Loud and clear

With my Dad, some years ago....

I've come to St Albans to give my sainted mother a couple of days respite looking after my father.  She's been loking after him since he was released from hospital, despite having divorced him forty years ago.  He's much better physically, but his short-term memory is completely shot and he is forgetting how to do some things he was previously handling himself like emptying his catheter.

My sister Amanda took the first couple of days.  Yesterday she left him his lunch and wenty off back home, and I arrived a couple of hours later.  My father seemed happy but surprised to see me at 2pm, and continued to be happy but surprised every time I came into the room.  If I asked him if he wanted anything he invariably demanded a cup of coffee, which meant that he'd had about six by 7pm.

He has a supra-pubic catheter, and therefore has to have a night bag attached before he goes to bed.  I've never done this before, as he was previously handling that sort of detail himself, and so I was a little anxious about it, but I managed OK and got him to bed without incident about 11pm.

Fortunately, knowing that he's an early riser I went to bed about an hour after him, and managed to sleep pretty well.  I fell asleep to the sound of his snoring and woke to the sound of a medley of musical favourites.  I shot out of bed, and hastened to his side with bowls for the changeover to day mode, and successfully detached night bag without incident.  (My mother found him dragging his night bag around a couple of mornings, with messy consequences.)

I was still celebrating this achievement when I saw the time.  5.06am!  He's refused to dress or wash and is now watching News24 at 90 decibels in the living room.  When he saw me, he was happy but surprised.  And demanded a cup of coffee.

Tyger Drew-Honey on Porn

Having heard Tyger Drew-Honey (the oldest Outnumbered kid) interviewed on Radio 4 a few days ago about his new venture into documentary making, I had high expecttions for his take on Porn.  I'd learned that his father had been one of the major actors in British porn, before the internet put them all out of business.  Ben Dover, with his enormous genitals, featured heavily in the documentary and I think it was the reliance on people Tyger knew and the focus on himself, which made the documentary so disappointing.  A bit less Tyger and a bit more curiosity would have enhanced the result.

It was interesting, however, to see someone so comfortable with the idea of porn, masturbation and sex and also British, doing a bit of navel gazing in the face of the faint possibility that porn may not be entirely beneficial.  With slapstick moments, most of which didn't work, and initially gave a false impression of the documentary... although one or two raised a laugh in the Berry household.

Starting from the premise that the participants in porn were people exercising an informed choice, and in the form of one surgically enhanced actress, positively enjoying the filming of actual sex for the cameras, there was very little examination or even mention of the fact that among the porn on offer might be women exploited or coerced into participating.  It only arose during one dramatic interview with a woman who found the use of porn by an ex very disturbing as he used more and more extreme rape porn, some of which she suspected did not involve acting.

Although there was much discussion about the contrast between real sex and porn sex, there was very little examination of the difference that context may make to a real relationship.  Those who talk about love and commitment in any discussion about porn are assumed to be religious killjoys who disapprove of anyone enjoying sex outside marriage.  However, anyone who has had meaningless sex outside a relationship and sex within a committed relationship can tell you that context makes one hell of a difference to the quality and impact of a sexual encounter, and it is this which is missing in porn.

Some years ago when I read Nancy Friday's books on male and female fantasies, I realised that there was a general pattern to what she was being told:  while women had actual fantasies which were based upon their imagination, men often based their favourite fantasy on their first sexual experience.  In the course of my life I have also found it to be true that men have fixated upon their first sexual experience for both their ideal sexual encounter and their fetishes and fantasies.  This makes the rise of the young teenage porn user a worry for the future.  Not only is there a danger that they will make assumptions about the acceptability of the things they see on screen to a real life woman, but also the danger that they will be trained to prefer solitary sex in front of a laptop to actual sex with a woman.

There was some jokey research into the idea that people who are addicted to porn may be desensitized to it, and need more and more to be able to be excited - again in the absence of any thrill from real live people being involved... and some vox pop into the possibility that men have become more demanding about the range and type of sexual encounter they regard as normal, having been brought up with porn for information and suggested activities.

In the end, Tyger seemed to be reflecting on the idea that porn had informed his sex life in ways he hadn't considered, and he seemed genuinely moved by the woman with the abusive partner.  However, I was disassatisfied with the amount of time spent on jokes and interviewing his own parents as filler for a documentary which could have been so much more interesting with a bit more depth.  I think he is a likeable presenter who needs far more direction and help with structured writing to get the best out of a documentary format, and make the result more than superficial entertainment

.

Glass safety

When we had the survey done on this house, the surveyor noted that he could not confirm that the glass installed in the back door and the inner back door was safety glass.  I noted the comment and thought I should really do something about it, but I didn't give it any attention really.

John fitted a draught excluder around the back door, which has helped a lot with the draughts but has led to the door becoming rather more difficult to shut.  Consequently the occupants of the house began to slam it to get it to shut, and thus it was that Ali put his hand through the glass in the door a few weeks ago.

We were very lucky.  He cut and shredded his little finger, but wasn't badly hurt - although he bled like a stuck pig and I had to rush home from the air ambulance to see to him.  He needed hospital attention and steristrips but it was a warning I took seriously and so I have ordered toughened safety glass for all the doors, including the garage doors.  I'm not taking more risks, having seen how viciously sharp non-safety glass can be.

My mother once advised me before I had children never to put off anything which was related to safety, never to think oooh that's dangerous and do nothing, or I'll pick that up in a minute or someone will trip and fall - do it now!  And it's been advice that I am sure has saved accidents on numerous occasions.  I wish I had kept it in mind with the glass.

Back again

I've been away for a while, visiting my father in hospital, then having flu.  I'm back and picking up the threads again in Lincolnshire.

It's one long round of DIY and housework at the moment, and I have guests coming over Easter and want to make the house a good place to be and not full of boxes of miscellaneous stuff I have failed to find a home for.

The birds in the garden were very glad to see me - I filled the feeder in the garden and then watched as a flurry of sparrows and a couple of fat wood pigeons squabbled over the feeder and the seed that falls on the ground when several sparrows try to feed at once. 

The garden is full of bulbs - grape hyacinths, daffodils, tulips, hyacinths and the first primroses are out too.  There are daisies on the lawn, and the wild geranium is taking over in the vegetable plot.  There's lots to do, if we have a few fairweather days.

Ali put up my curtain rail in my bedroom and it then fell down immediately.  I'm going to Lincoln to buy a sturdier one, and to get a lampshade, and then I will hopefully be able to use my room for the first time since we moved.

Rumpelstiltskin

We've been beginning to see what needs changing in the house as we get used to living here.  The kitchen needs more space for preparing food, and John suggested it needs an island for the middle of the room.  It is short on countertop space, and I have already thought it needed more space for catering for five people.

We've been past Rumpelstiltskin on the high street in Market Rasen a number of times while I drooled over the furniture in there.  It's lovely, and I linger every time I pass the shop.  John was thinking about one of the consoles in the window for the kitchen, but as soon as we entered the shop I realised that the ones in the window are rather lower than they appear, as they are on a little platform.

I immediately saw something that would be absolutely perfect.  It's a butcher's block table, which can be ordered in any Farrow and Ball colour.

The shop always looks empty of customers and a bit lonely, but the proprietor told us that there has been an explosion of interest in the things they make since they took the shop, and delivery times had extended accordingly. 



If I can afford it, once everything is sorted out, I'd like to have bookshelves from the shop - I had discounted them because they have mouldings at the top and a plinth at the bottom and so I didn't think they would be suitable for a grouping of bookshelves, but it was explained that you can butt a number of the shelving units up against each other and then have a moulding and plinth which fit around them all... so I shall start to calculate how to configure them, if I can afford them. 

The house is starting to feel more like mine.  Initially I felt as though I were squatting in someone else's holiday home, but having started to buy things I have chosen, like the blinds for the kitchen, and the lamp for my room, it's starting to be more mine... and our stored possessions arriving will make it even better.

Settling in

Sunnyside farm shop

It's been ten days since we moved to Market Rasen, and we've been so busy, busy, busy I have hardly had any time for blogging.  I bought the house with all the contents, although I hadn't quite realised how extensive those contents would be.  We've had a lot of things to clear, boxes and boxes of cardboard, old string, cables, crates and old paint pots.  The back garden still looks like someone has been fly-tipping the contents of an old factory, but John is making trips to the tip every day and it is gradually going down.  The tip people are rather suspicious that he is dumping old commercial waste on them, but he really, honestly, is not!

Life in a small town is very different from life on the outskirts of London.  For a start, nearly all the shops in town close at 3.30pm.  Not on an early closing day - every day.  Many specialist shops only open a few days a week... I'm assuming their opening hours expand during the summer.  I may be wrong about that!

People know each other, and trust each other far more than you find in a big town in Greater London.  We ordered a bed from Rasen bed supplies, and needed to wait a few days for the base to come from the stockist.  Tom was fed up with sleeping on the floor and not feeling very well, and so I went to ask if I could buy the mattress in advance of the base.  Not only did the company deliver it in about ten minutes flat, they refused to let me pay for it until the base had come.

When the base DID arrive, they not only delivered but also assembled the bed!  Ali decided he wanted some weird shaped bed from an online retailer... but that arrived in pieces and was just delivered to the threshold.  The service from Rasen Bed Supplies couldn't have been better.  And the mattresses and beds we bought from them are very comfortable.


Yesterday John and I went to the Sunnyside Up farm, for breakfast, which is just between Market Rasen and Tealby.  I can certainly recommend their bacon or sausage rolls, and the restaurant is light and airy, with comfortable sofas for lounging on if you wish.  After breakfast we wondered around the shop, exclaiming at all the lovely foodie items on offer.  There is a meat counter and cheese counter, vegetable shop, and shop full of local delicacies and chutneys and jams, as well as high-quality items from other areas. 

We bought one of the shop's steak pies, which are home-made on the farm, and some leeks and potatoes from the vegetable shop - as well as a clutch of chutneys and marmalade for the store cupboard.

In the car park, it being Friday, there was a fish van from Grimsby - but it's recommended that you get there early in order to get the best range of fish and shellfish.

The farm restaurant is lovely and I have no hesitation in recommending it.  The brick built barn buildings look as though they may be dark, from the outside, but it is actually light and airy and the staff are welcoming and friendly.

The Sunnyside Up farm shop is open for longer than shops in Market Rasen, 9-5pm Tuesday to Saturday and 10-4 on Sundays.  It's closed on Mondays. 

The restaurant does a wider range of breakfasts during the summer season, but is open for pots of tea and bacon and sausage rolls and a wide range of other food during the day.  My son heartily recommends their soup!

You can find more on their website here, including how to get there.  Head out of Market Rasen on the Tealby road is the basic instruction!

I liked the sign on the way out, which warns about free-range children and chickens... both of those *should* be free-range!

My own front door

I haven't blogged at all for weeks, unless long posts on Facebook count. Our goods and chattels were packed and put into storage on November 21, we sold our house on November 22, and we spent two weeks in a wonderful holiday cottage in Tealby. The only drawback of the cottage was that we had poor mobile reception and no real internet, although I can see that might have been an advantage for some people. Then on December 5, we had to pack up and leave the cottage and wait to hear when we had completed on the purchase of Sycamore house.

We went for breakfast at the really wonderful Sunnyside Farm shop, in the highest winds I have experienced for some while. The trees were whipping around us as we drove there, and there was a lot of tree debris, including whole branches, scattered about. After bacon and sausage rolls at Sunnyside, we went to Jim's Barn, where I bought some Annie Sloan paints and talked to Sarah Lamballe, who is active in the Mr Big organisation in Market Rasen. She encouraged us to go along to the Christmas fair on Friday and Saturday.

Unfortunately, Tom and I had begun to suffer a bit from the horrible coldy bug that Ali had had earlier in the week. Neither of us was feeling very much like doing anything other than snuggling up in bed. As we drove into Market Rasen at 12.20, I asked John how long he thought it would take to complete... and a few minutes later my solicitor rang and told me we had completed. We rather expected to drive up to the house and take possession, but I was anxious not to infect the sellers with our bugs as they were about to make very long air journeys, and so we agreed to go away again for a while, and come back at 2pm.

And so... that was five days ago. We have been clearing, sorting, reorganizing and getting used to the house. The front door wasn't usually used by the prvious owners, and we soon discovered why: the front door lock wasn't working properly. John has fixed a new lock, which works much better. I have some photographs but I am too tired to put them up tonight.

Just Dance!

Amazing video of a young man dancing, in his bedroom it seems, but the arrangement of the furniture and the positioning of the camera make it seem pretty slick.  The music and the dancing together just make me want to dance... and I'm not alone it seems, reading the comments.

What the Greco-Romano-Cretan Hell? (Atlantis review)

Porky, Perky and Pythagoras...what?

I don't often watch television.  Mostly I catch odd snippets of the soaps other people in the house watch, and the odd ten minutes of Strictly Come Dancing or Great British Bake Off.  None of these are things I would choose to watch voluntarily.

However, from time to time I need to do something a bit brainless, like sewing or threading beads, and then I like to find something entertaining or interesting to watch or listen to while I work.  This evening I chose the BBC's relatively new series Atlantis, thinking that as the series was several episodes in, I would have a number of hours of entertainment if I liked it. 

I emphatically don't like it.  It reminded me very, very strongly of Merlin, and I didn't need the Guardian's tv critic to tell me that the same fell hand that created the Medi-Dark ages-renaissance Hell that was the Merlin tosh, had been at the ancient world this time.

The world, it seems to me, is divided into those creators/writers/artists who care about authenticity, getting their period right, and making sure that if they ransack history or myth for a bit of an idea, they try very, very hard to make the period details right.  That's not what this is.

The second group feel free to raid anything that might be slightly relevant and shoe-horn it into the story, no matter how mangled it may become.  Thus, the Arthurian court of Merlin had all sorts of anachronisms, like tomatoes and glass windows, because this was a magic world in which there were dragons and spells, and in a world like that all effort at realism, trying to give a sense of period and place the story in time, is a waste.  According to the creators.

I have been at virtual brainstorming meetings that follow the same lines.  A general theme of ancienty, with some Greek myths thrown in?  Let's have Atlantis!  And Pythagoras!  Mix it up!  No one knows - no one cares!  And make Hercules completely different!  And two headed dragons?  Everyone loves dragons, they're the kittens of the magical mythical world!

Thing is, the dialogue and the plot  - like that of Merlin - is at Janet and John level.  No six year old who has met his or her targets for reading would have a problem with the script.  They have blockbuster music, and think that some spooky sounding crescendoes will substitute for real tension in script or plot.  They wander through the storyline with no feeling for pace or characterization. I hate the misuse of the phrase "Dumbing Us Down" because what John Taylor Gatto wrote about was the dumbing down effect of having to stretch to interest yourself in something that you weren't interested in, and how much it affects your intellect when you aren't allowed even to think your own thoughts or do your own thing.

He didn't use the phrase in the way it is always used, to indicate that things have been simplified so much that they are understanding to stupid people.  But this is what this is.  It's dross of the lowest order.  It insults the general public and assumes that they will lap it up because it looks ok and has dragons in it.

I love the BBC and would stand on the barricades to defend my beloved radio stations.  But our licence money has funded this drivel.  And I, for one, want my money back.  I have been fooled twice into thinking that a series from these idiots must be worthwhile because of the presence of brilliant actors like John Hurt, Richard Wilson and now Juliet Stevenson.  But, boy, I hope they were paid a lot of money to put their names to it.  Because their presence is no indication of quality.  It hums... it's really, really terrible.  It's had money thrown at it, but it cannot be redeemed by money - it needs good scriptwriters, people who care about placing their work in space and time, and less disneyfication.

I cannot believe that some broadsheet newspapers gave it a good review.  Or that the BBC commissioned it. 

 

Plus size Clothing Find

Grizas - beautiful crinkle tunic

I've been feeling increasingly depressed about the clothing options open to me via Evans locally, the only Plus Size shop in Uxbridge. They seem to have a picture of their customer as trendy twenty-something - something I find hard to believe, what with the ageing demographic in this country, and the fact that people's waistlines tend to increase with age.

Their clothes are often made in man-made fibres, young styles, with short sleeves or sleevless, and I find that many of their tops and skirts are too short. While I don't want to look as though I have fallen out of "Little House on the Prairie" or the 19th century, on the other hand I find I care about fashion less and less, and things that suit me and my size more and more. I don't want to wear stuff that clings to every bump and lump on my body. I don't want to wear polyester. And I certainly don't want sleeveless dresses and tops. Especially not in summer, when one is forced to wear a cardigan or cover up.

It's been a revelation to discover Grizas, a European company which produces clothing for plus size people that I love. My only problem with the clothing is the price: £145 for a top, £179 for a jacket is a lot more than I would usually pay for clothing. But their stuff is *so* beautiful. I am thinking that maybe one beautiful Grizas item every six months is better than half a dozen horrible things I don't like from Evans.

Their website includes the collection for Spring/Summer 2014, and I love the fact that the very first item is something I have tried to nag Evans into supply for a few years - a long dress, in natural fabric, with SLEEVES. It really shouldn't be that difficult to do this. Perhaps I can get them interested in making woolly tights next....

Grizas - Spring Summer 2014 collection

Passion for change

I woke up this morning, made my mother breakfast in bed and a cup of coffee, and then visited the Guardian website, where I read an article which started my blood boiling about parenting. The comments stream was turned off, so I tweeted the Guardian to ask them to turn it on, and made a comment and visited Facebook to catch up with the stream there, thinking how different this was to my life ten years ago, twenty years ago, thirty years ago. How lucky I am.

On FB, George Barnett posted a link to the YouTube video below, of Jeremy Paxman interviewing Russell Brand. Brand is amazing - passionate, articulate and coherent - and he wipes the floor with Jeremy Paxman in a way that Paxman usually does to others. It's a sight to see.



We do need a revolution. The things I see happening around me are wrong, and it's time to stand up and say so. People with disabilities denied benefits, people who miss appointments they didn't know about denied payments, people with special needs children forced to go to work. It needs to change, and it needs to change now.

Lincolnshire bound

There's been a storm and torrential rain here.  The road was running with so much water, and is clogged with so many leaves, that I thought it was going to be necessary to swim to Chipperfield, which is where we are having lunch today.

I've been running through towns like it's going out of fashion, from Lowestoft in the east to Hastings in the south, through Long Sutton to north Lincolnshire.  I'm feeling superstitious about jinxing my house sale and house purchase, and feeling like I'm hanging on by my fingernails... waiting to exchange on the sale.

It's a weird thing, not knowing where you are going to be in a few weeks' time... not knowing how things will get from here to there, and what a new life on the edge of the Lincolnshire wolds will look like, day to day.

I feel excited about a completely new start elsewhere, anxious about my ability to forge new friendships and make a new life for myself and my children in a completely new town.  I worry about my mother... she's got used to having me around, I think it will be a big change for her. 

The leaves are falling, especially from the horse chestnut trees across the road, which are suffering from the virus which has attacked the chestnut trees here.  It's beginning to look very autumnal, and I have no idea what winter is going to bring for me this year.  Will I move before Christmas? 

I'm packing and repacking, trying to thin out the vast number of books... but then thinning out the books just as I buy a house which has the prospect of being able to house them seems like a false economy.  It will all depend on the timing and whether I have to put my stuff in storage between selling and buying.  I just don't know.

It seems like maybe I've been matched in heaven with my seller... they are emigrating to New Zealand and don't want to take their furniture... I don't have any furniture.  I'm hoping to go meet them in the next couple of weeks.

So... we're off to Chipperfield for a family lunch to celebrate the forthcoming 80th birthday of my uncle Ian.  Looking forward to seeing some family members who don't often get together, thinking of which I had better disconnect myself and get dressed!

Barefoot in the park...garden...street

Watched a very interesting film about grounding - the practice of making a connecting to the earth by walking barefoot, lying on the earth or using grounding equipment to ensure that you are grounded.  It has been proven to have a large number of health benefits, and the stories in the film are very touching.

Dr Mercola has been talking about the benefits of grounding for a long time now, and in fact features in the film in one or two places.  I tried a little grounding myself earlier today, although it was a bit damp and cold, it wasn't anywhere near as cold as Alaska in the wintertime, which features in the film.  I couldn't help thinking there must be a better design of roof to avoid having to dig yourself out... but then I've never lived there and don't know what the challenges are.

The film is free to access for the next few days, but I hope anyone who can afford it and is impressed by the film will buy it for themselves.

Lost in Hastings

I travelled to Hastings to see some houses yesterday.  We arrived at Hastings station with our shiny plus bus passes in our hands, expecting to be able to use them to get us around Hastings and St Leonards for the viewings.  I had addresses and instructions for each of the houses, and knew how to get to them from the nearest stations.

We took a brief look outside in the bus station, but couldn't find any useful information on the boards by the bus stops.  Unlike virtually any bus system I have ever used, Hastings buses - essentially Stagecoach - don't appear to want you to know where the buses go.  

I looked for information around Hastings station.  There were no leaflets, and no timetables or information, except for a strange chart showing a list of places with bus numbers - a really weird cross reference system.  I was looking for Ore and so dutifully copied down the numbers of the buses: 20, 20A, 22, 22A, 28, 347, 100 etc....

I asked at the information desk in the ticket office of the station if there was any information available for the buses and was told I "might find some at the tourist information office" in the town.

I just couldn't believe that people arriving in Hastings, a tourist town, could be left without *any* information about the buses, and so I searched for information again, thinking there must be some *somewhere*.  Outside Hastings train station is a set of stands, labelled with a letter of the alphabet.  Next to each is what looks like a timetable, but unlike every bus system I have ever used, instead of showing a list of the places visited somewhere on the sign, this had a list of times with a bus number on it, and no information about where the bus might go except for its ultimate destination.

I'm an intelligent, resourceful woman.  I approached a bus driver of a 20 and asked for his advice.  He was perfectly amiable, but told me that his bus was going in the opposite direction (very difficult to know for someone strange to the area) and told me to look out for a 22.  I already had that information from the sign inside the station, and so waited for a 22.  The bus driver denied that his bus was going anywhere near Ore station, and suggested a 21.   The 21 doesn't go near Ore station, and wasn't on the list of buses that do.  We gave up at this point.

I'm amazed that the town hasn't fixed this problem.  The town isn't easy to get around on foot, as we discovered, as it has very steep hills and is spread over a wide area.  I was half an hour late for a viewing because we walked from Ore station (which should be renamed "Not in Ore Station") and found the simple journey I had taken down from Google was in fact a touch uphill route march.

We took taxis from then on.  The very wonderful Sunny taxis took us, giving invaluable information about the area and a very good value and friendly service.  When we go back, we'll use them again.

Which way is up?

I'm waiting for my house sale to get to the exchange of contracts stage, barely daring to look at properties but at the same time afraid that if I don't put every spare hour into it I shall never find anything in my price range.

I'm looking anywhere up to two hours out of London, including Hastings, Diss, Grantham, Northampton, Dorset, Bristol and Bath.  I'm hoovering up any information I can find about all those places.  I've always wanted to live by the sea, and so Hastings and St Leonards is currently the place I favour, although I have read a lot of mixed reviews about the place.

It's weird, I'm having a lot of dreams about being on buses and trains and not knowing where I am going, about houses with one way stairs and rooms that shrink, scared that prices will suddenly leap up and prevent me from buying where I was to be able to buy.

I have three grown children and a girlfriend to take with me (my son's!  not mine, lol!), and the responsibility of finding somewhere for my estranged husband in the same area.  I'm hoping that the change will be a positive one for all of us, and so I fear making a mistake, choosing the wrong place, and having to pick up the pieces if I do.  Then I get excited and realize how lucky, lucky, lucky I am to still be in a position where I can think about buying a house at all.

Not knowing where I will be in a couple of months is scary, but maybe I needed a kick.  And I'll take the sea and the sound of seagulls over the tarmac and the sound of police cars, any day of the week.

unMonastery

Here's an interesting thing: the UnMonastery. The idea is that they take a place with special needs for particular sorts of technology, and then pay a group of individuals to come in and dedicate their time to fulfilling those needs. The project is time limited to February 2014 to May 2014, and projects can run for two to four months within that period.   The current call is for unMonastery Matera, in Italy.

They aren't offering very much money - upto 350 euros for travel and 400 euros a month subsistence allowance, but this seems like a very interesting opportunity if you have the skills they are looking for and want to take an opportunity to travel to Italy.  See the full background here.

Missing from history

I had never heard of Alice Guy-Blache, until I saw this film, which was made to accompany a kickstarter fundraiser. Pamela Green and Jarik Van Sluijs want to raise money to tell the story of Alice Guy-Blache and to find and preserve her films before they are lost to posterity.

Alice Guy-Blache must have been quite something. She made one of the first narrative films, using the then new technology, and she was also a pioneer of synchronization of sound to film. She started her own studio in the US, where there were signs exhorting the actors to "be natural". She made the first film with an all African-American cast. She made over a thousand films, but believed at her death that only three survived.  So far, Green and Van Sluijs have rediscovered over a hundred.  There may be many more, decaying in film archives around the world.

She seems to have been amazing woman, but the most astonishing thing is that people have never heard of her - even those involved in film or who have studied film history. The kickstarter campaign only has a couple of days to go, but it is $20,000 short of its target. If you can support it, please do. If you can't, please share the link in the hope that people you know may be able to support it.

Pinterest

I adore Pinterest.  For me, it's a combination of scrapbooking, collecting, window-shopping, escapism, wishlist, interests.  It allows me to hoard without hoarding, collect without spending.  As one of the funny lines on my quote board says... while Facebook makes me hate people I know, Pinterest makes me like people I have never met.

Today when I clicked on the profile of someone who had pinned one of my pins, I found a whole new world in a set of interesting boards.  I shall explore them and pin the ones I like the best.  Perhaps I should start a "my new house" board... except I don't want other people seeing the places I have found which combine four bedrooms, nice area, close to station and within an hour or an hour and a half of London.


 

Exile-on-Sea

The beach at Lowestoft

There has been a good bit of coverage on the level of deprivation in a number of coastal towns following the publication of the "Turning the Tide" report from the Centre for Social Justice a few weeks ago.  The Guardian published an article yesterday on the above average deprivation suffered by these towns.

Having recently visited Clacton-on-Sea, which was one of the towns mentioned in that report, I am very surprised that the one influence identified by local people as the most important is missing from that report:  the transfer of hundreds of people on benefits from inner London and other places where housing is expensive, following the changes to housing benefit.

I can see that towns on the coast are in a double-bind.  They have been the recipients of many people who were evicted from their homes when housing benefit changed.  They are suffering the effects on an influx of a lot of people without visible means of support except state benefits, who are a drain on the local economy.  However, they need visitors to keep coming in the summer to make their traditional income, and therefore they cannot shout too loudly about the social problem which has been transported to their town.  In any case, pointing an accusing finger at those unfortunate enough to have been displaced by the changes in housing benefit, is not an easy thing to do without being accused of being automatically prejudiced, by associating those who are unlucky enough to be unemployed with those who are involved in criminal behaviour.

The trouble is, the devil makes work for idle hands... and they can be very, very idle when transported to a bedsit or bed and breakfast room in a resort which is completely foreign to them.  Children leaving care are another group who have been transported to these towns, because housing benefit is too low to allow them to continue living where they have been.

The people I spoke to when I visited last week were quite clear that the increasing deprivation in the town is the direct result of this migration.  It is obvious that councils were desperately searching for unused capacity for the many people made homeless by the change in the law, who mostly came from London authorities, and they found that spare capacity in the bedsits and bed and breakfasts around our coast.  Those people are wary of being quoted, for fearing of being accused of damaging the town's reputation among holidaymakers.

It is plainly obvious that if you take a whole lot of people who have lived their whole lives in London and then transport them to a seaside town, there will be a social consequence - for the people and for the towns.  Clacton, Margate, Great Yarmouth, have all been in receipt of large numbers of people.  I observe that crime levels in Lowestoft, part of the remarkably crime-free county of Suffolk, are at levels way above those found in my current home town of Uxbridge. In greater London.  That's curious, and a new change. 

I am less clear why this circumstance isn't better known, or better reported.  The advent of gang warfare in the previously sleepy town of Great Yarmouth, the high level of crime, the high level of deprivation... I think there is more here than just the tendency of the English to migrate voluntarily to the coast on retirement. Local people know there is.

Privacy

EFF Creative commons graphic

Maybe it's because I'm an unschooler, that I look upon the PRISM programme (and the treatment of David Miranda), rather differently from your average citizen.  I get the feeling that the archetypal "man on the Clapham omnibus" who stands in for ordinary people in court cases, has the feeling that the snooping on his emails is no big deal.  For many people, law-abiding and not involved in any activity of interest to the security services, will have thought "Good Luck!" when it was revealed that the US government and UK government may have been screening and reading their emails.

Most people who mainly use their email to keep in contact with friends and family, to share knitting patterns or swap hilarious jokes, will have shrugged and thought, "Who cares if they read those?"  They don't have any sense of danger in the idea of someone looking at their emails.  They aren't a freedom fighter in a country opposed to US intervention, or a terrorist.  What do they have to fear?

I care, and not just because I think it is dangerous when an agency working on behalf of a country takes upon itself powers which are covertly obtained and not sanctioned explicitly by the people, or their government, which may be used for the bad, against innocent people who have no connection with terrorism, or actions against the state.

I am a law-abiding person.  I try to be open, honest, truthful, and I try to act in ways which are consistent with my beliefs and values.  However, being an unschooler has opened my eyes to the ways in which the state may act if you do not conform to the behaviour which they consider acceptable.  For years after I withdrew my children from school, I was involved in a correspondence with the authorities over the education of my children.  The various Education Acts are completely clear that it is the parents' responsibility to educate their children, and it is absolutely their choice to decide what type of education to inflict on them too.

You probably have no interest in home education or unschooling:  it's a minority pursuit in the UK.  However, on the basis that although most people will not be home educators, they may be willing to stand up for my rights in law to do it, I presume that you may be interested to know that in the course of my home education I was lied to, misled, and generally came to have a very low opinion of the authorities who would, it seemed, stoop to anything in order to try to manipulate me into doing what they wanted.

They told me I was compelled to have an inspection visit because the then Hillingdon LEA was allowed to "vary the law" in this matter.  I wasn't, and they weren't, but by the time I established that, it was too late.   They told me I had to provide them with samples of work. (Again, no I wasn't.)  They told me that they could send in social services if they weren't satisfied.  (Well, they could, but not legally, if they had no concerns about the welfare of my children.  It was a stick to beat me with, however.)

I was lucky; I speak with an RP/BBC accent, I am articulate, I was living in my own home, and I am self-educated, I was (eventually, and with help from others) confident in my rights to do what I was doing, all things which worked in my favour when dealing with officials.  I have supported people who were none of those things, and although their home education of their children didn't look a whole lot different from mine, their level of difficulty in persuading the authorities that this was the case was very much harder.

In the course of my time as an unschooler, I ran a helpline for parents who wanted information about home education (which mostly received calls from parents with children were being very badly bullied at school); I co-ordinated a response to the government on the proposed changes to the law on home education, and I wrote a speech for my MP.  At times, I felt very exposed.  At times I grew very tired of the task of asserting my rights. I am profoundly grateful that my children are now above the age of compulsory education and I therefore do not have to engage with the authorities unless I wish to do so.   I think it is possible that some of my communications, especially those with other home educators about the changes to the law, might well have been of interest to local government, and the idea that they might not have been secure or private alarms me.

It isn't that I am an anarchist or ever suggested anything which should alarm the government.  I'm a Quaker, I believe in peaceful protest, I would never advocate anything which interferes with the security or safety of this country.  But being a Quaker, I think it should be possible to challenge anything which one believes to be wrong, or a social injustice, or an abuse of power.  That alone can make you a person of interest to authorities, even in a democracy like ours.  How much more likely is it that you might become interesting if you happen to have an ethnic origin from a country of interest too?

Government has laid down rules for the access of our private communications by police and authorities, and I would expect that they should have to get a court order in order to access my private communications.  That's what they are required to do by law.  If they have found some backdoor way of accessing my communications which is totally against the spirit of the law in this country, I do not expect them to say "Yippee!" and use it.  It is quite clear that parliament has not sanctioned the things which the security services have been doing, and quite clear that it should either be mandated by parliament, or should stop.  My view is that it should stop.

I do not think that stating that, or being involved in revealing the truth to the world, or being related to someone involved in that, should warrant detention and questioning by the authorities.  Did any of them seriously believe that David Miranda was a threat to us as a terrorist?  I don't think so.  Then the anti-terrorist laws were completely inappropriate to his case.

If you have never brushed the authorities up the wrong way, and confronted them, it's hard to believe how vulnerable an ordinary person can be made to feel by officials who exaggerate their powers.  Joined-up government has led to few improvements in services (for example the various departments of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, who have the strongest customer-led case for dealing with clients as one body, still expect you to know that their tax affairs and tax credits are entirely separate departments, dealing with you completely separately) but it has led to health and education departments "sharing" with social services departments, to the detriment of our privacy.

Despite their apparent inaction when circumstances seem to cry out for action, social services departments are remarkably active when it seems that someone on their patch has had the audacity to withdraw their children for home education, and their powers are great.  If they have the slightest concern for the welfare of a child, they are empowered to enter the home and take the child into protective care, and that's right and proper.  Unfortunately, they often seem to consider a home educator a threat when there isn't the least suspicion that they are, indeed, abusing their children, and yet seem very slow to act even when neighbours, teachers and relatives have expressed concerns.  Several cases where extreme concern was expressed about children who were falsely claimed to be home educated, where the authorities still did not protect the children concerned have come up over the last five years.

Conversely, a number of families in the UK have gone on the run from the authorities, who seem to have considered the very act of home education to be a threat to the state and the children concerned.  Without any evidence of abuse, the simple act of taking responsibility for their children's education has led to increasing intervention in the lives of several families, who have then decided that their only protection from unwarranted action is to flee their county, or the country.  And I understand why.

So when I hear that the government has used the US facility for screening all our communications, I don't simply shrug my shoulders and think that if they want to trawl through the piles of aunt Jessica's jam recipes, they're welcome.  I shudder and write to my MP.  When I hear that they have detained a journalist's partner using the terror laws as their tool to do so, I write to my MP.  I suggest we all should make our feelings clear to our representatives, and if they don't change it, change them.