I seem to be suffering more than usual from tinnitus, a perpetual buzzing and ringing in my ears. For starters, it's ongoing to the extent that it makes it dfficult to fall asleep and secondly, it seems remarkably loud - to me, anyway. I've had it at this time of year for quite a few years now, and I suspect that it's possibly due to having spent the best part of the previous few months in rooms made arid by central heating. It's probably something to do with ear wax. What seems different this year is the sheer persistence of the damn thing, and the fact that each ear seems to be slightly different - my left ear is a high-pitched whistle, while the right is more of a ringing sound. It's bloody annoying.
More annoying, however, is having a tune lodged in one's head. The German phrase for it translates as 'earworm' - a persistent piece of music repeating itself ad nauseam. For some reason, the current earworm is Beyonce's 'All the Single Ladies' (Aka 'If you liked it you should have put a ring on it'). It's annoying because a) it's a catchy repetitive rhythm, but mostly because b) it's a load of infantile drivel. It'sthe kind of song that you just know some dickwit of a DJ in a nightclub would put on just after Gloria Gaynor's 'I will survive' and just before the Weather Girls' 'It's raining men'. It's the kind of stuff a bunch of drunk women, one or two of whom have just split up from boyfriends/husbands/feckless idiots, dance to: the first song with defiant faces put on, the second whooping it up, the third celebrating drunkenly - just before the Dumped (Dumpee?)/Dumper breaks down in tears, mascara and Chardonnay-flavoured vomit.
What really pisses me off about Beyonce's song is the notion it implies: that a woman is only fulfilled by becoming engaged/married ('If you liked it you should have put a ring on it'), thus reducing one half of humanity to the status of chattel. It's demeaning and thoroughly infantilising, and the singer should be thoroughly ashamed of herself, if she has an ounce of intellect.
And the damn thing is still buzzing round my head.
