The government like cuts. They REALLY like cuts. Someone (with a lot more patience than I) has compiled a list of all the cuts here. It makes for disturbing reading. The services that are being cut are primarily in the health, social and education sectors, and almost nobody will be unaffected by them. We're all in this together, according to David Cameron. However, it soon becomes apparent that this Utopia is quite Orwellian. We may be all in this together, but some are more in it than others.
For example, George Osborne wants to cut 10 BILLION pounds EXTRA off the welfare output, to rebalance the deficit. He thinks limiting the amount of children a family on benefits is allowed may help this. How, exactly, I'm unsure. I have two children. They were concieved before I required benefits to live on. If I'd managed to have five children without needing assistance, and then found myself needing it, would I be expected to have a cull? Put some in care, maybe? What is an acceptable amount of children for Mr Osborne? Two, like him? Or four, like Mr Cameron?
This country needs to stop punishing the poor (who are in increasingly less position to be able to contribute to the economy at all) and start taxing the rich. Our economy collapsed due to the greed of bankers, playing games with the country's money, yet mansion tax was scrapped because, apparently, it will soon spiral out of control, and people who have saved and worked hard will resent having to pay for their houses. Their enormous houses, that they cannot possibly NEED, that use up huge swathes of land. A worthy target for taxation.
However, the con-dem party aren't interested in this viewpoint. It is preferable to pretend that the enormous amount of people living in poverty are to blame. Iain Duncan Smith declared that "Now we are toughening up the penalty for failure to seek work." (BBC News). How does he define failure to seek work? There are no jobs to be had for many people, and most jobseeking benefits ARE stopped if you fail to seek work.
He also said "Gone must be the days when governments spent money to buy their way out of a problem." (ibid) but this is the problem. The only way to fix the amount of people on benefits is to invest. Invest in creating jobs, in improving areas of deprivation, in removing social exclusion. A child born into a debt-ridden, workless household will only have that to aspire to, unless social change happens.
This government are deliberately targeting those without a voice, in their benefit cull. The rich spoke out in droves against mansion tax, and were heeded. The poor have no choice but to accept cap after cut, because the government own us. In blaming us for the recession and deficit, the government are alienating and excluding us from society.
However, that's no longer enough and they're beginning to attack the workers as well. The minimum wage for over 21s (because, despite paying tax, you're not an adult til then in the government's eyes) is just over £10k a year. Can anyone live on that, without help? Can anyone support a FAMILY on that, without help? No. Yet, there's no call to introduce a living wage, and working families are resentful of those on benefits because they apparently have more money. This isn't true: for a childless adult, working is more profitable than being on income support. When I was a single, working parent, I got £200 a month more than I do now, overall.
In addition to this, Mr Osborne wants to remove people's employment rights. How humanitarian of him! Instead of allowing people to be protected from unfair dismissal, be permitted maternity leave, training and have a right to redundancy, they will get er...shares in their employing company. Aside from the legal ramifications of trying to enact this, it reduces employees to money-magnets, not people.
The new target is childless people under 25, who dare claim housing benefit. Apparently, these people should continue living with their parents. At what point did 25 become adulthood? At what point did income tax and national insurance start only applying once you reached 25? Oh, that's right, it doesn't.
The coalition government has no sense of what it's like to live in the lower classes. Instead, they fear and blame them and increase the distance between us and them, hoping that nobody notices. Legal tax loopholes mean that the rich are not paying into the economy, only taking from it. There is no push to close these loopholes. Instead, the lowest strata of British people are punished repeatedly, and vilified.This is not an acceptable way to run a country.
10 Oct 2012
3 Oct 2012
Victim blaming and child abduction
Victim blaming is a concept more usually associated with rape. A woman goes out in a short skirt, she gets raped, she was asking for it. A woman gets drunk, she gets raped, she shouldn't have got drunk. Instead of blaming the man who chose to rape her, she is blamed for putting herself in his path in the first place. The insinuation is that the perpetrator could not help it, and it was the woman's fault. It is a dreadful reaction.
However, since the abduction of April Jones, I have noticed the same response repeatedly, aimed at her parents. The child was out playing with a friend after school, and someone abducted her. Those are the bare facts. The fact the child was only 5 and playing outside at 7:30pm has horrified some people. One person on my facebook list went to far as to accuse her parents of neglect and say that if April is found alive, she should be put into care. Many others have simply asked "Why was she playing outside so late?" The insinuation is clear: her parents are to blame for letting her out to play.
Now, hang on a minute. Your thoughts on what is an appropriate age for a child to play out late will be entirely subjective, based on where you live. There's no way my two would be allowed out where I live: it's a busy road and I don't know many neighbours. However, in my old village, I'd have been more than happy to allow them out to play with schoolfriends.
7:30pm seems late, but again, it's subjective. If you're still in 'summer mode' (which I certainly was until a few days), you may not realise how late it is, or think "ten more minutes won't hurt" or "I'll just finish this job and then I'll go and get her".
It's all completely irrelevant. It would not make any difference if the child was playing out at 3pm or 3am. Nothing gives a person the right to abduct a child. A child is not a dropped five pound note, that you might consider picking up if no clear owner was evident. A child is a small person, and whoever abducted her did so with grim intent. If she hadn't have been out, it would have been a different child, or maybe he would've waited and snatched her at a different, more socially acceptable time.
When Myra Hindley, murderer of at least four children, was asked by a journalist why she abducted, raped and murdered Lesley Anne Downey, she replied "It was her mother's fault. She shouldn't have been out so late."
Victim blaming is merely a way to detach yourself from the horrors of what has likely happened to that little girl. Abduction is any parents worst nightmare. The guilt her mother must feel right now is far beyond anything most of us can comprehend, or would ever want to be able to understand. Stop blaming the parents, start blaming the monster who knows where she is.
However, since the abduction of April Jones, I have noticed the same response repeatedly, aimed at her parents. The child was out playing with a friend after school, and someone abducted her. Those are the bare facts. The fact the child was only 5 and playing outside at 7:30pm has horrified some people. One person on my facebook list went to far as to accuse her parents of neglect and say that if April is found alive, she should be put into care. Many others have simply asked "Why was she playing outside so late?" The insinuation is clear: her parents are to blame for letting her out to play.
Now, hang on a minute. Your thoughts on what is an appropriate age for a child to play out late will be entirely subjective, based on where you live. There's no way my two would be allowed out where I live: it's a busy road and I don't know many neighbours. However, in my old village, I'd have been more than happy to allow them out to play with schoolfriends.
7:30pm seems late, but again, it's subjective. If you're still in 'summer mode' (which I certainly was until a few days), you may not realise how late it is, or think "ten more minutes won't hurt" or "I'll just finish this job and then I'll go and get her".
It's all completely irrelevant. It would not make any difference if the child was playing out at 3pm or 3am. Nothing gives a person the right to abduct a child. A child is not a dropped five pound note, that you might consider picking up if no clear owner was evident. A child is a small person, and whoever abducted her did so with grim intent. If she hadn't have been out, it would have been a different child, or maybe he would've waited and snatched her at a different, more socially acceptable time.
When Myra Hindley, murderer of at least four children, was asked by a journalist why she abducted, raped and murdered Lesley Anne Downey, she replied "It was her mother's fault. She shouldn't have been out so late."
Victim blaming is merely a way to detach yourself from the horrors of what has likely happened to that little girl. Abduction is any parents worst nightmare. The guilt her mother must feel right now is far beyond anything most of us can comprehend, or would ever want to be able to understand. Stop blaming the parents, start blaming the monster who knows where she is.
1 Oct 2012
Exam nerves
I just laid on my bed and ate a massive cream cake from Greggs, like a decadent Northerner. And why (aside from the fact that cake is great) I hear you ask? Because, dear reader, I am procrastinating. Like a boss.
My exam is in fifteen days. I haven't sat a formal exam since June 2002, when I did my AS levels. I always did far better in exams than coursework at school, so technically this should cheer me (I got a coursework mark of 69% overall). I am not cheered. I am petrified.
The exam is three questions, in three hours. There is a choice of question in each section, one on each block of the course. In short, I 'only' have to revise seven units instead of all twenty three (although, some people are revising all of it in case they don't like the questions that come up). My eldest is now at preschool, so I get two and a half days without him. However, my youngest has decided that if I look busy, he wants to sit on my knee. Even as I type, he has clambered up to sit with me.
So, I'm panicking. I'm anxious and stressed and tired. I wander about the house bellowing Bowlby's theory of attachment. I have made cue cards about important topics, for one of the two big blocks I need to revise. I keep telling myself I'll be fine, I need 40% to pass, there's no pressure to push for a distinction, I just need to pass. But still, my mind flails around shrieking.
My next module starts on Saturday, and the first TMA (a thousand words on perceptions of health) is due on Halloween. Gawd help me.
My exam is in fifteen days. I haven't sat a formal exam since June 2002, when I did my AS levels. I always did far better in exams than coursework at school, so technically this should cheer me (I got a coursework mark of 69% overall). I am not cheered. I am petrified.
The exam is three questions, in three hours. There is a choice of question in each section, one on each block of the course. In short, I 'only' have to revise seven units instead of all twenty three (although, some people are revising all of it in case they don't like the questions that come up). My eldest is now at preschool, so I get two and a half days without him. However, my youngest has decided that if I look busy, he wants to sit on my knee. Even as I type, he has clambered up to sit with me.
So, I'm panicking. I'm anxious and stressed and tired. I wander about the house bellowing Bowlby's theory of attachment. I have made cue cards about important topics, for one of the two big blocks I need to revise. I keep telling myself I'll be fine, I need 40% to pass, there's no pressure to push for a distinction, I just need to pass. But still, my mind flails around shrieking.
My next module starts on Saturday, and the first TMA (a thousand words on perceptions of health) is due on Halloween. Gawd help me.
14 Aug 2012
The Olympics
Ah the Olympics! Sixteen days of sporting achievement, with blanket BBC coverage so you cannot POSSIBLY MISS IT, EVEN IF YOU TRY. YOU CANNOT ESCAPE THE OLYMPIC JUGGERNAUT, LICENSE FEE PAYING MORTALS.
Ahem. Despite generally loathing televised sport, I have a soft spot for the Olympics. I don't know why. I have a huge love of the Winter Olympics, primarily for it's vicious edge and risk of blood on the ice (I watch Dancing on Ice for the selfsame reason). For Beijing, I was in the first trimester of pregnancy and WEPT HELPLESSLY at every medal ceremony. Usually on my lunch break, eating toast. Then I had to go back to work and try not to let on that I was pregnant and make excuses for my tear stained visage.
I digress. Despite inauspicious omens (the G4S security fail, the sponsorship fascism, the dreadful logo), it all fired off, an improbably long time ago, with the opening ceremony to end all opening ceremonies. I don't know about anyone else, but I sat down to watch it in FULL snark mode (which some of you will know is quite a terrifying spectacle). I proceeded to tweet about it to such an extent that I exceeded my tweet allowance before the lighting of the cauldron. I LOVED every melodramatic, all singing, all dancing second of it. There may have been no Sherlock Holmes and the Voldemort swaying around over the top was a bit...strange, but it was a celebration of British culture. If anyone has ever tried to summarise British culture, you'll know it's quite hard, but oddly the opening ceremony did just that. Kenneth Branagh as the legendary IKB? Yes, why not! A massive celebration (/fuckyouDave) of the NHS? YES! Paul McCartney? Sadly yes. It was a triumph.
We have won sixty four medals, across the board. Thats the most since 1908, when we won a rather improbable 146. Did nobody else come that year?
There have been no massive logistical errors since it actually started. The TV coverage is supplied by the Olympic Broadcasting Service, and has had some flaws - like cutting away from Andy Murray before he got to his mum. DAMN YOU, OBS! I WANTED TO SEE JUDY CRACK A GRIN!
Highlights of actual sport for me are:
Andy Murray winning gold off Federer. Federer's heart may have not been wholly in it, but who cares?
Tom Daley winning bronze in the 10m diving.
Mo Farah and Jessica Ennis winning gold and flying the flag for British athletics, British diversity and everything the Daily Mail hates (HUZZAH).
Victoria Pendleton's performance in the keirin, which was breathtakingly amazing and won her the gold.
Beth Tweddle finally getting a medal. Which rhymes.
And, representing my very own Peterborough, Louis Smith!
It has been such an excellent year for Team GB that it's really difficult not to just list every single medal and request a small, desktop round of applause. I've missed most of the athletics and swimming, because it coincided with putting my kids to bed. In truth, it would be impossible, even with the TWENTY FOUR channels of coverage, to see everything. But, not a day has passed where I haven't sat and watched SOMETHING. My three year old son has loved it, and he's never shown any interest in watching anything other than Jake and the Neverland Pirates during the day. He has informed me he wishes to take up diving.
He's not going to be the only child inspired to take up some sport. But most olympic sports are not part of the school curriculum. Swimming lessons aren't even on the curriculum anymore in some schools. There are after school clubs, saturday clubs. They cost money. They cost time. They're not always local. For example, I live in a small city in the East Midlands. The nearest small-child-friendly swimming pool is 15 miles away, well out of the city. The only pools in my locality are Bannatynes and the college pool, which is all lanes. You can't take a three year old lane swimming, let alone a 15 month old. Swimming is a fairly common activity to undertake and yet there's no 'leisure' provision in this city.
There has been much talk in the media about the proportion of privately educated athletes being greater than state school educated. Is that really a surprise to anyone? If you're going to become an elite athlete, in almost any sport, you need considerable financial backing. You need a high level of parental commitment. You need transport, you need time to train, you need to be able to afford to train. Your talent needs to be recognised. Increasingly, school PE is being cutback. When I was at school, in the lae 90s/early 00s, we had about 4 hours of PE a week. The girls did hockey, netball, crosscountry, track and field (mostly track) and tennis. If you were like me, and had long legs, you were entered into the high or long jump, or hurdles, come sports day. I went to a (non-fee-paying) Grammar school, and in years 10 and 11, we could go and do FUN sports like horse riding and skiing, but I couldn't because my parents couldn't afford the extra cost. I sat in the gym doing improbably vertical sit-ups for a laugh instead. I could've been an olympic showjumper. It's unlikely - I'm terrified of horses for a start - but the finance to back the opportunity was not there.
The big medal winners have been the USA and China. Neither of these should be a surprise, but what did surprise me was how badly Chinese athletes took winning silver. They seemed to take it worse than if they'd won nothing at all. I wonder if they're going home to be flogged half to death on account of COMING SECOND. IN THE WORLD. NOT GOOD ENOUGH!
The internet has been awash with talk of how Yorkshire has been the predominant medal winning county, but it is the largest county in the UK, so should we really be surprised? They also gave us Peter Sutcliffe, but you don't hear anyone crowing about that.
The boom of social media in the last four years (Twitter, I'm looking at you) has meant unprecedented access to athletes and other people's opinions. Did you think the boxing was rigged? So did hundreds of other people on Twitter, and they're all discussing it. You want to tell Nick Griffin that the whole Olympic experience proves how beautiful multiculturalism is? Feel free, but I warn you, he thinks the UK kidnapped Mo Farah and we should all be ashamed... Some arsehole kid decides to troll Tom Daley? Twitter fell on him with all it's might and got the police involved.
Now, I'm probably in the minority of thinking that serious internet trolling IS a police matter. You wouldn't stand for it via any other media, so why does the internet make it OK? The rise and acceptance of online bullying is a pervading evil, especially amongst teens (and Tom Daley is only 18, in case you missed them screaming it in your face every 30 seconds). It is not 'just the internet' to them. "Don't feed the trolls" doesn't work; they cannot leave alone, or take the resulting abuse.
Now, Steve Redgrave said the other day that gold is the only medal that matters, anything else is failure. This does not strike me as what the Olympics is about. These people are the best in the world. They can't all win, the medal ceremonies would go on forever. Obviously, I am not an athlete. I couldn't run to the shop and back without dying in the road. But if I was good enough to get to the Olympics, good enough to get to a final, then I'd be content. Disappointed if I didn't manage a medal, but not wrenching my hair out and howling no. It must be a most crushing disappointment, to work so hard and fall at the final hurdle, but surely getting to the Olympics IS the final hurdle? As I said, I'm not an athlete, but the ethos of "gold or die" strikes me as tremendously egotistical and unrealistic. If that's your life's goal and you fail, what do you have left? Bitterness and freaky muscle structure?
The closing ceremony was notsomuch of a triumph. It was like a school disco, circa 1997, with added Jessie J. I don't know if anyone's told the organisers that Jessie J and Emeli Sande are NOT the only women in British music. There was papier mache, and a pyramid tribute to Kate Bush. Madness, not sounding amazing. A cover of Parklife, while Blur and Phil Daniels appeared at Hyde Park. Liam Gallagher scowling and posturing. The Kaiser Chiefs pretending to be the The Who. The Pet Shop Boys in Klan hats. Bloody One Bloody Direction. A time wasting segment advertising British fashion. A lot of pandering to Yoko Ono. An enormous amount of bad miming and a static Victoria Beckham. Gary Barlow's appearance has split the internet - was he brave or unfeeling? Brian May was given far too much time to fretwank, and then was joined, once more, by BLOODY Jessie J. Annie Lennox appeared on a doomed galleon. Eric Idle in a bizarre banghra sketch that came across uncomfortably racist. Muse, in all their shiny glory. George Michael and Jason Orange seemed high as kites. The highlight was either Elbow, or the inflatable, neon octopus and Fatboy Slim. It was just...no opening ceremony...
They wanted to Inspire a Generation and they have. Now they need to take this legacy, while it's still fresh, and invest in better sporting facilities for our younger, and increasingly unhealthy, generations. Otherwise, all this public expenditure will have been for nothing.
And thus it ends. Except, it hasn't. The Paralympics start in a few weeks, to extremely limited fanfare. I shall be watching!
Ahem. Despite generally loathing televised sport, I have a soft spot for the Olympics. I don't know why. I have a huge love of the Winter Olympics, primarily for it's vicious edge and risk of blood on the ice (I watch Dancing on Ice for the selfsame reason). For Beijing, I was in the first trimester of pregnancy and WEPT HELPLESSLY at every medal ceremony. Usually on my lunch break, eating toast. Then I had to go back to work and try not to let on that I was pregnant and make excuses for my tear stained visage.
I digress. Despite inauspicious omens (the G4S security fail, the sponsorship fascism, the dreadful logo), it all fired off, an improbably long time ago, with the opening ceremony to end all opening ceremonies. I don't know about anyone else, but I sat down to watch it in FULL snark mode (which some of you will know is quite a terrifying spectacle). I proceeded to tweet about it to such an extent that I exceeded my tweet allowance before the lighting of the cauldron. I LOVED every melodramatic, all singing, all dancing second of it. There may have been no Sherlock Holmes and the Voldemort swaying around over the top was a bit...strange, but it was a celebration of British culture. If anyone has ever tried to summarise British culture, you'll know it's quite hard, but oddly the opening ceremony did just that. Kenneth Branagh as the legendary IKB? Yes, why not! A massive celebration (/fuckyouDave) of the NHS? YES! Paul McCartney? Sadly yes. It was a triumph.
We have won sixty four medals, across the board. Thats the most since 1908, when we won a rather improbable 146. Did nobody else come that year?
There have been no massive logistical errors since it actually started. The TV coverage is supplied by the Olympic Broadcasting Service, and has had some flaws - like cutting away from Andy Murray before he got to his mum. DAMN YOU, OBS! I WANTED TO SEE JUDY CRACK A GRIN!
Highlights of actual sport for me are:
Andy Murray winning gold off Federer. Federer's heart may have not been wholly in it, but who cares?
Tom Daley winning bronze in the 10m diving.
Mo Farah and Jessica Ennis winning gold and flying the flag for British athletics, British diversity and everything the Daily Mail hates (HUZZAH).
Victoria Pendleton's performance in the keirin, which was breathtakingly amazing and won her the gold.
Beth Tweddle finally getting a medal. Which rhymes.
And, representing my very own Peterborough, Louis Smith!
It has been such an excellent year for Team GB that it's really difficult not to just list every single medal and request a small, desktop round of applause. I've missed most of the athletics and swimming, because it coincided with putting my kids to bed. In truth, it would be impossible, even with the TWENTY FOUR channels of coverage, to see everything. But, not a day has passed where I haven't sat and watched SOMETHING. My three year old son has loved it, and he's never shown any interest in watching anything other than Jake and the Neverland Pirates during the day. He has informed me he wishes to take up diving.
He's not going to be the only child inspired to take up some sport. But most olympic sports are not part of the school curriculum. Swimming lessons aren't even on the curriculum anymore in some schools. There are after school clubs, saturday clubs. They cost money. They cost time. They're not always local. For example, I live in a small city in the East Midlands. The nearest small-child-friendly swimming pool is 15 miles away, well out of the city. The only pools in my locality are Bannatynes and the college pool, which is all lanes. You can't take a three year old lane swimming, let alone a 15 month old. Swimming is a fairly common activity to undertake and yet there's no 'leisure' provision in this city.
There has been much talk in the media about the proportion of privately educated athletes being greater than state school educated. Is that really a surprise to anyone? If you're going to become an elite athlete, in almost any sport, you need considerable financial backing. You need a high level of parental commitment. You need transport, you need time to train, you need to be able to afford to train. Your talent needs to be recognised. Increasingly, school PE is being cutback. When I was at school, in the lae 90s/early 00s, we had about 4 hours of PE a week. The girls did hockey, netball, crosscountry, track and field (mostly track) and tennis. If you were like me, and had long legs, you were entered into the high or long jump, or hurdles, come sports day. I went to a (non-fee-paying) Grammar school, and in years 10 and 11, we could go and do FUN sports like horse riding and skiing, but I couldn't because my parents couldn't afford the extra cost. I sat in the gym doing improbably vertical sit-ups for a laugh instead. I could've been an olympic showjumper. It's unlikely - I'm terrified of horses for a start - but the finance to back the opportunity was not there.
The big medal winners have been the USA and China. Neither of these should be a surprise, but what did surprise me was how badly Chinese athletes took winning silver. They seemed to take it worse than if they'd won nothing at all. I wonder if they're going home to be flogged half to death on account of COMING SECOND. IN THE WORLD. NOT GOOD ENOUGH!
The internet has been awash with talk of how Yorkshire has been the predominant medal winning county, but it is the largest county in the UK, so should we really be surprised? They also gave us Peter Sutcliffe, but you don't hear anyone crowing about that.
The boom of social media in the last four years (Twitter, I'm looking at you) has meant unprecedented access to athletes and other people's opinions. Did you think the boxing was rigged? So did hundreds of other people on Twitter, and they're all discussing it. You want to tell Nick Griffin that the whole Olympic experience proves how beautiful multiculturalism is? Feel free, but I warn you, he thinks the UK kidnapped Mo Farah and we should all be ashamed... Some arsehole kid decides to troll Tom Daley? Twitter fell on him with all it's might and got the police involved.
Now, I'm probably in the minority of thinking that serious internet trolling IS a police matter. You wouldn't stand for it via any other media, so why does the internet make it OK? The rise and acceptance of online bullying is a pervading evil, especially amongst teens (and Tom Daley is only 18, in case you missed them screaming it in your face every 30 seconds). It is not 'just the internet' to them. "Don't feed the trolls" doesn't work; they cannot leave alone, or take the resulting abuse.
Now, Steve Redgrave said the other day that gold is the only medal that matters, anything else is failure. This does not strike me as what the Olympics is about. These people are the best in the world. They can't all win, the medal ceremonies would go on forever. Obviously, I am not an athlete. I couldn't run to the shop and back without dying in the road. But if I was good enough to get to the Olympics, good enough to get to a final, then I'd be content. Disappointed if I didn't manage a medal, but not wrenching my hair out and howling no. It must be a most crushing disappointment, to work so hard and fall at the final hurdle, but surely getting to the Olympics IS the final hurdle? As I said, I'm not an athlete, but the ethos of "gold or die" strikes me as tremendously egotistical and unrealistic. If that's your life's goal and you fail, what do you have left? Bitterness and freaky muscle structure?
The closing ceremony was notsomuch of a triumph. It was like a school disco, circa 1997, with added Jessie J. I don't know if anyone's told the organisers that Jessie J and Emeli Sande are NOT the only women in British music. There was papier mache, and a pyramid tribute to Kate Bush. Madness, not sounding amazing. A cover of Parklife, while Blur and Phil Daniels appeared at Hyde Park. Liam Gallagher scowling and posturing. The Kaiser Chiefs pretending to be the The Who. The Pet Shop Boys in Klan hats. Bloody One Bloody Direction. A time wasting segment advertising British fashion. A lot of pandering to Yoko Ono. An enormous amount of bad miming and a static Victoria Beckham. Gary Barlow's appearance has split the internet - was he brave or unfeeling? Brian May was given far too much time to fretwank, and then was joined, once more, by BLOODY Jessie J. Annie Lennox appeared on a doomed galleon. Eric Idle in a bizarre banghra sketch that came across uncomfortably racist. Muse, in all their shiny glory. George Michael and Jason Orange seemed high as kites. The highlight was either Elbow, or the inflatable, neon octopus and Fatboy Slim. It was just...no opening ceremony...
They wanted to Inspire a Generation and they have. Now they need to take this legacy, while it's still fresh, and invest in better sporting facilities for our younger, and increasingly unhealthy, generations. Otherwise, all this public expenditure will have been for nothing.
And thus it ends. Except, it hasn't. The Paralympics start in a few weeks, to extremely limited fanfare. I shall be watching!
14 Jul 2012
A tale of wristy woe
A long time ago (1990), in a far away place (Bourne), a five year old girl punched a french window. The glass was illegally thin and the girl ripped her right arm to the bone, from wrist to elbow. By miracle or chance, the girl's radial artery was missed by millimetres.
Some plastic surgery, fifty stitches and a couple of nights in hospital, and she was home. She was five, she was resilient and, (filthy, thick shark-bite scar aside) she was fine.
But alas, the girl grew older and larger. The scar tissue from the repair of her tendons and ligaments did not grow with her, and her right hand was permanently weakened. However, by this time, word processing had become the norm. Handwriting was old fashioned, and she joined the workforce entirely computer literate, confident that she would never have to handwrite anything longer than a shopping list again. The only other lingering ill effect was a lifetime phobia of wrists.
Then she started a degree module with a three hour, handwritten exam at the end of it.
DO YOU SEE THE POINT I'M TRYING TO MAKE?
I have a weak grip in my right hand. When the weather changes, it gets worse. So, I can imagine in mid-October, it's going to be hard to write. And that's when my exam is.
I need to start strengthening exercises NOW. When I say it's weak, sometimes all the power goes out and it's like I have a wet fish attached to my wrist. I cannot be doing with THAT when I have loads to write.
In joyful news of joy, I achieved 80% on my last TMA and have now achieved the pass grade on continuous assessment, with two more TMAs to go. I am HAPPY about this :-D
Some plastic surgery, fifty stitches and a couple of nights in hospital, and she was home. She was five, she was resilient and, (filthy, thick shark-bite scar aside) she was fine.
But alas, the girl grew older and larger. The scar tissue from the repair of her tendons and ligaments did not grow with her, and her right hand was permanently weakened. However, by this time, word processing had become the norm. Handwriting was old fashioned, and she joined the workforce entirely computer literate, confident that she would never have to handwrite anything longer than a shopping list again. The only other lingering ill effect was a lifetime phobia of wrists.
Then she started a degree module with a three hour, handwritten exam at the end of it.
DO YOU SEE THE POINT I'M TRYING TO MAKE?
I have a weak grip in my right hand. When the weather changes, it gets worse. So, I can imagine in mid-October, it's going to be hard to write. And that's when my exam is.
I need to start strengthening exercises NOW. When I say it's weak, sometimes all the power goes out and it's like I have a wet fish attached to my wrist. I cannot be doing with THAT when I have loads to write.
In joyful news of joy, I achieved 80% on my last TMA and have now achieved the pass grade on continuous assessment, with two more TMAs to go. I am HAPPY about this :-D
27 Jun 2012
Fifty Shades of NSFW
...and now for something completely different...
So, recently, my facebook feed has been SWAMPED by a DELUGE of women expressing how turned on they are by BDSM porn.
I'm not even joking.
Here's a little exercise in literature for you. Compare and contrast these two excerpts of fiction for me...
1) "’You’re very beautiful. I can’t wait to be inside you.’ Holy shit. His words. He’s so seductive. He takes my breath away.”
’I’m going to fuck you now, ’ he murmurs as he positions the head of his erection at the entrance of my sex.”
“’Don’t hesitate,’ he admonishes me softly, an undercurrent in his voice"
2) "Laying her down on the shag carpet, her wrists still bound behind her, he put an ankle on each shoulder and began to pump into her, hard and fast and carnally intent. She gasped and then cried out as he split her open, this position allowing him to delve incredibly deeply into her body... with her hands restrained she was powerless to stop him, unable to touch him, a receptacle for his pleasure... as he was the creator of hers."
One of these excerpts (the second one) is cadged off Literotica, home of free porn lit for over a decade. It's the second top rated BDSM story, if you want to read more.
The other is from the fastest selling paperback novel ever.
Now, the one from Fifty Shades of Grey is the one that's written like Mills+Boon with swearing. ENTRANCE OF MY SEX? *vomit*
E.L James started as a fanfic writer, taking her cue from Mr Grey in Twilight. I once saw Twilight described as 'a 400 page waste of paper, bound in black with an apple on the front'. Having read the dark monstrosity, I cannot help but agree. It's four books about an incredibly emo teenager falling in love with a vaguely malevolent 100 year old vampire. Their obvious and dull love is weakly threatened by some badass Italian vampires, and her (male) friend's a werewolf, BUT GOD,THEY'RE JUST FRIENDS, EDWARD! STOP SNARLING! Nothing really happens. Oh, until she gets pregnant (after marriage, natch, and lovely romantic, VICIOUS sex) and then gives birth to a baby who BITES IT'S WAY OUT. That's teen parenthood for you. Hence, emo becomes vampire, and decides that's what she should have been ALL ALONG. The best bit in all this is probably the werewolf falling in love with the baby...
It's allegorical for every emo teenage love story, but with slightly more traumatic birth scenes.
So it's a badfic of a bad story, in short. I have heard people tell how MAGICAL the love story between Mr Grey and his loveslave is, but I know and they know that they are essentially reading it for the porn.
This outpouring of lusty facebook statuses is essentially people declaring how incredibly horny they are. This is not normal behaviour. I would never write a status along the lines of "Just watched Emmanuelle In Space, time to get flicking! LOL!".* Yet, this book seems to have released a generation of women from their masturbatory guilt. That in itself is no bad thing, but why publicise it?
And the internet is full of porn. There is no need to buy it.
*Emmanuelle In Space is amazing, if only as a genre piece
So, recently, my facebook feed has been SWAMPED by a DELUGE of women expressing how turned on they are by BDSM porn.
I'm not even joking.
Here's a little exercise in literature for you. Compare and contrast these two excerpts of fiction for me...
1) "’You’re very beautiful. I can’t wait to be inside you.’ Holy shit. His words. He’s so seductive. He takes my breath away.”
’I’m going to fuck you now, ’ he murmurs as he positions the head of his erection at the entrance of my sex.”
“’Don’t hesitate,’ he admonishes me softly, an undercurrent in his voice"
2) "Laying her down on the shag carpet, her wrists still bound behind her, he put an ankle on each shoulder and began to pump into her, hard and fast and carnally intent. She gasped and then cried out as he split her open, this position allowing him to delve incredibly deeply into her body... with her hands restrained she was powerless to stop him, unable to touch him, a receptacle for his pleasure... as he was the creator of hers."
One of these excerpts (the second one) is cadged off Literotica, home of free porn lit for over a decade. It's the second top rated BDSM story, if you want to read more.
The other is from the fastest selling paperback novel ever.
Now, the one from Fifty Shades of Grey is the one that's written like Mills+Boon with swearing. ENTRANCE OF MY SEX? *vomit*
E.L James started as a fanfic writer, taking her cue from Mr Grey in Twilight. I once saw Twilight described as 'a 400 page waste of paper, bound in black with an apple on the front'. Having read the dark monstrosity, I cannot help but agree. It's four books about an incredibly emo teenager falling in love with a vaguely malevolent 100 year old vampire. Their obvious and dull love is weakly threatened by some badass Italian vampires, and her (male) friend's a werewolf, BUT GOD,THEY'RE JUST FRIENDS, EDWARD! STOP SNARLING! Nothing really happens. Oh, until she gets pregnant (after marriage, natch, and lovely romantic, VICIOUS sex) and then gives birth to a baby who BITES IT'S WAY OUT. That's teen parenthood for you. Hence, emo becomes vampire, and decides that's what she should have been ALL ALONG. The best bit in all this is probably the werewolf falling in love with the baby...
It's allegorical for every emo teenage love story, but with slightly more traumatic birth scenes.
So it's a badfic of a bad story, in short. I have heard people tell how MAGICAL the love story between Mr Grey and his loveslave is, but I know and they know that they are essentially reading it for the porn.
This outpouring of lusty facebook statuses is essentially people declaring how incredibly horny they are. This is not normal behaviour. I would never write a status along the lines of "Just watched Emmanuelle In Space, time to get flicking! LOL!".* Yet, this book seems to have released a generation of women from their masturbatory guilt. That in itself is no bad thing, but why publicise it?
And the internet is full of porn. There is no need to buy it.
*Emmanuelle In Space is amazing, if only as a genre piece
22 Jun 2012
Motivation!
Motivation! You're back! Thank God!
I cannot lie, my motivation has been flagging like a bitch of late.
I've just been pottytraining my eldest, my baby's turned into a mobile, happy MONSTER and I can't seem to leave the two of them for five minutes to get on. They're either engaged in A WAR (aged 3y and 14m, there's no hope of a peaceful life) or the elder is crapping on the floor, or the younger is halfway up the stairs. What I really need is four LONG arms, six hands and eight pairs of eyes. Mutant mothers are the future.
So, I finished block 3 and wrote a TMA following the guidelines exactly. I did this because I didn't particularly enjoy the content (institutionalised racism, something that disgusts me to my core) and my personal reaction to the question was BURN ALL RACISTS. This was unlikely to get me decent marks. I also had to stay away from the facebook group for my course, where people suggested diversity was a Bad Thing, in case I actually ragegasmed all over the group page. It was, to say the least, an emotive topic.
When I worked at a GP surgery, I came across indirect racism on a daily basis: "Is the doctor...ENGLISH?", patients would hiss across the reception desk. "I don't want to see that black one again". And also, direct racism, usually bellowed at the door of the offending clinician. Racist patients generally assumed that we reception staff (entirely white british) would wholeheartedly agree with them, and were always surprised when we pulled them up on it or reported it for further investigation. I never experienced any racism from staff to patients, but the patient population was 99% white, against a doctor population that was 10% white. The majority ethnicity ruled the day. It sickened me then, it sickens me now.
ANYWAY, back to the point, I wrote the TMA with as little personal inflection as I could, toning down the journalistic urge to use emotive language. I also wrote it firmly against the guidelines and I got...
I cannot lie, my motivation has been flagging like a bitch of late.
I've just been pottytraining my eldest, my baby's turned into a mobile, happy MONSTER and I can't seem to leave the two of them for five minutes to get on. They're either engaged in A WAR (aged 3y and 14m, there's no hope of a peaceful life) or the elder is crapping on the floor, or the younger is halfway up the stairs. What I really need is four LONG arms, six hands and eight pairs of eyes. Mutant mothers are the future.
So, I finished block 3 and wrote a TMA following the guidelines exactly. I did this because I didn't particularly enjoy the content (institutionalised racism, something that disgusts me to my core) and my personal reaction to the question was BURN ALL RACISTS. This was unlikely to get me decent marks. I also had to stay away from the facebook group for my course, where people suggested diversity was a Bad Thing, in case I actually ragegasmed all over the group page. It was, to say the least, an emotive topic.
When I worked at a GP surgery, I came across indirect racism on a daily basis: "Is the doctor...ENGLISH?", patients would hiss across the reception desk. "I don't want to see that black one again". And also, direct racism, usually bellowed at the door of the offending clinician. Racist patients generally assumed that we reception staff (entirely white british) would wholeheartedly agree with them, and were always surprised when we pulled them up on it or reported it for further investigation. I never experienced any racism from staff to patients, but the patient population was 99% white, against a doctor population that was 10% white. The majority ethnicity ruled the day. It sickened me then, it sickens me now.
ANYWAY, back to the point, I wrote the TMA with as little personal inflection as I could, toning down the journalistic urge to use emotive language. I also wrote it firmly against the guidelines and I got...
MY FIRST PASS TWO!
(or a B, or a 2:1)
70%, basically
Previously, I've had 60% and 61%, neither of which I was remotely pleased with.
This has cheered me up beyond measure, and I have powered on with some of TMA04 today. The rest has to wait for the project (o'doom) which starts tomorrow, on evaluating information on the internet. I also have to finish a bit of block 4. Next month, I've got two TMAs due within a couple of weeks, because of the way the project has fallen, so I shall be a busy bee. Doubtless outside will be all sunshine and roses and I will be in my dining room, sweating and swearing at my laptop and brain. Or it'll piss down with rain.
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