Be Kind (Rewind)...

I like to think of myself as a kind person.  It's the one thing I pride myself on, actually, even though my granny always told me pride goes before a fall and all that.  Now obviously I'm not perfect; I know there are times when I could do more to be a better friend and a better person, and I obviously have days where I hate the world and think other people are stupid and wish they would go away and die in a hole, but so does everyone.  (Note: Anyone who maintains they never think badly of anyone ever is a liar, and anyone who never has nice thoughts towards others is a psychopath with probable embryonic serial killer tendencies - run away!!)  All in all, however, I think the scale tips far more in the direction of "I am a kind person" than not.

And it's not just being kind by buying stuff.  I mean obviously if I win megabucks on the lottery the first thing I'm going to do is spend it on my nearest and dearest...well, ok - if I win megabucks on the lottery the first thing I'm going to do is jump up and down screaming with excitement before running around like a demented chicken imagining all the fancy vintage clothes and Vivienne Westwood stuff I can buy (also hell-loooo, Laboutins!)  But yeah, then I'm going to get slapped by someone and will calm down, then I will start divvying up the dosh.  After I pay off my debts (so long, student loan and overdraft facility!) and find myself a home of my own to live in with the cat (I want a maisonette or a bungalow,she'll get what she's given), I'll donate a sizeable wedge to the four charities closest to my heart (Women's Aid, Macmillan Nurses, Amnesty International and Help for Heroes, since you ask) and then I'm going to go to town.  Parents mortgage paid off?  Done!  Money set aside to make sure my Nan is comfortable in her old age?  Sorted!  Brother and sister-in-law treated? Not a problem!  Private One Direction concert for my wee niecelet and her bestest friends?  Here's your cash, Harry Styles; now start singing!  And that's before I even get started on my friends.  Pack your bags, girls - we're going on an all-expenses-paid trip somewhere fabulous!!!  (I won't leave you out, boys, don't worry, but this one's just for us...)

Now that's all well and good, but it is kind of contingent upon me winning said megabucks on said lottery.  Since that is yet to happen, I have try and manifest my kindness in other, smaller acts.  Yes, sometimes that is about spending money, like buying a bar of chocolate for a friend because you know she had to go through something horrid earlier in the day; and sometimes it's about spending time, like going to an appointment with your bestie because you know she's scared about going by herself, or handwriting a letter every month to your cousin because she's away on the other side of the world for a year and you don't want her to feel she's missing out on anything.  Mostly, however, it's about not being a dick (thank you Adam Hills) and actually thinking about other people instead of yourself.  It's not always easy - Man is inherently selfish, it seems, and these days we very much live in a "me me me!!" culture, never mind the fact we all have our own problems - but when you do something, some small random act of kindness for someone, it not only makes them feel better, you feel pretty darned good too.  

But this isn't just about me and how uber-awesome I am with my writing stories for friends and buying people cake, because a) I'm not that awesome and b) I have modesty.  Or self-deprecation.  Whatever.  I too have been fortunate in having kindness shown to me, both by my friends (the very act of being my friend is a kindness, I often think) and by total strangers.  Two examples that stick in my mind:

1) When I was sixteen, I went on holiday with my mum, stepdad, younger brother and his friend to stay with my step-nan in Kent.  My favourite place near to her house was - and is - the ruins of Reculver, a four-mile walk along the sea wall (and then four miles back; I had stamina in those days!!)  On this particular occasion, I went for my usual stroll along to the ruins and then, on the way home, I was followed by some creepy guy on a bike who harassed me for the entire four miles.  In those days I didn't have a mobile phone, so by the time I reached the seafront near my step-nan's house I was shaking and nearly in tears; I have genuinely never been so frightened in my life.  It was horrible.  I found a payphone and called my mum to pick me up; I was so shaken I couldn't even walk the last ten minutes up the road to the house.  My brother, bless him, answered the phone and immediately came with my mum to get me - we may have had our squabbles over the years, but I know I can always, always depend on him to look out for me (an vice versa, I hope).  The next day, I wanted to go back to Reculver because I didn't want my love for the place to be tainted by the memory of what happened, but I was still pretty freaked out by it.  That was when my brother's friend, a 12 year old boy for gods sake, said he'd come with me.  He walked the entire eight miles with me so I wouldn't have to do it alone and, in the process, restored my sense of peace about going.  I have never, ever forgotten it.

2) Eleven years ago, my Arhoo - my dad's dad - became very, very ill after suffering years of ill-health.  I went to visit him in Southend Hospital and, as I came out, I knew that he was going to die.  I was fine as I left the ward, fine as I walked out of the hospital and out of the car park, but by the time I'd walked five minutes round the corner to walk home, I was sobbing.  I only live about a fifteen minute walk from the hospital but I could barely put one foot in front of the other; seeing him like that, knowing what was going to happen...it was the worst thing in the world and I felt completely destroyed.  Suddenly, out of nowhere, a voice was asking if I was all right and an elderly lady was handing me a tissue.  There I was, a blubbering, snotty wreck in the middle of the pavement, and she took one look and decided not to run screaming in the opposite direction but to stop and ask if I was all right and could she do anything.  To this day I have no idea who the woman was but her small act of kindness when I was most in need of it has stayed with me ever since.

And it's not just people I know.  This blog post was inspired by something that happened on my way home from work tonight.  An elderly man got on the bus in town, looking very smart and wearing his Forces beret and medals.  Some oiky college student got up to give him a seat - which is rare enough - but, when the man thanked him, said oiky college student said "no - thank you for what you did".

Well.  Just...well..  I was stunned and, actually, incredibly touched.  I mean the whole Remembrance Day thing is very dear to my heart anyway; my Arhoo served in the Second World War, I have family who served until recently and, of course, Rob was in the Army until just over a year ago, but it was only today that I was talking with colleagues at work and saying that most of the "younger generation" seem to have no bloody clue about what it's actually about and don't give a toss either which way.  And yet here on the bus was one of this younger generation defying the convention.  I have no idea who you are, young man, but I hope your family are very, very proud of you...

So, there you have it.  Kindness.  It doesn't have to take much, and it doesn't have to be an extravagant gesture, but I firmly believe you have to have it.  Where kindness is concerned, I try and follow the mantras of two of my favourite movies: "nothing is trivial" (from The Crow) and "be excellent to each other" (from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure / Bogus Journey).  I may not always succeed, but I fully intend to keep trying...

P.S November 13th is World Kindness Day.  Do something lovely for someone.  Even if it's just asking "how are you?" and then, when they say "oh, fine," asking "no, how are you really?!" and then actually listening to the response.  Believe me, it will mean a lot...

One Child, One Teacher, One Book, One Pen...

One year and one day ago, a fifteen year old girl travelling home with her friends on their school bus was shot in the head.  Much like the assassinations of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austro-Hungary and  the two elder Kennedy brothers, it became a "shot heard 'round the world": Western media seized on the story and ran with it in a flurry of both shock and outrage; photos of a then-predominantly unknown Malala Yousafzai were beamed from the distant heartland of Pakistan's Swat Valley into living rooms from Los Angeles to London and on across Europe as the news, and the outrage, spread.  Eventually, it was announced that Malala had been shot by the Taliban, although to this day there are still conflicting 'reasons' for the attempt on her life: some say it was because she spoke up for the education of girls in her country, others because she was a vocal opponent of the Taliban and their efforts to assert their dominance in the region.  Whatever the Taliban's own personal justification for the shooting Malala and the two other girls injured in the incident, Shazia Ramzan and Kainat Riaz, remain resolutely alive and well.  Shazia is attending school in Britain; Malala and her family are also in this country, trying to rebuild their lives and come to terms with a way of life very different from the one they are used to. Malala says she dreams of being able to return to her homeland, to her home and her friends in the Swat Valley, yet even now the Taliban say they would shoot her again if she was to return.  She has become a symbol, a passionate advocate of the right for every girl across the world to receive an education and be treated equally to her brothers, yet she is still only sixteen years of age.  It is a terrible, wonderful burden to bear and yet, having read her memoir which was released this week, I can't help but feel that no one is more equal to the task than Malala Yousafzai.

The firstborn child of a poor Pashtun family in the town of Mingora in the once-beautiful Swat Valley, Malala's father was commiserated with after her birth for having a daughter instead of a son.  Fortunately for Malala, and probably the world, her father Ziauddin is an enlightened man in an oft-unenlightened place; he named his daughter for one of the great heroines of the Pashtun and, as a young man from a poor family with no money to pay for his education, he worked hard to be able to fulfil his dream of going to university, getting his degree and coming home to open a school for the children of his local area - the same school Malala and her friends attended.  I'm not going to delve too deeply into the family's story; no words of mine could ever do it justice when Malala and her co-writer Christina Lamb do so perfectly eloquently, and besides I think everyone should read and discover Malala's story for themselves (seriously, read this book.  If you consider yourself a functioning member of the human race you need to read this book...actually, make that ALL races.  Malala doesn't discriminate and neither do I, so be you Human, Martian, Android, Time Lord or any other, you *need* to read this book...)  All you need to know is this young woman and her father were speaking out against the Taliban and fighting for girls to receive an education for years before the attempt on her life, something I didn't know and a fact I feel curiously ashamed of...

Contrasting Malala's inspiring advocacy for girl's education with the news this week that both England and Northern Ireland have among the worse levels of numeracy and literacy in the developed world is enough to make my blood run cold.  Now I'm not saying I was an angel at school, far from it, and there were times I hated having to go with an all-consuming passion, but at least I live in a country where I am not only given the opportunity to receive some form of an education, it is a given that I will do so.  It both bewilders and terrifies me, doing the job I currently do, to see how many young people point blank refuse to go to school, or do everything they possibly can to disrupt things when they can be strong-armed into the building, and how many parents seem quite prepared to go along with that.  These are the future movers and shakers of the world, people; if you aren't afraid you bloody well should be!  I left 'compulsory' education at 16 way back in 1998; while there were unquestionably 'naughty' children in my classes throughout school and we could be a wee bit cheeky, it was nothing compared to some of the shocking stuff which goes on in classrooms today.  I don't remember a single case of ADHD among my peers in all the time I was in school, yet nowadays it seems there are more children in our classrooms with this label - and the accompanying medication - than ever.  Now I don't want to get into the whole "is it a real condition or is it just bad parenting?" debate, mainly because I don't have any definitive answers and sometimes think it's six of one and half a dozen of the other, but still I find it a frightening statistic.  We are drugging more kids than ever before, have more children with behaviourial problems than ever before, and seem to be failing dismally at meeting even the most basic skills with these kids.  How on earth do we expect these children and young people to go on to becoming fully-functioning members of society, especially with the Tory Government's sweeping welfare reform changes and its insistence that everybody goes out and works, dammit, when frankly there's a hell of a lot of these people who won't be fit to do anything?!!

I genuinely don't think young people in this country realise how incredibly lucky they are.  You know what, we all hated school at one point or another; there is absolutely nothing 'revolutionary' in their insistent whining that they hate it and it's boring and too hard and why can't we just play on our computers/stay in bed all day/go out and get hammered in the park on cheap cider/whatever the current 'thing' is for not going to school these days.  Tough shit.  Doing things you don't like is part of life.  I hate paying taxes but if I don't, I get a nasty visit from the Inland Revenue and a sudden lack of hospitals/schools/policemen, all things I actually need and which we all take for granted.  Would I like to not go into work every day if I could be paid for staying at home watching telly?  Well duh!  And yet I go into work, pay my taxes and the world keeps spinning.  Yet apparently we think it's a good idea to reward a child who hasn't been going into school by taking them on a day out if they manage to go in all day every day for a fortnight!  How is this sensible?!  On the one hand, it gives these kids a ridiculous sense of power and entitlement, and I'm sorry but they are still kids and actually we are the grown-ups; and on the other hand, that is obscenely unfair to all those other kids who manage to get themselves into school all day every day for an entire academic year (barring the odd sick day or whatever) without getting so much as a pat on the head!!  WHAT IS ALL THAT ABOUT?!!  You're not telling me that Little Johnny likes going into school any more than Little Bobby does; given the chance Little Johnny would quite happily sit at home all day and play on his PlayStation (other games consoles are available...) and yet he turns up each and every day, moaning about his teachers and the blatant unfairness of maths homework on a Friday which has to be in on the Monday, and gets nothing.  Little Bobby, meanwhile, makes an appearance for all of a week and is suddenly whisked off for a day on the seafront for his achievement.  How the Little Johnnies of this world haven't yet led an armed uprising against Little Bobby and his ilk is beyond me, frankly...So yes.  School sucks.  Homework sucks more.  And teachers and authority figures exist only to make your life a misery.  You know what?  Study hard, become a teacher and voila!  The power to make other people's lives a misery by handing out triple algebra on the last day of term is yours!!

To be less facetious, however, I do think some young people in this country have no frigging clue how lucky they are.  If you are educated you can do anything, be anything, go anywhere....the world and all its infinite wonders are yours, and that's not something to be sniffed at.  Across the world millions of children, the majority of them girls, remain uneducated, puppets and pawns of a world they can't possibly comprehend because they weren't given the dignity of being able to ask "why?" or "how?" or "what for?"  There are girls married off at ridiculously-young ages to men old enough to be their fathers and grandfathers, having children when they are no more than children themselves.  There are girls whose only education is how to cook, to keep house, to look after a husband and family; who have no aspirations beyond that because they are not taught and not encouraged to think that they could have a life beyond that.  (This is not to belittle those in the developed world who choose to stay at home and raise a family, but that's kind of the key word right there: choose.  They at least were able to make an informed choice, something denied to their sisters elsewhere in the world).  We speak of the next great political leader, the next great scientist or economist; the person who might discover a cure for cancer or AIDS...any one of them could be one of those children denied an education, yet because of that very fact we will never know.  More importantly they will never know, either what they could be capable of or what their worth may be - something we in the developed world seem to all to easily take for granted.

Malala Yousafzai's campaign to speak up for education and for the rights of women and girls is something which should be shouted from the rooftops.  In the body of this courageous, unassuming, self-confident young woman there burns an absolute conviction that everyone - everyone - is entitled to an education and, with that education, to make free and informed decisions about themselves and the world they live in.  And she believes this because it is the absolute right of each and every one of us to be able to do so.  If I had my way, a copy of Malala's book would be given to each and every child in this country, along with the video of the speech she made on her sixteenth birthday at the UN Headquarters in New York, to try and make them realise just how incredibly fortunate they really are.  If it changes only a handful of minds then it will have been a worthwhile endeavour...

Malala wants to be a politician like one of her heroines, Benazir Bhutto; to go back to Pakistan and be a force for change, for good, in that oft-troubled country.  I for one wouldn't bet against her.  As she said in her speech at the UN, and again in her memoir, books and pens are the most powerful weapons we have to change things, to bring light to the darkness.  One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world.  In this child, this teacher, we have an instrument which might do just that...

Anyone wishing to support the Malala Fund in its aim to empower girls by providing them with an education can do so here.  It may be a small step, but from such small steps epic journeys are begun...

Beyond Broadmoor...?

Over the past two weeks that bastion of bonkers television, Channel 5, has surprisingly proved itself to be almost worthy of its existence by showing a two-part series which was both well made, informative, and not about a Z-list celebrity-turned-benefit-scrounger with a failed gastric band trying to get into the Big Brother house while guest-starring as the corpse in a re-run of CSI/Law and Order.  (Think I covered all their usual bases there...)  Instead, "Inside Broadmoor" had exclusive access to the archives of possibly the most notorious of Britain's maximum security secure psychiatric hospitals (bonus points to you if you have actually heard of both Rampton and Ashworth, the two other secure psychiatric hospitals for England and Wales.  Extra-special double bonus points if you were aware of the existence of Carstairs State Hospital in Scotland, which performs the same function for patients for Scotland and Northern Ireland), and spoke to those who have previously worked in the hospital.  (Extra gold star triple bonus points if you remembered Broadmoor actually IS a hospital and not a prison...some people tend to forget it actually has a therapeutic function given the notoriety of some of its patients...)

Now those of you who know me well will be fully aware of my somewhat perverse fascination with the mind of the "criminal lunatic", as the original inhabitants of the 150 year old hospital were oft referred to.  As my friend Lee has pointed out to me on more than one occasion, I do like a good psychopathic murderer every now and then; not on a personal level, obviously - never going to go and have tea and cake with Peter Sutcliffe, for example - but from a professional psychological point of view.  A programme about Broadmoor was going to draw me like a moth to the proverbial flame and, for once, I was not disappointed with a Channel 5 show.  (I'm sorry, C5, but when you dropped Prison Break and let it go to Sky when I didn't actually have Sky it caused a huge rift between us which I've never fully gotten over...)  Not only was it interesting from a professional psychological angle but from a social historical angle as well; some of the stuff in those archives is amazing, especially concerning Broadmoor's role in some real pioneering "treatments", and I would quite happily lose myself among its treasures for hours at a time.  There were also real nuggets of gold in some of the information about the patients as well, and not just some of the more historical ones.  I was beyond intrigued to learn for example, that the Medical Superintendent in charge of the hospital at the time of the Moors Murders - a rather excellent chap from Glasgow named Pat McGrath, who brought his wife and two kids to live with him in the hospital and instituted a rather compassionate regime (his son, who was seven at the time they moved in, recalls walking the grounds with his father one evening when they heard a terrible scream coming from Block 6, where the most disturbed male patients were kept; Dr McGrath glanced up and said "poor John, having a bad night tonight", which reinforced in the boy that these people were in fact sick and needed treatment).  I've digressed...oh yes, so the excellent Dr McGrath was in charge of the hospital at the time of the Moors Murders and was a jolly sensible and compassionate man, in charge of a large population of schizophrenics (about two-thirds of the hospital patients have schizophrenia) and those with severe personality disorders such as psychopaths.  Some of the most notorious inmates of that hospital have been incredibly challenging men, who have committed the most dreadful crimes imaginable, and yet the estimable doctor believed fully in caring for his patients and apparently lost the plot whenever anyone called Broadmoor a prison instead of a hospital.  However, not even the remarkable Pat McGrath felt anything could be done to treat Ian Brady; he refused point blank to bring him into the hospital, sensing no humanity in the man with which he could build a therapeutic relationship, and stated that Broadmoor had nothing to offer him as he was "beyond psychiatric help".  I'll leave you to insert your own comments on that one; suffice to say Brady was sent to the maximum security prison at Durham until 1985, when he was sent to Ashworth.  (Interestingly - to me, anyway - this sentiment reminds me of the one expressed by one of my personal heroes, former FBI Behavioural Analysis Unit Chief and pioneer in the 'profiling' field John Douglas, who stated that in order to rehabilitate an offender, any offender, you have to have something to rehabilitate to, which many of these individuals seem not to possess).

However, the reason for this blog post is something which was said at the end of the programme and has left me pondering.  Professor Tony Maden, former head of the now-closed Dangerous Severe Personality Disorder (DSPD) unit at the Berkshire hospital, stated that thanks to the anti-psychotic medication he's on to control his schizophrenia symptoms, serial murderer Peter Sutcliffe is no longer acutely mentally ill and, since the Broadmoor Hospital would appear to have achieved its aim of stabilising the patient's condition, he should be released back to prison.  Now this throws up all kinds of interesting discussion points: exactly how stable is is "stable"; can we rely on the overstretched prison system to continue doling out the medication to Sutcliffe to keep him "stable", or will he relapse and have to be moved back to hospital; and how expensive will it be to send him to a prison where, for his own safety, he's going to have to be held in isolation?  Now I'm not suggesting for one single second Peter Sutcliffe is some delicate little flower who has to be protected from all those nasty criminals in prison - the crimes he committed were, after all, completely and utterly reprehensible - but actually there is something in that.  Those of you who know my little rants will be fully aware of my anti-death penalty stance (State-sanctioned murder is still murder, after all, and how can we say to people "killing is bad, m'kay?" when we, um, kill them...?) and this extends to this sort of situation as well.  Now my emotional gut-response instinct is to be really pissed off when I hear that child sex offenders, for example, have to be segregated from the rest of the prison population 'for their own safety'; "let the gen. pop. lot have at them", I cry,  "for surely they'll be doing us a favour!" However, I can't exactly claim to be a humanist/reasonably decent Human Bean if I'm prepared to turn a blind eye to the murder of an individual, no matter how morally repulsive they are to me on a personal level.  (And please don't think I'm going for Joan of Arc-style sainthood here; my emotions run as pure and white-hot as anyone else's do, and there are people like Ian Huntley who really would be no great loss to the world if they died suddenly, but on a philosophical basis I have to stand by my belief that murder is murder is murder and therefore wrong, no matter who the victim is).

With someone like Sutcliffe, however, and this particular situation, I find myself concluding that, actually, somewhere like Broadmoor probably IS the best place for him no matter how stable his condition has now become.  Think about it: this is a man who committed one of the most notorious crimes this country has ever had the misfortune to witness; whether for their own notoriety or out of some twisted form of justice, there are probably plenty of people in the prison system who'd like to get their hands on Peter Sutcliffe (he was attacked while in prison before his removal to Broadmoor).  He has been diagnosed with a severe psychiatric condition which requires ongoing medication and treatment and has been held in Broadmoor since 1984; there is no doubt in my mind that he is going to be severely institutionalised as a result.  Our prison system is already full of people suffering from mental health disorders who really shouldn't be there; I really don't think any prison, with the best will in the world, would be able to cope with the level of Sutcliffe's needs if he was removed there (and, thanks to a ruling in 2010, he will never be released).  Bizarrely, even though he's actually considered stable enough to leave Broadmoor for the prison system, the secure hospital is probably the safest place for him.  Many of the patients treated at the secure psychiatric hospitals will eventually be returned to prison once their condition has stabilised (although I'd be very interested to see any data relating to whether they are subsequently sent back to the hospitals for further treatment), but it seems some are destined to stay there even though they could, theoretically, be moved on.

And it's not just Sutcliffe.  He at least has a treatable condition; you cannot cure schizophrenia, but at least you can provide medication to keep the symptoms under control.  For psychopaths and others with severe personality disorders (such as Michael Stone, who in 1996 murdered Lin Russell and her daughter Megan, severely injuring her other daughter Josie), no amount of medication in the world is going to make the blindest bit of difference; since you cannot keep people in prison beyond their tariff - and especially since the Court of Human Rights has ruled the use of the "whole life" tariff (with no set time scale for reviews and the possibility of parole) as illegal - what do you do with these incredibly-dangerous individuals who can never, for the safety of everyone else, ever be allowed back on the streets?

The answer, it seems, has become Broadmoor and its sister-hospitals.  This goes right to the heart of the dilemma of Broadmoor: originally conceived as a hospital, for a select group of individuals it has become the prison it was never intended to be.  Believe me when I say I don't know what the answer is, and really, truly believe me when I say I'm extremely glad these most dangerous of individuals are securely held somewhere they can't be a danger to the public or commit further horrendous crimes, but also believe me when I say that this is a symptom of how we as a society view both mental health and those who commit crimes.  Psychiatric-disordered offending isn't going to go away; people like Sutcliffe are merely the tip of the iceberg, especially when recent estimates from the Centre for Mental Health suggest approximately 60% of prisoners have some form of personality disorder and receive no help while in prison, and perhaps now, with the 150th anniversary of Broadmoor's founding upon us, we need to take a long hard look at how we treat them...

Soup, Socialising and Seriously Good Ideas

I have just returned from the first ever Southend Soup event!  For those of you not in the know, the idea came from Detroit Soup (see here) and is a chance for communities to come together, share experiences (and soup!) and pitch ideas for all sorts of projects which the community then vote for; the winning pitch receives the money donated by the people attending the event.  It really was such a fantastically inspiring evening; people came from all different areas of life and yet there was a real sense of community and goodwill in the air by the end of the evening, it was marvellous.  Credit has to go to the lovely Sherry for organising the entire shebang; she truly is one of life's genuinely beautiful Human Beans and I consider myself incredibly fortunate to know her.

So yes.  Simple idea, really.  You turn up at the venue, pay your donation/entry 'fee' and settle down for an evening of creative community spirit.  With delicious soup thrown in.  Seriously, people, what's not to love?  In an age where it all seems to be about "me, me, me" it's kind of nice to see that actually community spirit is still alive and well, and that people care enough to make the effort to come together and support one another.  Tonight, for example, I went along initially because I was curious and thought it sounded like a great idea, but then at the eleventh hour (well, yesterday afternoon) people were dropping out of pitching their ideas, so I 'volunteered' and made a pitch for funds to go towards buying presents for the kids at SHARE so Santa could give them out at our Christmas party.  The other project, which was absolutely brilliant and involved helping with the running and further development of a community allotment in a particularly-deprived area of Southend, bringing people together and giving them skills and a sense of wellbeing, was the victor on the evening (and thoroughly well-deserved, I have to say), but because I turned up to raise awareness of the SHARE project and our plans I was fortunate to receive some extra donations from people and made some potentially useful connections to help the cause.  All this from one evening chatting to people I did and didn't know!  It just goes to show you that, in spite of a vast swathe of evidence to the contrary sometimes, most people are in fact Thoroughly Good Eggs who are kind and lovely and want to come together for good, not bad.  One of the most important things I took away from tonight's gathering was that, actually, it's not all about growing people as individuals but growing them as a community, something which can often seem sadly lacking in this day and age.  The creative energy in that room as people mixed and mingled and exchanged information and ideas was remarkable; I feel genuinely blessed to have been a part of it.

For more info on Southend Soup, go here

Time To Unblur The Lines

So I've attempted to steer well clear of the whole "Blurred Lines" thing this summer; I heard the song once and was so repulsed by what I managed to decipher (and what I saw on the video - because of course every song needs a topless girl crawling around on a leash in it, this is 2013 after all!) that I basically refused to even acknowledge its existence.  It's the most vile and basic misogyny and quite frankly I've now lost all respect for Pharrell Williams after his association with it. I heard all the furor about it being basically a Hymn to Rape but hadn't examined it closely enough to really get to the bottom of it.  Until now.  Since autumn is almost upon us and the utter repulsiveness of the song is once more in the headlines thanks to this utterly wonderful article, I thought I'd examine it in a little more detail...

Well.  Quite frankly I wish I hadn't bothered as it's even more vile than I'd first thought.  How, in the name of all that is right and good in the world, can radio stations which bleep out the word "fuck" in rock songs and refuse to play gangsta rap because of its violence and misogyny (and violent misogyny) seriously give this song airplay?!!  "Oh no, we couldn't possibly let Slipknot say 'fuck' in a song but let's play the Rapist Anthem because it's catchy and summery, yo!"  Odin on a popsicle stick, the normalisation of sexual violence and the objectification of women is further gone than I thought; abandon hope, all feminists who enter here, because quite frankly we're never going to get out of this bloody mess!!

If you examine the song on a line by line/verse by verse basis, the full horror becomes glaringly apparent.  I can deal with the initial "hey, hey, hey" thing because, sure, it's catchy and summery and has been used in about a million songs before, so although you could suppose it acts as some catcall requiring a Hollaback! we'll let that one slide.  If only the rest was so easily explained away...

"If you can't hear what I'm trying to say

If you can't read from the same page

Maybe I'm going deaf
Maybe I'm going blind
Maybe I'm out of my mind"

Or maybe the woman you're trying to talk to here is actually just not interested in you, Robin.  I'm not sure your ego could handle such a thought but still, it needs to be said.  You aren't God's Gift to women, mate; it is possible that the female of the species isn't going to fall at your feet and let you do whatever you want.  Date Rapist Score Number One: Unable to handle being ignored/rejected by the object of your desire.

"Ok, now he was close
Tried to domesticate you
But you're an animal
Baby, it's in your nature
Just let me liberate you
You don't need no papers
That man is not your maker"

So the fact this girl maybe has a boyfriend is no obstacle either?  Wow, Robin, you're quite the considerate lover, aren't you?  "Boyfriend - pffft!  Let me drag you away from your clearly humdrum cozy little existence with your current boyfriend and show you just how wild you could be if you were with a real man!  He doesn't own you; we're only animals, after all, so let's unleash our wild side!"  Date Rapist Score Number Two: not giving a flying fuck about the wants/desires/situation of your intended victim and projecting your own wants/desires onto her instead.  Classy.  Oh, not to mention the fact that this is the 21st Century and so most girls are actually quite capable of 'liberating' themselves, thanks.

And so to the bridge/chorus.  God help us...

"And that's why I'm gon' take a

Good girl"

Oh look, the Madonna/Whore dichotomy!  How depressingly familiar...

"I know you want it

I know you want it
I know you want it"

...said every single Power Rapist ever.

"You're a good girl

Can't let it past me"

Because of course it's all about what you want, Robin...

"You're far from plastic"

Actually, this line is just plain weird.  It could be construed as the fact the woman in question hasn't had a boob job or whatever, but is completely and utterly irrelevant either way.  Maybe this is Thicke's "MacArthur Park" moment...?  (Incidentally, it's taking all the maturity I have as a writer to not point out the connotations of this guys surname.  Be impressed at my restraint...)

"Talk about getting blasted
I hate these blurred lines
I know you want it
I know you want it
I know you want it
But you're a good girl
The way you grab me
Must wanna get nasty
Go ahead, get at me"

Dear god, where to even begin?  Saying "no, fuck off and leave me alone, you creepy pervert; I don't want to have sex with you" is 'getting blasted' is it?  Rather than, say, a woman's right to assert control over her own sexuality?  Well, thank god you cleared that one up for us, Robin; we women would have spent the rest of our lives thinking we had the right to say "no" to sex otherwise!  Then there's the whole "blurred lines" thing, which is just misogynistic code for "she was dressed in a mini-skirt/had been drinking/kissed me in the club and then refused to fuck me because she's a goddam slutty tease", also known as Bullshit, Victim Blaming, and The Rapists Excuse List.  And finally, after the whole "I know what you're thinking" Power Rapist thing again, we have another stab at the Madonna/Whore dichotomy coupled with an assumption that the girl clearly wants to "get nasty".  Only if it involves castrating you with a pair of blunt nail scissors, Robin.  Otherwise I'm fine with ignoring you.

And so to verse two!

"What do they make dreams for

When you got them jeans on
What do we need steam for
You the hottest bitch in this place
I feel so lucky, you wanna hug me
What rhymes with hug me?"

Firstly, the use of the word "bitch".  *shudders*  Unless he's referring to the fact his female dog is suffering in the extreme heat of the summer we just had then this is nothing more than a drearily-familiar pejorative attempt at debasing the female population.  Jay-Z and Snoop-Dogg were doing this 15 years ago and it wasn't big or clever then, so get a bloody grip on yourself and refer to women as, er, women why don't you?  Moron.  I'm ignoring the first three 'masturbation-fantasy' lines of this verse because there isn't enough hot water in the world to scrub me clean of the feeling that conjures up, but then we hit the piece-de-resistance: I feel so lucky, you wanna hug me.  What rhymes with hug me?  'Bug me', actually, which is what you do, Robin.  'Fuck' doesn't rhyme with 'hug', which is what you were clearly insinuating.  Maybe you'd have more luck with the ladies if you could write poems that rhyme; it seemed to work for that Lord Byron, after all...But inept rhyming aside, these two lines make me want to vomit.  It's that whole Victim Blaming thing again: "she hugged me therefore she must have wanted me therefore it wasn't rape even though she was screaming at me stop".  Yeah, obviously.

Luckily for you, Dear Reader, you are spared having to go through an analysis of the bridge/chorus again because, after all, it's just "same bullshit, different place in the song".  Unluckily for you, and indeed for all of us, we come to the 'rap'.  Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night...

"Hustle Gang Homie
One thing I ask of you
Lemme be the one you back that ass up to"

On the plus side, he is at least asking if he can have anal sex with us...

"From Malibu to Paris boo

Had a bitch, but she ain't bad as you
So, hit me up when you pass through
I'll give you something big enough to tear your ass in two"

Wow.  Just...wow.  Yet again the implication the girl is 'bad' and therefore must like rough sex.  Also make your mind up - earlier it was all "good girl" and now no one's as "bad" as her?  Jesus wept...oh, and let's not forget the graphic implication of that last line.  Because nothing says "I love you" quite like anal rape.  (Also spot the typical bragging about how big he is.  Classy again).

"Swag on 'em even when you dress casual"

Yes, he means your tits.  No, he will not be "swagging" on them, casually dressed or otherwise.

"I mean, it's almost unbearable
In a hundred years not dare would I
Pull a Pharcyde, let you pass me by"

Face it, girls; what we want doesn't matter.  he's gonna have us anyway.  Oh look, that makes him *gasp* A Rapist...

"Nothin' like your last guy, he too square for you

He don't smack that ass and pull your hair like that"

No, that's because a) he's a gentleman and b) he gives enough of a damn about me to make sure when we have sex he's not raping me.  I'm all for people expressing themselves with a bit of rough sex if that's what turns them on; it's the implication here that any guy who doesn't do that automatically isn't a "real" man because that's what all women want which annoys the fuck out of me.

"So I'm just watching and waitin'
For you to salute the true big pimpin'
Not many women can refuse this pimping
I'm a nice guy, but don't get confused, this pimpin'"

So, you're a pimp?  You know that's illegal, right?  Also again with the ego - "not many women can refuse this pimping".  Right, because most women want nothing more than a man who treats them like a whore and forces them to have sex with strangers for money.  Who in their right mind would rather be with a guy who treats them with respect and dignity?!  All women are ho's, yo! *facepalms*

"Shake your rump
Get down, get up-a
Do it like it hurt, like it hurt
What you don't like work"

This is just inane babbling with a vicious streak of misogyny and sexual violence thrown in for good measure.  Oh, and apparently during this vicious sexual assault, girls, we are going to have to "work", presumably to get him off because otherwise we haven't done our "job" properly.  At least we know, right?

And so to the last verse where, after all those implications that you're a whore who likes it rough and is going to have sex with him whether you want to or not, Robin Thicke attempts to drug you with some date-rape drug he got from Jamaica so you can enjoy the start of a beautiful relationship together...

"Baby, can you breathe
I got this from Jamaica
It always works for me
Dakota to Decatur
No more pretending
Cause now you're winning
Here's our beginning
I always wanted a..."

(repeat inane rape-y bridge/chorus and fade out until the end)

Oh well, now that I've looked at it line by line I can completely see it's not a Rapist Anthem at all...for the love of...how the fuck did this get passed for release?!!  I feel sick just reading it; my skin's crawling and I feel like I want to go shower in bleach.  Now I know there have been plenty of gangsta rap songs, and songs in other genres (maybe not easy listening...), which debase women and glorify sexual and physical violence towards them, but you sort of know what you're getting with those.  I mean for gods sake, no one is going to listen to "She Swallowed It" by N.W.A and be surprised by the content, right?  But that sort of violent bullshit seems to a) have fallen out of favour and b) not get airplay these days, on mainstream stations at least, whereas this summer you literally couldn't move for radio stations and TV music channels placing "Blurred Lines" on heavy rotation.  Did they just not listen to it?  Not see the video?  or do they just genuinely not give a damn about the glorification of sexual violence towards women?  

Now I've analysed this song, I'm never having anything to do with it ever again.  It's disgusting.  If it ever comes on my radio, I'm turning it off.  I will not talk about it.  I will not have it played in my hearing.  I will walk out of any shop which plays it.  It's abhorrent and should never, ever have been released...

Faith and Trust and Pixie-Dust...

On Facebook yesterday I made the observation that I truly love the sense of wonder children seem to have; how we, as adults, tend to look beyond the smoke and mirrors to find the mechanics of a thing or the man behind the mask, whereas a child believes absolutely and irrefutably in the sheer magic of the moment.  It's a thought which always comes to me - as it did yesterday - when watching the Doctor Who Prom; as much as I love the absurdity of the event and the absolutely brilliant and beautiful music, (yes, all right, and Matt Smith), for me the Doctor Who Prom is worth watching for one reason and one reason alone: to see the faces of the children when the monsters suddenly appear.

Now I don't doubt for one second that, were I to be lucky enough to attend said Prom one year, I too would be ecstatic with glee at the sight of a Cyberman or Dalek coming towards me; I'm a big geek/kid when it comes to that stuff and I don't deny it, but deep down inside I know at the end of the Prom the Cybermen et al take off their masks and their costumes and go back to being normal people with a really cool day job playing Cybermen.  The joy I get from seeing them is always tempered with that knowledge; it's the fundamentally sucky part of being a grown up.  I'm also reasonably convinced that every single kid in that auditorium knows, deep down inside, that the Cybermen and Sontarans and Daleks and Silurians and what-not are really people-in-costume, but for one shining moment all disbelief is suspended and you can see it on every single face of every single child: oh my god, that's a Cyberman.  Right there in front of me is a real live Cyberman...

It's the singularly most magical thing about the entire event for me.

It saddens me to see how fast children grow up these days.  Childhood seems such a fleeting, momentary thing; gone before you even really grasped its existence or celebrated its sheer, lyrical potential.  Some kids have to grow up fast of course, forced by circumstances beyond their control, but the vast majority just seem to reach a point where they just aren't kids any more.  My niece only turned eleven last week but already she's putting away her soft toys and her Sylvanian Family collection because shes 'too old' for them; something I find incredibly depressing.  Where's the law that says you have to 'put away childish things' once you reach some arbitrary age limit, even if you still really love them?  Why is having her favourite Build-a-Bear bear on her bed suddenly seen as some crime?  I know they can't stay kids forever but these days they seem to be getting older at a much younger age...

Now the sociologist in me wants to do some study here of the correlation between kids growing up too fast and the teenage pregnancy rate or something, but since this is a blog rather than a journal I'll control my inner researcher and refrain from doing so.  (Still, there's gotta be something in it somewhere along the line, right...?)  But working in the fields I do/have done, I've seen an awful lot of kids 'old before their time'; kids who, for whatever reason, have had the magic disappear.  So I want to make a plea here.  Firstly, if you're a parent or an auntie or an uncle or have any contact with little kids at all (legally, obviously) then I want to ask you to do whatever you can to keep the magic and innocence of childhood going for as long as possible.  Write them letters from Santa.  Sprinkle pixie-dust on the pillow when the Tooth Fairy pays a visit.  Believe in the monster living under their bed or in their wardrobe, and make sure they see you giving it a stern talking-to every night so they won't be afraid.  Childhood is a magical time and it should be nurtured, cherished and celebrated, so run with it for as long as you can and let the children in your life be children.

My other plea is to you.  Yes you, the grown-up-type person reading this very blog right now.  I want you to do me a favour.  The next time you see the mechanics behind the smoke and mirrors, or catch sight of the man behind the mask, I want you to close your eyes and count to three before opening them again.  When you do, I want you to see, even for a moment, what a child would see and to enjoy that fleeting moment of wonder.  Life is far too full of stresses and strains and waaaaaay short on wonder for the most part; take it where you can find it, my friends, and never be afraid of it.  Unless it actually IS a Cyberman...

As one of my heroes J.M Barrie once said, "if growing up means it would be beneath my dignity to climb a tree, I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up!!"

20 Fun Facts About Kate

I saw this headline in the sidebar of a page on the Independent’s website and was bitterly disappointed when it turned out to be about Kate Middleton or whatever we’re supposed to call her these days. Since the Indy refuses to acknowledge my all-round wonderful quirkiness, I figured I’d do it myself…so here are 20 fun facts about me...*

*Please note the use of the terms “fun” and “facts” may not be strictly literal...

1. I once owned a goldfish called Kelly.
2. When she died and I got a new goldfish, I named her “Kelly 2”.
3. Clearly names are not my forte...
4. I dance whenever and wherever I please. In my front room, walking down the road, on public transport...I don't care. I just dance.
5. I get giddy with glee over the most ridiculously childlike things.
6. For example, feeding the ducks is THE best thing in the world. Ever.
7. I can't grow anything. Not even weeds.
8. I know what happened to Jeffery Dahmer's brain and can identify serial killers and their victims from the oddest snippets of information.
9. I sometimes sense dead people. Not Jeffery Dahmer though; that would be weird even for me.
10. I collect old books.
11. I still own the pink-and-white mouse toy Father Christmas gave me at playgroup when I was 3.
12. He's called Pinkie.
13. I told you names were not my forte.
14. I love dressing up for things, like 30's film nights or Medieval Re-enactments.
15. My vintage Ducky Dress is the most cherished item in my wardrobe.
16. I scribble things occasionally.
17. I invented the all-singing, all-dancing Ringwraiths in a Lord of the Rings fanfic.
18. I apologise to anyone who read said fanfic and is now traumatised by the experience of the Ringwraith's Smile-Time Variety Show.
19. I co-invented online/virtual shoe-throwing as a sport.
20. I am weird and quirky and celebrate this by saying and doing really random things...