Who Knows?

Oh no!!!!!

2009-09-30T14:22:10+02:00

I don't want to vote Labour, but now The Sun says it doesn't support them, there's a teensy bit of temptation there. I can see myself in the polling station now:

'Go with my heart? Piss off Murdoch? Go with my heart? Piss off Murdoch?'

I hate that the Sun has so much influence on my vote.

Comments

Stop Whinging and Look in the Mirror

2009-05-22T07:46:13+02:00

I am officially sick of hearing how 'angry' the 'electorate' is, and how 'the public' has lost trust in politicians.

Why the surprise over MPs expenses? Did anyone really not know that Westminster is now populated with career politicians who'd sell their own granny to get on in their careers? People like that are grasping and out for what they can get - is it really any surprise they want us to pay for their Toblerones and dry rot?

Electorates get the government they deserve. If we have a government full of unprincipled, greedy scroungers we need to look to ourselves and the part we've played.

Ever since Thatcher, voters have been voting out of personal greed. Blair could only get votes by scrapping Clause 4 along with the rest of New Labour's socialist principles. And there's no two ways about it: socialism is about sharing and capitalism is every man for himself. This electorate has wanted nothing of sharing for a hell of a long time - each little voter just wants what's best for them.

If any poor, gullible ingenue was still under the impression that the vast majority of politicians were anything other than a) stupid and/or b) spineless and corrupt, they could have been left in no doubt whatsoever that this was true after the Iraq invasion of 2003. The populace didn't want that war. We demonstrated in our millions against it. Then 'ooooh 45 minutes!' on one hand and 'your career is at stake' on the other hand had them flocking to vote for war, in spite of their constituents.

(Obviously this is a generalisation, and apologies to those MPs who did/do have some morals and backbone- Robin Cook, Dave Nellist, Dennis Skinner, Tony Benn et al).

Even now, the enraged electorate doesn't want to change: on budget day the BBC interviewed a 'typical' family. Their country was in vast debt already due to Gordon Brown's headless chicken act, their children face having to somehow get the country out of this debt, it could take generations, and what did they want? 'Tax cuts'. 'They need to do something to stop house prices falling.' DUUUUUUR!

Socialism isn't a dirty word. It's about caring for others as well as yourself. Capitalism has driven this country into the ground and ravaged public services. Competition has brought about nothing except inflated power prices and dilapidated transport systems. Some things are too important for shareholders to be in control of. But they come at a price.

While people are whinging about expenses, they don't have to take any responsibility for having voted these people in, and tacitly agreeing with the systems they worked within. Was anyone REALLY unaware of these expenses and allowances? And worse, how many of those interviewed on TV vox pops would have acted any differently in their MPs place?

What next? Anger as animals find that bears shit in the woods? Fury as Pope reveals to Catholics that he is one of them?

People need to get over it, look in the mirror and think about the right way to use their vote in future.

Comments

Clueless

2009-03-06T13:20:56+01:00

I don't understand the government. I don't understand the economy either. However, I do know a contradiction when it's staring me in the face.

The government blames the banks for their role in bringing about the global recession. The banks are criticised for encouraging 'bad debt', and told that they must return to 'responsible lending'. I'm old enough to remember the days of responsible lending. All the jokes were that you had to prove you didn't need a loan in order to get one. I'm not talking centuries ago, more a quarter of a century ago. And yes, I was judged worthy of a loan, several times.

So next thing the government is telling banks 'you've got to give loans to stop fragile businesses collapsing' and 'you've got to give loans to get the housing market moving'. Yet responsible lending would dictate that these loans would most likely not be approved.

The average UK salary is apparently around £23,000. If we returned to the 'three times income' rule for mortgage borrowing, that would mean lending only £69,000. Way below the average house price. Adding 'twice the second income' (though IIRC it used to be only one and a half times) would make buying a house more possible, but everyone would have to get used to having a smaller house than they'd aspired to before, when 'five times plus' and £100% or more loans were practically the norm. Banks encouraged greed, and now the government wants is struggling with the expectations they've created. Instead of saying to people, 'sorry, this is the way it is now, get used to it,' they're encouraging the banks to go down the same sorry road all over again.

Businesses don't always struggle purely for cash-flow reasons. sometimes they are no longer viable. Banks are understandably cautious just now, and erring on the side of caution when deciding between the two. It used to always be like this (an ex's business went down the toilet in 1990 because the bank decided it wasn't a cashflow problem, although I did the books and knew that it was). Recession usually means banks become cautious. Yet now the government wants them to throw caution to the wind.

We've tried running an economy on credit. It doesn't work. VAT cuts aren't going to work - because goods are cheap now due to seller desperation. I don't even think interest rate cuts will work - not all are passed on to mortgagees, and even when they are, people usually have savings as well as mortgages, so the saved money is likely to end up there, in times when people think their jobs are at risk.

So what to do? I never thought I'd say this, but I think the Tories are right. Do nothing. See what happens. At least then the government would look as though it had a modicom of dignity. A gaggle of headless chickens is the last thing to inspire confidence.

Comments

Snow Whingers

2009-02-04T11:21:02+01:00

I don't understand the snow whingers. You know the ones: 'ooooh, they have snow every day in Finland and their economy doesn't grind to a halt, but a little flurry here and it's the end of the world, and ooooh, look, a fifth of the workforce were off on Monday, and every last one of them a skiver, and oooh, look at those schoolchildren, we used to go to school through tunnels of snow and it taught us grace under fire or something along those lines and I've got work to do, I can't be looking after my own children when I pay good money for someone else to do it and who cares if they might get stuck in a snowdrift.'

I don't agree that it's the worst snow in over 20 years, because the snow in 91ish was much worse in Birmingham - and yes, I did get to work then and Monday. But whatever way you look at it, it was a bit special. It's unlikely that children south of the Pennines will have seen snow like it in their lives (unless they've been abroad). I felt quite disappointed that Little Un didn't get the time off school, even though I'd have had to take him to work. Are a few days off school really such a bad thing?

I'm not an advocate of skiving. It really pisses me off when people take time off in good weather just because they can't be arsed and it's not often sunny. Sun doesn't cause road accidents or school closures. But snow makes things really impractical.

The whingers use the economy as an excuse, telling us how much money it has cost the UK to lose all those working days. Kind of like worrying about toddlers pissing in the sea I should think. How much would it cost to make sure we could all get to work in the snow? I can imagine the way these people would have been whinging for the last 8 years at least - 'look at the money we're wasting on snow precautions when we've not had significant snowfall for ten years.'

Thing is, in countries where there's more snow but not many more precautions taken (I'm thinking Scotland here), people do get to work and school better than in London and the south. They're used to driving in snow. I was used to it. I hate driving in snow here (midlands). Not because I lack confidence (I've done Rosslyn Glen in snow in a 1.2 Nova, to the amazement of the hospital porters), but because other drivers here are completely crap and a danger to me. But they'll never learn because they'll never have sufficient opportunity.

There's something magical about snow. It's not like we get it all the time any more. No one's ever going to die thinking 'I really wish I'd gone to work that day I spent playing snowballs with my kids'. So next time there's a Big Snow in the South, let's accept we're nesh, admit defeat gracefully, sod the economy and stay at home making snowmen!

Comments

Words I Hate 4

2009-01-30T08:19:56+01:00

Today's Word I Hate is that Jeremy Kyle favourite 'literally'.

I have no problem with the word when it is used as an adverb: 'having broken both legs, the rock-climber literally hauled himself up the cliff-face by his fingertips'. I do have a massive problem where it is used purely as an intensifier - and nowadays that's pretty much the only way it is ever used. As in Jeremy Kyle's famous comments such as, 'now let's meet the parents whose arguments are literally tearing their child apart.'

I have no idea whether this is an accepted useage. I don't care. It grates on me like nails on a blackboard.

Comments

I Heart My Dishwasher

2009-01-21T13:21:41+01:00

For many years I had an unused dishwasher plumbed in because I had this idea that they were environmentally unfriendly. And I have an irrational distrust of machines that do things people can do perfectly well themselves (yup, irrational).

Then I began using it every Christmas - well, I was busy entertaining, and it was full. And now I have reached the bottom of that slippery slope and I use it ALL the time. It takes almost a week to fill, as I use the same plates all day for things like bread, and Little Un has school dinners, so I don't cook in the week. I've had the same box of dishawsher tablets for over a year. So this must be more ecofriendly, and better for me too. Hooray!

To be sure, I checked it out online, and sure enough, so long as you only run them when full, and don't use the drying cycle, dishwashers are reckoned to be better for the environment than washing up by hand. However suspiciously they may act.

Comments

Obama

2009-01-21T12:54:28+01:00

I got quite tearful driving home last night listening to Barack Obama's speech. It really feels like he wants to change things: "Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and begin again the work of remaking America. On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord."

How different to Gordon Brown, who'll spend as much taxpayer's money as he needs to try to make Britain the same debt-ridden, terrorist-fearing, possession-obsessed nation it was before the recession hit. At leats he doesn't have to fear assasination by lizards (I may have been reading too much David Icke again).

Comments

Dyslexia and Depression - Reality or Myth?

2009-01-16T09:00:31+01:00

I was going to write a brief article about Graham Stringer's comments about the 'myth' of dyslexia. I then started to read more about it and realised there was more to the whole thing than I'd thought. Those who criticise him for ignorance are just pots criticising kettles, since it is difficult to find any agreement in the information available about the condition: if it is a condition as such. For instance, for every website like the Wikipedia one, which focusses on the many and varied causes, the physiology, the biochemistry etc, there is a site such as Dyslexics which promotes the need for effective teaching for what is primarily a specific learning disability.

Having read all of this, I was reminded of my problems with psychiatric diagnoses. Here are people with vastly differing problems, all branded under one label ('dyslexia' or 'depression'). This label then leads into a medicalisation of their condition. It also removes the 'problem' from their own hands, and places it in the hands of the 'experts'.

Reading the comments on Stringer's views from those with dsylexia, it is obvious that it is a popular diagnosis, in that it is welcomed by those who have it. After all, who wants to think they are a bit thick at reading, when they could have an 'ia'? I recognise that feeling so well: the relief I felt when the GP diagnosed my depression: 'thank goddess, I'm not just crap at dealing with life ; I've got Depression and IT'S NOT MY FAULT!'

Yet 'recovery' only came when I realised that this was a lie: that even if depression had a biochemical component, that was within my control too (since I could learn to activate different brain cells by changing my own thoughts, thus changing my own chemistry).

It's taken years, but I no longer define myself as having depression. I recognise it early and act, because the one thing I've learned is that when I feel the black dog lurking in the corners of my vision, then it's a signal that something is wrong in my life or my thoughts.

Like depression, it would seem there are as many types of dyslexia as there are sufferers - and a way to treat it. There is much advocacy of synthetic phonics (which to me seems to be a reheating of old teaching techniques with a fancy name). A way that wouldn't involve specialist teaching or removal from the normal classroom, and a way that would help non-dyslexic children to read and write too. So Stringer's comments make sense on that level. Not having to identify an 'illness' would also mean that children retained responsibility for their weaknesses: and doing so would create a strength long-term.

On a side note, it's interesting how expressing an opinion that flies in the face of the 'approved view' on certain subjects is almost forbidden. Stringer has, despite accusations to the contrary, obviously done a lot of research. It's easy to toe the party line and bow to the altar of 'received wisdom'. It's a tribute to him that he felt strongly enough about this issue to speak out.

Comments

Blogging

2009-01-09T09:31:26+01:00

I'm REALLY going to try to get back into this. I am so lazy, I read other people's blogs, but can't be bothered to write my own, and rarely comment either. This is very remiss of me, and I'm going to try to remedy it, because I am driving my family mad with my Grumpy Old Lady rants. Here is far more the place for it.

Happy New Year!

Comments

Words I Hate - 3

2009-01-09T09:28:08+01:00

I was reminded of this one whilst watching Breakfast on the BBC this morning. Such a classic use of it in the way I hate. Today's Word I Hate is 'Nightmare'. Not in the sense that I cringe when someone says they've had a nightmare the night before and then tells me in gory detail about their stairs eating them or whatever - for that really is a nightmare. But when someone says they've had a real-life experience that was 'a nightmare' I want to punch them (and I'm a pacifist).

This is because, without fail, what they are talking about is something no-one in their right minds would have a nightmare about. It is sometimes something unpleasant, but usually a mere inconvenience.

Thus, this morning, we hear about 'every parent's nightmare'. Their child being abducted and never found? Their child dying painfully of leukaemia? Being murdered? In a drive-by shooting? No. Having to take their child out of private school.

Similar 'nightmares' include Christmas shopping in the credit crunch, trying to get on the housing ladder in one's twenties, driving in cold weather, finding a cheap train fare and throwing toddler birthday parties.

I know I'm not middle class because my nightmares are genuinely terrifying and never involve money.

Comments

How To 'Make' People Vote

2008-11-05T08:29:51+01:00

Watching people queue up for hours to cast their votes in the US election, I wondered what those who wish to make voting compulory were thinking?

We're constantly told that those who don't vote, don't vote because they are 'turned off the political process' or 'voting is too difficult' (hence the expansion of postal voting, possible on-line voting etc), or 'non-voters are apathetic' or 'non-voters don't appreciate democracy'.

What the Obama election has shown is that if people think there's something worth voting for, they'll vote of their own accord, and go to extreme lengths to do so. Those of us who don't vote are simply still waiting.

Comments

What's your Politics?

2008-06-14T13:39:53+02:00

This is an interesting test I took after seeing it in another blog (sorry, can't remember where!) - no surprise I was a lefty libertarian. What was surprising is that I was very similar to Gandhi, though when he took the test I don't know!

Comments

Badly dressed ageing sheep?

2008-06-12T20:34:42+02:00

Here's a photo of me that's fairly recent tho I've lost a few pounds since it was taken:

I am 43 and wonder if I am mutton dressed as lamb?

Comments

About fuel strikes

2008-06-10T19:41:09+02:00

From The Times Online:

Downing Street today urged the public not to panic buy petrol as a threatened four-day strike by tanker drivers nears.

Gordon Brown's spokesman urged both sides in the strike to reach a resolution, to prevent petrol stations starting to run out of fuel from the weekend.

The Prime Minister's PR people clearly haven't a clue, have they? Anyone (certainly me for a small fee) could have told them that saying this will be reported on radio and TV as 'PM says, "don't panic buy".' People being like the dog on 'Far Side' will only hear the words 'PANIC BUY' and off they'll go, forgetting all their grouches about the cost of fuel, buying it at any price, from anywhere, as much as they can carry and a bit sloshing round in a jerry can in the back.

[snip explanation of government emergency measures]The haulage companies have offered to raise drivers' annual average salaries, currently £36,500, by 6.5 per cent to £39,000. Hoyer says that it has already increased pay by 27 per cent in the last four years, and that it is "disappointed" by the reaction of Unite, the drivers' union.

The union says that the £36,500 average salary includes a lot of overtime, and accuses Shell of putting pressure on the haulage companies to keep pay down.

Aaaah, diddums, poor drivers! Maybe, since they have such a tough life destroying the planet, they should instead pack it in and do something worthwhile, like, perhaps, nursing. Of course, they'd need to work plenty of overtime (often unpaid), do night shifts and unsocial hours. But they could at least look forward to a below inflation pay rise every year, staged so it's even less than the headline percentage. And crap percent of crap is crap.

Karen's Solution To Fuel Crazies

So her, at no charge and without an expense account, is my foolproof way to prevent panic buying. Forecourts should immediately be forced to impose a MINIMUM fill-up charge. During the last fuel shortages (entirely brought about by panic buying), many forecourts were imposing a maximum fill of £5. So drivers were going from place to place doing £5 each time and using up fuel as soon as it arrived. If a minimum charge of £35 were put in place (less than a full tank for small cars at today's prices), people would only top up when they actually needed petrol. Hence no panic buying, and no fuel shortage.

What's so difficult about that?

Comments

Allison Pearson - Double Standards or What?

2008-03-12T13:46:40+01:00

Here's what the intellectually challenged bovine has to say in the Daily Mail today:

Sorry, but I blame Scarlett Keeling's mother
Fiona MacKeown, the mother of Scarlett Keeling, the 15-year-old girl who was raped and murdered in Goa, seems less like a grieving mother than an avenging tigress.

With her swishing curtain of grey hair, Fiona is taking on a corrupt local police force which initially denied that her cub had been the victim of foul play.

"If police had taken more interest in previous [suspicious] deaths, then Scarlett might not be dead now," growled Fiona.

Maybe so. But isn't there an even better chance that Scarlett would still be alive if her own mother had not abandoned her for several weeks after an argument and recklessly continued her own holiday?

Instead the blonde teenager, as tempting as a ripe peach, was left in the care of a 25-year-old tour guide - a local man she'd only recently met.

I don't know what they call that in globe-trotting hippy circles. Back here on Planet Parent it's known as dereliction of duty.

Mrs MacKeown is now to be questioned by Goan police for negligence - a tactic she claims is a "disgusting" attempt to "switch the focus" away from their own failings.

If anyone's trying to divert attention away from their own mistakes, I'd say it's Mrs MacKeown.

Scarlett was last seen at 4am in a bar surrounded by several men. Witnesses say she was totally off her head on ecstasy and cocaine.

That kind of behaviour would have made her vulnerable in her home town back in Devon, let alone in a culture where Western girls are all too readily viewed as sexually available.

Forgive me for being a boringly conventional bourgeois mum, but what the hell were Fiona MacKeown and her partner thinking of taking seven kids on a six-month "dream trip" to India - and then leaving one of them to fend for herself? Why wasn't Scarlett in school studying for her GCSEs?

Far be it from me to interrupt such an 'eloquent' rant, but I was under the impression that the children were homeschooled? But then, research isn't Pearson's strong point. Granted, I have yet to find what is.

The loss of any child must be a horror beyond imagining. But there is something about Fiona MacKeown that makes me want to scream at the TV.

Not an ounce of doubt or regret seems to weigh on this laid-back woman. She told reporters that she had counted every mark on Scarlett's body.

"There were almost 50 bruises and abrasions. She has clearly been battered and assaulted. I feel vindicated."

Vindicated? For crying out loud! Any normal person would be tearing out their own hair with grief and remorse.

Mrs MacKeown says her one consolation is that she's "got some photographs of [Scarlett] having a fabulous time".

She still doesn't get it, does she? Fiona MacKeown is an unrepentant member of the Me Generation, one of those people who would rather be a best mate than a parent.

It's more fun being a friend to your kids and, quite frankly, a lot less hassle.

You don't have to fight daily battles over bedtimes and body piercings. And if you have a row with your "mate" you can storm off, unlike an old-fashioned authority figure who has to weather the storm and stay put always and forever.

This week, John Dunford, head of the Association of Schools and College Leaders, warned that schools are the only moral framework in many children's lives.

With the erosion of traditional family life, parents are no longer giving their offspring basic social skills or a sense of right and wrong.

It's a bleak picture that brings to mind W.B. Yeats's great poem about a world where the natural order of things has catastrophically broken down: "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;/Mere anarchy is loosed, and everywhere/The ceremony of innocence is drowned."

For parents who are poor and ground down by work, or the lack of it, there may be some excuse. But articulate, middle-class people should know better.

Since Scarlett's brutal killing, Fiona MacKeown has fought for her daughter. Would that she had exercised half that dedication and sense of responsibility while Scarlett was still alive and in need of a mother's care.

Contrast this with the unwavering support she has shown for the McCanns. As an example, I have chosen thisarticle, again from the Daily Mail:

I refuse to believe the McCanns are guilty

[snip lots of guff about how Kate McCann's life is hell, far more so than any other mother who has lost a child]

As if that weren't bad enough, the police and social services have just held a meeting to discuss the future of your two-year-old twins in the light of allegations against you and your husband.

Sean and Amelie McCann taken into care?

My stomach actually churned at the thought that Kate might lose the babies who have given her a reason to get out of bed and generally pretend to go on living since she and Gerry lost Madeleine.

So leaving 18-month-old twins and a 4 year old child alone is fine (actually, I'd call it a 'dereliction of duty'), but trusting guardians with your 15 year old child isn't?

[snip more mindless crap]
Imagine how thrilled those literally clueless Portuguese cops were to be handed some inconclusive DNA evidence they could talk up to scapegoat the British visitors who had become such a pain in the backside.

So Portuguese police are capable of such a ploy, whereas Goan police aren't?

[snip more bollocks that reveals nothing more than Pearson's lack of knowledge of anything about Kafka other than his name]
Gerry is described as controlling and unemotional. As for Kate, she attracts suspicion for the sin of being nicely turned out. I actually heard one man complain that she wore a different, clean T- shirt every day and matching earrings.

In this post-Diana age, people want proof of grief. They don't want dignity or faith or an attempt to keep up appearances, even if you are collapsing inside.

'Not an ounce of doubt or regret seems to weigh on this laid-back woman.''Any normal person would be tearing out their own hair with grief and remorse.' Nuff said.

[snip how Pearson then hypocritically goes on to favourably judge the McCanns on their appearance]
Can anyone really believe that woman killed the child she went through two gruelling years of IVF to conceive?

That she then hid the small body and strolled down with her husband to enjoy dinner with friends?

That Gerry and Kate, devoted parents by all accounts, loaded Madeleine's decaying body into the boot of a hire car four weeks later while they were busy courting the international media to help find their child?

Can you credit it? Of course not. The allegation is not just revolting. It is surreal.

Whatever you may think about the error they made in leaving their children alone that night, these people are not Fred and Rose West.

So they made an 'error' in leaving their helpless children alone? Whereas Fiona MacKeown showed a 'dereliction of duty' in trying to allow her child to grow up. Similarly, Pearson has howled about how Shannon Matthews' mother didn't raise the alarm until 7pm when her 9 year old daughter failed to return from school.

I'm obviously at a disadvantage, since I'm not a 'boringly conventional bourgeois mum', but I can easily imagine how both of these parents ended up in the positions they were in. When I was a very naive 19 year old (far more naive than 15 year old Scarlett), I went around France on my own, getting into all sorts of scrapes. My mother let that happen - and it was good she did. She also let me go on school holidays to France at 11 and Germany at 14, in the care of teachers she barely knew. When I was 9, I walked home alone from school. Had I gone missing, I fully expect my mother would have checked around my friends' houses and gone looking for me herself before calling the Police. Being a parent is about gradually allowing your children more freedom, gradually letting them learn how to grow up.

What neither I nor my mother would ever in a million years have done is leave our tiny children alone, only being checked on every half hour (if they actually were). Not because of abduction fears, but because I would worry that for all I knew, my precious children could be crying for half an hour before I came to them. That thought obviously never bothered the McCanns.

Too late, they come over all concerned for their missing child, and are constantly in the news doing all they can to find her. The dullard Pearson's last comment on Ms MacKeown is far more applicable to the McCanns: 'Would that [they] had exercised half that dedication and sense of responsibility while [Madeleine] was still alive and in need of a [parent]'s care'

Comments

February Books

2008-03-04T15:27:50+01:00

Couples by John Updike

I couldn’t get into this book at first, and I’m still not sure of the reason for the first section, except for introducing us to Piet Hanema, the horrible main character of this novel, a colourless and motiveless man. But I’m glad I stuck with it.

With the second section we get to know more about the other four Tarbox couples, who socialise and commit adultery in a seemingly endless round. The other characters are far more engaging than Piet, and the most interesting of all is Foxy, who has just moved to Tarbox with her husband Ken.

Whilst Piet would seem to be the character we are meant to sympathise with, Foxy is far more complex and becomes the prime mover in the novel. Where Piet is passive, she is proactive.

The relationships between all the couples are complex, and the story is captivating once you are fully in it. Updike likes his descriptions, of weather, scenery, houses, interiors even. The scenic and weather descriptions are effective, they draw you in further, but I found myself becoming annoyed to read yet more about someone else’s wallpaper and sofa when I want to know who’s going to flirt with who, and who’s going to find out. But on the whole a really worthwhile read, and this is a writer who at least credits his readers with being able to see what he’s getting at without spelling it out.
(81/100)

The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards

Kim Edwards would seem to be the wordier sister of Sue Monk Kidd, and that’s saying something. It’s an interesting story of an panicky decision taken by a doctor that affects him and his family for the rest of his life. But it’s ruined by unsympathetic characterisation, over explanation and being dragged out too long. It’s also annoying when phrases that are initially strikingly beautiful are repeated throughout the novel until the become cliché; for instance ‘the silverfish’ of vision when someone is feeling faint.
(68/100)

The Risk of Darkness by Susan Hill

I’d read ‘Air and Angels’ by Susan Hill many years ago, and remembered it as being a thought provoking, well-written novel. I picked this up in the ‘crime’ section of the library whilst checking for some Ian Rankin, and wondered if it was the same author. According to the list at the front of the book, it was. You’d never guess from the writing.

It is written in the style of a workmanlike crime thriller. But the crime is incidental, and the thrills are pretty few and far between. Apparently (according to Susan Hill’s fans), this isn’t meant to be a crime thriller at all, but some kind of family saga, centring around Simon Serrailler, who happens to be a detective. Yet the characters are made of cardboard, and though the family is the only link between the two main strands of the book, I didn’t care enough about any of them for it to make a difference. So in effect, the storylines were disparate and not interesting enough in themselves to make reading the book worthwhile.

There was one interesting and surprising twist, but where we could have had an interesting insight into the mind of a serial killer, or the policeman in charge of the case, or the effect on the families and friends of any of these, or even some kind of examination into the nature of death, we just have a pointless meandering pair of tales, haphazardly dragging in multiple poorly-delineated characters.

I never did find out the relevance of the woman who died of CJD, her husband, and the whole of that storyline, except to give Hill something to do with Simon’s tediously virtuous sister.

The serial killer is found due to chance and the bodies needed for a successful prosecution are discovered by (cliché alert) a dog. Simon Serrailler might as well not have bothered to go to work for the whole of the book. I really wish I hadn’t bothered reading it.
(35/100)

Foundation by Isaac Asimov

More philosophy than sci-fi in a way, especially as the technology is pretty 50s-inspired. Although it’s set way in the future, in a time when the origins of the human race are forgotten, it’s actually an examination of the nature of empires, and what happens when they decay. It introduces the concept of psychohistory, and looks at how one man used this to shape the future. We witness, over the span of almost a thousand years, several crises of the Foundation he creates, and how these are resolved. On the way, the book examines the role of religion, trade, heredity, science and politics on shaping society. Each section takes the form of a short story, interlinked with the others. Really interesting, even if you’re not into sci-fi usually.
(79/100)

Comments

So who's a Quack now?

2008-02-26T15:29:00+01:00

We'll all have heard the news this morning that Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) are only as effective as placebo in the treatment of depression, so I'll not choose any particular news article to comment on, although the research paper is available online at the PLoS Medicine website.

What has been really interesting to me is the reaction this metanalysis has received from the 'scientific' and mental health world.

For many of us, this is old news: many published papers which claimed to find a treatment effect for Prozac in particular actually did nothing of the sort when you read them properly. Of course, most doctors don't have time to read the research, so they just read the blurb from the drug companies.

Yet now here we have a decent metanalysis (I'm taking it at face value as I haven't had time to scrutinise it properly myself!) which is saying the same thing many of us have been saying for years, and all the medical folk on the news this morning were defending the drugs in the face of the evidence. How very different to their attitudes when research on homoeopathy is published: pro- evidence is summarily discounted and anti-evidence is quoted as gospel, whatever the methodological flaws: and let's not forget there's a paucity of research done on alternative/complemenary therapies, because there's no money in it for the big research funders - drug companies.

It's to be expected that Marjorie Wallace, the chief executive of MIND, would say, : "If these results were upheld in further studies, they would be very disturbing. If validated, this research would mean that psychological therapies would be the only available treatments for the majority of people, but these do not work for everyone, particularly those with severe clinical depression.These results are focused on clinical effectiveness rather than health risks." It's the sort of fudge you'd expect from someone who has never been what you'd describe as a boat-rocker. What is more disturbing is when she says, "It is important that people should not stop taking the anti-depressants immediately, as doing so could lead to severe rebound depression." What further evidence is needed that she is in the pocket of the drug companies than her description of a withdrawal symptom as being a 'rebound depression'. Call it what it is, woman!

Drugs have always been the easy option in mental health, and because of the placebo effect they often work: especially since the placebo effect is greatest in those drugs that have the most and worst side-effects. Many of the drugs used in mental health (not SSRIs) also have the effect of tranquilising the user, so that they are far less hassle to their families, neighbours and carers (hence, I suspect, Marjorie Wallace's fandom).

More interestingly, in the face of this evidence, what do the drug companies say? A spokesman for SmithKlineGlaxo, makers of Seroxat, says the results are, "at odds with what has been seen in actual clinical practice". These were almost exactly the words of Dr Hillary Jones on GMTV too.

Yet according to the 'scientific' skeptics (dictionary definition: person with a mind closed to anything it is too small to comprehend), the evidence of clinical practice is meaningless and pointless, and to be disregarded in the face of pure research.

So for a laugh, I went over to Quackwatch this morning. Surprisingly it has nothing to say about these medicines, even though they cause severe side-effects (such as suicide) in some patients, and have withdrawal effects. Of course, Stephen Barrett is far too busy exposing the scammery of something like craniosacral therapy, which has no side-effects at all (aside perhaps from lightening your wallet if you don't get it on the NHS), to be bothering with a huge quack like the drugs industry.

Luckily I've never worked with anyone so small-minded, and even the most sceptical of psychiatrists (that would be Dr Moffoot) would refer patients to me for craniosacral therapy when all else failed, because they saw the results for themselves. I have no objection to being called a quack, so long as the definition is fair, and applies to anyone using a method of questionable efficacy, not just those that certain self-appointed 'quackbusters' don't understand.

After all, it was the quackbusters of the time who drove Semmelweis to madness and delayed the implementation of hand-washing in medical care. Whatever way you look at it, a stubborn refusal to even consider the possible efficacy of something purely because the explanation for its mode of action isn't immediately apparent is anything but scientific.

Comments

title-3749959

2008-02-19T14:20:26+01:00

Black Swan Green by David Mitchell>

I enjoyed Cloud Atlas, and this was just as good, in a totally different way. It's quite reminiscent and influenced by The Catcher in The Rye, but this book is set in the Malverns, in the 1980s. Anyone who grew up during the 80s will recognise the references (actually, you get the impression that some are put in because Mitchell's done the research, so he's gonna use it: but nowhere near as intrusively as Maria McCann and her ilk), and anyone who's read Cloud Atlas has a little treat in store (I'll say no more, don't wanna spoil the surprise).

It's an easy read, a page-turner, that has you hooked, and Mitchell's real skill is that the story is so thoroughly told from Jason's point of view that you don't see the end coming, because he doesn't. The indications are there from the start, but you are so caught up in Jason's life and problems (his stammer, his struggles to be cool, his family concerns etc) that you forget them as you go along. So for once I was surprised at the 'twist' that really isn't a twist, the total reverse of my usual situation (I truly didn't notice there was a twist in Sixth Sense!)
(90/100)

The Other Side of You by Sally Vickers

This is another author I'd previously enjoyed, having read Mr Golightly's Holiday, which was my second-favourite fiction book of 1996. This book surpasses that one to become one of my favourite books of all time. I would have loved to read it again straight away, there were so many little strands going on. A psychiatrist becomes involved with one of his patients, who herself had an affair which ultimately resulted in her attempted suicide.

Vickers' descriptions of unhappy relationships ring utterly true, as do her descriptions of psychotherapy and psychiatric patients, which has to be a first in my experience. The book is beautifully written, moving, but not sentimental. If anyone is ever tempted to read chick-lit, don't bother and read this instead. It's just as easy to read, far more enthralling, and a hundred times more worthy of your time and money.
(96/100)

The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd

This doesn't quite live up to The Secret Life of Bees, but it's worth a read anyway. Jessie Sullivan has an affair with a monk when she has to return to an isolated island to care for her mother, who is acting a bit weird. Eventually we find out why, and it's no big surprise. I really liked the central storyline of Jessie and the monk, I loved the little insight from her psychiatrist husband half way through, but the book feels over-written, and unsatisfying at the end. And what is it with US women writers that they are only satified if they've introduced some sort of 'ethnic' feel? I also don't like the way she hits me over the head with how clever she is: 'oooh look, you probably missed what I was alluding to there, so I'd better tell you in black and white, thicko'. I hate that!!
(86/100)

Falling by Olivia Liberty

An interesting first novel. Excellent in the beginning, one third too long. Once you realise why Toby Doubt's girlfriend has left, it really feels like we need to speed to the conclusion, as the driving force of the novel is lost. The characters, previously comic, at times touching, become caricatures. What was an interesting look at a disturbed mind becomes cruel farce. And there is some really weird punctuation and phrasing going on, which I initially thought was meant to somehow be indicative of Toby's state of mind, until I came to a really tortuous attempt at avoiding the so-called split infinitive that made me realise what was really needed here was a decent editor. I'll read her next book though
(70/100)

Comments

It's not fair, but that's life

2008-01-30T11:51:55+01:00

From BBC News

Lords rule on Lotto rapist victim

A victim of millionaire rapist Iorworth Hoare is due to find out whether she has won her 20-year fight for compensation from her attacker.

Previously lawyers for the woman, known as Mrs A, said they were optimistic the House of Lords would make a landmark ruling in favour of her appeal.

Hoare, 53, was jailed for life in May 1989 for the attempted rape of Mrs A in Roundhay Park, Leeds.

That's the first thing that's not fair: people who are jailed for life should stay in jail until they are dead. For some crimes (such as murder, repeated rape offences etc) rehabilitation and release are not appropriate. It shouldn't matter whether a person is later judged to be no longer a danger to society, because the crimes they have committed in the past are so bad that they require ongoing punishment (lack of liberty) as a deterrent to others and as a reassurance to the rest of society that life and personal safety are of value. If life meant life, the capital punishment lobby would be deprived of one of its arguments. Of course, the crappy government might have to build more prisons...

He won £7m when he bought a lottery ticket while on day release from jail.

Hoare was also jailed several times for a string of sex attacks, including rape, two attempted rapes and three indecent assaults, during the 1970s and 1980s.

He now lives in a £700,000 mansion in Ponteland, Northumberland.

Historic claims

In 2005, a High Court judge ruled that a compensation claim by Mrs A was outside the legal six-year limit. The Appeal Court upheld that decision.

The Law Lords have been examining whether it is fair to preclude claims six years after an attack, or, in child abuse cases, more than six years after the victim reaches 18.

A ruling in favour of Mrs A could pave the way for thousands of actions by victims of sex abuse to make historic claims against their attackers, some dating back many years.

Mrs A was awarded £5,000 from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board after she was attacked by Hoare in 1988.

She was ordered to pay his legal fees after unsuccessful attempts to bring a case for compensation in the High Court and Court of Appeal.

This doesn't sound very fair either. This case is of importance to the whole legal system and our democracy, so it's pretty rough on her that she's supposed to then give money to her millionaire near-rapist.

However, the whole idea of being able to claim at any time isn't a good one, I think. Again, if life meant life, maybe Mrs A wouldn't be looking for compensation, since she says in The Times:

“I decided to take this claim forward in order to fight for justice for myself but, far more importantly, for others who will also face similar injustice in the face of an unfair and out-of-date legal statute.”

Although it seems odd that Mrs A only decided to seek compensation when she heard of his lottery win. The Times goes on to say:

Mrs A still suffers nightmares. Now in her late 70s, Mrs A has said that the brutality of the attack destroyed her confidence and left her with lasting psychiatric injury.

A time limit on compensation claims is good for the victim as well as the perpetrator. I don't see how money can bring closure to anyone. Yes, it must be gutting for Mrs A to see the scum who attacked her luxuriating in his mansion, but how will any amount of money change what happened to her? How can money make her feel better?

It's like we tell children: life isn't fair. Holding on to the past is no way to have a happy future. Money isn't the be-all and end-all, and it's certainly no substitute for real justice: which would be Hoare in jail until he's dead, and Mrs A moving on with her life and not letting him affect it any longer.

Comments

Shock at 'Pope is Catholic' Announcement

2008-01-21T12:07:17+01:00

So finally the 'scientific' community is admitting what we knew all along - from Medscape

Study Identifies Bias in Favor of Publishing Positive Antidepressant Trials
Marlene Busko

January 17, 2008
A study of Food and Drug Administration (FDA)–registered clinical trials of 12 antidepressants found a bias toward publication of positive results. Almost all studies viewed by the FDA as positive were published. The clinical trials that the FDA deemed negative or questionable were largely not published or, in some cases, were published as positive outcomes.

For each of the 12 drugs, at least 1 study was not published or was reported in the literature as positive despite a conflicting judgment by the FDA.

The overall effect size of the antidepressants (vs placebo) that was reported in the published literature was nearly one-third larger than the effect size for these agents that was derived from FDA data.

"Selective reporting of clinical-trial results may have adverse consequences for researchers, study participants, healthcare professionals, and patients," they conclude.

These findings are published in the January 17 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.[snip]

'Evidence Based Medicine' is currently the be-all and end-all of clinical practice. This is problematical anyway in that whilst it is fine to accept that spending money on unproven treatments, it isn't accpetable to throw the baby out with the bathwater by refusing to fund treatments which are poorly or un- researched. Something like physiotherapy intervention is especially difficult to research, because so much of it is down to choosing the right treatment for the right patient, which is something that comes with practice. Evidence based medicine doesn't allow for any status to be given to treatments which are based on clinical experience.

As an example we can look at the application of heat treatment in low back pain. This is something that physiotherapists and others often do, yet there is very little evidence that it works (or doesn't work), according to the Cochrane Collaboration. Looking at the papers they have used to conclude this, we find that they are deemed poor quality because they are not all the 'gold standard' of randomised (patients randomly assigned to the intervention or control group) controlled (treatment group versus placebo) trials. Yet in clinical practice, my experience has been that it is pointless using heat therapy in anyone other than frail elderly ladies with a history of previous back pain and previous successful heat therapy, in which case it is more effective than anything else. But who will fund a randomised controlled trial of heat therapy on such people? How long would it take to find a suitable amount of patients to make a meaningful sample? Who would care about the results?

This is why treatment efficacy is usually decided on mass samples of lots of different people, thus hiding any efficacy for particular groups of people, or indeed for individuals. As physiotherapists, we are always urged to treat people holistically, to consider them as whole people. In practice this doesn't happen in the NHS, where taking a 'social history' usually means asking if the patient has stairs. Could it be that evidence based practice is making professionals even less likely to treat patients as individuals by leading them to disregard their own clinical experience?

I'm all for evidence based practice (strangely in psychiatry the evidence base is ignored when it comes to choosing between drugs or other treatments): but the evidence base has to be unbiased (which the above would seem to suggest isn't the case), and clinical experience shouldn't be discounted as evidence too.

Comments

December's Books

2008-01-16T14:44:10+01:00

The Nightwatch by Sarah Waters

This book is set in 1940s London and follows the entwining stories of Kay, Julia and Helen, Viv and Reggie, and Viv's brother Duncan. Their stories are told in the three chunks of the book, which work backwards in time, so that we learn how the characters reached the positions they are in at the beginning of the book, in 1947.

It's an easy book to read, and kept me engaged thorughout, although the final, 1940, chunk came as a slight let-down compared to the drama of the 1944 section. And somehow Duncan's story never feels part of the rest of the book.

The characters are alive, although Helen and Duncan are the weakest. 1940s London is vividly described, but unobtrusively so: there is no description for the sake of it, none of the 'I've done my research and I'm gonna use it' feel that ruins so many other period books (Maria McCann and the execrable 'As Meat For Salt' for instance).

This was my first Waters book, and I'll definitely be reading more.
(84/100)

The Virago Book of Ghost Stories by Richard Dalby (ed)

This is a really good book for Christmas reading. The tales are spooky and atmospheric rather than scary, but if you like ghost stories, particularly MR James or EF Banson, you'll enjoy these.
(73/100)

So this means that according to my scoring my book of 2007 was The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer, although in retrospect the book I think I liked the best and am most likely to read again is Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

Comments

July Books

2007-12-22T13:03:47+01:00

At last, the last catch-up of books from this year:

The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer
I really can't recommend this one highly enough. It is engaging, emotional and strangely believable, given the subject matter. For Max Tivoli lives his life backwards: or rather, he is born an old man, and becomes physically younger as he chronologically ages. It's also a moving love story, and it got to me the same way as The Great Gatsby does, because of that longing the author portrays so vividly.

Although it's a clever book, it's never self-conciously so. The narrator is so very human, it feels like a very personal book, and for that reason it pips The Dream of Scipio to be my favourite book of the year. It also contains a quote that has stayed with me all year, 'we are each the love of someone's life.'
(94.5/100)

Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult

Another Picoult novel, another annoying heroine, another courtroom drama, another good idea imperfectly executed. This one involves the Amish. I think she's slowly working her way through each and every US minority population.
(50/100)

As Meat Loves Salt by Maria McCann

I couldn't be bothered to read this book properly. It's a door-stop in hardback, and no wonder. McCann has done her research, and so she's gonna use it! Hence lengthy descriptions of everything from housing to a bloody marriage feast that had me asleep twice before I finished it (without a word of a lie). The protagonist, Jacob, seems to be an interesting character: a murderer so desperately in love with his wife of an hour that he beats and rapes her. But not interesting enough for me to wade through the turgid prose. So I skim read it, and was glad I hadn't wasted my time. This character is motiveless, from what I can see, just randomly acts out violence against those he supposedly loves (and those he doesn't), yet narrates as though he's Michael Palin (though who knows what darkness may lurk under THAT genial exterior!).

If you want to read about a violent, sexually-ambiguous maniac, American Psycho is at least well-written. If you want to sleep with irritatingly irrelevent details of the Civil War whizzing around your brain, you might want to try this.
(5/100)

Comments

June's Books

2007-12-14T11:52:21+01:00

More book catching up:

Fangland by John Marks

I read three books this month and this was the weakest, but it is still absolutely cracking. It's the story of how a vampire tries to take over the world through the medium of television. Which sounds as bizarre as it is, but the engaging central character means there is always a personal element tying the reader into the story. There's a nd to Bram Stoker in the way that the story is told from differing viewpoints and in different forms (diary, e-mail etc). The suspense is maintained throughout the story, and the ending is no disappointment.
(84/100)

The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld
Another excellent book. Psychotherapy meets thriller as Freud visits the USA. There's a murder, a near-murder, and a love story. The wekness of the novel is its denoument, because it was pretty obvious all the way through. I'd have liked more of a twist. I'd also have liked a more realistic depiction of Jung, who is particularly monstrous in this book. Freud, in contrast, is a genial old chap, and I somehow think the reverse would be nearer the truth.
(86/100)

The Testament of Gideon Mack by James Robertson
This was the best book of the month, and the questions it raised don't go away. Did the minister really meet the devil? If he did, is the devil as bad as he appears? Is God as good? Or was Gideon Mack merely insane?
(89/100)

Comments

Another New Labour Idiot Speaks

2007-12-14T11:30:22+01:00

From the Daily Mail:

Chief medical officer wants hospitals 'fined if they harm patients'

Hospitals should be fined if they harm patients, the Government's chief medical officer said yesterday.

Sir Liam Donaldson also suggested that hospitals where patients contracted superbugs could have to pay for any extra treatment.

At the launch of a report by the National Patient Safety Agency, he said: "Why should the Health Service, funded by the taxpayer, pay for the care of a patient that's had bad care?

"In any other walk of life if you receive very bad service then you don't pay for it, you get a refund, and I don't think it should be any different in the Health Service.

He's obviously never heard of Ryanair. Or Local Government. Or New Labour. I've received terrible service from this government, which has lost my personal details, including everything needed for someone to steal my identity and my child's. It has also reneged on promises to improve educational standards, and has gone 90% of the way to privatising the NHS when it promised it wouldn't. Where's my refund, Sir Liam?

The NHS, like government, is NOT a business, and it wastes money to run it as such. It is a public service. Like the railways, privatising it will create greater expense for the service users, with more safety and service problems.

"If somebody develops MRSA and has to stay in hospital longer to be treated, why should it be funded?"

He said that in the U.S., some states require hospitals by law to report medical errors.

Last month, Rhode Island Hospital was fined 50,000 dollars for performing "wrong site" surgery on a patient for the third time this year.

Sir Liam said similar systems should be brought in here which would act as an "incentive" for hospitals to provide better care.

When I began working in the NHS in the mid-80s, we often had visits from US healthcare managers who wanted to see how the NHS achieved so much on so little funding. They didn't take on much, because as businesses it wouldn't work. Everyone just mucked in, we were poorly funded, but basically we were left to get on with the job as we saw fit. There was a feeling that everyone was in it together: our hospital managers were well-known faces who were often on the wards and understood the difficulties faced by staff. We knew they'd help if they could, but were cash-strapped.

This isn't suitable for a business model, which is what the US healthcare system is. Fundholding managers want to feel in control because they have to report back to shareholders and make profit. Yet they are way distanced from their staff. Those making the financial decisions may never have seen a ward, they are relying on reports and statistics. So endless time is taken collecting data and meeting targets that are clinically pointless.

Primary care trusts could withhold some of the funding due to the hospital for the care of the individual affected, Sir Liam said.

So a hospital that is obviously already struggling will be made to struggle more. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to realise that this will only make infection rates and other tragedies resulting from malfunding even worse.

Malfunding is probably the best word to use, even if it might be a made up one. The NHS is now gobbling up resources, but the money is disappearing into the gaping maw of financial mismanagement, funding givernment targets and staff demoralisation: there's no feeling of wanting to muck in any more (eg by working routine unpaid overtime, not taking holiday, and working outside of job description) because for staff it is now them against the managers, who are seen as the agents of Government.

He would be recommending the idea to Lord Darzi, who is carrying out a review of the NHS.

Data from the NPSA revealed there were more than 700,000 "patient safety incidents" in the NHS in 2006/07.

In total, 6,558 incidents resulted in severe harm and another 40,665 caused moderate harm to patients. There were 2,929 deaths.

Last night the Department of Health insisted that it would not be taking forward Sir Liam's proposal to fine hospitals for poor quality care.

I suppose we should be thankful for small mercies.

But it added that under the NHS "operating framework" unveiled yesterday, PCTs would be able to charge hospital trusts if they failed to stick to locally-defined targets to reduce C.diff rates.

Charges would also apply to trusts which breached an 18-week waiting time target, due to be implemented by the end of next year.

Because it is so very important that one shouldn't wait more than 18 weeks to have one's ongrowing toenail removed. And an 18-week wait for a breast cancer operation really isn't anything to complain about.

Why the fuck don't the government piss off meddling in the NHS and go and do something useful, like looking for those missing computer discs, or even better, trying to find their long-discarded socialist principles?

Comments

Amy Winehouse: with family like hers.....

2007-12-12T14:26:40+01:00

Sorry to go back to Amy Winehouse again, but you can sort of see why the poor girl is a mess.

It's been my experience that those who abuse their bodies with drugs, drink etc, have one thing in common: problems within their family which result in them becoming 'the identified patient'. I include my own family in this, so I'm not being as arsey as I sound!

So it really pisses me off when I see or hear that publicity seeking father of hers pontificating about her all the time. He's been at it again this week, all over the papers and sounding off on Radio One about how she needs to/is going to rehab. And then there's his 'fight' with Pete Doherty. It's not Pete Doherty who brought her up.

Maybe if Mitch didn't feel so guilty and didn't feel such a need to justify himself, he'd be better able to deal with his daughter's problems in a way that might help her.

Comments

May's Books

2007-12-12T14:14:52+01:00

Really trying to catch up on my year's books now or we'll be into 2008 before I've finished my reviews for 2007.

Refuge by Gillian White
I really like Gillian White. She writes with suspense and an unobtrusive style that is still atmospheric. This is typical of her stuff, and the way she describes the emotions of Shelley, a mother whose son is accused of the motiveless killing of a baby, is brilliant. The family find themselves having to move from their home out to the country to escape the lynch mobs, and of course, there is more to the tale than meets the eye. Well worth reading.
(62/100)

An Empty Room by Talitha Stevenson
I loved this book. Stevenson captures exactly how it feels to be a young woman, in summer, in love with someone you shouldn't be. It's a short book, so no excuse not to read it!
(85/100)

Catch Me When I Fall by Nicci French
Typical workmanlike thriller, but as is so usual for me, I saw the 'twist' coming from pretty much the start, and it wasn't even difficult, given that French seemed to be telegraphing it from the start. The depiction of bipolar disorder was quite good though.
(53/100)

Comments

November Books

2007-12-04T15:35:16+01:00

I've got a feeling I read another book this month but I can't for the life of me remember it!

Shopping For God by Roland Howard
This non-fiction book has the author trying out lots of different religious practices. It's an entertaining book, but ultimately pretty unsatisfying, because he gives the same short shrift to any and all religious practices he encounters, from Fundamentalist Christianity to Druidism to Buddhism to naturist commune dwellers.

It comes across as very much an exercise in journalism rather than a genuine quest to find spirituality. Howard refuses to throw himself into any of the practices, even for a short time. He always remains an observer, and that is a problem, because it is only by becoming a true participant and throwing yourself into it that you truly experience rituals, faiths and ways of life. You're not really experiencing a druidic ritual unless you are throwing yourself into it, heart and soul. You're not really able to understand the thrall fundamentalist christians find themselves in unless you suspend your disbelief and allow yourself to feel the fear of hell fires.

Since Howard didn't do this, we cannot properly judge the benefits and dangers of his experiences within the different faith groups. It's a shame Howard didn't realise this, because the concept of the book was excellent.
(45/100)

Resurrection Men by Ian Rankin
I've ended up reading two Rebus novels in three months this year, mainly due to the poor selection of books available at the local library (unless you are into romances and family sagas, but I tired of Catherine Cookson in my twenties). This one is by far the better of the two. It has at least three main strands of story going on: Rebus is sent for retraining after a petulant outburst has him throwing tea at his DCI. He and his compatriots are assigned a cold case, but not all of them are unconnected to it. Meantime Shiobhan is investigating the murder of an art dealer, and the Scottish Crime Squad are trying to send down Rebus' old 'friend' Big Ger Cafferty.

This book surprised me by how well-structured it was in comparison to the other Rebus books I've read. They're always entertaining, but this one actually surprised me, as I didn't see the ending coming at all.
It's not literature, but it's bloody entertaining.
(61/100)

Snow Blind by PJ Tracy
This is the third PJ Tracy book I've read, and it's my favourite so far, not least because the supremely irritating Grace McBride, heroine of the other novels I've read, has been pushed into the background at last, and the action centres on the detective team, Gino and Maggozzi. I simply like these two far more than I liked any of the Monkeewrench computer whizzes who dominate her other novels.

This book has you hooked from the opening. It's a real page-turner, especially once the first murder is revealed. It really is a stomach churner, and gets worse the more you think about it!

HOWEVER - it has to be said the outcome is predictable. Some may have found it otherwise, but anyone who reads as many thrillers as me will have it sussed by the half-way mark, if not sooner. Even so, it's interesting to see how the detectives get to the same point, and the suspense is maintained by other aspects of the plot.
(58/100)

Comments

Your God Is Too Small

2007-11-27T14:44:03+01:00

From The Guardian

Teacher on blasphemy charge over 'Muhammad' teddy bear
James Sturcke and agencies
Monday November 26, 2007

A British primary school teacher has been arrested in Sudan accused of blasphemy for allowing her pupils to name a teddy bear Muhammad, it emerged today.

Gillian Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, was arrested yesterday at her home inside Unity high school, a British international school, after a number of parents made a complaint to Sudan's education ministry.

The school's director, Robert Boulos, said Gibbons had since been charged with blasphemy, an offence he said was punishable with up to three months in prison and a fine.

Gibbons's colleagues told Reuters they feared for her safety after receiving reports that young men had already started gathering outside the Khartoum police station where she was being held.

Boulos said Gibbons was following a national curriculum course designed to teach young pupils about animals and their habitats. This year's animal was the bear.[snip]

Boulos said he had decided to close down the school until January for fear of reprisals in Sudan's predominantly Muslim capital. "This is a very sensitive issue," he said.

"We are very worried about her safety," he added. "This was a completely innocent mistake. Miss Gibbons would have never wanted to insult Islam."

Unity, an independent school founded in 1902, is governed by a board representing the main Christian denominations in Sudan but teaches both Christians and Muslims aged four to 18.

I've nicked the title of this piece from a book by JB Phillips that I read years ago. IIRC, his main premise is that we imagine our gods as being just like us,or like parts of us, such as the 'Inner Policeman' or the 'Managing Director'. I long ago left behind Christianity for this very reason. The Christian god is too small, and I couldn't find a way to enlarge him without removing the Old Testament from my Bible completely - thus not being Christian at all.

So what sort of god is so small-minded that She gives a shit what you name a teddy? I've said it before, but I'm not averse to repeating myself, so I'll say it again: how small must god be if She cares about the insults of humans? If He wants us to love him? I They need our praise?

Instead, it is us, using 'god' as an excuse to inflict our own petty concerns on others. A handy excuse for violence, intimidation and bullying of others.

All is One and One is God. So when we get stupid enough to get violent with eachother, THAT is when we are offending god. It's like sitting there while your leg tries to break off from your hip. That's why all religions emphasise love, underneath all the human errors in translation and made up stuff.

So everyone do what you like, so long as you don't harm anyone else (that's 'harm', not 'offend', because some people can be very nit-picky and prickly).

Comments

Ohhh, how we love a good panic!

2007-11-21T12:45:23+01:00

From BBC News:

UK's families put on fraud alert

Two computer discs holding the personal details of all families in the UK with a child under 16 have gone missing.

The Child Benefit data on them includes name, address, date of birth, National Insurance number and, where relevant, bank details of 25 million people.

Chancellor Alistair Darling said there was no evidence the data had gone to criminals - but urged people to monitor bank accounts "for unusual activity".

The Conservatives described the incident as a "catastrophic" failure. [snip]

Now this is pretty serious stuff, and I'm one of the people affected. I certainly will be keeping a good eye on my bank account and my finances in general, and I'll be aware that my identity could be stolen at any time now, ever, even in the future when I'm dead - should this data fall into the wrong hands.

HOWEVER, I'm very suspicious at the way in which the media coverage seems to be designed to send us all into mass panic. On Breakfast we have presenter encouragin us to email in saying how worried we are. On Radio 1 we have a woman ranting irrationally that this is the worst thing that could possibly happen to her family (has she never heard of death?). Anyone would think the information was known to have been given to gangs of thugs intent on stealing children.

And meantime, sneakily overlooked, is the matter of why was this data being sent from one department to another in the first place? It was obviously required by a department that wouldn't normally need access to it. WHY?

Oooooh, how very eager I am to put my biometric data on file, so any government department can access it at will, handing it over to any criminal with a tame courier in the process!

Of course, honourable New Labour maintains that this was all down to one errant employee wilfully disregarding protocol. Nothing to do with governmental meddling even though this was surely the main cause of the error. HMRC has been in a complete mess ever since HM Customs and Excise and the Inland Revenue combined in 2005. At the same time there were mass job losses, and we all know it's never the managers who go. In the course of the two years it has taken me to stop tax being taken from my dad's pension at source (he's not a tax payer), I have come across complete incompetence at all levels of HMRC - largely down to a system which breaks up jobs into their separate components. This means that no-one has responsibility for one task from start to finish - and thus no-one has to carry the can if the task is never completed. One of these 'components' is 'opening a letter'. I was honestly told once that 'it's registered on the computer that the letter has been received, but no one has dealt with it yet.' It was even implied that I was lucky the letter had been opened! Is it really surprising that an institution capable of such red-taped jobsworthiness can foul up so comprehensively?

Gordon Brown cannot pretend he doesn't know about this, because I wrote him a rather irate letter at the time putting him in the picture. So if anyone should carry the can, it is him (but of course, like the rest of New Labour, he doesn't respond to mail. And even Thatcher wasn't as discourteous as that).

I really hope this incident puts an end to the ID card proposals. It'll make a lifetime of looking over my shoulder (and my child's) worthwhile.

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Why's the Government So Keen To Protect Blair?

2007-11-09T13:08:43+01:00

Sir Ian Blair's fingertips must be bleeding, he's clinging on to his job so desperately. What I don't understand is why top level government ministers keep on feeling the need to protect him.

Even if he personally had done nothing wrong, he appears to not to have grasped the concept that you can delegate actions but not repsonsibilities. He's at the top, all the orders are his, and he should know how well they are being carried out. If things go wrong and no one else is to blame, then he is. Systems failures are down to him because they are his systems.

But he did personally do wrong. When an innocent man was lying dead with multiple bullets in his head, he treated the family as a nuisance rather than as people who had a right to be angry and expect a grovelling apology and vast compensation. He impeded the investigation iinto the killing. He defended the actions of gunmen who were obviously out of control and in need of retraining (last I knew, one bullet to the brain was enough to disable anyone).

And now he is showing he is entirely without honour in not resigning.

Actually, he's just like the New Labour Government. No wonder they love him (that and their being in the bed with the Police anyway, what with their wish to make this a Police State).

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