What the holy parental enforced career Batman?  Could it be that the typically American Beauty pageant that tragically spread to US children in the 80’s and 90’s has now spread to the UK?  Well, yes Robin, it only fucking has, and at the risk of sounding like someone ranting on the Daily Mail comments board, it’s absolutely to even hear of, just as it is in the US.

A few years back, whilst heading out on to the first few works of my degree, I did a poster piece called “Little Miss America” which was a presentation of over 6,000 pictures of over made up, plasticised children, in rows of 200, tinted so that at a distance it’s a stars and stripes and close us it’s disgusting display of some examples of thing that adults will inflict upon children in the name of making them be what they wanted to be.  At the time I made “Little Miss America” it struck me how these events aren’t inherently abhorrent, but parents who are attracted to pressure their children into winning them are not-even-borderline abusive.

The link I’ve posted here is to the BBC programme “Baby Beauty Queens” which is 57 minutes of what should be jaw-droppingly horrific television.  As we watch born-again christian mother telling of nine-year-old (and pretentiously named) Maddison that she needn’t be scared off a self tan “Don’t be silly” she says, presented with her youngest child on the edge of tears, it’s hard to stop yourself wondering whether Social Services will have enough evidence to intervene after this programme has aired.

Only a few seconds later, we meet Tyler, the offspring of a mother who is so stupid it’s amazing she remembers to breathe telling us of how she proudly took her child to have cosmetic surgery age 6, and I find myself yelling at the screen.  These kids aren’t your typical 7 – 9 year olds who sometimes play with some make-up they found at home, they’re kids who are scolded by their parents if their make-up isn’t perfect.  Tyler in particular explains to camera how she has glasses but will be ‘told off’ if she wears them as opposed to her contact lenses.

Later in the show, the viewer is shown some children who choose to do the show, and aren’t pressured, and whilst I still find this a bit distasteful, it’s far better than forcing your child into it.

“Whatever you feel inside, if you are looking good on the outside, you are putting a brave face on to the world, and I think it’s important that you be the best you can be” says Tyler’s breathtakingly stupid bitch of a mother.

“I didn’t want to have an ugly child”…

I’m frankly lost for any more words to express my disgust at the pushy parents on these programmes.  Kids are shown being disciplined and forced to practice frankly pointless dance routines followed by a final preparation ceremony during which parents expose their children to intensely hot curling tongs, huge amounts of make-up and chemicals to alter the kids.  “She looks like a little doll” says one proud moron, and yet still one mother is amazed at the sheer amount of cosmetic alteration.  It takes the unemployed penniless mum who lives in a council estate to point out that many of the kids are exploited.

Quite frankly, this is a terrible reflection on the UK, that we have this event occurring now, and my congratulations to the mother who did nothing but borrow a room in the local pub to allow her daughter to practice, and bought her a dress from the local charity shop (home altered to fit).

To the mothers whose daughters looked like barbie, and had cosmetic surgery, 4 hours of make up ritual and a 8 week dance tuition programme; I sincerely hope that the authorities have enough material from the BBC documentary to offer your mistreated and abused offspring the opportunity to a better life without you idiotic selves.  You really are the slime of the Earth, and if you wish to offer your kids the opportunity to do “whatever [they] want to” then maybe you should take a sharpened tiara to your jugular.

I’m just watching the winner’s ceremony now, and am delighted to see that none of the barbie-dolls and in fact went to an 11-year-old with absolutely no make-up and a really nice dress.  In your face, senseless morons!

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VAServ are the parent company to A2B2, CheapVPS.co.uk and formerly FSCKVPS.  They ran a lot of hosting companies of one sort or another.  I say ran, because 4-ish weeks ago, they were the victims of one of the most destructive hacks I’ve seen.  Apparently weaknesses within the system operating the server (it’s called HyperVM, avoid it) and weaknesses allowing the network to be ‘sniffed’ (essentially like listening in to police radio or something, but online) and potentially the weakness of the administration passwords opened a simple door to the system for the hackers, who tried their darndest to delete as much as possible, and deleted around 4,000 server – about 100,000 sites.  7 of the sites affected were mine, as my FSCKVPS server was taken offline.

When this happened I stayed fairly calm, started moving anything vital to backup servers and such and generally just tried to avoid contacting the company until they’d had chance to take stock, and deal with the more angry and insistent customers.  Seems reasonable to me to do that.  I lost a good deal of stuff, but naturally important data was backed up and the restoration was a pain but not too terrible.

In the meantime, FSCKVPS and VAServ worked tirelessly to restore what they could of their systems, one of their companies was bought out by BlueSquareGroup, and they have now returned to operating.  During this time, I sent several messages to them on twitter and on WHT to express my support for them.  Being hacked is a bit like unexpected illness, it’s not convenient, but there’s no point shouting at a cold, is there?

SO… then they restored my server, it was blank and all they could offer was a new one with no control panel.  I emailed support to ask for a different operating system, as the one they sent me was wrong, and received no response.  It was at this point that I started to think things were unacceptable at VAServ.  They started operating again before they really had capacity to and I’d far rather that they didn’t.

Today, their system deactivated my server for lack of payment.  This was an odd move, because I’m owed two months of hosting, so for the first time I sent an angry email.  Looking back on it, it was unreasonably rude, but it was the only time I had been anything but supportive of people who I, after all, pay for their services.  I said they owed me 2 months hosting, and a control panel, and referred to them as ‘retards’.

That last bit is regrettable, but I’ve been called worse working in tech support centres or on the doors of nightclubs, or anywhere, really.  I know it’s out of order.

VAServ have deactivated my account, and are happily ignoring the fact that they owe me 2 months of hosting as they agreed.  Right now I’d settle for the charges for the 2 months hosting refunded, but that is unlikely.

Essentially, my point is, you can’t ignore customers just because they get angry.  When it comes down to it, if you don’t want angry customers don’t use substandard software and passwords, and for God’s sake, don’t angrily react to justifiably angry customers.

Who not to host with?  VAServ, A2B2 or CheapVPS.  If anyone *does* host with this lot, consider writing to Rus Foster and asking if his password is still “f0st3r”.

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