Annie Lennox, the Pope and Condoms

Pet hates time. I don't like Annie Lennox. I hated her when she was in the Tourists, I hated her collaberations with Dave Stewart, who I also dislike. Don't get me wrong, she can sing, but I just don't like what she sung. Even songs such as "Sweet Dreams" which are good songs, were ruined by the treatment given to them by Stewart/Lennox.

She is just one of those people who I find irritating beyond belief. I loved the feminine side of the punk movement. Poly Styrene, Patti Smith, Debbie Harry, The Slits. To me they had musical integrity. Lennox always seemed like a stowaway, along for the ride, not paying her dues.

Highly unfair, but us punks hated people because their trowsers were too wide, let alone because they used their talents to sing banal pop.

Anyway, Ms Lennox has popped up again to criticise the Pope. She states that the Pope's antipathy to Condoms is making the Aids crisis worse. Well sorry Annie, I'm afraid to say that yet again you are talking nonsense. I'm what one might consider a rather bad Roman Catholic. I think the Pope is wrong about birth control, but to blame him for the spread of AiDS is ludicrous. His message regarding AIDS is that you should abstain from sex outside of marriage. If EVERYONE listened to him, then there would be no AIDS pandemic.

As we all know that isn't going to happen. The point is that if people don't listen to the Pope about Sex outside marriage, why should they give a stuff about his views on Condoms. How many Roman Catholics avoid contraception? Men avoid condoms because they enjoy the sensation more if they haven't got one on. Nothing will change that, not Pope's, not Annie Lennox, not AIDS.

If AIDS is ever stopped it will either be through the advance of medicine or people taking greater personal responsibility and being less selfish. I've not heard the Pope railing against the treatment of AIDS or the development of vaccine. His message is one of personal responsibility. It is probably rather naive in this day and age, but much as Annie Lennox may not like it, he hasn't made a single person catch AIDS against their will. If they'd listened to him, they wouldn't be having sex full stop. Lennox states :-

"If there was ever an example of irresponsibility, it's the Pope going to a country like Angola, where people are dying left, right and centre because of unprotected sex, and telling them they should carry on or that they should abstain. What planet is this person on?"

The Pope doesn't tell people to carry on having unprotected sex, he tells them to stop altogether. No one listens to that, they wouldn't listen if he said wear a Condom. I'm afraid to say that, like everything else Lennox does, this just adds to the litany of irritation this woman has caused me over the years. If she really believes people who tell her they caught AIDS because they were following the Pope's values and morals, she really is more stupid than I thought