Whatever the weather

On our trip to RHS Wisley (botannical gardens just South of Greater London) last week, we passed by the weather station. It’s all rain gauges and wind gauges and the weird little boxes these things are kept in (they look like cock-fighting sheds) to protect the weather instruments from the weather.

And then I noticed something odd, up on a platform and beneath a traditional weather vane.

What is that…is that a, yes it is, it’s a crystal ball.

Is that some kind of meteorologist joke? Those guys are corkers, clearly.

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On Monday, I went to the local B&Q (a kind of Home Depot knock off) and got some bedding plants. I bought some Sweet William and some white impatiens. I planted out the Sweet William, as they have some frost hardiness, but the impatiens will have to remain in their trays for a little while longer. See, I have something even better than the a crystal ball to predict the weather. I have Tennessee.

Two weeks ago, Tennessee was experiencing unseasonably warm weather.
Now in England we are experienceing unseasonably warm weather – it’s absolutely lovely, y’all let me tell you.

Then Tennessee got bit in the ass by ol’ Jack Frost.
And if trends go as they usually do, Jack’s got his transatlantic flight already booked.

Look out for frost, fellow English gardeners

Citizen S.

The Texan pulled her finger out and got her British citizenship application sorted. Now she’s a dual national. (I keep meaning to do this…)

In the old days, you just paid your money, swore fealty to the Queen, her heirs and successors and you were citizen. These days it’s a lot more like the American system where a big deal is made of citizenship and the process of becoming a citizen. I think that’s a good thing. There’s a test and a ceremony.

The Vol-in-Law and I attended the Texan’s citizenship ceremony this week. It was held in the registrar’s office of her local borough – LB Merton. I’ve had occasion to visit the Merton’s Civic Centre (Town Hall). It’s crap. It’s a hideous building. It deserves to get placed on a list of Britain’s ugliest buildings. (Although that accolade actually goes to another building in the borough nearer me, so perhaps the powers that be didn’t want Merton hogging all the limelight). So I was surprised and pleased to find that Merton’s Register office is actually a very nice building. A lot of British couples get married in register offices and they’re generally well appointed, so not a bad place for a citizenship ceremony.

The Citizenship set-up

The Texan paid extra and opted for a private ceremony. Which meant that it was just her, the two character references on her citizenship application (not required, just a nice touch) and me, and not a load of other foreign riff-raff. The Vol-in-Law was one of the two Brits the Texan managed to ply with enough whiskey to sign off on her good character. We headed down there in what we thought was good time and got caught in a snarl of traffic making us late, but we beat the Texan to her own do.

The ceremony itself was pretty nice – and if I described it to you, it would sound cheesy, but it was actually very well done. I was a bit worried when the first thing the officiant said to the Texan was “How will you be paying for this?” – and she replied “By credit card.” But somehow we all managed to recover the tone. There was a bit of guff about the obligations of citizenship, being British means being tolerant, then an oath and a complicated, ornate choral arrangement of God Save the Queen was played on CD.

Being a bad sort, if we’re at home and God Save the Queen comes on I usually sing “My Country Tis of Thee” over the top of it. It drives my husband bonkers. This might be the equivalent of singing the original lyrics over the top of the The Star Spangled Banner. But I didn’t do any such thing at the ceremony and only sang them quietly in my head.

I have to commend the officiant. She did it all very seriously and well – and was really helpful identifying camera angles for me and told me I could get up and move around to take pictures and even took a group shot of us all. She had just the right touch of levity, though to, and we all had a jolly laugh. Taking on citizenship is solemn and sacred, yes, but shouldn’t be dire. It’s not a funeral, it’s more like a wedding.

At the end, after Citizen S. (the Texan) swore her oath and got her certificate. But that wasn’t all…no, we filed down to the administrative guts of the building to watch Citizen S. pay for the ceremony – all details complete.

The Merton registrar waits for Citizen S.’s receipt.

Batten down the hatches

In today’s Guardian, a story from 20 years ago:

Twenty years ago today, the Herald of Free Enterprise set out from the Belgian port of Zeebrugge on its crossing to Dover. Within half an hour, the ferry was lying on its side with its 539 passengers and crew fighting for survival in freezing seas. The bow doors had not been closed.

Twenty years ago, two of my husband’s cousins died in that disaster. His aunt lost two of her children, her oldest and youngest daughters and the oldest daughter’s fiance. They were on one side of the ferry. The rest of the family survived – just.

They received shockingly little compensation for lives utterly destroyed. The negligence was appalling – the head of the enquiry found that there was a “disease of sloppiness” among the ship’s management. The employee responsible for shutting the bow doors – which would have prevented water rushing in and capsizing the ship – was asleep when the ferry left port.

Hurray for St David

Other than being my brother’s birthday, and the birthday of the son of the conductor of the train I’m on (you’ll see why that’s relevant in a moment), it’s also St David’s Day. Do you know what or who St David is the patron saint of? You’ll see why that’s relevant in a moment.

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Regular readers will know I was a bit unwell last week. I had a cold. I also had a number of pressing assignments at work. And I am now 6.5 months pregnant – or thereabouts. I was so excited about no longer being a smoker and having the post cold dregs settling in my chest that I didn’t really account for the cold + baby double whammy on my system. And then I was pulling out as many stops as I could muster for work, too.

Yesterday, I was really struggling, finishing off assignments (including a surprise one of cooking up an hour and a half workshop in an area I know little about), plus I needed to travel up to Liverpool – plus prepping for my speaking gig today, plus remember that surpise assigment? I only just figured out yesterday that I had 3 hours of workshop facilitation today.

Needless to say, I didn’t catch the early train I wanted to in order to have a chilled evening before the event today. I was rushing for the train I did manage. Unfortunately, so was everyone else wanting to go to Liverpool and a train load of people who had wanted to go to Manchester, but had suffered the disappointment of a cancellation.

The way it works is everybody stands around in the main hall of the station and waits to be told which platform they will be departing from. Usually the info is posted well in advance, but yesterday it was only moments before departure. Platform 18 was announced and my heart sank. That one’s so far away it’s practically in a different borough. The herd set off – and though I didn’t know about the cancelled Manchester train – I could tell a heck of a lot of people were trying for that train – and they were all moving a lot faster than I was in the hope of getting a seat.

So I’m huffing and puffing and dragging my heavy pack and I can see I’m probably not going to get a seat. And I know I’m not going to make it the 2 and a half hours to Liverpool stood up.

I kinda collapsed in a seat – despite the fact I could see they’d been reserved. And I was so despondent at the thought of trying to fight my way to a seat that I sobbed and gasped – and frankly couldn’t stop. Fortunately, the place I’d stopped was opposite the train manager’s office. And they took pity on me and let me sit there and wouldn’t let anyone sit next to me despite the fact that there were people sitting on the floor of the vestibules and even in the aisles.

Not that anyone would have wanted to sit next to me really since it took me just about an hour to catch my breath. Seriously.

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The presentation went ok. It was one of the few times in my professional life where I could make a joke about half nekkid men appearing in soft focus in a calendar and get away with it. I could not let such an opportunity pass unseized. I did surely objectify the firemen I was speaking about and to – and I should feel bad about it. But I can’t think of a more deserving group. And they were putty in my hands after that.

The facilitation was a little tougher. But I managed. I put a lot into my presentations and I’m pretty exhausted now. I did manage to catch the train from Liverpool a lot more easily and landed a seat no problem. But travel is still exhausting.

The train conductor was in a jolly mood – it being his son’s birthday I guess. He chirpily announced it over the train PA – and he also informed us all that it’s St David’s Day. He’s the patron saint of Wales. I know this because I know a lot of useless trivia, but it’s the kind of thing I think many Brits would know. Our conductor promised an upgrade to first class for the first person who could tell him who or what David did the patronly saint thing for. I didn’t believe him. And I certainy thought that even if it were true – someone else would be able to answer before me.

But when he walked through the carriage asking the question, I shouted out the answer. The compulsion to shout out trivia got me to be captain of the Quiz Bowl team in high school and today it got me bumped up to first class.

Free drinks, a light snack and plenty of leg room.

Hurray for St David. (Who is also, according to Wikipedia, the patron saint of Pembrokeshire, poets, vegetarians and free upgrades.)

Service to the community

Gordon Brown, the Chancellor and Labour Prime Minister in waiting wants immigrants to do “community service” before they can become citizens. Gordon Brown has a lot of crackpot ideas.

Now at first glance, that sounds like not such a bad idea. I mean, after all, shouldn’t you be contributing something to the society you want to formally become a part of? Gordo – as reported in The Evening Standard says:

“Being a British citizen is about more than a test, more than a ceremony; it’s a kind of contract between the citizen and the country involving rights but also involving responsibilities that will protect and enhance the British way of life. “

I think that’s right. I think that citizenship is a kind of social contract. In some ways akin to marriage – a new relationship – as strong as blood, but based on choice. Too many British people have no sense of what it means to take on citizenship of another country and seem to think that it amounts to getting a new passport that entitles you to go through the short line at Heathrow. I can’t tell you how many Brits have just assumed that I had a British passport automatically upon marriage to a Brit (plus the three cereal box tops and £1.99 shipping and handling). I just don’t think that’s right.

But it hasn’t really been thought through, it seems. Gordon Brown says he wants applicants for citizenship to understand British institutions. If that’s the case, then studying for the citizenship test and applying for benefits ought to be quite enough.

The Conservate Party was, naturally, scathing:

Mr [David ]Davis [Shadow Home Secretary] declared: “Gordon Brown’s proposals are ill-thought out and could be actually damaging. What about a doctor who has been here for some years, decides to become a UK citizen, and then has to stop working in the NHS for a period of time to do Mr Brown’s community service?”

Indeed what about folks like me? I certainly have a pretty good understanding of the British public sector through my work, I’m reasonably politically active and I even give time at a local school. But we don’t know if I’d have to quit my job (thus favoring all those lounge-about types who actually never seek employment at all) in order to do community service. I’m not sure that Mr Brown would see my Conservative leafleting as working in the community.

And as Mr Davis points out, there are bigger fish to fry in terms of handling citizenship applications:

He stated: “It is not that long since a minister lost her job after allowing citizenship applications to be granted without the proper passport checks being carried out. Gordon Brown should concentrate on remedying that, and answering our call to establish a dedicated UK border police – measures that will actually get a grip on the
problems in the immigration service.”

Apparently, some kind of proposal for compulsory volunteering was developed, but the Treasury rejected the measure as too costly. Goodness knows what kind of ridiculous bureacratic nonsense was cooked up to check up on quality community work. Still, if people take British citizenship with its rights and obligations more seriously or perhaps consider contributing to their local communities (which is rewarding in its own right) perhaps it’s not such a bad thing. But not like this.

Tastes like chicken

I don’t know why I bought this

I know perfectly well that Pot Noodle – that great British food substance – is shite. I’m a person that puts salt on my salt, but Pot Noodle is so salty it makes me feel all weird and dehyrdrated. But I couldn’t resist a food substance that had incorporated the Confederate Battle Flag in its packaging. I should have, but I didn’t. Maybe I was feeling oddly homesick…

It sat in our cupboard for quite a while. But I’m off sick today and the house is not really well stocked with food. (We have no food.) So I thought, today’s the day. Plus I was curious if a noodle soup could really taste like fried chicken.

When I opened the lid, there was an extra little surprise inside.

It’s like so tangy y’all.

Wow, a strange combination of California 80s and South East idiom.

Here’s what it looks like without the ketchup packet. Yummy, dust!

And here’s what it looks like after adding boiling water and stirring (the only required preparation)

This isn’t the final product though. No, for that I had to wait two minutes for the noodles and corn kernels and bits of soya protein to soften in the hot water. Yes, that two minutes did feel like an eternity.

Ready at last. Did it taste like Southern Fried Chicken? No. Did it even taste like chicken? Not really. Though perhaps it’s because I’m sick and my taste buds are shot, but really it just tasted like salt.

I was going to save the special sauce packet (for what I don’t know), but I’m afraid the salty salt was just too salty, so I needed to add some salty ketchup to see if it tasted better.

It did taste better. But it still didn’t taste like chicken. And now I feel all weird and dehydrated.

and she’s still gagging for it

I picked on Jen a little bit in my previous post. I’m bad that way. But what I really wanted to do was draw your attention to her excellent piece on rape conviction rates in the UK. I’ve written about it before, but there’s been a new study showing the same old bad news. I didn’t really have the heart to do a post on it again.

rape is an appalling topic no matter what the circumstances, but rape in the u.k. is truly horrific because only 5% of reported rape cases end in a conviction. that’s a number which has, in fact, been falling since 1977. of the cases that go to trial, one of every two ends in acquittal. in other words, a victim who manages to make it to trial has only a 50/50 crapshoot of getting to see her attacker put behind bars

and reading the reports, it’s not hard to understand why. in news item after news item, there’s just no sense that anyone in the justice system takes rape seriously. there’s a lot of talk about the number of false accusations, the difficulties of determining consent if someone’s been binge drinking, and passing the buck blame-gaming. all we hear is how hard it is to determine what happened when the two parties know each other. attempts at judicial reforms have been dismissed by judges, police incorrectly record allegations as “no crimes”, and more than a third of dropped cases have should have been pursued. but perhaps the most telling indicator of how rape is viewed and prosecuted in the u.k. is that women are still often questioned about their sexual history as part of the trial.

And there’s more…

The limits of rudeness

Advisory: This post contains strong language of an adult nature

I can’t believe I’m posting about Celebrity Big Brother. The “normal” version of Big Brother is bad enough – but pack the tv fishbowl with a bunch of second rate celebs and it’s even less interesting.

But here I am commenting on it. Here’s why.

Many, many people are upset over “racism” on Big Brother. There have been 27,000 complaints (and counting) to Channel 4, which produces and airs the show. Apparently, a Bollywood actress, Shilpa Shetty has born the brunt of many negative comments from her fellow celebrity incarcerees. Shilpa Shetty is probably an annoying diva, but I bet she’s more talented than the other D-list shut-ins and makes a ton more money, too. I’m sure that’s at the root of the problem, rather than racism per se.

When asked whether she thought she’d been the victim of racial abuse, Shilpa Shetty didn’t think so. She didn’t think she’d been treated well by Jade Goody (another participant) but she didn’t think the remarks were racially motivated.

I think there are a lot of insecurities from her end, but I don’t think it’s racial.

Now I don’t know if any of them are racist or not. But I have noticed that appalling behaviour – rude, crass comments, sexism, classism, snobbery (reverse or straightforward) go unremarked on – unless, of course, it smacks of racism.

Jade Goody’s boyfriend called Ms Shetty a name which was bleeped. Many people complained that he’d called her a “Paki” (a derogative term for someone of Pakistani origin – Ms Shetty is in fact Indian). But actually, he’d called her “cunt”. Well, that’s ok then, apparently. Misogyny is all good viewing – (until you use the c-word), but woe betide anyone who uses a racial epithet.

I don’t think it’s OK to call Ms Shetty a Paki or a cunt. I don’t think that this is the kind of behaviour we want from anyone. Why can’t we just stand up for decency? Why do people even watch these nasty-mouthed people act in ways we wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) tolerate on the playground. Have we become so immune to rudeness that we only think it’s worthy of comment when it’s racist? Personally, I think we should be drawing the line a lot higher.

(Oh – and for anyone who comes to this post looking for Paki cunt – go fuck yourself. And yes, I do appreciate my own self-generated irony)

Extremist U.

Are British Universities hotbeds of extremism? Is the UK taxpayer educating the next wave of terrorists and suicide bombers?

Probably.

Via Right Truth a report on the extremist elements rife in a number of UK (and mostly English) univerisities.

Europe recognized their problems with terror in universities and Adrian Morgan writes an excellent 2 part report at Family Security Matters. Mr. Morgan is also a writer at Western Resistance.

On Monday September 26, 2005, Britain’s Social Affairs Unit published a report by Professor Anthony Glees and Chris Pope from Brunel University. This report, entitled “When Students Turn To Terror“, listed 24 universities where radicalism flourished, including Birmingham, Brunel, Durham, Leeds, Leeds Metropolitan, Luton, Leicester, Manchester Metropolitan, Newcastle, Nottingham, Reading, Swansea, and Wolverhampton. Coming out while Britain was still reeling from the horrors of 7/7 when 52 people died on London Transport, Professor Glees’ report galvanized the UK media. Already mosques and radical preachers had been named as contributing factors to the bombings of July 7, 2005. Universities had thitherto been ignored. Yet Britain’s campuses had long been the playgrounds of amateur radicals and Islamists.

Well, I’m not so sure that Europe really did recognise the problem. When the current Labour government suggested that Universities start monitoring the activities of some of their radical elements – most of the leftists I know got all a-twitter. “They want the universities to spy on their own students. Outrageous.”

Actually, not so outrageous. If students are meeting in their own private accomodation and keeping their terror activities off campus then I would agree that the university has no business in monitoring their behaviour. However, these students are fly-posting on university bulletin boards and using university meeting rooms (at low-low to no cost). These student-radicals are recruiting on campus. This makes it the university’s responsibility to make sure that university property isn’t being used for potentially catastrophic ends. It makes it the university’s responsibility to protect other students from these student-radicals. And I’m not talking protecting them from a potential threat – but protecting existing students – especially female, homosexual and Jewish students.

I’m a free speech fundamentalist – but I don’t necessarily believe in subsidised speech. I would ask leftists who might use the Islamaphobia label if at least the same standards should be applied to speech on university property and in university meeting rooms. If some skinhead types were railing on about scantily clad women and homos and the Jooos – what should happen? If women were being harrassed on campus – if there was a climate of fear created by skinhead activists – then what should happen? Well, the university authorities should step in. And I guarantee you that Qaradawi inspired radical Islamism certainly doesn’t vary strongly from neo-Nazi views on homosexuality and the Jews and takes a somewhat dimmer view of outspoken, bare-headed women. The university also has a responsibility to protect Muslim students – in particular Muslims who practice a less Wahabist, less radical form of Islam – e.g. Muslims who will happily associate with students from other religions or Muslim women who don’t cover their hair. I know Muslim students who have been harassed and intimidated for not being “Muslim enough”.

This doesn’t mean turning kids over to the authorities for their hot head views. This means creating a climate where harrassed students can make a complaint and zero tolerance attitude to threating misogynistic, anti-Semetic and anti-homosexual language and behaviour.

This means not supporting radical Islamist values with free or subsidised meeting spaces. For example, some time last year a radical group at my husband’s university booked a hall for their outrageous anti-semetic propaganda. They claimed that it was for one thing when booking – but advertised another anti-semetic event. A group of Jewish students complained, the university investigated and the Islamists were moved on basically on the grounds that they had reserved the hall for one purpose and were using it for another.