It's been a long time

I haven't blogged in ages and those who know me will know not to worry because I am 'perfectly fine' and always will be.  I just haven't really had anything to say.  Those who know me probably won't believe that either.

Before the pressure to blog again gets too big I thought I'd just share some things that I learnt today.

1. Crisps always expire on a Saturday.
2.  I work with some funny people.
3. Hospitals aren't like Holby (which is a shame).
4. Playing the clarinet hurts.
5. Sometimes it is impossible to be creativly inspired by Velocoraptors.
6. Small children think my nose is an L shape.
7.  Kids who are getting ready for SATs need to be a little bit more bonkers than usual.
8.  Beetroot isn't as bad as I thought it was
9. I looked nice today. (Only today!)
10. I only learnt 9 things today.

Formula 1

My best friend in junior school wanted to be a formula 1 driver. The boys laughed at her, "Girls can't drive racing cars!" She was brave and clever, though and I could imagine if anyone would grow up to be the first female racing driver then she could have been that person. It was the time of James Hunt and Niki Lauder and we all collected the F1 Top Trump cards and us girls knew that the world was changing for us. Shirley Williams was Education Secretary, Barbra Castle had recently won equal pay for female factory workers and the leader of the opposition was Thatcher The Milk Snatcher (although our school was still providing milk from their own budget - much to the disgust of my friend who said it was 'rancid' - a word I remember because I had to pretend to understand and then look it up later). We really believed that the world was open to us and there would be no jobs that women weren't allowed to do. I think those two ten year old girls would have been horrified to think that 40 years later there would be the same number of women in the cabinet than there were then.

Obviously, she didn't become a F1 driver and we were wrong about the world becoming truly equal in our lifetime. It was only in 2009 that the FIA set up the Women in Motorsport Commission, with the aim of creating a sports culture which facilitates and values the full participation of women in all aspects of Motorsport. F1 remains a very male dominated environment, despite it being a sport that many, many women are interested in. Sport, in general, has a long way to go to allow women to compete on equal terms but F1, struggles to appreciate women as anything other than decoration.

I often wonder if the girl who lived opposite me in Halls, who was a Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate, fulfilled her dream of being a F1 engineer.  I'd like to think that she did, she was certainly passionate about it.  Adrian Newey, of Red Bull, was interviewed recently and said that of his 140 engineers he had 2 females in aerodynamics, 1 in vehicle dynamics, 1 in stress and 2 in general design, making 6 out of 140, about 4%.  He said, "It's a small percentage but it's not too bad."

This morning I am watching Sky's broadcast of the Chinese Grand Prix and was stunned at the presenters interviewing of fans.  The three, blokey back-slapping chaps found some English students, who were in China on a school visit and had decided to go to see the race.  One of the girls was the most eloquent and really knew her stuff but she was cut off in the middle of saying something quite interesting about Hamilton and the microphone was pushed into the face of one of the teenage boys who was asked what he thought.  He could barely manage a grunt, so they tried a few more of the boys.  The girl tried to say something again but the presenter pointed the microphone at the male teacher and said, "So, was this your idea?"
"No, it was Miss'," he said.
The presenter chuckled and made some quip about the Misses but 'Miss' was not happy.  Clearly, she was the F1 fan, she knew who she supported and who she thought should win and was again cut off.

Every time F1 is on the BBC, my daughter and I have 'The Suzi Perry argument'.  I think it's good to have a woman, who is actually seen.  She thinks that Ms Perry is terrible, simpering, tottering around the pit lane in high heels and asking drivers questions about their physique.  She thinks that Lee McKenzie would have been a better choice for the BBC to make, as she asks sensible questions and doesn't flirt.  I argue that people know Suzi Perry, who has lots of experience reporting motorsport and is a real motorcycle nut (her favourite toy as a child was an 'Evil Knievial stunt cycle').  She says that if women are going to be taken seriously then the best have to be chosen.  I think that we should be kinder about the women who are chosen and rejoice in the fact that they are there, rather than think they shouldn't be seen unless they are perfect.

However, it would be nice if we were allowed to see the women who are already doing a great job.  In yesterday's qualifying broadcast, Rachel Brooks, was doing a brilliant job of interviewing drivers and engineers but was never once seen on screen. Maybe she wasn't wearing tight leather trousers, a short skirt or impossibly high heels.

Bad Friday

"Is there orchestra next week?"

"No, it's Good Friday, they need the church for churchy things."

"Well! That's not good. I'm going to call it Bad Friday from now on. Why is it called Good Friday anyway?"

This was a conversation I had last week and I've been thinking about the final question all week. What is good about this Friday. Having spent my life on the edge of Christianity (musicians tend to hang around churches) I've always struggled a bit with Easter. I know it's probably the most important festival because without the crucifixion and the empty tomb Jesus was probably just a man of questionable parentage but it's such a sad and violent story and I get a bit stuck on the crucifixion bit and struggle to believe that the empty tomb was anything more than a woman's grief and grave robbing. In our modern Britain, we seem to have forgotten the horror of the day. Good Friday has become all about an unexpected day off and Marks and Spencer Toffee Fudge and Belgian Hot Cross Buns and I wonder if it's because it's so inappropriately named. It is possible that Good is just an accident as it was originally known as God's Friday, which would probably make a bit more sense.

Good Friday is a story of brutality and genocide. The Romans crucified hundreds of thousands of (mainly) Jews and crucifixion was a horrible way to die. Pilate had 2000 Jews crucified in one hit. They were beaten and stripped naked, made to carry their own cross and then nailed to it by their hands and feet and left for up to a week to die a slow painful death, while people paraded around their naked humiliation shouting insults. Christians used to treat it as a day of mourning; the day their  God died.They would fast (except for the spiced fruit roll piped with a cross) There would be processions, no newspapers, no racing and the BBC would go into purple solemnity; playing Bach's St Matthew's Passion. Today, we are so far removed from the meaning of the day that local councils have refused permission for Churches to perform 'The Passion of Christ' because they thought it might be pornography. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/04/17/labour-council-passion-of_n_5166599.html

I agree with this man's son and I hope that, as a choirboy, they will listen to him.

I'm going to start my Bad Friday with a slightly burnt hot cross bun, which is quite bad, as I've been avoiding wheat in an attempt to feel less sluggish.  Today may turn out to be Sluggish Friday.

Paul Hollywood's Hot Cross Bun Recipe - burnt due to piano practice.

The Luminaries

This is a book review (of sorts).

I was really excited to read the Luminaries; I always try to read the winner of the Booker Prize and this one sounded really clever.  I like a play on words.  Luminaries are people who shed light on something and also a name for celestial bodies.  I was promised a well written historical murder mystery that used 12 men to shed light on the murder interwoven with astrology. I was promised it was spectacularly well written.  Every newspaper review gave it 5 stars.

I have been trying to read this book for weeks now.  I thought I was struggling because I didn't have enough time to sit down and really get into it but it's now the Easter Holidays and I've read 250 pages and I'm thinking that by now I should be loving it.  I looked at some reviews by real people on Goodreads and found that most people gave it 5 stars and said how brilliant and clever it was and the people who gave it less than 3 stars did so apologetically, claiming to be not worthy to read the book or clever enough to understand it.  I'm not going to apologise.  There is a touch of the Emperor's New Clothes about this book.

I don't care how beautiful the writing is, if the story goes round in circles and says nothing then it shouldn't have won any prizes.  The novel is long and boring and has a questionable timeline, with 12 boring men and a whore and is set in New Zealand at the times of the gold rush. It's impossible to care about the characters or the place. The astrological references aren't woven into the story but her left hanging as chapter subtitles such as, "True Node in Virgo: in which Que Long is interrupted thrice; Charlie Frost holds his ground; and Sook Yongsheng names a suspect, to everyone's surprise"

There are astrological diagrams suggesting that each man represents a different astrological sign, which would have been quite interesting if had been expanded into the actual story but it's all implied, suggesting again, that if you don't understand you must be stupid.   

I don't think the prose is particularly beautiful either.  I find I am irritated by connection being spelt as connexion and the fear of actually writing the word 'Darn'

I should have realised when the Guardian's review says, "It's not about stories at all. It's about what happens to us when we read novels - what we think we want from them and from novels of this size. In particular is it worthwhile to spend so much time with a story that in the end isn't invested in it's characters?"

I'm not a quitter.  (I'm on level 547 of Candy Crush for goodness sake) but if this story doesn't grip me soon.  I'm going to read something else and be really cross that I wasted so much of this holiday on it.

I wrote this two days ago and I finished the book......it didn't get any better.  I'm now reading something so much better and I feel happy again.

Shock News: Women Eat!

Twitter and the press has exploded with indignation about a Facebook page dedicated to getting secret pictures of women eating on the London Underground. People are angry and believe that this is misogynistic and shames women.

Although, I now hate myself for it I looked at the page to see what all the fuss was about.  It is really boring.  The pictures are taken at odd angles and are often blurry and when you've seen one person stuffing some crisps into their mouth or biting into an apple you really don't need to see any more.  I couldn't find the comments journalists claim shame the women; most of them were just congratulating the man or woman (if their facebook names are to be believed) who took the terrible picture.  It is, obviously, a page lacking in equality for if anyone posts a picture of a man eating it gets ridiculed and probably taken down (there was a sneaky one of a woman feeding her male companion that had remained much to the disgust of the commenters) and maybe the intention is to make women feel uncomfortable but unless the woman looked for it, how would she know it was there?

Now, don't misunderstand me.  I'm not saying I approve of people taking these pictures.  I don't.  I think it's a bit weird but I also think the people who take pictures of men in red trousers are a bit weird as well (and there is a blog for that). There is also a Facebook page called TubeCrush where women secretly take pictures of men they fancy on the Underground and men aren't getting quite so angry about that, even though the comments are definitely of a, "Phwoar, look at that!" variety. However, I think that we have to be careful about getting too angry about it.  Would it not be better to admit to eating and agree that eating isn't shameful?  A shrug of the shoulders and a 'so what?' attitude would be less likely to encourage these people than writing articles, tweeting about how repulsive they are and arresting them so that they have something to brag about later.

There are questions to be answered in this day of online imagery about whether your image is your own and whether you have any rights to control who sees it.  Most of the pictures are not particularly flattering, which is understandable as it is impossible to look your best if you don't know the picture is being taken and when you are eating and most people would rather other people didn't see them. However, giving everyone the rights over pictures of their own face would be a legal nightmare.

I am very worried about the message all this anger is sending out and I'm worried about the publicity it is giving to the page. There will be people who start to think it's not OK for women to eat and definitely not to eat in public and in a world where female body image is a fragile thing this is not a good idea. I very much doubt that it's only women who are eating on the Tube but if they are then we have to wonder why women feel that eating is something they have to do while doing something else.

Let's celebrate food and eating as a good thing and realise that all humans eat regardless of their sex.

Millicent's Productive Manor

People get very angry when they receive a letter from their child's school with a spelling or grammatical error on it. I can see why. I like to read things that are well written and properly proof read too and for some reason it seems so much worse when it comes from the establishment responsible for educating our children. One such correspondence hit the national press recently which contained 14 errors.

These sort of errors are becoming more common on letters sent home from my son's school and I lay the responsibility solely at the feet of Michael Gove. Now, you may be thinking that I'm being overly harsh but when schools are stressed to the point of breaking and teachers are forced to think of their pupils as data rather than real people with parents who actually have time to read books (with good spelling and grammar) then something has to go and that something is probably going to be checking a dictionary or taking time to thoroughly proof read a letter before it's signed. I try not to adopt the angry, "these people teach my children," approach and instead see the humour in the mistake.

Yesterday, I received a letter about my son that said, "Please encourage Millicent to use this time in a productive manor." Although I am quite a cruel parent I can assure you I didn't name him Millicent but I did start worrying that maybe it was his staff room nickname until I checked Facebook and discovered that everyone had received the same letter mentioning poor Millicent. You can see how this happened; the teacher put in a fake name and expected the office staff to change it for everyone to make the letters look personal.(We're not fooled though). The other error is probably a bit more serious and points to a teacher who either can't spell or has bad handwriting. It could be a typo and autocorrect error and as I really like the teacher who signed the letter I'm going to hope for that and spend my time imagining what this Productive Manor that Millicent should spend time in might be like.

I imagine a grand country house in the middle of nowhere, without internet access or TV. The internal walls are lined with thousands of books on every subject a GCSE student (or anyone else) could wish to read about. There is a piano for bashing, which relieves tension and allows both sides of the brain to work together but this piano always plays beautifully and never causes frustration.  The weather is always perfect; warm but not too hot; blue skies but no glaring sun; light rain at night with no oppressive clouds. There are bedrooms with beds that you fall into and sleep the most perfect sleep and there is an unlimited supply of paper pencils and pens by the bed for early morning thoughts. There is an unlimited supply of beautiful stationary all around the house but all of the same type, so that no time is wasted trying to pick the most interesting pad to write on. There is a swimming pool and a woodland walking area for mind breaks which are scheduled for every couple of hours and the swimming pool has magical qualities so that when you get in (fully clothed) you  are instantly in your bathers and when you get out you are fully dry and dressed and ready to work again without wasting any time on. Good nutritious food would appear whenever you needed it along with enough water to keep you properly hydrated. The plates would disappear and be washed up and put away without you even having to think about it. To do lists and timetables that you approve of would appear for you so that your brain is never cluttered by the decisions of what needs to be done. The other people in the manor only appear when you are taking a break or need some help and make absolutely no demands on your time.

Now all I need to do is find Millicent and ask her if I can come too.

Why?

This morning I feel like I did when I was about 3 or 4. Apparently, at that age almost everything I said started with 'why' Today, I feel as though I have woken up in an alien world that I don't quite understand. Here are just some of the things.

1. Why does the air smell of fertiliser? Is that what the Sahara smells like?

2. Why did the Long Suffering Husband panic and shout, "Quick, there's a strange smell!" because he got a whiff of my Mother's Day flowers?

3. Why am I sooooo tired?

4. Why is it always my fault?

5. Why do the Government deport failed asylum seekers as soon as they turn 18 and leave their parents here?

6. Why couldn't Yashika be given a student visa?

7. Why does the BBC give so much air time to the leader of a party that has no members of parliament?

8. Why do people think the BBC is a left wing organisation?

9. Why can't I go and play at being a Saxon or Viking rather than teach recorder to year 1?

10. Why did so many children pass me in the corridor and say, "You're a hag."?

How I usually look at the end of term

Actually, I know the answer to the last one and it's nothing to do with question three. I'm not soooo tired that I'm looking and acting like a witch. Well I am but the children are too polite to actually point it out. In fact they had just had French with our French French teacher and learnt how to say Happy Easter. To this untrained old hag's ear Joyeuses Paques sounded like you're a hag and even when I listened more closely I heard ' youe spag'.