Sandra Harris Writes

  A TOXIC CULTURE IN FOOTBALL: A WOMAN SPEAKS OUT. BY SANDRA HARRIS. © Okay, okay, I’m not a man. I don’t have a willy and balls, I have the other thing. But I’m the mother of a young man, so I think that might just give me the right to talk about one of the things normally seen as a mostly male preserve: football. Yes, in the past couple of years, women’s football has suddenly become a big thing and women are gaining recognition left, right and centre for it and other sports. There are female pundits on the television now and I think even women referees in actual football games where men are playing. Fair play to them all, especially the referees, because that would be scary, being the only woman on a field full of angry, sweaty men all barging into one another while you're trying to make note of who’s fouling whom, but don’t tell me that men don’t secretly still consider football to be their own personal stronghold and that ‘birds’ have no place in it. I’ve talked befor...

LIFE LESSONS FROM LOVE ISLAND, or, THE JOEY ESSEX EFFECT. BY SANDRA HARRIS. © Oh God, I love LOVE ISLAND. I love watching it, discussing it with my kids afterwards, thinking about it when I go to bed and then going on Twitter when I wake up to see what the millions of fans thought about the previous night’s episode. It’s not even my guilty pleasure any more; I’m quite open about that the fact that I practically live for it during the months of June and July.  We’ve reached the halfway mark in the show and it’s making me reflect on the morals and ethics (and carnal forebearance?) of some of the contestants. Well, one of the contestants in particular, a tanned, muscular thirty-three-year-old bloke called Joey Essex. Sound familiar? That’s because he is familiar. He’s been a reality television star since 2011, when he appeared on popular television show, THE ONLY WAY IS ESSEX. Since then, he’s been on pretty much every reality television show except THE X FACTOR . He has his o...