We Are Being Watched

I have had my concerns about Facebook for some time now. There are a couple of games on there that I like to play which is why I had not deleted my page. I do a lot of thinking when I play these games, I mull over work issues, plan, dream and occasionally fantasise. Other than that I don’t use FB very much. Things I don’t like -the status thing, it makes me cringe, the cryptic ones ‘Tom is contemplating the crockery’ just as much as the mundane ‘Laura is so exhausted, gym was tough tonight’ and the only useful purpose it has is for sharing photos, video clips and music (although I often spend Saturday mornings dreading the photos that are going to be uploaded by friends from the night before – why can they never get my good side?). I have friends whose partners complain about the amount of time they spend ‘chatting’ on line and as for the comments, well some of them expose their writers as ignorant, racist or sexist. The ugly face of FB. If you are not on the ball and regularly check your security settings you could be sharing more than you think. For instance every posting you make from your smart phone also includes your postcode ‘Sandra is in SW3 7YT' if you don't uncheck a box buried in the small print.

So tonight I deactivated my account. I unfaced myself. Debooked. What made me make this monumental decision? The fact that I am being watched. And how did I found out that I was being watched?

On Sunday I decided to buy new lampshades for the living room having lived with the orange balloons for far too long. So I logged on and searched the B&Q website and looked at a few. If you click on an image you can zoom in and get a really good view of the items, along with product information. I then had a look on the Argos website and even (I am embarrassed to say) checked out the reviews. Yes, the reviews on the various lampshades. There were pages of the things. People had taken the time to write ‘excellent value for money’ and ‘bigger than I expected’. I said to my friend G that I felt a bit of a saddo checking out the reviews on lampshades. Holidays yes, hairdressers certainly, but lampshades? G reassured me that he researches everything he buys. As I always thought the man has too much time on his hands despite having three kids under the age of 8 I wasn’t that surprised. I imagine him sitting hunched over the lap top as his wife J entertains the children by juggling, singing and pulling faces and, as she breathlessly looks over at him with a sweating pleading face, he shrugs and says ‘I’m a bit busy right now love, we really need to replace our toothbrushes and I’m near to making the final decision, just another twenty three reviews to read then I’m all yours’. Anyway I digress. This was on Sunday. Today, while playing ‘Starries’ on FB what do I see at the top of the FB page? The lampshades I had viewed on the B&Q website! So how does what I looked at on the B&Q website end up on the FB page? What is the point of clearing history if this sort of thing happens? More worryingly I 'reserved' the items which meant giving my postcode and mobile number. Who has this information and who are they sharing it with?

Facebook hit by new security concerns over privacy settings
By Dan Raywood
Users of Facebook could be giving away their personal information due to the way the website's privacy settings work. A team from the University of Cambridge's computer laboratory has showed how Facebook public profiles could be used to find out personal information despite appearing to contain only a few details. In the paper, titled ‘Eight Friends Are Enough', the team pointed out that it was possible to reconstruct a user's friends list in a way that could allow marketers,governments and even criminals to understand the private relationships between different people.
It claimed that a search for a specific Facebook user will display every user's name, photo and eight friendship links. Affiliations with organisations, causes, or products are also listed. The paper's author Joseph Bonneau, said: "This is quite a bit of information given away by a feature many active Facebook users are unaware of. Indeed, it's more information than the Facebook's own privacy policy indicates is given away. "When the feature was launched in 2007, every over-18 user was automatically opted-in, as have been new users since then. You can opt out, but few people do - out of more than 500 friends of mine, only three had taken the time to opt out. It doesn't help that most users are unaware of the feature, since registered users don't encounter it." The paper further claimed that the public listings are designed to be indexed by search engines. In the team's own experiments, it was able to download over 250,000 public listings per day using a desktop PC and a fairly crude Python script. Bonneau said: "For a serious data aggregator getting every user's listing is no sweat. So what can one do with 200 million public listings? Facebook's public listings give us a random sample of the social graph, leading to some interesting exercises in graph theory. As we describe in the paper, it turns out that this sampled graph allows us to approximate many properties of the complete network surprisingly well." "This result leads to two interesting conclusions. First, protecting a social graph is hard. Consistent with previous results, we found that giving away a seemingly small amount can allow much information to be inferred. It's also been shown that anonymising a social graph is almost impossible."

"Second, Facebook is developing a track record of releasing features and then being surprised by the privacy implications, from Beacon to NewsFeed and now Public Search. Analogous to security-critical software, where new code is extensively tested and evaluated before being deployed, social networks should have a formal privacy review of all new features before they are rolled out (as, indeed, should other web services which collect personal information). Features like public search listings shouldn't make it off the drawing board." Facebook claimed that its publicly searchable pages were only introduced after an extensive privacy review. A spokesperson told the Guardian: "Public search listings are a way for those users who wish to allow people to find them in search engines to share limited elements of their Facebook profile. Their creation, continued presence, and the particular elements contained within them are entirely configurable by users. "Changes as to the presence or content of a public search listing may be made easily by any user on the privacy settings page."

Do you have a Blackberry? A smart phone? The following report has been denied by RIM … still it is food for thought.

BlackBerry to allow Indian government to monitor messages
Research In Motion's move could permit officials to lawfully access corporate customers' communications

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) is ready to allow Indian authorities access to the emails and messages of its most high-profile corporate customers, according to a ministry official in the country.The secure communications of India's 400,000 BlackBerry owners could soon be lawfully accessed by government officials, the unnamed interior minister said, adding that RIM is preparing for "providing live access" to customers' encrypted servers. "They have in principle agreed to provide us recorded data from their servers," India's the Mint business newspaper quoted an unnamed Indian ministry official as saying. "Now they have assured us that they will discuss the issue first among themselves and find a way to meet our demands. Later, they would be providing live access to BES [BlackBerry Enterprise Server]," the official told the paper. However, the threat of a blackout for the 400,000 BlackBerry owners in India still looms after months of terse, but largely fruitless, negotiations between RIM and India's telecoms ministry. The Delhi government has opened up a front against Google, Skype and the many mobile carriers operating in the country, citing security fears over the level of encryption employed by the companies. Officials suspect the culprits of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack, in which 116 people died, used encrypted BlackBerry devices. RIM today said: "RIM has once again found it necessary to address certain media reports in India containing inaccurate and misleading statements and information based on unsubstantiated claims from unnamed sources. "All our discussions with the government of India have been and continue to be productive and fully consistent with the four core principles we follow in addressing lawful access matters around the world. Any suggestion to the contrary is false." The company added that any "lawful access" negotiations would abide by four principles: that it was legal, that there would be "no greater access" to BlackBerry services than other services, that there would be no changes in the security for Enterprise customers, and it would not make "specific deals for specific customers".

Last month RIM escaped a ban on the BlackBerry communications of its 500,000 customers in the United Arab Emirates, while Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Lebanon have also raised concerns about the Canadian company's security policies.
The chief concern of India, which is the world's second largest mobile phone market behind China, surrounds communication passed between corporate BlackBerry devices using Enterprise servers. Organisations using BlackBerry Enterprise Servers (BES) host their own server and encryption key – which only it can use to unscramble encrypted emails and messages – thereby offering a higher level of security.
RIM has publicly remained defiant, insisting that it would not offer special deals to specific countries and that security measures for its Enterprise customers would not be compromised. Informa Telecoms & Media forecasts that there will be more than 600,000 BlackBerry sales in India this year and that India's smart phone market will have reached approximately 12m – a figure forecast to grow to 40m by the end of 2015.
The increasing popularity of smartphones running Google's Android operating system has eroded RIM's grip on the corporate communications market in 2010. RIM's most recent smart phone release, the Bold 9780, has failed to make an impression on consumers or traders since its launch in October.

Use Google as a search engine? Home page? Then Google knows all about you, what you like, what you buy, where you shop, where you holiday, maybe even your sexual preferences. It knows if you are worried about your weight or that little rash on your elbow. It certainly knows your political views. It knows the last restaurant you ate in and the last major purchase you made. It knows if you are married, single, gay, straight. Use a mobile? The phone company knows where you are. It knows who your friends are and someone somewhere in that company will know if you are having an affair and if you are one of the twats voting for Widdecombe and Wagner. If you use a loyalty card in the supermarket even Tesco knows all about you too. They can even predict your weekly shop. Amazon knows what books you read in bed, what music is playing in your car. Texting? Instant messaging? Pinging? Poking? Those words are out there. Emailing? Blogging? More words, thoughts, ideas, words mundane, words profound and words personal. Hundreds of words revealing all. Hell, Google, Yahoo, Tesco and Amazon know more about you than your nearest and dearest.

Before FB let you leave you have to give them a reason. This is compulsory. It lists several and adds a comment box. Did I make a clean break? No, I didn't want FB to know I was leaving it forever so I chose the 'I need a break' option. The 'it's not you, it's me' reason. It was harder than breaking up with a lover. There are things I'm going to miss. The friends, the camaraderie, the odd fun and games. The company. I won't miss the hold it has, the time is demands, the constant bombardment of information and the questions. Best they don't know I'm not coming back. Unless they read this of course.

I am going into hiding.

If You're Happy and You Know it...

Then you have good health and do not live in poverty. Your children are pictures of health and are doing well at school or in their careers. You have people you love and who love you. You have friends who visit or chat to you on the phone. You can escape the city now and again and walk in wide open spaces or breathe in sea air. You have a job or hobbies that you enjoy. You have space and time. You have choices and the power to make them. Your worries and concerns are fleeting and do not weigh heavily on your mind. You laugh freely and unselfconsciously. You cry unashamedly. You don't dwell on the past or have regrets. You live in the moment and cherish what you have.

You don't live in a substandard dwelling in a socially deprived high crime area. Your bedroom walls are not dripping with damp and mould. Your kitchen is not infested with cockroaches. Your child does not wheeze and cough when you put them to bed at night. Your 14 year old daughter does not have to endure name calling or sexual assaults every time she leaves the flat and you aren't waiting for the man in your life to come home and give you a good kicking.

You don't have to travel in crowded buses or on crowded trains in order to arrive at a job that is mundane, unfulfilling and poorly paid. You don't leave at the end of the day to make the same nightmare journey home. You don't have to lie awake at night wondering if your job is going to be one of the ones that is 'cut'. You don't worry about losing the roof over you head. You aren't bullied or scared. You aren't dissatisfied with your lot. You don't think 'if only'...

I was going to blog about the governments plan to measure our happiness. But after pondering what it meant to be happy I gave up. Happiness is so difficult to quantify. Of course the poor can be happy. The sick, the scared, the depressed, the tired, the good, the bad and the mad can all be happy too. Sometimes. Maybe it would be easier to measure unhappiness and then do some clever equation that will give the answer of how happy the people of Britain are in these times of war, spending cuts and uncertainty. Y = happy X = sad A = acceptance factors R = resilience factors. Y minus X + AB = YAB over F. Didn't I mention 'F'? F = Fairness and the answer is relative to who you are, how you live and the opportunities you are afforded in life. As I am crap at sums I am going to blog about council estates instead.



Wiki on the Aylesbury Estate:

The Aylesbury Estate is a large housing estate located in Walworth, South East London. It is the largest housing estate in Europe. Along with the Ferrier Estate, Aylesbury is considered the most notorious estate in the United Kingdom. It was for this reason that Tony Blair chose to make his first speech as Prime Minister here, in an effort to demonstrate that the government would care for the poorest elements of society. The estate is often used as a typical example of urban decay.

Not much has changed since 1997, if anything poverty has increased for those living within these ugly walls and walkways. Their sense of well being is unlikely to have improved either.


No country for poor people?

The chancellor has cut the welfare budget by £18bn. It is designed to incentivise people back to work. But will it also change forever what it means to be poor in Britain? Anushka Asthana and Toby Helm

Peter John, the Labour leader of Southwark council, leads the way into the middle of the Aylesbury estate. "This is where Tony Blair gave his first major speech in 1997," he says, raising his hand towards the grim, concrete blocks looming over him.
"There will be no forgotten people in the Britain I want to build," declared Blair to residents of the notorious south London housing block. Thirteen years on, there are signs of progress but poverty still scars the landscape.

Now a new set of politicians insist that they can transform lives here. Just over two miles from the Aylesbury estate, up the Walworth road, is Parliament. It was there, at 12.30pm on Wednesday, that George Osborne delivered his comprehensive spending review, laying out where the axe would fall.

The chancellor confirmed one key strategic decision in his drive to eliminate the budget deficit. In taking £11bn out of welfare in June, he had made it clear that this was a price he was prepared to pay to protect hospitals and schools. Last week, he took out a further £7bn.

It was expected, but the welfare passage of his speech still brought gasps from the opposition. The intake of breath was particularly sharp when he announced plans to limit the employment support allowance to one year. Then there was the £26,000 cap on benefits for a workless family and a further housing benefit shock: the age cap under which tenants can claim for only a single room in a shared house, rather than their own flat, will rise from 25 to 35. That came on top of earlier housing benefit changes that critics had slammed as "draconian".

A small part of the money raised, £2bn, will be channelled back into welfare and used to finance Iain Duncan Smith's policy priority: a universal credit to replace all working-age benefits and tax credits.

For Osborne, there was a single aim. "It will always pay to work. Those who get work will be better off than those that don't," he announced to cheers from Conservative and Lib Dem MPs. The measures were tough, he said, but fair.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies disagreed. The next day it found that, with the exception of the richest 2% of the population, the tax and benefit components of the plan were "regressive", hitting the poorest hardest. Osborne was accused of pitting the working classes against the most vulnerable and demonising the unemployed. But polls suggested substantial support for the assault on benefits. Focus groups had told the chancellor they wanted welfare not cut but shredded. In Southwark and across the country, a tough new settlement with benefit recipients is about to be enforced, and the arguments have only just begun.

"Parasites," mutters a man standing outside a community church in Bermondsey, one of the poorer boroughs in Southwark. He is furious after reading a newspaper story about a family of 12 receiving £95,000 a year in benefits.

"It causes resentment among hard-working people," adds Pat Hickson, a smart, 70-year-old woman. She welcomes the crackdown on welfare. "Of course there are genuine cases but it is the benefit cheats that I'm talking about." She talks of plasma televisions, nice cars and breakfast brought to the doors of those on benefits.
Others disagree. Inside the church, half a dozen working mothers chat as their children scurry around. "I see the argument for supporting people into work," says Katherine Beatham, 32, a charity worker. "But this idea that there is a mass of people out there who don't want to work because they are too lazy is a lie. They are playing on people's fears." She worries that London will become like Paris, with the poorest forced to the outskirts.

"This is a borough of contrasts," says Peter John. "Between those areas that have been regenerated and those that have not. Between the rich and the poor. Between [ethnic] communities."

Unemployment here is 9.9%, well above the national average. There are 30,210 working-age residents, 14.4%, who claim out-of-work benefits. More than 40,000 receive housing benefit or council tax benefit. Almost four in 10 children were living in poverty in 2007. A similar number are being brought up by single parents.
Few here will be immune from the cuts. In Southwark, Cynthia O'Callaghan, 34, scowls when she is asked about them. The teaching assistant and mother of three is most worried about losing childcare support. But soon the subject drifts back to welfare and the unemployed.

Paul Brown, 51, a church leader, says he fears the country is returning to a culture of the 1980s. "Sweeping statements about people getting rich on benefits – I don't know anyone rich on benefits."

Certainly not Anthony Johnston. At Southwark Reach, a branch of the homeless charity Thames Reach, Johnston, 46, explains how he lives on benefits. He had worked at the Natural History Museum for 23 years as a housekeeper. Then his mother died and he had a breakdown. He attempted suicide several times and at one point did not leave his house for 21 days, surviving on water.

Johnston is on employment support allowance and is going on courses with the help of the charity. He says people look down on him for not working. "I live on £90 a week – we get a £10 bonus at Christmas." Sometimes, after paying utility bills and for transport to his courses, he is down to £8 by Wednesday and has to stretch it over four days.

Phil Lansdowne, who is on incapacity benefit, agrees that it is hard. He says he would rather work for £200 a week, and lose £100 in tax, than be on benefits as he is now. The question for both men is whether the government's reforms will help them back into work. If not, they could soon find themselves surviving on even less than they do now.

Some critics say the problem is the assumption that people are not working because they don't want to. In fact, many are suffering with mental or physical illness or simply can't find work. Jeremy Swain, Thames Reach chief executive, says he understands the need for a "revolution" in welfare and believes Duncan Smith can do good things. But Wednesday's speech make the life of charities like his harder, he says, with some of the reforms "bowling him over".

"Everyone agrees that if someone is on benefits as a lifestyle choice then that is unacceptable. But more than 70% of the 8,000 people we work with each year want get into work," he says. He speaks of one man who is putting in job applications twice a week and has been to many interviews unsuccessfully but is now likely to lose 10% of his housing benefit.

Yet he is not surprised that people wanted welfare targeted. "People have looked down on those out of work for a long time. So when you ask them what to cut – police? They say no. Schools? No. NHS? No. The armed services? No – but welfare, who is going to lobby for that?"

Douglas Alexander, the shadow work and pensions secretary, says he supports change to the system but says the coalition's plans are "cuts", not "reform". He attacks the rhetoric about "scroungers" and claims it will mask the way the cuts will hit hard-working families.

Those low-income working families are being hit hard too, according to research released today by the Resolution Foundation. The organisation researches what it calls the real "squeezed middle", working families with a household income of between £15,000 and £30,000.

The study models the impact of negative and positive reforms, including changes to child tax credits, the loss of the education maintenance allowance and the increase in the personal tax allowance to £7,475. It compares the position of families in 2012, given the June budget and spending review, to what they would have faced under Labour's March budget. The result is that a couple with a combined income of £25,656 with two children aged five and three lose around £760 a year; a single mother on an income of £20,645 with three children, including one who is 17, loses £1,800 a year; while a couple in their early 20s with a pre-tax income of £18,289 gain £320 a year.
"Just at the time that the government is gaining plaudits for seeking to get rid of the 'poverty trap' for those escaping welfare, there is a real risk that a new 'aspiration trap' is being set for people struggling to reach a middle income," says Gavin Kelly, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation." It is a trap that is as likely to turn hard-pressed lower-income families against their "workshy" neighbours as against the government.

According to many experts, the "welfare revolution" begun by Osborne in last week's review has its roots in the US – in Wisconsin, where tough rules and time-limited benefits make the state of worklessness utterly miserable. Advocates say the decision to target benefits did not just drive down the number of claimants; it rewired the American psyche.

"People in the UK still think it is normal to go onto welfare. In the US they don't. In the US it is a last resort," says Professor Lawrence Mead, an American academic who was one of the main influences behind the US "workfare" reforms. In June, Mead was invited to Downing street to meet Steve Hilton, David Cameron's chief strategist. Treasury officials and civil servants from the Department for Work and Pensions also attended "They wanted to know how you do it on the ground," says Mead. "They wanted me to talk about Wisconsin and New York. They really wanted to know how to do it." The core objective, he says, is to change people's mindset so that they do not see welfare as a viable alternative. That is because benefits have been driven so low. In Texas, the average monthly benefit is around £46 per person.
Perhaps it is because of Mead that Osborne began to say this autumn that people should no longer be able to choose benefits as a "lifestyle choice".
For their part, ministers insist that the support will remain for those at the bottom. Writing today on www.observer.co.uk, Chris Grayling, minister for employment, promises "unconditional" support for those who can't work.
But fears remain that plans to "make work pay" will inevitably hit the poorest hardest. A US-style welfare system, they say, risks creating a US-style underclass. Julia Unwin, chief executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, sums it up: "Threatening destitution does not work. What it does is frighten people who are already frightened. A society in which destitution is the threatened alternative to community support is not one that any of us wish to live in."

WHO WILL SUFFER

Changes affecting the non-working poor

■ A £26,000-a-year cap on the benefits an out-of-work family can receive
■ Extending the age under which people can only claim for the cost of a single room from 25 to 35
■ Reducing housing benefit by 10% after a year on jobseeker's allowance
Changes affecting the working poor
■ Significant reductions in the childcare element of the working tax credit
■ Households on incomes from around £22,000 to £58,000 lose all or part of the family element of the child tax credit, worth up to £545 a year
■ Elimination of education maintenance allowance will hit those with a household income under £30,810 with a 16 to 18-year-old in full time education
(Analysis by the Resolution Foundation)



Wiki on the Heygate Estate:

The Heygate Estate is a large housing estate in the Walworth area of London, England. The estate was completed in 1974. It is located in the London Borough of Southwark and south of the Elephant and Castle. The estate was once a popular place to live, the flats being thought spacious, but now has a reputation for crime, poverty and dilapidation. Along with the nearby Aylesbury Estate, it is planned that it will be completely demolished to make way for a regeneration of the area and the residents rehoused. However, many residents and ex-residents have complained that the council has failed to re-house them, and that the social housing that was planned to do so has not been built. Because of the decayed urban environment, the estate is used as a filming location, such as for the movie Shank and Harry Brown and The Bill tv series. (every cloud eh?)
Demolition of the first phase(Wingrave block) will begin in late 2010. The rest of the estate is not due to be demolished until 2015. The scheme has received criticism after it emerged that the £1.5billion of public funds going into the 'regeneration' scheme will actually result in there being significantly fewer social-rented homes. Environmentalist and former councillor Donnachadh McCarthy recently described the scheme as one of the biggest environmental, financial, social and political scandals of the decade.

Maybe I spend too much time talking to the people who live on these estates and other estates like them. Because I can tell you that although they may have moments of happiness they exist in a state of non well being. Will a job or better living conditions make them happier? Will a better future for their children make them happier? For some of these people, those who have escaped war, persecution and tyranny - maybe they feel safer and more content than they would in the worlds they have escaped from. But many must feel they have escaped a greater hell for a lesser one. So maybe they will score a little happier on the governments happiness scale. Who knows?

And our children? Are they happy? In our schools are our children happy? I was happy as a child, even though I lived on a council estate and my family were one of those dysfuncional ones. Because I had the A factor and the R factor. Now children just want the X Factor and that is a recipe for sadness and disappointment.

Everyone, of course, is subject to the odd bout of sadness and despair. Which is a totally separate thing from general well being, which is really what the government is attempting to measure. So forget happiness and aim instead for contentedness. Much more sustainable.

'When music and courtesy are better understood and appreciated, there will be no war' Confucius

London is a beautiful city, and the Thames at night is always a particularly lovely sight. I love that the bridges are all different and, although I see it every day, I never tire of Tower Bridge. Last night I was a bit further up the river on the Albert Embankment which very close to where I lived as a child. This stretch of the river is lined with Victorian and Art Deco lamp posts and I remember as a child loving the cast iron fish curled around the posts. I used to be allowed to throw my bus ticket into the river (a real little litter bug) to feed the crocodiles I was convinced swam in the murky water. My friend M was in London to take part in the Remembrance Day parade and for the first time I watched the parade. It was very moving and I was struck by how much dignity the people taking part displayed and, strangely enough, how much of a sense of peace prevailed.

I don’t think I had ever seen so many old people in one place, not even in Eastbourne. I was also struck by how much old people look alike. If you live long enough your hair loses all its colour and vibrancy, your face crumples in on itself as your features enlarge and you just look like an identikit old person. Earlier this week I saw a large group of students making their way towards Westminster Bridge and they looked in good spirits. It was heartening to see people come together to present a united voice. Two very different marches, with very different outcomes. But I felt disconnected from them both. I am a March Virgin, but, I suspect, not for long.



Today is the 70th anniversary of the Coventry Blitz. Coventry saw one of Britain's largest raids of World War II on 14 November, 1940. An estimated 1,200 people died with most of the city centre destroyed. http://www.historiccoventry.co.uk/blitz/blitz.php

It is hard to believe that in the 1940s people lived with the daily horror of war. The war in Afghanistan is something you read about in the newspaper or watch on the evening news. Unless you have a friend or relative fighting in that war it is a war that is removed from our daily life. Living through WW2 was something very different. The sounds of sirens must have struck terror in the hearts of mothers as they rushed with their children to find shelter. Then, as they cowered in shelters and listened to the explosions, they must have wondered what they would find when morning came and they emerged into the dust and ashes of their cities.

When I was a kid there were still bomb sites around the Embankment and I remember playing in the rubble. There was always a group of people working on some cordoned off piece of ground, archaeologists who would sometimes shown us kids the broken pieces of crockery they found. Looking back these are unlikely to have been some Roman remains but some poor family's tea set buried under the rubble of their bombed out home.

Not long ago my sister was evacuated, along with her neighbours, from her home because an unexploded WW2 bomb was unearthed on a building site nearby. The disruption this caused for the 48 hours before they were given the all clear to go home led to a lot of moaning and complaining. At least they had homes to return to.

As I looked out across the Thames at the Palace of Westminster, Big Ben, the Bridges, the Tate Britain and all the other grand buildings that line the river it seems amazing that they survived the Blitz. I suppose it was because London was hidden under a cloak of darkness. Coventry was not so lucky.

‘A great war leaves the country with three armies - an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves.’ ~German Proverb

Sexford Wives

I was amazed and intrigued to see this 'robot' on the news this morning. Isn't she absolutely incredible? Now anyone reading this blog in the future may be baffled at my absolute awe at this robot/android/creature because they are likely to have one cleaning their house, minding their kids, or dare I say it....keeping their bed warm.

But this is science fiction becoming reality. Robotics have certainly come a long way in a relatively short time. This is seriously brilliant and totally scary.

My vision for the future:

At first these robots will only be available to the very rich. The Queen will buy a few and they will slowly take over from her human footmen, butlers, maids and the such like in the running of her palaces and castles. They will pay for themselves in a few years, a bit like solar panelling. Who knows she may even buy a few android corgis' who have the added advantage of coming out of the box they arrive in already palace trained. No, of course silly me, it won't be her as she is likely to die before the robots become that sophisticated but if is something that Charlie or Wills will look into mark my words.

As they become mass produced they will replace armies and navies so there will be no more mourning of dead soldiers and the injured robots can be repaired and sold off on Ebay. Reconditioned fighting machine robots might be a bit of a risk but they could also double as a minder if you live in a rough area. The winner of wars will be whichever country has the latest model. Oh, that'll be China.

The welfare bill will sky rocket of course as the robots slowly take over all the jobs, starting with manual jobs and then moving into things like teaching, policing and television presenting. Basically any job were thinking is not required. But that won't be a problem as they won't have to be paid. Nor will they pay taxes. I can see that being a problem somewhere down the line but economics has never been my strong point.

Homes across the land will have one. And husbands will be fucking their brains (or micro chips?) out. This is were they will come into their own and I have a fantastic marketing idea. I am going to market the first 'Marriage Protector Android'. Just think, men will no longer have to have affairs, lie to their wives, spend money on their mistresses or start second families. They can have their natural philandering needs met by a household electrical item. No wife will feel threatened by a mistress they can switch off and stick in the cupboard under the stairs. They could be marketed as a sex aid and sold at Anne Summers parties. Women will buy them in droves as it will free them from the need to feign headaches. They will just say to their husbands 'I've put DR231 on charge for you darling, I'm off out with the girls from work'.

If you would like to place your order now I can get you one for Christmas. Christmas 2025. Deposits non refundable.

There's A Ghost In The House

I keep seeing a ghost. And the ghost is me.

It started at my school reunion. Sitting in the church with my old school friends, looking around, nothing had changed. Yes, we were older but somehow still teenagers. Listening to the same sounds 'And may God be with you' 'And also with you' said in the same monotonous tones, hearing people sigh, fidget and whisper. The sames smells. Incense, candles. That's where I first saw her. My ghost. Sitting in a pew at a few rows down, wearing school uniform, hair in a 'page boy' (what possessed me?) and wearing the 'wet look' platforms that Katrina's dad said made us look (she had the same shoes) as if we had two club feet. I saw her and wanted to take her by the hand and lead her outside and have a chat with her. Just steer her right about a few things, give her a bit of a head start so she wouldn't grow up to be me.

On Sunday I took my mum out for a meal and she had a bit too much to drink and when that happens she gets maudlin. Which means she wants to talk about the past, which is never a safe subject to visit. But we had done the X Factor, my sister and death. 'Was I really such a bad mother' she asked? Why does she not remember? Her eyes filled with tears. Damn that vodka. 'No, mum, you were great.' I lied.

I know now that I wasn't a great parent. I wasn't bad. Just not great. Maybe not being great is bad? Parents should be great. Or even good may do. I was 'satisfactory' I suppose. So how come I can remember that? What did I hear someone on the radio say this morning? 'Hindsight is an exact science.'

Anyway I saw her/me again the other day. Twice. Once was down the Old Kent Road. She was pushing a buggy with her son in it with her daughter clinging tightly to the handle as she walked along next to her/me. She had just been out to buy the tea for that night. That's what you had in those days. Not dinner. Your tea. I remember what she was thinking as she made her way back from the butchers. She was worried about money. There never seemed to be enough. And she was worried that she would get back to their flat and he would be sitting there having walked out of yet another job. I drove past her in my nice car, on my way to my nice office, to my nice job and my nice life. I wanted to pull over and ask her to jump in and drive her and her babies far far away.

I caught a glimpse of her/me today. This time I know she was a bit happier. She was standing talking to her friends on the university campus, just before going in for the afternoons lecture. I didn't need to tell her to keep at it because I know she did.

I don't like seeing her/me at all. I think I may have to close my eyes the next time, count to ten and hope that when I open them she will have disappeared back into the past.

Tricky Words

My grandson’s school invited all the Reception class parents along to a meeting about how the school are teaching reading and I immediately booked the time off so I could go along with his mum and hear all about it. The letter was sent out before the half term, and as far as I know, no reminders were sent out - so I was surprised and encouraged by the number of parents who actually turned up.

It was obvious the school were using a phonic system to teach reading because my grandson had started to focus on the text and sound out every letter when he read to me. I had been used to him using the pictures and his excellent prediction skills to tell the story. His recent version of ‘The Three Little Pigs’ was wonderful;

‘Once upon a time there were three little pigs and they grew too big to live at home so their mummy told them they had to go’ he said on the first page.

‘So they all got their own houses and lived happily ever after’ he said on the next page and closed the book’

‘Wait a minute, that’s not what happens’ I said ‘you left out the straw, sticks, bricks and the wolf bit’

‘But I want to go asleep’ he said.

But over recent weeks he has started to concentrate on the sounds of the letters, and bless him, he thinks that the bbbb’s, ssss’s, and mmmm’s sounds that he makes is ‘reading.’

The meeting was rather like an assembly. And yes, the meeting was to introduce and explain ‘Jolly Phonics’. The children were there and I must say even I was impressed with their knowledge of the sounds the letters made. They were keen to share their new found knowledge and were all able to sound out letters shown to them and even join a few up to make a word. It was clear they were having fun (which is just as well as they have to learn 4 letter sounds a day with a recap on Friday). I didn’t get a chance to ask what happens if a child is absent. My poor grandson has been ill this week so has missed 3 letters this week already. Lets hope they were x, y, and z.

Fortunately his teacher, a lovely, bright, enthusiastic girl, (due to go on maternity leave soon) seems to understand that the children need more than a knowledge of phonics in order to be able to read. On display were lots of wonderful books that she and the Teaching Assistant had chosen for the class. Old favourites such as ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’, ‘The Tiger Who Came To Tea’, ‘We’re going on a Bear Hunt’ and my personal favourite ‘Farmer Duck’ along with newer books like the ‘Charlie and Lola’ collection were on the shelves. They even had a set of fairy tales. And puppets. They had big books, picture books and books for group reading. She said that they were going to combine 'Jolly Phonics' with real books and that the important thing was to develop a love of books and not just concentrate on decoding the words as she warned that the children would soon become bored and risk becoming disengaged with reading if they focused soley on phonics. She reminded us that the Early Years Foundation Stage focused on six areas of learning and that ‘Communication, Language and Literacy’ was the area ‘reading’ came under.

But in order to learn to read, or indeed want to learn to read and enjoy reading, she stressed that it was vital that we communicate effectively with our children, that we use lots of language with them, that we listen to them effectively and respond appropriately. That we stop just giving instructions or asking questions. That we actually ‘talk’ to our children. She said she found this difficult to do, as a teacher she is always trying to extend the children’s learning and has used questioning to gauge what children understood and hopefully to encourage them to reflect and ask questions too. However it is important that we focus on the process and not just the product.

This was something that was discussed at my recent Incredible Years training. How difficult it is to do any activity with young children without asking question after question. ‘What colour is that balloon?’ ‘What shape is the moon?’ ‘What do you think will happen if the dog eats all the sausages?’ we ask when we are reading a book with a child. ‘What did you do at school today?’ ‘What did you have for dinner?’ we ask when we collect them from school. ‘What sound does a cow make?’ we ask when they are playing with small world toys such as farm animals. ‘What are you making?’ we ask when they are playing with the construction toys. Bloody hell…it is a wonder they don’t just shout ‘SHUTUP with the questions! Leave me alone to enjoy what I’m doing’. Rather than continually question it is suggested that we make observations or give a commentary. ‘Oh what a bright round moon’ or ‘that’s a cheeky dog, look at how fast he can run with the sausages in his mouth!’ It is an opportunity to engage the child in conversation rather than a question answer session.

His teacher is so nice that I almost forgive her for the 'tricky words'. These are words that cannot be sounded out phonetically. Like my grandsons 'tricky' name.

A Tale of Two Parks

My journey to work takes me through two parks. I drive through the first and am treated to beautiful scenes whatever the season. In the spring it is a blaze of yellow daffodils, in the summer families fill its grassy slopes picnicking and enjoying the sun. The autumn brings the stunning yellows, oranges and reds of the changing leaves and the winter, when we are lucky, brings hills of snow with sleighs and snowball fights. The views over London, no matter what time of the year, are stunning and I occasionally take 5 minutes to pull over, get out of the car and spend some time contemplating the views.

I walk through the other park. Well ‘park’ is elevating this small church yard above its station. It is a winding path with lawns on either side and flower beds dotted around. The signs of the season are not so obvious in this park. Obviously the trees change as the leaves change colour and the flowers that bloom change from snowdrops to tulips to heathers. And the short cuts across the grass become muddy so I stick to the path but I still enjoy this short walk. But yesterday morning it made me think too much.

The little park has resident homeless people. They congregate on the church steps or huddle on one of the benches. As I was rushing along the path, a thousand inconsequential thoughts running in my head, I caught sight of these ‘tramps’. They were wrapped up in puffa jackets, woolly hats with the obligatory check laundry bags containing all their worldly goods. There were about half a dozen of them, male and female, and they were engrossed in conversation.

‘I wish I was carefree. I wish I had nowhere to rush to, no targets to meet, no bills to pay. I wish I could sit on a bench, wrapped up and warm in the autumn sun. I wish I could sit and philosophise with my friends.'