an immedia reaction

Ok this is just getting bizarre now. For whatever reason, the majority of spam comments on this blog are about medication of some kind usually to do with curing impotence. I have taken measures to try to reduce the number of such comments that are held in moderation, as I get sent an e-mail alert each time a comment is created, and the spam makes it hard to find the very few genuine comments I actually get.

These steps have worked, but I’m starting to suspect that whatever is spamming me is keeping track of whatever I’m blocking and is now directing different spam in my direction. I’ve recently had spam comments advertising office furniture and kitchens.

I logged in just now and there were only two comments. And all they said was
“Trucks” and “Mercedes Benz”. Double-you tee eff indeed…

So by now, the whole world knows Heathrow’s new Terminal 5 is a baggage-handling disaster. In print, on air and online, people who should know better have been queueing up to say that this just goes to show Britain can’t handle major building projects and it’s a worldwide embarrassment that we’re this incompetent.

I say to them: Shut up. Yes, it’s quite blatantly ridiculous that there were baggage handling problems on the very first day but I can’t see that there’s anything particularly British about this. Other countries have baggage handling problems too you know.

Maybe not just after terminals have opened, but I’m currently in Bangkok, Thailand. A new international airport opened here in 2006 to replace the old one at Don Muang. Within six months, Don Muang was back in service for some international flights, because the new terminal couldn’t cope with the numbers. And it’s the second largest terminal in the world. Ok, it was six months before that happened, and I don’t know whether that was how long it the Thais to realise it was a problem, or how long it took them to think of a solution. But still, airport problems are not unique to Britain.

People have drawn comparisons with the Millennium Dome and the Millennium Bridge, sayng T5 is yet another example of how bad we are this. But what about all those engingeering projects that worked and that we can be proud of? The Emirates Stadium for Arsenal? The newly-refurbished St Pancras Station which now receives the Eurostar? The London Eye? I seem to recall the London Eye wasn’t a British-initiated project, but it’s now run by British Airways. And they’ve had, what, one breakdown in the last eight years? That’s pretty good going by anyone’s reckoning.

So, in my not so humble opinion, the problem is not British engineering, or British project management. It’s the British attitude. We just love to complain and we love to blame ourselves. I’m not an expert on the ins and outs of who co-ordinated T5 and how and yes, I will say again, if you have baggage handling problems on the first day your flagship terminal opens you should be very ashamed, but last time I checked, wasn’t the British Airports Authority, who are partly responsible, run by a Spanish company…?

A discussion that took up several minutes in the pub last year, throughout my journalism course, was whether I was narcoleptic. I became renowned for my ability to fall asleep, for a few minutes in any time, place or lecture.

It’s a habit that I suffer from sporadically, it doesn’t currently affect me, but it was something I used to do at school from time to time during my A-levels and during my undergraduate degree.

I always maintained that I was not narcoleptic, merely tired. I worked very hard. Especially during A-levels when I was regularly up till midnight or later with homework. My postgraduate course was intensive and I often got up at 5am.

But now I realise I’m not narcoleptic, I’m merely practising the traditional Japanese custom of inemuri. I’m napping but I’m still present.

All the symptoms are there, from sleeping in the upright position to show I’m still socially active to the increased productivity afterwards. This was always my major argument against the narcoleptic theory: I am so much more productive afterwards, I’m just suffering from tiredness. And I could always remember afterwards more or less what had been discussed in my “absence” I just wasn’t fully conscious.

To some extent, I jest. But I do believe the current work culture in the UK is not conducive to producing happy, well-rested, efficient workers. If the BBC article is accurate then our current lifestyles could have a seriously negative impact on our collective health. Something needs to change. I know the British climate legislates against a siesta in the middle of the day (it’s dark at 5 o’clock at the moment and who wants to stay up late working in darkness) but I really think regular breaks need to become part of working lifestyle.

According to Health and Safety rules, you should have a ten minute break from the computer every hour. Does anyone know anyone who actually does this?

And now, a bit more about my holiday. To begin with anyway.

For several months now, I have been booked to go on holiday with my boyfriend and his parents for the last two weeks in September. We’re going to Portugal. And by coincidence, we’re going to Praia de Luz. For anyone not living on this planet, that’s the resort from which Madeleine McCann was abducted.

For those currently inhabiting Earth, it’s been hard to escape the carpet bombing that has been the media coverage of this incident (although, I know a few who have managed it, but they’re people who don’t always know what day it is). And much as I hate to the contribute to the saturation of this subject, I really feel I must.

I would like to say I am strenuously trying to avoid the journalistic trap of having read a few blog comments on the internet and from there extrapolating the entire spectrum of opinions of the general public; but it would seem there are some people out there who think the media coverage has been appalling.

I agree with you, whoever you are. Who needs continuous updates telling us nothing has happened? No one, obviously. I was discussing this with a friend who said the media enjoyed weaving non-existent narratives in order to suck people in to the content being provided.

He may be right, but I’m still not sure of the reasons for this. Viewer figures to lure in advertisers with lucrative contracts? A chance to focus on one story so we don’t have to invest time and effort on reporting anything else? Whatever the reason, it’s a poor show, especially from an institution like the BBC, which has guaranteed funding from the licence fee.

A lot of the comments I read make the point that if the McCanns were black/poor/disabled/one-legged cockneys with eyepatches they would have been pilloried in the press as inadequate parents whose remaining children should be taken into care. I think (stress on think) I have even come across the same sentiments expressed by media commentators.

Whoever holds this opinion, it potentially suggests two things:
1. The McCanns are actually bad parents and we should stop beatifying them as suffering victims just because they are white GPs with good salaries.
2. The media is racist and should spend more time lambasting these criminally inept examples of awful parenthood.
(Incidentally, if some commentators have intuited that sections of the media might be a little prejudiced, there’s cause for hope, no?)

However, I wish to propose an alternative view:
1. The McCanns are not bad parents.
2. By extension, if the same thing had happened to a black or working class family, the media would be entirely wrong to condemn them.

Let me explain: I do not believe leaving your children in an apartment a few minutes away from where you are eating dinner is a hanging offence. I don’t have children of my own, so I can’t comment from experience; I can’t say whether I would or would not do this myself.

But, the McCanns were checking on their children regularly. They hadn’t gone on holiday leaving the children in a different country as some neglectful parents have done in the past.

Madeleine was in the apartment and then she was not. For her to have been abducted, someone has to have been watching, waiting, for a time when Kate and Gerry McCann were not there. We should be condemning that person. They planned this, maybe only on the spur of the moment, but they were the one who abducted Madeleine. It’s ridiculously obvious to say this, but if they hadn’t stolen the little girl away, she would still be with her parents.

I think at best, Kate and Gerry McCann were naïve. It is very easy to slip into the trap of thinking: “Here I am on holiday in a nice, family resort, what possible dangers can there be?” I know I sometimes feel detached from a country I’m visiting. Not in a way that means I don’t enjoy myself. But I’m a visitor, somehow I’m protected. Of course this is ridiculous and bad things can happen anywhere, but I am glad the media has been restrained enough not criticise them too harshly. I can only cross my fingers and hope that had the family been different, less what one poster on the BBC website called “mediagenic”, the condemnation would have been as muted.

Unfortunately, the mere fact of Madeleine’s disappearance has only contributed to the climate of paranoia over paedophiles in this country. This paranoia creates a fertile soil in which accusations of failure to protect a young girl from rampaging sex offenders can sprout. I just hope such accusations continue to be in the minority, as the reality surrounding child abuse and abduction has very little to do with the media line on this subject.

And until a young black child goes missing in similar circumstances, we’ll just have to wait and see whether it’s only white middle class prejudice holding the vitriol back.

Actually not, but an apology for the deluge of posts that’s about to ensue.

I don’t have internet access outside work hours and only rarely do I then have access to a computer that can load this site properly.

So I wrote several blog posts at home the other night and saved them on my USB stick, just for all of you. And now, when I have a minute, before it’s time to head home, I can post some. Hurrah!

..but it’s incredibly difficult to raise awareness of a helpline for paedophiles.

It’s perfectly acceptable to advocate use of ChildLine or The Samaritans, organisations that victims can unobtrusively reach out to, on the offchance that someone who reads your piece might need their help.

But something like the Stop it Now! programme, which is there primarily for perpetrators, is a less comfortable cause to promote. After all, you don’t want to accidentally imply that anyone reading your comments is a potential paedophile.

It’s definitely more acceptable (in relative terms, society still has a long way to go in facing up to the realities of child abuse) to have been a victim of these things than to have been the one who carried them out, and while that’s right and proper, it does make it very difficult for people who want to avoid becoming an abuser to seek the help they need.

It was reported in The Times that Stop it Now! needs a higher profile but can’t afford an advertising campaign, so if (and I seriously doubt it) I can make any difference by urging readers of this blog to pass on the link, maybe just maybe, we can have some sort of trickle through effect. People don’t know this service exists and while I don’t condone a lovey-dovey approach towards convicted child abusers, we need to look at prevention, not just punishment.

Stop it Now! are attempting to provide that, and we should support them. No matter how awkward it may make us feel.

I’ve um-ed and ah-ed over whether to write about this, in an attempt to let my feelings subside rather than splurging them all over the internet, as in a case so emotive as that of Banaz Mahmod, the risks of offending somone are incredibly high, even if expressed in moderate terms.

Here goes:

My starting premise is this, if you are cannot bear the shame of your daughter’s choice of boyfriend and feel the need to resort to violent acts, kill yourself not her. Your urges are destructive and your daughter does not deserve them for falling in love. Most 20-year-old women in this country are considered grown women by their parents and free to make their own choices, whatever their parents feel. Your offspring are free to mess up their own lives. Who knows? They might even make good decisions.

The point is they are individual human beings, not some extension of your ego which can be cut out because it displeases you.

I know I am from a different culture to the men that did this, that I do not fully understand what motivated them, but whatever culture you are from, there should be no circumstance when killing your own child is acceptable.

The problem with multiculturalism is that is has stymied us as a nation and prevents us from criticising aspects of immigrant cultures that we disagree with. I am not saying their acts are widely accepted, but it has been suggested those cases we hear about may only be the tip of the iceberg. All communities need to send a stronger message that this sort of act is totally unacceptable.

Fundamentally, we have to believe that aspect of our culture, the one where you let your children make their own choices and don’t threaten to kill them, is the superior choice or we wouldn’t enforce it as a way of life.

We have to work for integration of our different communities, taking the positive aspects of each. It saddens me greatly that in a nation like Britain, where so many women enjoy so many freedoms compared with other parts of the world, there exist people who still believe it is acceptable to treat a woman as something that belongs to them that they can easily dispose of when it displeases them.

Will he? Won’t he? Coverge of President Bush’s stance on global warning shows him lurching from one idea to the next. At first, he says he will not agree to binding targets to curb emissions, now it appears, he’s thinking about it.

Well, good, that’s something. Now the rest of the G8 leaders can get back to hating Putin for his anti-Western rhetoric…

It’s a shame this conference only lasts two days. I think they should all remain shut up together in Heiligendam until they’ve resolved several key issues threatening the security of the planet.

How about a roadmap for peace in the Middle East while we’re about it? One that actually works? Though admittedly, we might need to invite a few more leaders in to the Big G8 house for this one.

Each time they successfully complete a task, like alleviating poverty in Africa, or agreeing a worldwide carbon-trading scheme, they can have £100 to buy food for the next week.

All in favour, say aye!

Vladimir Putin and I may share a common interest in that we are both practitioners of the noble art of Judo (trans.the gentle way) but there, I think it would be fair to say, the similarity ends. His approach to various aspects of government is anything but gentle.

• Russia’s human rights record and treatment of journalists who criticise it is far from exemplary.
• The Kremlin practices diplomacy by holding countries hostage by withholding their energy supplies.
• Putin seems determined to see a quarrel, when the USA is adamant that none exists.
• There is one law for Russia and one for the rest of Europe. I have no idea whether Andrei Lugovoi is guilty or whether he will ever be extradited. But it sure is mighty convenient the Russian constitution contains a handy clause forbidding the procedure. Along with their secret agents’ licence to kill anywhere in the world in defence of the Motherland, it gives them a pretty sweet carte blanche, no?

I really hope I’m wrong and that things improve. But I’m not quite sure what it would take. Britain switching to 100% renewable energy by 2020? That might remove one source of potential disagreement at least… Though if Putin could no longer threaten the rest of Europe through energy, the missile debate might become all the more prominent…

We live in interesting times.

My mother works for the Prison Service. She mentioned to me yesterday that since the division of the Home Office and the splitting off of the Prison Service into the new Ministry of Justice, her work e-mail address suffix is now something like “@justice.gov.gsi.uk”

I know it’s easy to compare Blair to a dictator and to criticise our slow transformation into a Big Brother society, but I really wonder who was in charge of the Home Office PR department and thought that “Ministry of Justice” was a good name.