20 Something Debates (II)

What made you feel more like an adult, your first job or you first car?

Another week, another 20 something debate. Perhaps my attempts at hypothetical debating will offer less offence than my personal observations of a foreign trip.

As with the other debate to which I gave my opinion the situation is hypothetical because I have never owned a car. Yes, Little Miss Rachel, retired Primrose Hill Princess (or whichever moniker one prefers to lift from my comments box) has never owned a car. In fact, she can probably count the number of times she has driven one on no more than her own hands and feet.

I passed my driving licence on my first attempt the day after A level results (something which I perhaps should have given more thought to when I booked the test) despite suffering from shaky knees and, briefly, closing my eyes as I drove onto a dual carriageway. Passing the test was merely forethought for convenience in later life; I had no intention of having a car - bpth parents and a boyfriend had one already so all my lift needs were covered but one day I thought I might want to drive my children around. Plus my parents paid for the lessons. All good reasons. I disappeared off to university shortly after and, apart from occasionally driving the boyfriend's car to keep my hand in, so to speak, I barely drove at all. The year after the boyfriend disappeared to study in America and there ended the car: I had driven two or three times on the motorway and still had trouble parking. There was a gap of three or four years until my youngest sister turned 17, passed her test, bought a car and then realised if she drove she couldn't drink. Somehow she persuaded my mother that if I were on her insurance that my mother could stop providing a taxi service and persuaded me that what I really wanted to do for an entire holiday period was to act as her personal chauffeur. Holidays over, she finished school, started a gap year, sold the car and went off travelling. No more car = no more insurance = no more driving. As we live in London there is no need for us to have a car and on the rare occasions we need one, M borrows his work delivery van.

Logically therefore it would seem that I must have felt more grown-up when I started my first job. Depends on your definition of first job. First time I earned any money or first time that I had to have a job to pay the rent and the bills? My first paid job, as I had always dreamt as a small child during endless games with my sisters, was selling shoes. For £3.53 p/h I worked on the shoe concession in Dorothy Perkins, running up and down stairs to the stockroom and doing the figures for my manager (a 24 year old with a 9 year old son and 6 year old daughter) so she could pretend to her manager she had done them herself. I worked for 6 hours on a Saturday afternoon, coveting the latest shoes which I could purchase at 25% discount and reserve my size the moment that they came into the shop. Once the shop had closed, been tidied and re-stocked I would walk round to Halfords where my boyfriend worked and he would drive me home for supper and so I could change before we went to wherever the gig was that evening. He was the bassist in a band. I may only have been earning £3.53 but, after shoes, it paid for beer. I felt very grown-up.

Looking back on it today, I smile inwardly at how young I seem in the memories and how different things are, 9 years on. My first 'proper' job where if I didn't work, my rent wasn't paid came immediately after graduating from law school in 2005. Suddenly, after 5 years of university where I had worked summer jobs and spent the proceeds on holidays and term-time drinking, with a loan to cover rent and bills, I realised what it meant to work because I had to. I came back from Glastonbury to the end of my student bubble. I was 23 with 2 degrees, an LPC, no job, no money. Life in it's reality kicked in and I started applying for temporary work. 7/7 came and went and I managed to line up a variety of legally related temporary work, mostly reception and switchboard cover which served not only as a money earner but a daily reminder as to why I had gone to law school and fuelled my desire for a training contract all the more.

Obtaining my training contract, finally, at the start of 2007 was the first time when I went to work feeling an adult. A year and a half of work (I managed to get a semi-legally-related permanent job in September 2005) had allowed me know what it was like to work, to be tired, to have deadlines and to achieve them. The start of my training contract was more than a new job, it was the job. The start of my career.

A clarification

Blogging - it's a hard line to tread. Expressing opinions without offending other readers or family members whilst staying true to myself. Most family members know I have a blog. I didn't realise anything of them really read it. For the record, I stand by my opinions but I would like to make the following points:

1. I had a fantastic time at the wedding. I thought it was the perfect day for the pair in question. I enjoyed every aspect of the day with the exception of having to walk through snow in high-heeled shoes and a floor length dress. I have been looking forward to seeing all the photographs, checking facebook morning and evening to see if anyone has uploaded any. Despite all of the things which had to be organised and the business of the weeks leading up to the wedding I have been missing both bride and groom since our return to London and am constantly wondering where they are and how they are enjoying their honeymoon.

2. Whilst on reflection I did not care much for Finland I enjoyed the experience, learning about a new culture and country.

3. IBS, stomach problems and on-going illness and malaise do not mix with a change in diet and time differences. This was not necessarily because it was Finland. Recovering from the norovirus and flying in a large party of many ages do not really lend themselves to an enjoyable flight. Trying to carry out bridesmaid duties whilst stuffing anti-diarrhea tablets and paracetamol down one's throat whilst dying for a proper cup of tea and some recognisable food which did not make one run to the loo do not make for a happy person. Their views as a result may be slightly warped, particularly if they are prone to pessimism and moaning.

4. I would not, myself, personally choose to fly RyanAir if there was another feasible option or choice. I was perfectly happy with all the arrangements made on my behalf and I realise that when travelling with a 92 year old Granny in a wheelchair going via somewhere else and a train is not a viable option. I loved the hotel in which we stayed, the views and the architecture. I enjoyed learning how to take a sauna Finnish style. I was incredibly grateful that I did not have to book any of the flights or hotel.

So, in conclusion, my sincere apologies to anyone that I may have offended by either the tone or content of my reflections on Finland. I have learnt my lesson that regardless of whether I stand by my opinions I should consider the reader and how they will be affected by my words.

It does make me wonder though how many people truly read all of what I have written or whether they, under the guise of anon, feel simply like making sweeping comments. I really don't feel like I acted like an embarrassing English person abroad. My reflections were made afterwards and were admittedly probably skewed from having been ill the entire time, exacerbated by the food which I ate. I really don't feel that I in any way made the wedding all about me (which is why I was forced to take the 3 or 4 min taxi ride as I didn't want the bride to know that on any other occasion I would have remained in the loo), although if anyone who attended it would like to contradict me, anonomously or otherwise, I will apologise. I don't even feel I made the week all about me, but again, if opinion differs I will stand corrected and learn from it.

Here Comes Your Man

they knelt before the priest, a curious mix of grown up but looking so young (rather like a new school child in their first blazer and tie), her in an intricately pleated silk dress of her own design, he in his own version of morning dress. he had stood nervously at the front of the sparse but cavernous cathedral expecting her imminent arrival. the bridesmaids led the way up the aisle and then her entrance. his face lit up and he beamed at his bride as she walked confidently on the arm of her father, her outside appearance giving away none of the anxiety of the day to which she had professed as she had been helped into her dress.

they knelt before the priest, watched by 3 bridesmaids and his best man, in front of an audience of 75 of their closest friends and family, dwarfed by the magnificence of the cathedral. he helped her back to her feet and they looked at each other in excitement and with true love as they spoke their vows and exchanged their rings. they left the church as man and wife, showered with rice which glistened in her hair as she listened to his speech in which he stated that love changes ones reality, like a tiger in a room, and she was part tiger, part love of his life.

they stood together in front of their friends as the music started to play, and they danced the quickstep and their faces next to each other were a perfect emotion of love, of stillness in the spinning room, in the spinning world.

Finland (II)

I feel my first post about Finland may have been misleading and made me out to be a whiny Brit abroad who is an embarrassment abroad (paraphrasing Emma, in any event) to which I disagree.

I think it is perfectly acceptable to visit somewhere with an open mind and then on return and reflection to decide that one didn't much like it. I expected it to be cold and snowy, which it was (although I didn't somehow expect that all the snow would be piled in great huge dirty heaps next to the road). I had hoped I would like the food better (although as I had been told that Chirac thought the only thing worse than British food to be Finnish food, I wasn't that surprised) and I made an effort to try traditional foods, sampling meatballs, herrings, reindeer, rice cake things but having to draw the line at black-pudding sausage. I found negotiating a wedding in high-heels and a floor length formal gown tedious due to the snow and cold but I had a good time. I found the change in food and drink to make my stomach worse so that by the time we left I had barely eaten anything for a few days. I had read about the history of the country before we left, although I accept I mis-remembered some of the facts.

I went to an espionage museum and learnt about espionage and the Finnish role in spying, which given their geographical position is greater than I had ever imagined. I went to the Lenin museum (in the Workers Hall where Lenin met Stalin in Tampere) and learnt about the Soviet-Finnish relationship, about how Lenin had moved there in 1905 and remained there until 1907 and that he returned again in 1917. I learnt also that he had been instrumental in helping Finland achieve independence in 1917 and that his name was one of the first on the petition for independence. I found the museum to be insular and almost propaganda based (despite what the website says), that nothing was explained on a global level, but as it is run by the Finland-Russia Society this did not surprise me.

I was intrigued by the architecture of Tampere. It was rather like stepping into a Lowry painting and the place looked at once Russian and like (what I imagine) Manchester at the time of the industrial revolution. Tampere is full of textile factories, which to my mind are characterised by their distinctive red brickwork and long tall brick chimneys. It had me itching for a sketch-book but by the time I had a moment to contemplate any drawing the fog had come down and it was hard to make out much at all.

Finland, Finland, Finland

Ordinarily, I write for myself; my thoughts and opinions on what I see, read, watch, my views on life as I live it. I pride myself on being honest about my thoughts, feelings and how I record them.

Occasionally, I have to decide that there are bigger things in life than my thoughts and on reflection, this is one of them. Therefore, I have decided to remove what was previously here although I have left the comments.

Wedding Preparations

This time next week I shall be in Finland for M's brother's wedding. The hen party safely over, it has been a frantic few weeks helping with the various other preparations. I have been helping put together my bridesmaid dress in sessions which felt rather like advanced couture dress-making the modular version as I learnt extremely quickly why one does not, if one can help it, cut fabric from a piece of material spread on a sheet over floorboards in a room which only has side-lighting ("it looks like a mouse bit it out of the fabric Rachel") or why when one is sewing French-seams it is better to have in mind the overall objective first rather than trying to do each of the four parts in turn and find that mistakes made on each stage have dire implications for the progress of the seam. Still, the next time I need to make a boned bodice I am well equipped to make a decent stab at it likewise the next time I need to cut out pattern pieces from silk chiffon crepe I know that I am to refuse.


Given the amount of wedding preparations going on around us it was nice to escape for a night out with M yesterday. We decided to celebrate our anniversary with a meal at Firehouse in South Kensington. The food was wonderful, the service even better and we had a fabulous night. We spent three hours over our meal, ending with chocolate fondue with strawberries, raspberries and marshmallows to dunk and beautifully made espressos before heading down to the bar to linger over mojitos.

Goodbye, Hello & other short films

Was woken this morning by rain lashing against my window and the wind howling outside. A previous occupant left some sort of chime hanging outside near the window and it was chiming and tinkling madly. It was too cold to get up so I snuggled back under the duvet. When I re-surfaced I was late. I rushed around frantically looking for clean clothes for work and an outfit for this evening's dinner. I had to leave the house with wet hair so it was sticking up wildly by the time that I emerged from the tube at Chancery Lane. I discovered whilst listening to the fruit-seller chant "banana banana... let's go to Havana" or something similar whilst weighing my grapes that I only had one of my pearl earrings in. I am hoping that I left the other one on my dressing table because I was on the phone to my mother, rather than because it had fallen off on the tube. The fact that someone has decided to dig up the road outside my office again, having waited patiently for the previous workmen to re-lay the tarmac only compounded my annoyance.

The irritation of the morning may or may not bear direct relation to last night's activities. Last night I went to watch the premier of two short films which were produced by two of my friends. They were screened back to back at the National Gallery and entitled SE One and Goodbye, Hello. Although I spent several modules of my English degree analysing films this was the first time I had really encountered shorts and the first time I had needed to express my opinions on the subject. They were both excellent in different ways - the first was a snapshot of London life, an encounter on the streets of SE1 between 2 men and the consequences of their actions and behaviour. Although thought provoking and making excellent use of long exposure to get a beautiful effect of car lights, I preferred the second film which explored the start and end of a relationship between a young couple moving in together for the first time. This film intertwined the moving in and the moving out, leaving the viewer to piece together the story and the circumstances. The female actress was, in my opinion, better than the male (who seemed rather removed and unrealistic) although the female actress appeared to have been studying Keira Knightley a little too much for inspiration. I thought that the plot was very realistic although the location and the costumes/clothing less so. All in all though great work from a clearly talented team. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

Seven things you might not know about me...

... and probably wished you still didn't know. Yes, I have been tagged by the lovely Echo at Diary of a Young Horse. Actually, Echo is the horse and Sz is the writer/rider/trainer but I shall let that slide for now.

So, here goes:

7 facts people might not know about me.

1. I have never had a pet. Unless you count the goldfish I won at a fair in California and who died after 2 weeks (not my fault). I am fond of both dogs and cats although I believe London (flat size, main roads, long hours) to be an unsuitable place to start. We have an adopted cat which comes to visit every now and then (with his owners consent - we are not allowed to feed him). That will have to be enough for me, for now.

2. We live fairly near the Arsenal stadium. I despise it when there is a match on as all the supporters are loud and miserable looking and seem unable to pass by places without dropping large volumes of rubbish. The tube station is practically afloat with beer cans, sandwich packets and discarded newspapers by the time kick-off occurs. There is however, a man who sells the sort of sweets usually found in pick&mix at 2 bags for £1. Every time there is a game and I am in the area I always go and buy the same sweets from the sweetie-man (fizzy cola bottles and white choc buttons with hundreds and thousands - these are the combination of sweets I have bought since I was a little girl with pocket money from Granny and I see no reason to change my selection now).

3. I read lots of blogs about parenting - it started with Alpha Mummy and Wife in the North. Now it has been extended to The Potty Diaries, A Way Ahead and Bub and Pie. I also read Petite Anglais which is, strictly speaking, a parenting blog but it has such wide readership that most would conclude that it is further reaching than it's main subject. It does not, for example, have posts entitled "Done a Poo, Mummy!" which some of the others have been known to have (although to be fair to the author of that post, the subject is actually worthy of consideration as it brings up the issue of how much children are influenced by what they watch and therefore what they should be allowed to watch and at what age). Actually, even Petite has it's fair share of what I would term 'I'm only interesting to read because I write about my child' syndrome.

Why do I read them? Well, information, I suppose. I like to be informed about things. Parenting blogs are not the only blogs I read. I would like to have children at some point and I find it is something that one really knows little about until it actually happens. It also makes me think how lucky I am not have children at the moment and how I would need to be very sure and financially settled before even thinking about having a family.

4. When I moved house I moved every copy of Vogue that I have bought in the past four years to my new house. They filled a dustbin (which is where, my friends who helped us move, suggested they should remain) and are currently performing an excellent duty as posing as a side table in the sitting room. And yes, I do re-read them. Occasionally.

5. I dislike spiders. Years of being rescued by my father have given way to being able to capture the silly things in a glass with a postcard and deposit them outside. And the funny thing is, abstractly, I rather like spiders. Charlotte for example has done wonders for the PR of spiders. It's just in reality, they appear too suddenly and move too quickly and there doesn't appear to be a surface or plane they cannot or won't walk on. They are also prone to leaping off things near my head and dangling there looking menacing.

6. I am a fan of free-cycle. I have also just discovered e-bay. Now I need to de-clutter and give away or sell on an equal number of things to the new additions. It would be fair to say that I have hording tendencies. It would also be fair to say that our house has limited (i.e. none whatsoever) storage. These two facts do not make a happy situation. We do, at times, look like we live in a souk. In fact, one friend on coming to our flat peered round the folding doors which separate our bedroom from the sitting room and asked "is that a room, or the world's largest cupboard?".

7. I carry around far too much stuff in my handbag on a daily basis. Today, whilst looking for my phone (which incidentally turned out not to be in there) I found the following: a novel, my diary, address book, notebook, pen, A-Z, make-up bag, small bag with tablets and so on, purse, hand cream, full sized bottle of perfume (4/5 empty) miscellaneous toiletries, a small wrapped Easter egg, a packet of hairgrips (the card was empty and all the hairgrips were at the bottom), about £2 in very small loose change, rail card, oyster card, i-pod, work keys, house keys, a tea-bag (un-used and wrapped), a conker, 2 lip-balms, 2 lip-glosses, umbrella, packet of nail files. That is a lot of stuff to replace if I lose my handbag. And I dread to think what it is doing to my back.

And in return, I tag: James at the Ink, Cumbrian and Admin Girl.

Bored of chain coffee shops?

Use this website to find your nearest independent coffee shop instead.

NHS

I paid a visit to UCH yesterday to undergo some tests. I've had some unusual pains recently and after a visit to my GP was referred to the hospital. I have two fears - that the tests will either show up something serious or that the tests will show up precisely nothing and I will be left with the realisation that it is all in my head. That I am stressed or anxious or exhausted and allowing this to affect my physical health. I realised whilst I was waiting for the scan that I was worrying about catching something worse from the hospital, that I was concerned about the lack of sanitizer to clean my hands, that all the doors had handles which must be touched rather than just lent against, that there was lumps of dust and clumps of hair all over the corridors, that the place smelt (and not of disinfectant) and that I could not understand the nurse as English was not his first language.

The nurse showed me to the room and then left. It was dark. I didn't know what to do so I put my bag on the chair and took off my coat. A doctor came in. She didn't check my name. She said to get onto the bed and to take my scarf off because I might get hot. I started to wonder what she was going to do to make me so hot that I would be glad that I had taken me scarf off. She didn't elaborate but started doing the scan. "It's a good job that you're skinny" she said, putting cold gel on my stomach and peering at her computer imaging screen. "Too many fat people wonder why it takes so long. How am I supposed to scan properly through all that fat". Once it was over I asked if she could see on the computer what had happened to my other appointment. She couldn't tell as there was no proper centralised record. Instead she directed me to another department where the other scan would take place. After walking along miles of grubby corridors with no hand cleanser in sight I found where I was meant to be. A very tall receptionist wearing her handbag was sat behind the desk. I wondered whether NHS cuts meant that they now had to wear their handbags as there were no lockers. I explained I was still waiting to hear in regards to an appointment date. She responded that there was a 500 patient backlog and no staff to process the appointments. I sat down whilst she went to find out about my appointment. They have never heard of privacy as the entire conversation relating to the nature of the scan was conducted infront of all the other people sitting waiting. After a few minutes she returned and offered me an appointment for Thursday afternoon of the same week. There are free appointments but not enough staff to process the forms to allocate patients to those appointments. The back-log must be getting larger everyday. No wonder the official figures say that there is a 14 week waiting list for such scans - perhaps if they employed some admin staff they would be able to reduce this dramatically.

Not for the first time, I wished that I still had my private health insurance which I had enjoyed as a perk of my previous job and which had allowed for me to have my impacted wisdom teeth removed in a private hospital which was beautifully clean. Not for the first time, I considered the NHS hospital, where non-smoking rules mean that in order to get into the front door one has to walk past a line of patients in their hospital gowns attached to drips/monitors and so on, pale and yellowish, smoking outside the front door of the hospital which fronts directly onto a busy A road, the most polluted road in London. Not for the first time, I thought of my friends that are doctors and nurses and must come to places like these every day to work.

Too many cooks?

The government has announced plans that teenagers are to be given compulsory cooking lessons (one hour per week for one term for children ages 11-14), and, surprise surprise, the mothers and commenters at Alpha Mummy are up in arms again. Not content with bickering over the virtues of stay-at-home mother vs working-mother and all other aspects of parenting, they have to give their 'considered' opinions here too.

I thought that so-called 'Alpha-Mummies' would be the first to think that learning to cook was a positive thing. That proper mothers cooked proper meals and would involve their children from the start, encouraging them to make up their own minds relating to the ethics of vegetarianism and so-on. But no, all the 'usual suspects' have their own views. There is Theta Sigma Mummy who is abhorred by the idea of someone involving meat in the lives of her off-spring. There are various mothers arguing about how many A-levels they got, Oxbridge entrance and music lessons being more important than cookery. There is 'BaggofBones' who says and I quote "Whatever you can't work out for yourself from reading a recipe, M&S can provide in ready-made form".Then there is Supermother, someone who thinks she is the last word in the opinions of working mothers (and she may well be for all I know, but she and the other commenters have pigeon-holed her to the extent that she now seems to believe her hype as well). I could go on but I can't bear to as it is rather off my original topic.

It rather seems that none of these mothers think before they start arguing the same old points over and over again. Ideally we want our children to be well rounded creatures who are capable of looking after themselves emotionally, financially, nutritionally and also career-wise with a job which suits them and allows security in the first three areas. I agree that there are some aspects of these areas which are more ideally suited to home or school learning. There are some lucky children who will learn all of these things at home and the school education will merely reinforce and further their education. Sadly, there are many more children whose home lives are lacking in some fashion and will never learn anything academic let alone anything which might actually be useful.

Cooking, I think, is a great place to start with education. I am not necessarily saying that I agree with the current proposals for secondary school but I think that properly worked through and perhaps starting when they are tiny that there is mileage in this idea. After all, food is essential to us, second only to water (and some might argue, sleep). If someone can feed themselves, nutritionally, on basic rations, that seems like a good starting point for dealing with life in general, let alone obesity. Cooking can be used as a medium which is interactive and practical and a light relief but which teaches reading, mathematics (weights, conversions, percentages and so on) budgeting, science ( e.g. chemistry: ice - water -steam; biology: parts of the body and so on). Taken to it's logical conclusion with older children it can involve business models, customer care, financial advice, literary criticism and writing skills. The list must be endless.

I am not suggesting that cooking should take the place of academic subjects. However, I think that a course or curriculum could be devised which would take place instead of say, one general studies lesson every two weeks and which could use cooking as the medium for more serious learning, thereby enforcing within children's minds that cooking is easy and cheaper than its ready-made cousin, that diet, nutrition and being able to look after oneself is an important aspect of life and that cooking is not something merely for women or 'the thick ones' (as one Alpha Mummy commenter suggested). It would also reinforce the idea for children that they can be their own person. Just because Mummy or Daddy is vegetarian (or not) doesn't mean that the child should be subjected to this too. S/he should be able to make their own decisions, but informed decisions. This should extend to ethical decisions regarding price versus animal welfare and other age appropriate issues on which people should be able to debate rationally.

It's all in the details (part II)

So now that the hen weekend has passed I feel I am able to divuldge a few of the details.

The theme: As I'm sure could be guessed from the photograph which accompanied my last post, our theme was "Holly Golightly" - black dresses, pearls, evening gloves, big hair and bigger sunglasses.

The destination: We spent the weekend in Bath which is a beautiful, very English, city even if it rains the whole weekend as it did for us. We arrived late on Friday evening and stayed in a beautiful guest-house with a friendly if slightly eccentric proprietress. After cocktails at Sub-13 we retired to bed in preparation for our busy Saturday.

The venues: We started the day in the gloriously girly Mee boutique which I have written about before although I have never been to the actual shop (it more than lived up to expectation). The Mee girls were beautiful and friendly and complemented the gorgeous shop which was full of decadent bits and pieces. We were given a warm welcome, glasses of champagne and goody bags. I bought a beautiful umbrella to make rainy days a little more cheerful.



We spent the rest of the morning perusing the rest of Bath's shopping before lunch at the Pump Rooms. Here we sat at an enormous table with the tallest vase of flowers I have ever seen and ate beautiful soups and salads followed by tea and more tea until it was time to leave for the spa. The Thermae Spa is Britain's only natural spa where all the water in the baths is naturally warm at 35 degrees. We lounged in the roof-top open air pool, breathed deeply in the oil-scented steam rooms, chatted whilst we all sat with our feet in the foot spas and swam about in the basement thermal pool, jacuzzi and massage jets.

We then returned to the guest house to change into our Holly outfits before heading to a gastropub for a meal. Despite seeming to have no knowledge of our booking they found us a table, some wine, didn't seem to mind the endless posing for photos, and made us some beautiful food. After which we headed to the BlueRooms for some champagne, dancing and lots more posing until the end of the night.

20 Something Debates

Twenty Something Bloggers asks in this fortnights debate:

If I won the lottery would I keep it a secret?

Well, first of all, in order to win the lottery logically this has to involve participating in the lottery and purchasing a ticket. Perhaps more than one ticket. As I do not purchase lottery tickets I could not win the lottery therefore I would have nothing to tell or not to tell people. But that doesn't really answer the question in the spirit in which it was asked.

Secondly, I question why money needs to be kept a secret or not. If we received an unexpected pay rise or bonus, would we feel the need to keep it a secret or alternatively shout to all and sundry. Are these really the only options? Perhaps what really needs to be asked here is why money is such a taboo subject. In a world where we will discuss our most intimate thoughts on all other subjects why do we find it a dilemma as far as money is concerned.

So, for these purposes, I am assuming that I have ignored my father, who once said I'd statistically far more chance of being run over by a bus than winning anything on the lottery, and purchased a ticket. I suppose my decision to tell people would depend on three things: if anyone knew that I had purchased a ticket, how much money I had won and whether or not I would be using the cash publicly. If no-one knew that I had bought a ticket and the winnings were medium sized, i.e. £100 - £20,000 I think that I would simply tell M (financial secrets are hard to keep in a joint household) and then pay off my credit card and law school loans. If I won a small amount of money i.e. under £100 I think I would tell my friends and buy some champagne the next time I went out. If it were a significant amount of money I would tell selected people (the new access to cash would seem out of place and I wouldn't want people to speculate where else the money might have come from) and again pay off my loan, buy a house, give money to M, parents, family and charity and invest the rest. I would tell nearest and dearest only but others if the need arose. I would not go around shouting about it but I would be honest if questionned, just the same as I am now about my lack of money.

(I did play the lottery once, as it happens, on the evening of the day that the horse M and I picked won the Grand National and earned us £50 or so. We thought we'd see if our luck held. It didn't)

Alternative Views:

The Ink

It's all in the details

The time is almost nigh. This Friday is the weekend of the hen party. The one that I have been seemingly organising all year, pretty much since the engagement was announced last February. It is a pretty important wedding, at least in terms of family, and ergo, it is important that the hen party is just right and runs smoothly. This time last week I was pretty calm. The accommodation has been booked, the spa, the restaurant, the taxi to the restaurant, the guests have been invited, the theme has been announced. The presents have been bought, ordered and organised. Now it is the week beforehand and I am not so calm. I cannot find the parts for my own themed outfit which I had hoped, so I have had to opt for second best. I am worried that I have missed something out which will ruin the weekend. Last week I thought I had prepared for every eventuality and had back-up options. This week I cannot say that I am in the same frame of mind. I cannot get through to any bars or nightclubs so I am starting to worry we will not be able to go dancing.

I should not be worrying about this. It is a celebration not a curse to be involved with a hen party. It is an honour to be asked to be a bridesmaid. What does it matter if things do not run according to plan, or in the way that I envisioned them, as long as the bride to be has a fun weekend filled with the presence of her closest friends. Who really minds exactly what games are played or the venue for the dancing as long as everyone has a fun night? When she looks back on the weekend, I am sure she won't even remember the little things in any great detail, only that she went away with her friends and it was a great party. Hopefully.

Swallows and Amazons

I am so excited about this I can't believe I forgot to post this before. On Saturday, my 26th birthday, M brought me breakfast in bed along with the paper. I lay there reading it and discovered this article.

Arthur Ransome is one of my favourite authors and I am so pleased that they are to make 'Swallows and Amazons' into a new film. I think the 1974 one is fine but it does not really do justice to the book. Virginia McKenna is very good as mother but it is rather too tame for my liking. The sailing is not exciting enough and I do not think it capture's Ransome's world properly.

I was also pleased to read that the BBC are trying to buy the options to all of the books. I would love to see Secret Water or Pigeon Post on the big screen, as long as it is pre-war and done 'properly'. Pigeon Post is my absolute favourite book, about which one day I must write a review.

Chivalry

Chivalry. Something which I think (some) men are lacking and to which, whenever I bring it up at dinner parties and the like, my male friends argue, I cannot have if women are to be equal to men. But I do not want women to be equal to men. We are very different and I wish to celebrate our differences. I see no reason why two people doing the same job should not be remunerated equally and I see no reason why (fatherhood excepted) women cannot do the same jobs as men. But jobs are not what define us, either as women, men or as equals. Who we are is what defines us, and, taken to the extreme, I accept that this can include career choices but it need not.

I am in favour of manners. Of treating each other politely, as we would expect to be treated ourselves. I am in favour of self-respect, of ourselves and of others. Manners, I would argue, extend to letting a woman sit down on the tube or bus. But manners also indicate that a woman sitting should not take precedent over an elderly or disabled or pregnant person. It is all about relativity. Manners need to be modern too. One of my male friends is so well mannered that he will stand when I leave the table. I think that this is lovely but it is not something which I expect any other males to do and I do not think any the less of them if they don't. I appreciate it when men steer clear of dominating the conversation but I do not hold it against those who engage in long discussions relating to the finer points of the beautiful game. What I cannot bear are people who behave entirely selfishly. Queue jumpers (such as the man in Cafe Nero this morning who slid into the queue in front of me, deliberately), people who talk inappropriately loudly or who break rules (such as no phones in the silent carriage - after all, there are plenty of other places on the train to stand and shout), people who don't say thank you.

This month's Vogue has an interesting article about Chivalry being dead. The writer suggests that perhaps modern men are no longer taught by their parents that they should walk on the outside of the road to prevent the female from being splashed with mud or water. I am not a man, but I clearly remember my father coming to walk me home from Brownies and always walking on the outside and explaining why, when I asked why he changed sides when we crossed the road. I thought it was such a lovely thing for him to do, even as a 7 year old girl, and when M first walked with me to my house 6 years ago in Exeter, I noticed that he too did the same thing. 6 years into our relationship he probably lets me walk on the outside now and then, but he still opens doors, carries heavy bags, holds my coat (when we are sober) and looks after me. This is not to say that I don't look after him. We share out the housework though, rather than me doing all of it as it might once have been, but we work equally long hours. He does the cooking, I do the washing, and so on. If he is tired or particularly busy, I have been even been known to cook.

I think perhaps chivalry needs updating. It needs to be more equal. It is nice when a man opens the door for us. It is even nicer when we say thank you rather than indicating that we feel he thinks we are too feeble to even open a door. It is only a door and he is being polite, thinking of others. If we all made each other's lives a little easier, the world might be a nicer place.

Highbury Barn

A late finish at work last night so arranged to meet M for a drink. We had thought we might try out the Highbury Barn pub on Highbury Park as it had been listed among the gold award winners for a beer and pub award in the Evening Standard. We were sorely disappointed. It lacked any atmosphere, had surly looking men occupying tables individually, the bar maid was using the back of her hand to wipe her nose and in response to my request she shouted "Maa-rrk, how do I make a bloody mary" across the bar. We left. And then stumbled upon a lovely Italian restaurant where we managed to get a starter, 2 main courses and beers for about £20 between us which we ate quickly, hungrily and companiably.

As we left the restaurant at about 10.30pm the rain began. Slow spots at first, but it was pouring by the time we reached the house 5 minutes later. With the rain lashing and the wind howling we made a dash for our door. Only to realise that the morning brought recycling day and we needed to get our Christmas tree to the edge of the property. We dragged it outside and M walked to the shop to buy some milk whilst I tidied up. As M dried off I made milky coffees with our new coffee machine and we settled down on the sofa to watch Breakfast at Tiffany's (for research purposes only, you understand, for the hen party that I am organising). Actually, it is one of my favourite films and I am only to happy to have an excuse to watch it again.

End of the Year

It is my birthday tomorrow. I could get used to three day weeks followed by a weekend of parties involving all of my friends. Work has been busy but it has been nice to be back (and even nicer knowing it was only three days). It is the sign of the right job I think when you are pleased to be there. Obviously I very much enjoyed my time off but it would not be special if it happened all the time. I am now back at work until the first week of February whereon we are off to Finland for a week for a wedding. It is becoming something of a trend (if 3 years in a row can be termed a trend) of taking a holiday in February or March. In 2006 we went to the French/Italian border to go snowboarding. In 2007 we spent 2 weeks in Morocco. In 2008 we shall spend a week in Finland. It is rather nice having something to look forward to in that dull patch between the excitement of Christmas/New Year/Birthday and the arrival of spring. It is also nice to get some sunshine, winter or otherwise, or at least a break from the London rain. We didn't even get a dusting of snow as promised by the weatherman here in London yesterday, just some bloody cold drizzle around lunchtime.

Now, since this blog is supposedly about parties and book reviews I perhaps should get round to writing some more. Christmas has always traditionally been a time in our house where many books are exchanged and read. This year has been no exception, although so far I have read far more non-fiction than fiction. My stocking contained several books including one from the Caper Court series by Caro Fraser which I had not read. As she also published the 7th last November I shall be trying to track that one down too. I used some present money to buy Debrett's Etiquette for Girls (Fleur Britten) and A Girl for All Seasons (Camilla Morton) both of which were enjoyable reads, the former being a lot more accurate than the latter (Morton appears to think that 1918 was during the Second World War, which didn't exactly endear me to the remainder of the text). Last night I finished reading The Insider by Piers Morgan (tag line - the private diaries of a scandalous decade). It was an interesting read and I couldn't decide if Morgan was simply embracing his role as a tabloid editor or was in fact an arrogant p***k. Or a combination of the two. Without reading the combined diaries the Blairs, Campbell, Murdoch, Wade, various members of the Royal Family and many many others it is hard to say whether or not he portrayed private meetings accurately but he seemed to embody the phrase "if you don't ask, you'll never know".

How London mornings will be for me from now on

Carmen ( Homage to Munkacsi) coat by Cardin, Place Francois-Premier Paris, 1957

© Richard Avedon, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

Farewell 2007

I know, I am a day early. But tomorrow will be taken up with packing and travelling back to London and preparing for our party. S0 today it is.

The New Year. A chance to look backwards, a chance to look forwards. January, Janus, the keeper of doors and gates, one face looking forwards and the other looking backwards. The symbol of change, from one state to another. January, the first month of the calendar year and the first month of my year. I was born in the middle of a snow storm in the morning of the fifth day of January 1982. My Daddy was the only Daddy to visit his baby; walking boots, a bicycle and a duvet jacket being far more effective than a car at running through deep snow. For me, the New Year and my own new year have always been a time to reflect and plan and this year is no different.

This Christmas was my 26th Christmas. It was the first Christmas M and I have spent together at my parents house; it was the first Christmas since I was at school that both maternal and paternal Grandparents have celebrated with us. It was the first Christmas spent at my own house where both sisters were not present. We split our week off, M and I. 3 days at my parents and then 3 days at his. Life is less busy at his parents. Whilst M played golf yesterday his mother took me shopping and out for lunch. 2007 has been the first year where I have identified my budget and my gaps in my wardrobe and only bought what I needed (with a couple of bargain-ous exceptions which it would have been churlish to resist).

So, 2007 was my quarter century. I started the year entering the new age box 25-34 and felt rather adrift. It was the first time I felt older on my birthday, that the years were drifting away. That I hadn't really achieved what I thought I might have done by 25. And then, suddenly, things started happening. M and I moved to a new house where we have really been able to set up our home together, rather than a mutually convenient roosting place. Where we have enjoyed spending time together and where we have enjoyed entertaining our friends. We went on a trip of a lifetime to Morocco to celebrate our 5th anniversary and I had an interview for a Training Contract before we went and came home to a job offer: I am now a much longed for trainee solicitor and qualify in year and four months. 2007 has also been the year that my writing took off - articles published in several on-line magazines as well as the traditional format North Africa Times - and perhaps my happiest year since I was 17 in 1999. I wonder if it is coincidence that both summers involved prolonged sailing adventures?

The Prime Minister of my formative years (15-25) stood down in 2007 and in his place is his successor, Mr Brown. He will take the politics of my late twenties forward, although how far remains to be seen. The years where I have become interested, informed, with an opinion to air and a willingness to discuss. 2007 has also been a global focussed year for me personally as well, with one sister travelling and the other sister studying in the USA. 2008 looks to be more so, with the travelling sister off again once more, this time to Australia for a year or more.

2008 will be here in 32 hours, give or take 20 minutes. 2007 has been a good year, for me at least, although I am not sad that it is drawing to a close, that the finale is underway and the curtain shall at last soon fall. A life long pessimist, I actually feel rather optimistic about 2008. I know that there will be disappointments (both sisters out of the country and so on) but I feel older, more mature, more in control. I have started to grow into the 25-34 age group and I think am more ready to face the things which it will contain. I am exicited about returning to London, to our friends, even to work. I think I am looking forward to 2008.

Quote of the day...

Overheard my Grandmother discussing music with a much younger male member of the family. I could have sworn she said "now, how about those Arthritic Monkeys". She maintains not.

Desktops

Thanks to James at The Ink for his instructions as to how to take a screen shot of my desktop. Obviously in my version the two people have faces but I think they should remain anonymous.

Apparently this is something of a meme and should be accompanied with some discussion of computer history. My relationship with computers goes back a good long way - as a child we had various mac computers and have had the Internet for as long as I can remember. I was bought my first own laptop when I went to university (an i-mac clam shell in turquoise) which I still use at home now for writing articles and on which I have written every essay and dissertation. It is rather old now (my version of i-tunes will not recognise the old i-pod shuffle that my sister donated to me when she upgraded, it is that old) so I use M's laptop for accessing the Internet.

Working life forced me to get to grips with PCs which were previously uncharted territory. After macs which seem to work so obviously and so straightforwardly, I found it quite a task to become PC literate. Although some things still fox me (screen printing and so on!) I can drive it satisfactorily although I cannot do anything flashy. Blogging has forced me to master some html knowledge (I know I could update to the version which does this for me, but I am afraid I will lose some of my blog). I know I should also back up my blog but I just don't know how to. Any ideas?

Bad Taste?

Another evening, another Christmas party. This time hosted by friends we made in Morocco. This meant that apart from our friend, obviously, we would know no other of the guests. The invitation suggested that we should come in fancy dress; the theme? 'Bad taste'. I went to a 'bad-taste' themed Christmas party whilst at university once. Wine Soc Christmas Social I believe. I have absolutely no recollection of what I wore. My friends M and T wore matching vests saying 'f***ing common' with bad trousers. I recall a man in a jumpsuit with a baby handcuffed to his arm. Many people took the opportunity to either wear as little as possible or cross-dress. My only other two memories of the night (other than the theme) was surfing on a table during a game of 21s and vomiting into a urinal in the men's loos whilst another friend stood beside me telling all and sundry that "she's not my girlfriend". A good party? Anyway, last night's party was an altogether more sober and much less student-y affair. I decided to wear my most sparkly Christmas-style outfit - sequined shoes, black rah-rah skirt (v.small and courtesy of a sister's wardrobe clear out in the summer whereon I thought at some point there will be an occasion when I need a skirt of the variety that my cousin calls 'one up from a hairband' and at least I will not have to go out and buy one) and a gold and black glittery stripey top with 80's style sleeves (which I already owned having bought it last year for a work party), teamed with my Vegas Ball extra large gold and black earrings and a large black ribbon bow around my waist. I looked like one of Girls Aloud had got lost and somehow found herself at a house party in Battersea. It was a good party; despite us not knowing any of the guests other than the host, she must have told them all about our Moroccan adventure as they all knew our names and occupations. It was rather an odd feeling, notoriety. Several people told me they liked my outfit. One person told me they loved my top. I wondered whether they thought it was a good take on 'bad-taste' or whether they indeed just had bad taste. I attempted to work out which people had dressed up and which just looked like that anyway. It was hard to tell.

And for his next trick...

... he will perform the same one that a friend of his did at a wedding which caused a Bishop to have a heart-attack and be wheeled out of the reception. Last night I went to a friends house for a pre-Christmas meal. One of the other guests is a magician. Over a glass of mulled wine in the kitchen he mentioned the Bishop story and I asked him which trick the friend had done. Actually, he said, the trick was part of his routine and would I like to see it. Of course I said yes. So, after the meal (beautiful shepherds pie, just in case you were wondering) Magician Friend began his routine. He asked me to pick a card and he made it appear from various places. He then asked me to sign it and made it jump around all over the place, including appearing from inside a zipped compartment of his wallet, which was inside his coat pocket. Finally, he got me to hold the entire deck of cards between my hands, extracted my signed card from between my closed hands, showed it to me and then casually remarked that actually, he'd turned all the cards into a block of glass. No really, he had. Would I like to open my hands. With a distinct sense of dread and adrenaline, I opened my hands. No cards but a block of perspex. No wonder the Bishop had a heart-attack. I almost had one myself. Amazing. I was filled with a mix of wonder (apparently I watched the whole routine looking like a small child) and humiliation that I had sat in front of a room full of people and allowed myself to be tricked. Magician Friend gave me my signed six of clubs and I have pinned it to the notice board to remind myself of the day I went out for supper and someone managed to swap a deck of cards for a block of glass within my closed hands under my very nose and I didn't even notice.

Christmas Preparations (Part 2)

A fleeting visit to Shropshire this weekend. Returned to London late last night having spent the weekend looking after M's Grannie. His parents are away on the other side of the world visiting relatives so it was decided that buying them a Christmas tree would be a good use of the afternoon and that it would be a nice thing for them to come home to. We got into the car and drove towards Shrewsbury, hoping to come across somewhere selling trees. With surprising ease we found somewhere and helped M's Grannie across the rather uneven ground. If she had started gesturing with her stick I wouldn't have been surprised. We were after one which wouldn't shed it's needles but it was hard to spot them among the motley collection of spruces which were already showing signs of going brown and dry at the bottoms. We sized up a fair few before we settled on the one we bought. The polar opposite to the tree which we chose for our own house - where ours is a deep green fir, bushy and rotund the tree we bought yesterday was a much paler greeny green, tall with dense but sparse branches which will make decorating it much easier. At over 7 foot high it just managed to be persuaded into the car; in situ it looks rather fine, reminiscent somehow of a desert plant.

London - Thursday 13 December

Things which made me smile today and realise that there are decent people around me:

1. The kind receptionist at the doctor's surgery who held an appointment booking for me whilst I ran home to get my passport (to prove who I was) and then who made me a doctor's appointment immediately after the nurse's appointment so that I could be seen as quickly as possible, even though one is supposed to see the nurse first who will then book the follow up doctor's appointment.

2. The teenager with the bright red and black hair, black sunglasses, harsh expression and punky clothes, who, when an old lady used her knee as a handrest on the bus to stop herself falling over whilst trying to get to the seat, smiled sweetly, extended her hand and helped the old lady into the seat. And then helped her up when the old lady reached her stop.

3. The taxi driver who kept up a constant stream of chatter and told me that he was Joe Cole's grandfather and who insisted on driving us to the end of our road despite the fact that we had run out of money to pay the bill, saying that he would rather we got home than he made an extra £2.


Things which made me fear for the well-being of Londoners.

1. When buying a sandwich for my boss at her chosen sandwich shop watching the girl behind the counter blowing her nose, apologising and then proceeding to make the sandwich without washing her hands or putting on any gloves and then taking the money and moving onto the next sandwich. The transaction happened so fast that I was unable to comment before I had been given the sandwich and she was serving the next person.

Christmas Preparations

We bought our Christmas tree yesterday, from a Christmas Tree 'forest' near Highbury. We went there on the off-chance, the tail end of a busy 24 hours. We had a meal with friends on Saturday night, complete with crackers and silly hats. B made the roast, M provided the wine and I brought some home made mince pies (mince meat and all). We drank wine and talked and played poker and ended up sitting round drinking vodka and coke from pint glasses and watching the Hatton fight. About 7 hours later I ate 'breakfast' in the Hummingbird Bakery in South Kensington before going to the Golden Age of Couture exhibition at the V&A. After meeting M after he finished work we passed the Christmas trees on the way home and went in. We wandered up and down the rows of trees wondering which one was the one for us. A teeny tiny one? Not much value for money. An enormous one for our enormously high ceilings? No, too heavy for M to carry home. We ummed and ahhed over sizes, varieties, stands and the overall costs. Should we have the one that looked rejected. Should we have a living one? In the end we chose a medium sized one with bushy branches which M was able to carry home with (relative) ease. We managed to screw the base on and clear a space by the end of the sofa and I even managed to plug the lights in before the tree was in situ. Once the lights were on and the 5 decorations which we own were hanging on the tree I felt positively Christmassy and even heated up some mulled wine.

Tonight I plan to make some more decorations for the tree by drying slices of orange and hanging them with red ribbon. I will be doing this just as soon as I have bought a punch bag.

First and Second laws of Thermodynamics...

... according to Michael Flanders and Donald Swann. This never fails to make me laugh.

"Snow says that nobody can consider themselves educated who doesn't know at least the basic language of Science. I mean, things like Sir Edward Boyle's Law, for example: the greater the external pressure, the greater the volume of hot air. Or the Second Law of Thermodynamics - this is very important. I was somewhat shocked the other day to discover that my partner not only doesn't know the Second Law, he doesn't even know the First Law of Thermodynamics.

Going back to first principles, very briefly, thermodynamics is of course derived from two Greek words: thermos, meaning hot, if you don't drop it, and dinamiks, meaning dynamic, work; and thermodynamics is simply the science of heat and work and the relationships between the two, as laid down in the Laws of Thermodynamics, which may be expressed in the following simple terms...

After me...

The First Law of Thermodymamics:
Heat is work and work is heat
Heat is work and work is heat
Very good!

The Second Law of Thermodymamics:
Heat cannot of itself pass from one body to a hotter body
(scat music starts)
Heat cannot of itself pass from one body to a hotter body
Heat won't pass from a cooler to a hotter
Heat won't pass from a cooler to a hotter
You can try it if you like but you far better notter
You can try it if you like but you far better notter
'Cos the cold in the cooler with get hotter as a ruler
'Cos the cold in the cooler with get hotter as a ruler
'Cos the hotter body's heat will pass to the cooler
'Cos the hotter body's heat will pass to the cooler

First Law:
Heat is work and work is heat and work is heat and heat is work
Heat will pass by conduction
Heat will pass by conduction
Heat will pass by convection
Heat will pass by convection
Heat will pass by radiation
Heat will pass by radiation
And that's a physical law
Heat is work and work's a curse
And all the heat in the Universe
Is gonna cooool down 'cos it can't increase
Then there'll be no more work and there'll be perfect peace
Really?
Yeah - that's entropy, man!

And all because of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which lays down:
That you can't pass heat from the cooler to the hotter
Try it if you like but you far better notter
'Cos the cold in the cooler will get hotter as a ruler
'Cos the hotter body's heat will pass to the cooler
Oh, you can't pass heat from the cooler to the hotter
You can try it if you like but you'll only look a fooler
'Cos the cold in the cooler will get hotter as a ruler
That's a physical Law!

Oh, I'm hot!
Hot? That's because you've been working!

Oh, Beatles - nothing!
That's the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics!"

WI Ball

Ok, am officially exhausted. The ball is over for another year and hopefully I might be able to make it through the entire night without dreaming in lists and waking up wondering what I had forgotten to do.

I think it was a success. Certainly on the part of the organisers and the smooth running side of things the night evolved without too many noticable disasters. I didn't get much chance to relax but I did enjoy the night and I have been told by many people how much they enjoyed it. We are still going through our final takings and paying all of our bills but it looks like we made some money for the charity as well as covering our costs. A good job all round I feel.

Teddy Bear Scandal

I can't help but feel that Helena Frith Powell has misjudged this incident somewhat. She starts by referring to Ms Gibbons as "a rather nice lady"; a nice sentiment but given the likelihood of Ms Frith Powell knowing this as a fact, it is perhaps biased. I hope it is true but it is an example of bad reporting. She then compares the issue of the teddy bear's name to Winnie-the-Pooh or Paddington. A rather insensitive comparison to my mind, regardless of the outcome and reaction, we are still discussing religious beliefs. This is not about teddy bear names – it is about perceived intolerance for another religion and ensuing political debate.

There is perhaps a case to be made regarding the right to name your bear what you wish but it should, in my opinion, be saved for another occasion. As for her husband Rupert naming his 45 year old but yet un-named bear Muhammad then that is up to him, but perhaps not something the world needs to know about on her blog which also accompanies serious writing for a variety of daily and weekly newspapers.

The issue here is that Muslims do not allow the name of their prophet Muhammad to be given to inanimate objects or represented in any fashion (hence the outcry over the cartoons and the current outcry over the name of this bear). Part of the Koran is taken by Muslims to mean that Allah cannot be captured in an image by human hand and to attempt such a thing is seen as an insult to Allah. The same belief is applied to the Prophet Muhammad. Children, however, are allowed to be named after Muhammad.

It appears that an English teacher in charge of a class of 7 year olds in Sudan allowed the class teddy bear to be called Muhammad. In this instance it has been argued that she allowed the children to vote on a name; children being children named the bear after themselves, of which Muhammad was clearly a popular name and the bear was henceforth referred to by the moniker 'Muhammad'. How the police and government came to be involved is a little unclear, especially it is said that neither the children nor their parents found the name insulting, although it has been reported that it was the school secretary who chose, instead of taking Ms Gibbons aside and saying something along the lines of "I know you might not be aware of this but wouldn't it be better to re-name the bear as that name can cause offence" decided to report Ms Gibbons to the police.

She has, as I'm sure you're aware, been sentenced to 15 days in prison and immediate deportation from Sudan on her release. Some say that she has been treated lightly (given that the other options ranged from a flogging to 6 months in prison); others are appalled at her treatment. There are currently riots and demonstrations in Sudan calling for Ms Gibbons to be, amongst many punishments, shot by firing squad. All over a (presumed) innocent lapse in judgement in a foreign country.

Now, as a Christian, I am happy with images and inanimate objects being given the name 'Jesus' even if it is usually a temporary measure – i.e . the doll or baby who stands in for the baby Jesus in a nativity play. Just as long as the intention is good and not insulting I do not mind. If someone called their stuff toy devil 'Jesus' as a offensive gesture I might be concerned but I would still hope that the person was misguided and would like to think that as a Christian it is more important to practise forgiveness than it is to dole out punishments. As for imprisoning someone, flogging someone or calling for their execution – those are reactions which befit an actual crime. Ignorance of the law is not an accepted defence but I do think in cases such as this one there does need to be some sort of proven intent. I think Ms Gibbons could perhaps of been more culturally and socially aware but I do not think that she should be punished by imprisonment over what boils down to a cultural misunderstanding. Actually, I don't agree with flogging, execution or corporal punishment in general but I do accept that, rightly or wrongly to my mind, there are countries where these punishments are accepted by society for serious crimes and the people of the society are aware that if they commit a crime then they may be punished in such a fashion. I just don't think that the an offence where no-one else has suffered (and no-one else could even potentially suffer) is a serious crime.

So why have the Sudanese reacted with such virulence to such an incident. I don't think it is simply, as I have read on the BBC forums and other places, that Islam is an old-fashioned style religion where simple misdemeanors are potentially punished by what British citizens would deem barbaric. There is more to it than that I am sure. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I am convinced that this has little do with theology and far more to do with politics.

Heat Magazine

On Tuesday I saw that Heat magazine had included an sticker in the latest edition of their magazine which featured the face of a child: Harvey Price, Katie Price's disabled son, accompanied by the words "Harvey wants to eat me".

I was appalled that a magazine should even feature a child, let alone appear to mock said individual for his disability (Harvey Price suffers from a genetic disorder which causes him to gain weight) so I e-mailed the editors at Heat magazine the following:

"Dear Sir

I was appalled to find that Heat magazine has been offering stickers which feature the faces of children. I was further appalled to find that at least one of these children are disabled and that the stickers have a mocking/deriding tone to the words which accompany them.

Obviously your magazine would not exist without so called celebrities and to remain famous they need you as much as you need them. To feature pictures of consenting adult 'celebrities', whilst distasteful, is also to be expected.

Children however, especially those offspring of a 'celebrity' do not choose a way of life which includes recognition. It is important that they are protected from the public eye until they are old enough to make decisions for themselves. This protection should include publishers such as yourself refraining from publishing their photographs unless they are accompanying their parents to public events such as film premiers where there will be an expectation of publicity. Protection should certainly involve refraining from mocking, poking fun at or generally publishing photographs for no other reason than entertainment.

The sticker I am referring to in particular involves Katie Price's son. While I agree that she does appear to invite cameras into her life (and I am pleased that she does not exclude her son from this simply by virtue of being disabled) I am sure that she would never wish to extend this invitation to allowing her son to be deliberately mocked for the characteristics of his disability.

I very rarely purchase your magazine as I do not wish to perpetuate this cycle of fame for fame's sake. Rest assured that following this distasteful incident I will never be purchasing your magazine ever again and I shall be imploring my friends and colleagues to also boycott your magazine themselves.

I trust that Heat magazine will be issuing an apology for the offence they have caused to both the individuals immediately concerned, those people with disabilities or with disabled members of their families and so on who have worked tirelessly for disabled people to be fully integrated into society and to never be mocked or jeered or bullied in the name of entertainment or anything else as well as the wider public and perhaps also making a donation of profits to a charity which seeks to address this issue.

I look forward to your response in this matter. "

I received the following response:

Thank you for contacting us. No offence was intended by the Harvey sticker but I would like to unreservedly apologise for any offence caused as a result. I have spoken to The Andre's management team and have written a private letter to Katie and Peter to apologise personally.Mark Frith, Editor-in-Chief, heat"

Personally, I did not find such a generic response fulfilled my complaint. I would have liked them to explain what was intended by such a sticker and indeed why they though publishing a picture of a child was acceptable. Thankfully, it seems that Heat Magazine have been forced to publish an apology on their website. Sandwiched in amongst articles about I'm a Celebrity and Kelly Brook leaving Strictly was this which includes this extract:

"We now accept that that the decision to include this sticker was a mistake and we recognise that it has caused offence, not only to Katie and Peter Andre, but to a number of readers"

They 'now' accept? What did they think before? Perhaps in future they will think before publishing.

This & That

Hopefully I will have some more time next week. The Fulham WI Ball which I have been mentioning all year is this Saturday evening - the past week or so has been manic trying to tie up all the loose ends but I think we are winning and it should be a good night and raise lots of money for our chosen charity at the same time.

Also this week I have been writing for ETPMagazine where my article about ethical jewellers Ingle & Rhode was published on Monday. My second article for the current affairs section should be published on 12 December.

Oh, and if you are looking for a beautiful Christmas present or simply a chic treat for yourself, have a look at Eric Bompard cashmere, cashmere all the way from Mongolia, styled in Paris. They are, apparently, the number one cashmere supplier/designer in France and will deliver items free to the UK. And, if you order before the 1 December they will deduct 20% off your bill. I have a beautiful pumpkin coloured set of hat and gloves which are very soft - even on the tube my head did not itch - and just right for an English winter (warm and cheerful). Something to smile about on a rather dull London Friday.

Chutney Making and other tales

I am running out of spare weekends before Christmas. On Sunday I started my preparations. Chutney making. In an effort to be more ethical (both in terms of costs and avoidance of purchasing presents which people do not really want or use and to give people my time rather than my money) I decided that I would make chutney for my presents this year. I can mention this because my mother already knows (having provided the apples from their garden) and I don't think any one else reads my writing on a regular basis.

So on Sunday I chopped and softened and chopped and added ingredients and watched with alarm as my pan looked rather full. I added sugar and vinegar (pints of the stuff) and started to wonder quite how much chutney I had made. An entire pressure cooker full? Somehow I thought it would reduce further than it did. I washed and sterilised the dozen jars which I had bought and still the chutney remained. I washed and sterilised some old jam jars and finally in desperation emptied the spaghetti out of the litre kilner jar and sterilised that too. I have lots of jars and an entire litre for myself. We are going to be eating chutney every meal for weeks.

Friday night saw my first attempt at Urban Golf. For the uninitiated this is akin to bowling but using a computer simulator and a real golf club and ball. You stand on a mat and use a golf club of your choice to smack (or roll) the golf ball into a screen which takes the path and speed of the ball and maps where it would have gone into a computer game. It is harder than it sounds. There are hordes of people watching. High heels are not conducive to golf swings. Neither is mild inebriation. The screen needs to be hit with a certain speed to register your turn. That too can be difficult to achieve, especially when putting. An enjoyable evening none the less. And no, obviously I didn't win.

Yorkshire

Arrived back in London last night on the 11.58pm train into Euston from Yorkshire. We drove the first part of the journey, winding across the Yorkshire Dales along narrow one laned roads, white metal fencing along some of the fields just visible in the glow of the headlights. There was that same safe feeling which I had as a child, cosied into the back of our trusty Volvo with my two sisters, Mum and Dad in the front, Dad driving, Mum navigating and handing out cups of tea and sandwiches, when we were all together and could have been going anywhere, a voyage, an adventure. Last night was much the same, only now, still eldest but now smallest, I have to sit in the middle seat and the third occupant of the back seat was M rather than my other sister. As we drove, the snow started, softly at first, as if it hardly meant it. Sleet turned into snow and as we left the Dales behind and headed down the motorway it started to strengthen and settle. Annie's friend in the RAF had left behind his GPS navigator in her care whilst he was posted overseas and so 'Brucie' attempted to guide us southwards. He was persistant and adamant that we should use the M6, despite the warnings that there was slow moving traffic and an accident further south. "in three hundred yards, turn right" he directed. "Turn right". Pausing only to recalculate he started up again as Mum tried to direct us via another road and Annie desperately tried to work out which buttons to press to avoid motorway junctions, all the while Brucie insisting that we should "turn right". Once we decided to rejoin the motorway we were surprised he didn't applaud when we finally chose to follow his directions but there was a final test for him, when Dad wanted to drive past the slip road, over the bridge to check the traffic was flowing and was then going to turn round. We all looked over the bridge and saw that the traffic was flowing albeit reasonably slowly and there was a moments silence. "What shall I do?" asked Dad. "Turn round" replied Brucie, followed by gales of laughter which embraced the car and carried us along the slow moving traffic to Stafford as we raced against snow and time to reach the last train which would take M and I to London, which we caught in the nick of time, jumping on board just as the train was ready to depart, brushing what felt like unseasonal snowflakes off our hair as we walked the length of the train to find solace in the quiet carriage.

The snow stopped somewhere round Milton Keynes and the rain started, lashing against the side of the train. I drank tea and read my book and London rushed closer and closer. The occupants of the carriage seemed resigned to the baby crying and after a while even he fell asleep under his mother's coat, lying on a table, perhaps lulled by the rain and the gentle rocking of the rail carriage. I sat there watching his face and hands in the reflection in the window, thinking of the reasons for the sudden trip northwards and the illustration of the cycle of life which had been so bluntly laid out for us: my aunt lost her father on the first day, her husband lost his mother on the second and his daughter gave birth on the third.

London seemed very light last night when we arrived. Despite the light by our door not coming on as usual I could see almost as well as in the daylight. The sky did not even seem to be dark, more an odd yellow hue and even at 12.30am there were sirens in the distance. There were no stars. How different to the night-time air in Yorkshire where accompanying my uncle on his nightly check on the animals at his farm I had not even been able to see a foot in front of me nor see my own feet. Pausing for a moment in the garden last night the air even smelt different - I could almost taste the pollution, could feeling it replacing the clean sweet air which I had greedily drunk in whilst climbing and walking on the fells only that morning. There may be a lot of things which London does better than Yorkshire but clean and dark night air is not one of them.

BBC London Radio - Fulham WI

It's been a busy week so apologies for the lack of posts.

The week has been taken up with more ball committee meetings (only 3 weeks left to go and what a lot left to do), an appearance on BBC London Radio which you could listen to here if you were so inclined (fast forward about an hour and a half and you can hear 3 Fulham WI girls discussing WI issues and our response to the Hampshire WI Federation's proposal that the WI back the legalisation of prostitution).

This week has also seen the publication of two further articles in ETPMagazine.com. The first of which can be read here and is a response to the Madeleine McCann story; the second is a look at another on-line ethical boutique called Fisher Garcia and my article can be found here.

If and when I get a chance I will try and explore further the issues we discussed in relation to the suggestion that women should back the legalisation of prostitution. I do however have a family funeral to attend on Friday and will be spending much needed time with my family at the weekend, so it could well be at least another week before I post anything further.

ETPMagazine

So, as promised, a bit more about the articles which I have written for new on-line ethical focused ETPMagazine. I am writing for both the fashion section and the current affairs section.

The press release for ETPMagazine states that

"ETPmagazine exists to work towards a celebration of who women really are and not who the media want them to be. We stand for the empowerment of secure, self-confident women and, fundamentally, for a conscientious, ethical, and greener approach to living. We don’t believe in making women feel bad about themselves for our own profit – in fact, we want to do the opposite. As a carbon neutral site with a continual spotlight on the environment, we’re encouraging women to feel good about themselves and the world in which they live.

ETPmagazine is about promoting a more positive, healthy and empowering image of women in the public eye. We may not be size zeros but we have character, integrity, passion and energy. We would challenge anyone to show us a single women’s magazine which is aimed at the intellectual woman; one that has hard-hitting interviews and current affairs articles that really stretch and challenge expectations, combined with news and local reviews of all things cultural, fashionable and beautiful."

I have written two articles for this week's fashion section. The House of Tammam article features Fairtrade High End Label House of Tammam; the second covers the Islington Contemporary Art & Design Fair Ethical Fashion Show (which I mentioned the other day). I have also written one article for the 'What's On' Section about Fairtrade Fairs.

Other than the excitment of seeing my articles this morning, the weekend has been fairly normal. Dinner party for friends on Friday night, tasted the food for the WI ball on Saturday morning and then went to another dinner party with different friends on Saturday evening in the Barbican. A lazy Sunday morning followed by an afternoon and evening in the pub with some other friends in St John's Wood playing Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit. Uneventful but very relaxing.

The Silence at the Song's End

“What we were, we will become

As we give our heat to the desert sun”

These are the words which Nicholas Heiney used to describe death; in the summer of 2006 he committed suicide following a long but hidden battle with mental illness. The son of Libby Purves (one of my favourite authors and columnists and for whom I have had great respect since my early teens) Nicholas Heiney first came to my attention in Purves account of a family sailing round England in her book One Summer's Grace. Nicholas was 5 and his sister Rose 3. In reality, Nicholas was the same age as me. I was deeply saddened to read of his death last year.

Yesterday, Purves wrote a column in The Times entitled A Testament of Youth describing her son, his writing and the book that she and Nicholas' professor at his Oxford college have compiled from Nicholas' lifetime of writing. Called The Silence at the Song's End the book attempts to fulfill Nicholas' goal which was "to write something I could show to people". I have not yet had a chance to read this book but I have no doubt that Nicholas achieved this goal many times over.

This poem is one which has been featured in extracts from the book and is so moving it makes my heart hurt, for him, for the sea, for the Nicholas of One Summer's Grace, the family and with hope that wherever Nicholas is now he is able to be singing and sailing through eternity. (Read Frieda Hughes' response to this poem in Monday's Times here)

"The morning runs

on, a springtime secret

through the avenues

and avenues which lure

all sound away

I sing, as I was taught

inside myself.

I sing inside myself

when wild moments

slice some tender evening

like a breeze

that rattles gravel

and digs in the dirt

I sing, as I was told,

inside myself.

I sing inside myself

the one wild song, song that whirls

my words around

until a world unfurls

my ship’s new sail

I catch the dew

and set a course amongst the ocean curls

The silence at the song’s end

Before the next

Is the world"

Nicholas Heiney (1982-2006)