Archive for category Uncategorized

Justice? No, it’s criminal lack of foresight

Posted by rose22joh in Uncategorized, life, politics on 23/08/2010

image from www.yourkenttv.co.uk

I know this is an age of austerity but it’s amazing what these cutback look like on the ground.  It’s also worrying the lack of joined up thinking amongst those with the power to make the cuts.

Don’t worry, I’m not naive.  I know there’s no masterplan, no overview of how and on what cuts are made.  That’s the problem in believing in local decision-making though, is that you do kind of expct some sort of consistency in the local area.  I’ll show you what I mean.  As you may have noticed because I’ve blogged about it a bit, Ashford in Kent is one of the growth towns in the UK.  Here’s what Ashford’s regeneration agency “Ashford’s Future” has to say about it:

Key facts about Ashford:
The fastest growing town between London and the Continent
Plans to create 31,000 homes and 28,000 jobs by 2031
Around £2.5 billion planned investment
37 minutes to London via the high speed rail link
Paris in 2 hours and Lille in under 1 hour from Ashford International
Exciting shopping opportunities in the extended County Square shopping centre and the Designer Outlet
Some of the best leisure facilities in the South East including a multi-million redeveloped leisure centre and international standard athletics stadium
Excellent and expanding education facilities including a multi-million Ashford Learning Campus for further education
2 million sq ft of commercial office development
Office rents 68% lower than in London and 40% lower than in the South East
House prices 28% cheaper than in London and 14% cheaper than the South East average
Fantastic countryside, including part of the Kent Downs area of outstanding natural beauty and extensive areas of woodland
Easy access to beautiful countryside, charming villages and the south coast
And – 85% of Ashford residents value the quality of life in Ashford

So what’s the problem?  Out on Saturday, I heard the story of a 15 year old, wrongly arrested for shoplifting in Ashford Town Centre. As ths is town gossip, I’d be delighted to have facts corrected, of course.

The police cells at Ashford police station have been closed.  This means that said 15 year old was apparently taken all the way to Folkestone for questioning. The way the story was told to me, once it had been acknowledged that it was a case of mistaken identity the 15 year old was released.  But he’s in Folkestone, 20km (12 miles) from where he was taken.  Fortunately he was sensible enough to point out that he was under 16 and get the police to get his parents to come and collect him.  But carting a 15 year old 12 miles from home on a mistaken basis, with no obligation to return him to his original location?  That doesn’t seem like an intended consequence, nor in line with the standards of child protection we’d expect from public authorities.

So then we learn that the closure of the custody suite is to be used as a justification for closing Ashford’s magistrates court.  Describing the court as “underused“, the money saved by not doing maintenance recently is also given as a reason for transferring magistrate court functions from Ashford to Folkestone and Dover.

But a letter in this week’s Kentish Express (not online, will see if it is still available) from a former Magistrate sets out the cost errors in the assumptions that this would save money, including the extra fuel and travel time of all the Ashford-based solicitors alone (NB there are only a couple of solicitors firms handling court work in Folkestone, and none in Dover).

One local solicitor pointed out the propensity of magistrates to grant bail to those kept waiting long in the day.  Another firm, Griffin Law, which is involved in the campaign to save the courts says:

The closure of a [...] Magistrates Court in Ashford is particularly ill thought through, given the government’s intention to grow the population of Ashford and surrounding villages.

And that’s exactly the point.  While it might be a short term saving to close the older magistrates court based in Ashford, it is Ashford, not Folkestone, which is well placed in terms of transport links (road and rail), Ashford that is designated the growth town, Ashford that is to expand so substantially.
It is therefore not the case that the population of the south east kent area is best served by moving the justice functions to Folkestone. Even now, Ashford is bigger than Folkestone.

This is a short-sighted decision, exactly the sort of thing that the level of cuts needed in public spending are likely to bring about, but without the careful holistic thinking that we might have hoped would be in place given the amount of time and warning the various different public bodies involved have had to think about it all.

It would also be great to see Ashford’s MP taking a leading role in fighting this sort of nonsensical decision that could potentially affect quality of life in Ashford.

Oh, and the international standard althetics complex Ashford’s Future mentioned?  That’s not being used properly – no compatitions etc. being attracted to the area – so that’s in line for closure too.  What a waste.  The Facebook campaign on this one is here.

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

1 Comment

Doing the job: debating the top euroblogs?

Posted by rose22joh in Uncategorized on 15/07/2010


Well, if the Waagener Edstrom list of the most influential euroblogs was designed to provoke debate, it certainly has done amongst the eurobloggers.

Jon Worth, the fifth most influential according to the list, had to invite himself to the study’s launch.
Nosemonkey, whose authoritative, informative blog is regularly nominated for best blog awards finished outside the top 10.

Eurogoblin, Mathew’s Tagsmanian Devil(top 20!) and EURoman (a site I’ll admit I’d never heard of before today have all critiqued in a lot of detail.

For me, a few thoughts:
1)  the USA is being held up as the model against which to judge how influential the EU blogosphere is – but is that a realistic comparison?
Is it actually what people writing euroblogs are aspiring to?

Importing a methodology used in the US and the comparisons with the US blogging scene as if this something that the Euroblogosphere should be aspired to become like may also have added to the distortionary effect.

The EU is not the USA, and I don’t think it’s right to say one if  ahead of or more advance than the other.  The US doesn’t have the multicultural, multilingual diversity of the EU at its federal level, so while an English-language blog in the US might have a widespread influence, one in Brussels might have a lesser impact, similarly one in French, German etc. as the potential audience reading in that language for interest and pleasure is smaller.
Plus with Jon Worth announcing he’s moving to London, Nosemonkey in London, ghost blogger Julien Frisch until recently in Germany, Joe Litobarski in Italy, is labelling it  the “Brussels Blog” survey really getting the full EU blogging picture?  I agree with EURoman Christian, local interpretation of EU stories is definitely an important factor.

I’m also not convinced that there has to be “a purpose”- the best euroblogs from my reading perspective are those where the author’s found something of interest and run with it because they are interested, not because they are paid to do so, or are single purpose.

Eurobloggers that are most interesting to me tend to be amateur rather than professional journalists – that’s why the alternative views can prevail.

While the excellent bloggingportal team tries to galvinise us into something more coherent, the actual effect has been a bit like trying to herd cats.

2)  What are Eurobloggers writing about?
While in the US the Washington world is probably exciting enough to fully occupy bloggers, most EU blogs I read seem to also have interest in other things – whether that’s Jon Worth’s sportsblog or Joe Litobarski’s musings from Ethiopia.

I’m an occasional euroblogger, who, through a combination of not-covering-some-things-because-I-value-my-job and blogging on things other than the EU (primarily parenting, feminism, local issues and faith), is never going to make it high up the Euroblog rankings.

That’s fine by me – I was flattered to even be listed in Fleishman-Hillard’s citizen blogs list for just that reason-

4) Where did the blogs under consideration come from?
While I understand that my own blog’s too random to fit the primarily EU-focussed criteria, I’m a bit surprised that none of the blogs of the EU girl geeks appear even to have been in consideration: where was Europasionaria? Euonym? Lino the Rhino?
Or did I just miss the longlist of blogs that were considered?

3) Twitter is where it’s at…
While eurobloggers do try to take time to comment on each other’s blogs, as Eurogoblin points out, it’s Twitter where we really talk to each other, share information, views, debate and discuss.  And all in 140 characters.
The last great Euroblogger meet-up online was hosted on Skype in the end, with Twitter and Googlewave elements.
So we have to ask – to shape debate in social media- whether our individual blogs are the place where that’s done most effectively is a debate for another day…

, , , , , , ,

5 Comments

Liking, learning, languages

Posted by rose22joh in EU, Uncategorized, life, parenting on 12/07/2010

Looking at the Petit Filous ads, I wonder – can you get a lifestyle from a language?

One of the great things about Facebook is that you ccan get back in touch with people. Today, I’ve been looking at the photos of my Frnech friend’s new born son.
French friend? Yes, I apologise for the turn of phrase.
When I was younger, we made friends with the people staying in the next door gite, while on holiday near Colmar.  As it turned out, they actually lived about 40 miles from us and I spent my teenage years learning French with a purpose.  It all seems so much more worthwhile when you have someone you want to be able to talk to.
Through this I enjoyed what we shared as culture, and  the differences too.  I gained access to a whole different way of thinking and a way of looking at the world.

I also speak some Spanish.  I chose to do so because my 13-year old self thought that it was better to learn a language spoken so widely in the world rather than German, spoken in only one country.  Now I’ve several Germna speakers in my circle of friends, and no one Spanish speaking.  I keep feeling embarrassingly monoglot.

So when it comes to teaching my son languages, I want to start early.
After all the theory behind language lessons in primary schools was about cutting money and improving GCSE results by not requiring a lang- I’m sorry, was about children soaking up languages more easily early on so that they learn a love of them (I guess this is the same theory of learning that leads to atheists saying that children should not learn about God’s love until they are old enough to decide to do so…)

But while it is natural to me as a francophone that my son should learn to speak the language of our neighbours, is it rational?  Is it the most useful thing he could do?
What about Spanish?  My theory still holds, plus I found travelling in California that it was very useful to speak Spanish. Even Gerorge W Bush spoke Spanish.
What about the language of the BRICs?  As Europe and the US decline as world powers, surely there’s a point to learning Hindi, Chinese, Portuguese, even Russian?

We’ve decided to start with what we know.
After a few goes yesterday, learning in English and French, my son now sings:

Fairer Jacker, Door May Voo, Sonic May A Tina, Ding Dang Dong!

Which isn’t bad for a first go.

We have the Muzzy VHS tapes in French and Spanish too.
These were given to us by a lovely B&B owner in Salisbury (we’d highly recommend a stay there, and please also make a donation to the Meningitis Trust if you have some spare pennies).
We need to dig out the video from the roof to be able to play them, but we think it might be time to get them going…

There are apparently lovely Fench clubs here in Ashford too, including holiday clubs for toddlers, so may be starting with what we as parents know, and starting with French.

Then the rest! Ciao…

, , , , , ,

1 Comment

New Who…

Posted by rose22joh in Uncategorized, life on 05/04/2010

…woohoo!

 (amazing regeneration wallpaper from www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho)

Yes, pleased to report that I enjoyed the Eleventh doctor’s first outing “the Eleventh hour” (available on BBC iPlayer here).

Thanks to my son’s perhaps unsuitable addition to sci-fi TV programmes (the Sarah Jane Adventures, MI High etc.) I’ve had the opportunity recently to rewatch the Christopher Eccleston era Doctor Who episodes in the last couple of weeks (the less scary ones at least).  I remember now how I feared that the actor that played the singing policeman from Blackpool and the young Casanova couldn’t surely be a better Doctor than the one-that-looks-a-bit-like-my-husband?  But after the slightly disappointing “Christmas Invasion” (worst line?  “This new hand?  It’s a fightin’ hand!” in a cod Wild West accent), David Tennant became the best Doctor Who that I can remember, and I remember back to Tom Baker… well, the repeats at least.

I was one of the five people that watched and enjoyed Party Animals (the series which made Matt Smith’s name :) ), so I was actually quite pleased when he was cast, and didn’t respond “Doctor Who?” (hohoho).  Though I have to admit I was bothered about being older than the Doctor for the first time.  The friendship with the companions is important and I was a bit afraid that a younger Doctor meant more romance stuff and less exciting adventures.  The wedding dress (which I guessed was coming) at the end of the episode suggests that Stephen Moffat might have thought about this too… 

I was genuinely enthusiastic about Stephen Moffat taking over at Doctor Who and I’m glad to say, so far it’s lived up to my expectations. 

There are reviews galore online and I’d rather you watched it and formed your own views. But some highspeed random thoughts:
- new titles – great graphics, not so sure about the theme remix;
- liked the kid with the talking bedroom wall, hated the praying to Santa business (yes, we know the writers are atheists, but this felt petty);
- liked the not-quite-done-yet Doctor and the revamped tardis;
- liked the “corner of your eye” business and the camera technique of  “what did I see?”;
- liked the references to earlier themes and incarnations: the William Hartnell library card, the stealing clothes from the hospital (Paul McGann does that!), the inability to know when exactly he’s returning to (like the Girl in the Fireplace);
- loved the “village” atmosphere of Leadworth where everyone knows Amy…

The monsters were scary enough to mean that my son certainly won’t be seeing it for a few years (prisoner zero and the prison guard ships i can’t remember the name of), and the Doctor as the protector of earth theme was pleasingly in place. 
The dialogue is quick-fire and less “Coupling” than the Blink episode from series 3 (where both heroine Sally Sparrow and even Martha Jones sounded suspiciously like Sally Harper at times), and the oneliners are thick and fast. 

Essentially, >>jealous<< that I’m not writing it.  Though that means I get to watch it and get the enjoyment from that. Can you see the grin from here?

(And – given the random groups of people that read my blog – having read two thirds of the Ben Cook/ Russell T Davis email correspondence that forms “Doctor Who: the Writer’s Tale” and seeing the struggle going into Torchwood: Children of Earth, if series 4 gets the go ahead, email me via the contact sheet if you need a new writer…)

Very much looking forward to next week!

, , , , , , , , , , ,

2 Comments

Don’t panic! It might be a hung parliament!

Posted by rose22joh in Uncategorized on 31/03/2010

button image from www.isportacus.com

A survey quoted on Channel 4 news just now said that 56% of the civil service are expecting a hung parliament.  Civil servants of course know no more more about the results of any forthcoming elections in advance than any other intelligent observer, but nevertheless it may given an indication of what the general buzz in the Westminster village might be.

This was immediately followed by a report about the economic implications of a hung parliament.  But watching the report I’m quite concerned about the constant pumping out of the message about how a hung parliament is unpopular with the market, could lead to a market attack on sterling and will be bad for the UK economy.
It’s an eyecatching line but it doesn’t seem to be a universally held view – the Evening Standard on 16 March listed Namura, Citigroup and Forex supporting this stance, with Capital Economics (described in the Evening Standard as “cooler heads”) and Moody’s rating agency less concerned and pointing out that they would be expecting action to address the deficit from just about any government formed.  

The general gist seems to be that when the UK last had a coalition government, in the late 1970s, the ultimate result was an IMF bailout. 
But the situations are not really comparable, because the world is a very different place and not just a bit more complicated but massively more complicated in terms of potentially affecting factors. And the last two recessions accompanied by large fiscal deficits have taken place under single party governments in the UK.

If markets prefer a strong government with a workable majority of seats, then they have to be confident that the fiscal policy being pursued is the right one. 
That said, having also watched “Ask the Chancellors” this week, I’m not sure that it is clear that there’s that much difference of approach on offer in terms of a fiscal recovery plan – and that should surely be reassuring? 
The main issues of difference seems to be whether to cut tax or to cut spending, and the speed of doing it. 

In addition to this, the economy can surely not be helped by the threat to downgrade the UK’s soverign bond rating, which would raise significantly the cost of financing government debt.  Basically who ever finds themselves in power needs to be impressive on fiscal plan to keep AAA rating, but this threat in itself should focus minds.
But there’s no reason why a coalition government couldn’t come up with a strong plan that could be delivered? Julian Astle, Director of CentreForum quoted in the same edition of the Standard pointed out that:
“the broader the political support for fiscal retrenchment , the broader the likely level of public support. Around the world, coalition and minority governments have proven entirely capable of dealing with debt.”

So I don’t really see that a hung parliament should necessarily mean that we should all be panicking, nor that the markets should do so either. 
Unless our politicians are incapable of doing what their opposites in other EU Member States are able to do and find ways of working together despite labels?   But that would be ridiculous.  After all, as the Spectator pointed out, UK political parties are indeed broad churches, or, to put it another way, coalitions themselves, so presumably they are used to needing to work to balance different interests and perspectives…   

I read last week that some UK politicians believe that the public prefers strong government (politicians certainly do!) and are expecting that all the talk of hung parliaments should spur the small “c” conservative electorate into giving either Labour or the Conservatives a workable majority. 
That may be the case, but there’s what I like to think of as the Jedward factor that comes into play here – we also love a novelty here, sometihng a bit different. 
At least until we get fed up with it (like October 1974 all over again…)

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

No Comments

Is society structured against mothers?

Posted by rose22joh in Uncategorized on 01/03/2010

(NB this lovely image is from www.allfreelance.com which currently has an interesting article on the issue of being a working parent… more soon)

Man Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel’s “contraversial” question about motherhood is now on Comment is Free in the Guardian Online.  She commented in the Sunday Telegraph that:

“I was perfectly capable of setting up a home when I was 14, and if, say, it had been ordered differently, I might have thought, ‘Now is the time to have a couple of children, and when I am 30 I will go back and I’ll get my PhD.’”

CiF asks for comments on whether she is right. 
Of course she is right. In part.

Not about setting up home at 14 - my idea of being grown up at 14 was so far from what I now know to be what being adult actually is actually about as to make my diaries from that time both embarrassing and naively charming.  
And it’s time spent “growing up” – either in the world of work or learning to live away from home at university that makes it possible to deal with the complex and multiple demands that you have to handle both in raising a child and running a household.

Commentators have tried to turn her words into a row about teenage sex.  Just to be clear, in my heart of hearts I don’t think that people should be having sex outside marriage (or civil partnership) and that a lot of heartache and pain could be avoided by people not doing so. But I also live in the real world and realise that they do, and will.  As a former student of history, I also know that 200 years ago people were betrothed and married in their early teens. What they were not doing was using sex as a form of social communication.  But I digress.

I think that Hilary Mantel’s point is not that people should be choosing to have babies on their own with no visible means of support aged 14, but that currently societal norms are structured against female biology. 
Women are most likely to have problem-free births and pregnancies in their 20s.  But if you have gone through school and university, in your early 20s you are only a couple of years into a career. 
There is in any case a gender pay gap that appears between male and female graduates within three years of graduation, but we also know that significant time out of the labour market early on in your career and the need to work part-time seriously affect your ability to “get on” in your career.

The jobs market is still broadly structured around the (convenient for men) idea that you get educated, take up a career (whether via an apprenticeship or not), work at it, taking on more and more responsibility until either the Peter Principle kicks in (or indeed the Dilbert Principle) or you become the boss.
Needing to take time out in the middle of that to ensure that there is a next generation that can pay for your pension when you are old doesn’t really fit and leave millions of women these days in a daft situation: have kids and accept that either you’ll take a lot of time out and perhaps never attain a position matching your ability level, try to work part-time in an environment of fine words but ultimately scepticism about whether your are truly “committed” to your career and straddle the two worlds uncomfortably, take the male executive route i.e. have kids but never see them, or don’t have kids.
This is such rubbish.

At the moment many women are putting off having kids until their late 30s, or later.  There are articles in the press about getting eggs frozen, about how it’s your “right” to have kids when you want, how many cycles of IVF you should be entitled to (or if you read the other sort of newspaper, how women should not be working but running the house and popping out babies and getting homecooked dinner on the table for their man). 
But the truth is that having a baby is more difficult as you get older, that it is harder and more risky for both mother and child, and the risk of Down’s Syndrome and similar increase exponentially. 
There was a story in the press a year or so ago about the rise in births of children with Down’s, saying that the “caring UK” was a more accepting place in which to raise disabled children than in the past.  But the rise of the older mother is also a factor, and while you love the child you have you do wonder if all of the people that put off having a child until so late in their reproductive lives fully realised the potential impact of that decision.

Besides, getting woken up at all hours of the night is hard at any age, but even harder as you get older. 
How much better to have your kids when you are physically at the optimal point to do so?  

Of course there are arguments too.  How would it be possible to afford to raise children without a decent salary behind you?  How will you ever get women at the top of businesses if they don’t even get going on their careers until their 30s?  What about more equal sharing of parenting responsibilities?

And doesn’t the structure of the modern relationship also argue against this alternative model? 
If I’d been having kids in my very early 20s, I’d have been having them with one of my university boyfriends and we’ll never know if that relationship would have endured with children involved (it didn’t with none, obviously, and that’s something of a relief for both of us). 
But while I’m a monogamist who believes in marriage for life, many people see it as until divorce does us part, a situation rendered even more painful and complex when children are involved. 
Would that, too, be changed by following a different life pattern?

The rush to condemn Hilary Mantel as condoning teenage pregnancy (a curious target which the government surely cannot really be held responsible for bringing down directly unless there are taskforces standing by to invade teenage bedrooms, bathrooms, parks and wherever else couples-of-however-transient-a-nature are trying to get it together…) risks overlooking her fundamental point that society still does not operate to the benefit of men and women equally.

For me, this is so obviously true, I can’t believe that anyone would even try to deny it or defend it as self-evidently the way things need to be. 
But it’s not just women alone that are being overlooked. 
Until we value motherhood (and fatherhood too) as necessary for the rearing of well-rounded children best able to achieve their potential rather than as an inconvenience that takes people out of wholehearted pursuit of money, and children are not treated as an irritation, a “choice that other people have made that I should not have to pay for” or worse, as a threat, then we will keep having this ongoing issue of arguing whether women should be in the workplace or the home, or whether there is a gender pay gap and if so why and can and should anything be done about it.  Can’t we just accept that raising the next generation is actually a very important job and value it as one?

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

No Comments

Women and violence – shouldn’t we pull together?

Posted by rose22joh in Uncategorized, life, parenting, politics on 15/02/2010

violence18 (Image from http://jade-nadezhda.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default - please do read this site!)

Two very depressing statistics in the news this morning.

The first was that  one in three women apparently now think that women who are raped need to bear some responsibility for what has happened to them. The figure came from a survey of 18-50 year old men and women in London.  We’ll come back to this in a minute.

The other statistic was that one in five boys think its ok to be violent towards their girlfriend while one in three teenage girls think that its only to be expected.  This was related to a campaign being released on youTube to combat and try to denormalise this idea.

This is really, really scary.

Radio 4 this morning interviewed Dr Linda Papadopoulos (who I remember as the Cosmo agony aunt and who is always very sensible).  The frustration in her voice was palpable: she spoke about “learned helplessness”  -that it’s going to happen, that the values of our culture are that we have taught girls primarily to desire to be desired, while – with boys playing video games that reward them for gunning people down, driving riskily and committing violence against women.
She stressed that it was almost ”as if the feminist movement never happened”.
What’s scary is the control issue.  It’s not just about physical forcing of teenage girls to do or not do certain thing, it’s about the psychological control – the girls talk about being not “allowed” to do something, that he checks her phone messages, that he “cares enough” to behave like this, that sometimes you just “have to” to keep him happy. 
This was girls as young as 13 talking. 
I guess its one thing in a long term relationship (by which I’m talking years, not weeks or months) to occasionally think I’m not really up for this but conjugal rights and the continued bonding and closeness in a relationship means I should at least try. But that’s one thing when you’re in your 30s or 40s and the craziness of life is getting in the way of time and libido.  It absolutely should not be the case on a regular basis, or if you’re a teenager with their whole life ahead of them!

Now I know Channel 4 “Skins” is a heightened reality drama, not a documentary, but sex is presented in this show as a normal and early occurance in teenage relationships and often just as part of social interaction. As if teenagers are actually bonobo monkeys.
As with drinking and other age-limited activities, it doesn’t really seem to matter that the age of consent is 16 in this country. Very few 15 year old boys are ever actually likely to face rape charges for sleeping with their 5 year old girlfriend.  And if its consensual many people would say fair enough.

The problem comes though in defining consensual. The “no means no” message seems to have got lost somewhere over the last decade or so. 
 Women are presented in the media – and often in magazines aimed at women themselves – as really only being of value if primped and preened to perfection, dressed in high fashion or revealing clothes, make up, jewellery etc., as if there’s no intrinsic value to their company, no worth to their words or point in listening to them unless there’s an outcome at the end of the night. And when words aren’t important, what value does “no” have? 
The huge number of stories in the press about sexual violence against women seem to be split between famous-people-accused and she-was-lying coverage – I generalise greatly of course. There’s also the gang-rape-of-teenage-girl-by-teenage-boy-gang-on-council-estate coverage.  And we get so desensitised to the stories that we forget the ongoing trauma that the victims suffer, especially give how few successful prosecutions seem to be made which means that the perpetrators must quite often be getting away with it.
 
Getting rape taken seriously has always been a problem, and when I learn that its used as a tool in war, take Rwanda for example, to subjugate the local population (leading in that case to the rapid spread of HIV and the birth of thousands of HIV positive babies whose mothers die and the misery caused perpetuates through the wider family, village and down the generations – this story on Comic Relief left me and others in tears) I felt so angry that I could happily condone enforced castration for the perpetrators.

The upsetting thing in the statistics out this morning was the number of women who felt that “no means no” was offset by the behaviour of the women that had been raped.  The idea that two people can share a bed and not have sex seems to be regarded as quaintly old fashioned, the suposition is that they will. And if it gets as murky as forced sex when consent had been given to share a bed but not to sex (seems it was quite specific), well, the survey this morning said that a third of women thought that the woman must bear some part of the responsibility.

So even a third of women don’t believe that men should be able to control themselves, that no means no, or that actually the most important thing that we as women can do is stand up for and support each other.  Trying to get to have sex is a basic function of men – hardwired into not just their psyche but their physionomy. And sadly some need to be devious and worse to get that to be the case.

There’s a lot of political organisation that tries to address all this: UN level, EU level, national government (and indeed local although the message gets somewhat diluted when for example Sapphire centres get their funding cut). 
But we had feminism demonised for decades, laughed at, and even dismissed by women themselves (from Thatcher’s “I owe nothing to women’s lib” and the page 3 models claiming that what they do is liberating, to the ongoing pressure from mothers to dress more femininely to attract a husband) and I’ve blogged before on how I think that it has lost its way. 
Feminism shouldn’t as far as I’m concerned be just be about the right of women to dress as provocatively as they want and sleep with whoever they want whenever they want.  It is about the hard economics of both childrearing and women’s place in the labour market, and it is also about recognising where we need to be supporting each other.

This morning’s stats are revealing of just how far we’ve still got to go.  We need to fix the sisterhood so that it’s image is not just Germaine Greer and earnest American academics, but so that 13, 15, 17 year old girls have too much self respect to just accede to their boyfriends’ demands, so that women’s contribution and role in society is valued. 

And it’s not even 9am yet!

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

3 Comments

Truth is stranger than fiction…

Posted by rose22joh in Uncategorized on 13/01/2010

1612R-17671-main_Full… or what I read in the newspaper today.

My train got delayed today which meant that, after clearing the work emails etc., the only thing I had to read was Metro, the free newspaper.  I normally stop reading when I get to the sports pages and the classifieds, but today I had time and I saw this advert (I’ve copied the exact spelling faithfully):

I am looking for a married lady called Mrs Pauline Pratt I think she is living in Croyden and it would be great to find her. I do not know her address as it has been a long time since I saw her last.  I met her in Sandown on the Isle of White in 1960-1965.  She was staying with her husband Alan Pratt, he was an understanding man with a cottage in Ashfod, Kent.  If you have any information please email clint_sard@hotmail.co.uk

Now, I know nothing about Mr Sard, or the Pratts for that matter.  And the whole thing might be a big spoof or an in-joke for someone. But this personal ad has caught my imagination.

I guess the chances of that generation being on Facebook or Friends Reunited or MySpace or Bebo, or any social networking site for that matter are fairly slim.  Because of course those would be the starting points for my generation.  We might lack the local networks that past generations had, but our online social networks and a bit of search engine technology, they give us the chance to find people that we might never have got hold of again…
A quick Google search reveals one Mrs Pauline Pratt on Kemsing Parish Council, one at East Kent blood transusion services, and any number of Alan Pratts in Kent, Pratt after all is a local Kentish name (rather like Thorneycroft, Ovenden, Fortescue etc.)  But I can quite understand that if you were Mr Sard you wouldn’t want to just email them randomly to enquire whether they were the same person from 40-odd years ago.

And read that ad – the mind boggles as to what actually happened. 
Did we just bear witness a 1960s Brief Encounter?   
Was Mr Sard at Sandown  alone?
Did he just happen to meet and get to know Mrs Pauline Pratt by chance? 
Just how was Mr Pratt understanding?
What happened?
What’s prompted Mr Sard to search for her now?
Is Mrs Pratt likely to be pleased to hear from Mrs Sard?
Is Mr Pratt likely to be pleased to see this attempt at re-establishing contact?

There’s so many unanswered questions in that ad.  
And so much scope for a novel!  What a fantastic potential plotline.  I didn’t know that ads like this really got placed.

So I wish Mr Sard well, and hope he gets the information he’s looking for*.
And thanks for the inspiration…

————
* Well, sort of.  As you know I believe in marriage, and in marriage for life.  So if it’s just to know how she’s getting on, fair enough, and if she’s now single and he’s single and getting together was ultimately what they both wanted then fair enough.  But if Mr Pratt is thriving and especially if he and Mrs Pratt actually have a relationship which is less understanding than implied, then in my view Mr Sard should be backing off…

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

1 Comment

Ceci n’est-ce pas une maison…

Posted by rose22joh in Uncategorized, life on 08/01/2010

Argh.  We’re having a real computer-says-no day. 
The house we’re buying is brand new, and was added to the post office database two months ago at our request.  But trying to get internet mail order delivered, or insurance quotes… 
 

home_insurance_250x251

Husband: “Hello there, we’d like a quote for house insurance on our new house, please at [this address]”
Agent: “that house number isn’t on our database, sir”
Husband: “that’s because your database is out of date. Can you add it manually?”
Agent: “but there’s no house with that number on the database”
Husband: “it’s been on the post office database of addresses for over two months.  Your database is out of date”
Agent: “There’s no house of that number on our system, sir.  Can you contact the post office and get it added?”
Husband (slightly exasperated by now): “but it’s on the post office database. You can go on the Royal Mail database and check it for yourself – I’ve done it and it is”
Agent: “well it’s not showing up on our database, you’ll need to ask the post office to get it added”
Husband (through slightly gritted teeth): “I HAVE had it added.  It’s on the database from the post office, and what’s more I’ve managed to get quotes from other companies who apparently have more up to date databases”
Agent: “but it isn’t showing up on our database”
Fortunately at this point my husband simply stated his disappointment and explained that as they hadn’t updated their database of addresses and there was nothing that either we nor they could do, we’d have to take up a policy with another company.

Well, that’s a shame.  We’d been happy with the policy we’d had from that particular company, but they’re losing our business because their computer said no, and they clearly don’t update their databases as often as their competitors.
Which company was it?  I’m sorry, I’m not going to say more than I have already…

, , , , , , , , , ,

No Comments

Can 2010 be a bit less complicated?

Posted by rose22joh in EU, Uncategorized, life on 02/01/2010

Looking around the blogosphere, it seems that many bloggers stop at New Year to reflect on the year they’ve had, and their aspirations for the coming year.  I’ve decided I’m going to do the same, in the hope that writing down some thoughts will make everything a bit less complicated.
I’m going to make some predictions and comments on the coming year, some personal, some bigger picture.

So 2009.  According to the Facebook statuses of many of my friends, very few people seem to have enjoyed 2009.  I’ve had better, to be honest.  If you look at it objectively, there’s a list of the most stressful things you can do in life and over the last couple of years I’ve done most of them: starting from autumn 2007 I’ve had a baby, we had a death in the family, I had a car crash and resultant injury, had a serially ill child, supported my husband through a career change, returned to work after maternity leave, changed job, handled complex situations at work, moved house, worked outside work hours and without work paying for it towards a qualification… I think I can be forgiven feeling a little stressed…

There have been good things too.  I’ve met some really nice and interesting people, found a lovely house which we’ve helped design so it feels like it’s especially for us, my son  has grown into a lovely toddler, my husband and I have passed the three year anniversary happily, David Tennant was in just about every TV programme over Christmas and I’ve started writing this blog on my very own website which has brought me into contact with some people I’d never have met without it and with whom I’ve done weird things like the euroblogger’s Skype meet-up…

So what does 2010 hold?

1) I will move house.  Again.  Hopefully I’ll not need to do so again for 20 years.
We spent most of 2009 moving house. At least that’s what it’s felt like.  Hopefully in three weeks time I can log on from my own, new house.  It’s so exciting!

2) I will complete my CIPD Certificate in Training Practice.
Did you see my description of myself as “almost a trainer” in the “About Me” blurb? 
I started my professional training qualification in 2006, but had to take time out because of maternity leave – I now need to complete my assessed project by March this year – so that’s a clear deadline.
Wish me luck – and if you need a trainer with my expertise, please do get in touch…

3) There will be a General Election in the UK
There has to be, constitutionally, at least every 5 years, and that’s June this year at the latest.
You know the old joke “it doesn’t matter who you vote for, the government always gets in“? 
There are some differences between the approaches of the main parties (of course if not enough people turn out to vote in each seat under the first-past-the-post system, it’s not just the views of the candidates of the main parties you need to look for…) but there are certainly some similarities, not least in what is being spoken of in terms of cutting public services.  
It’s not clear who is intended to deliver services or ensure that public money is being spent properly by the service deliverers if they are not public servants, but it is clear that no one in the public sector can be complacent that there will always be a job for them, and the pension’s probably not going to remain a golden asset either over the next 40-odd years. 
Elections offer a chance to redefine government-servant relationships, and I understnad that this thinking is underway so I really hope that the role of the civil service and public services are being properly thought out and not just seen as a wodge of public spending to be slashed.

4) International and EU issues will matter even more…
The outcome of the climate change talks in Copenhagen showed that acting big gets you a seat at the top table – the players in getting the deal that mattered were Obama for the USA (population 304,059,724) with the leaders of South Africa (pop 48,687,000), India (pop 1,139,964,932), Brazil (pop 191,971,506) and China (pop 1,325,639,982) . 
While the South Africans have a relatively low population to be part of this grouping, with South Africa and Brazil representing developing continents and growing populations, getting a deal meant having them there. 
But continent-wise, Europe is absent from the top table.
North America, South America, Asia, Africa but the fifth Olympic ring is completely absent. 
Now look at the Daily Mail’s reporting of the deal…

Copenhagen climate change summit delegates have recognised a US-backed agreement on climate change, passing a motion this morning.
The decision follows a US-led group of five nations – including China – tabling a last-minute proposal that US President Barack Obama called a ‘meaningful agreement’.
The fudged deal – backed by Britain, America, South Africa, India, Brazil and China – came after a day of bitter rows and divisions in which the United Nations talks came close to collapse.

Britain?  My understanding from the press was that Britain was not part of the deal, relucantly accepted it as better than no deal at all.  But we weren’t part of that deal. 
Now, no doubt some people here would look at the South African population size and say Britain has a bigger population than that and should have been at the table.  But we share policymaking decisions with neighbouring countries on subjects that affect how we can respond to climate change, and we’ve agreed with them ways in which we will act together – that’s via the European Union.  If we get our act together, in sheer numerical terms we’d warrant a place at the decision-making table, all 499,800,000 of us – third largest population bloc after China and India. 

Copenhagen should act as a real kick up the backside to those that don’t want us to act together as a European Union on the world stage – if we don’t, we don’t count. That’s it.  The Commonwealth’s not a real alternative – India was at that top table in its own right, not representing the Commonwealth.  In any case it’s hard to believe that the sort of people that advocate Commonwealth over EU would see India speaking for them in the international environment in any case, they probably imagine that the UK could successfully lead the way internationally without the need for a power bloc to back up our international standing.  
But Copenhagen showed a new set of powers – not the old cold war blocs any more but a multilateral world where being big matters.  The USA and India are not out to protect the UK’s interests, but the EU is, not least because a powerful Britain is a key market and a defence leader for the other Member States. 
So the choice is EU, or insignificance.
Somehow, I think I’m going to want to be involved in this.   

5) We’ll take some lifechanging decisions…
We gain more family down under this year, but lose family in the Midlands.   This changes our lives as well as theirs – not least because at least one holiday in four will now need to be on the other side of the world. 
As a minimum, I’m going to lose some weight.
But whether it’s jobs or the size of our family, given our ages (mine, my husband’s and our son’s) decisions we make now will affect us in the long run.  I just pray that God is with us as we make them.

6) And I’ll keep writing…
I’m enjoying having a public space in which to comment on things that interest me.  Hope you’ll keep reading.  And a very happy new year.

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

No Comments