiny minority that feels the need to change gender day to day.

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NatWest is also introducing the option for their transgender customers to use the ‘Mx’ prefix instead of Mr, Mrs and Miss. I looked up how this is pronounced and it seems that it’s “Mucks”. Shame if your surname is Preda. Although we’d all like to work with a Mx Sin, but maybe steer clear of Mx Sup.

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Well done to Judi Dench on being presented with a lifetime achievement award from the Irish Film and Television Academy. At the ceremony the emotion was clear on her face – a fabulous face that isn’t plastic, pulled or plumped beyond recognition.

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Scientists have advised the Government, that standard portion sizes for young children should be created to help deal with the obesity epidemic. It seems children are gorging on too much salt and sugar and not enough fibre, fruit and vegetables.

I’m presuming these scientists don’t have children because they are spouting a load of twaddle. It’s not dinner portions parents need to be advised on, it’s the sweets, cakes, ice creams, biscuits and crisps that are often fed to little ones on a practically constant basis to pacify them.

Fair enough, advise parents on what to serve at dinner time but then let them pile the plate as high as they want. Filling up on a healthy dinner, so they have less room for sweets and crisps, makes more sense instead of limiting the time in the day when children are probably encouraged to eat vegetables.

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Instead of scientists, we need to get grandmas advising the Government. After all, snacking was pretty much banned when they were parents, as chocolate and crisps weren’t in abundance, but also they didn’t want children ruining their appetites.

It seems that things changed with Milky Way and their slogan "The sweet you can eat between meals without ruining your appetite”.

Now the snack business is thriving and we think nothing of gorging in between meals.

Ditching the snack culture we have in the West would help with the obesity crisis. Next thing you know we’ll have Just Stop Snacking protestors walking slowly down shopping aisles.