I've been hideously lazy with this recently - oh dear. I'll try and make up for it now...
Ellie Goulding. Wide eyed, angelic blond hair, welsh mountain stream voice, a folk bedrock and more musical talent than you would assume from a BRIT winner. So why was her Oxford gig on Friday night half filled with incredibly annoying 'wayhay!' ravers more concerned with pulling the nearest vaguely indie scene teen than listening to her sing?
Probably precisely because she won that BRIT. She admitted in the gig that it was overwhelming to play to so many people being more used to crowds of between "2 and 10" than 700. Endearingly she tried to chat to the crowd and introduce her songs though she couldn't be heard where I was half way back in front of the sound desk. She should have been in a smaller venue, with the people who had wittily painted stars next to their eyes taken out and allowed to find her feet and develop with a loving fan base, not a fickle "it was nine quid and i like that track they play on radio one" mass.
Don't get me wrong, she didn't disappoint. Beautiful voice, songs sung in such a manner you actually knew she'd written them; even better live than on the album with more of the folky roots allowed to come through allowing me to understand her description of herself as "future folk". Salt Skin was the stand out track - with a brilliant Japanese style drum addition at the end, and I'll Hold My Breath dedicated to her longer standing fans was stunning.
But I won't be able to think about the gig without remembering the two boys stood next to me for the first few songs, here after referred to a tweedle dee and tweedle slightly more annoying. Dressed in matching tight white t-shirts, fake tan, at least a pot of hair gel each the played drinking games, punching each other in the arm and plunging their fingers into each others drinks. A group of girls quickly latched on to them, after swiftly and bluntly establishing that they weren't gay slightly more annoying was led off by one, presumably not for a better view of the stage, and tweedle dee quickly followed, locking lips with another. This other informed tweedle dee that slightly more annoying's girl was 15 resulting in the whole gang thankfully trouping off to find her, led by a concerned tweedle dee.
Maybe if Ellie's album sales are high enough she can play smaller venues if she wants to, and I hope she does. I'll go and see her. and maybe the tweedles will be replaced by someone more appreciative.
Sunday, 28 March 2010
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
No sex please, I'm not a human.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8529595.stm
Lets pretend that I, on an ideological or religious basis, don't like maths. I think it is damaging, and potentially harmful, and that my children shouldn't know anything about it. My faith have set up a school. Should it be allowed for the children attending it not to learn any maths? Or to learn about it whilst being subjected to repeated assertions that it is bad and wrong?
No. Children have to learn maths. Without it their life, both later and current, will be impaired. They will encounter situations they don't understand, or don't know how to navigate. They could be taken advantage of.
If my child should decide when they are older that they too don't like maths I should be very pleased, but its up to them to make that decision, once they have had the opportunity to learn it. Because if they don't learn it while they are young then any of the bad things that could result might happen before they know about it, and its much harder to learn once you get older.
This is, of course, a rather thinly veiled metaphor for what should be taught in faith schools with regards to sex education. I'm sure those who support the teaching of religious biased, fact omitted sex education might regard my alignment to maths as flippant and irrelevant, claiming that sex education isn't necessary for life int eh same way that maths is.
But it is. Biologically you cannot stop a child developing sexually, and they will encounter experiences of a sexual nature. Whether welcome or forced, knowledge of contraception, pregnancy options, sexually transmitted disease, relationships, and sexual self confidence are needed. Because everyone will encounter a sexual situation. Ignorance does not keep your children innocent, it just makes them a hell of a lot more likely to get hurt and damaged in the future.
I don't disagree with faith schools, but I see them as a way of incorporating some religious teaching along side a normal curriculum, not intruding into all subjects. Islamic schools work around prayer times, Jewish schools incorporate dietary requirements, in Catholic schools you sing hymns in assembly. But they shouldn't be the site of damaging indoctrination.
In this situation people often talk about parents rights, to teach their child the morals they wish. But by that vein some one could teach racism on the grounds of religion. The Catholic churches attitude to homosexuals in fact borders on that.
And what about the child's rights? To have the opportunity to learn about themselves, and given all the information one day make their own decision?
Its the children that need to be thought of, not the parents lobbying and bulling. And the Government need to be stronger and see that.
Those parents might be gloating now, pleased that they have 'won' the sex education battle. But when their child winds up pregnant, or with an STI, or can't talk to them and doesn't understand the advances of someone on the Internet, or is unhappy in their marriage (if everything goes perfectly and they stick with the religion and abstain before) because they haven't been taught how to feel about their body or their wants or sexuality.
And if the Government can see anything else they should see Britain's appalling statistics for teenage pregnancy and STIs going up not down in the future on the basis of their 'watered down' bill.
Lets pretend that I, on an ideological or religious basis, don't like maths. I think it is damaging, and potentially harmful, and that my children shouldn't know anything about it. My faith have set up a school. Should it be allowed for the children attending it not to learn any maths? Or to learn about it whilst being subjected to repeated assertions that it is bad and wrong?
No. Children have to learn maths. Without it their life, both later and current, will be impaired. They will encounter situations they don't understand, or don't know how to navigate. They could be taken advantage of.
If my child should decide when they are older that they too don't like maths I should be very pleased, but its up to them to make that decision, once they have had the opportunity to learn it. Because if they don't learn it while they are young then any of the bad things that could result might happen before they know about it, and its much harder to learn once you get older.
This is, of course, a rather thinly veiled metaphor for what should be taught in faith schools with regards to sex education. I'm sure those who support the teaching of religious biased, fact omitted sex education might regard my alignment to maths as flippant and irrelevant, claiming that sex education isn't necessary for life int eh same way that maths is.
But it is. Biologically you cannot stop a child developing sexually, and they will encounter experiences of a sexual nature. Whether welcome or forced, knowledge of contraception, pregnancy options, sexually transmitted disease, relationships, and sexual self confidence are needed. Because everyone will encounter a sexual situation. Ignorance does not keep your children innocent, it just makes them a hell of a lot more likely to get hurt and damaged in the future.
I don't disagree with faith schools, but I see them as a way of incorporating some religious teaching along side a normal curriculum, not intruding into all subjects. Islamic schools work around prayer times, Jewish schools incorporate dietary requirements, in Catholic schools you sing hymns in assembly. But they shouldn't be the site of damaging indoctrination.
In this situation people often talk about parents rights, to teach their child the morals they wish. But by that vein some one could teach racism on the grounds of religion. The Catholic churches attitude to homosexuals in fact borders on that.
And what about the child's rights? To have the opportunity to learn about themselves, and given all the information one day make their own decision?
Its the children that need to be thought of, not the parents lobbying and bulling. And the Government need to be stronger and see that.
Those parents might be gloating now, pleased that they have 'won' the sex education battle. But when their child winds up pregnant, or with an STI, or can't talk to them and doesn't understand the advances of someone on the Internet, or is unhappy in their marriage (if everything goes perfectly and they stick with the religion and abstain before) because they haven't been taught how to feel about their body or their wants or sexuality.
And if the Government can see anything else they should see Britain's appalling statistics for teenage pregnancy and STIs going up not down in the future on the basis of their 'watered down' bill.
Sunday, 31 January 2010
Soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief - deaths in order of importance
"When tragedy occurs, we ought to properly support the families, including the recognition of an entitlement to appropriate bereavement leave.”
MP Angela Smith called earlier this month for more employers to be more sympathetic with regards to compassionate leave. Admirable, until you add the fact that she is not appealing for everyone who faces a "tragedy", but just families of armed service personnel.
It is faintly immoral to 'rank' people's deaths is this way. Is it worse if your son dies because he was a soldier than a criminal? Should you be rewarded for your child or partner's career choice with more time off if they die?
Even that the death occurs outside of the country isn't a justification. Many other families have children or parents who live or work abroad.
I'm not saying people shouldn't get compassionate leave. But it should be given out equally, not a legal guideline set out privileging armed forces' families over all others.
http://www.labourmatters.com/sheffield-labour/mps-call-for-forces-families-to-get-bereavement-leave-guarantee/
MP Angela Smith called earlier this month for more employers to be more sympathetic with regards to compassionate leave. Admirable, until you add the fact that she is not appealing for everyone who faces a "tragedy", but just families of armed service personnel.
It is faintly immoral to 'rank' people's deaths is this way. Is it worse if your son dies because he was a soldier than a criminal? Should you be rewarded for your child or partner's career choice with more time off if they die?
Even that the death occurs outside of the country isn't a justification. Many other families have children or parents who live or work abroad.
I'm not saying people shouldn't get compassionate leave. But it should be given out equally, not a legal guideline set out privileging armed forces' families over all others.
http://www.labourmatters.com/sheffield-labour/mps-call-for-forces-families-to-get-bereavement-leave-guarantee/
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
REWIEW: The Road (Spoliers)
Having spent the last two days in the library next to my friend who was reading The Road I wasn't labouring under any misconception that an afternoon watching it would be uplifting.
Unrelentingly bleak, the feeling of fear and discomfort so brilliantly portrayed by Viggo Mortensen is conveyed to the viewer with incredible, realistic post-apocalyptic landscapes and a sense that something is always about to go wrong.
The flash backs play a key part in this too; the back story, the human element, what has been lost - home, sunlight, beauty, family.
And then this is up-ed by some brutal scenes; inner-eds of a just cannibalised man, a light less basement-come-larder full of naked mad men, an arrow pulled out of a calf, baths of blood. Harrowing. and not for the faint hearted.
But the most faint hearted of all is the child in the film who plays the other half of the central duologue (Viggo being the first). Despite having always lived in post-apocalypse America the boy cannot fend for himself at all and is not in anyway hardened to what he sees; there are several times when a dying of something resembling TB father has to carry him away from danger because he can't run, he can't fire the gun, when hiding he makes noise, and he is incapable of alerting his father to danger, again just makes noise. He seems incredibly ungrateful for what his father does;protesting when his father fires back at someone who has just shot him in the leg, getting angry when they leave places that have been safe havens because of impending danger, placing himself in harms way through trusting other people and then behaving like a spoilt brat when his father tries to protect him and themselves from it.
He represents the hope for mankind, the inherent innocence and good of humanity. Trusting; rejecting revenge, killing and selfishness. A true child. And as such he obviously couldn't fend for himself, couldn't kill, couldn't adapt; and can't be expected to.
Bollocks. It is a picture of the social construct of Western childhood placed in a world it wouldn't have survived in.
There are children all over the world who have faced hell, a subject which haunts me at the moment as I am researching a dissertation on child soldiers. The Road's presentation of childhood, this inherent goodness that stands against our bleak world and adult destruction, belittles every child who has ever adapted, and picked up a gun and learnt to fight so they don't die. They are failures because they would have helped their dad pull the cart not sulk at the back. Like "real" children.
In the film you see Mortensen loose his trust in other men, become bitter and selfish. And he doesn't survive. What does this say?
The Road, although brilliant and beautiful, condemns each one of us who see ourselves as Viggo, or even as one of the "bad guys", as lost, gone wrong, nonreturnable, in need of childlike goodness to save us. And when you're only 21 that's a pretty grim outlook. For children who live in this world and have had to go through real life apocolypses it's even worse.
Lets not have, 'as long as you're good children, you'll be ok'. Thats not fair. Its not a choice everyone has.
Unrelentingly bleak, the feeling of fear and discomfort so brilliantly portrayed by Viggo Mortensen is conveyed to the viewer with incredible, realistic post-apocalyptic landscapes and a sense that something is always about to go wrong.
The flash backs play a key part in this too; the back story, the human element, what has been lost - home, sunlight, beauty, family.
And then this is up-ed by some brutal scenes; inner-eds of a just cannibalised man, a light less basement-come-larder full of naked mad men, an arrow pulled out of a calf, baths of blood. Harrowing. and not for the faint hearted.
But the most faint hearted of all is the child in the film who plays the other half of the central duologue (Viggo being the first). Despite having always lived in post-apocalypse America the boy cannot fend for himself at all and is not in anyway hardened to what he sees; there are several times when a dying of something resembling TB father has to carry him away from danger because he can't run, he can't fire the gun, when hiding he makes noise, and he is incapable of alerting his father to danger, again just makes noise. He seems incredibly ungrateful for what his father does;protesting when his father fires back at someone who has just shot him in the leg, getting angry when they leave places that have been safe havens because of impending danger, placing himself in harms way through trusting other people and then behaving like a spoilt brat when his father tries to protect him and themselves from it.
He represents the hope for mankind, the inherent innocence and good of humanity. Trusting; rejecting revenge, killing and selfishness. A true child. And as such he obviously couldn't fend for himself, couldn't kill, couldn't adapt; and can't be expected to.
Bollocks. It is a picture of the social construct of Western childhood placed in a world it wouldn't have survived in.
There are children all over the world who have faced hell, a subject which haunts me at the moment as I am researching a dissertation on child soldiers. The Road's presentation of childhood, this inherent goodness that stands against our bleak world and adult destruction, belittles every child who has ever adapted, and picked up a gun and learnt to fight so they don't die. They are failures because they would have helped their dad pull the cart not sulk at the back. Like "real" children.
In the film you see Mortensen loose his trust in other men, become bitter and selfish. And he doesn't survive. What does this say?
The Road, although brilliant and beautiful, condemns each one of us who see ourselves as Viggo, or even as one of the "bad guys", as lost, gone wrong, nonreturnable, in need of childlike goodness to save us. And when you're only 21 that's a pretty grim outlook. For children who live in this world and have had to go through real life apocolypses it's even worse.
Lets not have, 'as long as you're good children, you'll be ok'. Thats not fair. Its not a choice everyone has.
Sunday, 10 January 2010
It's ok to carry a knife, as long as you're a home owner
Happy New Year
and happy new blog - http://argyattemptsapostgrad.blogspot.com - everything I can learn, find out, beg, borrow and steal about applying for masters courses as I go about it myself.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/10/myleene-klass-knife-intruders
Piano playing, M&S wearing Myleene Klass has been told off for brandishing a kitchen knife at 'youths' in her garden. A gasp goes up from middle England - can we not even protect ourselves in our own home? Thank god for David Cameron, the superman with a plan to be more lenient on people who bludgeon buglers to death.
These youths - presumably wearing hoodies. probably scarfs too. clearly to cover their own illegal weapons rather than because they too get cold when it snows - were 'peering' in at her windows. Intrusive yes, and unpleasant, but not necessarily threatening. They would probably have been gotten rid of with the banging on the window alone, and if not a call to the police. They were certainly not in the house itself and aren't reported as having made any any action towards Klass, therefore I wouldn't say it was technically self defence.
And there's the problem. One man's self defence is 'I woke up to find a balaclava-d man going through the drawers in my room with an uncovered gun in his hand so I hit him over the head with my bed side lamp.' Another's is 'I saw some kid at the bottom of my garden. he looked suspicious. so I stabbed him with a bread knife.'
You would end up with a situation where "they carry knives so i can", or a call to more widely legalise guns. And the shockingly high gun crime figures in America show that it only makes things worse.
I've had a penknife since I was a kid. I live in the country and its useful. But my dad always told me the worst thing I could do was carry it in self defence. Because if I get that out truth is my assailant will probably trump me and respond much more strongly than they would otherwise have done.
Our society isn't perfect, but lets not give up and make allowances for violence but keep trying for a weaponless, peaceful country, with police not vigilante justice.
The friendliest O.A.Ps in the world...
An old man named Roger asked me to cross him over the road in the snow. Having acquiesced he took my arm, told me he was only joking he didn't need help, he just liked to get people to. I was the third that day.
A woman on the train moved her bag so I could put mine on the luggage rack, telling me sternly it was too heavy to go on my lap and then gave me a copy of Heat.
and happy new blog - http://argyattemptsapostgrad.blogspot.com - everything I can learn, find out, beg, borrow and steal about applying for masters courses as I go about it myself.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/10/myleene-klass-knife-intruders
Piano playing, M&S wearing Myleene Klass has been told off for brandishing a kitchen knife at 'youths' in her garden. A gasp goes up from middle England - can we not even protect ourselves in our own home? Thank god for David Cameron, the superman with a plan to be more lenient on people who bludgeon buglers to death.
These youths - presumably wearing hoodies. probably scarfs too. clearly to cover their own illegal weapons rather than because they too get cold when it snows - were 'peering' in at her windows. Intrusive yes, and unpleasant, but not necessarily threatening. They would probably have been gotten rid of with the banging on the window alone, and if not a call to the police. They were certainly not in the house itself and aren't reported as having made any any action towards Klass, therefore I wouldn't say it was technically self defence.
And there's the problem. One man's self defence is 'I woke up to find a balaclava-d man going through the drawers in my room with an uncovered gun in his hand so I hit him over the head with my bed side lamp.' Another's is 'I saw some kid at the bottom of my garden. he looked suspicious. so I stabbed him with a bread knife.'
You would end up with a situation where "they carry knives so i can", or a call to more widely legalise guns. And the shockingly high gun crime figures in America show that it only makes things worse.
I've had a penknife since I was a kid. I live in the country and its useful. But my dad always told me the worst thing I could do was carry it in self defence. Because if I get that out truth is my assailant will probably trump me and respond much more strongly than they would otherwise have done.
Our society isn't perfect, but lets not give up and make allowances for violence but keep trying for a weaponless, peaceful country, with police not vigilante justice.
The friendliest O.A.Ps in the world...
An old man named Roger asked me to cross him over the road in the snow. Having acquiesced he took my arm, told me he was only joking he didn't need help, he just liked to get people to. I was the third that day.
A woman on the train moved her bag so I could put mine on the luggage rack, telling me sternly it was too heavy to go on my lap and then gave me a copy of Heat.
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