Put it this way: I wouldn't stand behind them in a scrap

Just last week, US Navy Seals (like the ones in movies who are retired but still retain all of their rad skills for the unlikely attempt on their life they inevitably suffer in suburbia) stormed a Pakistani house, found our old friend Osama and shot his shit up. In doing so, I don't think it's particularly outlandish to label the Seals as 'brave'.

On an unrelated note, there's a programme (in literally the broadest sense imaginable) called "The only way is Essex" which I am told is a quasi-soap opera, in which real, albeit slightly odd people are recorded in predetermined situations for our amusement. They're not actors (believe me) but are encouraged to work through a particular situation on film for the amusement of them orange lasses who wear furry boots to the shops.

Naturally, the people chosen to be in this programme aren't exactly hanging. Since its inception, several articles and column inches have been dedicated to showing them off in their undercrackers, as if we haven't got anything better to do than perv over top-heavy lovelies on that Internet. In addition, their every waking moment is recorded by the paparazzi and splashed across the red-tops quicker than you can say "I couldn't give a fuck what colour her shoes are, squire".

Now, fast-forward a few months and yet another article has been dreamt up by some braindead arsehat with too much time on their hands, in which said lovelies are shorn of make-up and photographed, under the premise that they are brave for doing so. So in their world, not putting some blusher on is the same as preventing terrorism.

Fuck. Off.

Don't get me wrong, they're not trying to draw that comparison (that I can see), but the meaning of the word 'brave' can only be stretched so far before it becomes a laughing stock, and labelling anyone bored enough to have their photo taken before putting lipstick on ain't brave. Pointless, maybe. Minging, certainly. But brave? No.

I've seen this kind of thing developing in the press for a while now, where we're in a position that our physical appearance has become so important to our worth that certain people really do think that going make-up free is a brave act. If that's the case, I'm Casey fucking Ryback in a polo shirt.