STOP THE TRAFFIK

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Evidence

As my course draws to a close over the next few months, I'm in a tizz about providing the portfolios of evidence that prove I can put all the theory I've learnt into practice. I have 11 of these folders to complete and very little time in which to do it. In the meantime, I'm just trying to plow on and with gems like this to provide evidence of:

local and national policies which may affect the work
devise and sustain methods for recording, monitoring and evaluating progress
how theories of working with individuals and groups apply to informal education
aware of the tension between autonomy and accountability

it just doesn't get any easier. I may well use you all to help me with this so if I ask your input on one, give me lots of ideas. Or I may well ask you to sign a sheet of paper that says you've seen me acting in an anti-discriminatory way. Together, we can do this!

Friday, February 24, 2006

Tesco and our freedom to choose



This is an ad for Tesco in this week's Radio Times. Not sure that I need to say anything about this...

Maybe I ought to explain that this is an ad for a chilled syrup sponge pudding and in the top right hand corner is the labelling system that Tesco is using to inform it's customers.
I will try and sharpen up the bottom picture so you can actually see it!

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Taste...

Over several weeks and months I have becoming aware of the place that choice and taste plays in my day to day life. I might start off with "What do I feel like for breakfast this morning?" along with the options for breakfast and lunch that I offer my offspring. "I don't like that" and "Have we got something else?" frequently rear their heads in the morning.
While in Spain, we had limited choice in food: a lack of familiar brands, a lack of Fairtrade items, a desire to purchase things that didn't involve an exchange of communication, etc.
What is it with choice? We had plenty of nice food to eat! Wherever we are, at home or abroad we have more choice than we could possibly need. Why should I have something to eat that I fancy, shouldn't I just make do with what's there? During the war you couldn't choose from veggie sausages, bacon sandwich or fruit for breakfast. People in developing countries don't have a choice necessarily. Why should I automatically assume that I have a right to a choice?
Carl has posted about the reasons people use not to buy Fairtrade products here. It's a good point. We are so used to an aisle full of options that we shirk from being limited to just one choice. Having our right to choice is just the 21st century way of saying "let them eat cake". So long as we're alright Jack it doesn't even occur to us that someone, somewhere had to produce the ingredients that make up our food. There will come a time when water is scarce and fuel scarcer. To truck or freight stuff hundreds of miles will be uneconomical. What will we do then: starve? "I don't like that!" or "I want something else!" won't be options. We are living the high life now and future generations will have to pay for it. Can't the solution be that we limit our choices now and have options in the future? Or are we so blind that we can't project forward to the future possibilities? Grrrr!

:(

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Northern Lights

I have been listening to Northern Lights on my MP3 over the last few days and have been really enjoying it. It's read by Philip Pullman and has a full cast. I have previously read the book and the others that follow it (The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass) but I think I enjoy NL the best. PP handles his subjects in such a non patronising way. It may be a children's book but he doesn't dilute or speak down to the reader which I really like. And he really likes to spin a yarn. I love the armoured bears, daemons, scholars and Gyptians: they all form such a realistic world that you can hear the anbaric lights and feel the pain when a daemon is attacked. The books tackle increasingly complex topics as they progress and by the time we get to the AS, I feel he gets bogged down with his own bugbears and obsessions (eg religion and God) but I will keep on listening to the series and see if this opinion changes...

Saturday, February 11, 2006

The £21 dilemma

I made the mistake of going into Primark and dear reader I must confess, I spent £21. This bought:
  • 1 vest top
  • 2 t-shirts
  • 1 pair of flip flops
  • 6 pack of socks
  • a pack of 10 girls knickers
  • a beach skirt
  • a pack of 5 knickers
  • 10 hairbands

If I had been spending my money ethically I could have bought this in the sale at People Tree.

I really struggle. I want to do the right thing and yet I don't do it. Is wanting to do good and being aware enough?

Friday, February 10, 2006

Hey...

..and why not post it three times- just to prove a point!

Brain mush

I have been mildly worried about myself over the last few weeks really as a high octane combination of deadlines and busyness have resulted in what could be described as burnout but is more accurately termed Brain Mush. Brain Mush is when your brain says "You have abused me for the last time, I give up!". Although it sounds painful, it is actually quite pleasant- you have a light headed feeling of emptiness and a floating feeling that you are totally missing Very Important Things that are going on around you. It means that you think one thing and say another. It requires that you stand there for several minutes unable to move or think. It requires that words don't make sense and don't penetrate what used to be a complex processing machine- ie your brain- it is now officially Mush.

I thought it was a temporary shut down but after two weeks, I believe the effect is permanent. I would like to thank you all now for your friendship and support over the years. I really may not be in a fit state to communicate this for much longer. And don't be worried if you see me with a vacant stare, a wide grin, silently rocking in the corner- I am perfectly well and happy. Just another victim of Brain Mush.

Brain mush

I have been mildly worried about myself over the last few weeks really as a high octane combination of deadlines and busyness have resulted in what could be described as burnout but is more accurately termed Brain Mush. Brain Mush is when your brain says "You have abused me for the last time, I give up!". Although it sounds painful, it is actually quite pleasant- you have a light headed feeling of emptiness and a floating feeling that you are totally missing Very Important Things that are going on around you. It means that you think one thing and say another. It requires that you stand there for several minutes unable to move or think. It requires that words don't make sense and don't penetrate what used to be a complex processing machine- ie your brain- it is now officially Mush.

I thought it was a temporary shut down but after two weeks, I believe the effect is permanent. I would like to thank you all now for your friendship and support over the years. I really may not be in a fit state to communicate this for much longer. And don't be worried if you see me with a vacant stare, a wide grin, silently rocking in the corner- I am perfectly well and happy. Just another victim of Brain Mush.

Brain mush

I have been mildly worried about myself over the last few weeks really as a high octane combination of deadlines and busyness have resulted in what could be described as burnout but is more accurately termed Brain Mush. Brain Mush is when your brain says "You have abused me for the last time, I give up!". Although it sounds painful, it is actually quite pleasant- you have a light headed feeling of emptiness and a floating feeling that you are totally missing Very Important Things that are going on around you. It means that you think one thing and say another. It requires that you stand there for several minutes unable to move or think. It requires that words don't make sense and don't penetrate what used to be a complex processing machine- ie your brain- it is now officially Mush.

I thought it was a temporary shut down but after two weeks, I believe the effect is permanent. I would like to thank you all now for your friendship and support over the years. I really may not be in a fit state to communicate this for much longer. And don't be worried if you see me with a vacant stare, a wide grin, silently rocking in the corner- I am perfectly well and happy. Just another victim of Brain Mush.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

When it's not so bad having the Food Police



The Food Standards Agency know a lot about food. So if they were to advise you to do something to your food, you'd do it, right? No, of course you wouldn't! It might result in you losing your profits and alert people to the fact that your food is actually really crap! Food giants Kraft, Danone, Kelloggs, Nestle and PepsiCo have all rejected advise from the FSA and decided to go with their own labelling system rather than a traffic light system which clearly depicts with a red blob (or multiple blobs) when it contains ingredients that our bodies need very little of or could do without. Why represent something so graphically that will allow us to make informed choices when you could devise a system that might possibly cloud consumers judgement?
The sad fact of the matter is that the FSA has no teeth and can only urge powerful food corporations to adopt a system voluntarily. So, no hope of that happening then!

Full stories here and here.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

What is this blasphemy thing anyway?

No one is safe from ridicule these days, even a deity. You put yourself into the limelight, you have to suffer the consequences of being looked at irreverently. This could be cartoons or a musical show, either way, like it or lump it says the media. It comes under the banner of Freedom of Expression and is one value that society is prepared to fight for-strongly. Which is interesting because it looks like certain factions are willing to take them on in the fight, but in different ways.

Being a Christian, I was interested to see that Jerry Springer the Opera was causing such a stir. I couldn't imagine that a pastiche of the downmarket TV show would sustain a Broadway show. Then I heard it was to be screened on TV, allowing my curiousity to be satisfied without having to pay West End theatre prices. I did feel like a Bad Christian because unlike the Good Christians who sent round circular emails saying how outrageous this was and who we should send our letters of protest to at the BBC, I was planning to watch it (well at least some of it). I have to say when push came to shove, Jerry Springer the Opera did not maintain my interest. It was a one joke pony and I decided that my cosy bed was a better option for the evening. I didn't even get to the blasphemy although I had endured a fair amount of swearing!

I had a chance to redeem myself though when JStO did a tour and came to Norwich Theatre Royal. Did I go and join the protesters? I'm afraid, dear reader, I did not. I must confess that I believe...well it's hard to know what I believe...that my God is bigger than ridicule? Maybe it comes down to that, I don't know. From the BBC news site Stephen Green, national director of Christian Voice, said:

"I find it astonishing that Mark Thompson and David Soul [the show's star] claim they are Christians and they can see nothing wrong with Jerry Springer - The Opera.
What kind of Christians are the sort of people who find mocking God and Jesus Christ acceptable?"

I hang my head in shame. I did not protest, but worse, I really don't believe that protesting about this is something that is a good use of my time or will enlighten people about the true nature of God. My Bad...

Stephen Green goes on to say:
"If this show portrayed Mohammed or Vishnu as homosexual, ridiculous and ineffectual, it would never have seen the light of day."
Ah! Now you are getting there! What difference is there between the reactions of Christians and Muslims to blasphemy? Well, there are protests with placards but I'm guessing that's where the similarities end. 150 protesters, some bearing placards calling for senior BBC staff to be sacked, were gathered outside BBC Television Centre on the Saturday night before JStO was screened. I am unsure how many protesters were gathered outside the Danish embassy but it would appear that many of the placards were asking for retribution not resignations.

In the debate about whether the British press should print/publish/broadcast the cartoons, Peter Arnold commented about the BBC news: "It appears that you are scared of the reaction from Muslims, while you were not concerned about offending Christians when you screened Jerry Springer - The Opera. This is a case of double standards."

Peter Horrocks, the editor of BBC TV News, said there wasn't a direct comparison with the broadcasting of Jerry Springer - The Opera. "The BBC is not the primary publisher of these cartoons so to some extent it's different from Jerry Springer where the BBC was responsible for commissioning that programme."
I don't know about you but that sounds a little bit like a cop out to me. Maybe if you're white, middle aged and wear a nice knitted cardi you present less of a threat than an irrate, bearded bloke shouting for jihad. And certainly if I were working in the media and wanted to sell newspapers, I think that the "fanatical fundamentalist" stereotype is much more newsworthy. Do Christians need to shake off the "bland" stereotype in order to gain those column inches? Do they want to?

So we come full circle back to Freedom of Expression. I think the sentence "Freedom of Expression as long as it suits us" sums it up for the media. Not sure personally where the line should be drawn but I'm of the opinion God is more concerned at the thousands who die from poverty than some little oiks who think they're proving a very clever point.

Monday, February 06, 2006

Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not



The debut album from The Arctic Monkeys:













  • Features a photograph of a friend of the band smoking on its front cover
  • Was released on 23 January
  • Has sold more than 360,000 copies
  • Became the fast selling debut album in UK chart history
  • They are signed to independent record label Domino Records
  • Features 13 tracks
  • 2 of which have reached number 1 in the UK singles chart
  • Have been nominated as "Best British Breakthrough Act" in the Brits
  • Played the Waterfront before Christmas
  • Forgot to add that Liam Gallagher said he didn't think a band called the Arctic Monkeys could ever make it big. He had a £50 bet with Jo Whiley (on air) that they would never win a Brit. Well I've got a feeling he may lose that bet...

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Calorific puds...

Do you have a sweet tooth? Looking for a homemade treat to banish those winter blues? How about Antony Worrall Thompson's Snickers pie recipe which has been panned by health critics for packing a whopping 1,250 calories per slice (half the recommended daily intake for men) a serving equivalent to around 22 teaspoons of fat and 11 teaspoons of sugar? The recipe includes five Snickers bars with mascarpone, eggs, sugar, soft cheese and puff pastry. Although I have accessed this story today on the BBC news website, apparantly, the offending pud was broadcast 2 years ago on Saturday Kitchen. So the question is, do we now have to involve the health police in our kitchens? Can a kids programme not have a sticky unhealthy treat on it? Or are we all so porky and unaware of body limitations that we need to be told the amount of vigorous jogging that will be necessary in order to burn the offending calories in out of bound goodies such as Snickers pie?
Can't answer now, just off to raid the fridge...