I do not wear white shoes before Memorial Day.
I do not hang a Christmas wreath or erect a Christmas tree until Thanksgiving is over.
Some food needs slow cooking, don’t try to speed up a roast.
I’m not ready to blog about the 2008 Presidential Campaign.
I’m not normally an adherent to the idea of karma, but I’m a strong believer in survey karma.
Three years ago, my council sent me the Best Value Resident’s Survey. Now, because of what I do for a living, I knew that it was very important that I fill it out. I knew that not only would my council be judged on the survey results, but also in effect their response rates.
I filled it out, sealed it up in the return envelope and placed it on table to take out to post (we don’t have collections from our houses in the UK). Well, I never sent it back. And since then, my surveys, at least the ones I’ve been solely responsible for, have had absolutely crap response rates.
Our household wasn’t selected for the most recent BV Resident Satisfaction survey – so I haven’t been able to make amends on that score. But I’m keenly aware of karmic deficit, so when a well-known British survey company – Ipsos-MORI – phoned me earlier this week to get my views – I didn’t even ask how long the survey would be, I didn’t ask what it was about or who paid for it, I just agreed to take it.
Well, turns out it was all about being a Londoner – sort of.
In fact most of the survey was about how much or how little I associated various initiatives with the Mayor and then how positive I felt about those initiatives. I wish I could remember the wording now – but some of the questions were extremely biased (such that it’s hard not to answer positively about Ken) and I could see how the results touted as “London loves Ken”.
Other interesting bits of the survey included how I felt about public art (I like it, generally) and whether I thought promoting London as a “world city” would bring in more tourists and businesses. I thought that was pretty stupid. Tourists already know that London is a world city, but I think they come here for the heritage. Businesses already know that London is a world city – and they come here because of that or the financial markets. Or they choose not to come here because the infrastructure is crumbling and the tax rates and cost of living are crippling.
So finally, I finish this 20 minute survey and I say to the young woman on the phone as she’s thanking me and hanging up “Whoa, I’m not done yet, can you tell me who commissioned this survey?”
Well, she has to talk to her supervisor about this – but turns out it’s Transport for London who paid for this survey. I was very polite – she just reads out the questions – but on the inside I’m fuming.
Yes, a few questions were about transport, but most of this was Ken Livingstone favourable push polling. Why is Transport for London paying for this? Is this a good use of taxpayer and fare payer money?
I just hope that participating in this propaganda survey improves my future response rates.
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On a related note, I attended the selection meeting for London Assembly member candidate for Merton and Wandsworth last night. (Why do we have to share an assembly member with another borough?) I knew two of the candidates – Richard (Dick) Tracey and Matthew Maxwell Scott. But Krystal Miller and Jo-Ann Nadler were new to me. I thought Jo-Ann was very impressive, but because she’s been working for the BBC for a lot of her career – including doing election coverage – she couldn’t be active in campaigning. I’d love to see her with a little bit more experience. Krystal is a very young new councillor at Merton, and she sort of needs to come on a bit – but she’s got a lot of potential.
I went to the meeting with a fairly open mind, but at the same time pretty much knew I was going to vote for Dick or Matthew – solely because they are members of my local constituency association and Matthew also a member at the ward level (and I’ve no doubt about their competence or dedication, either).
Dick has a long and impressive career as a politician – and clearly had the confidence of the room. I was certain he would be selected. Matthew put on a great performance and has packed a lot of experience into his 30 years, but Dick has form (including tangles with Mr Livingstone) and will make a formidable scrutineer of the London Mayor.
The voting proceeds thusly: you vote for one candidate. If one candidate gets over 50% of the vote, then that’s the selection. If not, there’s another round of balloting until somebody does get 50%. It wasn’t stated whether the candidate with the lowest number of votes would drop out – but I assumed that was the case.
The field was strong enough that I really thought it might go to a couple of ballots. So I cooked up a plan that allowed me to vote strategically for both Matthew and Dick. In the end, my clever plotting came to nought, as Dick won on the first ballot. The right choice.
Coool!
My photo book from Blurb (www.blurb.com) arrived today. It’s full of pictures of our vacation in France and the text from my vacation blog entries. It looks awesome.
Only problem was it cost me crazy money to get it shipped to England. I didn’t know that it would until I’d spent hours compiling the dang thing – and so I just sucked it up and paid.
Blogging, digital photography and vanity publishing have converged and mean that I can actually create a photo album. Before what I had was really good intentions and a stack of prints and some wadded up ticket stubs. I have a couple of empty photo albums. I even have some undeveloped rolls of film (e.g. our trip to Norway – which would have made an awesome photo book). This is my third photo book and the best so far.
I have big plans for baby books. But I know that a lot of first time parents have big plans for baby books, and as time progresses the plans remain but are joined by a big stack of photos in envelopes and locks of hair and blood stained baby teeth. Elizabeth of Career (aka Busy Mom) and Kids has blogged about this recently – and sought advice on how to get moving on getting photo albums finished.
But of course, I won’t be like that. I won’t be as bad as my own parents either. We moved so often, and my parents were so disorganised on the photo front that my childhood is largely undocumented – except for the studio photos my grandparents proudly displayed. I’ll be different, I’ll do my online photo books and make duplicate copies as gifts for proud grandparents. And my kid won’t misbehave or break things and will never use the outside voice when the inside voice will do.
Some guy just skied down the longest up-escalator in Europe. Which happens to be at Angel Tube Station in North London – on the Northern line – which is my line.
The Metropolitan Police are examining the video for clues. The Transport for London Ungerground people are furious.
My view is – it’s ok to laugh and to support public prosecution. No one was hurt and my journey wasn’t delayed. But we don’t really want to encourage such num-nut behaviour – do we?
Apparently it’s quite normal to worry about your baby’s in utero movements – or lack of them. Early on, if I felt Cletus moving and laid my hand on my tum – he would stop. And he would never, ever perform for daddy. This didn’t make me worry about the health of Cletus, but it did cause me a little concern about his potential personality. Was this a sign of latent orneriness? Was he being a stubborn baby?
Today I had a doctor’s appointment and my GP asked if the baby was moving – “Yes,” I said, but I told her that I didn’t expect much movement following the appointment. Whenever the doppler had been used to measure his heartbeat, he’d stopped moving for about 24 hours afterwards. “I don’t think he likes it,” I said.
The healthcare professionals seem to be in the habit of really shoving that doppler into my belly and thus into Cletus. Ouch. No wonder the little fellow sulked for a full day.
Today she was more gentle. The softer approach didn’t seem to harm the measurement and little Cletus hasn’t sulked.
The weather has been very changeable. But today it was warm and lovely and since I’m using up a vacation day again – I was able to have lunch outside. My magnolia is going a bit brown prematurely – as we’ve had some days that were just a little too cold.
But there are still some nice blossoms.
I don’t mind a little tofu eating or sandal wearing. Never have. But I’ve always been a little hesitant to truly embrace the hippie and the dippy. While I love vegetable based dishes, including those that don’t involve meat or dairy products – I find myself vaguely suspicious of vegetarianism and downright dubious about veganism. And organic?? – a pack of lies and propaganda – I’d no more buy an organic cotton shawl than a syringe full of heroin.
But as I approach my time of confinement – I find myself really dreading the idea of confinement in a rather dreary NHS hospital. I don’t want their food or their rules. I figure hospitals are for sick people and if I’m too sick to care that I’m in hospital then that’s exactly where I should be. I’m embracing the whole concept of natural child birth and the empowering birth experience.
And to whom have I turned for inspiration? Those crazy women from The Farm – just up the road from where I went to high school. I’ve just finished reading Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth – and what a fantastic book it is. A nice easy read – it’s packed with useful information and a real sense of the positive experience of going through labor without drugs. (And I love painkillers!)
What’s really funny – is that the beginning of the book has all these birth experiences and there are loads of women who are describing their treks to Tennessee to birth on The Farm and this strange and exotic locale of Summertown (well, Summertown is strange). But it’s a bit odd to see the place you grew up described as the apex of some epic and mystical journey.
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We interviewed a doula last Friday (kind of like a birth consultant) and she asked me where I was from. I told her I was from Tennessee and that my mom lived not very far from where Ina May Gaskin practices and teaches midwifery. This woman – who will be studying to be a midwife – was just amazed. She asked me if I’d been to The Farm. I have. I told her my mom had a lot of friends there – though I didn’t know if she knows Ina May (turns out she has met her). I discovered I could probably be really cool in holistic midwifery circles.
I hadn’t yet finished Ina May’s guide at the time of the interview – but it would have been pretty nifty to be able to point to one of the photos of glowing ecstatic women giving birth and say “I know this woman, she was a guest at my wedding. She was wearing clothes on that occasion”
We went shopping yesterday after a disastrous trip to the park. It was colder than we expected, we were underdressed and cold, we left the park as soon as it started to rain.
As is our habit, we got two shopping carts and split up. Unfortunately, we covered some of the same ground. Ooops. We have a lot of yoghurt now. I mean a lot.
The Vol-in-Law puts the food away. He has a system it’s best I don’t mess with. On the upside it means I don’t have to put the food away – on the downside it means he does go on a bit about using up the fruit and veg we already have in the fridge before buying any new perishables. (It sounds like this…blah, blah, blah)
He was especially disturbed by the amount of fruit we had and the amount of fruit we had just bought. He suggested that I make a fruit salad. I’m not big on fruit salad – but I did use up a full bag of plums making a delicious plum cobbler.
After tasting that, all was forgiven in the fruit overstocking front, I think.
I might have been a bit better with a bit more fruit. But here’s the recipe I used. I had to use the batter bubble up from the bottom type of cobbler rather than the biscuit topping type recipe because, well – I wanted to use up milk, egg and use melted butter – since butter in this country doesn’t come conveniently packaged with tablespoon and quarter cup markings.
A cute little immigrant to London – the ring necked parakeet – is potentially facing a mass cull. I’ve blogged about the parakeet before – these escapees from the pet trade (or perhaps from the film set of The African Queen) have now colonised well in South East England – and can often be seen along the banks of the Thames.
I photgraphed this gorgeous critter today.
Apparently, the anti-immigration nature Nazis are about to conduct a study – which no doubt will fit up the poor little parakeet for a variety of crimes – e.g. out competing the locals. The punishment for being a fitter introduction is death.
Never mind the other animals that actually are pests and need culling – like the pigeons of Trafalgar Square or the fat and fearless rubbish eating foxes that are the scourge of our suburban terraces (biting babies and killing cats and attacking old people). No – they have to go after a pretty species, that as far as I can see aren’t really troubling anyone (they can screech a bit, but that’s nothing compared to the fearsome howling of foxes).
Instead of culling the parakeets, I think that we should embrace them. They are the ultimate symbol of London – the brighter, harder working immigrant (like a Polish plumber or Australian bar staff). They should make the ring necked parakeet the official bird of London.
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Ross Clark, a guest columnist for The Times, feels similarly.
This year marks the 200th anniversary of the banning of the slave trade by the UK parliament. There are loads of activities, exhibitions and edutainment. There are also lots of calls for apologies for the slave trade.
Enslaving innocent humans, a system that encouraged and institutionalised casual cruelty and brutality cannot be endorsed or condoned. It was filthy and dehumanising for slave and slave-holder and everyone who participated or looked on without speaking up against the vile practice. And slavery continues today – through human trafficking, through “forced labor”, foreign “sex workers” and systems of indenture through illegal immigration – that we still haven’t stamped out.
Let that be said.
But sorry? I’m not sure. I wouldn’t be here today – I wouldn’t be me – if it weren’t for the slave trade – if it weren’t for my black ancestors deep in my genetic past – no doubt brought to America in chains. My baby cousins, a quarter black, wouldn’t be them without the slave trade.
Sure, there would be different people in our places. But we wouldn’t be us. And I’m glad we’re here.
The Vol Abroad 