It has been one of those days when you do a load of washing and hang it out to dry in the sunshine and, even better, discover that it is dry only a couple of hours later. It has been a day for going for long walks in the sunshine (both is us), for digging dandelions out of the grass (me - and what long roots they have!) and for mowing the grass (Phil - who hesitates, quite correctly, to call our grass a lawn). One of the results of having such a completely changeable climate as ours is that you have to grab the opportunities as they come along. How boring it must be to know that the sun will shine in exactly the same way every day. But how nice it would be to have that option for a while at least.
All sorts of action groups are springing up all over the place here. A young friend has added my name to a closed group on Facebook, "Save our NHS Greater Manchester Coalition". He just assumed I would be in agreement - which I am - and perhaps his having known me all his life (he is, after all, the son of a good friend) gives him some right to make such assumptions. A cafe owner has followed the example of the garden centre chap who put up a notice asking for customers who voted conservative to own up so they can be charged a 10% Tory tax. Is this becoming a new kind of political movement? A minister from the United Reform Church in Manchester has published an open letter to David Cameron asking him to consider the human cost of austerity.
By far the best thing I have come across, though, is the suggestion that the North of England should secede from the rest of the country and go off and become part of Scotland. Some 5000 people are reported to have signed a petition to that effect. Imagine a wobbly line drawn across the country from Liverpool to Hull and that's the idea for a new geography of Great Britain. Interesting!
Buzzfeed is an American Internet news media which releases stories about all sorts of things. One of their latest releases is a video recording of a 32 year old Hillary Clinton, then still calling herself Rodham, interviewed for television in Arkansas when her husband, whose name she didn't use, had recently become the governor of the state. Apparently she spoke with a real southern drawl at the time and over the years since then her voice has changed, in line with her career progress, some might say. Another person whose voice has changed over the years is our very own queen, no longer quite so unremittingly posh as she once was. Kristen Scott Thomas, in the role of the queen in a play in which the monarch is seen talking to different prime ministers over the years, said in a radio interview that she has had to vary the voice according to the year in which different prime ministers went to request permission to form a parliament. I suppose we all do it to some extent. Fortunately most of us do not have to face video evidence of our former and younger, usually much younger, selves. We reserve that experience for old family photographs.
Another American First Lady in the news at the moment is Michelle Obama who has been criticised for the Commencement Speech she made at the University of Tuskegee in Alabama, one of the top black universities in the U.S. She talked about the racism she has faced personally, including since she became First Lady, and pointed out that the students she was addressing would not always have an easy path through life. Some people, right wingers I presume, criticised her "playing the race card". Maybe she is just being realistic, however, and feels that she can now say whatever she likes as her husband isn't standing for election.
Quite a refreshing change! Let's hope she keeps it up!
Wednesday, 13 May 2015
Tuesday, 12 May 2015
Talking to people.
I was reading about an app called Somebody. If I understood it correctly, the idea is you tell the app that you want to send a message to somebody in a specific location. The app then locates another Somebody app user in the vicinity of your would-be recipient and that person locates your recipient and passes on your message verbally. Now, in this modern age when almost everyone, apart from a few total refuseniks, has a mobile, an iPad with messenger and any number of gadgets which will accept email, why would you need such an app? Supposedly to encourage strangers to talk to each other.
If fact, I suspect that it's somebody's attempt to make money out of getting people to buy yet another app that they don't need. I wonder if, like the various health apps you can buy which measure how many steps you have walked today, how much exercise you have had, how many calories you have consumed and what your body mass index is, this app sells on your data to advertisers so that they can target you. If you send a message expressing your undying love for someone, will you be bombarded with adverts for florists, jewellers and other such purveyors of gifts for your loved one. Although why you would send your message of love via the Somebody app totally defeats me. The recipient of your message might prefer the messenger to you!
No, instead of buying an app to make us talk to strangers, perhaps I should start a campaign of talking to strangers at bus stops and in lifts, in queues at the bank or in shops. I already talk to all these people anyway. But to make it more pro-active, I would need to explain to the people I speak to that they in turn should speak to a stranger in such a situation, explaining the campaign and passing the message on. It would be rather like the passing on of helpful favours in the novel "Pay it forward" or the system they have in some cafes where you pay for your own coffee and one more, so that a stranger coming in gets a free coffee. Presumably in the end, if that last system works, you eventually get a free coffee somewhere.
In any case, I have always thought that doing favours and generally being nice to people works that way. If you are nice to someone, eventually the niceness makes its way back to you. (Incidentally, autocorrect just changed "niceness" into "iciness". Is the computer trying to tell me something?) If you smile at people, they feel better and are more likely to smile at others. The world becomes a happier place. Or at least there are more smiles around.
Okay, that's that out of the way. Now I just need to stop the tap dripping in the kitchen and all will be well.
If fact, I suspect that it's somebody's attempt to make money out of getting people to buy yet another app that they don't need. I wonder if, like the various health apps you can buy which measure how many steps you have walked today, how much exercise you have had, how many calories you have consumed and what your body mass index is, this app sells on your data to advertisers so that they can target you. If you send a message expressing your undying love for someone, will you be bombarded with adverts for florists, jewellers and other such purveyors of gifts for your loved one. Although why you would send your message of love via the Somebody app totally defeats me. The recipient of your message might prefer the messenger to you!
No, instead of buying an app to make us talk to strangers, perhaps I should start a campaign of talking to strangers at bus stops and in lifts, in queues at the bank or in shops. I already talk to all these people anyway. But to make it more pro-active, I would need to explain to the people I speak to that they in turn should speak to a stranger in such a situation, explaining the campaign and passing the message on. It would be rather like the passing on of helpful favours in the novel "Pay it forward" or the system they have in some cafes where you pay for your own coffee and one more, so that a stranger coming in gets a free coffee. Presumably in the end, if that last system works, you eventually get a free coffee somewhere.
In any case, I have always thought that doing favours and generally being nice to people works that way. If you are nice to someone, eventually the niceness makes its way back to you. (Incidentally, autocorrect just changed "niceness" into "iciness". Is the computer trying to tell me something?) If you smile at people, they feel better and are more likely to smile at others. The world becomes a happier place. Or at least there are more smiles around.
Okay, that's that out of the way. Now I just need to stop the tap dripping in the kitchen and all will be well.
Monday, 11 May 2015
Life after the Election!
Expressions of disappointment at Thursday's election results are still all over my Facebook page like a rash. None are quite so determined as the actions of the garden centre owner who put up a notice asking any customers who voted Conservative to identify themselves so that he could impose a 10% Tory tax. Our daughter commented that the right wing must not use social media as ALL her friends on Facebook and Twitter had been urging everyone to vote Labour. I thought she was intelligent enough to know there is a wider circle outside your own group of friends!!!!
And the analysis of what went wrong and how it happened continues in the newspaper. But on the whole life gets back to normal and we just get on with things.
So, on Saturday we went into Manchester to a concert of Russian music - Rimsky Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Borodin and so on - at the Bridgewater Hall. Because the concert started at 7.30 and it takes so long to get into Manchester from our neck of the woods, I persuaded Phil that we should eat out beforehand, and off we went to Panama Hatty's where they serve an interesting mix of mostly Central and South American food. All good. The conductor at the concert was of the enthusiastic school, jumping up and down on his podium and demonstrating sheer delight in the music being played. Apart from a boring wait in Oldham bus station for the last bus home - listening to repeated reminders that floors can be slippery when wet, that pickpockets might be operating in this bus station despite the fact that this bus station is regularly patrolled by Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive police (really!), all delivered in tones suitable for talking to a demented five year old - we had a very pleasant evening.
And here are a few odds and ends gleaned from the weekend's newspapers. First there is a man who decided to become a Jedi - not because he was a Star Wars fan but because of the ancient Egyptian Djedi and their philosophy. He designs and makes and wears his own costumes, which appear to be based on the Star Wars outfits, finding them more comfortable than "normal" clothes. He even sells on outfits he no longer wants to wear to people who dress up to go to Star Wars conferences. He carries a light sabre because small boys like to have their photo taken with him and cannot understand if he does not have one. The local police recommended that he should register this "weapon" with them so that he had a licence to carry it. Needless to say, at 45 he has still not found a partner who wants to share this life style with him. On the other hand, his philosophy seems to keep him perfectly happy. Who am I to say he is odd?
David Hockney, artist with a work ethic who goes to bed at 9 pm, was interviewed at length. He stresses the work ethic because when he decided to go to art college, age 16 or so, one of his neighbours said that most art college students , indeed most artists, do no work. He, however, worked hard from the word go, or so he maintains, and still does so. He sold his first painting in 1957 at the Yorkshire Artists Exhibition for £10. It was a portrait of his father. The proceeds were enough to keep him going for more than a week. In 2009 his painting "Beverley Hills Housewife" sold for £5.2 million. I wonder how long that kept him going.
How strange is the relative value of money! I remember withdrawing £2 at a time from my student bank account and living most of the week on it. My first job, selling shoes in the summer holidays, paid me just under £4 a week. I blew most of the first week's pay one summer on the Beatles' Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Now I would probably just download it. The songs might not be in the order the artists intended but it would be free!
Hadley Freeman, journalist, born in New York City in 1978, describes herself as having been "a typical older child from a middle-class Jewish family: well-behaved, anxious, bookish". She was not allowed to watch commercial television but made up for it when her mother finally let her rent videos. She was surprised to be allowed to do this because her mother, she says, was "the dorkiest mother ever, who only ever gave us fruit for dessert". And we thought it was just Woody Allen who had an odd view of the world.
And then there is rabbit show jumping. Rabbit show jumping? Big in Sweden since the 1980s apparently. Who'd have thought it? And some people want to introduce it in the UK. There are rules and everything, all about not stressing or forcing the rabbit. You're not going to get rich doing it though. One enthusiast, interviewed by Zoe Williams, when asked if she did not think she might find training dogs or horses more satisfying, replied that the big advantage is that you can transport ten rabbits easily to an event while it's much more difficult with ten dogs or ten horses. When not training rabbits she is a driving instructor. Does she make rabbits do an emergency stop? Things to conjure with; mainly it means she has flexible hours that fit around taking ten rabbits to showjumping events. Of the two aspects of her life she declares, "Rabbits are much easier to train, though. Humans don't listen." And rabbits do??
The world is still full of odd and interesting things!
And the analysis of what went wrong and how it happened continues in the newspaper. But on the whole life gets back to normal and we just get on with things.
So, on Saturday we went into Manchester to a concert of Russian music - Rimsky Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Borodin and so on - at the Bridgewater Hall. Because the concert started at 7.30 and it takes so long to get into Manchester from our neck of the woods, I persuaded Phil that we should eat out beforehand, and off we went to Panama Hatty's where they serve an interesting mix of mostly Central and South American food. All good. The conductor at the concert was of the enthusiastic school, jumping up and down on his podium and demonstrating sheer delight in the music being played. Apart from a boring wait in Oldham bus station for the last bus home - listening to repeated reminders that floors can be slippery when wet, that pickpockets might be operating in this bus station despite the fact that this bus station is regularly patrolled by Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive police (really!), all delivered in tones suitable for talking to a demented five year old - we had a very pleasant evening.
And here are a few odds and ends gleaned from the weekend's newspapers. First there is a man who decided to become a Jedi - not because he was a Star Wars fan but because of the ancient Egyptian Djedi and their philosophy. He designs and makes and wears his own costumes, which appear to be based on the Star Wars outfits, finding them more comfortable than "normal" clothes. He even sells on outfits he no longer wants to wear to people who dress up to go to Star Wars conferences. He carries a light sabre because small boys like to have their photo taken with him and cannot understand if he does not have one. The local police recommended that he should register this "weapon" with them so that he had a licence to carry it. Needless to say, at 45 he has still not found a partner who wants to share this life style with him. On the other hand, his philosophy seems to keep him perfectly happy. Who am I to say he is odd?
David Hockney, artist with a work ethic who goes to bed at 9 pm, was interviewed at length. He stresses the work ethic because when he decided to go to art college, age 16 or so, one of his neighbours said that most art college students , indeed most artists, do no work. He, however, worked hard from the word go, or so he maintains, and still does so. He sold his first painting in 1957 at the Yorkshire Artists Exhibition for £10. It was a portrait of his father. The proceeds were enough to keep him going for more than a week. In 2009 his painting "Beverley Hills Housewife" sold for £5.2 million. I wonder how long that kept him going.
How strange is the relative value of money! I remember withdrawing £2 at a time from my student bank account and living most of the week on it. My first job, selling shoes in the summer holidays, paid me just under £4 a week. I blew most of the first week's pay one summer on the Beatles' Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Now I would probably just download it. The songs might not be in the order the artists intended but it would be free!
Hadley Freeman, journalist, born in New York City in 1978, describes herself as having been "a typical older child from a middle-class Jewish family: well-behaved, anxious, bookish". She was not allowed to watch commercial television but made up for it when her mother finally let her rent videos. She was surprised to be allowed to do this because her mother, she says, was "the dorkiest mother ever, who only ever gave us fruit for dessert". And we thought it was just Woody Allen who had an odd view of the world.
And then there is rabbit show jumping. Rabbit show jumping? Big in Sweden since the 1980s apparently. Who'd have thought it? And some people want to introduce it in the UK. There are rules and everything, all about not stressing or forcing the rabbit. You're not going to get rich doing it though. One enthusiast, interviewed by Zoe Williams, when asked if she did not think she might find training dogs or horses more satisfying, replied that the big advantage is that you can transport ten rabbits easily to an event while it's much more difficult with ten dogs or ten horses. When not training rabbits she is a driving instructor. Does she make rabbits do an emergency stop? Things to conjure with; mainly it means she has flexible hours that fit around taking ten rabbits to showjumping events. Of the two aspects of her life she declares, "Rabbits are much easier to train, though. Humans don't listen." And rabbits do??
The world is still full of odd and interesting things!
Friday, 8 May 2015
And the winner is ....
Last night at just after ten o' clock I switched on the television news. Except that it wasn't really the news; it was "Election 2015", all set to continue until around six in the morning. They were showing exit polls:
Conservatives: 316
Labour: 239
SNP: 58
Liberal Democrats: 10
UKIP: 2
Greens: 2
Someone, possibly Paddy Ashdown, protested that exit polls are not realistic as they only interview 22000 people. But then someone else pointed out that other polls usually only interview 11000 people. So how does that give us an indication of what is going? Is it all smoke and mirrors? Is it done by a kind of magic?
The first result came in from Houghton and Sunderland South. They were vying with Newcastle to be the first to get a result in, something they do every election time apparently. Sixth form students acted as runners, passing sealed ballot boxes from hand to hand along a chain and then rushing them to the tables to be counted. They had been practising all day to get it off to a fine art, a smooth operation. And they did win the race: a Labour win with 21000+. UKIP came second with 8000+, the Conservatives third with 7000 + and Liberal Democrats got only a measly 719.
The first three results followed this pattern. Three nice wins for Labour and the Conservatives and UKIP each time in second or third place with an almost equal number of votes each. But this was the North East where you would expect Labour to win. What was worrying was the number of votes for UKIP. One of the BBC pundits pointed out that UKIP is building up a nice base, not for this time but for the next election. Then they might hope to be a strong second party in the country. Now, that is a worrying prospect!
There were moments of silliness: Paddy Ashdown said that if the exit poll proved to be correct he would eat his hat. One hour later his hat had its own Twitter account with 600+ followers. This morning he has been presented with a hat to eat. Alistair Campbell went on to say he would eat his kilt. I suspect he did not want to be outdone in silly boasts by a Liberal Democrat.
I went to bed before midnight, not wanting to turn into a pumpkin, but Phil stayed up until the small hours. At around five thirty I realised he was still watching depressing news coming in. I left him to it.
Nigel Farage's constituency saw a large turnout, apparently to try to block him. And block him they did, a small moment of pleasure ... until you realise that it meant another Conservative in the House of Commons!
Labour's Ed Balls also lost his seat. Quite a few important people, or at least cabinet or shadow cabinet position holders, seem to have done this overnight. A sudden career change!
The SNP made the predicted huge gains in Scotland, despite Nichola Sturgeon's modesty when the exit polls were first given.
And the Liberal Democrats have been crushed across the board. You could almost feel sorry for them, were it not for the fact that you cannot feel sympathy for anyone who climbs into bed with the Tories.
This morning, facing a Conservative 325 (the latest figure I have seen) seats in Parliament, both Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband have declared their intention to resign as leaders of their parties.
We are faced with another five years of David Cameron and the opposition parties are leaderless. Headless chickens time seems to be here!
Conservatives: 316
Labour: 239
SNP: 58
Liberal Democrats: 10
UKIP: 2
Greens: 2
Someone, possibly Paddy Ashdown, protested that exit polls are not realistic as they only interview 22000 people. But then someone else pointed out that other polls usually only interview 11000 people. So how does that give us an indication of what is going? Is it all smoke and mirrors? Is it done by a kind of magic?
The first result came in from Houghton and Sunderland South. They were vying with Newcastle to be the first to get a result in, something they do every election time apparently. Sixth form students acted as runners, passing sealed ballot boxes from hand to hand along a chain and then rushing them to the tables to be counted. They had been practising all day to get it off to a fine art, a smooth operation. And they did win the race: a Labour win with 21000+. UKIP came second with 8000+, the Conservatives third with 7000 + and Liberal Democrats got only a measly 719.
The first three results followed this pattern. Three nice wins for Labour and the Conservatives and UKIP each time in second or third place with an almost equal number of votes each. But this was the North East where you would expect Labour to win. What was worrying was the number of votes for UKIP. One of the BBC pundits pointed out that UKIP is building up a nice base, not for this time but for the next election. Then they might hope to be a strong second party in the country. Now, that is a worrying prospect!
There were moments of silliness: Paddy Ashdown said that if the exit poll proved to be correct he would eat his hat. One hour later his hat had its own Twitter account with 600+ followers. This morning he has been presented with a hat to eat. Alistair Campbell went on to say he would eat his kilt. I suspect he did not want to be outdone in silly boasts by a Liberal Democrat.
I went to bed before midnight, not wanting to turn into a pumpkin, but Phil stayed up until the small hours. At around five thirty I realised he was still watching depressing news coming in. I left him to it.
Nigel Farage's constituency saw a large turnout, apparently to try to block him. And block him they did, a small moment of pleasure ... until you realise that it meant another Conservative in the House of Commons!
Labour's Ed Balls also lost his seat. Quite a few important people, or at least cabinet or shadow cabinet position holders, seem to have done this overnight. A sudden career change!
The SNP made the predicted huge gains in Scotland, despite Nichola Sturgeon's modesty when the exit polls were first given.
And the Liberal Democrats have been crushed across the board. You could almost feel sorry for them, were it not for the fact that you cannot feel sympathy for anyone who climbs into bed with the Tories.
This morning, facing a Conservative 325 (the latest figure I have seen) seats in Parliament, both Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband have declared their intention to resign as leaders of their parties.
We are faced with another five years of David Cameron and the opposition parties are leaderless. Headless chickens time seems to be here!
Thursday, 7 May 2015
Running, rewilding and voting.
Running yesterday, before the rain set in, I saw a thrush, who confidently didn't seem to be in any hurry to fly away as I approached. This was the first I've seen in a long time. Blackbirds galore are seen and heard around our way but thrushes are a lot less common. Then today I read George Monbiot, waxing very enthusiastic about seeing otters and Eagles in Scotland. His enthusiasm, and his frequent indignation, is always quite inspiring.
Here's a link to Simon Worrall of National Geographic talking to Mr Monbiot about this and that. I really love his ideas about rewilding, not just reintroducing species into areas where they used to be but also the idea of "rewilding our own lives", in other words, recapturing our sense of wonder at the natural world.
However, while I appreciate his arguments about why we shouldn't fly, I might have to point out to him that most people don't have the leisure to travel to distant places by other, slower means of transport. I think flying is here to stay and we just need to work on making it as green as possible.
Anyway, today has been a much more satisfactory day than yesterday. It still is not really possible to say that warm weather has arrived but yesterday's rain has abated, for the moment at any rate. And so we walked to Uppermill where Phil had a doctor's appointment and had a late breakfast at the cafe where our granddaughter occasionally works. She was not there but maybe that's just as well. She might have been embarrassed. On the awning outside the cafe it tells you in several languages that you can get coffee and cakes or coffee and food. The Spanish version says "café e comida". Unless this is not in fact Spanish but some other language, they seem to have an error in there; surely it should be "café y comida". I have often been tempted to pop in and tell them but as this is one of a chain of cafes I doubt if it would make any difference. I would probably just be noted as the local cranky pedant.
After that, we walked into nearby Greenfield were Phil had his hair cut. Feeling slightly lightheaded after that, he opted for a bus home, via our own village polling station to put our X on the voting papers. Many of my Facebook friends have been fiercely reminding anyone who cares to look at their posts that it is our duty to vote, that people campaigned long and hard, went to prison, suffered and even died for us to have that right. Quite so!
Tomorrow we shall see what kind of results we have. And how long it takes for them to sort it all out.
Here's a link to Simon Worrall of National Geographic talking to Mr Monbiot about this and that. I really love his ideas about rewilding, not just reintroducing species into areas where they used to be but also the idea of "rewilding our own lives", in other words, recapturing our sense of wonder at the natural world.
However, while I appreciate his arguments about why we shouldn't fly, I might have to point out to him that most people don't have the leisure to travel to distant places by other, slower means of transport. I think flying is here to stay and we just need to work on making it as green as possible.
Anyway, today has been a much more satisfactory day than yesterday. It still is not really possible to say that warm weather has arrived but yesterday's rain has abated, for the moment at any rate. And so we walked to Uppermill where Phil had a doctor's appointment and had a late breakfast at the cafe where our granddaughter occasionally works. She was not there but maybe that's just as well. She might have been embarrassed. On the awning outside the cafe it tells you in several languages that you can get coffee and cakes or coffee and food. The Spanish version says "café e comida". Unless this is not in fact Spanish but some other language, they seem to have an error in there; surely it should be "café y comida". I have often been tempted to pop in and tell them but as this is one of a chain of cafes I doubt if it would make any difference. I would probably just be noted as the local cranky pedant.
After that, we walked into nearby Greenfield were Phil had his hair cut. Feeling slightly lightheaded after that, he opted for a bus home, via our own village polling station to put our X on the voting papers. Many of my Facebook friends have been fiercely reminding anyone who cares to look at their posts that it is our duty to vote, that people campaigned long and hard, went to prison, suffered and even died for us to have that right. Quite so!
Tomorrow we shall see what kind of results we have. And how long it takes for them to sort it all out.
Wednesday, 6 May 2015
Wednesday.
A rather nondescript day! No, a somewhat disappointing day!
It didn't begin badly. I was very strong and got up and ran to Uppermill - maybe three miles - to go to the market and buy fish, among other things. It even managed to stay mostly fine and rain free although the wind was bitter. My timing was perfect, however. All the shopping done in time to catch the bus home and have a late breakfast.
After that the weather went downhill. Drizzly rain turned to heavy rain turned to a very steady downpour. This did not prevent me from sallying forth to go and buy Euros from Thomas Cook before the values change, as is predicted to happen after tomorrow's election, and suddenly we don't get such a good deal. Thomas Cook even gave me free insurance, not for my holiday but for my cash. "If anything happens to your money", the Thomas Cook lady told me, "follow the instructions on this document." Does this include my spending it? Can I claim that it mysteriously slipped through my fingers? Does frittering it away count as "something happening to my money"? Curious!
If the rain continues tomorrow it might have an adverse effect on the elections. People don't like to go out and vote in the rain. I read somewhere that bad weather favours the Conservatives, who have more cars available to go and ferry people to the polling stations. Perhaps we should have obligatory voting as I believe that do in Australia. I do wonder, though, how they enforce it. Are you fined if you fail to turn up at the polling station?
In some countries, all canvassing has to stop in the week before the election. Here the party leaders are still rushing around from place to place, drumming up support and urging people to vote for them and keep out the other horrible parties! We have been advised by the Labour Party candidate that even if we don't vote for him we should not vote for the Independent candidate as that party has done a deal with the Conservatives, making it sound like a pact with the devil, which indeed it might as well be! Then we had what was made to look like a hand-written letter from the Liberal Democrats, thanking us for our support over the years. What makes them think they have had our support? I am amazed. At the bottom, also looking as if it were handwritten, was an acknowledgement for their printer. So, clever printing to try to win us round! Otherwise their poor candidate would not be able to shake hands with anyone as his hand would be too tired!
Tomorrow we will go out and vote. Maybe by Friday we will have a result but probably not; all the pundits are predicting several days of negotiations before a government can be formed.
Such is modern life!
After that the weather went downhill. Drizzly rain turned to heavy rain turned to a very steady downpour. This did not prevent me from sallying forth to go and buy Euros from Thomas Cook before the values change, as is predicted to happen after tomorrow's election, and suddenly we don't get such a good deal. Thomas Cook even gave me free insurance, not for my holiday but for my cash. "If anything happens to your money", the Thomas Cook lady told me, "follow the instructions on this document." Does this include my spending it? Can I claim that it mysteriously slipped through my fingers? Does frittering it away count as "something happening to my money"? Curious!
If the rain continues tomorrow it might have an adverse effect on the elections. People don't like to go out and vote in the rain. I read somewhere that bad weather favours the Conservatives, who have more cars available to go and ferry people to the polling stations. Perhaps we should have obligatory voting as I believe that do in Australia. I do wonder, though, how they enforce it. Are you fined if you fail to turn up at the polling station?
In some countries, all canvassing has to stop in the week before the election. Here the party leaders are still rushing around from place to place, drumming up support and urging people to vote for them and keep out the other horrible parties! We have been advised by the Labour Party candidate that even if we don't vote for him we should not vote for the Independent candidate as that party has done a deal with the Conservatives, making it sound like a pact with the devil, which indeed it might as well be! Then we had what was made to look like a hand-written letter from the Liberal Democrats, thanking us for our support over the years. What makes them think they have had our support? I am amazed. At the bottom, also looking as if it were handwritten, was an acknowledgement for their printer. So, clever printing to try to win us round! Otherwise their poor candidate would not be able to shake hands with anyone as his hand would be too tired!
Tomorrow we will go out and vote. Maybe by Friday we will have a result but probably not; all the pundits are predicting several days of negotiations before a government can be formed.
Such is modern life!
Tuesday, 5 May 2015
Lack of joined-up thinking!
So, in Garland, Texas someone had the bright idea to hold a competition to see who could draw the best cartoon of the prophet Mohammed. Is it even possible to pretend that this was somehow artistic? The organiser didn't come from the town but someone in the place agreed to let her hold it there. Did no-one do the joined-up thinking that tells you that such an event was bound to be provocative? There's nothing quite like publicly insulting someone and then being surprised when they react. The organiser had the effrontery to claim that her exhibition was meant to be in defence of free speech.
Not that people in the UK are necessarily much better at joined-up thinking. According to reports into the investigation of the child abuse cases in Rotherham, police didn't follow up the first reports they had because they didn't understand what was going on. They thought it was a case of young people out of control, running wild. They thought child abuse was child prostitution and that the young girls concerned were involved voluntarily. Really? When did child prostitution became acceptable? Surely young people out of control and running wild need some kind of attention. I didn't know we just ignored bad behaviour in this country,
Both of these cases just leave me totally astonished. They never should have been allowed to happen. I wonder once again what our modern world is coming to.
Then there are the food banks. It seems as though every day we read more about people queuing for food because they cannot afford to feed their families. And, in similar vein, there are teachers who are subsidising their places of work. The cycle course our grandson is attending at school is paid for by parental contribution. Judging by the cars that turn up to collect the children at the end of the afternoon I don't think they have many who need assistance. But it appears that in many school through the country that is not so.
Reports tell of school spending huge amounts of money to provide food, clothing, funding for day trips and much more for the children in their care. I can remember working in school which had "uniform banks"; parents were encouraged to donate items of school uniform that their children had grown out of and then children from poorer children were given this clothing so that they had a decent school uniform. Nowadays this kind of thing extends to underwear as well. Haircuts, laundry, head lice treatments are all paid for out of school funds in some places. It is estimated that up to £43.5 million of support is being provided. In some cases, teachers are paying for some of this out of their own pockets.
There have always been teachers who paid for stuff in this way. Often it was only extra bits of equipment for lessons but sometimes much more. I knew teachers who scrupulously kept accounts of whatever they spent and claimed everything back from petty cash. Once, on a trip to Paris the organiser carefully kept receipts for every cent he spent: meals, snacks, beers. Then he submitted his accounts and claimed all of it back when we returned home. It struck me as vaguely immoral. Had we been in college, surely he would have paid for his own food. It left me with a bad taste in my mouth.
But mostly, people like him were in the minority. Teachers have always subsidised the education service one way or another. But how did we reach the present situation where head teachers are siphoning funds off to ensure that the children in their schools are not too hungry to learn? Something in the system is broken.
Okay, that's enough pessimism for today. Here is a link to pictures of the wardrobe of the artist Frida Kahlo. It thought it might give a little light relief.
Not that people in the UK are necessarily much better at joined-up thinking. According to reports into the investigation of the child abuse cases in Rotherham, police didn't follow up the first reports they had because they didn't understand what was going on. They thought it was a case of young people out of control, running wild. They thought child abuse was child prostitution and that the young girls concerned were involved voluntarily. Really? When did child prostitution became acceptable? Surely young people out of control and running wild need some kind of attention. I didn't know we just ignored bad behaviour in this country,
Both of these cases just leave me totally astonished. They never should have been allowed to happen. I wonder once again what our modern world is coming to.
Then there are the food banks. It seems as though every day we read more about people queuing for food because they cannot afford to feed their families. And, in similar vein, there are teachers who are subsidising their places of work. The cycle course our grandson is attending at school is paid for by parental contribution. Judging by the cars that turn up to collect the children at the end of the afternoon I don't think they have many who need assistance. But it appears that in many school through the country that is not so.
Reports tell of school spending huge amounts of money to provide food, clothing, funding for day trips and much more for the children in their care. I can remember working in school which had "uniform banks"; parents were encouraged to donate items of school uniform that their children had grown out of and then children from poorer children were given this clothing so that they had a decent school uniform. Nowadays this kind of thing extends to underwear as well. Haircuts, laundry, head lice treatments are all paid for out of school funds in some places. It is estimated that up to £43.5 million of support is being provided. In some cases, teachers are paying for some of this out of their own pockets.
There have always been teachers who paid for stuff in this way. Often it was only extra bits of equipment for lessons but sometimes much more. I knew teachers who scrupulously kept accounts of whatever they spent and claimed everything back from petty cash. Once, on a trip to Paris the organiser carefully kept receipts for every cent he spent: meals, snacks, beers. Then he submitted his accounts and claimed all of it back when we returned home. It struck me as vaguely immoral. Had we been in college, surely he would have paid for his own food. It left me with a bad taste in my mouth.
But mostly, people like him were in the minority. Teachers have always subsidised the education service one way or another. But how did we reach the present situation where head teachers are siphoning funds off to ensure that the children in their schools are not too hungry to learn? Something in the system is broken.
Okay, that's enough pessimism for today. Here is a link to pictures of the wardrobe of the artist Frida Kahlo. It thought it might give a little light relief.
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