Ugh. Terrible traffic on BQE. Definitely missing my flight to San Diego.

— John Carney (@carney) February 13, 2013

There’s nothing I hate more than being stuck in traffic on the way to the airport, losing minutes and the probability of catching my flight.

— felix salmon (@felixsalmon) January 31, 2013

There’s an epidemic of smart people messing up their travel plans. (To be fair, Felix was not in NYC during that tweet, but he did ask “Is there a good guide for how long it takes to drive from Manhattan to JFK at various times of day/week?” the other day.) Yes, New York City has some airport-getting-to issues. But they are known issues! You do not take a car to the airport on weekdays. Period. The End. No more conversation. The BQE and the LIE and the Belt and the Van Wyck are too unpredictable, and even when they are running well, they are still pretty terrible!

We have talked about this before, particularly in how to get to JFK from Brooklyn. (The appropriate answer: the LIRR from Atlantic Terminal. Unless you’re in Greenpoint. In which case, you take the E train. The A train is okay but only if you’re right on top of it. You’re better off taking a car service from most anywhere in Brooklyn to Atlantic Terminal and hopping the train.)

And from almost anywhere in Manhattan, the appropriate way to get to JFK is to take the LIRR at Penn Station to Jamaica.

The only time on a weekday that you should take a car to JFK is between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.. On weekends, you can take a car prior to 10 a.m. And never take the Belt, even though that seems like it would be faster. It never is!

Other than that? Take a car to the LIRR, and then enjoy the nice train ride. Also don’t listen to the “only fly out of LaGuardia” apologists, that airport is terrible.

“We think of ourselves as a concert hall for indie rocker chefs.”

You are warned. Ash Wednesday. Now you know. Also tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, get ready. Readings, music and more on the calendar!

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, distinguished guests, fellow Americans, and even you, Mr. President:

On this fortuitous evening, we come together in a highly ritualized, deeply esoteric sacred performance within the inner sanctum of our nation’s high temple. The president’s words will be parsed by an inverse pyramid of humanity, from a mass of dimwitted Politico commenters bobbing like frantic ill-informed ducks upon the surface to the industrial sludge filters at the bottleneck bottom, monstrous catfish like Chris Matthews and Wolf Blitzer, slurping up and then expelling the reactions to the president’s prepared text, which have already become worn out punchlines on Twitter.

At home, the citizens best attuned to these Capitol rites will be taking part in their own rites of transubstantiation, meaning that Barack Obama’s words travel through the ether, speak again through your computer or television speakers, and then immediately transform into a parched feeling that can only be sated by rhythmic alcoholic consumption. For 13 years now, our culture has called this miracle the “State of the Union Drinking Game.”

And this time, the game is to drink whenever a patriotic/religious custom is performed by the participants, or a patriotic/religious symbol is shown to the millions. That’s right, you get to drink every time the cable-news producer cuts to a flag.

The rules are an important part of this national exercise, so let’s keep them simple: A little drink (LD) is a sip or hit, probably of something mild such as wine, beer or that “house blend” medical marijuana. A big drink (BD) is either a substantial gulp or puff, or an actual standard-sized shot of spirits. (It is also wise to keep a few bottles of sparkling water on the coffee table, along with plentiful clean drinking glasses for purposes of hydration and cleansing the palate.)

Did you lose your teevee or quit paying for cable because of student loans and the American Dream? Watch here, or watch right on this very page:

• Furious man with bulging eyes yells “THE PRESIDENT … OF THE … UNITED STATES!” as a secret doorway opens behind him: LD
• Do you see a mysterious octagonal decoration above this doorway? LD
• The president’s 13th handshake: LD
• (Is the person who receives the 13th handshake a legal minority in the United States? If yes, take a BD.)
• The first kiss: LD
• (Was the kiss initiated by the president? Take a second LD.)
• While the camera lingers on these close-up moments of the president, his security detail, and the despicable leeches all around him, note if Obama looks older than the last time you thought about this. Or does he look younger? In either case, it is caused by either a literal curse or blessing of this office. So: LD
• As the president visits briefly with the senior members of his cabinet, note which one of them he anoints to be his chosen successor and our next president. The specific action is both subtle and ever-changing, but without fail you will hear him say — in the course of the usual “great job” and “good to see you” patter — the word “Gorgon.” The DVR may be necessary in this case. When you’ve found it, reward yourself like this: BD
• Everyone please have a glass of water; this is going to go on for a while.
• The president will now greet a group of men with symbolic golden stripes on the cuffs of their coats. When you can clearly see eleven of these stripes simultaneously: BD
• Ask your viewing companions if they know the definition of “Lenny Skutniks.” When they don’t, make them all take a BD, while you explain that Lenny Skutnik was a heroic government clerk who dove into the water to save a lady from a plane crash back in 1982. Ronald Reagan, the patron saint of federal government bureaucrats, mentioned Skutnik’s bravery during the 1982 State of the Union address, and a tradition was born.
• Have one BD when the first “Lenny Skutnik” is introduced, and another when the last “Lenny Skutnik” has again been seated. Otherwise you will die, because there are so many heroes brought out for the modern-day State of the Union address. It is basically like The Avengers up there, now. Also the roles of Hero and Victim have almost completely merged, so the heroism is likely to be simply surviving some awful thing — which, granted, is bad enough! Have a LD and think about that for a moment.
• We were just kidding about drinking every time you see the American Flag. You’d be dead before Obama ever got to the part about putting GPS chips in our nation’s children. So when, as is the case during a SoTU address, the American flag is the backdrop for an hour of live televised ritual, we will instead only raise our glass (LD) when Joe Biden raises his glass. And remember, he’s drinking water up there… or Everclear, nobody knows for sure.
• During the establishing shot of a group of military officers, it will look just for a second like a brass eagle pin on another officer is landing on the head of a bald officer in the next row down: LD
• Each time Obama says a URL, take one LD in respect for this powerful word-magic.
• When the wideshot camera pans up and right from the rostrum, note the three distinct beams of energy emitting from the House chamber’s ceiling to the president, vice president and speaker of the House. These are “pink lasers,” and during this speech certain information is transmitted directly to the subconscious of these powerful leaders. BD
• Now it’s mostly a lot of reading of this text, which is less about Obama’s policies than the certain amount of syllables and grunting noises that will only take their true form when the audio is played backwards, later. Check out Twitter or whatever, maybe put your hand on the next person’s thigh. Who knows, right?!
• After the “laundry list” and “victory lap” (esoteric terms meaning “what the president says he accomplished and what he would like to accomplish in the future”), the camera over the right side of the chamber (Stage Left) will zoom out to reveal a perfect Islamic crescent moon made from a pattern of desks around the rostrum. Do not blink or you’ll miss when the light hits the sweat on John Boehner’s cheeks in exactly the right way and makes a beautiful red star to finish the transformation from Christian Nation to Islamic Fundamentalism, both of which are fronts for the Demonist Elite. BD
• Make sure to quickly turn off and unplug the television or computer immediately after Obama says the closing incantation, “The State of Our Union Is Strong” and “God bless the United States of America.” Those who fail to immediately turn off the TV will be struck with a “dumb ray” that will render the viewer helpless, angry and not at all enjoying the booze he or she just consumed.

★★★ Steam seeped sideways in the heavy gray morning, unable to rise. Beady rain clung to the windows, and the snow cover was already drenched to translucence on the grass and the balconies. Cracks showed between the snowy planks on the scaffolds. The mist outside the door rose from the pavement to chin height. A rippling stream of meltwater ran clear in the gutter. Almost clear, anyway. Relatively clear. The question of when the appeal of the old snow would wear off was being either answered or mooted. Water undermined the snowbanks. Half-dissolved dog turds lay exposed on the sidewalk, in mute and too-late refutation of dog owners’ magical beliefs about the transformative or exculpatory power of snow. A snow mass had slid askew on the hood of a black Acura. The subway platform shone with water; abandoned newspaper was being pulped underfoot. Downtown, the drizzle met the drip from the scaffold which met the splash from the drip hitting the slush. A grunting sigh announced a passing jogger, in tights and a puffy jacket, plodding ahead on the sidewalk.

“Berlin’s famous late polar bear Knut is making a comeback, though this time he’ll be likely to draw fewer oohs and ahhs.”

“New research suggests the way in which we think of things and treat other people depends on whether we are single or in a relationship. In a new study, researchers discovered that people like to believe that their way of life — whether single or coupled — is the best for everyone, especially if they think their relationship status is unlikely to change.”

by Whitney Phillips and Kate Miltner

Yakkin’ About The Internet is an ongoing series by Whitney Phillips and Kate Miltner. Whitney recently completed her PhD dissertation on trolls; Kate wrote her Masters thesis on LOLCats — yep! Up for discussion today: William Shatner’s visit to Reddit, community moderation, and the complexities of “free speech” on the internet.

Whitney: Two weeks ago, William Shatner tweeted with Chris Hadfield, an astronaut stationed at the International Space Station. This resulted in the ENTIRE INTERNET BEING WON by Shatner, at least according to this Reddit thread. Apparently the 81-year-old Shatner got wind of the thread, and promptly created an account. He then proceeded to spend the next few days feeling out the platform and openly criticizing its most characteristic elements, namely Reddit’s karma system, wherein points are given or deducted based on community feedback, as well as AMA threads, which stands for “Ask Me Anything” and provides celebrities and other notables an opportunity to interact with fans. Regarding the karma system, Shatner expressed outright confusion (“isn’t the system basically broken?” he asked), and regarding AMAs, Shatner wondered if it was meaningful for anyone but the people who happened to be sitting in front of the computer as the conversation unfolded. And anyway, he asked, “don’t I do that daily on Twitter?”

Shatner then tackled a much meatier problem — Reddit’s moderation policies. Or lack thereof, as he lamented, which are inextricably tied to the aforementioned karma system, in which “good” comments are rewarded with karma points and increased visibility while the “bad” comments are downvoted and essentially run out of town. Shatner was appalled by what often passes as “good” commentary on Reddit (“good,” here, translating to “most popular/most upvoted,” not necessarily “positive”), namely rampant racism, sexism and homophobia. “The fact that someone could come here, debase and degrade people based on race, religion, ethnicity or sexual preference because they ‘have a right’ to do so without worry of any kind of moderation is sending the wrong message, in my humble opinion,” he wrote.

Kate: I guess this whole thing just proves that William Shatner is a Rocket Man, burning up his fuse out there, alone. WILL-IAM! SHAT-NER!

(Sorry.)

Seriously though, good for Shatner. From the comments that followed, he said what a lot of people have been saying or wanted to say, which is that this sort of noxious speech and content is not acceptable, and that it shouldn’t be tolerated by the moderators.

Whitney: My interest in Shatner’s comments are twofold. The first is good old fashioned Schadenfreude, because how do you like that nerd apple, Reddit (a breakdown of my feelings about the site can be found here). The second reaction was much more reflective, since Shatner’s argument — which takes for granted that Reddit as a whole (meaning all its mods and admins) are responsible for, as they say, the shit Reddit says — dredges up a number of larger questions, particularly the ideal relationship between platform user(s) and platform moderator(s). What is the ideal relationship? Do users have a “right” to “free speech” on privately owned platforms, as many Redditors insist between rape jokes? Do platforms have a responsibility to shut that sort of content down before it ingrains itself in the site culture?

Kate: Ah, responsibility. What a loaded word! Okay, so first of all, if we’re going to talk about the site culture, we need to look at its roots. Reddit is a platform that is largely based in the libertarian ethos of the early web. Free Speech At All Costs is a fundamental precept of that ethos, and for better or worse, I think that’s what’s fueling a lot of these claims of FREE SPEECH!!11. Just to provide a little bit of context: in 1996, John Perry Barlow (one of the founders of the Electronic Frontier Foundation) wrote A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace. In it, he declared:

We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity… In our world, all the sentiments and expressions of humanity, from the debasing to the angelic, are parts of a seamless whole, the global conversation of bits. We cannot separate the air that chokes from the air upon which wings beat.

So, if you come at it from this perspective, you cannot separate “good” speech from “bad” speech, and as such, both are protected (or should be).

The thing is, as much as some Redditors may want to claim otherwise, Reddit is not The Internet. Reddit is a privately owned platform that can decide what sort of user-generated content will or will not be tolerated. Legally, Condé Nast (who owns Reddit) can do whatever they want to control what is posted on the site (which seems like not much, because pageviews, probably). The question that Shatner’s comments raise is whether or not they should.

Whitney: And yet the “free speech” issue lingers (scare quotes used to differentiate the legal sense of the term from the cartoon internet sense of the term), which is best summarized by the concurrent assertions that “you are not the boss of me” and “don’t tell me what to do.” This card is most frequently played by those who think they should be able to do or say whatever they want whenever they want, often at the expense of women, gays and lesbians, and people of color, because… well because free speech (I’m looking at you, Men’s Rights-types). In response to Shatner’s posts, many Redditors either directly reiterated this position, or argued a slightly more nuanced version of the same thing, namely that imposing some external morality police (for example by assigning paid moderators to each specific subreddit) would undermine the very spirit of the site, which is based on, you guessed it, “free speech.”

Taste and opinion aside, you’re also dealing with a medium where it’s relatively easy to misinterpret context, or intent, or any number of things that give content meaning within a particular community.

To be fair, as several Reddit users pointed out, Reddit is already subject to some on-site moderation. Reddit is a self-moderating community; community members police their own borders through upvoting (which, again, is designed to reward the good and punish the bad, at least what passes as “good” and “bad” on that particular subreddit). Furthermore, volunteer moderators, who are also members of the community, can intervene when other users cross whatever behavioral or ethical line deemed acceptable/desirable by the subreddit (which is often determined through karmic upvoting/downvoting — what the community accepts is the content the community consistently upvotes). In other words, Reddit is designed to self-regulate; so long as individual subreddits are allowed to decide what’s appropriate for themselves, we should be good.

Kate: Right, but what subreddits often decide is “appropriate” is the type of content that a lot of other people find offensive, and Reddit’s boundaries are porous — the site is set up for community-sourced discovery. We talked about this issue of competing norms and mores last time around with our public shaming discussion; what some people find acceptable (or entertaining) can be completely offensive to others. Taste and opinion aside, you’re also dealing with a medium where it’s relatively easy to misinterpret context, or intent, or any number of things that give content meaning within a particular community.

As redditor Morbert said in the comments, “Reddit isn’t a single community. It is a variety of communities, for better or for worse.” That makes things incredibly tricky. The truth is, there are some racist, homophobic, misogynist jerks out there who think that there is nothing funnier than a rape joke (ugh). These people are going to congregate somewhere — and I hate to say it, but that is their right — and I mean that in a constitutional sense: it is totally the legal right of gross bigots to hang out on a message board and make disgusting jokes about anyone who is not white and male, because that is what our laws allow.

The other thing I wanted to bring up is why we are even talking about this in the first place. I mean, who cares whether or not Reddit is tolerant of this sort of stuff except for people who hang out on Reddit? Why is this even a story to begin with? Well, it’s a story because Reddit is an influential platform — influential enough that President Obama’s campaign staff thought it would behoove him to do an AMA. So the reason that this matters is because one of the most influential and highly-trafficked sites on the internet is also a site that hosts a lot of content that demeans and insults the majority of the US population.

Whitney: That Reddit has been plagued with, let’s call them, “behavioral issues” isn’t just surprising, it’s built into the platform, which is then built into the overall ethos of the site. This is not to say that all Reddit users are Violentacrez clones, or that all subreddits are gross — many users are extremely thoughtful (you can see that in one of Shatner’s follow-up threads; scroll down to see a handful of Redditors grappling with many of these same issues). Take these comments, for example:

From Redditor oxynirate:

As a girl on reddit I get really upset and disheartened about the amount of sexist bull I see on here. It’s not just sexist crap, it’s down right hypocritical. One day you’ll see an article on the front page about men protesting rape, and the comments will be all about how they would never commit a rape and are super anti rape. Until someone goes in there and posts about their being raped. They get called liars, told they put themselves in that situation and so on. I had one guy tell me I wasn’t raped because I gave up protesting, fighting back and saying no. He said persistence doesn’t equal rape.

And from BottleRocket2012 (in response to the claim that Reddit isn’t a single community, and that for better or worse it is comprised of many smaller communities):

I think this is the frequent reddit response. But the reality is all the racist “humor” that makes the front page is upvoted by the community at large and these millions of people aren’t rotated every day. The other reality is everyone reading William Shatner’s posts thinks he is talking about other people. I mean “OP is a faggot” is a hilarious meme and he isn’t getting the inside joke. And besides a gay person said “I’m gay and I find this hilarious” so now in the mind of a redditor this isn’t hating. No racist ever thinks they are, everyone creates a wall of bullshit to believe what he is doing is ok.

And smaller subreddits — a subreddit devoted to the staggering variety of topics covered by other subreddits can be found here — are much less likely to be overrun by violent sexism (except for subreddits devoted to violent sexism, oh for example /r/beatingwomen, which has nearly 34K subscribers).

That said, the site as a whole is undergirded by a basic kind of libertarian permissiveness. In a perfect world, one that has achieved gender, racial and sexual equality, and in which all voices are equally represented, this sort of permissiveness might be enough to ensure a stable, healthy, self-regulating platform. But this is not a perfect world; you can’t hand a bunch of racists, misogynists and homophobes the keys to the castle and then reasonably expect them to deny entry to other racists, misogynists and homophobes (for a visual representation of this idea, consider the following infographicfrom Modern Primate). So what to do? The obvious answer is to take away the keys and hand them to someone who doesn’t stand to benefit from all that permissiveness. Someone who couldn’t give two shits about the karma they stand to win or lose. In other words, you start moderating. And not just moderating, but culling the very worst offenders. Extreme, maybe, but so is /r/beatingwomen. (And yes, I am fully aware of the practical complications of iron-clad moderation policies, namely that lots of moderation requires lots of paid employee labor, and furthermore that said labor is often actively thwarted by those with mayhem in their hearts. I am also aware that ban-happiness flirts with a whole new set of problems, usually having to do with the mod’s personal bias. Still, I present to the jury the basic failings of Reddit’s current moderation model, and suggest that what they’re doing now doesn’t work, and merely opens the door for all kinds of abuse.

Kate: Yes, ugh. God. And /r/rapingwomen and /r/killingwomen. Technically, all of those fit the definition of hate speech, which means that they go from offensive to (borderline? technically?) illegal, which is another issue, really. The majority of racist and sexist content/commentary on Reddit — the commentary that Shatner was referencing — isn’t that extreme (thank god). And this is where I get squirmy about culling — because it’s all so relative and context-dependent (“I said ‘OP is a faggot’ sarcastically to point out its innate homophobia and call everyone else out on their bigotry, look at my previous trail of comments”). I’ve already said this elsewhere but: who moderates whom is a major issue. Who gets to decide what is acceptable and what is offensive? That is such a slippery slope — you cull (or dare I say censor) one thing, and then where does it stop? The path to hell is laid with good intentions, etc, etc.

Still, I present to the jury the basic failings of Reddit’s current moderation model, and suggest that what they’re doing now doesn’t work, and merely opens the door for all kinds of abuse.

The other thing is that having this stuff out in the open might not entirely be a bad thing, as upsetting as it might be (just stick with me for a second). There are a growing number of people out there who think that we’re in a post-racial, post-gender, post-whatever world, and that racism and sexism aren’t as problematic as they used to be (AHAHAHA, HA HA HA HA). The more that blatantly prejudicial/bigoted/hateful expression is pushed to the margins, the easier it will be for certain people to be like, “What do you mean, racism and sexism are problems? Oh, THOSE crackpots on weird site no one has heard of? Whatever, they’re just a minority. CHECK MAH SOCIAL PROGRESS.” I’d like to point out that you and I wouldn’t be talking about this right now if these comments were being published on I’mARacist.com — we are only talking about it because it’s on Reddit.

As you’ve noted previously, shaming (or in this context, moderating) ignorant people isn’t going to change their fundamental beliefs. They’ll just end up taking their isht elsewhere — and that may clean up the tone/content on Reddit/create a filter bubble for offensive content on major platforms, but it won’t eliminate the underlying problem. It is absolutely essential that we (as a society, as individuals, as academics, as people who publish their opinions on websites) keep talking about this, frequently and publicly. Otherwise, these beliefs (which are not going away anytime soon) will become (further) silently institutionalized, which is arguably more difficult to combat.

Whitney: Yes, if you give a mouse a cookie, he’ll want you to ban the word Christmas from all public-school functions (it’s actually not a bad idea). The problem I’ve always had with that argument — if we start censoring some of the things, what will stop us from censoring ALL of the things?? — is that it essentially plays on a person’s fear of being silenced, not their sense of basic human decency. In short: this person is being censored for their beliefs. You don’t want to be censored for YOUR beliefs, do you?? Then you better defend with your life other Redditors’ right (which isn’t actually their right, as they’re posting to a privately owned website) to post incendiary, unnecessary, completely unproductive bile all day, because “free speech.”

In other words, the argument that selective censorship can only lead us down a path to fascism often does little more than to lull everyone else into complicity, and therefore functions as preemptive self-censorship. You are encouraged to hold your tongue when you see something upsetting, because maybe next time you’ll be the one whose speech is under the microscope. This is a problem, because some people need to be told to SHUT UP, particularly when their speech interferes with their audience’s basic human right — what should be a basic human right — not to be constantly inundated with violently racist, sexist, homophobic, pedophilic or otherwise ignorant bullshit every time they go online. On Reddit, there are ways of shutting the most egregious content down; but in order for that to happen, some people (ahem, white dudes) have to be willing to acknowledge that the “free speech” to which they so desperately cling actually costs quite a bit, a point with which Reddit’s managers and investors would also have to make peace. Because banning bigots would mean less traffic, and less traffic would mean less money. And wouldn’t that be a shame. Which is not — I repeat, is not — an argument against offensiveness generally. Nor is it an argument against all forms of dissent or discomfort, both of which can be quite generative. This is an argument against what is already dead cultural weight. Nobody benefits from keeping it around, except maybe the websites themselves. But even then, it’s not so much “benefit” as “profit.”

Kate: I’m not arguing against solid moderation policies on Reddit or anywhere else. Those are private sites that can dictate the tone of discourse however they see fit. However, if we’re talking about people shutting their mouths in the larger sense, I don’t know if I agree. Speech — and who is listened to — is often about power and access. If restrictions on speech are put in place — even with the aim of helping marginalized groups — I worry that they will end up backfiring. Those who are used to having power are awfully good at figuring out ways to circumvent things to ensure it’s business as usual.

A few months ago, social media scholar danah boyd wrote an excellent blog post about the nature of freedom of expression in a cross-national, online context. She was discussing the uproar over The Innocence of Muslims and the racist MTA campaign by the American Freedom Defense Initiative. Different case studies, same issues. She wrapped up the whole problem pretty neatly, so I’m just going to end it with a quote from her:

I think that we need to start having a serious conversation about what freedom of speech means in a networked world where jurisdictions blur, norms collide, and contexts collapse. This isn’t going to be worked out by enacting global laws nor is it going to be easily solved through technology. This is, above all else, a social issue that has scaled to new levels, creating serious socio-cultural governance questions. How do we understand the boundaries and freedoms of expression in a networked world?

How, indeed.

Previously: The Internet’s Vigilante Shame Army

In the Summer of 2012, Whitney Phillips received her PhD in English (Folklore/Digital Culture emphasis) from the University of Oregon. Her dissertation, titled “This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: The Origins, Evolution and Cultural Embededness of OnlineTrolling,” pulls from cultural, media and internet studies, and approaches the subject of trolling ethnographically. She writes about internet/culture here and here and is currently a lecturer at NYU.

Kate Miltner is the Research Assistant for the Social Media Collective at Microsoft Research New England. She received her MSc from the London School of Economics after writing her dissertation on LOLCats, something for which she has been mocked mercilessly in the comments sections of Gawker, The Huffington Post, Mashable, Time Magazine, and the Independent. She has also written about internet culture for The Guardian and The Atlantic. You can find out more about her at katemiltner.com.

The dancing woman in this lovely new video from Louisvillian troubadour Jim James (a.k.a. “Yim Yames,” also of My Morning Jacket and The Monsters of Folk) is a lot like this guy in this picture taken by Romanian photographer Alecsandra Dragoi — one of the many excellent photographs cited by the recent Sony World Photography Awards. (Trigger warning: Bear lovers may find that image upsetting.) If you have not yet checked out this year’s crop, you should. Bounteous desktop backdrop material.

“The ‘normal’ teenager loves fake tanning, blonde highlights, manicures and getting dressed up for parties themed around her favourite reality TV show. She is the daughter of a black cab driver and dreams of one day being a performer in the West End — like Essex celebrity Denise Van Outen.”
 — But there is something surprising about her! Can you guess what it is?