Silver Lining

Tuesday's Child

Yesterday was a funny day. 

It began with being interviewed over the phone by a BBC News journalist, who wanted me to go into the Coventry studio to do a full interview about yesterday's story on back-to-work 'incentives' for lone parents.  Unfortunately, I was rather too busy working to flit into the studio - somewhat ironically, given the Government's determination to cast us all as feckless benefit frauds.  As I also was too busy to listen to the news for the rest of the day, I don't even know if they used the bits we did over the phone... Ho hum.  I wonder if Andy Warhol foresaw that we'd all be too busy to enjoy our 15 minutes??  This is really fucked up, though.  I thought Blair was going to create an inclusive society?  It seems to me that lone parents are singled out and labelled because they're easy to identify.  It's really time we began to value parents who stay home with their children, regardless of their marital status; and support people who want to get back to work, regardless of their parental status.

I spent the afternoon being star struck by being within touching distance of Anthony Sher.  Of course I didn't.  Touch him, I mean.  There are limits.  He gave a wonderful speech, though; about the importance of being true to yourself and not denying your identity.  Very moving.  I wonder how many people in his audience were aware of his courage and presence before they happened to find themselves in the same room as him?  I saw him in Richard III (can't believe they're trying to say that was in 1984!) and he was mesmerising.

DBO and I finished the day off with a trip to Wolfrun Hall in Wolverhampton to see Scott Matthews.  It was a wonderful gig; small and atmospheric, and his voice live is as entrancing as the album promises it might be. 

So, Bush is going to send an extra 20,000 troops into Iraq, to try to put an end to the bloodshed?  He says that's the only way to prevent mass murder on a grand scale?

Read the entry for October 18th, here (I can't link directly to it).  According to this Iraqi blog, Saddam was responsible, over a 24 year regime, for the deaths of 300,000 Iraqis.  That's appalling.  And then, according to The Lancet, 600,000 Iraqis have died in the 3 years since the invasion.

The occupying forces - American, British or any other nationality - aren't *preventing* killings on a grand scale.  They're committing them.  If not directly, then because the country is in so great a turmoil as a result of the occupation, that they're providing the environment in which the death squads thrive.

It's time to leave. 

And yes, I'm naive and ill-informed.  And in that respect, I'm probably fairly representative of the majority of the population, who pay scant attention to the headlines, and care more for Celebrity Big Brother than the wider world arena.

And no, I can't believe everything I read in blogland any more than I can believe everything I read in the press.

You could level these, and many more justifiable criticisms at me.  It's still time to leave.  It's time our government stood up and told Bush No.  No more.  No more troops.  No more occupation.  We've overseen the introduction of a supposedly democratic government.  Let's get out and let them govern.  Time to go.

What a strange evening this is being.  A chance conversation with a colleague degenerated into a gossip session about former mutual comrades from our days of political involvement.  This is a colleague who I know only a little, but for whom I'm sure I could entertain a deep affection.  Anyways, as a result I have been googling the old school.  Entertaining, mighty entertaining.  And an email address for my old university flatmate occurs.  Another man for whom I entertain a deep affection.  Oh excitement!

Then I follow links from my bloglist and find this blog, which draws me in and reminds me how much I love the sound of singing bowls.  And from there, I follow this link and read about the Madonna adoption through African eyes.  And then I think about Purple Hibiscus, written by the author of that article; a book I enjoyed so much that it has stayed with me for several years.  By some random process of mental association (not that I'm categorising both authors as representative of Africa, I promise!)  I think of Ahdaf Soueif, another author whose work I find lingeringly powerful.

The association leads me back to contemplation of this issue which is exercising me mightily at work at the moment.  I am vehemently opposed to the demonisation of moslems because of their faith, and the growing hysteria about veiled women and their integration or non-integration into British society.  I find it frustrating that British society remains determinedly narrow-church and culturally imperialist in a world where those ought to be out-dated, out-moded attitudes.  And I wonder whether my frustration and undoubted naivety mean that perhaps I haven't moved so far from my political history, after all?!

Anyway, I need to consider the level of inappropriacy around contacting my old flatmate on his newfound work email... and make some pasta before the evening twists out of control!

PGCE enrolment has run less than smoothly.  We had 250+ secondary PGCE students yesterday, whom we were supposed to do various admin bits and pieces with, within 2 1/2 hours.  I've been saying all year that this isn't enough time, especially given that the new fee regime and attendant support arrangements take some time to discuss and check, but that's the window I was given.  Needless to say it overran, and the students weren't altogether satisfied.

I've been thinking about juggling.  I was telling someone about my job recently, and she made some comment about how I was doing 4 fulltime projects, and balancing children and working from home, and how I just drive myself too hard.  This is undoubtedly true; it certainly wouldn't hurt me to just drift from time to time, but I just don't seem to be able to.  Today I met a woman who has given up her job, to train as a teacher.  She has a child with a heart problem, who has to receive medication 3 times a day.  However, the medication needs to be kept refrigerated and administered by a nurse.  The child's school won't take responsibility for the lunchtime dose, so the woman jumps in her car, takes the medicine to school, gives it to her child, jumps in the car and comes back to Uni again for her afternoon programme.

Many of us manage similar (albeit mostly less dramatic) feats on a daily basis, but what really struck me about this woman was that she was overwhelmingly grateful for a simple solution to a reasonably small problem: she needed a car park pass.  As it stands, she was paying to zip in and out of the car parks at Uni.  She couldn't get a pass, because she didn't have a student card.  She couldn't get a student card because her department hadn't forwarded her photo to my team. She'd been trying for either or both for the best part of a week.  Today, in tears, she arrived at my desk, bearing a photo and expecting to be told to wait two days for her card.

I produced the card, but the chip encoder on the machine failed.  So I called the head of Access Control, who is a friend of mine, and asked for help.  Within half an hour I had her a temporary car park pass, and by the end of the day she had a working student card, loaded up with car park credit which will allow her to come and go freely.

What I wonder is this: does the fact that I, too, juggle a heavy workload around the demands of my children make me more empathetic to this woman's plight?  Why had so many of my colleagues around the University shrugged their shoulders and told her she'd have to wait?  Mostly, they are good caring people, and the solution wasn't exceptional and didn't particularly need to involve me.

I think the world is slowly waking up to the fact that working women need support with their juggling acts.  And I do think other working women are more empathetic to these kinds of situations.  But obviously, it's far from a perfect situation yet...

A message from Lenny Henry

I need you to do something for me. 

Every 3 seconds a child dies because they happen to be born poor.

If we changed 3 things - trade, aid and debt - that scandal would stop. And on 8th July, if the 8 men sitting round the table at the G8 summit think enough people want them to - they can actually do it. Stop the deaths.

But to make that happen we need you to get 3 people you know to go to www.makepovertyhistory.org and click on the button which says 'JOIN US'. This is serious now - time is running out - we've got 8 weeks. So please....

Do it now, email them, text them, call them, camp on their front lawn - whatever it takes - but I need you to find 3 people who, like you, want to stop this casual daily holocaust.

There are 56 days before the G8 leaders meet - this is our chance... this is the moment when we can become the generation that refuses to live in a world where 30,000 children are dying unneccessarily every single day.

We CAN make poverty history. But we need EVERYONE to get involved. It's time to really go to work on this. Please recruit those 3 people, right now.

If everyone who gets this message sends it on to 3 friends, half a million people will join us this week - that's one hell of a message to give out to our politicians.

Thanks

Lenny Henry

Election special

Daisy (aged 5) has just reminded me that it's election day.  She thinks we should go and vote right away, so I can be the new government.  I think it might be nicer to wait till I've had a shower and got dressed, first.

I have, generally, fallen into a state of political apathy over the last decade.  I guess there's just been more pressing stuff to worry about within my own 4 walls.  That sounds dreadful - it's not to say I don't care or don't have an opinion about the wider world; just that I haven't been politically involved as I once was. 

This weekend, down in London, I was amazed by the level of political discussion all around me.  OK, on Saturday the party we went to was attended by a local labour party chairman, so he was full of his campaigning with John and Hazel and perhaps Gordon or Tony might turn up tomorrow.  And Lovely Brother in Law's job means some political discussion is inevitable.  I felt kind of guilty at the end of the evening; people were asking my opinion, I was sharing it, but actually it's a long, long time since I've done anything about it. 

Then on Sunday, Sissy and I went running on Wimbledon Common (kind of a spooky place for me, ever since the Rachel Nickell murder).  Afterwards, we stopped at the Windmill Cafe for a much needed drink.  The place was crammed with mums walking kids and dogs, and a local running club in a similar state of disintegration to us.  And *everyone* was talking about the election.  Whose policy on what front would lead to which result.  Who was likely to win in this area, that area.  How marginal constituencies are going to count this time.

I wasn't going to vote this time; the party I would naturally vote for has let me down, I feel.  And anyhow, they don't have a hope in hell of winning my constituency.  But mine is one of the most marginal in the country, and my vote will really count here.  So I've spoken to the MP (because she's like that; you can) and agreed that I will vote for her today to stop the party I loathe most from re-taking the seat.

And it's served as a reminder that actually, politics are quite important to me.  I think, perhaps, when I've moved I'll get more involved again.

So when I've had a shower and put some clothes on, I'll go down to the polling station, and make my cross on the ballot paper. 

But I don't really expect that I'll wake up in the morning and discover that I've been elected to be the new government.  Sorry, Daisy.